How do you explain epilepsy to a 2 year old?

I can’t believe that just a few months ago when Riley turned 2 we were worried she wasn't able to say much.  Now she talks and talks and can say pretty much anything she wants, I think of all the developmental milestones her speech has to me been the most amazing.  It’s just so nice to be able to walk down the road and have a conversation about what we can see and what we are going to do.

But now she is able to understand so much it has got me thinking maybe I need to start looking at how I can explain to her about my epilepsy and what she needs to do if I have a seizure.  It’s such a difficult thing to judge, so far I have never had a seizure while she has been there so if she saw me have a seizure it could really scare her.  Knowing what to do could really help but I don’t want to scare her by telling her too much or something she doesn't really understand.

Is 2 just too young? How do I go about explaining something so complicated to her in a simple way?  These are all the questions I have started to ask myself.  My mum bought me a lovely little book for Christmas which I think is where I am going to start.  It is called ‘Epilepsy Book for Kids’ by Layla Reid who is seven and whose mum has epilepsy.

This then got me thinking – everyone’s epilepsy is so different and everyone’s situation is different what would be lovely would be a personalised book for Riley, about my epilepsy – in fact maybe this is something I could actually look into – could I develop personalised books for children whose parents have epilepsy…

So I am going to do some research into it and maybe in the future I can take it further.  In the meantime if you have any advice about explaining epilepsy to young children I’d love to hear it – send me an email to claircaxton@hotmail.com