YOUR CHILD IS NOT BROKEN: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child Without Losing Your Marbles

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Although this is a very serious and hard topic to write about and I’m sure every parent goes through those pull your hair out times in life to a certain degree, but Heidi puts the humour into those moments as well as being honest about her struggles. It’s an eye opener to see a different perspective on those well meaning lay persons and professionals that are doing their best to help, but it more often than not ends up being more detrimental. I know it sounds callous but I found these written encounters the funniest.

Your Child Is Not Broken: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child Your Child Is Not Broken: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child

In 2018 Heidi's son, Theo, experienced a mental health crisis, brought on by the struggles he faced in mainstream education as an undiagnosed Autistic student. Suddenly Heidi found herself up the proverbial creek without any paddles. With Theo too unwell to attend school - or even leave the house, Heidi committed herself to finding out everything she could about neurodivergence; education, health and social care plans; and what it means to advocate for your disabled child in crisis. Parents of Autistic and neurodivergent kids will relate so hard to her experiences and will feel less alone after reading this. You may cry, you will laugh, and you will learn. This book interested me from the moment I saw it. Working in early years childhood education and being a parent to two wonderful teenagers I have experienced and read quite a bit about the neurodivergent child. However this is very different to what I have come across before. Heidi is open and frank about her struggles with parenting a child with autism and ADHD, while discovering that she is also neurodiverse.And then there are kids like mine, on the autism spectrum, and I feel like I am trying to make my daughter sit in a broken chair. If we view our children as broken and messed up, chances are high that they too will believe this lie about themselves. And it will crush them. It will crush their souls, and the world will miss out on knowing this individual who has so much potential and so many unique gifts. This would have been so beneficial at the start of the journey likewise where we are now with diagnosis and out of school waiting for specialist school place to become available this has been helpful. As a parent of a ND child, I could relate to a lot of this book. I liked Mavir's writing style - I could almost hear her voice right next to me, like chatting to a friend. To be honest, I don't generally read many books on the subject of neurodiversity because, well, I'm living it everyday anyway, I don't really feel the need to, and sometimes we all need some escapism instead. However I made an exception for this book and I'm glad I did. It's well worth reading and reminded me that I'm not alone in this ND parenting journey.

Your child is not broken : parent your neurodivergent child without Your child is not broken : parent your neurodivergent child

I can almost feel heidi giving me the tightest squeeze and reminding me that i’m a bad bitch & can get through whatever this crazy ride throws at me - for me and for my kiddo. The part about consent really highlighted to me that me saying no to suggestions is good and shows my child they have the choice they can consent to what they do and don't want to do. When we first realized that something was wrong with our child, I immediately became hyper-focused on getting her the best treatment.Your Child Is Not Broken" is THE book for parents who need permission to do things differently. Heidi Mavir almost died working out why that was necessary.

Your Child is Not Broken by Heidi Mavir | Waterstones Your Child is Not Broken by Heidi Mavir | Waterstones

The subtitle of the final chapter of Heidi Mavir’s book “Your Child is not Broken” is “Permission to Become ‘That’ Parent”, a phrase that to me actually sums up the whole book. Heidi Mavir writes with a heartwarming combination of joy, humour, rawness, vulnerability and endless empathy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her perspective as a ND parent of a ND child. this book found me at the perfect time. i don’t think i’ll ever stop thinking about it, nor will i stop recommending it. It's okay to say actually that's not good enough and what should be at the heart of decisions made is the child. The best interests of the child and actually what the child wants. Consent. The child has a right to consent. We as parents have a right to be heard. As the mother of a ND child awaiting assessment, I’m spending a lot of my free time reading as much as I can about both ASD and ADHD (my daughter shows signs of both), and seeking advice and words of wisdom from parents of fellow ND children who uphold similar gentle parenting values to my own.This needs to be read by parents of both neurodivergent and parents of neurotypical children. It needs to be read by teachers, early year workers and all the professionals that work with families who should have the children's best interests at the heart of decisions. As people we often make judgements about who is acceptable, and who is not. Who is intelligent, socially-acceptable, deserving, or beautiful…and who is not. We decide people’s worth depending on their skin color, or how much money we perceive them having, what their body shape is like, what sorts of accomplishments they’ve gained. We make judgements about a student’s intelligence based on how well they move through the school systems we’ve set up.

Your Child is Not Broken: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child Without Your Child is Not Broken: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child

She is supposed to sit, listen, be quiet, be still, and wait her turn to talk in a room filled with twenty other kids where play and natural socialization are limited. And while most of the kids have conformed to this environment, kids with big personalities are supposed to turn themselves off like a light switch.Your child is a beautiful individual. They are unique. They hold so much potential. Yes, they learn and think about life differently than the majority. That is ok. That is normal. That is even a unique gift, this skill of seeing and experiencing the world differently. Heidi Mavir is a late-identified, Neurodiverent adult. She is a public speaker, advocate, author, podcaster, and parent to an Autistic/ADHD teenager. She is a also chronic oversharer and a bit of a badass. As a parent of a neurodivergent child this has been a really good read it tells you that you aren't alone. While she knows all of her letters and can sloppily write them and identify sight words, she can’t sit still, is constantly moving, she wants to play, wants to color, she wants to engage with everything and every one the point that she is disruptive because that isn’t what is expected of her. We had a lot to catch up on. And that is what I thought was going to happen — that catching up would fix the problem.