Jessie Hewitson: I was most scared about having an unhappy child, not an autistic child

WHEN my son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of two, I panicked.

I felt something awful had happened to our family but I didn’t know what it all meant or how to help my son.

And so I did what many of us do in a time of crisis – I turned to the internet.

I was looking for reassurance but, boy, I did not get it. Instead, I read horror story after horror story.

There was no reliable place to inform myself and quell the panic I was feeling.

Books weren’t much better, and speaking to parents could be both amazing and terrifying at the same time.

And so, lying awake in the small hours one night, I decided to write my own. The book I ended up writing looks at autism as a valid difference rather than a disorder.

Writer and mum goes in search of the latest knowledge about autism and asks why so little is known about a condition affecting so many

As my son slowly moved from being unhappy to happy, as we learned more about his experience of autism, it dawned on me that what I was really scared about was having an unhappy child, not an autistic one.

Autism wasn’t the problem; what was making my son miserable was that no one around him knew anything about it.

My son is now seven, he’s chatty, laughs a lot and isn’t great at staying still.

Clever, anxious, loving and sociable, he’s at a mainstream state school with extra support.

I worry he feels on the periphery, but I can see his classmates like him and he has friends.

One of the autistic adults I interviewed was the TV presenter Alan Gardner, of the Channel 4 show The Autistic Gardener.

He told me about visiting a school for autistic kids, whose pupils came rushing up to him as he arrived, shouting they were autistic, too.

The fact they were so proud of their autism made him cry. It also made me cry.

I hope this is the future for my son, that he grows up proud of his autism, and knows how proud I am to be his mum.

Autism: How To Raise A Happy Autistic Child is published by Orion Spring