Paddy McGuinness has admitted that one of his biggest worries is that his three children don’t know how much he loves them.
Paddy shares three children – Felicity, Leo and Penelope – with his wife Christine, all three of whom have been diagnosed with autism.
Christine was also recently diagnosed after undergoing a test for herself.
But appearing on BBC Breakfast ahead of the family’s new documentary Our Family and Autism, Paddy was candid about his concerns for his family.
In a teaser clip for the documentary, he admitted: “When the kids were diagnosed, a paediatrician told us that they may have difficulty recognising emotion, and that thought has stayed with me.
(Image: BBC)
“What gets me with them all is – and it’s only how I think – will they ever know how loved they are? Do they understand what love is?”
He explained: “When I’m putting Leo to bed every night, I’ll always say to him, ‘Who loves you more than anything in the world?’ and he’ll go, ‘You do!’ And I’ll go, ‘Who’s your best friend?’ and he’ll go, ‘You are’.
“And I’ll go, ‘Do you love Daddy’, and he’ll go, ‘Yeah’. But I think to myself, is he just saying that, or does he know that? With all three of them.”
Christine then explained: “You’ve said this for years. And it’s something that… we’ve not disagreed on, but Patrick has worried for years that the children might not feel loved or they don’t understand it, and I’ve always said they do.”
(Image: BBC)
Appearing in the BBC Breakfast studio with hosts Dan Walker and Sally Nugent, Paddy went on to elaborate: “Growing up myself in a single parent household, my mum loved me to bits, I know she did.
“But it wasn’t a household where you mentioned it a lot. There weren’t a lot of I love yous, all that carry on. So now I go overboard with it with my kids, they’re sick of me telling them I love them.”
He added: “Obviously as time goes on, you’re learning, but at the beginning I thought, ‘God I hope they know how loved they are’.”
Christine chimed in: “I think where that came from with Patrick is that it is quite common for autistic people to struggle with understanding emotions. So I think you’ve heard that somewhere and gone, ‘Oh my God, what if they don’t really know ever how much they’re loved?'”
Christine later said of the response to the documentary: “It’s been so positive. It’s been quite overwhelming.”
BBC Breakfast airs from 6am every day on BBC One.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
