Life with Katie and Pip: Our Adoption Story

When you are the parent of children with any form of cognitive or behavioural disorder you can often feel like the Fun Police.  You can stand and watch them getting excited over something that any other child could cope with being excited about and feel that sinking feeling in your stomach because you know you are going to be the one that bursts their bubble.  As if that wasn't bad enough you then have to factor in the rigid thinking that goes hand in hand with disorders such as ASD, FASD, ADHD, PDA, RAD and ODD (and anything else ending in 'D').  You get that moment when you brace yourself and try desperately to think of the magical parenting technique that is going to somehow make the whole experience fluid and easy with absolutely no tears being shed (by you or anyone else).  I braced myself last week for one of those times as snow was forecast to hit the UK.

Katie has diagnoses of ARND/ADHD and ASD.  Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) has also just been added to the …