Autistic and Living the Dream

Category: Parenthood

  • Navigating the Challenges of School Drop-Offs

    Navigating the Challenges of School Drop-Offs

    Starting school has been an emotional and overwhelming experience for our family. Managing drop-offs, pick-ups, and navigating various apps for lunches and updates complicate routines. The chaotic environment during school runs, filled with crying children and crowded areas, adds to the stress. It feels exhausting, yet we’re grateful Little Man is excited to attend.

  • Helping our younger selves

    Helping our younger selves

    The author shares the challenges of being a neurodivergent person who wants to support others like them. They express frustration at not being taken seriously in conversations about neurodivergent children, and highlight the harmful impact of society’s attitudes. They emphasize the need for genuine understanding and support for neurodivergent individuals and their families.

  • No, Joe Wicks, ADHD isn’t a dietary issue

    No, Joe Wicks, ADHD isn’t a dietary issue

    Joe Wicks, aka The Body Coach, has recently suggested (on a BBC podcast) that the “surge” in childhood ADHD diagnoses is linked to poor diet. He shared:  “Looking back now, there’s no doubt the food I was eating was directly linked to my behaviour. I was never diagnosed with ADHD, but I think nowadays it’s…

  • Accommodations aren’t accommodations when you have to fight so hard for them

    Accommodations aren’t accommodations when you have to fight so hard for them

    As a Disabled person supporting other Disabled people your needs, intensities, and behaviours don’t always align. When your children need you at your best sometimes you are in full fatigue, pain or overwhelm. Sometimes when your children need you at 100% you only have the spoons for 20%. The admin for fighting for your child’s…

  • Learning to regulate my emotions

    Learning to regulate my emotions

    I’m only just learning about my emotions and how to regulate them. I’m 33. I spent a long time with no role models to show me how to do this: What to do before I get angry and do or say something I regret. How to know when I need time to process. When and…

  • Autistic parenthood: Living with mum guilt

    Autistic parenthood: Living with mum guilt

    Content note: transphobia, death, grief, mentions of assault and murder, trauma. I’ve been struggling with a lot of things lately and it all centres around being a mum and not feeling good enough for the job. My feelings of mum guilt is massive. I feel I’m not doing enough for Little Man. I feel guilty…

  • Autistic parenthood: Who am I?

    Autistic parenthood: Who am I?

    I’ve been off the last few weeks, not really feeling myself, I’m content but also really low. Nothing has been interesting me, I just get up do whatever I’m doing and then wait for bed time, to get up and do it all again. I have lots of projects ending, projects beginning, lots of waiting…

  • Autistic parenthood: I hope I remember

    Autistic parenthood: I hope I remember

    When you’re older I hope I remember… Your gorgeous 2 year old smile. The way you scream when you run. You running off with my body butter. You banging on the door in the morning to start your day. You throwing the dolly out of your pushchair before you run around with it, crashing into…

  • Autistic parenthood: I wasn’t ready for this!

    Autistic parenthood: I wasn’t ready for this!

    Until I became a parent I didn’t quite knew how much having a child would completely turn my life upside down. In the blink of an eye I went from a single person to a wife, from an individual to a mother. I created the most amazing person and I was not ready for his…

  • Autistic parenthood: sensory overload

    Autistic parenthood: sensory overload

    Sometimes parenting as an Autistic person looks like this… My ear defenders now live on the hook in the hall. They’re no longer secreted away until I need them for an activity with big noisy crowds. They are front and centre in the hallway. They need to be easy access because I never know when…