Rise & Shine Academy

12/06/2025

12/06/2025

This is beyond wrong. Parents and schools should not have to fight for these services. Life as a parent of an additional needs child can be difficult enough without the added stress of fighting for their right to education.

Please keep up the likes, shares and tags.

He just wants to go to school.

We may have secured a meeting with the NCSE , that is but a small step on a huge ladder.

Time is of the essence here. Schools have to make adaptions. Individualised curriculums need creating. SNAs need employed and trained. It is simply not good enough.

When you’ve been let down this badly you lose faith, you lose trust, you lose hope in everyone that has control.

We must continue to fight for Sonny and all the other little children being let down so badly until these damaging decisions are reversed and departments are held accountable for the turmoil they are causing.

Real children. Real lives. Real neglect.

03/04/2025

💙🌈 The Long Lonely Nights💙🌈

World Autism Awareness Day 2025

Sonny wasn’t going to miss it anyway.

He woke at 2 minutes past midnight.
It’s now 4:30am. He has the entire house awake.
Even his little sister.
We’re not cross, he cannot help it.

Running, pacing, vocal stimming (very loudly).
Sonny has always loved the middle of the night.
While the rest of the world sleeps, there’s no external environmental factors to deal with. His prime time to thrive.

The rest of us are tired. Cranky. You lay awake thinking of the rest of the world, asleep, waking up refreshed ready for a new day. Almost six years into our sleep deprivation journey you wonder, will we ever wake up feeling refreshed! Constant lack of sleep is beyond exhausting.

Quite often on World Autism Awareness Day, we hear lots about the beauty of the autistic spectrum. And boy are there lots of joyous, beautiful, precious moments. Sonny wouldn’t be Sonny without his Autism and we cannot imagine you any other way. But it is far from easy. Especially these long, sleepless nights.

We know there is a whole world of others experiencing the exact same as us and we want you to feel seen and heard. Know that you are not alone.

As we prepare to take on another long, tired day with smiles on our faces, rolling our eyes at people saying they are tired 😝 thinking if only you knew what tired felt like, we do wish some parts of this journey could be so very different.

It’s easy to speak about the positives. So I write this post while it’s raw. While I’m exhausted. While we think of friends and family turning over for their second sleep as you might call it. While we wonder will we manage to get an hour before it’s time to rise.

One thing we are always grateful for is that Sonny’s awake time in the night is a very happy time for him. He is rarely upset during the night anymore.

Sharing reality to raise awareness.

Be Kind. Always.

03/04/2025

💖🌈 Behind The Mask💖🌈

Autism Awareness Month 2025 Day 3

Autism in Girls. Masking.
Often, people struggle with wrapping their heads around this one. Sure she’s grand, she looks fine!

Our little Robyn Rae, Age 3, also has a diagnosis of Autism. Scoring in the superior intelligence range and being diagnosed as a Gifted learner at 2 years old was a lot to consume.

To the outside world, You probably will never see.
Robyn, being a gifted girl, is a gifted masker. She is very tuned in to societal expectations and will conform, almost always. She quite likely will be the dream student. She takes everything very literally. She likes to achieve perfection. That mind you, not always a positive because she will constantly place pressure on herself.

So what does her autism look like?

In her own words - “Loud noises make my ears angry”
And they very much do.

She struggles with change in certain aspects of life.

She is extremely hypersensitive to sound, light, smells and textures.

Certain things should always be done a certain way and in a certain order.

She is extremely literal. She doesn’t like people to joke at her and she often will ask if things are for real life, schooling her own self about sarcasm.

She has a very intense memory. She will remember things to the finest detail from as far back as one year old. Often leaving our jaws on the floor as we try to fathom how she could possibly remember a specific moment in time and every fine detail relating to it.

She has really big emotions. She worries about everything and everyone. I mean at 3 years old you shouldn’t have a care in the world.

That’s but to name a few.

So imagine going about your day with all of these struggles but yet feeling the need to hold it all together, be perfect, conform, and ensure all boxes are ticket perfectly. That is our little Robyn Rae.

And then comes the aftermath. The absolute burnout. The mental exhaustion. The come down. No matter if it’s after a day at school, a play date, a trip to the park, Robyn requires a lot of quiet time to reset.

Masking Is Real!

Our kindest little soul💖🌈

17/03/2025

10/02/2025

Currently 82p on Kindle. Bargain!

10/02/2025

10/02/2025