Most of the time parenting is about making it up as you go along, trusting your instincts and winging it. Some days it all goes wrong and you feel like the worst parent in the world. Sometimes, however, sometimes you get this parenting thing absolutely spot on, and it is the best feeling in the world.

Yesterday was one of those days.

Since going back to school, our youngest has been struggling. Revision, exams to decide GCSE options, results and then…well, a bit of a lull, and he’s been getting more and more down in the mornings, more withdrawn, and just going into that anxiety bubble. He was sent home from school last week with a stress headache, but he couldn’t tell me what had triggered it.

Last term, after his ASD diagnosis (on top of dyslexia and clinical anxieties) we decided that once a halt term, if life got too much, he could ‘take a day’ where he didn’t have to go to school, and it would be a reboot/recharge day. Yesterday morning after waking up and hiding under the covers, he came and asked for ‘a day’, and I said yes.

I did my usual morning routine (dog walking, sorting out ponies and hens) and when I got home, I told him to get up & get dressed as we were going out into nature for an hour. He did as I asked, and we drove to a local country park where we had a slow 2 hour walk round the lake where he jumped on every icy puddle (and may he NEVER get too old to crack ice on puddles!) and then popped into the cafe for a sausage roll and a coffee. We talked, we discussed life, the universe and anything else we could think of. He laughed and smiled more in that hour that hour than he has since Christmas. We both came home with glowing cheeks from the cold, and happy faces.

He was good for the rest of the day, was chatty, did his homework without any grumping at all, and then (icing on the cake for me) when I said ‘I love you’ at bedtime, as I always do, he replied ‘Love you too’, something he does very rarely because it’s just not his thing.

Today is another day, and I think I’m back to winging it, but yesterday was fabulous. I prioritised his mental health & well being, he had ‘a day’, and that day was just what we both needed.