'I couldn't believe this photo went viral. Then I realised what it showed.'

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I didn't expect the photo to have the impact it did. It has now been seen by more than three million people, which still feels surreal given the image itself is unremarkable at first glance: a grainy photo from the 1980s showing a little girl in a blue nightie leaning heavily into her dad.

I posted it because it felt important and I suspected it might resonate with a small group of people who had lived through something similar. Until then, it was a moment I had carried privately for most of my life.

What surprised me was not just how far it travelled, but who it reached. Parents recognised the posture immediately. Some adults reflected on what they wished they had felt as children. Many people understood the image without explanation, because the body language told its own story.

Watch: Parenting Outloud: Teaching kids bodily autonomy. Post continues below.

At the time the photo was taken, I was around eight years old. I was non-verbal and, unknowingly at the time, autistic. I didn't have language for what was happening inside my body, but I remember the physical sensation clearly.

For the first time, my body felt safe. Not happy or calm in a way I could name, just unbraced. As though something inside me finally stopped scanning for danger.

My sister and I had been removed from our mother's care and placed into emergency foster care, moving through the 1980s child protection system. Like many children, we learned to move quietly, carrying experiences we didn't yet have the language to process.

Years later, as an adult, I accessed the reports written about us. I read them once, put them in a shed, locked the door and have carried their weight with me ever since.

The man in that photo is my biological father, Shane. He had just taken on full-time parenting after a long custody process.

There was no training in trauma or Neurodivergence available to him at the time. What he did have was steadiness. He showed up consistently for my sister and me — he remained calm enough that my body could finally stop scanning for danger.

Image: Supplied.

That is what the photo captures — not a smile or a milestone, but emotional regulation in practice. A child whose nervous system is borrowing calm from an adult who can hold it.

Children don't remember explanations as clearly as they remember how it felt to be with someone. They remember whether their body could relax or whether it stayed braced, whether the world felt predictable for a moment or not.

For neurodivergent children, this matters deeply.

Around one in eight people are Neurodivergent and around one in forty Australians are autistic. Many experience heightened sensory input and nervous systems that move quickly into fight or flight. Before language develops — or when language isn't accessible — safety is communicated through consistency, tone and presence far more than through words.

As a child, I didn't need things explained. I needed a reliable adult whose reactions didn't escalate when mine did and whose calm could anchor me when everything else felt overwhelming.

Shane offered that instinctively, long before it was 'normal' to talk about trauma or accommodations, and it shaped how safe I felt in my own body.

Over time, I've realised these principles apply everywhere — at home, at school and in workplaces. Safety is built slowly, through repetition, through what happens on hard days, and through what stays steady when everything else feels loud or uncertain.

Listen: Raising kids with the added layer of Neurodiversity. Post continues below.

Supporting Neurodivergent children.

When people ask how to support the Neurodivergent children in their lives, they often expect tools or techniques. What makes the biggest difference is usually simpler:

What about adults?

Many women saw themselves reflected in that photo. Neurodivergent women who learned to mask because safety was conditional, who became high achievers because competence was rewarded, and who later burned out in workplaces that valued output over humanity.

I know that story well. I was diagnosed autistic later in life, during my son's autism assessment, after I had already built a career and founded a business in systems not designed for me. When safety arrives later in life, it's common to keep pushing long after the threat has passed.

At my company, the majority of our team is Neurodivergent by design. Not to make a statement, but because when workplaces are built around clarity, flexibility and psychological safety, Neurodivergent people tend to thrive.

This approach is practical. We have a strong culture and a high-performing business because people do their best work when their nervous systems are not locked in survival mode.

What the photo really shows.

That photo went viral because it shows something many of us needed long before we had the language to ask for it: safety.

A child whose body is finally allowed to rest, held by an adult steady enough to carry the calm for them. It captures a moment where safety didn't need to be explained, because it could be felt.

Feature Image: Supplied.