For weeks, an individual who attends The Price Center had been counting down to a special event. The individual brought it up at breakfast, at dinner, and everywhere in between. Then, at the last minute, the event -- the Ed Sheeran concert at Gillette -- was cancelled. You can guess what happened next: The individual melted down.

The family tried everything: They recreating the concert at home with music, snacks, and plenty of enthusiasm. It didn’t matter. For hours afterward, the individual's disappointment held on, and nothing could help them snap out of it.

I’ve seen similar behavior with Sarah. We often give her a five-minute warning before she has to stop one thing and start another. Or leave someplace she wants to be for someplace she's less enthusiastic about. Sometimes the transition goes smoothly. Just as often, it doesn't.

Moments like these are common for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism. For them (and even many typical people without IDDs), unexpected change can unsettle an entire day, and recovery takes real patience, effort, and time.

Parents, caregivers, and staff respond the way caring people do: we smooth the path. We keep schedules steady, warn of every change, and quietly absorb surprises before they arrive. That instinct comes from a good place. But it carries a hidden cost.

Resilience isn’t a trait you either have or don’t. It’s a skill, and skills grow with practice. When we remove every bump in the road, we also remove the chance to learn that a bump can be survived. Life doesn't always cooperate or meet expectations.

Parents age, staff change, programs evolve, and someday the people who shield our loved ones may not be there to smooth the road or prepare for disappointment. I've started thinking that the kindest gift we can offer our loved ones may be the confidence to handle whatever comes next.

Building resilience doesn’t mean springing chaos on anyone. It means introducing small, manageable changes on purpose, with support close at hand. Try a new route to a familiar place. Swap the order of two activities. Let a minor disappointment happen, then talk it through together. Add a “something different” card to a visual schedule, so change itself becomes part of the routine. And when someone handles a surprise well, celebrate it like any other milestone.

None of this asks families or their loved ones to love change, or to give up the five-minute warning. It asks us to trust that the people we care for are more capable than our worry sometimes allows, and to give them the practice they deserve to strengthen their resilience "muscles."

Sometimes the detour even turns out to better than the original expectation. Fellow board member Andy Gluck told me recently about missing a flight and rebooking on a later one. Turns out he reached his destination ahead of the flight he’d missed, which had a delayed connection.

Resilience isn’t the absence of struggle. It’s learning, one small change at a time, that you can get through it. Our individuals deserve that lesson as much as anyone.