Will Hawkins

Please support my Ambitious Challenge!

My son Felix is Autistic and was diagnosed in December 2023 just after his 4th Birthday.

My wife Sarah and I started to notice that there was something different about Felix around his 2nd birthday in 2021. He was a little more timid than other children and his speech wasn’t developing as fast as others.

You don’t want to compare your kids to other children, so you push it out of your mind and hope things will get better in time.

His nursery called us in for a meeting a few months later and suggested he may be neurodivergent. This hit us like a brick wall. We didn’t agree, he was only 2, he had plenty of time to catch up. So we moved him to a different nursery.

He just has a speech delay we thought, so we started speech and language session to help him.

A few months later another meeting with new nursery. Same discussion. It just sent me and Sarah spinning with 1000 worries and questions.

What is Autism? What can we do to make our lives and Felix’s life the best it can be? Will Occupational Therapy help? How is he going to get on at school? Do we need an EHCP? What’s his life going to be like as he grows up?

For parents experiencing this for the first time it is such a huge unknown. You have so many questions and worries. That is why charities like Ambitious about Autism are so important.

Ambitious about Autism are the national charity for children and young people with autism. They provide services, raise awareness/understanding and campaign for change. Ambitious about Autism support children and young people with autism and their families through the journey from diagnosis to adulthood.

They help families understand that Autism isn’t something to be afraid of. It is just a difference, it isn’t a deficiency. They provide key information on what autism is, how it effects people and how you can best support autistic people. They have certainly helped us come to terms with Felix’s diagnosis.

Anyone who has met Felix will agree that he is the most charming and adorable little boy. His smile is infectious, and he loves nothing more than spending the day playing and having fun. We try not to see his diagnosis as a limit for him, but instead it is his superpower.

So with this in mind I will be cycling 220 miles in a single day on Sunday 22 June 2025. Starting in Manchester and finishing in London, I'll be leaving my limits behind to raise vital funds for Ambitious about Autism.

My aim is to raise £5,000 for this amazing charity, to say thank you for the support they have given me, and to help them support other families in the same position.