Christine McGuinness has revealed her youngest daughter Felicity, five, has developed a stutter in lockdown due to lack of social contact.
The Real Housewives Of Cheshire star, 32, is mother to Felicity, and twins Leo and Penelope, seven, all of whom have autism, and during an appearance on Loose Women on Thursday she detailed the impact of the pandemic on her kids.
Felicity’s speech has been affected as the kids’ speech and communication has regressed since they have been in lockdown at home, with all three children struggling with the communication they have worked so hard to build.
She said: ‘It’s really affected their speech, I spent years and years going to speech and language therapy with the children they’ve all gone back with their speech and communication, my youngest daughter has developed a stutter’.
Her loves: Christine McGuinness has revealed her youngest daughter Felicity, five, has developed a stutter in lockdown due to lack of social contact
Christine has her three kids with husband Paddy, 47, and she has always been candid about living with autism and how the family cope with their condition.
On lockdown and the kids, she detailed: ‘It’s really affected their speech. They’ve regressed quite a lot. Again, speech doesn’t come naturally to them…
‘Spent years going to speech and language therapy with the children and I still do, but they’ve all gone backwards with their speech and communication skills…
‘My daughter, Felicity, developed a stutter over the first lockdown, which was never there before. It was every single word so it was quite severe…
Opening up: The Real Housewives Of Cheshire star, 32, is mother to Felicity, and twins Leo and Penelope, seven, all of whom have autism, and during an appearance on Loose Women on Thursday she detailed the impact of the pandemic on her kids
‘She is still in speech therapy getting help for that, it has got a little bit better now she’s gone back to nursery. But these are problems that definitely wouldn’t have come into our lives if it wasn’t for the global pandemic.’
She went on: ‘It’s been a rollercoaster. It started off extremely difficult, for everyone it was a massive shock. Our kids are autistic and they struggle with shock…
‘All of these differences were suddenly thrown at them, the school was closed, not allowed friends or family over, which we used to do, at weekends we couldn’t go to the park.
‘With three children that struggle with change anyway and don’t really understand an awful lot, that was extremely difficult, for them to suddenly change overnight…
Her love: Christine has her three kids with husband Paddy, 47, and she has always been candid about living with autism and how the family cope with their condition
‘We did kind of get used to it over the summer, they did stop asking about going out and that’s sort of where we’re at now. It’s quite sad really that they now accept it’s normal to stay in…
‘We’ve spent years and years encouraging our children, it doesn’t come naturally to them, to go and socialise, going out to busy places and new places like play centres – they can be quite frightening – it took them years to do that quite happily…
‘Now they don’t even ask about it, it’s like it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s quite sad. I do think if/when things go back to normal we’re going to have to start again with all of that. We’re going to have to really build up their confidence again as anxiety is through the roof.
‘As an example, I stopped at the petrol station, I took my son in with me, and somebody walked past and he literally threw himself back from this person as he was so petrified of someone walking near him. It’s sad that’s the reality of today.’
Despite the hard times, Christine gushed: ‘We’ve had some magical, magical moments. And overall they’re happy, they’re healthy and they’re doing absolutely amazing and I love them to bits and I’m dead proud.’
Speaking about homeschooling, she said: ‘I feel for everyone doing homeschooling. It’s not tailored for children with additional needs, it really isn’t. They’re very black and white our children, school is school and home is home…
‘We can manage an art class and P.E, the fun things, but the actual homeschooling sitting in front of a computer, it’s just not right. I don’t think it’s nice for any children… we are trying to get them back into full time…
‘They started doing a couple of hours and we’re building it up to full time. Again, it’s just a very, very slow long process for our children to build it back up. Hopefully, next week they’ll go back to full time.’
Her appearance comes after it was reported that Christine and Paddy are set to reveal the challenges of raising children with autism in a new BBC documentary, Autism And Our Family.
Christine has always been open about her children’s highs and lows in living with autism and the family is now said to be going to document those moments.
The one-off documentary, set to air this year, will follow the couple as they share their story with viewers and seek answers about their children’s autism diagnosis.
It will also follow them as they meet with other parents, paediatricians and child-development experts to learn more about the developmental disability.
Christine often shares her experiences with her children on social media and gives advice and support to parents in the same boat.