I'm responding here, as I hope to see other people's responses to your questions.

1) The biggest challenge is that I'm noticeably eccentric -- not extremely so, but enough -- and this can tend to make things a bit dicey with IEP team meetings and social workers (long story there). I tend to be blunt and stand my ground rather stubbornly, good qualities in some ways, but if one is odd, perhaps not so good when diplomacy is called for.

I've also struggled with helping my kids with some of the social situations they find themselves in --- particularly with my NT kid, who is already a bit better at navigating social situations than I have ever been. She's awesome, so I find myself learning from her.

Another problem I have is that I have a verbal stim of yakking too much when I am anxious.  This can be quite annoying for others, so I need to watch this! For some reason, though, I don't do this with my kids. Instead, they talk my ears off, and I love it.

2) I overcome these challenges by going to psychological counseling once every two weeks. I run ideas and concerns by my counselor and we practice ways to go about things. As a teen, I took private and school acting lessons and participated in many productions, and I think this helped me tremendously. I was able to participate in college and grad school and go on to having a professional career, including getting promoted into management and adult teaching.

About the yakking, I find if I empower my friends and others to remind me that I am speaking too much about something, then things go better for me. I try to manage this for myself, but sometimes I do need reminders.

3) I'd like other people to know we might appear a bit on edge, overly blunt or flakey at times, but we are smart and resourceful and can parent lovingly and effectively. I'd like people to know that we do have empathy and that our kids become our special interests, so we can pour all of ourselves into doing the best job possible.

4) I don't think it's as hard for me to relate to NT parents as it is for them to relate to me! My acting lessons taught me how to put myself in their shoes, how even to pretend to be like them so that I'm comfortable to be around. However, if I am having a bad day and I show sensory distress, for example, parents can tend to come to all manner of conclusions about me that can be problematic. Any slurring of my words (which happens if I'm tired or too hot) and people can assume I've been drinking, for example, and I don't drink at all. During a root canal, I began flapping, which doesn't often happen to me, and I could see that the surgeon and his assistant were quite surprised!

I think sometimes it can be hard for me to feel motivated to speak about the things that NT parents speak about. I have many friends in the autism community, and the NT moms can tend to speak about "cures" and I find myself getting ticked off about it. I'm learning to live and let live (because I know they are great parents and really enjoy their kids) and not react to this so much, to focus instead on what I can say that is positive that might influence their thinking in some way. I'm not really into make-up or fashion or home decorating, so I try to express interest because they are my friends, so they don't think I am dismissing them, and then move on to conversations that interest me more. I'm also learning that it's okay sometimes to just sit back and listen in. Because I am a writer, I do enjoy people watching.

Another thing I can tend to struggle with is equal reciprocity in relationships with NTs. I tend not to need as much interaction with my friends and to require down time to recover in between exposures to them. Although I do reach out regularly, sometimes my NT friends can express confusion and concern about the frequency with which I do this.

5) I think communities can support parents with AS better by facilitating training and disseminating information about AS that isn't sensationalized or overly stereotyped/negative. Teachers, police officers, social workers, and other public servants need to know that we are capable and willing to work with them! 

In our case, we required in-home supports due to some of our son's behaviors. It was assumed because my husband and I are eccentric that we created these challenges. While it is true that training helped us to help our son, the challenges we faced were not dissimilar to those faced by NT parents in similar circumstances.

So I think it is very important for community agencies not to overreact when encountering us and not speak down to us as if we are incapable of learning.