Contact details

As well as being a freelance writer I am also a qualified counsellor and I work for a low cost counselling service in Exeter and for the NHS Gender Clinic also in Exeter.

Simultaneously, I work as a Disability Member of the First Tier Tribunal, Social Entitlement Chamber sitting on disability benefit tribunals on an ad hoc basis.

As a writer I specialise in writing about disability and health.

My articles have been published in the Guardian, Times, OUCH! [BBC disability website], Disability Now, Broadcast, Lifestyle [Motability magazine], The Practising Midwife, 'Junior, Pregnancy & Baby', Writers' News, Able, Getting There [Transport for London magazine], Junior, Community Care, DPPi [Disability, Pregnancy & Parenthood International]. I have also had articles commissioned by Daily Mail.

For more information about me and for examples of my writing please see below.

If you would like me to write an article for your publication, about any aspect of disability, please do get in touch:

emma@emmabowler.co.uk

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Being a parent

Being a parent is no mean task. Fact.

Add to that being the parent of a disabled child. Some days I feel juggling with chainsaws might be easier.

All parents want their children to have friends and be popular. Nowadays, to encourage friendships to form children go on 'playdates' where they go round to a friends house after school or a friend comes round to their house. This scenario poses a dilemma for me because my son Archie, who has the same disability as me, often comes home from school practically dead on his feet.

Sometimes he can get through the whole thing purely on adrenalin, other times it's all too much and watching him struggle and the resulting frustration is so hard sometimes.

I'm just hoping that as he gets older his stamina will grow, but I do fear that his peers will always be a step ahead of him... There doesn't seem to be much guidance on these sort of parenting issues - maybe I should be writing THAT book, but do I actually know any of the answers?