“Which one are you going to choose? Let me guess your favourite” I said. T had chosen her children’s Bible as her bedtime book that night (very pleased Mummy, we don’t ‘make her’ read the Bible as it was just a battle ground. We just make sure there are plenty of Bible stories, and kids Bibles on her shelves and rejoice whenever she picks them out. PDA means that any demands cause intense anxiety and avoidance, and expectations may as well be demands.)
“Let me read it to you” T said, taking the little Bible out of my hands half way through the story she had picked. She closed the pages up for a moment as I settled back into the pillow ready to listen. “What will Jesus say next I wonder?” T said, with an encouraging smile to me as she carefully and slowly began to open the book up again.
She read, hesitating sometimes for whispered help with difficult words, sometimes going back to the start of a sentence again to read it differently now she knew how it ended. She turned the page. “It’s like this Mummy,” she said, “I am lying very still like this, and then…”
