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
9 Steps to Help You Cope with Life Changing Disability or Illness in Your Child
Coming to terms and accepting any devastating change in circumstances is an incredibly painful and long-term period of adjustment. When the focus of those changes is one of our children due to a life-changing injury or illness, a disability or
Is “tolerance” enough? -Part of the #12DaysXmas Twittter Project
Today I’ve been hosting our NHS-inspired Twitter #12daysXmas project and it’s all been about tolerance. It’s not a word I’ve really given much time to before, but spending the day sourcing great songs, pieces of writing and other quotes that
Difficult Conversations for Maternity Staff
I always think that being a midwife must be a wonderful job, to be there at the very beginning of life, when a new little person is born, and helping the most important adults in their world begin the
Special Needs Parents Views on the NHS
Parents of children with disabilities see much more of the NHS than most people do, particularly if our children have associated medical conditions. We see it from lots of different angles too – frequent hospital in-patient care, repeated GP visits,
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
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
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
6 Ways of Coping if your child is seriously ill or disabled
Please share this with anyone you know whose child or baby has recently been diagnosed with a serious condition. 6 essential coping skills which I wrote for Candis Magazine, who published it 9th June 2014 6 ways of coping if
