Reflections

I was discussing with a friend and fellow PDAer yesterday how challenging it can be to realise I am not being 100% honest with myself and/or others when trying to seek support. To be more specific, I was discussing how, ...

Our children struggling does not immediately indicate that we are not doing enough, or that we are missing some crucial information. To struggle is to be human and our behaviour is not the problem - it’s an end result, o...

It is disheartening to constantly see the ongoing repetition of themes such as declarative language (which is more often than not, grossly misunderstood and misused) to disguise demands for PDAers. This is but one exampl...

Existing, being human, is political; and political persuasion begins at home.

We are all part of the collective, and we all live within the systems that harm the most vulnerable, the marginalised, and the hypermarginali...

One night, not so long ago, we had a PDA standoff.. well, not really a 'stand off' but a "let's see which PDAer can hang in there the longest" with one of my PDAers.

It's shower night. I reminded them.

"Nah, I'm good" sa...

Is this my child’s lack of gratitude, or is it my grief?

There are times I catch myself thinking my child is ‘ungrateful’ for the life they have the privilege of having.

So many of us will recall being told as children...

"Dear kristy,

I love my parents I want to be a hair-dresser when I grow up. I wont be a murderer I will be a tenderly loving person. My birthday is in july the thirteerth I'm in year two. I made my first holy (commo) com...

I’ve been raising, loving and supporting my own autistic children (four of them: 27, 20, 14 and 11) for 27 years this year. We’re a completely autistic family, with additional forms of divergence thrown in for good measu...

My youngest says "No" and all its variations in response to almost every request I make of them.

And I don't flinch.

This is an accommodation. It is a means of balancing what feels off kilter for a PDAer when a demand is p...

Whenever I write or speak about barriers to education for autistic children, or inaccessibility, or childism or discrimination, I am always met by those interpreting my lived experience as a direct attack on educat...