Hello mate. Hello again.
It's been a little while, hasn't it?
I feel like I haven't seen you in ages.
I know, what's it been two weeks?
2 fucking weeks too long. Too long.
Yes, two weeks too long. Two weeks too long.
So sorry, everybody. We've kind of just been basic.
I mean, there's no work's been mental fourth quarter of the
year. Yeah, it's standard stuff
sometimes. Family life, work life.
You know, we'd love to say we do this full time, but obviously we
don't. It would be great to do this
full time. I just have sponsorship deals.
Oh, man, it'd be amazing. HelloFresh.
Unfortunately. I mean, the reason we do this is
therapy. Yeah, it's therapy.
It's absolutely nothing to do with any kind of financial gain.
No, no, all this does is cost money.
It doesn't, and that's fine. Somebody asked me the other day
going, oh wow, you've got so many followers of Instagram, you
must be coining it in. And you went.
I was like, Instagram's the one format that doesn't pay you for
for kind of Reels and everything else like that.
It actually costs US money to to do this, but we love it.
Yeah, we do. It's absolutely fine to be
honest, like and the other part of the being so busy is
obviously I've been throughout the last couple of weeks trying
to chip away at the messages because it's hard to get through
and you've gone ham today. I've I've on some messages.
Yeah, and and I was just like apologising to people going oh
shit, you've actually messaged us in September.
But we're just like. Yeah, and it actually, I mean, I
saw the the one lady was like, don't worry about it, just
appreciate you responding at all, which is nice because most
people are like that. Most people are just appreciate
it. Like which, yeah, we're busy,
but by no means are we ever looking at a message and going
Nah. No.
Do you know what I mean? We're always we're.
Always we, we get them, they come up on our phones, they
might look like we've read them and we'll be like, oh, there's
one quick. I need to get back to that when
I get a spare moment. But the other thing, oh, I
forgot to mention this. We've also got autistic kids.
So that does take a little bit of time away from our, our date.
Like Lydia last night. Gee, I've said she's been
sleeping better. We're in half term now and I
think you're right at 7:30. She should be going down soon,
won't she? She was so wired last night,
like just bouncing between her bed, main bedroom, going back
and forth, dangling little things in front of her eyes.
It's like 12:30 until she really fell asleep.
Yeah, there's no school. No school.
And then she was up at 6:30. So it's like, again, it must be
that school thing that absolutely knackers around.
Mentally stimulating those. Yeah, I think so.
And then she's like, right, I'm just going to like, do
trampolining for four hours, five hours, which was great fun.
Actually, and what's the reports been coming?
Back really positive, Yeah, really positive.
She settled in really well. Staff staff have been superb
with her, her teachers been really good.
Amy coming out giving little daily reports on her and
everything like that. And she sent back towards the
last week, they were noticing that she's becoming sociable.
She's recognising the kids that are in her class during playtime
when there's a mixture of kids. So she's and then they said
she's like walking up to these kids, but then like doesn't know
what to do and just kind of backs off and does her own
thing. And then we found out last week
that she's got a boyfriend already.
So typical Williams doesn't doesn't hang about.
But notice they said there's this boy that she just like,
just goes up to and just like taps his belly.
Like apparently this this lad is he's quite like typically like
an autistic kid, standoffish. He's not like his personal space
is his personal space. But for some reason, Lydia's
managed to charm him. That's nice.
So she just walks over, gives a little belly, a little tap, and
then off she goes, trying to think what else there was.
And then there was another girl in their class.
I think this is like the day that Lydia broke up.
There's like, Lydia stood on one side of this, this dividing
table and the other girl on the other side, and they just kind
of stared at each other and then took it in turns at just
laughing at each other. So like, one girl was going ha,
ha. And then she'd stop and Lydia
stare at her go, oh, it's all social.
And this was just going on. So like, the teacher came out
and goes, yeah, this happened today.
And it was hilarious. That's nice.
So yeah, that's only, like, the first term.
Yeah. And I've kind of mentioned to
you, we've seen little things like that one day when she just
like randomly started grabbing cards off the board and we put
it on the channel just like showing me different types of
biscuits that she wanted, what else that we had.
That's huge. Yesterday I was getting in the
shower and I did ready, steady. And then what do we say?
Thinking that she'd say nothing And then she went go.
I was like, Oh my word, she's yeah.
So she did. She did that.
And what did we say the other day to her?
I think it was at the weekend. We were just kind of, I said to
her, do you love Daddy, like messing about, Like, do you love
Daddy? And then she's just going, yes,
I the like that. And Selena heard it and I think
she did it twice. And then Selena was like, you
heard it right? And I was like, yeah, it's
always that bloody. Yeah, I did hear it.
And it was like, we are like, it's like when you see a ghost
in it. Like, did you see what I just
saw? Like, yeah.
Oh, confirmation. I'm not.
Mad. It's always like that.
The parents kind of look each other and go like, yeah.
And then we found it is that I don't know if everybody's seen
it. That is it that simple songs.
Super simple songs, super simple.
Songs. There's a song there.
It's like, do you like? Is it?
Do you like broccoli? Yes, I do, and.
We're like, it must have come from that or something.
So yeah, like that's in a snapshot.
I'm sure there's like 100 other things.
So don't be interested in obviously you don't have to talk
about it if you don't want it. Do you remember you obviously
had that there was a concern with something the school were.
We're asking. That that might be helpful for
people to understand. Absolutely.
So obviously Lydia's now in a specialist school, She's non
verbal safeguarding and this is a new thing.
So every day I think you kind of mentioned it to me and now we're
actually doing it. There's a book that goes between
the school and ourselves. So we fill it out in the
morning. Lydia's had a so and so night.
She's in this sort of mood and she's eaten this and they'll
fill out what's happened in that particular day.
And we filled it out and then Selena went to pick Lydia up and
I think one of the Tasmania came out and said Lydia's got a
bruise. Do you want to tell us how she
got it? Instantly?
I think you're on the back foot a little bit going whoa, whoa,
what do you mean? What do you mean?
And she kind of showed her the bruise said, right, you know,
she's four years old, she's a toddler that like jumping on
various things and just being a general toddler.
And Selena came back, told me about it and I was like, well,
what they on about? Like you just think what they're
trying to suggest. Are they trying to insinuate
that we're harming Lydia or something like this?
So we kind of just dropped an e-mail back going like, what is
going on? Because like you've asked us
about marks on on Lydia. I believe it was kind of the the
principle rang back to saying like, Oh, this is part of
safeguarding that we have to do anything like this.
We've got a kind of got to keep a a record of not to say that
you guys are are bad or anything else like that.
It's just to kind of register it and and make sure everything's
accounted for and it kind of all right, No, fair enough.
And then there's like another occasion when Lydia came,
they're like, oh, Lydia's got a mark on it.
And I'm like, Jesus Christ, man. We, I was like saying to you,
have we literally got on put down this book, every single
bruised scratch mark, that 4 year old, an artistic toddler.
And I was like, you know, they have fits.
They like throw their arms about, they make themselves
rigid, like trying to get Lydia out of the car.
Sometimes she just thinks it's funny to go completely rigid.
And anybody who's got an autistic kid knows how
incredibly strong they suddenly become when they do this.
It's like you've just got like a baby Hulk or something like
that. And you're just like trying to
manipulate her out of the car. And I was saying to Selena like,
I can't have I got to be really careful now.
Like obviously I would be careful, but in the sense of if
I'm trying to like go in, like, no, you need to come out of the
car. I'm I'm not going to wait.
Like just stand there going OK. And I'm just going to go, great,
come on, we need to go now. And that not grabbing.
Yeah, under her arms. Well, they're resisting.
Yeah. So now I'm like, am I going?
To cause a bruise. Yeah.
Am I going to leave finger marks on her?
Or especially, and this, this is the other thing as well with
with a lot of these kids, there's kind of iron
deficiencies and stuff like that.
Some of them bruise. Quite easy, yeah.
Honestly, like Thomas does, he bruises quite easily because
he's, you know, his diet's not amazing.
His iron levels probably aren't as high as they should be.
I mean, I mean, we got him tested a couple of years back
and they were like really low. And we could say we could see
now from the amount of bruising he's getting, you know, that
that it was probably related to that.
But yeah, we, we kind of, we talked about it bit, didn't we?
Like you, it was kind of like a sanity check with.
Nick yeah. I was like, I was like, can I
just, am I being accused? Of abusing my kid here.
Because do I need to need to go to the nearest airport and get
out of the country? But.
But you but very quickly if we had the same, we didn't have
anyone to bounce off apart from Miss's mum.
But very quickly. All you got to do is like think
about what's been in the papers the last few years and you'd go,
OK, hang on a minute. We'd we'd be giving them shit if
they weren't being this strange with our kids.
So when you do that, you've and you did.
Sure, I said that to you when you went.
Yeah, that makes sense. I think it was it baby pee you
mentioned. And so, yeah, where there have
been kind of failures in the system.
Yeah, and it was even when, when Thomas is off sick and he was
off sick a lot, you know, just every year ago.
And when he's off for more than two days, I think the school
they, they ask you to get on a video call because they won't to
see you and see the kids. Literally proof and.
And and you're like, this is feels messed up, but once you
just kind of get out there, get out your head space a little bit
and go why they doing it? Well, they don't know you
really. They don't know what you're
capable of. They didn't know what baby Pee's
parents were capable of and they were capable of for some pretty
fucking awful things. So yeah, it's it's when you
think, hang on, this is safeguarding.
It's not personal. They're just doing what's in the
kids best interests. You're very quickly kind of
it's. One of those things that again,
you know, having a kid at a specialist school, it's, it's
one of those things that you find out this way isn't.
It well, and they're they're the most vulnerable children in in
the country. Kids are non verbal.
They can't They're. Getting abused they.
Can't report it. So, so yeah, we got to the stage
where like we were saying like we're going to have to make a
note of every bruise mark and put it in this book in the
morning before she goes to school with an explanation of of
where we thought she got it from.
So like, yeah, just remember, like shower time, it'd be like,
right. Lydia's in the shower.
Let's do a full 360. Where are the where are the
bruises? You know, like when you get a
rental car and you've got a mock down here every scratch and bump
on it before you get fined. So we were doing that.
And then we just kind of said, well, it's a two way thing,
isn't it? We'll put what bruises are there
and if one knows, we'll notice if there's bruises when she
comes back, we'll have to question them as well because
it's a two way St. And to be fair, Lydia's teacher
on the very last day I Can't Sing a praise is highly enough
came out and she said, I just want to speak to you about this
because I know a lot of parents are new to this.
We are not suggesting anything. We're not insinuating
everything. And exactly what we've just said
there, it's like it's literally safeguarding so we can account
for everything. God forbid that something does
happen or there is a case, we've got to treat everybody exactly
the same. So yeah, it's just get your head
around it and once you do, fair enough.
Yeah, it does. You feel like you've been
accused at. First, massively, yeah, like
and. You've just sent your kids to
this new school and you're excited about how they're going
to progress and all of a sudden. All the other parents heard.
What is everybody getting asked? You know, and they are,
everyone's getting exactly the same.
Treatment. This is it.
So now it's, it's been a good
first first term and good, Yeah. And now she's in.
Yeah, now. She's got a boyfriend.
Now she's got a boyfriend and she's in half term, so yeah,
it's all moving very, very quickly.
What's she doing in the half term?
Where did she go? Wednesday and Friday, luckily we
are getting her back in with Suit the amazing Child minder,
so it's going to be a reunion for the two of them which is
great. Today Selena tried to fill the
day by taking her to a soft play.
Here we go. That wasn't even intentional
that. Just it's just amazing how it
all just interconnects sometimes.
Yeah, took her to a soft play, which I'm not going to name who
it is, but it was marketed as being a send session.
And yeah, Lydia, Selena took Lydia there.
Selena's mum went with them. It was supposed to be a nice
experience. Got there.
I'm a little bit I've mentioned them early on some in in the
podcast, I think where I. Can't.
You are going to give them away now.
Yeah, go back and watch them all.
I won't say which episode, but yeah, you.
It's one of those places where they charge adults, Yeah, to
enter, which just gets my go anyway because I'm not going in
the fucking ball pit and down the slide or anything else.
Like that? But yeah, they charge for the
adults and obviously the adults are then going to buy drinks and
everything else. I just like, part of me just
doesn't like that idea. I just think, why pay for the
kid? Obviously the kids not going to
go there by itself. It's a fucking sense session.
Parents, carers, grandparents are going to go, but they're
always going to end up buying drinks, Chris snacks, everything
else like that. That's how you get the money out
of out of the adults. But no, they charge for for the
adults as well. When there's supposed to be a
sense session, all hell broke loose in it.
It was absolute chaos. There wasn't any limited
numbers, by the looks of things. From what Selena said, it turns
out that on this particular day there'd been a miscommunication
with some of the staff and they'd let non send parents in
there with their kids. Need to say, absolute chaos.
Yeah, Lydia was in there, 5-10 minutes at very most.
Didn't use any of the actual play apparatus.
Had a complete fucking meltdown because it was so wild.
Selena's mum went to reception just, you know, they've just
bought coffees as well. So that's the bloody tenor down
the drain. Went to the staff.
Like, you know, we've not, we can't keep Lydia in here, we've
got to go. It's a sense session, you know.
Would you be compassionate enough just to refund the the
price of the tickets? Obviously, you know, we'll take
the coffees with us. Apparently the staff rung there,
the owner, and the owner said absolutely not.
So they just left that experience.
Yeah. Not.
Not very good, to be honest. Not very good.
And they did reply with an apology, didn't they?
Now it's interesting to know who that apology came from because
did that apology come from the same person that said fuck off,
you don't have any money back because.
I, I, I can only imagine there might be, it would be the owner
that would look after these social media account.
But yeah, they, they apologised profusely, which again, which is
fine. That's great.
I'm not going to hammer anybody today.
It sounds like they've they've had to learn a lesson from this
experience and maybe a few things did go wrong with some of
the staff, but that. Place has been there long
enough. Now it's been there long enough.
And I said to you like their Facebook page got hammered.
It got hammered by so many other.
I thought it was just us. It just like so many send
parents, just hammered that. And that was today.
Well, that was that was the people that went today.
Going this is out of order. It's been an absolute joke.
You had you. It was supposed to be a send
session. You mark it as a send session.
And this is the other thing that pisses me off is like a lot of
companies out there will market stuff.
Hey, it's send friendly. It's all this.
It's great. Come on down.
We're we're all inclusive and sometimes it's just a gimmick.
Yeah. I just feel sometimes it's a
marketing employee, we'll get a bit goodwill, but let's let's
make sure we're absolutely chock a full makes some dollar.
And it gets people in there when it's usually quiet.
So it's another way of kind of getting more bums on seats, as
it were. I just got quite.
I just. Think, you know, if you're doing
a sense session just it's it's got to be, it's got to be
capped. It's got to be ticketed.
Yeah, yeah, You know, it can't be crazy.
I know what send kids are like Lydia, you know, she can be
Really. Even though they're non verbal,
they're the loudest fuckers in the room so I know what it's
like but. Did you read, did you read in
the comments that there was some of the, some of the typical kids
were like making the noises that the autistic kids were making
like. Imitating them.
Yeah. Imitating, yeah.
So there was, Yeah. So there was kids there that
weren't autistic or Sen, just neurotypical kids, but basically
at their age just find it extremely funny to.
Which I get. At the rate I get it.
But that's where your parents call you.
Let's go oy. Fuck up.
That's when the parents should take the kid to one side, don't
do that and should apologise profusely to.
Any other parent. Yeah, absolutely.
So no, not a great, not a great experience, which is a shame.
We took over the previous Sunday to is it Little Rascals?
Yes. Dave Edwards.
Yeah, because they.
I I think they genuinely do care, yeah.
They they don't mark it around send for anything other.
Than no and they they do actually have a dedicated room
which is like a a chill out room for the kids with the the light
the lamps with the bubbles yeah yeah absolutely amazing place
went there just paid for Lydia didn't pay for the adults Lydia
was absolutely fine loved it yeah loved it yeah so.
Does make a? Difference.
It's one of those when it, when it starts crossing into well,
it's, it's more about money and everything else like that, which
I totally get. It's a business.
It's got, it's got overheads, everything else to run.
Yeah, there's no overheads though.
To adults sitting on seats, No. When the place isn't full, yeah,
you're not losing anything. No.
So it's, it's one of those in the same community, I think
wherever you are, you can be in like Shrewsbury, Lycaster, you
can be in, you know, suburb of Birmingham or just, you know,
Falkirk, whatever the case may be.
If you're a part of a Sen community, you all talk and if
something great happens, you know, in that community, like
people will say, oh, this has been fantastic, try this or in
the network and, and vice versa. There was something just riles
people up and, and it spread like wildfire.
Selena was showing me like she's in like a Sen mum group and
yeah, there was a lot of really unhappy people in there, yeah.
Because life's hard enough as it is.
Yeah, this is it. And it's half term and you want
to do something with your kids and you're just like, I need to
get out of the house. And then you're like, oh fucking
hell. Great. 20 minutes later, we're
back in the house. And with the lack of
communication that we have with our children, if the one thing
you managed to communicate to your kid is we're going to this
place, whether that be on a picture card or something like
it would like with Thomas, if you managed to communicate that
to him. And then you get there and not
only does it not meet expectations because it's so
busy or whatever it is, but you, you can't stay for more than 10
minutes and then you have to leave.
Yeah, you, you then you gotta leave.
That's. A That's a fairpoint because I
think in the screenshot, like Selena sent me, there was a one
mum who who'd exactly made that point going.
Yeah, but they don't take into account how many hours we've had
to spend getting the kid ready to go out there, I think.
She'd come quite a bit of Stafford in the head or
something, wherever it was she. Must have travelled to to go
there and just like we have to do all this prep before we get
there, which is unseen by places like this, you know, to
hopefully have an enjoyable hour or so.
You'd happily make that trip if you were gonna have.
I'd travelled, yeah, two hours, I reckon.
I travelled to Birmingham. We travelled to the seaside just
to drive to the. Seaside, I remember you saying
that just for like half an hour wasn't.
It it's worth going to these places if you're gonna have a
good time and give your kid a good hour of fun, yeah.
But this is it. You will travel if you know that
your kid, you really will get something out of it.
You go. Doesn't matter.
Yeah, we'll go there. We'll go there.
Absolutely. But.
But you can imagine like if if you went there and.
I'm picturing the place. Yeah, I'm just picturing it.
And it just like, oh, you build it up and then you get there and
you're like, Oh no, this ain't going to work.
No. And then you're like, oh geez.
Yeah, no mate, that it sounds around us.
We should. Just then lead onto we.
Should start home. Yeah, which then led on to
another conversation that popped up and I believe the former
guest of the show, 1 of the dads that came on in the early days
and his wife. We're kind of catching up with
Selena and some of the mums and made a great suggestion.
It's like, why don't we have somewhere in Shropshire which is
simply like does office soft play, you know, office, that
kind of coffee shop, maybe some rooms for treatment, you know,
or we're going to get somebody down using a specialist in
speech and language or, or therapy and just have a
dedicated Sen centre in Shropshire which can offer all
of this. And every day, doesn't matter
whether it's Tuesday at 2:00 or a Friday at 3:00, it's just for
Sen families and you're with people that absolutely get it.
Yeah. But then that's the other thing
I see if you've got people working, when you said it
earlier, just like obviously a non profit run by parents, when
the people that are serving the coffee also really get it.
And when one of the kids comes around and walks up behind the
back, it's not like, Oh my God, you know, why'd you kid it?
They just get it. If everyone that was in there,
the cleaner, the purpose work person dishing out the coffees,
like everybody just gets it, that would make the world a
difference. You'd walk in there so less
anxious. You just don't have to explain
yourself and you know, some of these places, again, you know,
it's not having a bash of the people that work there, but you
get kind of very young, you know, 16/17/18 year.
Olds cheaper. Yes, because they probably are
slightly cheaper. I'm not suggesting they are
getting paid a lesser wage because we don't know.
But in terms of life experience, yeah, none.
Like Selena said, she went there and they said, you know, it's a
sense session. Yeah, it was like, yeah.
Yeah, I know. I know this, this thing's been
with us 4 1/2 years. We're aware.
But then it's like, all right, Are these people that work at
these places, Like if, if I then get I'm going to drill you now.
What does send mean? What, what, what we looking out
for here? What's the signs that we're
looking out for? You know, what could possibly go
wrong? What do you do if a kid has an
absolute meltdown now? Yeah, it's like, but again, not
all of them. But if you're 16171819, you may
not even have kids of your own. And then you've got people
coming in here with like kids with real kind of additional
needs. But then if you've got somewhere
around Shropshire, like you say, which it's not-for-profit,
everybody in there has a, has a kind of an understanding, but
also a link to why they want this to be a success.
Yeah, it'll be a success. It'll just be that safe space,
yeah. Because everyone's there for the
right reason. Yeah, absolutely.
And then, you know, you sell your coffee to tea, your cakes,
and the money just gets put back into into it.
So yeah, I think it's something that we might have to explore.
Yeah. Through the dad cast.
Yeah. And see if we can catch up with
our former dad. Yeah.
Alan and his wife Alan Alex and see if we can get everybody
together and work out a way of how we can explore this idea.
Yeah, If anyone's got any ideas, let us know.
Because it's solely needed. It's solely needed everywhere.
It's, it's, yeah, it's needed everywhere.
I mean, we're like Shropshire, yeah.
It's lovely to live here. We've got, you know, beautiful
town in Shrewsbury and you know, got some like great areas,
lovely countryside, the biggest, you know, maybe highly density,
densely populated areas, probably around the Telford
area. But we don't have a a major
city. No, we don't have that kind of
infrastructure where? And even even the kind of
paradoxically, the local authority, as far as SEND is
concerned in Shropshire is one of the better ones.
It's it's it's it's. You know, but that's the local
authority, that's. The local authority.
As far as businesses, you know, there's, there's not really
anything here. No, no.
We take along it's it's a nice place to live.
It's yeah, lovely, a low crime, absolutely love it, picturesque
and everything else like that. But again, with those sort of
errors, you don't have the same sort of money coming in as you
do in Manchester, of course, Bristol, where the case may be
in typical cities. So again, if there's people out
there that have set up these kind of community hubs, I've
done really well. They become a real centre for
send families then yeah, let us know.
We'd be interested to hear your your expertise and advice and
and then we can kind of. Yeah.
And the the idea of it being parent run just that just sounds
amazing. That just seems.
It's just like a like a football club that's owned by its fans,
you know what I mean? Their heart's in the right place
then, isn't it? It's like, no, we want this to
be a success. It's not there to make money or
to. We just wanted to keep running,
keep like pumping the money in there, helping the parents and
families out who are here today. Also be a place for the and
families that, you know, over the next couple of years are
going to find out they've got children with additional needs.
At least there's a sense of people they can connect with and
get information from. We can have experts coming
through there. But yeah, I'm making it sound
like it's a DIYSOS. It's not exactly, but do you
know what I mean? Even with the.
Podcast that we keep, we keep kind of we started it and then
it's like, what do we do with it?
Yeah, we've got this vehicle, but we'd like we've got no
destination of we. Something to do with it.
We're not trying to make money, but we want to.
We want to create something that's meaningful and beneficial
to the community, rather than just me and you chatting all the
time and releasing podcasts and throwing reels up.
It'd be lovely to have. Something.
Something tangible positive end product that we can go do you
know what fucking hell, we've made this work.
We've had to hammer our local MP.
We've you know, we've gone to some contacts that we've now
made you know, within the charities.
We've, we've got kind of, oh. We could run the podcast from
there. As I said that to Selena, I said
we can have a dedicated podcast area where we can do ours and.
The parents could come in there. Yeah, it would.
Be superb and then obviously hire it out to bring income into
the yeah, into the facility as well yeah And then there's no
reason why if it doesn't work in Shropshire, we, you know, if we
do, you know, a long way away, but we somehow.
Replicate it and. Yeah, manage to do it.
Franchise it, essentially. Well, if we've got a blueprint,
we can then go, hey, guys, Herefordshire.
Yeah, you know, you've been calling out for it.
This is what we did. This is the blueprint that we
followed. As you said, let's, let's make
it happen here. Yeah.
And then just, yeah, see if we can help out other areas.
Yeah, it would just be, it would just be amazing.
It'd be amazing to bring everybody together in that
community. T-shirts, mate, I like your
T-shirt. Drama T-shirt.
Yeah, Where do you get that from, Dad?
For Kurt, I got it from you mate.
Thank you very. Much no problem at all.
Neuro small yaps as well. Really.
Weirdly, we're on their website as well.
Oh shit. Yeah, so this is from Charlie
Neuro, Spicy and Co. We'll put a link to the website,
but yeah, T-shirts, hats, everything's there.
At the moment. Good looking chap.
Yeah, he's did. He do a podcast.
Who him? Yeah, he doesn't.
Oh, is it? Oh, that guy, Yeah.
Oh, I saw that one. Sorry.
I was looking at this guy who's way better looking at me and you
I was looking at. Him, he looks like a proper
model. He looks like the guy that was
on Charlie. Is this the guy that was?
Was he on? Was he on Love Island at some
point? I feel like I recognise him.
Look at us on there. I know, yeah.
Yeah, Charlie's been good to us. Thank.
You very much, Charlie. Thank you very much, the hat.
Awesome. The hat will be worn, as you
know, I quite like a hat. Yes, absolutely.
So also mate, we had a, we had a lot of questions.
I'm just trying to catch up with obviously the messages we had
and people were asking about the app that Thomas uses.
Mate. Grid.
That I was going through the inbox today and literally we
couldn't get back I said to you at the time there were so many
messages of people going when you shared that reel what's this
app? What's this app Yeah, yeah, it
looks amazing What's this app? And we couldn't get back to
everybody. So I said let's do a short
section on it. And you that was.
The other one you said let's talk about something.
I was like, you said something. Else.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
So, yeah. So you explain it.
So is it right? Thomas got his AAC device and we
got what we we were waiting for it.
And guys in the community, you'll have seen it.
We put it out there and we were saying he's on the list.
The school have recognised that he's, he's kind of going the
right direction to get one. But to fund it, we need him to
kind of tick a few boxes. And as far as we were concerned
at home, we were like, he's ready, but I get it.
They have to tick the boxes to get it funded.
I don't understand that. So we were like in the summer
holidays, we were like, I feel like he's he's losing precious
time where where he could be learning to use this thing.
So we ended up just getting an app.
Now it was called Pro Loquo and it was like 200 and something
quid just for the app. But the app is amazing.
It does all sorts. But then not long after getting
it, I mean about 48 hours later, his speech and language
therapist rang and she went, it's come.
And I was like, what US she's? Got 2 of.
Them his device is here and I was like, oh, that's fucking
great news anyway, so so she came I think it was about 3 or 4
days later bought the device. It was a it was a brand new iPad
in a case screen protector on it and it had an app called grid on
it. Now we've talked before about
you can get 11 labs and stuff on it, see him get some crazy
voices put in there like Morgan Freeman.
But ultimately the app is called Grid.
You can get it on on iOS, Android and it's really simple.
You can literally just get the squares and there's kind of an
unlimited amount of levels you can go through.
So you can have like Thomas on his, he's got like places, food,
people. So then when he he can see it
clearly and he can click on that and then it opens up the places
and then from the places he can pick.
But you can go another level deep with this.
So you can go food and then inside there you could have a
tile that says breakfast and another tile that says snacks
and another one that says lunch, another one that says dinner and
go in further which mesh is actually just set up.
Recently you have a section, then in in that you'll have a
subsection. Exactly that, yeah.
So folders within folders. Exactly.
OK, that's all different fruits that's.
It. Yeah, so.
So that's what that's what it is.
But what's really interesting is it's also got a keyboard on it.
And we were fully expecting because he'd gone from the
picture cards like what Lydia's amazingly started doing now
because he went from this picture cards to these, we
thought that that would be the the, the natural progression and
that's where he'd end up. But he's kind of just chinned
that off and gone strict because because of his spelling, because
he, you know, because we took two months ago, whatever it was,
he suddenly realised you could spell stuff.
Now he just walks around with his AAC device.
He's probably on his communication iPad more than his
other iPad watching YouTube videos now.
Oh wow, he's probably on that more mate.
He spells everything. If he sees a word, he goes, you
know, it'll like, it'll look at it.
So he's learning. He's types it in like that.
But then what's really cool is when you type something in on
the keyboard, the picture still comes up.
That would have been a tile. So if you type frog, frog comes
up. If you type fro, a man with an
Afro comes up. So he essentially likes if he
sees like, I don't know, a picture of an elephant.
If he sees the word elephant, he'll copy elephant down.
The picture of an elephant comes up.
And that's a really good way of training his brain that this is
this. And that is the same as that.
And that picture of an elephant that came up on here.
And this is the interesting bit, I think, is that if there's like
a real life elephant on this picture with the word elephant
and he types it on here and it's a cartoon of an elephant, he's
starting to learn that, OK, they look a bit different.
This is a real version of it. This is a cartoon version of it.
But they're the same. They mean the same thing.
And he's learning that a lot where he'll where there's like,
oh, OK, because they, they can be quite, you know, logical
thinkers. And he's like, OK, that's the
same thing. And a good example of him kind
of just chinning off, You know, the the pictures.
We went to ALDI yesterday. I went and met Mish and Thomas
there. I again, as always, I'd just
walk around and run around chasing him while he just goes
around whistling, which is to go off on one slide when when he he
just whistles constantly now he'll just go like.
Yeah, that's. All he does constantly.
Imagine you walk in an ALDI and people are going, oh, you can
see them like almost going. And then when it gets a bit
closer and they see them go past, they look as if to say,
oh, that was the noise. And then they look at you and I
smile and they're like, OK, I'll smile back.
Your kids really annoying the shit at me.
It's like, so then I start whistling.
I'm like, yeah, he's whistling. And so am I you.
Know get used to it, motherfucker.
What the fuck are you going to do about it?
So anyway, so when we left there, we also needed to go to
Sainsbury's. So Miss said right, give them an
option of of home or Sainsbury's.
So she got the iPad 8 and she was like home or Sainsbury's
picture the the picture cards on the on the tablet home or
Sainsbury's. And he went keyboard and spell
out house. So he knows if he'd have just
tapped on that, it would have said house, he would have got
what he wanted and we would have gone there.
But he didn't. He chose to get rid of that and
spell it. He wanted to spell it.
That's really. Good.
So I think that's what I think he's going to be a spell.
They call them spellers, don't they?
I think that's what he's going to be.
I think he just likes there must be dopamine or something they
get from it I. Was I was going to say there
must be some joy. Yeah, outgoing.
I've got this new skill. I'll type it in that's amazing.
I. Think that's what it is I think
he's getting a bit of a dopamine hit when he he spells something
out the picture comes up and then we go that's correct and he
gets he gets to do that thing it's like multiple levels of
dopamine. I get that I get that so yeah,
so but it's called grid. It's a really good app.
It's not expensive compared to the Prolo code that was
ridiculous. And honestly, if you can and
you've got an iPod at home, just get one and get the app.
Don't necessarily wait for funding.
If if you feel, if you feel your kids ready, go for it, go for
it. And I think not with Lydia with
if, if they're doing picture cards and they can get deal with
a variety of picture cards and then those are in a kind of a
book where they can select them. I mean, that's that's the next
best thing, so, but that's it. It's called Grid.
It's a really good app. Was there another app you were
using which was like a de stress or Ant?
Oh shit. OK, so that was the other one.
Yeah, because that got a lot called.
Was it Ant? I can't remember.
Something about anxiety I can't remember.
Yeah. But that was I think that got a
lot of. It did you?
Put the real I think you put it as a story and everyone's like,
what is this? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to call
Mitchell on the phone. Yes.
And it was actually somebody on the podcast who who recommended
it. Sorry, not the podcast, someone
in the in the community that recommended it.
Yes, that's right, it was another parent.
Yes, it was. It was another.
Parent give this a go. Yeah, and we did and it was
really good. And there's so many, Nigel
Ansford, there's so many games on there, just loads.
And he was just like bang, bang, bang.
He actually got bored of it in the end because he was just, he
was finding it too easy. But yeah, really good app.
I can't remember who it was. I.
Can't remember, I'm just trying to see.
If we know him though. Yeah.
But yeah, it was it, it was it was just a really good way of,
oh, I can't find very quickly seeing, very quickly seeing like
OK, because that's he hadn't been playing it for long.
Yeah. Very quickly.
He's like that there that there that there that there great.
OK, sorted. I mean, even there's, you talked
about Super Simple Songs. It's a Super Simple Songs app.
Actually, you should download the app.
Where is that? Yeah, Super Simple Songs app.
And instead of it being stuck on YouTube all the time, they've
put all of their videos on the app.
That would make sense. And there's also games in the
same kind of animation. We've tried these games, we
might need to try them again. But you know, like the BBC,
we've got games for children, There's various sort of things
there which just can't get Lydia's attention.
Yeah, for any of that, unfortunately.
So yeah, we'll persevere. We'll persevere because she's
only kind of two years behind Thomas and we're always in.
Thomas has come on leaps and bangs in a very short.
Yeah, time like so. It's.
From what's happened since the start of the summer holidays to
now, just looks phenomenal, Yeah.
All I would say for anybody that's kind of, and I think it's
very easy to, I'm not dissing anybody by the way, because we
did it. And the reason I'm saying this
is because we did it is to underestimate what your child's
capable of. Our kids, all of them, even the
ones that have been told they've got a global developmental
delay. Our kids have got way more going
on in their heads then we are not necessarily told, but we
assume maybe so much. I mean they are literally
waiting for us to find the right way to get through to them, not
the other way around. It's not about getting because
that's the other thing, like with autism, they always say
like you need to get into their world.
That's all good and well, but when you get into their world,
you can't stay there. You get into their world
momentarily to then give them a bridge to our world because
that's where they're going to live.
Like your post the other day, beautiful post where we were
talking about when we're no longer here.
That's why we need to build that bridge to our world because
eventually we're not going to be and they're still going to be in
this world. So we've got to help them do
that. And the earlier you can do it,
the better chance they've got. And yeah, these kids like.
And it's very easy, isn't it? It's like I say, Selena
sometimes, like This is why sometimes when Selena, when
Lydia does something, it's such like, whoa, moments.
Do you know what I mean? Because every day we can just go
through and everything's like, as it is, nothing's changed and
you just expect it. That's the norm.
And it's very easy to maybe take your foot off the gas or just
become a little bit complacent. And I'm very much guilty of it.
And then all of a sudden there's a, there's like a moment you're
like. How does she know this?
How does she understand this sort of thing?
So it's all in there, as you kind of say.
And we saw Lydia, was it yesterday?
Selena was asking her a question.
And we're always talking to Lydia, like, you know, asking
her questions and all this sort of stuff as if she understands
and she must understand. And then she could just see the
frustration on Lydia's face. She was almost going trying to
get the connection between her mind, what she wanted with her
mouth. And it's just like, like, you
know, just trying almost like a, do you mean like, almost like a
stroke victim after they're trying to recover.
Do you know what I mean? Like trying to get the language.
Back eternally. They're completely capable, I.
Know what I'm trying to say, but it's not coming out.
It was almost like that with with Lydia.
And then she just has little moments where all of a sudden, I
don't know whether it's complete chance or or not, but the sound
she makes is absolutely in correlation with what we've just
asked or what we've been, you know, going through.
And it just marries up. And the thing to do is, is we
didn't, we were guilty of it. But like assume, assume
competence. That's kind of what they say.
It's it's there's there's nothing wrong apart from maybe
you get a bit butthurt if you assume competence and it doesn't
happen. But the other way around, if you
if you don't assume competence when there is competence and you
don't give them the opportunity to show you, that's really sad
you're. Doing them a disservice.
Course you are. I'm just massive disservice.
All do it. We're all guilty of it.
And and I said hello Sophie and hello Sophie.
I've actually finished what I was going to say.
She's got a little boy, Alby and he's him and Thomas are weirdly
alike. It's it's so strange.
And they talk all the time because, you know, in this
circle, you don't have many people you can talk to where you
can kind of relate to. And she, Mish suggested to
Sophie. There was a couple of things
that Abby was doing. And Mish was like, Oh my God,
Thomas did that. You need to do this.
OK. Oh my God, right.
Do this and do this like shoes. Like get your shoes out when you
go. If he wants to go out or you
think he wants to go out, get his shoes, show him his shoes.
And the other day he I got back and Mish went.
You won't guess what? You won't guess what happened
today. So why she went?
Albie went and got his shoes and came to his mum and Mish went to
Sophie. I fucking hope you went out
because that's. Why, yeah, you've got, you've
got to follow through. That's.
The thing as well, I mean, you don't always, you might just
have one chance every 12 months you could be going to go for it.
That might. Our kids take these chances to
communicate and they're not that it's like a lack of confidence.
Sometimes they're like, they try something in the hopes that
they're going to get it right and they'll go like, for
example, with Alby, he's kind of got the shoes and gone, like
taking his shoes to his mum and like, does this mean we can go
out? And if she went, wow, yeah.
But you know, we don't have time at the moment, so he might think
that wasn't correct. Yeah.
Whereas if you just go fuck, I've got to go out in the car
now. Do you know what, though?
If if your kid does that. Yeah.
The kids all of a sudden brings you a pair of shoes and just
hands them to you. Yeah.
You don't want it. Doesn't matter what time of the
day. Yeah, he's pissing it down.
Snowing, sunny, windy. Yeah.
Get those bloody shoes on. Get out for a period of the
time, even if it's 10 minutes, just so their brain goes.
You've just triggered them to realise.
That that's what that means. Eureka, this is what I, if I,
yeah, I bring you stuff to communicate.
Yeah. And then that leads on to like
what Thomas is doing now. It exactly it's it's all not on
the same thing, Yeah. We've got these make these
connections, get these neurons going like, Oh yes, that's
connection. I understand this and that's
why. We talked, we talked about
choices, didn't we had I with with early on when they said to
you give them two choice, give them a choice of two things that
are that are like almost polar opposites of each.
Other bottle of milk, pair of socks.
What would you like to, what would you like to drink milk or
would you like to drink some socks?
Like it sounds ridiculous, but if you allow them to realise
that the choice is an easy one, then eventually they're going to
go, OK, these are options, OK. And it's hard because you have
to, they don't think the same as us.
And even with the global developmental delay, I, I, me
and Mitch. And The thing is, they they
might do it. And you think, yeah, success.
But then don't be alarmed if nothing happens again for three
months. No.
And then all of a sudden they're just going, Oh yeah, try that
again. Try that thing.
Again, do that again and it can be literally like that and then
it just goes boom. So yeah.
I've talked about it before. I always harp on about it, the
global developmental delay. GDD.
Yeah, Yeah, it's have giving that as as a diagnosis, I think
it's quite. When they're 18 months old.
I think it's quite dangerous in that you, you you then put into
the parents an assumption that there's something mentally wrong
with their child. My kids, my kids slow just won't
pick it up now so. I just won't.
How can they possibly diagnose that at such a young age?
How can they possibly diagnose that?
As far as I'm concerned, and I've said it before and I'm
going to say it again and I'm going to say it so many times,
the reason our kids are delayed isn't because there's something
wrong with the brain. It's because there's a
disconnect with communication. If you could communicate, you
could teach them things, but when you can't communicate with
them, you can't teach them the things that, yes, we think are
so simple and so straightforward.
But when you can't communicate that in the 1st place, I can
understand why it looks like there's something wrong with
your kid. But communication is like, we
take it for granted so much. It's such an important piece of
growing up and learning things. And that's why Thomas is all,
yeah, 100% self-taught how to spell.
No one has taught him. He wants to communicate and how
he's found a way that works. He's found an Ave that works for
him and he'll just absolutely nail that now go down that route
until he's a master. Of it and we are lucky in that
that's his special interest like he always even when he didn't
know there were letters he would always like look at them and you
know like he's a weird little shape It's like why they are so
different why is there so many of them so we are fortunate that
that is kind of a a kind of a special interest that he's got
you know like it was traffic signs like that's gone out the
window now now it's just letters it's not even numbers it doesn't
count anymore he's like I'm just spelling all the time so we have
that that is fortunate but all it means is like just let your
kids don't keep your kids off iPads.
Honestly, if if your kid hasn't got much in this world at the
moment, let them do whatever the fuck they want to do.
Again, this is just my advice. I'm just a parent.
I'm just another parent. Just let them do whatever they
want to do. Let them find their own way
because we can't find that for them.
Because we can't. It's still.
Learning though, isn't it, you know, all this like playing or
do whatever they do, there's little special interests.
It's all learning and it's, it's, it's stimulating something
in them. Like if you'd listen to a lot of
people and go, all right, I know Thomas is autistic, but the rule
is too much T VS bad for you. You get square eyes.
We're not putting that on. You'll have an hour a day or see
BBS. That's great.
Actually, It wouldn't be where he is now.
That's perfect. The reason he's where he is now
is, yeah, maybe there's an element.
I'm. I'm guilty of this.
Selena will, will probably agree.
There's an element. When they're little, you're just
like, oh, do you know, I just want you to be interested in
something and I, I just want you to stop crying or I just want
you to, to be happy. I'll just put this on.
Do you know what I mean? And I can then try and do
something that normal families do, like tidy up and get rid of
the constant chaos that's around.
Us. Oh, and by the way, like us
letting him be on his iPad all the time, It was not because we
thought, you know, we understand the autistic brain.
We know that you're going to learn to.
Spell. We were just being parents that
needed a fucking break. We were like, kid, if if you're
not going to have a meltdown because you're staring at the
screen, go for it. We weren't doing, we weren't
like some fucking amazing parents by this.
This is just something that we've learned as a result.
Tiger Mum, I'm going to make that.
It's not, it's not. It's like please, just please
find something you're happy with so I can just like stop the
noise or just get on with something.
But by doing that, though, the positive is you've got subtitles
on YouTube. Everything else like that is
clearly taking it all in as other children will have done.
Yeah, it's, you know, that's their way of absorbing
information. Is is that method?
Great. But if you'd gone the other way
and just gone right, only an hour a date.
Yeah. We wouldn't be sat here having
this conversation where he's now on AAC.
Oh, no, it's absolutely going. No way.
Oh, that's elephant blue. I'll spell that.
Ego. If it was an hour a day, he'd be
so much more delayed. He'd be so much more delayed.
He, he, I mean, I, I can't imagine how bad he's
communicating would be. He's communicating would
probably just barely be cards. Barely.
Yeah. Yeah, it's mad.
It's absolutely nuts when you think of it like that.
Yeah, if if he'd been limited to RAD.
Technology. Use it to your advantage.
And if anyone tells you not to use too much screen term, tell
him to fuck off. Yes, that's it.
Yeah, Yeah, I'd do the same. Unless unless it's like your
parents or something, then don't tell him to fuck off.
But no. Just ask for a new iPad.
Yeah, but no, I think that's good.
Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, it's really good.
It's really cool. I think what else?
What else is coming about? Well, we've got the Christmas
special. Christmas special.
I'm looking forward to that. We have a date, Sunday, December
the 14th. Yeah, we have a location.
We do. Henry Tudor in and.
They're not charging us. They have been superb.
They've given us the top. Henry Tudor in is absolutely
lovely pub in the heart of Shrewsbury and I remember it
when I was it was it's it's recently sort of last couple of
years changed hands. But what was it when ad pool
table was at the bottom? We used to be in there all the
time. Oh, I can't.
Remember, it was cold. I I I remember it.
Pretty sure we were smoking around the pool table as well I
think. It's probably those days, yeah.
I think the the landlord also had a 1/2 queue behind the
behind the bar in case there's any trouble.
It's not like that anymore. It's a lovely, lovely pub.
It's. A lovely venue.
Owned by Jewels, It's historic pub or 16th century, something
like that. It's Jewels pub.
It's a Jewels pub. I didn't know that.
Yeah, they've re kitted it out. They've.
Got a few jewels? Oh, that really nice.
As well. Yeah, really, really good.
It looks absolutely amazing. We've got the top floor.
They've kindly waived the fee for us.
I think it's a great 'cause I'm doing a Christmas special there,
so they're happy to be on board and it's going to be a ticketed
event. We're not going to charge for
the tickets, but we've got to give tickets because there's a
capacity for what is. It 80 or 60?
I think they put it as 65. OK, so they're going to be.
If more people come, I mean, you can still go to the pub.
Oh. Yeah, we'll be downstairs.
I'm in a few. Beverages.
I was going to say it. Yeah, I mean absolutely if if
anybody and we're going to be running it, we've got it from 12
till 10 or is it a bit later than that?
Is it 2 till 10? I think it's 12 till 10. 12 till
10. So I mean, what I, we haven't
really talked about it properly, but what I'd like to do is get
there for, I mean, I suppose you'd be good to get a feel of
when people want to come because it's on a Sunday.
So there's going to be a lot of parents that, you know, won't be
able to stay for long, but if anybody wants to come and and be
there a little bit earlier, I think it'd be good if we were
there. Well, I was, I was thinking
we'd, we'd go there, do a set up.
Yeah. So it's all done and, and
literally, you know, maybe press record at about 3330, but from
like 1:00 onwards, yeah. Just have a couple of drinks.
We'll, you know, mix it in, talk to the various parents, We'll
have a chat with you and you know, all the other dads.
Hopefully there's a few dads from the the previous episodes
are able to make it one or two sadly, who've got prior
commitments and can't make it. But yeah, just like be part of
it. We'll have a good, good show.
Yeah, we're going to. So we're going to basically
record. Just do it live.
We're. Just going to record, keep doing
it live. People can dip in and dip out.
Yeah, absolutely. We'll have a pint in our hand
and some Christmas jumpers and yeah.
Christmas hats. Yeah, absolutely.
Just have a good one. See the end of the year out.
Yeah, yeah, it'll be good. So if if anybody does just want
to come earlier rather than later, that's fine, We'll be
there. I mean, I'll probably just get
there whenever it starts, whenever it opens.
So, you know, get there not long after dinner time.
Yeah, just come down and just shoot the shit and just just
chat and mingle and it'd be good.
It'd be good. Again, isn't going to cost
anything. Just I mean the staff that the
owner would probably just appreciate if you bought a
drink. Yeah, if you do come, please at
least buy a drink. I think it would help the pub
out massively and thank them for for giving us this amazing
space. And and do you know what?
It's just, it's just a nice, nice pub as.
Well, it's lovely. It's a lovely.
Lovely pub and you'll see. You'll see that when you get
there. Smack.
Bang in the middle of the street.
It's lovely. Great stuff, I thought that.
Was what I was going to say. I was going to say something
else in a big hurry. Can you think of it?
I think I can Bollocks. We're there.
It's. The sort of thing that just pop
into your head as soon as we start recording isn't.
It oh, Mitch did ring me back. In fact, I'm going to quickly
ask her. Okey doke what?
The app was called. She want to answer this time
please hold. Hi there, what was that app
called? The game app.
I. Don't know, not on his iPad.
A phone. It's on his.
It's on his phone or his No, it's on his iPad.
Anti stress, What's it called? Anti stress.
It's all right.
That was on the podcast. I'll just let you say that into
the mic. You said he'd really grumpy anti
stress. You did really, really
miserable. She needs to get on the app.
She's lovely. Really.
Everybody OK? Anti stress.
It's called anti stress. OK, All right.
Love you. Bye.
That was a good phone. A friend.
Yeah, it was. It was, it was very, it was very
much like that. Anti stress so.
I think, I think and you might want to do the same with Selena.
I want to drag mesh on at some point and do and do a podcast
just. I think it'd be nice just to get
the the. Other side.
Get the other side. Yeah, get the other side and
almost. Where they tell everybody that
what we've said is completely wrong.
Complete horseshit. He didn't do this, he wasn't
there when I went, when I needed him, but probably quite good.
I reckon I'll just talk to Mitch.
I reckon I'll learn a lot just having an open.
Yeah, it'd be really insightful. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it'd be good,
yeah. But it'd.
Be like one of those episodes of Married at First Sight where the
truth comes out. You're like, oh shit.
So that was 21. #2120. 22 We, we will yeah, we'll get back up to
date. It's just been so busy.
Q4 Oh my God, mental. But you know, Christmas has come
in and that's why. Yep.
All right, mate. Thank you very much.
No problem at all. What?
Time is it, It's 7:15. That's good.
Thank you guys. Again, just thanks for all your
support and all your messages and we will get back to you as
quick as we can. It's just just life gets in the
way sometimes. So if you send us a message and
we don't reply straight away, please don't think we're
ignoring you. We'll just fly.
But we love you all and we thank you very much.
Have a great one, see you soon. Bye.