THANK YOU I can’t thank you enough for your lovely comments and messages over the past couple of weeks while I’ve been unwell. Your kind words of concern and warmth have carried me through some very dark moments, and it’s
Families – the Key to Person-Centred Care
Letting Go One of the hardest parts of being a parent of someone who is very vulnerable is learning how to trust other people to share in the taking care of them. My son, Toby, is now 23 and he
WHAT IS WITHIN ( Part One )
By John Walsh and Yvonne Newbold “You understand so little of what is around you because you do not use what is within you“ – Hildegard of Bingen As humans we are an amalgam of both logic and emotion, together
How to blog about your children whilst protecting their privacy
Blogging about my children is something I do all the time, and amazingly, they all still talk to me! If you read anything I’ve written about them, I hope you’d get the impression that I’m being completely open, honest and
My Excellent Teacher
The day Toby was born, I knew very little about disability, apart from a vague notion that things like that only happened to other people. Suddenly, I was on a steep learning curve, and I needed an excellent teacher. Luckily
NHS & Kindness – the care that always gets remembered
I’m delighted to introduce a Guest Blog Post by Kirsty Evans of Itsallaboutevie, Writing from the heart about what family life is like when your beautiful eldest daughter happens to have Down’s Syndrome There’s no “I” in Team Evie is
The darkest days of special needs parenting
Sometimes there are no answers, only a deep dark place of sadness, when we have to admit to ourselves that we just don’t have a clue where to go from here, what to do next, or how to get through
Taking the stress out of cutting children’s fingernails
What do you do if your child can’t tolerate their finger or toenails being cut? It’s a very common problem in families where there are children with Sensory Processing Disorders or who are on the Autistic Spectrum. Parents try every
An Inspirational Evening
Cloak and daggery, mystery Twitter Direct Messages and finally a Top Secret Email that forbade me to tell anyone anything until the night itself. How wonderfully exciting! Except for two things. I’m the world’s biggest chatterbox and the worst secret-keeper
Saturday Night
When I finally finished writing the book, I had such a sense of achievement but no clue that all I’d actually managed to do was the easy bit. I think if I’d known then what I know now I might
