When Is It the Right Time? EOTAS, School Trauma & The Fear of Letting Go

Living in a neurodivergent family can feel like walking barefoot through a dark room full of Lego.

In this episode, I share a powerful metaphor from listener Lindsay Morris, and then take you into something very real happening in my own family right now.

After four years of recovery, support and rebuilding trust through an EOTAS package (Education Otherwise Than At School), my son is considering returning to school.

And I am terrified.

Not because he isn’t capable.

But because for many neurodivergent children, autistic, ADHD, PDA, school trauma doesn’t disappear overnight. Children do not go from “I can’t cope” to “I’m fixed.”

There is no switch.

In this episode I talk about:

• The Lego-in-the-dark metaphor for parenting a neurodivergent child
 • Why safe circles matter more than perfect solutions
 • EOTAS as structured recovery, not failure
 • The fear of losing EHCP support too soon
 • Why graded transitions matter
 • The all-or-nothing approach many families face
 • How to know when it’s time to take the next step
 • Making leaps without losing the safety net

This is an honest episode about risk, recovery, fear and hope.

If you’ve ever sat at 3am wondering whether you’re making the right decision for your child, this one’s for you.

There is hope.
But there has to be flexibility.

If this resonates, please don't hesitate reach out, you are not doing this alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Living in a neurodivergent family can be tricky. It comes with stresses and with challenges, but it also comes with some amazing bits and highlights to our families. Welcome back to the Untypical Parent Podcast. This is a short series in between our guest episodes where we are hearing from followers and listeners of the podcast. And they replied with comments to a post that I put out titled Living

Welcome And Theme: Neurodivergent Family

SPEAKER_01 0:31

in a Neurodivergent Family Is. And this week we have got a comment from Lindsay Morris. So I'm going to read Lindsay's comment out because this sums up things for me perfectly by Lindsay. So appearanting in a neurodivergent family is like making your way through a room full of Lego and no lights. Sometimes you get hurt, sometimes you land on your feet in the right places, and there is no rhythm. You just need to roll with it to get to where you're going. It's always easier with someone else there holding your hand and helping you find the

Listener Metaphor: Lego In The Dark

SPEAKER_01 1:09

light through. Lindsay, thank you ever so much for writing your comment. I think your comment for me is spot on. I have two kids who in the past have used a lot of Lego. And I know that feeling. It is incredibly painful. Um, can often come with a range of expletives with it, and you swearing that you're never buying any more Lego again, and you're going to hoover the whole lot up. But we rarely do. I didn't. I the Lego continued to stay, I continued to step on it, or it continued to go up the hoover and get blocked or wreck the hoover. But the kids loved it, so it stayed. So I love that. But it also, when Lindsay talks about kind of it's like finding your way through in the dark over Lego, and actually what helps is finding the light with somebody else to help you through and to navigate your way through life as a parent in a neurodivergent family. And it's something that I talk about all the time is finding your safe circle is not doing it alone. And that safe circle can look like anything. It doesn't have to mean hundreds of billions of friends that all rally around when things get tough because let's face it, it tends to go in waves. There are times when things are more difficult and things where things times where things slightly ease off again. But it is about having that support network around us, and that's what's so important. And that's why I do the podcast

Finding Your Safe Circle

SPEAKER_01 2:42

is that I know that at times there are moments in our lives as parents that we can feel incredibly lonely on our own. And I what I always hoped for the podcast was in those moments when you felt really alone that you could tap into the podcast. The podcast would always be there, whether it was three o'clock in the morning, and if you're listening at three o'clock in the morning, hello. I hope you get some sleep soon. Or if it was after a really difficult school drop-off, or it's at the weekend and life is just really demanding and you're feeling pulled in 20 billion different directions, that the podcast was there, that you would find an episode in that library, that would be something that would help in that moment. So if you are looking for something like that, don't forget to go back through the library. There are episodes from loads of guests now, as well as the solo ones when I've got the spoons to do the solo ones. At the moment, I'm doing quite well with my spoons, and we're getting more solo episodes. But as you know with me, that kind of comes and goes, as life does in a neurodivergent family when you're neurodivergent yourself, we're in a business, um, and I've got neurodivergent kids. So, you know, sometimes I have more spoons than others, just like you. But the

Podcast As Nighttime Lifeline

SPEAKER_01 3:55

podcast is there for that very reason. And what I was going to talk about today was something that's come up most recently for us as a family. And I wonder actually whether this is probably something that a lot of you will resonate with. If it is, feel free to drop me a comment in whatever platform you're watching this. I do look at all the comments and feel free to drop me a comment.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

What I was going to talk about today that can be so hard is how do we know when it's the right time to take

The Big Question: Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 4:28

the next step.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Now I'll give you a bit of context for that. So my son is on an EATOS package, so educated other than at school. We haven't been able to find a school environment for him that would fit him. And at one point his mental health was so poor that actually putting him in a school was putting him at risk. So he's been learning at home on an EATOS package, and I fought hard for that. I went all the way to tribunal for that, despite having support from CAMS and wherever, um, we ended up all the way to tribunal. Incredibly stressful time. Not

EOTAS Journey And Tribunal

SPEAKER_01 5:02

the tribunal itself, I want to add, but just the lead up and the process. And many of the families that I speak to and I know will have gone through that process. But it's knowing when the next step, when it's right to take the next step. And what's happened for me is, and this isn't the case for all children, is that my son has been talking about wanting to try and go back to school. And I'm up for that. That this is what he wants, it's what he needs, and he feels is the next step. And we've done a lot of work. It's been four years, I think, probably now, that he's done a lot of work, a lot of recovery. We've had an amazing support team around him that has got him to this point. This didn't just happen overnight, miraculously. And it has taken a lot of planning and organisation and thinking and support to get him to this point. So I'm not saying that once you've been out on the ATOS package for one or two years, that suddenly the kids are ready to go back. There's work that needs to happen in there for that recovery process to support the burnout, to support the mental health. But what I'm struggling with at the moment is making that next step. So when is the right time? And I'll tell you some of the things that I have found really tricky. And this again, I think quite a lot of you will probably resonate with is if you have got something in place,

Considering A Return To School

SPEAKER_01 6:27

you've often fought incredibly hard to get there. So when you start to think about could we change it, could we tweak it? How do we start to move to where it is we want to go in whatever that format that looks like? It might be going back to school, it might be something completely different. It might be a school transition and going to another school, it might be whatever it is, is thinking about well what if we need to tweak it? And I've been terrified of tweaking it because we know often with the local authority there isn't much discussion. You often feel that if you give a chink of this is a possibility, they are on it, especially if it means that they could get your kids back into school. They are on it like a shot, stuff being ripped out of your EHCP before you know it, and you're being crowbared.

Fear Of Losing Support And Flex

SPEAKER_01 7:20

This is your fear, and I think probably some of you might have stories that would confirm that fear, is that we get the kids get crowbared into the nearest school, tick done, thanks very much, and off they go. And that fight that you have done and been through to get what you've needed, there's no flex within it. There's no how do we ease these kids to the next step? And some of that, I'm sure, if we spoke to case officers, and I'm not here for a case officer bashing, if we spoke to case officers, the system struggles to allow that. And maybe this needs to be heard at a a higher level. That actually, if parents felt there was a flex and that there was a a movement rather than uh, okay, and I felt this. If I stick my head up above the parapet and say, we possibly are at a point where we would be considering a school, he's he's he's there, we're heading towards that. My complete fear and terror was that they would just go, great, next annual review, whip everything out and crowbar men's the nearest school. And I'm still frightened of that, if I'm honest. I have managed to raise my head above the parapet, it's caused all sorts of difficulties. Is it easy?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

No.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

But I know it's something that my son is really wanting to do, and we're gonna try and find a way to do that. As I say, it's taken a lot of work, it's taken a lot of repair and recovery for him over the years. It has taken an incredibly

All Or Nothing Systems Problem

SPEAKER_01 9:02

cohesive and tight-knit supportive team around him, including alternative provisions, the support he gets at home, mentors, all that type of thing. And what I'm still worried about is that should we get to the point where we find a school, and at the moment we we think we might have found one, but again, as you'll know, probably if you've got autistic kids, ADHD kids, PDA kids, anything like that, any kind of neurodivergence that have been through the trauma of being at school and have been out of school for whatever reason or are struggling to go into school, they don't go from I'm not in school to da da, I'm back in school.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

That doesn't, that's not how it works.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

We've got to build up trust, we've got to build up skills, we've got to find the right environments. Those kids do not go from I'm struggling with school to suddenly waking up and go, I'm fixed, I'm back into school. That doesn't happen with adults. Why would it happen with kids? But there is a fear and a fear that I have, and if somebody is out there to tell me otherwise, I am very happy to hear that. Maybe I'd like to come onto the podcast and talk about that. But my fear and the experience that I have is that it is very much an all or nothing. You either are doing this or you are doing this,

The Leap Without A Net

SPEAKER_01 10:25

and there is no flex, there is no movement, there is no transition to support those kids back. So is it any wonder that the local authority are banging their heads against brick walls because they have got kids that are out of school that they can't get back? Guess what? News flash. You aren't going to unless there is a way that we can support those kids. And a whole heap of work needs to have happened before we can even get to that point. It has taken me four years to build up my son to recover from the damage and to get to the point where he can consider it. We have no idea whether it's going to work. And his biggest fear, probably mine too, is that we make the leap. He thinks, yeah, I'm ready. We make the leap and the safety net has gone. Our EATOS package, if I know the local authority, will be gone. And we will be back to it will feel like square one again, going through tribunal to get what he needs to put back in the support that we have now had taken away. And it's feeling like a it feels like a leap. I have done everything. We have his team have been amazing, and we've got hints in this what feels like the edge of a cavern that he's now got to jump across without a net, with no tightrope, nothing, he's just got to take a running jump at it. And that is terrifying for him and for me because I know

Decision Fatigue And Parental Doubt

SPEAKER_01 12:03

where he was, I never ever, ever want to see one of my kids in that situation ever again. It was frightening, it was terrifying, and it was the saddest and most upsetting thing I have ever seen in my kids, and I never ever want to go back to that.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

But we're having to take a risk.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

And life is about risks, but it's not a case of just making them leap without a safety note. So I'll keep you updated. I'll keep you updated on what happens. Um we might go quiet for a while, just to kind of give him the privacy that he needs to be able to do this. Um, but I will come back to you at some point on this one. But I just wanted to talk about that. When do you know is the right time? You know, when is the right time to maybe move from mainstream school into a specialist school? When is the right time to whatever it might be, you know, change classes or move from one school to another? Or do we move them from one area to another because it's a better school all the time as parents? I bet most of you out there at some point will resonate with sitting with that feeling. Am I making the right decision? Is it the right school? Is it the right area? Should we have moved? You know, I had to move my kids in COVID when there was lockdown, they moved schools, they moved area. I can't tell you the and the how much I beat myself up about that. I don't know, but in the moment I did,

Gratitude, Hope, And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 13:42

was I making the right decision? And as parents, we want to make the right decision, but all we can do is make the right decision in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Put as much support and safety nets around it as we can. And we're gonna take a jump. Anyway, gonna leave you there.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Thanks so much to Lindsay for her comment around Lego and navigating our ways across Lego. I feel like that at the moment. We are navigating our way across a minefield of Lego with the lights off. But the lights do come on momentarily with the support system that we have around us, and I am internally grateful for them. They know who they are, and they get us through that and help us dodge the Lego. I still end up stepping on it, and I'm sure we will continue to step on it and be in the darkness at times. But I do know that we have an amazing support team around us that keeps flicking the light on for us, and I hope that I'm gonna come back to you in the next four to six months with a great story and a great ending that will take us from this place to that place and show what had to happen in that process to get us there. There is hope, I promise you. Um, I will be back shortly with the next episode. Who have we got on next? We might have the lovely Chrissa from Sunshine Support will be our next guest. So it's already been recorded. I needed to edit it and get it out. It's a fab one. Krista and I have a moment in there where we completely forget what it is we are talking about. Both

Upcoming Guest And Closing

SPEAKER_01 15:20

at separate times. I think it might be women of a certain age, but you know what? Being the untypical parent podcast, it gets left in because you get to see the real stuff. Thanks for joining me. I am Liz Evans. This is the Untypical Parent Podcast. And if you are one of those parents out there thinking, in that moment at three o'clock in the morning, I just need to hear another voice. I just need to hear somebody or hear from somebody else that gets us. Go back and look through the library. There are loads of episodes there. Or equally reach out in one of the comments on whatever platform you're listening on.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

All it needs to say is take care and I will see you soon. Bye.