“I hope you have someone you can turn to when you feel overwhelmed. For me, it’s Sense Scotland.”

We are excited to announce the launch of our all-new Christmas Appeal for the 2022 Christmas season. This year, our Appeal focuses on 9-year-old Jack and his family: his four siblings, dad Jamie and mum Lyndsay.

Jack looks like any other 9-year-old. But he’s a tiny child inside a big boy’s body, with a developmental age of just 18 months and a diagnosis of severe autism and learning disabilities. This means that Jack’s family have to approach Christmas in a very different way.

Read on to find out more about Jack’s story from his dad, Jamie. You can read our full Christmas Appeal letter here, and you can donate to our Christmas Appeal via a one-off donation or direct debit here.

“Families should be together at Christmas. It’s supposed to be a happy time. But for families like mine, it’s anything but. Balancing the needs of five very different children means that family life is never simple. In our home, everything revolves around Jack, my youngest son. He’s loud, always up to something, rarely sleeps, has no awareness of danger and requires constant supervision. A troublemaker in the nicest way.

You probably have a similar child in your family. But our Jack is different.

As a baby, Jack hit all his milestones perfectly. We celebrated his second birthday with a family trip to the zoo. But instead of being fascinated by the animals, he became obsessed with running up and down a hill. I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. It snowballed from there and Jack kept going backwards developmentally. Eventually, after a long hard fight, he was given a diagnosis of severe autism, learning disabilities and a developmental age of just 18 months.

You can imagine how we felt.

We can’t do anything as a family. Jack’s needs dictate every aspect of family life. Every second of every day we are evaluating Jack’s moods, making decisions and changing plans based on his needs. It’s exhausting and I feel incredible guilt over the impact on my other children. Like any parent I want them to feel safe, to live a normal life and to do things together as a family. But it’s not like that in our house. It’s chaos and we often find ourselves living separate lives.

Christmas lasts just two days. That’s all Jack can cope with.

We’ve learned from experience. Jack fixates on Christmas. The moment he sees a Christmas tree the chant begins “Santa! Santa!”. Over and over and over. My children miss out on all the things which families traditionally do at Christmas. Like visits to Santa and the pantomime, seeing friends and family and spending time together, watching Christmas movies, opening presents, snowball fights and sledging. It’s hardest on Emma. She’s only 7 and doesn’t get to experience the full magic of Christmas. As a father, that upsets me.

Will you support Sense Scotland with a gift of £25 today and support a family like ours during the festive period?

Every day parents just like me and Lyndsay are helped by Sense Scotland. Up until last year, we had no support and we were drowning. The Family Advisory Team helped us get Jack into a specialist school and, more importantly, the respite care which he and the rest of the family so desperately needed. They’ve helped us access financial support to ensure Jack receives the best care and support available and to help us plan for his future including health, education and guardianship.”

This is an excerpt from our 2022 Christmas Appeal. Read the full story here. You can donate to our Appeal here.