Dad's Diary

I never imagined I’d be the kind of parent lying awake at 2 a.m., googling curriculum plans and wondering if I’m capable of teaching my own child. Not because I don’t care about her education but because I care so much that the thought of getting it wrong feels unbearable. My daughter is autistic. She is funny in ways that catch you off guard, deeply thoughtful, and sees patterns in the world that I often miss entirely. She notices things most of us rush past. She feels thing

When the Routine Breaks: Getting Out the Door Anyway There are mornings where everything runs like clockwork. Shoes on (eventually).Toast eaten (mostly).Bag packed (after a reminder or five). And then there are mornings like today. Today, the routine broke. Not in a dramatic, obvious way. Nothing was “wrong” in the traditional sense. The school was open, the uniform was clean, the weather wasn’t even particularly offensive. But one small change, an external company coming in

Most evenings in our house follow the same rhythm. Dinner, a bit of TV, stories, a goodnight kiss, all the motions that should signal the end of the day. But for my daughter, bedtime isn’t an ending. It’s the start of a long, restless stretch of hours that neither of us can seem to tame. She’s autistic, and sleep has always been slippery for her. While the rest of the world powers down, she powers up. She’ll read under the covers, hum to herself, draw entire dream worlds in h

The summer holidays: a time of year that, for most parents, is a cocktail of excitement and dread. On one hand, you look forward to more...