Nails, nails, let's clip those nails

Nail, nails, let's clip those nails is a fun way to lighten the subject of clipping nails with your child.

Any young person will get enjoyment from this book however, it was originally written for a specific target audience: my youngest child...

As parents of a young child on the autistic spectrum, we have learned that sometimes the seemingly simplest of tasks can cause him the most discomfort.

Our biggest challenges have not necessarily been the most obvious; clipping nails was certainly one of ours.

To say that our boy disliked having his nails cut would be an astronomical understatement... just the thought of clipping his nails caused him so much anxiety we could never get close enough to even try.

For years, the only working approach at our disposal was to wait until he was in a deep sleep and then hold our breath, cross our fingers and slowly clip each nail with ninja levels of stealth.

On occasion, our little one allowed us to read a book to him, at the time it was Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, he loved the rhyming words and how much fun it was to join in on the rhyming phrases, at the time his speech was quite limited so we loved it when he joined in.

One day I pondered whether we could take the rhyming style and fun aspects from a book like Room on the Broom and use them to gently persuade our boy into letting us clip his nails.

We've learned enough over the years about our boy to know there is no way of guessing whether this approach would work or not... the only way we would know was by trying... so, we did.

After reading the poem to him, my wife and I nervously looked at each other and I said "Connor, shall we clip your nails?"

Now the next thing can only be described as magic... I barely believed it myself but it worked, he said YES!!!

My wife grabbed the nail clippers, and one by one he let her clip his nails... only his hands but for our family, it was a major event... rocket to the moon level stuff.

Now, since that day Connor has continued to let us cut his nails, he still doesn't like it but he lets us do it, a major win in our autistic spectrum family adventure.

Now whilst I can't promise this will work for any other child on the autistic spectrum, I can only say that for us it worked... (phew).