PSC has given my daughter a space where she can be open about her autism and not feel judged

• Category: CYP Groups

Before connecting with Parenting Special Children, my daughter was diagnosed but I had little idea of what it meant and how to help her. I was signposted to PSC and the Auticulate group and parent support evenings seemed a good fit although, at that stage, Auticulate had a waiting list.

During COVID, my daughter was invited to a six-week online social confidence course which she engaged well with. From there, she was invited to join Auticulate.

The parent support evenings gave me insight into autism and the struggles autistic people had. It also allowed me to talk to parents with similar problems and understand how they worked through them. In the early days, I regularly went to the parent support evening events, it was useful to gain knowledge and also meet with other parents who had the same problems and hurdles. Of particular use to me were the sessions on sensory processing and transition to secondary school.

Quite a few years back, I attended one of the PSC conferences and I found the information shared in the sessions useful and presented in an accessible manner.

Auticulate has been most helpful for my daughter in giving her a space where she can socialise and learn with children who are similar to her, her tribe. At school, she needs to fit in and adapt to a predominantly neurotypical world but Auticulate shows her that she is ‘normal’ in her autism and that there are others like her. She has also been able to take that a step further in volunteering in the junior group as a peer mentor. This allows her to develop leadership and interaction skills in a safe group that understands her before having to practice them in a neurotypical world that does not always understand neuroatypicals. My daughter is also starting the transition to adulthood sessions soon and I expect that they will help prepare her mentally for the next steps she will take towards independence.

I would like to see my daughter living an independent adult life and succeeding. Auticulate gives her a space to learn ways of dealing with the outside world and to practice those skills away from the safety of family (that may step in to save her a bit too quickly) but within a structure that will still keep her safe.

PSC cares about neurodiverse kids and tries hard to help them in their difficulties. They try to help families through what can be difficult and trying times with knowledge and emotional support. They have good knowledge and experience in their field and share it openly. The main thing that PSC has brought into our family life is knowledge and understanding.

Although many of the staff at PSC are very well educated in their field, they also bring a personal knowledge. The staff are friendly and want to help. They know a great deal about their subject and many have a lived experience, either in themselves or through their children. I remember a parent session where the two speakers were both mothers of neuroatypical children who then discovered that they themselves were autistic. Being able to give me a vision into what might be going on inside my daughter’s head was invaluable. I need to understand a problem to be able to help and my daughter does not always have the ability to explain or even know that her thought processes are different from neurotypicals.

One example of something I have learnt from PSC is the idea of emotional ‘spoons’ – that activities all use emotional energy – some more and some less; an activity that requires lots of emotional energy but is still worth doing but just needs more recovery time. This has given me the ability to quickly check with my daughter how many ‘spoons’ she has left and thus whether we should leave now or can stay a while longer. I now understand that she gets tired in a way that I don’t, and how to manage that.

PSC has taught me what common needs and adjustments most autistic children need. It has allowed me to talk sensibly with the school SEN co-ordinator, understand her terminology and make recommendations for my daughter’s specific needs. I’m still learning to allow her to self-advocate though.

I have heard many stories of how it has gone wrong and how children have suffered emotional pain, specifically in teenage years, because they are different. I am so thankful to the teacher that highlighted a potential concern with her recommendation to have my daughter assessed at the West Berkshire Emotional Health Triage service and her subsequent diagnosis during primary school. It meant that she went into secondary school and her teenage years knowing her diagnosis and how that made her different from many of her peers. Her teen years are still tricky to navigate but the support she receives from Auticulate and her autistic peers has helped her find her unique path. She is making a success of her life and that makes me happy (and proud).

*Name changed to protect anonymity

All wording is the parent’s own.