Windy Ridge Autism Supports

09/24/2026

YOU CANNOT DEMAND ATTENDANCE AFTER YOU HAVE BROKEN TRUST.

I don't think we talk enough about the extraordinary amount of trust involved in sending a child to school.

I remember leaving mine at primary school and thinking: You are basically strangers to me, and I'm handing you my child.

I'm trusting you to keep them safe. To notice. To listen before jumping to conclusions. To be fair. To have a conversation before a consequence. And to believe me when I tell you something about the child I've known their entire life.

But the child is trusting too.

They're trusting that when their parent leaves, the adults will look after them. That they'll be listened to. That mistakes won't define them. That somebody will have enough time to notice when something isn't right.

And when that trust is there, attendance is a very different conversation.

The problem comes when things start going wrong.

A child struggles. A parent raises it. School sees something different. Someone feels blamed. Someone becomes defensive. A conclusion is reached too quickly. Another concern goes unheard.

Sometimes the parent gets it wrong. Sometimes the teacher gets it wrong. Sometimes everyone is trying their absolute best.

And sometimes the failure happened much further up the chain — leadership, local authorities, unavailable services, funding, government policy — leaving the people closest to the child without what they need.

But eventually attendance drops.

And suddenly that's the problem we're measuring.

The percentage. The persistent absence. The letters. The parent who needs to “engage”. The child who needs to get through the gate.

What if we're starting at the end of the story?

Before asking “Why isn't this child attending?”, perhaps we need to ask:

“What happened to their trust in going?”

And before asking why a parent isn't getting them through the gate:

“What happened to their trust in sending them?”

Attendance matters. Education matters.

But you cannot rebuild trust by demanding more of the person whose trust has already been damaged.

Attendance might be the number we measure.
Trust might be the thing we should have noticed first.

09/24/2026

I can’t tell you how many times I was told:

“She’s fine when you’re not here.”

And I believed them.

Or at least, I tried to.

Because what else was I supposed to believe when the people with her all day were telling me that the child they saw was completely different to the child I was seeing?

They saw her walk through the door.

They saw her sit in the classroom.

They saw her answer questions, follow instructions, sometimes laugh with her friends.

And then I got her back.

I got the meltdowns. The tears. The exhaustion. The explosions over things that seemingly made no sense. The child who couldn’t cope with another demand because she’d spent the entire school day coping with them.

But still I heard it.

“She’s fine once you’re gone.”

It’s one of the reasons I wanted Liv to say this in The School Is Lava:

“I heard the teacher tell her (mum) that I am fine when she is gone, but that’s not true! How do they know how I feel? I have no choice but to hide how scared I am until the school day ends.”

That sentence matters to me because looking fine and feeling fine are not the same thing.

I know that now.

At the time, I kept wondering what I was doing wrong.

Why was she apparently fine for everybody else?

Why did everything fall apart with me?

Why could she cope there and not at home?

It took me far too long to understand that home wasn’t necessarily where the problem was.

Home was where she finally felt safe enough to stop holding it all in.

And when a child has to fall apart at home in order to look “fine” at school, I think we need to be very careful about using their ability to mask their distress as evidence that the distress isn’t there.

Sometimes the child who appears to be coping is using absolutely everything they have just to make it to the end of the day.

And sometimes the parent standing at the school gate is seeing a part of that child that school never gets to see.

If you’ve ever been told “they’re fine when you’re not here”, I’d really like to hear what happened when they came home. ❤️

🌋 The School Is Lava is back in stock on Amazon. Comment LAVA and I’ll send you the details.

09/23/2026

🙏 Misa on Wheels

🩷💚🧡👩‍🦼🧡💙💜

Image description: an accessibility-related infographic with a lined note paper background. There are five lines/points related to accessibility. From the top:

The first line contains a minimalist image of a manual wheelchair user with different shades of pink. Pink text to the right of them reads, ““It’s accessible once you get up the stairs” is not accessible.”

The second line contains a minimalist image of a manual wheelchair user with different shades of green. Green text to the right of them reads, ““It’s accessible if you have someone to help you” is not accessible.”

The third line contains a minimalist image of a manual wheelchair user with different shades of orange. Orange text to the right of them reads, ““It’s accessible if you can leave your mobility aid behind” is not accessible.”

The fourth line contains a minimalist image of a manual wheelchair user with different shades of blue. Blue text to the right of them reads, ““It’s accessible, but you can’t access the restroom” is not accessible.”

The fifth line contains a minimalist image of a manual wheelchair user with different shades of purple. Purple text to the right of them reads, ““It’s accessible just because we call it accessible” is not accessible.”

Centered at the bottom of the image is the handle “” in light pink text.

09/21/2026

09/20/2026

Have you ever wondered whether something you said actually was a form of ableism?

Ableism can show up in everyday assumptions, expectations, language, and behaviours that create barriers for disabled and neurodivergent people or suggest there is one right way to communicate, work, learn, or participate.

Some examples of ableism you may not realize are ableism include:

🎈 Punishing people for needing accommodations by treating them as difficult.

🎈 Questioning someone's support needs because they don't appear disabled.

🎈 Using your degree, professional role, or personal expertise to talk over disabled people. Professional knowledge does not replace lived experience.

🎈 Assuming disability should always be visible or expecting someone to “look disabled” to be believed or taken seriously.

🎈 Assuming all disabled people are the same by making generalizations.

🎈 Treating accessibility as an afterthought rather than considering access needs from the beginning.

🎈 Expecting people to mask to be seen as competent, such as requiring eye contact, suppressing stimming, or hiding support needs to fit neurotypical expectations.

🎈 Shaming stimming or fidgeting by describing natural regulatory behaviours as distracting, inappropriate, or unprofessional.

🎈 Touching or moving disability aids without permission.

Creating more accessible environments means questioning assumptions, listening to disabled people, respecting individual needs, and considering accessibility from the beginning.

At Blue Sky Learning, our neurodiversity-affirming therapists and coaches support individuals in understanding their needs, navigating barriers, and developing strategies that honour the way their brains and bodies work.

Book a free 20-minute consult at www.blueskylearning.ca or email [email protected]

Follow for more neurodiversity-affirming education, coaching, and mental health support.

09/20/2026

“Unconditional, largely carried in isolation and without a limit in time.”

That's how researchers described something they found when interviewing parents of disabled children: the awareness of being ultimately responsible for another person.

And I can't stop thinking about it.

Because I think there are a lot of SEND parents walking around permanently holding themselves together. Not necessarily in crisis. Not necessarily visibly struggling. Just living with a level of responsibility that rarely gets completely put down.

There are words for some of this, and I think they're worth knowing.

Caregiver burden is the physical, emotional, practical and mental load associated with providing ongoing care. It's not just making the food, attending the appointments or sorting school. It's remembering, anticipating, organising, adapting and constantly thinking three steps ahead.

Hypervigilance is that state of heightened alertness: scanning for what might happen next. Will they eat that today? Is the noise becoming too much? Will those clothes suddenly feel wrong? Will they sleep? Will school work today? Is my phone about to ring?

And then there's allostatic load — a term I wish more parents knew. It's used to describe the cumulative physiological wear and tear associated with the body's repeated adaptation to stress. Stress responses are useful. The problem is when there isn't enough opportunity to recover between them.

That last bit feels particularly important.

Because you can have friends. You can have people who love you. You can even have people physically around you and still feel profoundly alone in the responsibility.

Company isn't necessarily respite. Respite is being able to put the responsibility down.

For some SEND parents, that rarely happens.

And eventually your body can start recognising the patterns too. The school email that makes your stomach drop. The phone ringing during school hours that sends your heart racing. The anxiety that builds towards September because your body remembers previous Septembers.

Then we walk into meetings and are expected to explain all of this calmly, coherently and preferably using the correct professional terminology.

So perhaps these are three phrases worth keeping:

Caregiver burden. Hypervigilance. Allostatic load.

Not because every difficult experience needs a label, but because sometimes finding the language for what you're experiencing changes the story from “Why can't I cope with this?” to “I've been carrying something extraordinarily heavy without enough opportunity to put it down.”

And I suspect there are far more parents doing that than anyone realises.

09/19/2026

Love this! Be a friend ♥️

💬❤️ Be an AAC Friend!

Siblings, cousins, classmates, and other young family members can support early communicators by using AAC themselves! Model words, make comments, ask questions, play, and have fun communicating together. 🌟

When children see AAC being used by their peers, it can help make communication feel natural, fun, and social.

✨ Remember: Always ask permission before using someone else’s AAC device, and make sure it’s okay with both the AAC user and their parent/caregiver.

Let’s make AAC part of everyday connection! 💬

09/19/2026

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) announced upcoming changes to Children and Youth with Support Needs (CYSN) services in BC.

This session by FSI Executive Director Angela Clancy will offer a clear overview of the changes. Using a simple journey map, we will walk through how families currently access supports, what the proposed model is intended to look like, and—most importantly—what is known with certainty versus what remains unclear.

The goal of this session is to equip everyone with accurate information so they can feel more informed during a time of significant uncertainty and change. We will also share how FSI is advocating to ensure family voices are heard and that no child, youth, or family is left behind as these changes are implemented.

Join us on Thursday, October 8, 2026, at 12:00 pm to hear more.

Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/DRa0X8E7QhGrsxMWE1w7TA

09/19/2026

Upcoming funding changes: Sept 28 and 29 via zoom.

You won't want to miss.
Are you affected by upcoming Autism Funding changes ?
Session 1- Sept 28th NOON Pacific. 1Pm Mountain
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/20Fi5KvuQYuNzHO3O1h3Hg
Session 2- Tuesday Sept.29th. 6:15 Pm Pacific. 7:15 Pm Mountain.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/dIq51rF8TrGgL13Lc0yB9A
Such important information