Carrie and David Grant on raising a family with mental health challenges and neurodiversity needs

It tells their own remarkable family story and the issues they have faced raising four children, one of whom is adopted, each with their own concerns, including neurodivergence and mental health challenges.

Carrie and David, who are appearing at Raworths Literature Festival in Harrogate this month, have enjoyed successful careers in music and been familiar faces on our TV screens for decades as vocal coaches or judges on shows like Fame Academy.

The couple wrote their book to share their own experiences and to offer advice and hope to parents and families in similar situations that feel they don’t have a voice.

“It’s partly a memoir but the purpose of it is to enable the reader to understand how we arrived at the point that we did and to see the challenges we faced, and that some of them may face, and to see the journey we took, because I think there’s a lot of stigma around not being able to cope,” says David.

“The strategies we arrive at are incredibly useful and have been used across a wide range of differing situations but the journey to the arrival is really important because it’s that journey that so many people go through themselves.”

Carrie agrees. “We all start our parenting journey thinking ‘my children are going to be like this, and we’re going to do that, and they’ll be lovely and we’ll sit in restaurants and they’ll be reading the menu in French…’ and we are the parents of the children who are under the table and on their iPads,” she says.

“We’ve changed so much. We’ve had to shapeshift and work out how life could work for our children and because we’ve done that journey, and are still doing it, we can speak to our community, who we know are desperate and not getting any help, and to all these other parents who suddenly have a 16 year-old self-harming and don’t have any diagnosis.”

Their own children range in age from 13 to 28 and over the years they had to work out what worked best for each one individually, both at home and at school. “We’ve been running a support group in our home for the last 10 years for autism families and we have over 200 families that are part of that group.

"That was a really good way of seeing where areas crossover and where they’re different and what it’s like for siblings, what it’s like for people who have a disabled child, and what it’s like if you’re a single parent.”

Their book is more than just a parental guide and they are honest and open about the challenges and obstacles they face.

“In a way the memoir part expresses and shines a light on the experiences of others, it dignifies and permits people to make their own mistakes. It’s alright if you’ve got it wrong because, trust me, I’ve got it wrong more than you. But the important thing is we got there in the end,” says David.

“In this ongoing journey so many people are going through now we need a guide. The old ways simply don’t work because they were predicated on the appearance of normality and concealing when you, or your kids, had problems,” he says.

“With our children and young people it’s not that they’re different, it’s not that they’re snowflakes, it’s that they occupy an entirely different world with entirely different pressures to the ones we grew up in.

"I was bullied at school but when I left at four o’clock in the afternoon I didn’t have to see them again until the next day, and at the weekends and during the holidays I didn’t have to see or hear from them at all. If children are having problems with this today and they have a [mobile] device of any kind it’s with them 24/7.”

If children face different stresses and challenges then so, too, do parents. “We’re not building resilience if we solve every problem. If you have a child on suicide watch you can’t change that depression. You can help them access medication and therapy, but me as a mum, I can’t change that mood. But what I can do is sit with them in it,” says Carrie.

“It’s also about saying you’re not failing if you can’t change that mood,” adds David. “But there is still among practically every parent I’m aware of a feeling that ‘I should be able to solve it, I should know every answer.’”

The couple explore different ways of parenting whether it’s focusing on a single behaviour pattern at a time, or avoiding pitfalls like wanting your child to be your best friend. “Maybe when they’re 25 then perhaps. But no, I’m their mum and they’re my child. Let’s not mess with that relationship,” says Carrie.

“I think when people think about doing anything other than the way we know parenting to be, so traditional parenting, they see that as being boundary-less and I would say it’s not at all it’s just a different way of doing it.”

They hope their book sparks a conversation about the different needs of modern families. “When you’ve got mental health issues, or neurodiversity issues, in a family it affects the whole family and there are lots of families that feel as though they live in isolation.

"And then they read the book or come to an event and they go ‘I’m not alone. There are millions of people going through this, it’s not just me, and I can talk about it.’”

Carrie and David Grant are appearing at the Raworths Literature Festival, The Crown Hotel, Harrogate, October 19, 8.30pm. Tickets £15. For more details visit harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/whats-on