When Eric was three years old, he pushed a chair against the backyard fence, climbed over it wearing only a diaper and disappeared. His mother, Laurie Stuebing, remembers the panic of that first search-and-rescue call. Before GPS watches, smartphones and tracking devices, there was no easy way to find a child who had wandered away. But when Eric was finally found, barefoot and much farther from home than anyone thought possible, Laurie realized something important. He wasn’t running away. He was running toward something.
“He was trying to get to a horse we used to feed carrots to,” Laurie recalls. “That changed how I thought about everything.” Instead of focusing solely on preventing Eric from leaving, Laurie and her husband asked a different question: What is he telling us about what brings him joy?
That shift in perspective would shape Eric’s life for decades. Today, Eric is an adult with profound autism who spends his days rock climbing, skiing, practicing yoga, meditating, and competing in giant slalom races alongside neurotypical athletes. He is fully included in his community. Ironically, Laurie says she only recently discovered there was a name for many of the strategies her family had been using all along.
“When I found positive psychology and Proof Positive, I thought, This is what we’ve been doing. We just didn’t have the language for it.”
Eric has always loved movement. As a young child, Laurie intentionally enrolled him in gymnastics, swimming, skiing, skating and countless other activities. The activities served multiple purposes. They kept him busy and also she recognized movement as something that energized him and helped him thrive. Swimming offered safety. Gymnastics strengthened motor skills. Sports opened doors to community participation.
“We followed what his interests were,” she says. “He continues to amaze us because he’s always interested in learning something new.”
That philosophy aligns closely with what positive psychology calls building wellbeing through strengths, engagement and positive experiences. Instead of trying to fit Eric into a predetermined path, his family built a life around what naturally sparked his curiosity and enthusiasm. Sports created meaningful relationships. Shared interests created belonging. Confidence grew through meaningful participation.
“A lot of his most meaningful relationships come through shared enjoyment,” Laurie says. “You don’t need a lot of language when you’re doing something you both love.”
In addition to movement, Eric has also incorporated the wellbeing skill, Positivity Portfolios, in his daily life. For years, he’s kept what Laurie affectionately describes as a scrapbook of joyful moments. After activities like rock climbing, going to the movies or even visiting his favorite barber, Eric adds photos, stickers and a few sentences describing what made the experience meaningful. Over time, those books have become a collection of hundreds of happy memories.
“He’ll sometimes sit down with ten or twelve scrapbooks and just relive those moments,” Laurie says. In positive psychology, this resembles a positivity portfolio—a collection of experiences that helps people revisit positive emotions long after the moment has passed.
Meditation has become another cornerstone of Eric’s wellbeing. Because traditional guided mindfulness practices weren’t a good fit for someone with profound autism, Eric learned a mantra-based meditation from a teacher with a special education background. Today, he meditates twice a day.
“He comes out of it joyful,” Laurie says. “He looks forward to it every day.”
Yoga followed, offering another routine that supports self-regulation and emotional wellbeing.
Together, these practices have become woven into everyday life as habits that help Eric flourish.
Laurie is quick to emphasize that Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) provided many of the foundational skills Eric needed throughout his life. She doesn’t see positive psychology as replacing ABA, but as expanding the conversation.
“ABA gave Eric so many important skills,” she says. “Positive psychology helps us think about the life we’re building with those skills.”
For families raising children with profound autism, Laurie believes that shift matters. So often, conversations focus on reducing challenging behaviors or teaching functional skills. Those goals remain important. But wellbeing asks an additional question: What brings this person joy?
For Eric, joy isn’t limited to sports. He also volunteers at his local Habitat for Humanity ReStore, where he helps alongside other volunteers and staff. The experience gives him another opportunity to contribute to his community while building competence, meaningful relationships and a sense of purpose. Like rock climbing, skiing and yoga, volunteering has become another way Eric experiences accomplishment.Â
Perhaps the biggest lesson Laurie hopes other families and professionals take away is about identifying opportunities for belonging.
“I’ve always believed opportunity comes first,” she says. “Ability doesn’t come first—opportunity comes first.”
Rather than waiting until someone develops every necessary skill, Laurie believes meaningful opportunities help build those skills in the first place. That philosophy has shaped Eric’s entire life.
Today, people know him as the guy at the climbing gym, the skier racing down the mountain, the tennis player eager to learn another skill and the friend who approaches each day with unmistakable enthusiasm. Laurie laughs that Eric’s greatest character strength is zest.
“He wakes up every morning excited for the day,” she says. “He can hardly wait to see what’s next.”
For Laurie, that’s the ultimate measure of success. Like every parent, she wants her son to live a meaningful, joyful life, and positive psychology gave her family a research-backed framework for understanding many of the practices they had already discovered through experience. And now, she hopes more families won’t have to figure it out alone.
“Everyone deserves to be happy,” she says. “Knowing there’s a science of wellbeing and a science of happiness and that these evidence-based strategies can help people with autism live rich, meaningful lives—that’s an opportunity every family should have.”
