Noah is a 10-year-old animal loving , planet obsessed, and engaging little boy. He has a diagnosis of autism.

He is in year five at school, and since year three, his anxiety about going to school has increased. In the last few weeks, Noah has been so distressed that it has been impossible to get him to school and his parents are at their wits end. His school are trying to help but they have limited resources. 

Noah’s mum Nicole feels worried sick and she can see his anxiety spiralling out of control. She doesn’t know where to turn for advice, because her GP has told her there is more than a year waiting list for NHS help. Nicole has had to cut back her hours at work because of Noah’s difficulties getting to school, and the stress of it all is affecting her own mental health and is having an impact on Noah’s little sister Emily. 

Nicole joins Everlief parent club. She takes the “what level are you?” Quiz and discovers that her family is at level four, the highest level of need. To her relief She immediately discovers that there are other parents in a similar situation to her. She watches a workshop on School based anxiety, and this helps her to realise that she needs to take some baby steps, and there are a few small tweaks she can make right away which will start to make a difference. 

The child psychologists inside the parent club are autism specialists, and encourage Nicole to start by having a meeting with school to ensure that staff are doing their best to create an autism friendly environment for Noah. They encourage Nicole and Noah’s teachers to use a “barriers to thriving worksheet” where they get a deeper understanding of the many sources of anxiety and stress for Noah, such as his uniform feeling scratchy, and worrying about school assembly. 

Nicole and Noah’s teacher, realise there are a couple of immediate tweaks they can make. One tweak is to allow Noah to come into assembly. After all the other children have come in and sat down, and to sit at the back with a TA for support. This immediately reduces Noah’s anxiety on days when he has assembly. They continue to look for baby steps they can take to help Noah feel safe at school.

Within two weeks, Noah is starting to attend school more willingly and more regularly. Nicole feels more hopeful and less overwhelmed. Now that she is making progress, she starts to ask direct questions regularly in the parent clubs Q&A sessions. She asks for advice on helping Noah feel calm in the mornings before school, and gets some direct tips from the child psychologists. She incorporates several of the ideas into her morning routine, including walking the last 10 minutes to school, rather than driving, so that Noah can release some of his stress through exercise. Nicole continues to see improvements throughout the term, and notices that everyone in the family is feeling happier. She takes the quiz again, and discovers that she has now moved to a level three and she is delighted with this progress. 

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Nine-year-old Amelia has always been happy-go-lucky, kind and caring. But her parents, John, and Martha are worried. They have noticed a gap in maturity growing between Amelia and other children her age. Other girls are starting to do more “grown-up “things and Amelia just wants to play mum and dads. She gets on really well with girls in younger year groups who want to play the same games.

Amelia is desperate to be friends with some of the more mature girls, but the interactions are becoming more complex, and she tends to be on the edge of any social group. Amelia isn’t particularly aware of this, and still thinks of all the other girls in her class as her friends, but she is sometimes teased and John and Martha worry that this gap will grow even further. Amelia seems to be struggling with some of the social skills that are the children have at this age.

Martha and John feel that Amelia may have some traits of autism, for example, she is obsessive about unicorns, and will talk about them to the exclusion of everything else, which is affecting her socially.

After joining Everlief‘s parent club, Martha and John take the quiz and find that they are at a level one as a family, which is the highest level of well-being. Although they are worried, Amelia is currently happy and doing well academically. They want some support strategies and reassurance, so that they can maintain Amelia’s level of well-being as she moves towards the tween years and adolescence.

John watches the parent club workshop, all about friendship, difficulties, and immediately feels relieved and empowered. He realises that this maturity gap is quite common. The child psychologists reassured him that it’s okay for Martha to play with younger children. 

John likes the idea that the psychologists suggest of taking gradual, practical steps to build Amelia‘s social skills and awareness, so that she can interact more successfully with children her age. John and Martha decide to take one of the recommended steps from the workshop, which was to help “scaffold” Amelia‘s social interactions by providing structure, and ensuring either one on one or very small group interactions. They set up a few play dates for Amelia, where they could manage the situation carefully and ensure success, for example by choosing children with high levels of empathy, these were successful and left Amelia buzzing with confidence. 

Next, they submitted a question to the Q&A about what could be done at school to support Amelia. The child psychologist suggested asking school if there were any social skills, groups or one-to-one offerings using evidence based programs like psychotherapy or social stories. When John and Martha met with Amelia‘s teacher, she agreed that Amelia would benefit from some friendship support and put her on the list for someone one-to-one support through social stories. 

John and Martha were over the moon. Well, things weren’t perfect, they knew they were taking practical steps to narrow the social gap between Amelia and her peers, and they no longer felt such worry about how she would get on at secondary school. The Everlief psychologists suggested that take a “watch and wait” approach to considering autism, keeping a diary of their notes.

Thomas is 14 and his parents feel as though he is constantly angry. His mum, Lisa, treads on eggshells around him, not wanting to ask to do even simple chores in case it triggers his anger. Dad, Chris is much more strict, and Thomas and Chris frequently come to blows verbally. The difference in parenting approach is causing arguments between Lisa and Chris. Meanwhile, Lisa has noticed that Thomas is increasingly angry and resentful towards his little brother, Marshall , and has physically hurt him on a few occasions.

Lisa and Chris join Everlief parent club to get some advice, having tried the Internet, but still feeling overwhelmed. They took the quiz and came out as level three, the second lowest level of family well-being. They already knew something needed to change.

The first thing Lisa and Chris did was watch the workshop and managing behaviour and setting boundaries. They found the workshop in valuable. It immediately helped them reflect on their differing parenting styles and the importance of becoming more consistent in the responses to Thomas. The workshop helped them to understand why Thomas might be feeling so angry, using the concept of the anger iceberg. This helped them to approach the situation with empathy, and it actually helped Kris to stay calmer when he felt triggered by something Thomas did or said. They decided to make some tweaks to family life. First of all, they followed the parent club guidance in setting up family rules. this allowed everyone, to get clear about the kind of behaviours that were unacceptable, versus those that they were prepared to ignore, and those that they wanted to encourage. Just having their family rules poster on the wall, reduced Thomas’ aggression towards his brother, because it helped him keep the rules at the forefront of his mind. Next, Lisa and Chris realised they needed to support Thomas, with improving some of his lifestyle choices, as these were significantly affecting his mood. For example, he was gaming until very late at night, and this meant that he wasn’t getting enough sleep. Sleep is also going to the blue light of his device. Lisa and Chris watched the sleep workshop, and then followed several of the strategies runway”, where they supported him to calm each of his senses and trigger the release of the sleep, hormone melatonin. 

There were ups and downs, but Lisa and Chris felt that they finally had a common goal, and a clear sense of direction in how to support Thomas. They continued to work on sleep, and also began to work on improving Thomas’ diet and exercise levels, they started to see small improvements in his mood, and felt that very soon they would retake the quiz again, and would have moved up to level two. 

Six-year-old Jasmine worries about everything. She is highly sensitive and the slightest thing can upset her. She has many fears but the biggest one is her mummy and daddy leaving her. The worries cause significant sleep issues and Jasmine’s parents Rory and Ellen have not had an evening to themselves for several years because Jasmine needs one of them to be in the room with her whilst she falls asleep, and frequently wakes during the evening, calling out for them. Jasmine also comes into them in the night they are exhausted. 

Ellen and Rory, joined Everlief parent club and the quiz suggested that they were at level three, the second lowest level of family well-being. They watch the workshops on anxiety and sleep and feel empowered. They realise that separation, anxiety and sleep anxiety are very common in children of this age, and that they shouldn’t feel they are mollycoddling Jasmine for giving her extra nurture.

Ellen decides to begin with baby steps as instructed by the child psychologists. For two weeks, she works consistently on introducing slow, deep breathing at bedtime with Jasmine, using the “balloon, breathing exercise”. in an appropriate way, she helps Jasmine to understand why it’s important to calm her body down when her brain has so many worries. Once Balloon breathing is a habitual part of their evening routine, they feel that Jasmine is a little less anxious, and decide to move forward with the strategy of gradual withdrawal. The child psychologists have explained how to do this, a gentle and nurturing way, at Jasmine’s pace.

Ellen and Rory, try gradual withdrawal for a couple of weeks and then they have some specific questions about it. So they decide to ask at the monthly Q&A. Through the Q&A, Ellen and Rory are able to hone their technique and make faster progress. Within a few short weeks Jasmine is noticeably more settled and less anxious at bedtimes and Ellen and Rory are finally getting some time together in the evenings. 

Ellen and Rory know that helping Jasmine with her sensitivity and worries is a long-term project, but with the help of Everlief parent club, they feel they can continue to help her thrive through carefully planned baby steps.