LEGO has been a saving grace for my autistic 12-year-old – so I took him to Denmark

Having seen how the Danish toy helped her son’s fine motor skills develop, our writer hoped a trip to its homeland would be a hit

As I watched my 12 year-old son, Eddie, look up at the leafy branches of the huge tree – a tree composed entirely of LEGO bricks – a flash of recognition crossed his face. “Look, it’s my LEGO Ninjago set!” he shouted in excitement. We climbed further up the giant staircase which surrounded the tree, to see that it did indeed have one of Eddie’s LEGO sets nestled in its branches and lit up enticingly, like a miniature world at Christmas.
We had come to Billund in Denmark, home of the LEGO headquarters (the founder, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, who started the company in 1932, lived across the street) to visit LEGO House, a 130,000 sq ft building, designed to look as though it’s made out of LEGO bricks. The building, which opened to the public in 2017, was designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, and also has multiple rooftop playgrounds and a LEGO brick climbing frame.
Eddie was wonderstruck as we moved through the six different experience zones, including a digital aquarium, a huge waterfall built from 1,968,753 LEGO bricks, and what is known as the Masterpiece Gallery, a showcase of unique LEGO artworks, including a giant Transformer robot and a collection of Andy Warhol-style digital prints. 
The building – filled with 25 million LEGO bricks – also includes three restaurants and, of course, a shop. It is all, quite simply, mind-blowing. 
We had planned to come here when it first opened, but then the pandemic got in the way. You see, LEGO has been a saving grace for Eddie, who was diagnosed with autism, sensory processing disorder and something called Pathological Demand Avoidance, when he was seven. Eddie has delayed fine motor skills (which is very common with autistic children), which meant he couldn’t hold a pencil properly or write his name when he started school. He could, however, paradoxically, spend hours creating intricate and complex LEGO models, which gave him great pleasure and helped improve his motor skills. 
While Eddie still can’t tie his shoelaces or ride a bike, LEGO remains one of his favourite go-to activities, something he can do to help him self-regulate and escape from the demands of daily life. 
Before he moved to a specialist school last year, he benefited from LEGO-based therapy at his mainstream primary school. As far as Eddie was concerned, he was simply playing with LEGO, but it was also used as a way to help enhance his social skills – sharing, turn-taking, problem-solving and so on. Manipulating the little LEGO bricks also helped him develop dexterity, hand-eye coordination and the ability to control pressure, all vital skills for writing.
It stands to reason, then, that going to Billund was something of a dream come true for Eddie – but there was also plenty to keep our other two, Charlie, 15, and Jemima, 10, entertained. Jemima and I loved the LEGO wedding dress in the Masterpiece Gallery, while Charlie and my husband, Dom, loved creating a virtual archive of all their favourite childhood LEGO sets in the museum section. We all enjoyed making stop-motion films, then watching them back afterwards; and having lunch at the in-house restaurant, where we created our menu choices out of – what else? – LEGO (one green brick for salad, one brown brick for chicken and so on). The food was even served in giant LEGO bricks on a conveyor belt, delivered by two dancing robots, Robert and Roberta. 
Most importantly, the whole place was considerately set up for neurodiverse visitors like Eddie, with a special sensory bag (containing, amongst other things, fidget toys) and a sunflower lanyard (which indicates an invisible disability) given to us on arrival, and breakout areas – where Eddie could make use of headphones and white LEGO pieces – providing quiet spaces when we needed them. 
In fact, the whole town of Billund seemed well suited to neurodiverse travellers – only an hour’s flight from Stansted, small and accessible, with a free shuttle bus (which runs on time), and a calm, quiet air. The local people were calm and quiet, too, from the kindly receptionist at Refborg Hotel, where we were staying, to the gently amiable bus drivers.
LEGO is, as former CEO Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen once said, “the bridge between imagination and reality” – and I’ll be forever grateful for the bridge his product has provided for Eddie; and for the sweet, gentle world it has fashioned in Billund, and in so many homes beyond ours.
Ryanair has flights from London Stansted to Billund from £30 one-way. Hotel Refborg (0045 7533 2633) offers double rooms from £153 per night. 

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