Category Archives: Uncategorized

Has your child or young person ever acted in a way that made you think: ‘they don’t seem to have any empathy?!’ Perhaps you’ve been trying to get them to see your point of view about something, and it just seems impossible. Maybe they’ve exhibited some distressed behaviour in the form of a meltdown, andContinue reading “Blog#23: Empathy exists”

I wrote this blog about my dislike of the word ‘naughty’ in 2021. It popped into my mind in recent weeks when a certain high-profile self-proclaimed ‘supernanny’ decided to share her thoughts on naughtiness, and how we now prefer to ‘label’ our kids rather than admit they are just naughty. Ok, I’m just going toContinue reading “Blog#22: Naughtiness doesn’t exist”

Separation anxiety is a really bloody complicated thing. And when you have a neurodivergent child, it can be totally overwhelming and affect so many aspects of family life. As parents, it can make us feel smothered, frustrated and angry even. Desperate for time away from our children to be able to rest, re-calibrate and beContinue reading “Blog#21: Separation Anxiety”

This is the article about distressed behaviour and the devastating effect it has on neurodivergent young people and their families that I needed to read all those years ago. It was published in the October/November 2022 issue of SEN Magazine and you can read their online version here. The meltdown is a highly emotive subjectContinue reading “SEN magazine article: We need to talk about meltdowns”

I’m getting to the point where, sometimes, I get asked for my advice by parents of PDAers. I still find this strange and think to myself ‘why are they asking me?!’ If you could have seen me and my family at the start of lockdown, you may not recognise us as the same people. It’sContinue reading “Blog#20: One Piece of Advice?”

Dear families and friends of parents with PDAers, Firstly, let me just tell you this. From the bottom of my heart. We GET it. It’s really hard to understand our lives. We see the disbelief in your eyes, the way you wince when you witness situations that seem entirely out of our parental control. YouContinue reading “Blog#19: Dear families and friends”

I’ve been mulling this one over for quite some time. Meltdowns, and everything that comes with them, are a highly emotive subject for families with PDAers. Often on online forums, parents post about how they are at their wits end with immensely challenging behaviours, and are sometimes called out on their feelings by neurodivergent individualsContinue reading “Blog#18: Meltdowns – two sides to every story”

This year, I’ve been struggling with my own ‘elephant in the room’. My elephant is that we have no official PDA diagnosis for JJ. Ever since our PDA lightbulb moment in the spring of 2019, I’ve devoted a huge part of my life to discovering everything I can about this little-known profile of the autismContinue reading “Blog#17: The elephant in the room”

Have you ever heard people say: ‘Kids need parents to be parents, not friends!’? I definitely have. I know the thinking behind this…that somehow, treating our children in the same way as we treat our friends will be detrimental to their upbringing and that our children will miss out in some way. In this context,Continue reading “Blog#16: My PDA son, my friend”

When I first started reading about masking, I assumed it was just something autistic children did when they were school. I saw it in very simplistic terms. Holding all their feelings in: the confusion, the sensory overwhelm, the desire to be the same – until they came home and the mask dropped. It all comesContinue reading “Blog#15: He doesn’t act like that when you’re not around!”