Living With Autism - Pt 2 and Beyond

So, you may remember last year, I touched on how it was to live with an autistic child. We looked into the reality of our Daisy's day to day life. Her emotional rollercoaster, her struggles with the simple stuff and the challenges she overcomes on a daily basis.

One year on, Daisy is a little older, a little more grown up, and has a new set of challenges ahead of her. In the year of her 10th birthday, we are going to look at the how she's changed, as all children this age do, and how she's coping.

With Daisy being in year 5 at school, and approaching the end of the year, it's a time that all parents stress over. Choosing a secondary school. As if the pressure as a parent isn't heavy enough, we were advised by Daisy's school earlier in the year that we should consider not sending Daisy to a 'mainstream secondary school', but to one that is 'more catered to children that struggle as Daisy does'. By this, they refer to Daisy's struggle to cope with noise, chaos and over organisation. As any parent of autism will know, routine is key. So to keep things as normal as possible to Daisy, is such an important thing for her to progress as much as she can with her education. This is why sending her to a school that keeps children in one class, rather than sending them to different classes per subject, will help her to stay concentrated and learn better. They also focus more on things that she will struggle with generally in life, such as social skills and how to look after herself.

Now I won't lie, when we were first told this, I didn't want to listen. I have this struggle every time we learn something new about Daisy. I was convinced that she will cope. However, as she gets older, and her emotions and hormones change with her, it's quite clear that this will be the best thing for her now and in the future.

At the moment, we struggle getting Daisy into school. Unfortunately, due to lack of staff, the school that Daisy is at is struggling to give her the help that's required.

This means that there are times when she won't understand what's being said properly, or doesn't get to finish her task, or maybe something simple as not getting to read her book. All these things are little things to us, but to Daisy it's extremely hard to deal with, and often ends with an emotional breakdown and almost always a lot of tears! It is also bringing out a state of anxiety in her most mornings, and causing it to be very difficult to get her to school, sometimes impossible.

Thankfully, this week has been a good one so far (I know it's early but still...).

With promises of sitting on a table away from the 'noisy ones' as Daisy calls them, she has been sat at a table with one of her close friends just next to the teacher. It seems to be working as, although still anxious, there aren't any tears so far.

It's clear that the next couple of years are not going to be easy. With attitudes changing, and puberty ever approaching, the changes that we will experience with Daisy, I dare say, will be challenging for us as well as her. However, with the right support, the right nurturing and her wonderful Mum doing what she does best, our Daisy has got the same opportunity as any other child and can achieve anything she wants, which at the moment happens to be working at a zoo by the way!

So I've decided to keep everybody up to date with Daisy's progress. Her ups and downs, her adventures and her achievements. Every week I'll publish a new 'Living with Autism' article with updates and pictures from the week. Hopefully, we can show the world that Autism isn't a disability, but a different ability.