Happy Tuesday, I hope your week has started well. I’m nursing a few aches and bruises after an awkward fall down a couple of very hard concrete steps last week… that’s just four months after falling down a couple of my own stairs and badly damaging one ankle. But you probably don’t need to hear about my woes and inability to stay upright so I’ll get on with the more important topics at hand!
First a huge thank you to everyone who already pre-ordered our book! To see it high up in the charts (in the top 2,000 of all books, wow!) and in the number 1 spot for the category below was so amazing. Also thanks to everyone who has shared, liked or commented on my posts about the cover reveal - this all helps the book to be seen by more people who might not yet even know about PDA, so you are helping other families too.
Not Fine in School
A new post in the Not Fine in School series was published on my blog today (every Tuesday for the foreseeable future). You can see the latest post (week 18) by tapping on the image below.
My passion for talking about this subject has of course stemmed from having a daughter who has spent several years as part of that 'Not Fine In School' cohort, and more detail about that will be in our upcoming book.
This week I was reminded of an old post I had written when Sasha reached the point of being unable to attend her second school. In this post I try to explain (sometimes it’s difficult to find the right words) how it was obvious to us when our PDAer couldn’t do things. I knew that some people who didn’t live with us would assume it was a choice i.e. a ‘won’t’ not a ‘can’t’ (tap on the following words to view the post!): Can't, not Won't. Not school refusal.
Book Reviews
This week I posted about Low Demand Parenting, written by a late-diagnosed autistic mother of three neurodivergent boys. Includes lots of practical advice on how to change our mindset as parents to PDAers.
Highly recommended
NeuroWild - Em is an Autistic and ADHD speech pathologist, Mum to 3 neurodivergent children and a very talented illustrator. On Facebook at NeuroWild and Instagram @neurowild_, with so many great resources.
Pooky Knightsmith – Especially pertinent for today, World Mental Health day; Pooky is an autistic mum of two and the author of several books. She helps others through her speaking, online training and YouTube videos. Pooky’s knowledge, ideas and advice come from years of study, practice and hard-earned lived experience with PTSD, anorexia, self-harm and depression. She also has a cat who features in her videos sometimes (and looks like one of ours!).
Social media challenges
I’m guessing most people who are signed up here found me via some sort of social media channel or other, but just in case you didn’t, or you didn’t realise I use more than one place to post, here are the links:
Facebook: @stephstwogirls www.facebook.com/stephstwogirls
Instagram: @stephstwogirls www.instagram.com/stephstwogirls/
Twitter/X: @stephstwogirls twitter.com/stephstwogirls
Threads: @stephstwogirls www.threads.net/@stephstwogirls
YouTube: @stephcurtis www.youtube.com/c/stephcurtis
TikTok: @stephstwogirls www.tiktok.com/@stephstwogirls
Up until now I have been mostly avoiding TikTok. I will be starting to post there more often though and I would be very grateful for your support and shares if you are a TikTok user!
The downside of social media is that what anyone gets to see is all based on algorithms, and criteria for those can change frequently. So although I post regularly, sometimes barely anyone gets to see what I post.
Question Time
This week’s quick question is about what kind of info you’d like to see in next week’s newsletter. I can cover all of these topics in coming weeks but what should I concentrate on first? If you have other ideas of the kind of info you’d like please do comment or email me!
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, please get in touch via stephstwogirls@gmail.com or reply to this email.