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Thoughts on criticism

When I was in primary school, I went to stay with my grandparents one night that I have not forgotten, even 30 or so years later. Last week I received a message on my blog that I doubt I will ever forget. The two events are separated by decades, but remembering the first just after the occurrence of the second started a chain of thoughts that brought me to a place of realisation I was not expecting. Continue reading

Measures of success

There are a lot of definitions of success, and consensus over what is successful seems elusive. As a society, at least from where I sit, it looks like while we consistently see some things as signs of success, we do acknowledge that different things are regarded as measures of success in different situations. But I also see evidence that there are some things that are definitely not considered to be signs of success. Continue reading

The letter I wish I had read when my children were diagnosed with Autism

From time to time, I notice a resurgence of the “letter to the new ‘autism parent’ from the experienced one” sort of articles in the blog/facebook world.

I get why these posts are popular. When your child is identified as autistic, it seems expected that people go through a period of feeling sad and overwhelmed. These letters tend to focus on that and give strategies to deal with the “awfulness” that life is with an Autistic child. Continue reading