Your Child is Not Broken: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child Without Losing Your Marbles

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Being that parent means being the parent your child needs you to be. It means protecting your relationship with them and putting their trust in you above the opinions of others. It means showing them they matter. It means doing things your own way. It means trusting your gut. It means practising self compassion and that takes… well… practice." This would have been so beneficial at the start of the journey likewise where we are now with diagnosis and out of school waiting for specialist school place to become available this has been helpful. Missing school can seriously undermine a child’s education and future life chances. It is imperative that we take a nuanced and sympathetic look at the reasons why absence has become a growing problem.

I am currently that parent and do you know what. This book has validated and helped me see it's okay to be that parent. Even if I do question myself many times a day. In another video, Heidi talks about the latest push for 'Attendance Matters' and how that should be rephrased as 'Engaged Attendance Matters'. We should not be telling children that attendance is the most important target. Attendance is not more important than your child's mental health.Like my daughter, Heidi's child wanted to go to school. They tried hard but the conditions and environment meant that they were unable to. Heidi writes about how it was a case of "can't, not won't" - a phrase that is well known by many in the PDA Community. This book interested me from the moment I saw it. Working in early years childhood education and being a parent to two wonderful teenagers I have experienced and read quite a bit about the neurodivergent child. However this is very different to what I have come across before. Heidi is open and frank about her struggles with parenting a child with autism and ADHD, while discovering that she is also neurodiverse.

Although this is a very serious and hard topic to write about and I’m sure every parent goes through those pull your hair out times in life to a certain degree, but Heidi puts the humour into those moments as well as being honest about her struggles. It’s an eye opener to see a different perspective on those well meaning lay persons and professionals that are doing their best to help, but it more often than not ends up being more detrimental. I know it sounds callous but I found these written encounters the funniest. Not only do children learn and socialise while in school, vulnerable youngsters are also kept out of harm’s way. We must look urgently at ways to reverse this damaging trend that appears to have worsened during the pandemic. This updated edition includes information on Pathological Demand Avoidance, Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, an interview with Heidi's son Theo and more. Neutral point - there was a lot here that I personally have already read and thought about. Perhaps if you are newer to reading/learning/thinking about autism then you will get more from it than I did - clearly a lot of people love it. Follow Heidi's irreverent and brutally honest story of her fight to be seen, heard and supported, while swimming against a tide of parent blame, ableist stereotypes and the weight of other people’s opinions. Your Child Is Not Broken is a call to arms for parents and carers of autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent children. It is the book that no one has dared to write but every parent needs to read. Heidi’s hilarious anecdotes and heartbreaking storytelling offer validation, comfort, reassurance and wisdom to parents who need it the most.

Your Child is Not Broken: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child Without Losing Your Marbles

Heidi's hilarious anecdotes and heartbreaking storytelling offer validation, comfort, reassurance and wisdom to parents who need it the most.

An education professional who I (wrongly) assumed was an 'expert', told me that the reason my son didn’t want to go to school was that he knew I was "a soft touch". She told me I needed to put my foot down. A CAMHS worker told me that when it came to his anxiety, we needed to teach him to "try harder in the face of adversity". More professionals than I can count told me that Theo needed to "build resilience". I was told that he needed to learn not to interrupt, not to ask so many questions, and not to be so sensitive. I was warned that he was making himself an obvious choice for bullies: Theo needed to try harder to "fit in", and not to draw attention to himself.My colleagues and I will examine what innovative methods school leaders may be employing to help stop children and their families falling into a habit of missing school, with the risk of such habits becoming a downward spiral towards ‘severe’ absence. We will look at how targeted support can help to improve attendance and seek evidence as to what works both within and beyond the school system to create a positive culture of attendance.” Heidi writes about how neurodivergent children find themselves in a world that is not built for them, a world full of sensory overwhelm and unwritten social rules. They are constantly being told that they are getting wrong and punished for it, when they don't instinctively know what the 'right' way is. As a parent of a neurodivergent child this has been a really good read it tells you that you aren't alone.