I cannot remember the last time I wrote a blog, wasn’t even sure I could still login.

The role of a parent is a hard role to bare at times even without additional needs thrown into the mix. For us to live a semi ”normal” life it revolves around routine and preparation. The second I get it wrong the glue that holds everything together unfolds and the shit really hits the fan.
The need to please is as ever overwhelming, I don’t think I have it in me to say no! Last week I didn’t achieved much other than taxiing children to and from schools, cutting the grass and doing the odd bit of housework. Autopilot is most certainly on but for now, it’s what has to happen.

Teddie is as ever his happy self, I cannot recall the last time Teddie became overwhelmed (a meltdown, I don’t like to use the word meltdown) He, of course, gets extremely close to it but for now, we can stop it from escalating. We never use the fact Teddie has autism as an excuse for bad behaviour, we are EXTREMELY LUCKY that Teddie is very rarely naughty. He is aware of what’s right and wrong but his approach can come across as rude at times. We always pull him up on this and tell him the correct way to speak to someone, he always takes on board what we tell him
Teddie has an amazing ability to self-regulate, over the years he has created his own movement breaks when he’s at home. For example, we’ll be eating dinner when he’ll ask to go outside, he’ll run to the back of the garden then come back to the dinner table. If he’s in the lounge on the laptop he’ll skip into the kitchen then go back to what he was doing. This has helped us over the years with his movement breaks for schools. When you ask him what’s the best part of the school he’ll say his movement breaks

Having two other (semi) neurotypical children it can be hard to find a balance, Harvey and Alfie will tell you Teddie rules the roost. This isn’t the case, we do not give in to Teddie at all, what we do do is a compromise. I think most people do this with younger children, I don’t necessarily think we do it because he has autism, we do it because the youngest. I often say I’ll have 3 of Teddie and I mean it, during the lockdown he was the one we didn’t have to worry about, he never moaned at all, not like the older 2
Life continues to test us, we learn from our mistakes and move forward knowing ourselves slightly better.

We love our Bear and wouldn’t have him any other way