Five reasons to get baking with the kids this Christmas

Ask anybody what the benefits of baking with the kids are and they’ll tell you that’s obvious, you get to eat lots of delicious cakes at the end of it. True, that is one of the great benefits of baking with your children, but that’s only the end result. There’s so much that they can learn along the way and it’ll actually improve their skills and learning in a lot of different ways that you may not have considered. And Christmas is a great time to start and take advantage of more than just yummy outcomes.

My daughter wants to be a King

When the parent mail pounced on my inbox, I sighed.  'Reception Nativity Costumes' it said. Of course, many reception parents delight in the excitement of the first nativity play.  As a mum of three, I've seen a fair few.  We've also had the chaos of costumes mixed in with two autistic boys.  'At least that won't be the case with Jane' I smiled to myself as I opened up the email.  So true, in fact, Jane's costume chaos cheered me up no end.

SEND and SpectrumSunday #62

Welcome to December.  As the song goes "It's cold outside, but warm bed".  If only I had the chance of getting any sleep recently.  David's been up a lot in the last week or so and I 'm shattered! But, I've managed to pull myself together for our SEND and Spectrum Sunday linky.

MadeUpMilestones: Bear's secondary school visits via @2ndtimemama

I love sharing the posts from our #madeupmilestones guest post series. It's a real privilege to read about a special moment for someone. And today, it's from Starlight and Stories, our wonderful new co-host on the SEND and Spectrum Sunday linky.  It's all about how well 'Bear' coped with a visits to secondary schools.

Why it's good to remember times before our kids

Life before kids.  It might as well be another dimension. Nothing prepares you for the changes that will happen once you've got little versions of yourselves to look after.  Nothing prepares you for the love, the heartache or the worry.

Six school possibilities for SEND kids

Surely every parent hopes they've made the right choice of school for their child?  There's a lot of pressure to make the right choice matters. This is where your child will spend their formative years, and you want them to flourish educationally and socially in the right environment.  However, when it comes to a child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) it can feel overwhelming and complicated.

The A Word so far; my top five explanations

Have you watched any of The A Word yet?  I'd love it if you did. If you don't have autism in your family you may have wondered what's going on at various points in the last two weeks of the show. As tonight we approach the half way point of the series (I think), I thought I'd throw together my top explanations for what Joe's been up to in the series, as identified not by an expert, just by me and my experiences with our autistic and neurotypical kids.

Making Christmas shopping easier for our family

Christmas shopping when you have a family that's 2/5th autistic can be... more challenging.  My two boys are anxious around new people and places.  The stores are full of bright lights and loud announcements mixed with Christmas music that makes them feel full of noise and overloaded by sound.

Super sensory gift guide

Sensory toys are brilliant for our kids. They are a way of exploring and interacting with their environment.  With two of our three kids on the autistic spectrum, sensory toys are a must have at Christmas, but all kids would benefit from them and probably like them too. As our David is pre-verbal, it's not always easy to ask what he wants, but I've come up with a few plans.  Here's my latest selection of sensory stuff I've found to give you some ideas.