#theseareourchildren - all of our children

I've spent 4 years coming to terms with what happened to my daughter. I spent a good year grieving over the situation that left her blind. I then proceeded to berate myself about not having done enough, fought hard enough, seen what was happening sooner and acting faster.

The thing is, it was not her fault and it was also not my fault. I have to one day accept the latter. When you're a parent of an Exceptional child that throws you a daily curve ball, you either learn to catch really well or you duck. I ducked for a good while - I'm not perfect, I had no idea what I was up against and I wanted to run for the hills on more than one occasion. The 'system' scared me to death. I had no idea how to navigate it, my geography has never been great but this was terrain 'terrifying' and no SatNav to support.

When she went blind I thought I was literally going to throw up. I screamed and shouted at the poor consultant who delivered the news that 5 operations failed to save her useful vision - for context, she had severe sight impairment from birth, but she could self-navigate and didn't need the level of support she has now. Her world overnight changed and I don't know how she stuck it.

She wasn't treated well or supported well and she certainly wasn't respected as a person. And I'm being kind writing it like that.

Her courage and zest for life 4 years on has made me stand tall, stand proud and do what I think she would like me to do - speak for all those like her who can't be heard and aren't heard daily so that if by doing so one more child doesn't suffer, she helped make sure of that.

Why does this happen time and again? Lack of understanding, lack of respect, lack of dignity and lack of humanity. Oh and at times rubbish standards and accountability - again, that's on the kind side.

It takes two minutes to sign and make a difference for our Exceptional Children - they don't have a voice, please use yours for them.