SEN Parenting, Wonky Feelings and Why I Wrote Tender Seedlings
What raising a neurodivergent child taught me about behaviour, big feelings and looking beneath the surface
Tender Seedlings, Wonky Feelings didn’t begin because I decided I wanted to write a children’s book. It grew from my own experience of SEN parenting, raising a neurodivergent child and trying to understand a world that didn’t always seem able to understand her.
When you’re parenting a child with additional needs, you can become something of a detective. A refusal may actually be overwhelm. Anger can be anxiety. Avoidance can be fear. A seemingly tiny event can unleash an enormous feeling because it was simply the final thing in a day already filled with too much noise, expectation or demand.
Over the years, I began to understand that what we see on the outside is only a small part of what may be happening underneath. That experience has shaped me as a parent, influenced the SEN parenting coaching I now offer and eventually planted the seed for this book.
Why tender seedlings?
I kept coming back to the image of a seedling. We wouldn’t look at a struggling plant and accuse it of not trying hard enough. We’d wonder what it needed. More water? Less water? Different soil? More light? Protection from the wind?
That feels particularly relevant to SEN parenting. When a child is struggling, our attention naturally goes towards their behaviour. But sometimes we need to look at the environment, expectations and demands surrounding them too.
Sometimes the child isn’t the thing that needs changing. Sometimes they need us to understand the conditions in which they can flourish.
Making sense of wonky feelings
I chose the words Wonky Feelings because feelings rarely arrive neatly labelled. Children can experience sadness as anger, anxiety as tummy aches, overwhelm as silence, fear as refusal or exhaustion as a meltdown over something that appears tiny to everyone else.
As parents, it can be incredibly difficult to know what to do in those moments, particularly when we’re exhausted ourselves. Add school meetings, paperwork, assessments and the constant need to advocate for your child, and SEN parenting can become overwhelming for the parent too.
Behind a child who is struggling there is often a parent trying incredibly hard to understand, advocate, support and hold everything together.
And those parents need support too.
Why creativity became part of the story
I've always been creative, and the artwork became an important part of the book because sometimes words aren't enough. A colour can communicate something before we've found the vocabulary for it. A character can make an emotion less frightening, and an illustration can begin a conversation between a parent and child that might otherwise be difficult to have.
I didn't want Tender Seedlings, Wonky Feelings to feel clinical or instructional. I wanted it to feel gentle and safe, something a child could explore without feeling they were the problem being discussed.
From SEN parenting to coaching
My experience as a parent has inevitably shaped the coach I've become. I understand something of the emotional load behind SEN parenting: the worry, meetings, decisions, education systems and constant advocating. Somewhere underneath all of that is you.
That's an important part of my SEN parenting coaching. It's not only about asking what your child needs. It's also about asking what you need as the person walking beside them.
Writing this book reinforced something I also see in coaching. We are often quick to ask, “How do I fix this?” when a more useful question can be, “What's really going on here?”
Curiosity changes the conversation. With our children, with the people we love and with ourselves.
Taking Tender Seedlings to Appledore
This September, I'll be taking Tender Seedlings, Wonky Feelings to the Appledore Book Festival, where I'll be exhibiting as a local author in the Osprey Tent at Skern on Thursday 24 September 2026, from 10am until 4.30pm.
Something born from very personal experiences has become a book that I hope might help another child feel understood, and another parent feel less alone in trying to understand them.
Because tender seedlings don't all grow in the same way. Sometimes our job is to understand what they need to flourish. And sometimes the people caring for those seedlings need someone walking beside them too.
If you're navigating SEN parenting and have become so busy advocating for your child that you've lost sight of yourself, my SEN parenting coaching offers a space for you too.