YOUR CHILD IS NOT BROKEN: Parent Your Neurodivergent Child Without Losing Your Marbles

Product Information

We know that a large portion of those in our U.S. prison system are there because they were deemed unworthy and broken because of their skin color. There is also a large group of individuals who are in this “school-to-prison-pipeline” because they were labeled as stupid or non-intelligent because of learning disabilities. Others are there because their extremely high intelligence was not seen or recognized as such. They didn’t fit the school’s pictures of a good student, so these highly intelligent students who were bored in school, were deemed defective. As a parent of a neurodivergent child this has been a really good read it tells you that you aren't alone. Your Child Is Not Broken" is THE book for parents who need permission to do things differently. Heidi Mavir almost died working out why that was necessary. this book found me at the perfect time. i don’t think i’ll ever stop thinking about it, nor will i stop recommending it. Two years into Speech, Occupational Therapy, behavior therapy, and public preschool she made remarkable progress.

Your Child is Not Broken - Pan Macmillan AU Your Child is Not Broken - Pan Macmillan AU

If you are at the start of your journey with a SEND child, trying to navigate the system to find out what support is available, not wanting to chase people too many times as you don’t want to be seen as pushy, then this is the book for you. If you are further along, have already grown weary with the endless meetings with professionals, are fed up of being fobbed off by people minimising your child’s needs, then this is also the book for you! Heidi’s retelling of her and her autistic son Theo’s story gives an introduction to the challenges that parents of SEND children are likely to face, along with practical suggestions of what to say to professionals who just don’t seem to ‘get it’. I’ve been ‘that’ parent for nearly ten years now and while I’ve made my peace with how I’m sure I’m perceived by professionals, it never stops being exhausting. You never stop questioning whether you are doing the right thing and when you are tired and frustrated after yet another meeting it’s easy to wonder if maybe the professionals are right, maybe your concerns aren’t valid and you should just give their way a try. In those moments this book is a well needed reminder that it’s not you, it’s not your child, it’s the system that’s broken. While she knows all of her letters and can sloppily write them and identify sight words, she can’t sit still, is constantly moving, she wants to play, wants to color, she wants to engage with everything and every one the point that she is disruptive because that isn’t what is expected of her. This would have been so beneficial at the start of the journey likewise where we are now with diagnosis and out of school waiting for specialist school place to become available this has been helpful. The subtitle of the final chapter of Heidi Mavir’s book “Your Child is not Broken” is “Permission to Become ‘That’ Parent”, a phrase that to me actually sums up the whole book. We had a lot to catch up on. And that is what I thought was going to happen — that catching up would fix the problem.

She is having meltdowns and crying, she is falling asleep and taking frequent breaks from her classroom. I’m getting constant phone calls and communication from the school and it is puzzling because my child has a disability and an Individualized Education Plan. She is supposed to have what she needs to be successful and she isn’t. This needs to be read by parents of both neurodivergent and parents of neurotypical children. It needs to be read by teachers, early year workers and all the professionals that work with families who should have the children's best interests at the heart of decisions. Heidi Mavir writes with a heartwarming combination of joy, humour, rawness, vulnerability and endless empathy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her perspective as a ND parent of a ND child. Heidi Mavir is a late-identified, Neurodiverent adult. She is a public speaker, advocate, author, podcaster, and parent to an Autistic/ADHD teenager. She is a also chronic oversharer and a bit of a badass. In 2018 Heidi's son, Theo, experienced a mental health crisis, brought on by the struggles he faced in mainstream education as an undiagnosed Autistic student. Suddenly Heidi found herself up the proverbial creek without any paddles. With Theo too unwell to attend school - or even leave the house, Heidi committed herself to finding out everything she could about neurodivergence; education, health and social care plans; and what it means to advocate for your disabled child in crisis.

Your Child Is Not Broken by Heidi Mavir - Audiobook - Audible Your Child Is Not Broken by Heidi Mavir - Audiobook - Audible

But since Kindergarten started, I realized that maybe I approached this wrong. It isn’t going so well and it feels like we are starting all over again as I watch two years of progress fade away into darkness. As people we often make judgements about who is acceptable, and who is not. Who is intelligent, socially-acceptable, deserving, or beautiful…and who is not. We decide people’s worth depending on their skin color, or how much money we perceive them having, what their body shape is like, what sorts of accomplishments they’ve gained. We make judgements about a student’s intelligence based on how well they move through the school systems we’ve set up. The part about consent really highlighted to me that me saying no to suggestions is good and shows my child they have the choice they can consent to what they do and don't want to do.As the mother of a ND child awaiting assessment, I’m spending a lot of my free time reading as much as I can about both ASD and ADHD (my daughter shows signs of both), and seeking advice and words of wisdom from parents of fellow ND children who uphold similar gentle parenting values to my own.