I am a mother of two (eight and four years old), a secondary school teacher, exercise obsessed and creator of harddaysout.com. After eight years of raising our son with autism, I noticed that not every venue understands how they can help families like ours. I use to shy away from certain experiences and locations, as I knew it would lead to a very challenging day out for my son, myself and the rest of the family. I then realised that by excluding my son from these experiences meant I was limiting his opportunities and if I could prepare him, and the family prior to the visit things might be a lot easier. So, I began researching places to go that might be suitable which was time consuming. It was difficult to find the information on whether they had fast passes, carer passes, enclosed areas and soon realised a lot of venues were not always catering for the needs of both hidden and visible additional needs/disabilities in a transparent style. If I was struggling there must be hundreds of other families in the same position who needed help making these hard days out more easy. I fought hard to secure the right education for her son given the challenges his autism brings. As a result, I have a wealth of knowledge of the battles families face and I understand that family time definitely needs to be made easy.