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In an open and honest appearance on the Stick To Football podcast, Scholes revealed that he will step back from on-screen roles to prioritise Aiden, 20 because of the level of attention he requires. Scholes has not appeared on any matches for TNT Sports this season, with his last appearance coming in last season’s Europa League final between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. Aiden was diagnosed as having non-verbal autism when he was a young child, which has left him needing round-the-clock care from his parents. Scholes split with his wife, Claire, in 2020 after 27 years together, but the pair still share duties in looking after Aiden and split the week into a routine so that it helps him to know what day it is. “I made a decision this year (because) of Aiden, obviously due to his special needs you might know about,” Scholes told former Manchester United team-mates Gary Neville and Roy Keane, along with Ian Wright and Jill Scott. “He’s non-verbal so he can’t speak. When I say he can’t speak, I think he understands a lot more than we think. He has sounds but it’s only people that are close to him that will know what he’s saying. He has autism, but it’s like a really severe autism − because you can have it and go to school normally and such.” Scholes added: “All the work I do now is just around his routines because he has quite a strict routine every single day, so I just decided everything I’m going to do it is around Aiden. “I’m not with Claire anymore so we have him three nights each and Claire’s mum has him on a Friday night. We always do the same things with him as he doesn’t know what day of the week it is or time. But he’ll know from what we’re doing what day it is. “I pick him up every Tuesday from his daycare and we go swimming. (He) loves swimming then we get his pizza on the way home. Thursday, pick him up, go for something to eat, go home. Sunday, I pick him up from Claire’s house and we go to Tesco where he buys a trolley full of chocolate. So, he doesn’t know what day or time it is, but he knows from what we’re doing what day it is. He’ll be 21 in December.” Scholes plans to continue punditry roles with TNT Sports which does not require him to travel to games regularly, and will also continue to appear on his new podcast, The Good, The Bad and The Football, alongside Nicky Butt and Paddy McGuinness. “Everything I’m going to do now just works around him, I do studio work, but everything is built around his day,” Scholes added. “Last season on Thursday nights I’d do the Europa League for Man United, that’s the night I’d usually have him, so he was getting all agitated, biting and scratching. He knows the pattern’s not there straight away. And I did that for years really, always thinking I’ve got to stop this at some point so I had the chance to do the podcast and I thought that would suit me more, well not me, Aiden.” Scholes explained that Aiden has to bite and scratch when he gets frustrated because he is unable to communicate his feelings, and revealed that he would go into training at United during his playing career with marks on his face that initially he did not want to explain. “He’d bite your arm or scratch you just out of frustration for him because he didn’t understand things, couldn’t tell you how he was feeling. I never got a break from it, even when playing. It was very hard in those days, feels like it was years ago. “I don’t think they [doctors] diagnosed it until he (was) two-and-a-half years old. But you knew early something was wrong but then you get the diagnosis, and I’d never heard of it. Then all of a sudden you start seeing everything, I don’t know if it just consciously happens, I don’t know. I remember the first time after we were playing Derby away and I just didn’t want to be there. I remember the manager dropped me the week after actually, and I hadn’t told anyone [about the diagnosis]. I ended up telling them a few weeks later, I think as it was quite hard. “We didn’t know what was in store for us. There’s some kids who don’t speak at one-and-a-half to two years of age, then at five or six, bang they’re speaking they call it a late development stage. But we just knew it was never going to be like that. “I didn’t speak to anyone at the club about it. Even now I don’t want sympathy or anything. I just thought even if I did speak to someone about it, it’s not going to help Aiden. I don’t know what would help me. The big concern now is because you’re getting a bit older, what happens when you’re not here? That’s the thing that’s now on my mind all the time. There are times when it’s not in your head, it’s like anything, then there’s times like now when you do start speaking about it, it’s at the front of your mind.” Scholes explained that Aiden’s inability to communicate what he is feeling left him suffering from painful toothaches for nearly a year as he was not able to go to the dentist. “There was a time last year I took him away and he kept feeling his mouth and not sleeping and I had no idea what was wrong with him,” Scholes said. “He kept doing it and doing it, so I put numbing gel on his lips cos he can’t tell you what’s wrong or got pain anywhere and he won’t go to a dentist. He won’t sit there and have someone open his mouth, he just can’t do it. “We got him to a special needs dentist and they had to put him to sleep with gas. He had to have a fillings and all sorts then had an operation because his mouth was a mess. But he can’t tell you what pain he’s in. That must have been going on eight-to-nine months, imagine having toothache for nine months?” Scholes has recently decided to share content of Aiden online, and was enthused by the response it received from parents who are struggling with similar circumstances. “It was just the response he had from people, you know parents, the amount of people saying ‘god that helps’, we’ve got a kid that’s the same or something like that. That’s why I carried on doing it.” This week’s Stick to Football podcast with Paul Scholes is available now on YouTube and all leading podcast platforms
