It seemed ironic that World Autism Awareness day was on April the 2nd when the day before Ethan reached a very big milestone in his journey. On Wednesday the 1st of April we said goodbye to his nursery.
When we signed Ethan up to his nursery we didn’t know that our world included Autism. Thankfully we realised before his start date and they were fantastic when we expressed our concerns. They helped with the diagnosis process which then led them to apply for some one to one funding for him.
Ethan’s most recent ‘auntie’ also worked closely with our Family Support Keyworker to learn how to work with Ethan. He was the first child she had looked after with Autism and she really did an amazing job.
On Ethan’s last day they asked us to come in early so that they could do a leaving circle for Ethan. They wanted the children, along with Ethan, to sing for us. Unfortunately it didn’t go to plan as Ethan started to say ‘Bye’ as soon as he saw us, he climbed onto nanny’s lap and cried whilst the other children sang for us.
It was terrible to see Ethan so upset and we are still unsure if he cried because we didn’t leave the room as he expected, or because he understood what was going on and he was sad about it.
So our nursery journey with Ethan has come to an end, it feels very weird as Ethan has been attending nursery for half of his life. It’s a big change for all of us but now we move forward onto Ethan’s next adventure…
…starting school!
