22 Kids and Counting: Sue and Noel Radford rocked by son Max's heartbreaking struggles
The couple are desperate to help himChannel 5‘s 22 Kids and Counting is back tonight and Sue and Noel Radford’s son Max is really struggling.
Max is 16 years old and has a diagnosis of autism.
He has huge ambitions to design aeroplanes and nuclear submarines when he’s older, but there is one thing holding him back.
Despite having an exceptional skill in maths and physics, Max just cannot get to grips with English.
And with his GCSEs looming, it could stand in the way of him fulfilling his dreams.
22 Kids and Counting: Max Radford’s struggles
Sunday night’s episode follows Max in the lead up to his GCSEs. As the show unfolds, it quickly becomes clear how good he is at maths.
He’s able to answer difficult problems with ease and writes multiple tricky equations in the sand on the beach near the family’s home in Morecambe.
But English is his stumbling point. Sue and Noel know if their son doesn’t get a Level 5 in English (a high C low B to the older generation among us), he won’t be able to go to university.
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Max says: “My dream is to build huge pieces of engineering, like jets, tanks and submarines. I would like to go into a field of chemistry, like rocket fuel or something like that.”
Noel treats his son to a day out to visit Concorde to inspire him. The teenager is amazed, describing the plane as “mind blowing”.
But he fears he will never be able to follow his dreams.
“It’s very stressful. Physics and chemistry is fun. Maths, I like it more than the other subjects,” he says. “But I’m very bad at a lot of the other subjects. English, I’m horrible at that.
“With my autism, I see the world differently to everyone else. Maths is a lot better than English because there is a definitive right answer and a definitive wrong one. There isn’t with English.”
Noel Radford ‘hires’ Chloe to help Max
Later in the show, Max heads to his older sister Chloe’s house. There are another 14 kids at home and he’s struggling to revise.
Noel has also suggested Chloe tutors him in English. But it doesn’t go well.
Max tells Chloe: “I don’t understand tones. I just can’t read the text and extract information.”
Chloe asks him to compare two poems, but Max quickly becomes frustrated. He tells her: “I’ve read it about three times now. I still don’t know what the tone is and genuinely have no idea.
“I can’t do this, it’s not making any sense. I have no clue what is going on. I’m going.”
Max leaves the house, slamming the door behind him. Chloe phones Noel and tells him to hire a tutor with neurodiverse experience.
Noel and Sue take her advice on board, but Max doesn’t respond well. He tells them he’s “given up with it” and “doesn’t understand the point”.
Max once again storms off and Noel sighs: “There’s no talking to him at the moment, he’s just totally disengaged. We’re running out of time. He needs this tutor to see sense.”
It’s Max’s dream about to end in tatters?
