To give up full time work to care for my DS?

[lrp]

Currently work full time in the finance industry. Awaiting a diagnosis for my 4 year son, highly suspected to be autistic but not officially confirmed yet.

Have applied for DLA but still waiting to hear if he has been awarded. Working full time and being there for him also is proving so difficult. I feel split into two and I'm wearing myself extremely thin.

Have mentioned to DH about giving up work but I've worked since I was 16 and I've never applied for any benefits before so I feel a bit anxious about the thought of giving it all up, however I feel this will be inevitable tbh in the future the way things are going. DH is not a high earner (around £21k) so not sure how much this would affect if I did claim.

Any experiences please? Is there anything I haven't thought of?

Apply for DLA. if awarded middle rate care you can claim carers. It doesn't matter what partner earns, it's only means tested on the person applying.

My daughter gave up work to care for her ASD son and Home Educates him and her other children - to be honest she has never looked back - so much stress and anxiety has been removed from the whole family. Her partner did work and they got top up benefits plus disability for her son, they found they could manage fairly well financially.

She is not too bothered about the future and employment - the field she was qualified and worked in was low paid anyway and she has no desire to have a career and there is nothing wrong with normal low paid jobs which are easy to get.

If you are hoping you will get universal credit then you will need to be getting higher rates of DLA and CA or the system will pretty much force you back into work. Its difficult to say what level of DLA he may get without knowing more about him - but his needs would need to be significantly different to a 'normal' child of their age which can be difficult to demonstrate with a 4 year old.

I typed in lots and lost it all. If you can claim universal credits, with your DLA and carer allowance combined with UC (child component, couples component, disability component) should be about £1,900 extra month.

You're making a lot of assumptions about your work. Financial services are usually very flexible, so your first step should be the company intranet to see what's available for you in terms of requesting p/t, carers leave, flexible and hybrid working. If your manager isn't helpful, go to HR.

You need to get a bit more proactive. I left work in exactly the same circumstances as you, but I managed to negotiate a redundancy package and started freelancing from home immediately - is that something you could look at? Like you, I knew I had to be available at home more but equally it's important to keep your place in the workforce.

Now DS is 17 and at college, I am so, so happy that I managed to keep working because the thing you don't think about when you're looking at a 4 year old is how they'll cope as adults. DS is doing great, but he's not going to leave home any time soon and potentially will never be able to earn his own living. Thankfully we'll be able to financially support him, because of the decisions we made (and the struggles we had) 13 years ago.

Good luck - it's not easy but please try to think longer term.

This only works if your son is awarded middle or higher rate DLA.

Could you go part time ?

Im a parent of two autistic children (they have other needs too) . Ive had to give up full time work but have remained working a few days a week - and if I am honest, this is all that keeps me vaguely sane.

We have so many appointments, calls to collect from school and no support network so full time work became impossible, but part time is a good compromise.