Making a difference

I’ve had some lovely emails this week. Many people have messaged me to let me know how my work has made a difference to them and their children. It means a lot to me when people do this. Often the focus on social media is negative rather than positive, and it can be hard to know whether any of what I do lands or helps

One email in particular was about my webinar on helping autistic children with anxiety, which is coming up again tomorrow.

In this message, a father explained how his highly anxious autistic child had needed essential medical treatment, but her anxiety was so high that it just seemed impossible. They’d tried before and hadn’t managed. Then, he watched my webinar.

In it, I encourage parents to think about anxiety on two levels. There’s background anxiety, the chronic daily high arousal that many autistic children live with, and then there’s in-the-moment anxiety, the spike of panic or terror that feels overwhelming and insurmountable. That’s the anxiety which gets triggered by medical treatment.

These different types of anxiety need different approaches, but they are related. High background anxiety leads to more in-the-moment anxiety. Parents can help with both of these types of anxiety, but not in the same way.

For this family, understanding the difference – and using the different approaches – enabled their daughter to have the treatment that she needed, and for them to come through it feeling supported rather than tormented.

If you have an anxious autistic child, my webinar is tomorrow. It’s recorded for those who can’t make the time. Practical, informed by psychological theory and practice and by my decades of clinical work. Come and see whether it might help your child too. Please share if you know parents who might want to know.