Hello, this is Anna Kennedy, and we’re talking all things autism. We’re live in Covent Garden, and it’s hot, hot, hot! We’re supporting women’s well-being, and I am really excited because last night Autism’s Got Talent highlights were on the Katie Price show, which was my crazy life. I cannot believe that the clip that they shared just since Friday had been viewed over a million times.

I’ve had so many parents, so many mums and dads asking about Autism’s Got Talent. How do they audition? What do they do? So I’m really pleased with the way that the piece went, and there’s a few more pieces that are going to be aired about the Autism’s Got Talent Roadshow in St. Ives. So that will be on very soon, either next week or the week after, where you will see the lovely Harvey and playing the organ, and you will see their visit to St. Ives.

If you’re interested in sending in your audition, please contact the charity website, which is www.annakennedyonline.com. There’s lots of information on there on the events page, so you can check it out. So my guest today is Rina Anand. Welcome, Rina.

Thanks, Anna. It’s great to be here. You’re looking very summery today.

I saw you. So Rina is a mum of two boys aged three and six, the eldest of whom is autistic. Whilst convalescing following an operation last year, she started writing about her experience as an autism parent and the stigma surrounding autism in the Asian community.

Her blog posts have been read internationally by thousands of people with readers reaching out to Rina both for support and in gratitude for openly and proudly talking about her autism experience. So Rina, tell me, who is Rina? Who are you? Oh, I have many facets to my personality, I think, as do many working mums. So by day, I’m an ombudsman.

I work part-time in Canary Wharf, where I adjudicate on financial services complaints, so write final decisions and provide access to justice to people who otherwise wouldn’t necessarily be able to bring complaints against big banks and, you know, the insurance industry. That sounds like a busy job. It’s a very busy job.

I also manage a team of people who investigate those complaints. I also write, as you’ve just said, and I’m a mum of two. So how did you react to, you’ve got a son, and how old is he? He’s now six.

He’s six, and Evie has got a diagnosis of autism. So tell me a little bit about the diagnosis process, and how did you react? So from the age of two, Evie had started a nursery from the age of one, and from the age of two, consistently. Every parent’s evening, every term we report, I was constantly being told his behaviour was very challenging.

He wasn’t listening, he wasn’t paying attention, he wouldn’t transition between activities, he just wasn’t doing what he was told. And I at that time just thought, well, he’s a two-year-old boy, you know, what do you really expect? But it became from just parents’ evening and six-weekly termly meetings every day. Every day I’d get a call, he did this today, he threw a book, he snatched this, we put him in a timeout, he came out five times.

And they had raised a question about whether he might have a mobility issue from observing him in a music and movement class. So I arranged a occupational therapist to observe him. She didn’t find any mobility issues, but she did suggest that perhaps I should just continue monitoring and seeing if there’s anything else.

I’d also noticed that he had some speech sound difficulties, so I sought out some speech and language therapy, and he had some delayed speech for certain sounds. So you’re quite active then, already from an early age at two, because a lot of parents wouldn’t know about speech and language therapy, they wouldn’t know about OT. I definitely didn’t know where to go, lots of research, lots of questioning, lots of ringing the wrong place.

But I was determined to source whatever support I needed to give to him. And then from that, I also then arranged to see a clinical psychologist because the feedback was just getting worse and worse. The nursery started videoing him with my permission and showing me him having a meltdown in the class.

And at no point really was anyone talking about autism or potential special needs or anything. And so it was really left to me to investigate why he was doing this. So did you notice any of these behaviours that they were talking about at school in the home setting? Sometimes, but not to the same degree.

So maybe it’s just me being a mum, perhaps, looking at it through a different lens, but I saw what I thought was just a toddler experiencing the terrible twos. And obviously he’s your first child as well, so you haven’t got anyone to measure him against. So talk to me a little bit about the biggest challenges that you received.

So how old was he when he finally got the diagnosis? So he had started reception at school, and so he was four and a half when we got the diagnosis. So that was two and a half years of several medical appointments with several professionals. So did you do all this privately so it didn’t go through the NHS? Because there’s a lot of parents who wait for years and years and they just don’t want to wait and then they end up maxing out credit cards or getting a loan or whatever it is so that they can try and get the support that they need.

So I did have some private cover through my work, but it didn’t cover things like the occupational therapist and several of the other medical appointments. It did cover the one with the paediatrician, but once you have the diagnosis, then that’s it. So it did cover that appointment, but it didn’t cover all of them.

I was having sleepless nights and so we just ended up paying for it. Okay, so once the diagnosis was given, how did your husband and yourself cope? So my husband’s a very measured man. He’s very kind of practical and also just kind of so it’s just a very solemn person.

So he kind of absorbs. I, on the other hand, just cried for days. I felt, to be honest, I felt devastated.

Even though I knew something wasn’t quite right, it just still felt like a brick had hit me when the paediatrician said to me, I can confirm that your son is autistic. And I was really afraid. I couldn’t sleep.

I kept thinking, what’s going to happen to him? Will he, because he was having quite extreme meltdowns at that time, is he ever going to function in society? Will he ever have a job? Will he find love? Will he have a relationship? What will happen when I’m not here? And all of these kind of future related thoughts that just used to keep me up at night. And I felt like nobody understood. I had no experience of autism, no one in my family.

Have you ever heard of it before? Only in terms of its name. Okay. If you’d asked me at that time to describe what I thought it was, I would have got that wrong probably.

I didn’t know enough about it. And I certainly didn’t know anybody, even in my wider circle, who had an autistic child. So what helped you then through? Obviously, this was a challenging time for yourself.

What did you do? So I think one of the biggest things for me was reaching out. There was a fantastic lady called Lynn who ran a parenting course for parents of autistic children near where I live. So I enrolled on that.

It was like an eight week course and it was fantastic, partly because of the really stripping down back to basics, what is autism? How can it manifest? But also the support network from the other parents. I was just going to say, you would obviously then met other parents on that course, so you could chat together, share stories, share strategies that might have worked. Absolutely.

And even now, I still, if I have a really tough time, I know that I can reach out to them and we’re on a WhatsApp group. We support each other. We celebrate each other’s children’s achievements.

And it’s a type of support which isn’t replicated anywhere else in my life. I have so much support around me and I’m so grateful, but it’s a support with the base level of understanding of where I’m coming from. So that was a huge support for me, but also I think just learning to be kinder to myself, accepting that sometimes I’m going to get it wrong and that’s okay.

It’s a journey for me, it’s a journey for my son and our whole family. Knowing that I actually do need to look after my own wellbeing because for me to serve every well, I need to look after myself. And I think I was just running myself ragged, literally staying awake until I couldn’t stay awake anymore, researching articles on autism.

And the problem with Google, you’ve put something in, you’re going to have all manner of things. I know, and it can be quite overwhelming. And then there’s all these various different strategies of working with children with autism.

And then you’re sort of thinking to yourself, well, which one do I choose? How do I know what’s going to be good for Evie? How do I know what’s not going to be so good for Evie? What was he like with his brother or sister? He’s got a younger brother. Okay, so how’s the relationship together? It’s quite challenging, to be honest. So his brother’s three, and he does love him.

And he’s fantastic at sort of teaching him things. Evie loves retaining facts, learning facts, sharing facts. Things which are more imaginary are a real struggle for him.

So he will teach my younger one facts, but then if he gets it wrong, he’s a very harsh teacher. So he’ll be quite rude, actually, to him and shout at him. Equally, if he’s frustrated, if my younger one tries to see what he’s doing, he’ll get out at him.

So it means that all the time, one of us, my husband and I will supervise their play, because it can descend into chaos quite quickly. And what about school? How’s he getting on at school? He’s definitely doing better since he obtained the diagnosis because I obtained an EHCP for him in conjunction with the school. What was that process for you? It was really stressful.

It is stressful. It was really stressful. So did the process, how was it? It was successful.

It was? Oh, that was good. It was successful. But it’s a new language, isn’t it? Definitely.

And I actually became really upset when I was writing. I felt all the negative things about my son into a document. You know, there was so much positivity as well, but actually, you really had to talk about kind of the worst case scenario for all of those things.

So the incontinence, the meltdowns, the aggression, all of that. And it just painted a really sad picture. Yeah.

And the things are that you really need to… When you put a lot of positive things as well in the EHCP plan, sometimes it can stop the funding, which a lot of parents… Someone listening in hasn’t heard of what an EHCP is. It’s an education and health care plan where multidisciplinary teams get together and assess your son basically. So it could be education, it could be health, it could be social care.

So we’re going to talk a little bit more about the diagnosis of your son and how it’s impacted on your family. And we’re going to talk a little bit about the resistance in the Asian community. If that’s all right with you.

Absolutely. So we’re on All Things Autism. If you’d like to be one of my speakers, you can contact me on the charity website.

Just to remind you, it’s www.annakennedyonline.com. You’ve got a blog, I believe, Rina. And what’s the website address for that? It’s my name. So it’s Rinaanna.com. So that’s R-E-E-N-A and then A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N.

One N. One N, sorry. It’s A-N-A-N-D and .com. That’s correct. Okay.

So thank you very much, everyone. And we’re just getting ready to talk for the second half. Welcome to Women’s Radio Station.

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Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we’re at Women’s Radio Station, supporting women’s wellbeing. And we’re talking All Things Autism. Women, the possibilities are endless.

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We empower those living in rural areas with media that transforms how they access, own and share information. To find out more and be part of this movement, come check out our website at media mattersforwomen.org Hello, this is Anna Kennedy. We’re talking all things autism.

We’re live in Covent Garden and it’s a lovely sunny day. My guest today is Rina Anand. Before I go over to Rina, just going to talk about the summer holidays are here and the children are off school.

And it always used to make me laugh when my boys were off school and everyone used to say, oh, hope you have a great summer. Hope you have a great time and it really can be quite stressful because obviously you can’t keep to the structure of what’s happening at school. But I’ve discovered some great t-shirts that are out there.

So you don’t have to keep explaining yourself. So Born Anxious is a clothing label to help children and adults with autism. So Born Anxious is a homegrown clothing label set up by Kelly, mother of Oscar, an autistic child living in Herne Bay in Kent.

Born Anxious raises awareness of autism and invisible disabilities in two ways. It can be worn to inform or it can be worn to support. And another one I discovered was autism threads that came to our Autism Export Bruno University, which we’ll be doing again next year, by the way.

And that’s autism threads. So that’s raising awareness and supporting families. They’ve got t-shirts, clothing and accessories that raise awareness and support families.

So it’s www.autismthreads.co.uk. So they’re great. Angelo has got both t-shirts from each of the sites and they’re just something useful that they can wear that, so you don’t have to keep explaining to people if there’s a problem. So Reena, can you tell me a little bit about what your experience is in the Asian community of autism? So how was it when you started sharing with people about your son’s diagnosis? So, I mean, it might help.

I suppose just to understand my own background. I’m an Indian Gujarati, British-born, but my father is from Gujarat in India. My mother is also a Gujarati, but she was from East Africa.

And so what I found… Well, one of the reasons, as I mentioned earlier, that I didn’t know anybody who had autism or nor had I had any exposure is because in the community, we just don’t talk about it. It’s just not acknowledged as something which can affect our children. And that kind of made me feel that I didn’t have anyone to really turn to within the community to talk about this.

I could tell that when I started talking about it, it made people very uncomfortable. They didn’t know what to say. And I had a mixture of reactions from my close family.

I had denial. Oh, don’t be silly. There’s nothing wrong with him despite having a medical diagnosis.

I had the, don’t worry, whatever’s wrong with him, we’ll take him to India and we’ll find a doctor that will fix it. Yeah, I’ve heard that before. And I also had, look, just don’t worry about it.

Don’t do anything differently. God will fix it. It will all be fine.

Okay, right. So I had this whole mixture of reactions and it was through really a lot of the support that I received kind of outside of the Asian community that has empowered me and has really driven my ambition, which is why I’m here today, to promote conversation in the Asian community so that we can best serve our autistic Asian children and wider. Yeah, we were chatting about some of my volunteers that, you know, I found it quite difficult actually within the communities that, and it’s not only the Asian community, I’ve spoken to people in Italy, I’ve spoken to people in Ireland, whether it’s a taboo subject.

Well, you know, you can’t talk about it because there’s shame on the family, especially if they’re boys as well. So we went to a temple in Southall and we gave a talk to a hundred women. And I always ask at the beginning of my talk, has anyone in the audience got a child who’s on the autism spectrum and no one put their hand up? And I said, does anyone know anyone or friends with anyone? Nobody put their hand up.

So I’ve continued with my talk. And then Tally, who’s one of my volunteers came and she spoke about her experience and she was a little bit upset because she was told that her son was no longer welcome in the temple because he was making noises. So she felt that she wanted to speak because her mum was in the audience as well and her mum wanted to share with everybody.

So after we did our talk, we had, you know, a really lovely evening with all these ladies and then as we were going out the door, I think it was about eight or nine months run after us, some were crying saying, thank you so much for sharing. We feel we can’t share about our sons or our daughters. Please come back.

We’re having a meeting next week at the temple. Would you mind speaking? So we said yes. So off we went to the temple the following Sunday and the men were on one side of the room and the ladies were on the other side.

And after we spoke, so many people came up to us and chatting, asking a little bit more about autism. We went to share a meal with them. So their parents said that you don’t know what that, just that little talk has done for us.

So they’ve come to some of our events now. So they feel that they can chat about it, that it’s not a taboo. So I just find it really sad that you can’t share that your son or your daughter has autism.

And the reason is why it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I just can’t get my head around it. So what about your friends? Because I’ve spoken to some moms where they’ve lost friends and I just say to them, well, they’ve kind of been real friends if they’re not supporting you now.

So what about your friends? We’ve not had that. I think probably because we’re second generation Asians. So my generation is just a lot more open and understanding.

But also mostly young professionals as well. So our mindset is different. But I think it is very much something which affects the first generation of Asians who came to this country, that there is a general lack of awareness and education around autism.

And I think that comes from different things. Partly the awareness is to do with shame. And that’s something that was also borne out in the National Autistic Society’s diverse perspectives research that there was this, we don’t want to talk about it.

We don’t acknowledge it. And that’s quite a prevalent kind of attitude to have. And by not seeking out that support and not obtaining that education, then it’s actually also the statistics show that BAME children, Black and Asian minority ethnic children are less likely to have positive outcomes because they’re not getting their assessments early enough or they’re not even going for the assessments because that acknowledgement is just not there.

And I think at a far deeper level, because I don’t want to be critical of the community, the community is amazing. When my mum passed away, I was a carer of my terminally ill mum at the age of 22. And we have this 13 day morning period.

People literally took that time off work for 13 days and lived in my house to help us arrange everything. When you’re sick, someone will turn up at your house with food for you and your family. So there’s so much love and commitment in the community, but we just need to be having this conversation.

And I think a big part of it is actually when a lot of these first generation Asians came to this country, and I’m talking only from really my own family experience, but my experience has been that they’ve come from extreme poverty and they’ve come here and they’ve had to survive and create opportunities for their children to create financial stability. And it was a really hard slog and credit to my parents for doing it, but I know how difficult it was for them at the time. And I think partly because of that, that survival instinct and that wanting us to be settled in British society, the whole emotional dialogue, just emotional intelligence, the language of empathy and talking about feelings just hasn’t evolved with us as a community.

Yeah, that’s a little bit like the Italian community, like with my mum and dad. Yeah, they had a hard slog when they came over here. Yeah, so.

So tell me about you started writing a blog, so what’s your blog about and when did you start this? So I had started some life coaching as in receiving it from an amazing lady who I reached out to because I thought perhaps I needed a career change, but I didn’t want to make any big decisions without thinking them through, commitments, mortgages and all the rest of it. And I said, I’m not sure about my career. And she said, I don’t think this is about your career.

I was like, oh, really? And then we did a lot of work on me and the language I use when I talk to myself. And actually what my hopes and ambitions were and what I had wanted to be as a teenager was a writer and a journalist. That was always my ambition.

But then when the time came to make the choices, partly because I was so keen to fulfill my parents’ dreams. I was the first person in both sides of my family to become a lawyer and to have an opportunity to study at such a prestigious university. I took that and then I followed that path for a few years and became a lawyer.

So the whole writing dream kind of just was parked. And I didn’t realize that it was an unfulfilled dream until I started this coaching. And I discovered that I do really love to write.

But it so happened, though I knew that, I didn’t really do anything about it. And I had a tumour in my knee, which I didn’t know about last year. And I had to have emergency surgery on it.

And it left me for five weeks off work and I couldn’t sit at my desk and work from home. So I was bedridden and started writing my blog. So I thought, OK, I’ll write about my experiences as an autism parent in the Asian community and I’ll write about issues affecting the Asian community that I’ve experienced such as stigma around autism, around other issues like grief, miscarriage and other topics.

So how did you feel when you wrote your first article and then you shared it? I had a bit of a panic attack to be mild. When putting myself out there was a really huge thing. It felt very counterintuitive to the way culturally.

We just don’t talk about these things. When I had a miscarriage, we didn’t talk about it. No one used that word even in my family.

It’s just like put it under the carpet. Yeah, you’ll be fine. We don’t have to talk about it.

That kind of thing. You’ll have another child and you’ll forget all about it. But actually you need to talk.

Yeah, I have for myself. So I think what was amazing was the reaction. And what I realized was that actually I was serving people by putting myself out there because by talking about these issues openly, people were coming to me saying thank you so much for talking about this.

I’ve experienced this and just feeling like they had permission to talk about their own experiences. So I’ve done a lot of kind of it’s just supporting people signposting them to resources. I’ve used anything I know.

I’m just happy to just to share it with others. So can you remind people if they want to look at your blog and how often do you post? I try to post between every three to four weeks. So my blog is reenaandand.com R-W-E-N-A-A-N-A-N-D.com Okay, so people can check it out.

And if they want to ask any questions can they contact you in the blog? That’s great. So again, thank you to Reena for sharing that. And if you’d like to be one of my speakers on All Things Autism, please contact me via the charity website, which is www.annakennedyonline.com or on Twitter at Anna Kennedy One, Anna Kennedy Online on Facebook.

And Anna Kennedy OBE on Instagram. For more information, I’m Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone.

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For more information on how you can sponsor a show, go to womensradiostation.com. Women’s Radio Station supporting women’s wellbeing. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy and we’re talking all things autism. We’re live.

We’re in Covent Garden. So yesterday, when people were watching Katie Price, you saw an amazing young man called Daniel Docherty and he is one of my new ambassadors that lives in Ireland. We’re actually going to be going to Cork in September, September 22nd I believe and we’re going to be giving a talk and Daniel’s going to be singing.

So if you’re interested, and you live near Cork, come along and say hello. Come and listen to Daniel. Daniel wrote me a little piece for the charity website.

He’s excited about being an ambassador and what he’s saying is, my name is Daniel and I have an autism spectrum condition. I’m 19 years old and I live in the southeast of Ireland. I’m the island ambassador now for Anna Kennedy Online, an incredible organisation that strives to improve those lives of those living with autism.

My dream is to become a famous singer and an autism awareness advocate. I study psychology in Waterford Institute of Technology and have completed my first year passing all of my exams. I am keen interest in story writing and poetry too.

I was diagnosed in March 2014 at the age of 14 and it was a moment of relief for me as I always knew deep down I was quite an eccentric individual compared to other people. One of my special interests is music and in particular singing and what a voice he has got. He’s amazing.

So if you get the chance, check out the charity website and you can see Daniel. So my guest today is Reena. Thank you very much Reena for coming along and we’re going to be talking now about how is Eppie’s diagnosis affected? How you parent and approach situations especially with his younger brother.

So I think one of the things I hadn’t really anticipated was that my younger son who idolizes Eppie would copy his behaviour. So I couldn’t have two different parenting styles because I can’t explain to my three-year-old why he’s being treated differently to his older brother. So it’s really forced me to think about how I parent them what I measure and in a way I’m really grateful that Eppie’s diagnosis has prompted me to do that because I think I would have probably fallen into the way I was parented by my parents which is a very kind of obedience led.

It’s very hierarchical. You obey your parents. You do as you’re told.

I wasn’t mistreated or anything. No, I totally get where you’re coming from. But I take a much more collaborative approach with both of them.

So for example, about a month ago we sat down and had a family meeting with my three and six-year-old and I said we need to set some family rules about what is acceptable and what isn’t. And that means if one of you hits the other then there has to be a consequence. So it’s not that for example Eppie has to get more latitude just because he’s autistic he needs to understand that there are consequences.

It might mean he gets a few more warnings but he can’t not have any consequences for his behavior because it just you know to the eyes of my three-year-old it’s just complete injustice. So I’ve had to be more mindful and that’s great and we’ve worked together very much as a team in my family. Has he been working? Definitely.

Okay, so what sort of things so parents are listening because I get quite a few parents who’ve got children just been diagnosed. Can you give an example of something that might have really worked well for both of them? So we have, it’s really basic. Yeah, sometimes the basic things are the things that work.

So I have a chalkboard in my kitchen with both their names on it and if they break one of the family rules we only have about three or four family rules because too much is just not going to work either. So one is no rudeness, no fighting and a couple of others along the same sort of thing. But if you break one of the family rules there’s a strike on the board.

If you get three strikes that’s no cartoons at the end of the day, no iPads, no books before bed and they both at the moment love reading. So it means brush your teeth straight to bed, lights out, that’s it. And they love their cartoons at the end of the day and they love their books.

So at the moment it’s working. I’ll have to probably upgrade as they develop. And what might be good as well is that if they’ve been particularly good in a week that they get a treat towards the end of the weeks or something that they might like to do or somewhere they might like to go.

So with the summer holidays coming up, are they into outdoor activities? Definitely. Eppie’s really, really active. In fact, I have to, he needs physical activity to keep him occupied and also to just dispense his energy.

So he does gymnastics every Friday. I think stuff like that is great for our kids, performing arts, gymnastics, anything that can help them focus but also can help them get rid of their stress. The gymnastics club are fully aware of Eppie and what kind of support he needs and when he needs to go to the toilet and various things like that.

And so they run a club, which he does go to for a few days in the summer as well. And because he knows them, he knows the children attending, he’s quite comfortable going there. Oh, that’s good.

But equally, we just do lots of swimming. He loves climbing. So there’s a wall climbing place near us.

We’ll go there and he’ll spend happily just keep climbing up and down things. I think the thing is, if you can speak to the place where it is that you’re going to, whether it be a gym, wherever it is, and just say, look, this is my son. These are his difficulties.

Is there anything that you can do to help him make it more pleasurable? And sometimes they can be quite, you know, they can do stuff to help. And if you don’t ask, you don’t get, that’s my motto. So it may not be that they’ve got something written on their website, but sometimes you can.

And now there’s a lot of places, for example, you know, like the Lion King might be coming out and you can see autism-friendly screens. You can see trampoline places where they say on a Sunday, sometimes it might not be the best time, but between 9 and 10 in the morning, it’s autism-friendly. So, you know, if you type in on Google, there’s so much information out there and just try it out.

But if it doesn’t work, try something else. So, but, you know, there are things out there. You just got to keep looking because I’ve spoken to a lot of parents where they find after-school clubs quite difficult for something for their children to do.

I think personally, performing arts is a great way for our kids. I’ve spoken to so many children and adults that have actually taught themselves how to play the piano from YouTube, watching YouTube, drawing from watching, you know, certain things on YouTube. But I think there are ways, but you just got to keep looking and keep researching and just find what suits your son or your daughter.

I think I’m also a lot more, I make choices based on what will serve him. So that might mean we don’t go somewhere as a family, say, for example, to a prayer ceremony or something, because I know that’s going to create anxiety because he will be required to sit for about two hours in quietness, which he just can’t do. Well, I wouldn’t like to sit for two hours.

So, you know, but I’m so much, I feel fine and quite bold in saying this is not suitable for my son and you have all my good wishes and either we won’t attend or one of us will attend. So I don’t try and hide it or say that he’s ill or anything like that. I’m very honest that actually with his autism it’s just not appropriate for him to go and even things like the supermarket shop, we don’t take him because it’s really… It was a nightmare for me with both my boys.

I had one going one way, one going the other way, one trying to straighten the complete boxes and it was just like which way to go. It just wasn’t a pleasant experience. So, and I find that when you take the choice, when you make the choices, rather than feeling that you have to react or you have to conform, actually you’re empowering yourself and you’re putting your child first and it’s fine to say no to stuff if it just doesn’t serve them because ultimately their well-being and their happiness comes first.

Talking about supermarkets. Have you seen that advert where there’s a mom that’s on the floor and she has a tantrum and the child’s just looking at her. I would have loved to have done that in the supermarket.

I confess to doing that at home at times. Well, sometimes you have got to de-stress. You can only take so much.

So you will talk a little bit about what’s for you in the next quarter but I always like to know what people do to relax. So let me talk about, how about training? What about training in schools? Do they have autism training? I’ve spoken to some schools that have had no training whatsoever or they’ve been given just half a page sheet of some information on there. I know it is getting better and it’s very much where you live.

So what is it like where you are? So luckily, so every goes to a mainstream school. Okay. Who are very inclusive.

I think generally from the people I’ve spoken to and even this school in particular, autism training is just not something which beyond initial teacher training is something which is given to teachers. So it’s whatever they have learned is usually a very long time ago, potentially outdated. Probably.

And I don’t think it features as part of their strategy in how they manage children with autism. So when I noticed that at my science school, I also noticed there was an appetite. So I arranged for training to be delivered at this school.

And that’s good. And they were because some of some schools are not quite accepting this and they don’t feel that it should be the parent that’s suggesting this. But so that’s good that they listen to you.

And what sort of training? So strategies mostly. And how autistic behavior might manifest. So it’s not just, you know, so my son was actually excluded from school at the age of four and a half, which for me was heartbreaking.

And that was one of the reasons I did this because I thought you need to understand him. You need to understand why he’s reacting in a certain way. And you need to know how to manage that and preempt it and notice the triggers.

So the training very much was centered around very practical things. And the feedback was phenomenal from the teachers. They were so grateful.

So I am looking to do more of that actually. So there are many other children in the school that have a diagnosis of autism. I believe so.

Yes, they are very inclusive. They’ve got a higher intake of autistic children. Than other comparative mainstream schools.

They also have an inbuilt soft play and sensory room and facilities. Yes, they are an incredible school for that. Oh, that’s good.

That’s good to hear. There’s also something that I have spoken to people about before, which is the autism reality experience, which actually does go into schools and it’s an immersive training experience. And we had them visit at Bruno University about four years ago.

And they’re accused of people wanting to experience what it’s like to have a sensory overload. Teachers, parents, grandparents, autistic adults as well, just to see, you know, what it was that the people were talking about. So if you’re interested in that, please contact Training to Care.

They call the autism reality experience and you can either have the three-minute experience or you can have the 12-minute experience. And it’s becoming so popular that they’ve had to basically set up another bus. So they’ve got about four or five buses and we took it to the first responders team in Essex and the response from it was amazing.

So much so, some of the police ambulance hadn’t shared that they had a son or a daughter on the autism spectrum and they started chatting about it and you could just see the pure relief. So if you’re interested, please check out Training to Care, number two, Care and the autism reality experience. So we’re going on to the next quarter now.

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Join us on Instagram and Twitter at Women’s Radio Station that’s Women’s Radio STN or Facebook Women’s Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programmes. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy and we’re talking all things autism. We’re live in Coburn Garden.

My guest today is Rina Anand. Before I go back over to Rina, at the weekend I was with my charity champions Dawn and Keith Avery and Aston Avery was one of my ambassadors and we were planning for the charity celebrity football match which is going to be happening at the end of August. So we have celebrities and we have the charity team which is mainly made up of dads who’ve got kids on the spectrum who want to play football.

So why not? This is about our fourth year now that we’ve been doing it and we’ve been supported by Bowers and Pitsy Football Club in Essex. So if you want to come along it’s on Sunday the 25th of August. It’s at the Bowers and Pitsy Football Club, the Len Salmon Stadium, Pitsy in Essex and come along and have some fun.

The Autism Reality Experience Bus is going to be there as well on the day. I’m actually going to be working with some prisons and some of the governors are going to be there and they want to go through the Autism Reality Experience as well and it’s all about spreading awareness, spreading acceptance. There’ll be lots of fun stalls there as well, bouncy castles, you name it, it will be there.

So please check it out. It’s on our charity website and it’s in Essex. So Reena, what is next for you? A big question.

More writing. Okay, the response has been incredible from people and you know I just, I want to continue to support people to continue to give a voice. In the Asian community, to encourage dialogue about autism to make the uncomfortable comfortable.

So what sort of, so when parents contact you, say moms, do you ever get dads contact you as fathers? Yes, yes, yes. So what sort of things do they ask you? Sometimes. Without being sharing personal information.

No, that’s fine. I’ve had some parents who say, I really respect what you’ve written about autism in the Asian community. I personally have taken the choice of excluding myself from the community altogether because I don’t feel that it’s serving my child.

And obviously it’s every parent’s choice. But for me, I would love to create, there is so much goodness in the Asian community, so much love and unity. I would love to create more awareness so that people feel comfortable about saying this is my child, they’re autistic, this is what you can do to support me, to support them and treat them like as they deserve to be treated.

Have you ever considered writing a book? I have thought about it. I would love to. Something which charts parents’ journeys, the struggles, but really also talks about the successes they’ve had with their children, what strategies have worked because from every autistic, every parent of an autistic child I’ve spoken to, the story is completely different.

And there is so much, I wish I had had a book like that when I got Evie’s diagnosis because I really didn’t know where to turn. So yes, a book potentially. I also feel like there’s a documentary in me that wants to come out that kind of goes around the Asian community and talks to people about their attitudes, where they’ve come from and also success stories about parenting in the Asian community with autistic children because there are lots of those too.

I would love to. So I helped with some arranged training for the school. I’d love to keep doing that because it’s not just Evie that’s being served, it’s all the autistic children in the school who can benefit from those interventions and having those strategies known to all of the teachers and helpers.

And often these helpers are parents who just come in to provide a bit of support as well, not just the teaching assistant. So they can all benefit. So why do you think that parents and the community, why do you think it’s such a taboo subject? Do you think it’s shame or do you think they don’t really understand what autism is? I think it’s that.

It’s partly shame. I think where that stems from in my experience is how we define success as a community. And I think from my own parents success was very much anchored in academic achievements.

So I used to dance when I was younger and that was always considered a hobby. It was never something to which anyone would have encouraged me to pursue as a career. That was me as well.

Isn’t that weird? Our story’s been amazing. But it was just not, it’s always that kind of thing. It’s great to keep you occupied, keep you out of not getting up to mischief basically.

But the thing had to be you get your degree, you get your qualifications, you have an esteemed profession, you earn and you have a stable profession and provide for your family. And I don’t blame my family or my community for that at all because they came from such poverty, many of them, that education was the path to financial security. However, it’s massively manifested in how I parent my children.

I’m forever encouraging Evy to do his theatrical productions, his gymnastics, all of that, because I can see in him real potential. And actually, that’s success too. I was just going to say, academic is not the only success.

It’s just practical. You’ve got to look at where the strengths are of our children and our adults. And they’ve got to be happy as well.

There’s so many parents as well that I’ve spoken to that it’s not the GCSEs mean absolutely everything. And it’s just a lot of them may get GCSEs, which is fantastic. And then they’ll go into the workplace and because their social interaction and communication skills are not good, they’re really struggling and it’s just not working for them.

So I personally believe is you’ve got to find where that fine line of happiness doing something that they love but also doing something that they’re going to be good at. Definitely. And I feel quite lucky that I’ve almost found my life purpose, but it was 20 years after and going on a completely different career path that I’ve come back here.

I would love to instill in my children the passion to pursue their life purpose, whatever that looks like for them. So you’ve obviously got the secondary years to come. So indeed.

Yeah, that’s another set of challenges for you. But I think if you plan well in ahead and speak to wherever it is that he’s going to be I think that’s the key really. It’s just like speak to people, plan well ahead because you know your son like you’re working with him 24-7.

So can I just ask, because obviously we’re all about wellbeing for women. What do you do to relax? I always like to speak to mums, autistic women. What do you do to sort of float your boat? So interestingly, I didn’t used to relax until I started coaching and realised that I don’t relax.

And actually I was on a pathway to not a good place if I continued that way. And actually obtaining the diagnosis and all of the energy I’ve put into him, into Evy, and supporting him in various ways has meant that I really need to look after myself. So various things I do.

I love walking. I love boxing. Tell me more about boxing.

Oh, I love it. I go to a box fit class and whatever experience I’ve had that week, there’s always something, but I can just let it out on a punch bag and it’s fantastic. I really highly recommend it.

People who know me would never think I’d do it. I don’t look like I’ve got any kind of boxing strength in me, but really, everyone’s capable and you don’t need any skills to do it. So do it.

So how long are the sessions when you go? An hour. Oh, no. And is it that you are boxing other people or is it that you just have a bag where you just really take the bit of both? Oh, is it? Yeah, about half of my bag and the other half is pad work with a with a with a buddy.

Oh, that’s fine. There’s many women that do it. It’s a women only class.

I would say. Okay. All right, then.

So that sounds exciting because I like to ask people because I’ve had so many people where they talk about they’re like foraging, they like to go to charity shops, they’re like doing yoga, they’re like walking, they’re like drawing and it’s really interesting to see what helps you relax. And sometimes, as you said, a lot of those moms don’t relax because we’re so focused on our children. Like I didn’t relax for 10 years and that was because I was so focused on, you know, set up the school.

I’ve never done anything like that before. It’s the fear factor. You know, I didn’t want it to fail.

I’m very much a person I don’t like failure. I’d like things to be successful and obviously because my sons were there, that was the only thing that they had going for them. So I think as we were chatting as well, we’re having a coffee.

I was talking about how quiet I used to be and how now my sons have given me a voice and I’m quite feisty now and I don’t care who I speak to. It’s just like I can see my end goal and that’s where I want to be. So are you a bit like that? For sure.

And I think, you know, for a long time, I didn’t know how I couldn’t even tell you how I was feeling because I didn’t know. I was so busy doing, doing, doing all the time. There was no thought to how I was actually being.

And, you know, the first time someone said, how are you? I just didn’t know what to answer that. And I had to really look inwards and realize that I need to nurture that and myself from things like how I speak to myself, how I treat myself and also praising myself for the amazing things I do every single day for my children. Yeah, that’s something I find hard.

That’s the praising thing because I find that difficult. I still find it difficult. Now it’s just like I just do, do, do, do and I’m just getting on with it.

So I think culturally that’s something which was, you know, praising yourself is almost borderline was perceived as arrogance, but it’s really not actually. And when I realize that the more I nurture myself, the more I can serve others to the very best of my ability. That sold it for me because then my children are getting the best version of me.

And actually, I shouldn’t feel guilty about booking a dinner with a really good friend that I can just let everything out, you know, the people who I can be completely authentic and honest with. He’ll say, so how are his, how are you coping with every challenges and various things and I can just be myself and you need that therapy. And you need to have fun.

And I discovered that when I did the Strictly three, four years ago, I didn’t know how to have fun. And Robin was saying to me, you’ve got to have fun. Anna, everything’s not about being so focused about what you’re doing.

Even when I was learning the routine, I was just like so on it that I wanted it to be, you know, as best as I possibly could. And he said, you just you need to have fun as well, Anna. So that’s why I found the facial expressions really difficult because obviously I had to be like Betsy in the Charleston.

And then he taught me about fun and we used to have a really good laugh. So I’ll always appreciate Robin for sharing that with me. And I remember when I left, he bought me a big card and it had the word fun written across the top of it and I’ve still got it.

And I thank Robin for that. So I’m so pleased that you’ve come along and spoken to me and shared. And I wish you all the best.

Thank you. You’re going to be writing something for me. So we’re going to be sharing that.

So if people are interested in reading and also you can put your link on about your blog. So if anyone would like to follow you and I’m going through a similar situation. So thank you so much.

Thank you very much for having me. And yeah, I think our stories are quite similar about the way we feel and the culture thing. So yeah.

So again, if you’d like to be one of my guests on All Things Autism, please contact us via the charity website. It’s www.annakennedyonline.com on social media. It’s at Anna Kennedy One on Twitter at Anna Kennedy OBE on Instagram and Anna Kennedy Online on Facebook.

If you want to share any strategies with me that are any successes that your children or adults have achieved. I love to hear success stories. So again, contact me through the charity website.

And if you want to write an article, please contact me again and we’ll put it up on the charity website. Bye everyone. Welcome to the women’s radio station supporting women’s wellbeing.

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