We are back! A quick hello from your hosts, Lauren and Rina to let you know that Series 3 will be coming out very soon.

We also have some exciting news. This series of the F**king Normal podcast will be sponsored by Hibi. A few months ago Hibi asked us if we'd be interested in them sponsoring us - we have always been adamant to remain independent and completely in control of our content, we have our own goals and objectives and will not compromise on those but when sponsorship was suggested from a team who very much share the idea of supporting parent carers and their families and working together with them – we agreed. It is an exciting new app, free to use being developed with and for families. On this trailer episode we speak with Hibi co-founder Sam Milliken-Smith on his connection to the SEND community, why he started Hibi and what he hopes it will do for families and carers.

In this episode Lauren and Rina discuss neurodiversity and how we want the world to evolve, with the team behind the play ‘Just be Normal’ - Connor Pearce and sister's Emma and Sophie Jackson. The conversation includes a beautiful monologue performance from the play by Sophie, as well as each guest sharing their own personal experiences and their hopes and wishes for a more accepting and accessible world.

In this episode, Rina and Lauren talk with Jazz Manley about her experience of searching for answers and a diagnosis for her son Max. Jazz is very open about her own vulnerability and mental health struggles. She discusses her son’s difficult birth and the challenges she faced when he was young, when her concerns surrounding her son were not shared by others and she felt unheard.

In the first episode of our new series Lauren and Rina speak to performer and writer Bryony Kimmings. Bryony's son Frank is autistic and two years ago, she was also diagnosed with ADHD. They talk about Bryony’s parenting approach, discovering your own neurodiversity and how to balance a neurodiverse family with sometimes conflicting needs and wants. With her characteristic candour and wicked humour, Bryony describes how much she has learnt about herself and in doing so, how she has become a better parent to Frank as she drives to create their own neurodivergent utopia in their crumbling old country home.

It’s our series 1 finale and time to turn the tables on our hosts, Lauren and Rina are interviewed by our first ever podcast guest, the wonderful Genevieve. They discuss their experiences of pregnancy, birth and diagnosis with some key moments of acceptance, internal and external influences that helped, from language to being kinder to oneself, modifying parenting expectations and learning to not give a shit about what others’ think.

In Episode 6, we discuss Couples Relationships, with Clare and George, who are parents to Ada and Ivo and the impact that having a disabled child has on their relationship.

An eye-opening, heart-warming and hilarious account of this fabulous couple’s story. Covering everything from finding out you’re pregnant after the second date, moving in together after three months, to being told your child’s autism diagnosis, whilst pregnant with your second child.

A quick hello from our hosts to say thank you and remind you how to connect with us.

We want this podcast to be about connection and building community. So please get in touch with your feedback and ideas. Please tell us what you want to hear from us... Or answer the question we have posed - "What's your F**king Normal?" and share with us any unconventional, unique, beautiful or humorous examples of your daily parenting experience.

In episode 5 Lauren and Rina talk about a skill we have all had to develop as parents of disabled children – advocacy - with Mum of two and lawyer Caroline MacPake (Withers professionally).

Systems of support aren’t always automatically in place for disabled children and their families, and the world simply has not been designed for disabled people. As parents of disabled children, we have to champion, persuade and shout loudly on our kids behalf.

This week our topic is “extreme juggling”. We talk to full time architect and mum, Helen Gamble-Shields about the challenges faced whilst juggling roles as carer, mum and architect and what she has learnt along the way.

Helen’s wonderful humour combined with her raw accounts of diagnosis, epilepsy and having to be in that constant state of alert give us a deep insight into their lives.

In the third episode of the F**king Normal Podcast, we talk to single-mum Vicky about relationships, whilst parenting a disabled child.

We discuss the lows of living with an abusive ex-partner, to the highs of Vicky and her disabled child’s ‘little love bubble’, with some dating stories, relationship thoughts, general ‘tittle tattle’ and hard won wisdom, along the way.

In the second episode Lauren and Rina speak to Gemma Sherlock and Jess Honeyball, both mothers of disabled and non disabled children about their experiences of those sibling relationships, parenting and making the decision to have more children.

In the first F**king Normal Podcast episode Lauren Fenton and Rina Teslica discuss the topic of Loneliness and how important it is to find friends who really get what it’s like to raise a disabled child, by interviewing single-mum, Genevieve Porritt.