The Graham Norton Connection

Me and Graham Norton on the sofa (artists impression)

For a list of books that may help with managing challenging behaviour, and/or web links to parenting advice about NVR and other behavioural techniques, please check out the Bookshelf and Links pages.

What, you might ask, is the link between Graham Norton and ASC? Well, actually nothing that I am aware of, but there is a link between everyone's favourite chat show host and me managing not just meltdowns, but parenting in general.

Parenting is phenomenally challenging, not just for us, but for everyone. I do think though, that as parents of ASC girls, we have an extra special additional box of challenges dumped on top of all the rest, on account of our daughters unique brains and the way that they process information.

What this means in practice, is that most of the parenting tips that are widely circulated, or handed down to us by our parents, or friends, or supporters, won't work for us. I tried the naughty step long before my daughter was diagnosed. All that happened was that she stood by the door, crying hysterically at me, her tiny face, crumpled and red with frustration and confusion. At the time I had no idea why the technique didn't work, only that it didn't.

Somehow, the magical connection between Supernanny on the TV and the child in my hallway, was non-existent. Naturally, I thought it was my fault. I also thought it was my fault when the star charts, reward charts, bribes, begging, shouting and further inevitable tears of frustration, (mine this time) had no effect either.

I knew it was my fault when I was quietly taken to one side by her nursery manager and told that the reason that she cried at drop off and pick up, was because I wasn't paying her enough attention. Perhaps a parenting course would help, and by the way, here is a handy list of things you can do in order to make sure you bond with her properly. I went home and cried.

It wasn't for another 5 years that I came to realise that a) she was autistic and b) that children and adults with autism have enormous difficulty with transitions. Any part of the day or night when a change happens, from the innocuous (the episode of Charlie and Lola you are watching, finishes) to the repetitive (waking up to a new day and falling asleep at the end of it) to the obvious (leaving the house to go somewhere, whether it be school or a trip to the shops). Any and all of these things are fraught with anxiety for an autistic girl, as she is unable to predict what will happen next. So 'what happens next' becomes a minefield that she is trying to cross blindfold.

Of course, for me, that included my daughter being dropped off and collected from nursery. It was a relief to realise that I wasn't the world's most neglectful parent, but that feeling of letting her down stayed with me for a long time.

So, back to Graham Norton,

As the list of things that worked, in terms of managing challenging behaviour, grew shorter and the list of things that didn't grew longer, I started to turn into someone I didn't like very much. I am a lone parent, and the sheer stress of managing everything alone would sometimes get too much. Not having a partner to share it all with, someone to bounce ideas off or just someone to tell me that actually, I was doing okay, made it harder. Add into this mix the regular meltdowns and skyrocketing anxiety that my daughter was experiencing.

Add in further, her brother, who, being younger, found it incredibly hard to understand why she was different, but simply found it incredibly frustrating. This, of course, meant that their sibling rivalries and arguments and fights were rocket fuelled with plutonium and often very hard to defuse. And this meant that sometimes I would join in.

I'd love to tell you that I was always an oasis of calm, a zen like presence wafting peacefully through our flat, diffusing rows like a south east London combination of Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. But it wouldn't be entirely true. Sometimes I would shout and sometimes just let rip in sheer frustration.

Guess what? It didn't work. I've since discovered NVR (Non Violent Resistance, which will be getting a shiny blogpost all of it's own soon) and so many parenting courses, I've lost count. They've all been useful and have all made a difference in varying ways.

But underlying it all, is my failsafe. My secret weapon in the battle to stay calm when everything around me feels like a war zone.

I pretend I am a guest on the Graham Norton Show.

Yes, the most effective way to stay calm, on a day to day basis, when things are tough, is to pretend I am sitting on the red sofa, getting mildly squiffy and explaining how I diffuse meltdowns. Alternatively, I imagine I am being followed by an imaginary film crew, making a documentary about me and my amazing parenting. (I may or may not be in a relationship with Robert Downey Jr or Tom Hiddleston, for the purposes of the film, but they don't feature much; presumably they are 'busy filming' in Hollywood).

It sounds a little bit bonkers (or maybe a lot, depending on who's reading this) but it really does work. When things heat up at home, I switch into 'BBC documentary' mode. Whether it's Mr Norton, the Horizon team, The One Show or my own reality TV series, in my head I have a film crew following and crucially, listening, to my every word. So I make damn sure those words are the right ones.

Because the wrong words not only massive escalate the situation, but inevitably lead to louder noise levels which my daughter simply can't cope with. It also leads to me, after the event, apologising to my daughter for not getting it right, but also being secretly flooded with shame at my inability to be the parent that I want to be.

It's an extension of the truism that we are all slightly better behaved when we are in front of other people. When we have our children's friends over for playdates, we are calmer and more in control because we have to be. Not only are we acutely aware that we are looking after someone else's children, but we take the opportunity to be our best selves.

I use what my daughter refers to as my 'professionals' voice. The voice we all unconsciously adopt when we are a little less relaxed than normal, when we are aware that things need to be a little more serious, a little more grown-up.

Just to be clear, if I'm giving you the impression that I'm some paragon of parental virtue now that I have discovered 'The Graham Norton Method' (as I like to call it), I'm not. I still overreact, and sometimes I end up escalating things. But conversely, sometimes I don't. A lot more of the time, I don't.

Sometimes I have a whole raft of imaginary television presenters in my flat, helping me stay calm, stay cool and stay in control. Occasionally I rant about lack of autism provision while guest panelling on Question Time. It's kind of fun. It reminds me of being a teenager, when I was positive I was going to be the next Debbie Harry, and did endless imaginary interviews with Melody Maker (obviously that didn't pan out quite as I'd hoped). It's not perfect, and it's a bit unconventional, but it's another tool in my parenting toolkit.

It has admittedly led to both my children asking me occasionally "Who are you talking to?" as I wax lyrical while I'm cooking the fishfingers. I usually just explain that I'm thinking out loud. I'm not sure they're ready to hear that Imaginary Graham lives in our kitchen...

xx