It Takes Effort...

When I'm sitting there with my head in my hands as my child runs around having the mother of all meltdowns, I'm sure plenty of onlookers are giving me condescending looks and classifying me as yet another incompetent parent. You know, the type of person who says their kid has ADHD just to excuse their poor parenting skills.

But let me tell you something. If you had any idea what goes on behind the scenes, you might just think differently:

1. I've spent countless hours ferrying my child from one appointment to another. We have seen psychologists, paediatricians, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, mental health counsellors and doctors. We go to a LOT of appointments.

2. I've had to be an advocate for my child at school, when the provision was poor, fighting his corner for him and attending IEP meetings to discuss his progress.

3. When school provision proved to be inadequate, I chose to home educate my child, putting in many hours helping him to learn skills that most people take for granted, such as self-care skills and how to cope in social situations. These lessons have to be repeated and reinforced many times.

4. Starting from scratch to build up the academic skills that the school failed to teach him, like times tables. It meant taking a completely different approach based on words and stories, but it finally paid off.

5. Attending courses based on parenting autism, such as the excellent Cygnet course, as well as groups run by the local parent partnership about issues like personal development and bullying.

6. Many hours spent online and in the library, researching autism and ADHD therapies and information.

7. Time spent ferrying him to social clubs and activities for kids with autism, so that he can develop practical and social skills.


So you can see that parenting autism is a full time job and requires a lot of care and dedication. Anyone else putting this much hard work into a project would receive praise and commendation, but autism parents often receive judgement and condemnation. People think that we are neglectful and permissive when they see our kids acting out. They don't realise how we go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the best life possible for our children.