Tips, advice, and insights for a simpler daily life with routines and visual supports.
Swimming on Monday, football on Tuesday, music on Wednesday — modern childhood fills up fast, and many parents quietly wonder whether their child is doing too much, or not enough. There’s no magic number, but there are good questions to ask.
If your child is struggling at school, you’ll hear about adjustments, accommodations, and formal support plans. The terms differ by country, but the idea is the same. Here is how school support is usually structured, and your role in it.
When your child is neurodivergent, school can be one of the hardest arenas — and one where a good partnership with teachers makes an enormous difference. Here is how to build that partnership, calmly and effectively.
Few things frighten a parent more than suspecting their child is being bullied. It can be hard to spot, hard to talk about, and hard to know what to do. Knowing the signs and how to respond — calmly and effectively — makes a real difference.
Watching your child struggle to make or keep friends is one of the hardest parts of parenting. But making friends is a skill that can be learned and supported, and “struggling socially” looks different for every child. Here is how to help.
The tummy ache that appears every school morning and vanishes by Saturday, the tears at the gate, the daily battle to get out the door — school refusal is exhausting and worrying. It is almost never simple naughtiness; it is usually fear or distress.
“Do I have to?” For some children, the nightly reading task is a daily battle, and pushing harder usually backfires. The goal is not to force reading but to help a child want to read, and that comes from making it enjoyable rather than a chore.
A new situation, an unfamiliar place, a skill that has not clicked — for an autistic or anxious child, the unknown can be overwhelming. A social story is a simple, personalised tool that turns “what will happen?” into something concrete and reassuring.
Visual schedules are one of the most powerful tools for a neurodivergent child, but a common question is whether to show the whole day or just the next step. The answer depends on the child and the moment. Here is how to choose.
Some children resist even the things they want to do, melt down at the smallest request, and seem driven to avoid all demands. For these children, the usual toolkit of rewards and consequences can make everything worse. This may be a profile known as PDA.
Hand-flapping when excited, rocking when overwhelmed, humming, spinning, repeating a favourite phrase — these are stims, and they are a normal and important part of how many neurodivergent children regulate themselves. Understanding stimming, rather than trying to stop it, makes a huge difference.
The vacuum sends them running, the hand dryer causes a meltdown, a busy room is unbearable — for a child with noise sensitivity, everyday sounds can feel painfully loud or genuinely distressing. It is real, and home can be made much calmer.