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25/12/2025

I've always loved Christmas. I had the privilege of growing up in a happy family, and my parents did Christmas beautifully.

We had stockings in the morning. I would wake at about 5, too excited to sleep, but would read quietly until we were allowed to go downstairs - all of us together.

Our stockings were by the fireplace, each containing a sugar mouse, a tube of sweets, a small toy and a tangerine in the toe - that magical fruit we only had at Christmas. Each stocking would be resting on an annual - Beano, Dandy, Whizzer & Chips...

At church, other children would be talking about getting bikes and dolls' houses while we excitedly described a two inch doll or a matchbox car.

Lunch was a feast enjoyed by all, then the little ones would have a rest while my parents and any other adults and older children cleared up before we all watched the queen's speech.

Then came the presents. From the age of about 8, my father would give each of us money so we could get little presents for each other, and we loved choosing the perfect gift for each sibling. With six children in the family and numerous aunts and uncles, there was quite a pile under the tree.

My father gave out the gifts one by one, and we eagerly watched each other open the gifts we'd bought, learning early the joy of giving.

My parents' Christmas hasn't changed since I was a little girl, though these days we linger longer over lunch and usually don't have pudding until after the queen's speech.

It's now a difficult day for me, because I still love the family traditions as much as I always did, but my children hate opening presents in front of people, dread all the different foods (and one is vegetarian) and find it hard just being around lots of people.

This will be our first big family Christmas in a while. Getting the balance between what everyone else loves and what my children need is tricky, and I won't get everything right today. But I hope I'll get enough of it right to give them some happy memories of my favourite time of the year.

There are many different ways of coping with the demands of Christmas, and many ways in which it can be a struggle.

I wish all of you the best Christmas possible.

24/12/2025

There have been times when I've resented not having an evening to myself. There were long periods when I was unable to go out in the evening at all, and staying with friends and relatives was awkward, because I would usually end up having to disappear for the best part of the evening.

My daughter now doesn't want me at bedtime, but still wakes me in the middle of the night - sometimes to get her something or do something she needs, and other times just because she's remembered something she hasn't told me.

My son still needs me, and although I'm now able to go out in the evening, he remains hypervigilant and is almost always still awake when I get home.

The best thing about our bedtimes is that those moments in a dark room, snuggled up to me and feeling calm and safe, are the times when my children have always been most likely to open up and talk about things that are bothering them and things that are important to them.

Last night, just as I thought he was drifting off, my son suddenly said, "I'm scared."

I knew what it was about - he's not a lover of family gatherings, noise, crowds, presents, different food...

But I gently asked him what he was scared of, and he told me. He described in great detail all the things that were worrying him, and I sympathised, told him I understood how he was feeling - and then we problem-solved.

We talked about where he could go to escape from the "chaos", as he describes it, what words he could use, which bits of the meal were the most problematic, how he might be able to deal with unfamiliar food on his plate.

We discussed things people might say and how he could answer them, and practised things he can say when he opens his Christmas presents.

Importantly, we also talked about things he likes. We talked about individual members of the family, separating them out into individuals that he loves rather than just thinking about the number of people and the noise.

We discussed the bits of the Christmas meal he likes, and the other meals that we might have.

And when he settled down to sleep, he had a plan to make the bits he won't enjoy more bearable and a bit more focus on the bits he will enjoy.

23/12/2025

I've been asked to help publicise a conference which is being run by Calibre Audio as part of the National Year of Reading 2026.

Calibre Audio is a fantastic charity which provides easy access to audiobooks to anyone who has difficulty seeing, reading or understanding printed text, including people with dyslexia, visual impairments, problems with physical dexterity, autism, ADD/ADHD, a brain injury or cognitive impairment, and other physical and neurological conditions.

The service is highly subsidised and very low cost (£3 per month or £30 per year) for adults over 25, and free for those under 25 living in the UK, UK veterans and those using the USB-only service. Schools and colleges can also open an account.

For this, you have access to over 21,000 books in 70 categories, including over 3,000 children's titles, and new titles are being added every week. Books that are not available elsewhere in audio are recorded by volunteer narrators, making the range of materials available even greater.

The range includes classics, contemporary authors such as Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson and Malorie Blackman, and titles that support the GCSE, A level and PSHE national curriculum. Membership includes a regular newsletter with reading suggestions.

This amazing charity has organised a conference entitled Inspiring a Love of Reading in Children and Young Adults with SEND. The focus will be on how multi-sensory approaches and accessible formats can inspire a lifelong love of reading in children and young people with SEND.

The event is ideal for SENCos, teachers, school libraries, inclusion and literacy leads, teaching assistants, LSAs and school leaders who are passionate about inclusive literacy. It will explore practical, creative and evidence-based strategies to make reading accessible and enjoyable for every learner, to ensure no child is left behind.

The standard in person cost of £27.80 includes a three course, hot and cold seated buffet and unlimited refreshments throughout the day. There's also an online option for £13.70. There's a 20% discount for all bookings made before 5 pm on Christmas Eve.

Please share with anyone who may be interested.

22/12/2025

I think we first called my daughter FOMO Baby before we even left hospital with her, because she was so alert and wide awake.

Once home, she only slept in my arms. As she got older, she astonished me with her propensity for forcing her eyes to stay open at all costs.

When she was about 4 months old, I was on a long drive alone with her. She screamed solidly for 100 miles, stopping just as I was about to join in. The sudden silence unnerved me. I wanted to stop and check she was OK - but I knew if I stopped, her eyes would snap open and she would be awake for the rest of the journey.

As she got older and more articulate, she had a new bedtime avoidance tactic every week. I had to stay with her until she was asleep every night right up to this year, and she still wakes me in the night more often than not.

One night, when she wouldn't settle, I said, "Fine. If you can stay awake with your eyes shut for 10 minutes, you can stay up."

Even with her eyes shut, I had to reset the timer twice before she fell asleep!

As she got older, I read to her for hours. She would beg for one more chapter, falling asleep to the sound of my reading.

At 9, she stopped letting me sing or read to her. As soon as we found anything that worked, she resisted it.

She would regularly cry and beg me to help her - she was exhausted, and wanted to sleep. But the demand was too much, and any method that worked was rejected the next night.

The doctor gave us Phenergan, but she refused to take it unless she was desperate, terrified that it too would stop working if she got used to it.

She has tried everything to help herself sleep. Nothing works for more than a few days, then she has to find something new. At 13, she is often awake all night, eventually dropping off around 6 or 7 am through sheer exhaustion.

School have told me "not sleeping well is not a reason to miss school", ignoring my explanation that it's not "a bad night's sleep", but a night of NO sleep.

If there's one thing that epitomises PDA for me more than anything else, it's the sleep struggle - she's desperate for rest, but her PDA brain just won't give in.

21/12/2025

Another trait of PDA is using social strategies to avoid demands.

The PDA Society describes a number of ways in which a child with PDA might deflect demands, including:

- Distraction - this was always my daughter's favourite way to avoid bedtime. She would start doing something she thought I would approve of, like doing maths problems, writing, reading or tidying up, and if I suggested that it was time to stop and get ready for bed, she would protest vigorously that this was an important job that had to be finished first.

- Negotiation - "Can I have five more minutes if I promise to go to school nicely tomorrow?"

Flattery - sometimes she would tell me that I deserved to have a nice rest with her before I went downstairs to get on with my jobs. She would also say, "I love your necklace" and ask if she could hold it for a while (with me still wearing it) before going to sleep.

- Role play - my daughter had a special voice she would use for her favourite soft toy, so that I knew it was her toy, and not her, singing, telling stories and refusing to settle down at bedtime. She would also regularly pretend the house was a hotel and insist on dealing with all the imaginary guests before going to bed herself.

- Withdrawing - where she would ignore me, walk away or hide when it was time to do something.

- Switching focus - suggesting an alternative task that feels safer. Between the ages of 4 and about 8, she would regularly offer to do the hoovering, washing up, laundry, and other household tasks just around bedtime, and if I suggested that the timing wasn't appropriate, she would indignantly say, "But don't you WANT to have a clean house?!" She still regularly decides to tidy her bedroom at midnight or later.

It was very seldom a hard "no" and a meltdown, but she definitely tried every trick in the book to avoid bedtime.

Some family members described her as spoilt and manipulative, but it was never as simple as that. Tomorrow I'll talk about why bedtime in particular was such a sticking point for her.

20/12/2025

This is how we all felt when the end of term finally arrived yesterday.

But... I have a little secret.

My son finds Christmas and birthday presents really stressful. He can't usually think of things he wants, he doesn't know how to react naturally when he opens a present, he hates people watching him open presents, and he finds receiving piles of new things really stressful.

We're spending Christmas with my parents. There are going to be 12 of us there, and traditionally my father gives out the presents one by one while everyone watches each other open them.

I've managed to ask for various adjustments over the years which have made it slightly easier for my children, but my son's still not excited about it.

He's only asked for one thing for Christmas, and that's an accessory for his computer - which he won't be able to use on Christmas Day.

So when he got home from school yesterday, utterly exhausted, I made a deal with him.

I said he could have his present early if he promised to give it back and let me wrap it up for him on Christmas Day.

There's a lot of busy time over the Christmas holidays - why not let him enjoy the one present he wants when he actually has the opportunity? It's one of the few things he has control over, and our little secret will make the present-opening extravaganza easier for him.

19/12/2025

I often ask myself whether there's anything I could have done differently.

Given my time again, would I have done better, and would the outcome have been different?

If I could start again from now, knowing what I know and with the information, resources and support that I have at my fingertips, things would indeed be very different. I would have made some very different choices and approached many issues in a very different way.

But at the time, I didn't know what I know now. I didn't have the information, resources and support that I have now, and I always did what I thought was best, given the knowledge and understanding that I had at the time.

Could I have made better decisions and done a better job?

Maybe.

But I followed the advice I was given at the time by people who should have known better than I did, and whom I trusted to know better.

And I was living from moment to moment, firefighting, juggling, and trying to keep on top of a thousand different things.

People sometimes said, "Oh, I know someone who's been through what you're going through. You should give them a ring - they'd be happy to talk to you."

And I was reticent about calling them, because they had their own battles to fight, and I didn't want to add to their burden. Besides, by the time I thought of calling them, it was usually too late at night to call someone I didn't already know well.

Would I contact them if I had my time again? Still no - because the overwhelm and exhaustion would still be there.

Do I regret not having done things differently?

If you know you followed advice from professionals, did all the reading and research you could at each given point in time, and every decision you made was carefully considered, measured, researched and made with the best information you had at the time, should you regret those decisions - even if they turn out in retrospect to have been wrong?

As I find myself saying rather too often, we are where we are, and the best way to move forward is to look forwards and not back.

But I still wonder where we would be now if I'd known the right questions to ask a few years ago and had the self-belief to argue more.

18/12/2025

I presume this is a scam - especially as I didn't see it until four days after it was posted! Anyone able to confirm?

18/12/2025

You know what really bothers me?

The way it's made so hard to celebrate success.

My daughter has made it into school every single day for a month. Even on days she's really been struggling, she's made it in earlier than she ever did in the last academic year.

Part of the reason for this success is that her favourite LSA is leaving at the end of this term, and she wants to spend as much time with her as possible while she still can.

I'm not responsible for it at all, except in that I support her in every way I can. I will never force her to go to school when she's clearly not mentally well enough.

I'm not capable of forcing her anyway - in fact, the more I try to rush her, encourage her or threaten her, the more dysregulated she becomes and the harder she finds it.

What works for her is intrinsic motivation, and I hope that without her favourite LSA there next term, she'll find something else to motivate her.

We've had one very positive sign of progress recently - her love language is giving gifts, and this week she decided she wanted to buy a Christmas present for her new-this-term keyworker. This is a sign of massive progress in their relationship - she is clearly beginning to see her keyworker as one of her "trusted adults", and I couldn't be more pleased.

But every time the school see how well she's doing with the level of support she has, they see it as an excuse to scale down the support.

Because she's been going in so well, they're now giving her late marks. I've sent three emails asking if the soft start we had agreed in line with her EHCP is no longer available, but nobody has responded. The late marks seem to speak louder than words.

She also hasn't received a single merit mark this half of term, except for the ones that are given to the whole class. She isn't motivated by reward as such, but her friends notice if she's the only one who doesn't get a certificate at the end of term, and hence so does she. She laughs it off, but it hurts.

I want to point out how well she's done and get them to acknowledge it.

It’s a shame I have to worry that if I do that, the only response will be to expect more of her while reducing her support.

17/12/2025

Two years ago, I sat in church watching my son struggle through his school Christmas carol service.

He'd begged me not to make him do it, cried all the way there, and arrived late. He stood mutely at one side, looking utterly miserable and overwhelmed.

Although it was outside school hours, attendance was compulsory, and I hadn't felt able to stand up to the school and keep him at home.

School had always told me he was "fine" when I wasn't there, and I naïvely assumed he would be fine once he was with his friends. He wasn't. He never was, although apparently he masked well.

Fortunately, the church was dark, only the children at the front being lit up - so nobody saw me cry through the entire service, sneaking out at one point when I couldn't hold back the sobs.

I cried for my baby, for how unhappy he was. I cried for all the "normal" aspects of Christmas that we weren't able to enjoy. I cried for my other child, who had started secondary school that term and was struggling. And I cried out of fear for the future.

Last year, he was at a new school. The carol service was in a different church, and he wanted to join in. He hung around outside the church, trying to go in and then retreating, for half of the service. The teachers who saw us were sympathetic and supportive. But ultimately, he couldn't do it. We went home, both crying with frustration.

This year, he told me very clearly why he didn't want to go.

Seeing people who belong at school in a different place was weird and uncomfortable.

And he was anxious about seeing other people being nervous about their performance. What if they made a mistake, or cried, or couldn't do it? He would be so sad for them, he wouldn't know what to do. (Who says autistic people don't have empathy? He's so empathetic it can be crippling.)

Plus the noise, the excitement, the general overwhelm.

His teachers were happy for him to do whatever he was comfortable with, and made that very clear to him. They were supportive, encouraging, but not pushy.

He decided not to do it, and we stayed at home.

And last night, nobody cried. That was the win of the day.

16/12/2025

Spot the deliberate mistake! It seems my son was as ambivalent about Christmas four years ago as he is today!

16/12/2025

I can't imagine how difficult it must be to lose your home, your pets and everything you've built up over the years like this. Thank goodness the family are safe, but to deal with their children's loss of beloved pets, possessions and the security of their home while processing everything they have lost themselves is exceptionally tough for these parents.

If you feel able to, please donate to this GoFundMe which has been set up for the family.

My name is cat and I’m fundraising to help a Seaford family who’s lost ev… cathy park needs your support for A Seaford family who’ve lost everything in a fire