Hello, this is Anna Kennedy. We’re talking all things autism and we’re talking about lots of mental health and wellbeing today as well. So I’ve had a busy, busy, busy last few days actually and actually going to my very first event.

I haven’t been to an event for a little while now. So I was invited to the Born Anxious clothing event. As you know, we collaborate as a charity with Born Anxious and it’s for clothing for children with a disability or adults with a disability.

So I’m an ambassador for that particular clothing line and it’s amazing if you want to check it out. It’s www.bornanxious.co.uk and they had their very first fashion show and it was at the Hilton Hotel in the Canary Wharf and a little Oscar. He’s only five years old and he walked down the catwalk for the first time with his mum who’s the designer.

It was so lovely. He was a bit anxious obviously before he came on. He’s autistic but he did really, really well.

He didn’t want to come off the catwalk which is really funny. And then one of my volunteers and that’s Lucy and Lucy’s only nine years old and her husband or even her brother. Her brother is on Asperger’s Syndrome.

He’s part of that band I’ve been telling you about called Blythe Road. So she walked down the catwalk and it was just such a lovely, lovely afternoon. So I really enjoyed it.

So that went on and then on Friday I met up with DCI Dionne Brown and he has five children and two of them are autistic. He and I have been working together in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police since April. We did an autism awareness raising an acceptance event where I gave a presentation.

My husband Sean spoke about stop and search and Dionne spoke about his experience as an officer but also as a parent of two young children on the spectrum and then two officers, one retired, one still currently in service who are autistic, spoke about their experiences and they set up an autism support group specifically for the Metropolitan Police and since April because of the presentation, oh yes and Harvey Price was spoken about by Katie talking about the law, Harvey’s law and also track and troll and since then, since April, the group has now grown to 450 members. So that’s amazing. So they’ve got their own internal group where they support each other whether they’re a parent or whether they’re an autistic individual.

So we’re going to be doing some more work with them and my husband Sean and DCI Brown have actually drafted Stop and Search for Autistic Individuals, not quite finished yet, a document and we will be sharing more news about that and also in 2019, the London Police launched their own autism alert card scheme and passport. So if you want to check that out, that’s on our latest news charity page, all the information is on there. If you want to click on the link and you want to get yourself an autism alert card and an autism passport.

One of our patrons Tamaya Fife, she has been shortlisted for Miss Junior Teen Great Britain 2022 and Tamaya, if you remember, was on The Voice and she was on Team Will.i.am and she was on The Children’s Voice, The Kids Voice and she’s also been nominated as National Diversity Award for Young Patron. She’s, you know, as I say, she’s one of our young patrons and she’s doing an awful lot of work just at 14 years old and she was also invited to the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as recognition for the charity work that she does. And one of the things that I just wanted to share is that one of our ambassadors and autism consultants Paul Isaac actually put together an article on autism and train travel because now the summer holidays will be coming up and we all know sometimes can be quite stressful taking your loved ones on the train or if you’re an autistic individual.

So he’s written an article about autism and travel on the context of a train station, the potential pieces of a person’s autism and specific information processing challenges. So just to give you a little bit of flavour, it is on the charity website so check out the latest news. So he’s saying about he has face blindness.

So when on a train waiting for a person at the station or a destination, one may struggle with the ability to recognise someone by their face. This is called Proposopagnosia. Some people may need different compensatory strategies to make the connection that they are the person that they know.

So a board that has their name and their person’s name, a familiar piece of clothing such as shoes, earrings or glasses, the sound of the person’s voice, the way in which the person moves such as a gait, walk and stride, tactile and alternative sensory modulation to create associations such as sniffing, tapping and rubbing and he talks about other different difficulties that one may have. So it could be visual perceptual disorders, also talking about personality types, temperament and resilience and also the conclusion. So lots of useful information on there if you’re going to be using the train to go away on days out or to go on a holiday.

So yeah, so we’re always updating the website. One of my charity champions, Marla, who’s a mum of two young people on the spectrum, she updates my website every day with our latest news, couldn’t do what I do without my volunteers. So my guest today is Rachel Williams and she’s married to her best friend and number one bang, Craig.

Craig is a British soldier serving in the armed forces and together they have four children, Christopher, Jacob, Matthew and Ada. Three of the children are on the autism spectrum and to tell the truth, most days I feel like I’m just keeping my head above water, totally winging this motherhood thing day by day. Okay, so here we go.

Rachel Williams, it’s, you’re in the spotlight. Oh my goodness, I never reckon. So thank you, Rachel, for taking the time out to talk to me today.

So before we talk about autism, before we talk about anything to do with all the wonderful things that you’re doing, tell me who is Rachel Williams? Oh, who’s Rachel Williams? Here we go. Well, I actually grew up in Liverpool, even though I couldn’t reside now in Surrey. Okay.

Life was a little bit of chaos growing up by anyone’s standards. We moved around a little bit, so it felt like we made friends and we were settled and then we’d have to get up and you know, we’d move on again and that was it, that was it really growing up until I met Craig and I met him because he’s actually from South Wales, but he was based in Chester at the time. You probably already know, obviously when you’re in the army, you move around quite a bit.

So obviously that’s what’s brought us to Surrey now because that’s where his work has just brought us. I’m currently studying a health science degree and once finished that, the dream really is to go to med school and become a doctor. So I don’t know if you can tell and I actually like to keep quite busy.

So you’re juggling four kids and then also studying as well. Wow. I know.

Yeah, obviously a supermom. Glutton for punishment. I just love all things and that for me, like the gorier, the better, but I just don’t like the sadness that comes with it.

Do you know what I mean? I’m definitely a fixer. I like to fix things, solve problems and you know, just leave people better often. I will found them, you know, like some people say I’m a dreamer, you know, a bit of a believer, like I like to hang on to hope, you know, whether people might think it’s a big deal.

We have to hang on to hope because if we don’t have hope, what have we got? Well, that’s it, isn’t it? And I mean, you know, going through this whole journey, which obviously I will get to, I just truly, truly believe that everything that has ever happened to me in my life, it was to prepare me for this, you know, because I don’t know if I would have been built for it because you’ve just got to have a suited armour on at all times, haven’t you? And I just think, and I truly believe that the universe just has our backs and that everything happens for a reason because it just doesn’t happen by chance. You know what, whether it’s true or not, it’s what gets me through the days, to be honest with you, Anna. How did you adapt before you had your children to army life? Did you find it hard or did you take it to it like a duck in water? How was it for you? I am very resilient, I think anyone who knows me would say that.

A bit like a chameleon, I adapt and blend in well in any situation, which I think, you know, has done me really well in coping with the kids and everyone that comes their way with that. So yeah, we adapted really well, to be honest with you. Okay, so you’ve got four children and three of them on the spectrum and I was going to ask you before your children were diagnosed, had you heard of autism? Did you know any children with autism or autistic individuals? So it’s mad, you know, Anna, because I’ve got an older sister and we’ve had same dads but different mothers.

Right. And her mother has a son and when we would go to her house sometimes, she’d have her little boy there. Okay.

And he’d be running around with no clothes on or anything and I was closer in age to a younger brother than what I was, my sister, there’s like 20 year age gap between us. Okay. And I thought, and I’d always say, why’s he got no clothes on? And honest to God, it was just, it wasn’t a negative experience seeing that as a kid.

I was a little bit in awe of him, like he’s running around this house with no clothes on. He does not care in the slightest and he was just doing his own thing. And I didn’t know what, and I said, why is he doing that? And she says, oh, he’s got autism and it was like, oh, okay then.

And that was it. So I had, I guess I had heard the word, but then that, that was the first and the last time I’d ever heard it. So I didn’t actually know anything of it.

I just knew that my sister had a brother who used to run around with his clothes off carefree in the house. And he had autism and that was it. Okay.

So three of your boys have autism. So when were they diagnosed? Was it quite quickly? Did you have to wait? Did you suspect? So, so can you talk me through it? If you don’t mind, just talk about things that you feel comfortable about. I don’t force anyone to talk about anything.

They don’t want to talk to me about, just talk to me about things that you feel comfortable about the diagnosis process with your three boys. So Christopher is going to be eight in September. Right.

And, you know, over the years, you wear so much stuff, don’t you? I’m sure you cannot fully understand. And one that, there was one comment that really stuck with me that I didn’t really understand at the time, because I only had Christopher. I hadn’t gone on to add more kids at this point.

And some girl at a play group said to me, a love is that if you’ve met a person or a kid with autism, you’ve only met one kid or a person with autism. And I didn’t, I didn’t understand what she’s going on about. I thought, what do you mean? I was like, no, there’s millions of people with autism around the globe.

What are you going on about? It wasn’t. And it wasn’t until we had Matthew, you know, so I’m talking like a good five, six years later. So that comment come back to me.

And I thought, wow, I truly get what she needs now, because the process has been completely different. They’re completely different. And it’s been manic, but with Christopher, he was so he’s, but he was our first son.

And, you know, you just, you, you’ve had this child and Anna, I map this kid’s life out for him. I won’t lie. Okay.

You know, first time period and syndrome, if you want to call it that my kids was going to be this, we were going to do this. We go on holidays and so on and so on and so on. And when I couldn’t do all this stuff that I wanted to do with them, it was a culture shock.

And I was a bit like, oh, wow. And when he was around six months, so still very young, he stayed over at his nanos one night. And I wrote down his routine.

And the next day she hands them back to me. God love her. And I’ll never forget Sarah, the name is, I’ll never forget what Sarah said to me.

She went, my goodness, he stuck to that routine like a tea. And he was only six months old. And I know that’s a bitch.

You know, people may say, Oh, you can’t tell it’s two years to a book by the age of one. I know I could tell. Yeah.

And then I tried taking them to a play group at one time. And some woman came out and she said to me, what is wrong with your child? I’m straight away. This is before any referrals were made or anything like that.

It was a very pivotal moment for me as a first time mum. And I came round and I said, listen, I think there’s something wrong with them. Go away.

I just shut it down straight away. Mother to mother, you just shouldn’t be saying that to me. If anything, you can see I’m struggling.

You should be saying, are you okay? Yeah. So, you know, if anyone’s listening, you know, whether you’ve got a kid on the spectrum or not, if you see a kid carrying on shotgun, please just, just don’t judge. Don’t judge.

In fact, go over to the parents and say, are you all right? Been there, been there. Do you know, do you know what I mean? Yeah. It’s just, you know, it is more the fire and briefly they can’t help it.

And the health visitor come round and she said, are you okay? And whatnot? I said, you know what, actually I said, no, I think there’s something wrong with my kids. I said, I don’t know what wrong with them. And she then said to me, have you ever heard of autism? I said, not really.

And then that’s when she went on, you know, to explain and whatnot. She said, I’m going to make a few referrals. She said, we’d go from there.

And then from that moment, we would get an appointment in left right and center on her. Okay. So it was quite early then.

Yeah. So cause he, he got diagnosed like weeks after the second birthday. And when we got the appointments to do, it was for like all the ology appointments and he was having them like literally every two months.

Okay. And I, and I kept saying to the ology ologist, what’s wrong with them? Why is he having these appointments? And they were like, we need to check. He can hear cause he weren’t speaking.

Okay. But then doing the tests were really hard because he’d be smacking his head off and whatever. And then we had another appointment through like weeks later.

And so when his birthday’s in September, so it would have been around like August time. And they said, um, beginning of October, you’re going to see, um, the pediatrician, but we didn’t know why we were seeing the pediatrician and it was just, you’re going to see the pediatrician. So it wasn’t explained to you what the nothing was explained to us.

And when we came out of the last ology ology appointment, I was crying and I said to my husband, I wish that there was something wrong with his ears because then we could explain what’s going on with him, but he was just nothing. Yeah. But initially for a lot of children where they think that they’re deaf because they don’t speak, they feel like they can’t hear, but yeah, I totally get what you’re saying.

And I was like, what, what is the, I felt really hopeless. What’s the point in these appointments? We’re not getting any wage and not being said to us and this, that and the other. And when we went to see the pediatrician, he, he was there for two minutes.

They were sat behind the screen and I knew what was coming because you just couldn’t take him anywhere. And he was like the Tasmanian devil. It was, it was gut-wrenching.

And at my heart broke, broke for the kids to the point where I had to put a helmet on him so that he was, he wasn’t banging his head, like where he caused injury to himself. Okay. And that was, that was hard because it’s like, why am I doing this? I didn’t even know why I was doing it, but my gut was saying do that cause he might cause a bit of damage to his head.

Okay. Anyway, the pediatrician come out from behind the screen. She went, I’ve seen enough to come into this room with me.

So Craig stayed in the play bed. I went and sat down with the pediatrician. She went through an extensive list of questions and I believe it was called like the disco assessment and very thorough.

I mean, she did not leave a rock unturned, very, very good doctor. She was still in contact with her now to this day, actually. Okay.

And she said, okay, go out and I’ll call you back in. So I was like, okay. She sat me down and she went, your child’s autistic.

I said, well, literally, there was just no two ways about it. And I wasn’t expecting that. No, I feel like I could have been a bit more prepared for that.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And then she came out and I said, listen, fine. You know, I don’t care.

That’s me kids. I need to know like, do you think he will ever speak? Like, because I need to communicate with him because life is really hard. And she said, listen, I’ve seen her go one or two ways.

She said, but he is a bit young. Yes. She said, I’m going to see him again in six months and whatever.

And then as it went further down the line, she actually did tell me that he was never going to speak. She said, Rachel, I don’t think he’s ever going to speak because he’d a lot of speech input as well. And I said to her, I said, you know, I said, you don’t know me.

I said, you’ve told me my kids not going to speak. I said, listen to what I’m about to say. I said, I remember these words.

I will get my child to speak. I said, even if it kills me, I said, you will see my child speak. And she just said, okay, you know, and that was it.

And then the process with Jacob, our second son, who is six in September. Yeah. Anna, it was awful.

I. So what the process was awfully mean? All horrific. Horrific because people, health professionals were then saying to me, you’re just paranoid, Rachel. You’re just looking at the finer details, Rachel.

Stop being paranoid. Relax, Rachel. I have heard parents where they’ve said just because their first child’s autistic, they’re saying you’re looking for too many different signs because of your first son or daughter being on the spectrum.

And it’s just like they need to look at them as an individual. 100 percent. And, you know, I think if I could say, Anna, and to anyone is that, listen, doctors are very smart people.

There’s no two ways about that, you know, and they’re there to help us. But you cannot pull a child in front of the doctor, not say anything, and they know what’s wrong with that child. They are a professional in the medical field, but you lose your child’s parents.

You are a professional when it comes to your child. And the two people have got to work together for this child. Okay.

So that just shouldn’t happen. How long does this take for Jacob then? And a lot longer than what it did for Christopher. Okay.

And the reason being, they thought that you were looking. That weren’t there. Yeah.

They said I was just being paranoid. And obviously, he was under a different pediatrician as well. So what I did is, listen, I don’t like the word now, Anna.

I’m not even going to, I’m not even going to try and sugarcoat that for you. And I just think where there’s a will, there’s a way. Right.

Okay. And you’ve got to be like that with all kids, haven’t you? Yeah. You’ve got to be, yeah, you’ve got to fight the battles because if you don’t speak, no one else is going to do it.

So I got in touch. I got in touch with the Christopher’s pediatrician. Right.

I said, listen, I said, I know what I’m saying. And that’s that. And that’s that someone needs to listen to me.

And she went in and seen him again, like Christopher. And she said, you are completely right. Yeah.

Then I don’t understand why they didn’t put them under the same pediatrician, because obviously to keep the family together. But anyway, yeah, I don’t, I don’t understand that either. But well, I should start with how it went really.

And then, and then he went to the specialist school, the Christopher went to and then the, yeah. And then the school was, we were saying to the school, we’re really struggling with them still. The school then said to us, because it was a specialist school, a school solely for autistic children.

I got to give them a little bit of shout outs. It’s Pom Meadow in Guildford, the absolutely world-class brilliant. And they said to me and Craig, well, you know, he’s responded very well to the autism strategies that we’ve put in place or whatnot, but he’s still like this ball in a China shop.

And I said, do you think he’s got ADHD? And they said, yeah. And then, and then he went on to get diagnosed with ADHD and is now medicated on Ritalin. Okay.

So the more settled would you say? That changed our lives completely, Anna. And I don’t dispute for a second. We’ve been very lucky where that’s concerned because I know that there is sadly some people whose children don’t get on well with some medications or sometimes the children who go on all kinds of medications and none of them seem to work.

But that did change our lives and we are, you know, grateful every day for that. Okay. So did Jacob get diagnosed quite quickly then after Matthew? Do you mean did Matthew get diagnosed? What happened was the health visitor come round again and she did the one year check.

Oh, sorry. When he was younger, when he was around nine months, I said, I think he’s, he’s autistic. I said, he’s got the same look about him like the other boys.

She said to me, I think you’re looking for it. Then at his one year check, she turned round and she said, is he always like this? I said, yeah, but you told me I was being paranoid. She apologized.

We went through the process again. And yeah, he was, he was diagnosed during the lockdown and he’d be three in July. And your fourth child is a little girl, I believe.

Yeah, we got all girl Anna. We got her. What’s her name? Aysa.

Oh, that’s lovely. I like that name. That’s really nice.

Yeah. Christopher, Jacob, Matthew and Aysa. So can I ask how the three, the three boys get along together? Goodness.

Listen, does no one say the same, Anna? If that helps. Oh my goodness. They just, they just have their own little personalities, Anna.

So it’s really like trying to work to work with them all on that. You know, like Christopher is very cool, calm, collective, very attentive. He’s like the dads of the group.

Jacob is like, I envision Jacob when he’s older with a curry and a pint, one of the lads, honest to God. And Matthew, he is just, he’s wild. He’s absolutely wild.

And yeah, they get him. I think the word is. Yeah.

Yeah. But do you know what? I wouldn’t change. I wouldn’t change a thing, to be honest with you.

They get on well. I think the thing is, once our children have been diagnosed with autism and then all the challenges that we have, we discover strength that we never even knew that we had. Yes.

Yes. One of your strengths is you’ve written a book. So tell me a little bit about the book and what prompted you to write the series of books.

Well, and, you know, speaking for myself now, when Christopher was first diagnosed, I was incredibly lonely. Very, very lonely, very lonely. And that’s not because, you know, Craig was going away and we just moved to Surrey because when we moved to Surrey was when we would go and we moved to Surrey when Christopher was one.

So, you know, and I soon realised that the friends around, that were around me, were starting to drop like flies. Yeah. Because I couldn’t do the normal stuff with the manor.

Yeah. I totally get what you’re saying. If we did venture out more, more often than not, it would get too much for the baby.

It’d get too much for Christopher. And of course, he’d just have this meltdown. And you know what? He just went there for it.

And you know what, at the time I was a bit, I was all hurt and upset, but, you know, when I look back on it now, I think I get it. But come on, just be a mace, isn’t it? Yeah, I’ve lost a few friends because of, you know, they were at first, you know, we were like really good friends. And then I went, I remember I went to the party and Patrick used to, he didn’t like it when he used to cut into a birthday cake.

So like the face of the cake, he didn’t want you to cut it. So we, every time we had a cake, we used to have to cut the inside of the cake out and leave the shell so that he could keep that. And because they’d cut the cake, he went into one, it was like, don’t cut the cake.

He was just like, and my friend thought that at that time we didn’t know he had the diagnosis of autism. And she thought he’d ruined the whole birthday party. Never spoke to me again.

But then later on down, quite a few years down the line, she came to work for me at the school. Just like, no. But anyway, but that’s just by the by.

This is your story. But it just reminded me when you said, I thought we was quite close because we were in hospital, we had our babies and all of this. And then it was just, yeah, like you think these are your, these are your girls, aren’t they? Like, nothing is coming in between that.

But then when you don’t fit, they know. Yeah. And it’s very hard, isn’t it? But they do say, you know, Jordan, the way struggles of your life, you will find out.

But for death that it’s not nice, is it? And also, you can have a house full of people like, you know, I totally know what you’re saying, what you’re saying. You’ve got your son, but you still feel lonely. And sometimes you can feel like that, because they’re doing their own thing, even though you’re the mom and all the rest of it.

And it’s just like, you’ve got no one to talk to, as in like a proper woman’s conversation. Yeah, yeah, sure. And obviously, you know, when Craig was away, you would crave for the adult conversation.

But, you know, I think it’s also important to say as well, that during that time, I was also grieving Anna, you know, and I think that we need to normalize saying that. Yeah, because and they wouldn’t understand that. But of course, they wouldn’t they had they had neurotypical kid, they had normal kids.

And I’d be like, well, I’m grieving that. And they’d be like, your son hasn’t died. No, I get that.

But I’m grieving what the, you know, all the fabulous things that you and your children can do that my poor child can’t even tolerate. Yeah, but you’ve got to find different things that they do like that you can enjoy together. So what was your book about? So it started with Christopher, obviously, obviously, the first book was going to the park superhero down, he goes to the park.

And it was literally because I did eventually find a couple of people who were in the same situation as me, the other saying quality over quantity, it just never I never had been more true. And the only thing we could do was go to this enclosed path. Right.

In fact, it’s it’s still here now, because we’re still in the same place. And it’s called the blue park. And it’s the only part that’s got gates to close.

Right. And so, you know, we really come together. So that’s how the books came along, because I just it was then when I really noticed how isolated we were.

And I’m not just talking in social settings or in everyday life. I’m talking about in movies, in books, in programs. And I said to Craig, I just don’t want my children to grow up and say, Oh, I didn’t get to read books with people like me and them.

And it was then I was just determined. I thought, no, you know, the universe is not doing this to my children. I cannot, you know, I can’t stop autism.

I can’t do it. I’m going to do so on the air. And if I can just create a little bit of a solid foundation for them, then you know what, then I’ll I’ll die happy.

Do you know what I mean? How many books have you got in your series? So I’ve got three so far. Don’t ask me which one I like the most, because each one I write, I always think, No, this is the one that I like. But then I go on to the other.

And I’m like, No, no, no, no, it’s not one. It’s that one. So yeah, please don’t ask me.

Don’t ask me. Do you do the illustrations as well? No, I don’t. And so my illustrator is Oh, my goodness, where she’s from has just gone completely out of my adana.

Forgive me for that. And her name is Laura. Okay, she doesn’t live in the UK.

She lives abroad. Okay. She’s from Latvia.

I just remember she’s from Latvia. And we have a really good working relationship, even though we’ve never met. And she’s just in incredible whatever I say.

So this is what I envision. Yeah, just she just does it. And my publisher.

Yeah, the third book was Dan Goes to Dreamland. Okay. And I said to her, this is what I want.

And the publisher he said, Oh, he said the covers a bit wild, isn’t it? I said that’s what I wanted it. Anyway, he passed it on to someone else to have a look at. And they said, wow, that cover is brilliant.

And he said to me, Rachel, I’m so glad you stuck to your guns there, he said because everyone loves that cover of the book. And I thought because I went with me got that. How did you feel when you got your first book in your hand? Oh, goodness, I arranged a range of emotions.

I was very proud that I had done that. Yeah, I did that, you know, like, no help, no nothing. You know, there was a lot of tears, a lot of frustration.

And I actually self published the book first, because I went to a publish and company. I won’t say who, but they said to me, Yeah, we can we can see, you know, we could see the potential, but it’s all autism. And we’re not sure how well it will do.

So when they seen that I’d self published it, and I’d sold all the copies, they then got in touch with me. And they said, we’ll take this on. And I said, Listen, I said, I’m doing this for people like my children, you didn’t believe in me or believe in this book or what it represents in the beginning.

I said on your bias. I need people who I need people who were who were going to really be up front and center. And you was not that person don’t think you can call me and I’m sorry, you’re not what I stand for.

And then Paul came in. And he really does believe in me, we have meetings, he comes to my house when we have all meetings. So, you know, he’s really involved, he’s really learning about autism, he’s being around the kids, and he can see how they’re different, very supportive.

And I think it’s very important that whoever I work with is around my children. Yeah, and believes in what you do. Yeah, 100%.

And I always think if you’re not willing to put up with the chaos, you’re not my person by. Yeah, so if people want to check out it’s www.superherodan, all lowercase.co.uk, I’ll just say that again. So that’s www.superherodan.co.uk if you’d like to look at the books and purchase them.

And also Rachel is on Instagram. So it’s mamawill, so mama, M-A-M-A-will, W-I-L. We’re also going to be having an article of Rachel’s on the charity website.

So if you miss it, and sometimes I know you haven’t got a pen or whatever. So it’s www.annaKennedyonline.com, just check it out and you’ll be able to look at the books. And if you want to purchase them, fantastic.

So we’ve got a lot to get through yet, Rachel, and time is flying by. So why is it important for autistic children and individuals to be represented in literature generally? I know we sort of touched on it a little bit, but is there anything else you want to embellish on? Well, I mean, Whitney Houston says it the best, isn’t she? Children really are the future. So you know, if we start making children’s books that only ever so slightly gently raise awareness, you don’t have to ram this stuff down children’s throats.

But you know, we’ve got books about animals. We’ve got, you know, Marvel and so on. Why can’t we just have a normal story book with a happy ending and the main character in it just so happens to be autism? Not big, not fancy.

There you go. And you know, there’s a lot of the literature now I’ve written here, you know, that the superhero is non-verbal. I wanted to invite questions to the younger children, you know, and I want kids to say, mummy, why doesn’t he speak for the one to say, oh, that’s because he’s autistic, all about communication.

And I really think it starts with the next generation, you know. Yeah, I remember when I was taking Angela around the park, there was a little girl, Angela was an adult and that we always go to the same parks because we know what works for us. And there was a little girl, she was about five or six.

And I’ve seen her a few times as we’ve walked around the park because you tend to see the same people because you go at the same time and all this sort of thing. And then I remember we went to get our sausage sandwich and my cafe latte. And this little girl said to him, what is that boy? She called him.

She said, I like the sounds that he makes because Angela makes his little sounds. She says, I love them. So she said, we’ll go and ask.

So she came up to me and she said, can I say hello? I said, oh, this is Angela and he’s autistic. So anyway, after that, she just wave, Angela, you know, type of thing. And it’s just something like that to be included.

You know what I mean? I just thought she’s little, you know, she’s judged, didn’t judge him. She just wanted to know why did he make those noises? And she liked the noises that he made. Well, exactly.

And I think that’s what it’s all about. And, you know, people, kids are so resilient, aren’t they? And they’re just like, you know, they don’t judge. So why, why can’t we do that? Why is there not more of that? Yeah, definitely.

So do you think that your books are going to help with acceptance and understanding? And can I just ask as well, what age range is the books for? Well, definitely from primary school. I mean, my young, my, my son, Jacob, he’s in reception. And he’s five and he’s loved the books from, from the age of four.

I’m not honest, honest to Garthana. I look at him and I just think you’ve killed me because he is on, he’s my number one fan. He’s so proud of these books.

And I just think, do you know what? I’ve done it. Whatever I wanted to do, you will fulfill that, you know? Yeah. So you definitely feel that it helped with acceptance and understanding.

And would you say that your children are treated differently in society? What would you like to change? If you had a magic wand and I’d say, here you go. What would you like to see change? The people were just accepting, you know, that they didn’t look funny if, you know, they’re doing, you know, making a little noise or they weren’t branded as naughty. You know, that the people just judged less.

I totally get what you’re saying. And can I just ask, do you take your books into schools and, and I know it’s difficult because obviously you’ve got three kids under eight, but have you ever sort of done talks and assemblies or anything like that? Yeah, I have. So Pom Med’s out.

They’ve just changed our kids lives. They went, they went there from the age of two when I’ve done a lot. And every time I get a new book, they’re always the first people that I go to.

Okay. And I held a World Book Day thing and we did this, like this right and way sharp. And then I went and read the book into assembly.

And then I went to some of the classes and then they have like a room for more severe children, you know, who are like paralyzed or in wheelchairs that need more handling and whatnot. And I said, Oh, you know, like, can I help out for the rest of the day? And, you know, be in there with them and take part in the sensory stuff. So, yeah, I do that.

Some, some schools, they, they either want to or they don’t, or they’re not really that bothered by it, or they don’t see the point in it, or they’ll say it’s not part of the curriculum, but that’s what it is. When you read the books out to the children at the school, what sort of questions do they ask? Because when I give talks and I’m going to schools, obviously it’s a bit harder now to go into schools with everything that’s been going on with COVID because half the kids there, half the kids are not there and you know what I mean. But they do, they are very interested and they do ask a lot of questions.

So, do you get what sort of questions do they ask you about the book? Well, sometimes they say like, why is he wearing headphones? Is he listening to music? You know, is he doing this or you know, is he doing that? Why is he, and in one of them he’s carrying a sponge round with him because at one point Christopher was walking around the sponge in his pocket. But you know what it’s like, Hannah, if that was his comfort at the time, we were nice to take that away from him if he’d got him over the doorstep. Yeah, definitely.

My house was a blue breaker, just a simple blue brick and he had to have, and if he lost the blue brick, I don’t know if that was like that for you, but I had to buy a few in the end because when he lost the blue brick, it was just so stressed. With Patrick, when he was little, it used to be Thomas the Tank Engine. I’d take Gordon around with him because he liked Gordon the best because he’d kill me now because he’s 30 years old.

Oh God, love him. He used to say, I like Gordon the best because he’s got angry wheels, and I never used to figure out what the angry wheels were, but it was because they had a lot of steam that came out of the wheel. They were angry.

That’s so funny. All children’s interpretations of stuff really funny. They can be, yeah, they really can.

But you know, saying that with Ada, obviously she’s she’s at one in July, but I actually bought three blankets today because I thought if she gets attached to that, I don’t want them not to be sold anymore and they go missing and I can’t find it. Please can you put this out because this thing you can’t get them in the shops anymore or items of food, you know, this particular, and especially when McDonald’s were not selling, you know, when we went through lockdown, because a lot of autistic like nuggets and chicks. And then in the end, apparently I didn’t know this, but corn nuggets taste very similar to chicken nuggets.

So this went into, asked if she could have just the sleeves of the McDonald’s so she could stick this corn nuggets. Well, I, that is, God love them all. But listen, I’m not endorsing Aldi’s, but at the minute they are selling the Nachof McDonald’s chicken nuggets for anyone who can’t get to a Maki’s, get to Aldi’s.

Oh, okay. Right. That’s good.

Yeah. Oh, thanks for that. So let’s talk about, this is something that we spoke about briefly before you came on to chat to me.

It’s about the system and what can we do better. But we were talking about transport, which is really key for a lot of families. Because I know so many families that, you know, you can’t find the right type of school and if you do, they’re not close by home and then you’ve got three kids and one kid goes to this school and one kid goes to this school.

So there’s just no way you can split yourself into three. Yeah. So transport is key.

So I believe you had a bit of a problem with transport. Yeah. And in September, I’m going to be back to square one, actually, because I am going to have three kids in three different schools.

So yeah, the transports, the nearest school that was suitable for Jacob at the time was like six to 10 miles away. And he was already in receipt of transport. And we used this transport system for years because Christopher went to that school also.

You’re right. One day they didn’t turn up. I’m stood there, the kid, the poor kid was waiting there with his bags and I texted her and says, well, where are you? She said, oh, he’s not got transport anymore.

Oh, no. News to me. I rang a query.

So it was in the queue and say, oh, in a week’s time, you’re not going to have transport. Oh, that’s terrible. Yeah.

Listen, give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the council assumed that the transport team would have told me, but listen, no, and maybe vice versa, but they didn’t. But it’s like that with everyone when it comes to send kids, isn’t it? And they said that because he wasn’t in reception, because he was like preschool years, because the the school is a special school for autistic children, Palmetto and Guilford.

And it was from ages age two to 19. And they said he’s not entitled to it. But then the loophole was because I sat down with the head teacher and I was like, what? What the hell? This is putting so many of us at a disadvantage.

You’re literally saying telling us to do something with our hands tied behind your back. Why are you making this more difficult for us than it already is? And they just said that they changed the rules. They’re no longer entitled to it, but you have a great opportunity to challenge us.

I just can’t believe they said that. I know you said that to me earlier, but I just thought, what were they thinking? And he said to me, just so I can take it off the box, you definitely can’t walk there. I just thought these people are not okay.

They’re out of touch. And the first thing I say to these people when I’m placed in such a position, which unfortunately, Anna, it’s more often than not, I say to them, you don’t have, you either have a child, but you don’t have a child with additional needs because you would not be sat there thinking, yeah, all right, I’m going to make this call. And I’m going to think it’s really okay to say this, or you do when you’ve really got some nerve.

I think the thing is, as well, with a lot of the special educational needs people, they don’t know our children. They’ve never met them. They don’t even know what they look like.

They’re just making decisions from the desk, aren’t they? And it’s just like, they’re just like a number, aren’t they? Oh, next, because they’ve got like, You know, Anna, one thing, honest to God, you know, I would, you know, what can the system do better is what I’m going to say. There’s not enough send schools. And the send schools that are all around, they’re now getting too full.

And they’re too, too far in between the, you know, off an hour drive, see it like 10 miles away, 15 miles, like they should be a send unit in every single school. And every teacher I truly believe should do some level of training when it comes to identifying and helping children with additional needs until they can get specialist help within education if they need it. And I truly believe that.

And I think that, you know, we need better services and, you know, let’s slash down the weight in terms of getting diagnosed because you cannot ram down people, parents next. Early intervention is the best. Early intervention is the best.

And then not give it because without a diagnosis, you do not get the key to go through the door to get the help on you. The sad life. Come on, guys.

Years before diagnosis, and it’s getting worse now, obviously, with everything with the cuts and everything that’s going on. So what do you find the most challenging as a mum of four kids, given that three of them are on the spectrum? The hardest thing, and this goes back to what I said earlier, and it is when that girl said to me, if you’ve met one kid with autism, you’ve met one kid with autism. I truly didn’t understand what she meant until I had Matthew.

And then it hit me because the most challenging thing is if you’ve met one person with autism and you’ve met one person with autism, haven’t you? Because there’s not one autistic child or individual that is the same, because I’m sure you can understand, like, you know, if I gave you my kids, you know, so we’ll have to say for the day, yeah, all right, you’ve been there and done it with your children, but what is work with your kids is not necessarily going to work with mine. And that is what I struggle with. Like the weekends, you know, I don’t get a minute, honest to God, weekends are tortured at the moment because they’re growing and they’ve got their own needs.

And I’m just putting out little fires everywhere and just truly keeping my head above water. And it does take it at all. Are they good sleepers? We’ve done a lot, listen, we’ve done a lot of work with them.

They’re getting better, you know, I’m not going to complain. I’m not going to jinx myself there. Yeah, they could be worse.

I find the hardest, the lack of sleep impact on your day. And would you say your mental health’s been impacted? Yeah, 100%. Honestly, when I was pregnant with Matthew, Craig went away for the year with the army a year.

Did you resent it? Anna, listen, between two ladies, I’m going to keep this completely 100. And I resent my husband every morning when he goes to work. I listen, I love this man to death.

That man is my best friend, my soulmate. Like I would find him in another lifetime. We are meant to be.

But sometimes when he’s going, all the kids are screaming. And I know he feels bad. Don’t get I know he feels guilty.

He carries guilt around with you know what I mean? And I look at him and I just think, oh my goodness, you are so lucky. And then when he comes home, Anna, and he’s been in for five minutes and he goes, oh, these kids and I look at him and I go, don’t, don’t you dare you’ve been in for five minutes. Yeah, they’re good with him.

Brilliant. Yeah, they, they are, they are, you know, as as he does the kids and me, you know what I mean? We’ve made a good, we’ve made a good team. And I remember one bit of advice I can give to anyone is it can be very hard, you know, and stuff, you know, stuff can either make or break here.

Don’t, please don’t let it break here. You know, like when the kids go to bed or if they go to bed, you know, any five piece, five minutes piece, you can celebrate that, you know, like me and Craig, when the kids are all upstairs plugging, we look at each other and we’ll go, should we have a tea date? And what we mean is should we get the hob knobs out and scoff them quickly and have a tea break? You know, you know, like you, you really got to try and find the best in, don’t let it break here because you’ll truly appreciate everything in the end, you know. So how did lockdown impact on your family? It was very love and hate, Hannah, very, very love and hate, very love and hate because obviously Craig goes away an awful lot and that can be very like hard on the kids.

It’s actually easier for me and I know he wrote Miami saying this because it’s the truth. It’s easier for me when he does go away because you’d have, you’d have your routine, you know that you’ve only got yourself to rely on, you know, you go to bed, you get up in the morning, get dressed like shoes on, let’s go, you know, and you get it done. But when he was home, it was really nice that we got to spend my family time with each other.

Yeah. But equally, it was equally as hard because I was pregnant with Asa, so I didn’t send the kids into school, I kept them off. Now they weren’t entitled to go to school because obviously they have got EHCPs and so on.

I just didn’t want to, we don’t know much about Covid, so I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to bring anything in. I wanted to keep them safe. I was a bit anxious and the kids really found it hard to adapt and the amount of school where they wanted us to get done, it was just unbelievable.

The kids just couldn’t handle it at all. Yeah, I was going to say, how was it learning online? Really hard. I mean, Christopher, I, the main thing for us that we wanted was speech and language for Christopher.

Yeah. Because listen, I gave up with homeschool in the end. I weren’t putting the kids through it.

Yeah, that’s the only one. We’re putting the kids, it’s not worth it, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to keep everyone in your house happy. Yeah, as long as they’re happy and healthy for me.

Exactly, exactly that. So instead, do you know what it is? What? I taught, we taught Christopher how to ride a bike. Well, that’s, that’s a good, I can’t ride a bike, you should have taught me.

Is it? Oh well, there’s lots of times when I’m sure. Yeah, but we taught him life skills, you know, Christopher’s got this practice here as well. So, you know, he finds that coordination really hard.

He couldn’t even work and, you know, a game control, like an Xbox control pass. Yeah. But now he’s really good at the Xbox.

And it’s just little stuff like that that I’m like, people take that day in, day out stuff for granted, but actually, they’re really big wins for our kids. So I felt like we taught them a lot of life skills. And I did say the teacher that because she said to me, I’ll be getting on my way.

And I said, girl, we’re not doing it. I’m sorry. And I told her and she said, you know what? She said, that’s fine.

She went together and she was really pleased with how well he was doing. And again, the main thing for us was his speech and language. Yeah.

Yeah. Is there any support within the army for you? Do you get anything? Do you know what? Listen, I remember when Christopher was younger and we were moving house and there was one man called Jeff Jones. This man will forever hold a special place in my heart because for a lot, Craig was in infantry before he moved over to VMA.

And they wasn’t very supportive. Listen, the army is a single man’s job, single woman’s job, single person’s job. And it’s work first family later.

But of course, when you’ve got appointments and whatnot, sometimes you want both parents there and they just was not for it. And, you know, they’d say to Craig, you need to, you know, your wife needs to get a grip of your kids and all this and all that. I’m sorry, but I can’t give my kids a beach arms and he’s going to be all right.

Like this is this is him, you know, when this man called Jeff Jones, a welfare officer. And he said to me, oh, I’ll take you to the appointment. Then I said, listen, no offense.

If my child tries running in the road or something, are you physically going to put his hand, your hands on my child? Do you feel comfortable putting your hands on my child? Because he is going to need scooping up. And, you know, it’s like could be like a two man job, Connie. And he was like, well, with that, it opened up the conversation about what daily life was like and everything else.

And he was like, no, this isn’t right. This isn’t right. And he needs to be there.

And that man went 100 for us. Now that was, well, if she is a girl on her and I’ve never come across anyone like him since. Sadly, he’s moved now.

But he was. Yeah. On honest regards, seriously.

I’m the Padre Catherine at the time. They were the two people that really went to town for us and our kids and be forever grateful for that. You always remember them people, don’t you? And I’m sure you do, don’t you? Definitely.

We’ve only got a few minutes left. And what I wanted to ask you was, what do you do for downtime? Because we have got a campaign called tick five, and I know it’s going to be incredibly difficult for you. But what do you do to recharge your batteries? Well, soon as Craig gets through the door, I give the kids to him and I bugger off hours.

But when I say a bugger off hours, I mean, I’m going out food shopping, you know, like, to support the family. I’m not doing anything for luxury. Do you know what I mean? Well, you know, sometimes, you know, sometimes I’ve got to get out and do like, I don’t know, I’m doing couch to five K or go on a dog walk.

But I, I know me and I get overwhelmed with it. I can go for a long time and I’m fine and I’m fine. But then I get overwhelmed.

And I think that’s because I do hold out for a long time. And I should give myself five minutes more often because then it wouldn’t get so overwhelming. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I totally get what you’re saying. Yeah. So, so you’re studying how much more do you have to do? Oh, God, so I’ve got a couple of more years left.

And I actually, to be honest with you, I can get into med school now for one to two. And it’s just not feasible with the kids. It’s not the right time to go to med school now.

The whole reason why I’m doing my degree that I’m doing now is purely because when it comes to, you know, you’re going to get asked in an interview, oh, you know, what have you been doing for say eight years? I don’t want to say, well, yeah, I’ve been raising kids and that’s odd going, but people don’t appreciate that. I want to say while I was raising kids, I was doing this. I’m a boss, you know, I’m not here to play.

This is what I was doing. So that’s what I’m doing. Yeah.

I wish you all the best. So I just want to plug your not your charity, your website, which is www.superherodan.co.uk on Instagram, Mamma Will. So that’s M-A-M-A-I-L-L.

So if you want to check out the books, that’s fantastic. It’s been a joy talking to you. I wish we had more time and because I’m sure you’ve got lots more to say.

So yeah, so but you could, you’re going to be writing an article for the charity website. So if anyone wants to read the article, it’s going to be on www.annakennedyonline.com. And it’s been such a pleasure talking to you, listening to your story. You definitely got your hands when you’re a definite strong mom and just so much admiration for what you’ve been doing.

And it’s really lovely talking to you. So I hope you’ve enjoyed the experience and it’s flown by, isn’t it? It has. Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, thank you. And all best wishes to your boys. And yeah, and best wishes to your husband.

And everybody here, everybody, please stay safe. Stay strong. Keep going.

We’ll get there. We’re nearly there one day at a time and best wishes to everyone. Lots of love.

Bye. Bye.