14/08/2026
When Juliette was two, a paediatrician told me to take her home and teach her to put her toys away. What she meant was that my daughter would not make significant progress.
I decided she was wrong, and I went and got the training to prove it.
Everything Juliette can do was built. In tiny steps, day after day, six to eight hours a day, measured and practised, drawn from procedures with evidence behind them, and delivered with love and passion by her team.
And when the world would not make room for her, we made it ourselves. When she was four she was kept out of kindergarten because of the support she needed. We took it to the Federal Court, and the school apologised publicly and accepted she should have been able to attend, without interruption, with her assistant beside her at all times.
Eighteen years later, we are asking for the same thing at an athletics track.
Twenty years did not mean she stopped needing support. It was never going to. She can do almost anything, as long as someone helps the instruction land. At athletics, that can be as simple as someone walking her to the track.
I know not every family would have chosen what we chose, and I know there are autistic adults who carry hard experiences with it. I do not brush that aside, and I would never tell another parent what to do with their own child. I can only speak for Juliette, and for the twenty years I have spent beside her.
We are working to change this. For Juju, and for others.
