As the U.K. starts to open up from lockdown many families like ours find life more restricted than ever.

Years of hard work to get our very sensory Angel and Soldier able to cope with the world undone in 5 months of shielding and the subsequent lockdowns.

As most children relish their freedom again, ours are scared, overwhelmed and want to stay in the quiet safety of home or our car.

Today we went to visit our local safari park, a trip they use to love, walking part then driving past the animals. We managed about 100 metres walk at a quiet park of the park before soldier signing for home and heading back to the safety of the car and Angel asking to go home.

Soldier use to find his wheelchair a safe space when things were busy and too sensory for him. After over a year of not using his chair he now refuses to sit in it.

No chair = no ability to access sensory environments

As others start to enjoy freedoms again, we are stepping back 10 years and going to have to support both Angel and Soldier to manage in the big busy world again:

• Working on sitting back in the wheelchair for a safe space
• Working on walking short distances from our home
• Working on wearing headphones to block off sounds that are too stimulating
• Working on coping and trusting new places
• Working on rebuilding stamina

Each of these things will take many months.

We are not alone in many years of hard work being undone by COVID and lockdown…. We can only dream of being back where we were in March 2020.