SEND Mum Unfiltered

16/05/2026

🌿 THIS IS WHAT STRESS LOOKS LIKE for a SEND mum. So is there a party who really sees this? Stress isn't dropping thousands of leaflets into letterboxes that have all ended up in the recycle bin. Stress isn't sat counting votes in. Stress is holding onto that legal EHCP document and fighting every single day for EVERYTHING that's documented in black and white and needed desperately for their child. Emails to local authorities, researching into services of support, researching into what the next step should be, countless phonecalls with the school, arranging GP appointments, juggling the diary to fit in another TAF meeting, another Annual Review, another CAMHS appointment, another therapy session, another meeting and another and another and another. Giving up their jobs to do what they shouldn't have to do! Fighting the broken SEND and education system daily! Any REFORM needs to look closely at the bigger picture to fix a national crisis far beyond just SEND education.

14/05/2026

🌿 Set up by Lauren Ferger-Andrews.
Please read, sign the petition and share.

Dyslexia affects many people yet NHS assessments are unavailable. This leaves access limited to those who can pay or navigate complex systems. The government must ensure free, early assessments for all to support education, wellbeing, and equal opportunity.

15/04/2026

Real truths! Real talk! 🌿

10/04/2026

🌿 THIS MIGHT BE UNPOPULAR… but I’m going to say it anyway. An EHCP is not a golden ticket. At draft stage? Absolutely Sections B and F must be clear, specific and legally enforceable.

But day to day? I’m not checking every line thinking:
“Was that 5 minutes delivered today?”
“Has every provision been ticked off?”

I just want my children to go into school happy, access their education, stay regulated enough to engage and come home settled. If that’s happening, I’m not micromanaging provision. That doesn’t mean provision doesn’t matter, it absolutely does.

However The moment I see:
• Reduced or inconsistent attendance linked to unmet needs (EBSA)
• Increased dysregulation or distress before or after school
• A clear change in presentation

Then I go straight back to Section F and ask:
Is the provision being delivered as specified in?
If not, why not? Because Section F exists to meet need and prevent exactly that deterioration. That’s where it becomes critical. Not as a daily checklist but as a legal safeguard.

Because the reality is…
Even with an EHCP, provision is not consistently secured or delivered in the way the law requires. I’m not supposed to chase every minute. But I will act the moment my child is not coping and their needs are not being met.

That’s the difference. And honestly I’d like nothing more than for my children not to need an EHCP at all. For ordinarily available provision to be consistent across schools and local authorities and delivered as it should be.

For children’s needs to be understood and supported as individuals without needing a legal document to enforce it. For an EHCP not to be the only place those needs are recognised.

To be able to apply for a school or college like any other parent…and not have to question whether my child’s needs will be met because it’s simply the norm.

And one more thing…Education is not just GCSEs at 16. Learning is lifelong. I won’t EVER place pressure on my children to meet age-based expectations at the cost of their wellbeing. Because a regulated, happy child will always have a better outcome than a pressured, distressed one. So excuse me, but I'll keep f***ing fighting for that!!

12/03/2026

🌿 THIS ONE HURTS A LOT! 💔
NOT EVERYONE GETS TO GO TO A PROM
Not everyone gets the same opportunity to celebrate.
Not everyone gets to wear the smart suit, the fancy dress or arrive in the sports car.

Because some are wiping their own tears and celebrating their own wins alone, because noone is clapping for them.

BE KIND! BE GENTLE! You never know who is going to bed tonight feeling unseen, forgotten and unwanted and who had to fight so hard to become their own believer just to survive.

09/03/2026

🌿 ADVOCATONG FOR YOUR SEND KIDS is what we do as SEN parents...EVERY WAKING MINUTE OF THE DAY it often feels like. But it's fecking exhausting at times. How many times are we met with this question? I can't actually tell you the answer, because I would be re-calling an endless amount of time in which I've been in the position of "do I or don't I stay quiet or wait"

Here's one that's over to you 🫵
Your daughter attends a mainstream secondary school and is high EBSA (Emotionally Based School Avoidance) and ASD. She has a reduced timetable to attend school for 2 hours. In that time the overwhelm can hit (at somepoint) and does nearly every day. The school hasn't established a safe space. The school has provided one named point of contact for whom she can go to when distressed or anxious (if available). Your child comes out of school after her two hours explaining "the school tried to call you today mum to take me home because I was in the toilets feeling sick and I was panicking. I was with the receptionist who tried to get me to go back to lesson. I was walking around the school because I didn't know what to do. The receptionist said where is your safe space? I said, I don't know. The receptionist said do you think your safe space is at another school?"

What would you do? What would you say to your child? What would you say to the school? What would go through your mind? How would this affect your child? How would this affect you?

There are times being a SEN parent, when we are paralysed. Paralysed in thinking, in thought, and in action and I am this today. Reaching out today in hope of getting a grip and the mojo back to fight for what should be right in mainstream school.

07/03/2026

🌿 WHEN YOU DIDN'T burnout spending all weekend trying to "get organised" but you re-set your mind, found a little window of time for peace to self-care and treat yourself. It's the small wins for yourself that matter too! Never underestimate the little wins 🌿

06/03/2026

🌿 FINDING THE BALANCE. ADHD IS MORE THAN “Can’t Focus and hyperactive". What people think ADHD looks like is simple. Hyperactive. Distracted. Can’t sit still. Can’t focus. Sensitive.

That’s the version most of us grow up hearing about. The loud kid in class. The one who was bouncing off the walls. The one teachers whispered about during parent meetings. And for a long time, we believed that was the full story too.

But living with ADHD feels nothing like that neat little stereotype.

Yeah sure, this image shows ADHD. What people see is just the surface. What they don’t see is the constant overwhelm. It’s staring at your phone, wanting to reply to a friend, and somehow still not doing it for days. Not because you don’t care, but because your brain turns a simple message into a mountain. And the longer you wait, the heavier it feels.

It’s feeling everything intensely. Excitement, frustration, disappointment. Emotions don’t arrive gently; they crash in like waves. And then you’re left trying to regulate feelings that seem bigger than the situation itself., so in comes the dysregulation.

The All-or-Nothing Trap No one talks about the all-or-nothing mindset.

Either you’re fully committed, making plans, setting huge goals, imagining the perfect future. Or you’re stuck, frozen, unable to start because it doesn’t feel like you can do it perfectly. There’s rarely a comfortable middle ground.

That’s why realistic goals feel hard. It’s not laziness. It’s not lack of ambition. It’s that the brain swings between extremes, and finding balance takes real effort.

Why This Conversation Matters

When ADHD is reduced to “hyperactive,” it minimizes the daily challenges that no one else sees. The overwhelm. The emotional intensity. The mental exhaustion of trying to function in a world built for linear thinking.

And that misunderstanding creates shame. The truth is, ADHD is complex just as much as balancing you body weight is on the edge a table is for you!!!

05/03/2026

🌿 I TRIED WHAT YOU ASKED, I tried to follow your rules
I sat in your classrooms, and walked the chaotic halls

I didn't know how to cope, how to do it, how to seem
Like I fit your neat boxes, your target, your scheme

I didn't get grades, I tried at every test
But none of that measures the weight on my chest

You count grades and progress, you tick and you file
While I'm barely surviving, pretending to smile

You don't see my body or mind shut down from the strain
How shadows distract me, how demands cause me pain

You see a class clown, you see energy, you see " he's fine"
But not the toll of pretending I'm built to comply

I've tried masking my needs so I wouldn't be barred
Learned very early early to lower my guard

This isn't defiance or lack of control
It's a system thats pushed me past its role

Each lesson reminds me that I wasn't designed
For one rigid system, one standard mind

Policies written far from where I stand
Draw my limits with a distant hand

They speak in theories, they assume are true
But nothing truly reflects what I go through

I want to step out, breathe, to be gone
From a place where survival is framed as "be strong"

It's not that I've failed, It's not that I've quit
I was just never fully supported to truly exist

Year after year, the burden stays mine
And now I'm exhausted, before the finish line

I'm not broken by nature, nor am I missing my place
I'm just crushed by a system that's running it's own race

** poem written by another. Adaption written of our experience 💔

05/03/2026

🌿 1:30am AND ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE, not a creature was stiring, not even a mouse!

Life, parenting children with ADHD and ASD doesn't look quite the same as parenting a neurotypical child. Most parents and carers of children with ADHD and ASD, desperately crave those moments of clam. Of peace. Of silence. The stillness.

So yes, here I am at 1:30 in the morning being still. Breathing. Being silent. Got me a cuppa and shortbread buiscuit. Being calm and writing this. Many people won't be able to fathom or understand why. What the hell is she doing? But for those who know... know! Strength isn't always loud. Sometimes it's surviving in the silence.

Parents living it know the truth. We do look after ourselves when we can. Often during the little pockets of time at times others wouldn't see. A lot of parents feel this. A lot of parents do this… but don’t say it out loud.

👇 I’m curious about something:

When are your moments of calm and silence?