“I can finally teach her”

Adaeze is a primary teacher, which she says made the first years harder rather than easier. She knew exactly what she was looking at, and she knew that none of the strategies she used at work were touching it at home.

The part nobody warns you about

Not the food. The social cost. Birthday parties, school lunches, grandparents who think you are being difficult. She is blunt about it: the protocol was the straightforward part, and the conversations around it were not.

People kept telling me I was restricting her. I was trying to give her back the thing that lets her learn. Adaeze O.

Where they are now

Eighteen months in, and off the Introduction stages for over a year. She describes the change less as a recovery than as an arrival: a child who is present in the room, who can sit with a task, and who can be taught.

“I’m not going to tell anyone this will do the same for them,” she says. “I’ll tell them it was worth finding out.”