To the bystander who didn’t understand his disability this would have looked unusual behaviour for Oliver’s age and I’d definitely be judged as a useless mum with the looks, maybe comments and tuts….anyone else with me here? When Oliver was young I felt his young age masked his disability and that was the hard one for me. I would be constantly aware of people’s reactions to Ollie and if my other children, 2 who were babies at the time, became upset for any reason, then Oliver could become extremely distressed at the noise they were making and scream very loudly, becoming very anxious. I would regularly find people would not have patience with Oliver which would understandably cause upset within our family. There are many instances that have made me so upset in that past and given me the drive to try and make OJ’s a success. There is more but it’s too much to dump in one place and I know if you are a family like mine, then you know exactly what I am alluding to. When a mainstream mum was shocked that I said I was accepting that Ollie wouldn’t drive a car, go to Uni, get a job and always need care, saying she thought it was awful that I was ‘dumbing him down’. When we attended a special needs dental appointment and Ollie had to have a Teletubbie toy with him for me to get him there which made noises, and the assistant told me to turn it off because she couldn’t concentrate. When Ollie was struggling in a doctor’s surgery and the Doctor asked if I could ‘shut him up’ because he couldn’t hear what my daughter was saying. Like the time Ollie was meticulously lining up carrot sticks at a family event, hardly noticing other people there, still non-verbal and a family member said that ‘he didn’t look autistic’ and ‘lots of children do that’. Let’s face the facts, how could I speak to others about dealing with a non-verbal child, choosing a special school, upsets, meltdowns, siblings, running away, the whole picture….how could I even do that?Ī few things stand out to me about our ‘journey’ so far…. This resulted in me becoming isolated, probably not ‘fitting in’ in the mainstream playground and feeling very different from others.
I would only tackle trips out that were most urgent when I was on my own with the children. When my two youngest children were babies I came across many difficulties in getting out and about and would resort to staying at home. My name is Lisa Donoghue and I set up the charity after experiencing problems with accessing mainstream/public areas with my child who has autism, called Oliver, and my other 3 children. We welcome the whole family at our family sessions and encourage siblings to attend and join in the fun to give the whole family a positive experience.
We have sole hire of settings to enable us to meet the needs of those attending and to differentiate activities appropriately. Our family days are based at Hillside Special School in Longridge (PR3 3XB) and sessions for adults at Grimsargh Village Hall (PR2 5JS) and Staining Village Hall (FY3 0DD). OJ’s is a registered charity in Lancashire, UK and we provide activities for children and adults with autism, learning difficulties and associated disorders.
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