Not another 'SEN' post .....

I read comments under SEND parents posts daily saying they are over sharing. I've had similar said to me before, not about posting online, but actually about my daily conversations....

That people will find it boring. That maybe I share too much about being a SEND parent. And even when nobody actually says it, I think a lot of us have that little thought in the back of our minds 'are people rolling their eyes at this? Another SEND post? Here she goes again'…

There has definitely been a surge of SEND parents sharing their lives online. Advocating. Blogging. Making videos. Writing poetry. Talking about therapies, meltdowns, communication, school battles, sensory needs and everything else that comes with this life.

And I think sometimes, from the outside looking in, that can be mistaken for wanting attention.

But I want to explain the other side of it.

We’re not asking for attention. We’re looking for connection.

Of course we want to raise awareness. We want people to understand disability better. We want our children to grow up in a world that understands and accommodates them.

But sometimes?

We’re also just sharing our lives.....

When a parent posts a photo of their child at football practice, nobody thinks they’re “advocating for their child”.

When they post the first swimming lesson, the school play, a family holiday or their child getting an award, nobody thinks they’re oversharing.

It’s just life.

But our life might look different.

Our swimming lesson might be occupational therapy.

Our after-school club might be speech therapy.

Our family day out might involve ear defenders, a specialist pushchair, an AAC device and leaving after twenty minutes because it became too much.

My son can’t stand and pose for the photographs that other five-year-olds might. He can’t tell me about his day. He can’t tell the camera what made him laugh or what he’s proud of.

So sometimes I write about it instead.

That is our normal.

And I think that’s the bit people sometimes miss.

If it feels like there are suddenly SEND parents everywhere online, maybe that’s because we’re finding each other.

Because this life can be incredibly lonely.

I’m a single SEND parent. I have wonderful friends I’ve had since school. We were pregnant together and I imagined our children growing up together and us all doing the things families do.

But the reality is that their children can do things that simply don’t work for Tommy.

Not because I would change my son for the world. I wouldn’t. (well actually, that is a whole other nuanced blog post in itself haha)...

But because his disability is significant. He’s non-speaking and although he’s five, developmentally he’s much younger. Meeting up with other children has to be thought about carefully. There are things they won’t understand about him because they’re five years old themselves. There are environments he can’t cope with. There are places we can’t just turn up to.

So my world became smaller.

And then, strangely, the internet made a little bit of it bigger again.

I found parents who don’t need the explanation.

Parents who understand the acronyms.

Parents who celebrate things other people might not even realise are milestones.

Parents who understand why something seemingly tiny can make you cry with happiness.

Parents who understand the grief, the humour, the exhaustion, the pride and the absolute fierce love that can all exist at the same time.

That’s why I started sharing my poetry too.

I’ve written for years, mostly privately, and my friends encouraged me to start putting some of it out into the world. I’m slowly collecting those pieces for a book I want to write one day called The Seasons of a SEND Parent. There’s no rush. I want every piece in it to have come from somewhere real.

And maybe that’s what all of this comes down to.

We’re not performing SEND parenting. We’re living it.

You post your child’s football tournament because it happened in your life.

I might post about occupational therapy because it happened in mine.

You might share your child’s first day at a new club.

I might share my child’s first attempt at communicating something.

Neither deserves an eye roll.

And if SEND content keeps appearing on your feed and it isn’t for you, that’s okay. Scroll past. I even scroll too sometimes.

Because somewhere behind you might be a mum sitting alone after a horrendous day, reading that exact same post and thinking:

Oh thank God. Someone else gets it.

Sometimes social media isn’t about wanting the whole world to look at you.

Sometimes it’s just about finding the little corner of the world where you don’t have to explain yourself.

So let SEND parents post.

Let us advocate. Let us celebrate. Let us moan. Let us write. Let us laugh at the ridiculous bits. Let us talk about the hard bits. Let us share our children’s achievements, even when they look different to yours.

Because we are struggling to find our place ...

And if along the way it helps somebody outside of our community understand our children a little better too?

Even better. 🫶🏻

Thanks for reading

xoxox diane

p.s. at the end of my last blog i said my next blog was going to be called 'the power of no', .... then the 6 weeks happened lol I'm on that one next !!