It was twenty past three. I put on my shoes and coat and set off to school to get my child. The school was only down the road so I would be in time to wait a couple of minutes in the playground.

I waited, those minutes seeming like an hour. My heart was in my stomach as usual, and I didnt know what to expect. Was he going to run to me crying, run as fast as he could away, or would this be one of the rare days he came out calmly?

I had run out of options. I had no distraction tools, no calm down tools and no energy left to deal with the imminent meltdown. I reached a point that I know many of my readers with autistic children will know well and one I have been in many times before. I felt helpless, exhausted and didnt have a clue what to do. I so desperately wanted to help my son to cope with his feelings, to take away his complete frustration, but I couldn’t.

All of a sudden my relatively calm and quiet house escalated into the sort of noisy chaos that has the neighbours ringing the police and hairdressers running for their lives!