I am trying everything, on every wait list and yet life is still tough! Every - single - day!
- Katie Walker
- May 30
- 4 min read
It's getting confusing out there! The teacher says one thing (likely with their own mainstream agenda). The SENDCo tells me that my child is 'fine'. The CAMHs wait lists are never ending and early help hub is telling me to do a parenting course. EHCP's are a battle and every day feels hard. HELP!
That's exactly why SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE is here...
The family and behaviour support service that SEND – PARENTING – BALANCE offers to families with children with ASD/ADHD/PDA currently do not exist in the mainstream world and that’s exactly why they were created.
Pst… I used to work in the mainstream support services for families too.
The mainstream system provides a standardized approach with parenting courses and referrals to various agencies (which often means waitlists) as their main form of support. Meanwhile, the private sector is rapidly expanding to offer SEND advocate advice, helping parents fight for their rights within the mainstream framework. However, there seems to be a lack of support for the experience of parenting children with PDA/ASD and ADHD, along with related challenges such as SPD (sensory processing disorder); EBSA (emotionally based school refusal); violence/aggression/control; anxiety; OCD; sleep disorders; social difficulties; emotional regulation; sensory regulation; and eating difficulties. That's where we come in!
What is the right support?
My advice - join those diagnosis wait lists and then address the daily challenges. It's those daily challenges that are the most important, the most draining and will have the most impact on the future. The primary focus should be the authentic experiences of parenting children with neurodiversity (including everything that comes with it, such as isolation, parental stigma, family breakdowns, sibling difficulties, and career loss, to name a few), rather than relying on textbook family support and mainstream guidance. These two aspects are entirely different. The gap between these understandings is vast, and within that gap lie the misunderstandings, lack of support, and lack of education on the impact of parenting neurodiverse children.
The goal at SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE is to empower you as a family to manage behaviours at home, navigate the mainstream system and manage your future as a family alongside neuro diversity positively, without burnout, regardless of what the system is doing.
I believe that we a sold a lie, from the mainstream world. We are told to sit on wait lists and attend a parenting course or two, with an occasional meeting with the school SENDCo.
That’s not cutting it for many families, including my own. No wonder we are frustrated and exhausted.
Set yourself up for success by empowering yourself. Know exactly what it is your asking from the mainstream world, while you await on these wait lists. Manage the behaviour (regardless of the diagnosis) while you wait on the wait lists and get your voice heard and child’s needs met while you wait on those wait lists. SEND- PARENTING-BALANCE can help with all of it.
SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE is here to help families survive daily life, reduce crisis, improve relationships, decrease child dysregulation, decrease parent burnout and build a sustainable future for your child.
While many private SEND advocates focus on securing educational provision and fight challenging local authority systems. SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE helps families develop the practical strategies, confidence and understandings needed to support your child at home, in school and throughout life.
Example 1: If your child is masking all day and melting down at home, refuses school, struggles with demands or family life feels like a constant crisis, SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE can help you understand how to navigate school refusal and develop practical behavioural strategies that work in the real world.
Example 2: SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE won't attend the upcoming school meeting to fight for your rights because we will provide you with the knowledge, confidence and reports to do this for yourself. In the long term this will save so much money, time and anxiety because if you have a child with PDA/ASD or ASD the likelihood is you will have many meetings ahead of you. Better to empower yourself now than to hold onto anxiety every time another meeting arises.
You see in my experience (as a SEND mum) but also as a family & behaviour support practitioner you can have the best EHCP and diagnosis in the world and yet the behaviours, the stress and the mainstream frustrations are still there and should be supported.
At SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE we excel in the following areas:
- Understanding the child (from their perspective and yours).
- Reducing demands and distress (on children and parents).
- Strengthening connection (within the whole family, including siblings).
- Build at home practical behaviour support strategies.
- Improve school collaboration and meeting needs.
- Improve confidence when managing a discriminatory mainstream system.
We help families live successfully with neurodivergence every day, whether the mainstream system helps or not.
“SEND-PARENTING-BALANCE was created by a mum of three neuro divergent children but also professional who has many years’ experience working within schools and the LA, with a degree and master’s degree who got fed up of experiencing long wait lists, discrimination and lack of neurodiversity understanding.”
If you read this and feel you would like to receive family and behaviour support do not hesitate to book onto a family support session to discuss your needs.
You can see various PDA/ASD/ADHD free blogs and podcasts on the website - I will pop the link here for you...
“From one parent to another. It’s time to stop waiting for a broken system to change and time to take control ourselves. Years can pass of your child’s life on the ‘fight’ and the ‘wait’. Years can swiftly pass that can never be replaced.”
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