The words that stopped me blaming myself Last week someone posted in a PDA support group I’m part of. They were up at their child’s school every day, trying to get them in, knowing they probably wouldn’t go in, and probably wouldn’t stay if they did. Reading their post, I could feel the doubt behind […]
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Every form asks for their worst day Sometimes everything can feel so full on, so hard and so heavy. I remember, years ago, feeling like I was wading through mud uphill. I felt so alone. You’re desperate for things to change, but in that moment it’s really difficult to see how they ever will. So
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But is it actually inclusive? Something happened this week that really made me think about what we actually mean when we talk about inclusion. I can’t tell you the specifics because it involves one of my children and other people who haven’t chosen to have their lives shared in my emails. But essentially, there was
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They seem fine. But it’s only day one. By the time I send this, this past week will have seen my 20th wedding anniversary, the addition of a new boy to our household of the canine variety, and both of my children back at school. It’s a lot in one week, but then it’s been
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It isn’t attitude, it’s anxiety I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember Kevin and Perry – Harry Enfield comedy sketches, back in the nineties. Kevin turns thirteen and transforms mid-sentence from a perfectly pleasant child into a stomping, grunting, door-slamming creature whose only line is that everything is SO UNFAIR. Perry is his
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You could feel everyone watching I had a conversation earlier this week that reminded me of a few things I think I now take for granted. We’ve been on this journey for so many years, and I’m surrounded by people in a similar position, so it’s only every now and again that I come across
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Some days it isn’t just the shouting I’ve had a lot of families reaching out to me over the past week, and I think a lot of you are finding the summer holidays very intense. I completely understand that, because it’s pretty full on here too. Not in the way it was years ago, but
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When your PDAer becomes the demanding one Something that gets talked about a lot with PDA is demand avoidance. But there’s something else that goes on, often behind closed doors, that isn’t as widely talked about, understood, or even named. And that is the tendency of a PDAer, when dysregulated and distressed, not just to
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When you become the safe person again We’ve reached that transitional phase where my child has finished school for the summer holidays and is now at home. They’re a little older now and are about to move up to secondary school. They’re in a very supportive school, and generally life at home is, within reason,
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When capacity runs out It’s the end of term, and I’ve been thinking a lot about capacity. Why is it that, just when so many of our children are already running on empty, the summer term becomes the busiest time of the year? The routine changes almost daily. Sports days. School plays. Visitors. Special activities.
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