Nobody had ever asked me that question before.
I did a rare free gig last night at a Women’s Institute meeting. I told the story of the diagnosis that changed my life. My autism diagnosis. I also spoke about the journeys I’ve had as an undiagnosed autistic parent of undiagnosed autistic kids. I talked about the fight for recognition of the difficulties we had and the strategies I found that worked.
I took questions from the audience afterwards and they came in thick and fast. “How did you know to do that?” I had been talking about the wall planner I made for my eldest when his behaviour changed in the holidays before he started school. It had a “home” side and a “school” side with one stepping stone for each day leading up to the big day. I made a cut out figure of Oliver, my son, and put Blu Tack on the back. Every day, we’d move the little figure one step closer to school. It worked like a miracle and his behaviour went back to normal.
So how did I know to do that? I honestly don’t know. I tried something and it worked. We can all learn from giving something a go.
