Different Minds

Different Minds is a book I wish I had years ago when my autistic child first started school and it’s a book I wish my parents had to help them to understand my anxiety around school. Not only does it help parents feel less alone when navigating the school system with a child with SEND, but it also helps you to step into your child’s shoes and see the world through their eyes. This is a book that every parent and teacher needs to read and a book that will help so many to understand why children are not coping at school. – Lisa Lloyd, Sunday Times bestselling author and SEN parent
One of the most important voices on autism and education today. – Jessie Hewitson, SEND agony aunt, The Times and the Sunday Times
I truly wish this book had been around when my child started to struggle in school. Back then, I knew nothing about autism, and how being autistic can make school unbearable if the child isn’t being supported in the ways they need. This book covers everything that I spent five years researching, at home, alone. And more. It is a bible for parents of school-aged autistic children. * Annie Ridout, author, journalist, poet *
Different Minds asks the forgotten question at the heart of modern education: are the kids alright? Compassionate, urgent and deeply validating. – Leanne Maskell, coach and author of AuDHD and ADHD an A–Z
Beautifully written and deeply human, Pete reframes the behaviour that exhausts and worries parents as information rather than failure. He gives families something far more useful and needed than just strategies, he gives them compassion and understanding. It’s warm, wise and long overdue. This is the book I’ll be recommending to every parent who tells me their child is struggling. – Anna Mathur, psychotherapist, author and speaker
Pete Wharmby has written the book many families will recognise in their bodies before they recognise it on the page. Different Minds refuses to mistake autistic distress for disobedience, or parental advocacy for overreaction. It is tender, furious, deeply clarifying and exactly the kind of book that can shift a conversation. – Dr Emma Offord, Clinical Psychologist and founder of Divergent Life

Pete Wharmby was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 34. Shocked by the statistics around depression, anxiety, and life expectancy for autistic people, Pete has immersed himself in working to improve neurodiversity awareness and acceptance, and making the world a more suitable place for the neurodivergent community to live in. Pete was diagnosed with ADHD in April 2024. He has written two books on autistic experience: Untypical and What I Want to Talk About: How Autistic Special Interests Shape a Life.

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