When your child can’t go to school Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) is something many families in this community are living with, although it often feels like a very lonely place to be. There are lots of reasons children may find it difficult to access school. Sensory overwhelm is a big one. Classrooms can be […]
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When your child looks “fine” I want to share something that happened recently, because I think so many of us have been here. You know those moments when you share your child’s diagnosis and someone says, “But they don’t look autistic.” And it always leaves me thinking – what were you expecting? What does autism
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When going back to school doesn’t feel safe For many of us, we’re coming to the end of half term. If, like me, you have a child who is registered at school and attending in some way, you might already be feeling that familiar dread creeping in – the build up to trying to get
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The reality of always being switched on I’ve been thinking a lot this week about hypervigilance. About what it does to us as parents when we are always switched on. From the outside, it can sometimes look like our children are “not listening”, or that we’re too soft, or that we’ve somehow lost control. I
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The things we don’t say out loud This week, I wanted to talk about something we don’t say out loud very often. The thing we can feel shame around. The thing we worry other people – people who don’t live this life – simply won’t understand. The thing we often soften or rename, because even
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January has been a slog – here’s what’s helping me Has January felt like a bit of a slog to you? You’re not alone. I was really hoping that once Christmas was over, things would calm down and I’d finally find some time for me. But with families like ours, it rarely works out that
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The things we quietly let go of I drove past my local church the other day, and it stirred up a memory for me that I think I’d buried. Many years ago, when my children were very small, I used to try to take them to church. It had been such an important part of
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The impact on siblings of raising a PDA child I want to talk about something that often sits quietly in the background for many of us, but carries a huge emotional weight. The impact that a volatile home life can have on a sibling, when you’re raising a neurodivergent child, especially a child with a
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Holding it all together when the world starts again Two weeks off for Christmas and New Year and I actually found myself looking forward to getting back to something resembling a normal routine. The break was lovely, it really was, but it was also over-stimulating, demanding, full of co-regulation, noise, emotional energy, big feelings, crossed
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Not everyone looks forward to Christmas – and that’s ok Not everyone says this out loud. Because they’re afraid of being judged. Afraid of what it might make people think about their child. Or about their parenting. But many neurodivergent families feel it deeply. Christmas is a time of huge expectation. It’s sold as magical,
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