A child who's shut down isn't being difficult. They've decided the room isn't safe to try in.

Bright, capable neurodivergent kids quietly check out of school every day—and it almost never gets read as what it really is. In this episode, I sit down with educator and author Victoria Bagnall to unpack why trust erodes, how to spot it before a kid disappears entirely, and what it actually takes to win them back.

Spoiler: it isn't a reward chart.

You'll walk away able to see disengagement completely differently—and with a real path to rebuild.

Find Victoria's work and her book, The Neuroinclusive Educator, at victoriabagnall.com or connect her on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-bagnall-38204251/

The tools didn't stop working. They were never built for your brain in the first place.

You've tried every planner, every app, every system — and they all work beautifully for about two weeks. In this episode, I sit down with neurodivergent coach Ania Hulsman to explain why that happens, why it was never a discipline problem, and the difference between a strategy that demands you show up the same every day and a scaffold that holds you up when you don't.

You'll walk away with a name for the pattern and permission to stop blaming yourself for it.

Find Ania's work at aniahulsman.com — links below.

email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniahulsman/

Website URL: aniahulsman.com

You’re not white-knuckling it because you’re not good enough. You’re running a neurotypical operating system on a neurodivergent brain.In this episode, I sit down with Steve August — ADHD business coach and founder of the ADHD Entrepreneur Accelerator — who built a multimillion-dollar software company and took it to exit before he ever knew he had ADHD.We get into the hidden energetic tax of ADHD focus, why “just delegate more” is the most useless advice you’ve ever been handed, and the reframe that actually changes things: stop delegating tasks, start delegating executive function.You’ll walk away with language for the exhaustion you’ve never been able to name — and a completely different idea of what consistency looks like when your brain is wired the way ours is.Find Steve’s work at steveaugustcoaching.com and adhd-accelerator.com — links below.- steveaugustcoaching.com- adhd-accelerator.com- Book: The Essential ADHD Plan- LinkedIn · TikTok · YouTube

What if the burnout you’re carrying right now didn't start last year, or even five years ago? What if it started when you were four years old?In this episode of AvyHD, I connect with Kassandra Clemens, Founder and Executive Director of Heal Your Confidence. Kassandra shares her profound personal and professional insights on late-identified neurodivergence (ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, and dyslexia) and challenges the harmful myth of the "high-functioning" label.We unpack:- The literal exhaustion of masking and performing for decades.- The groundbreaking research showing that autistic burnout can begin between ages 4 and 7.- How generational trauma compounds when neurodivergent parents resist their own differences.- The critical shift from "survival resilience" to genuine, holistic mind-body-soul recovery.- The power of being a "fierce defender" for neurodivergent children and adults alike.This isn't an episode about managing symptoms or coping better; it's about reclaiming the voice that was yours before the masking even started.💌 Connect with Kassandra:Website: www.healyourconfidence.comEmail: [email protected]LinkedIn: Kassandra Clemens on LinkedInFacebook: Heal Your Confidence PageSubscribe to AvyHD for more unfiltered, logical, and deeply empathetic conversations about navigating a neurotypical world with a neurodivergent brain.

When a child constantly walks on their toes, standard medicine forces their heels down with restrictive splints or expensive surgery. But for a huge cohort of neurodivergent and non-verbal children, this restriction fails. In this episode, pediatric physiotherapist Nicki Allen turns the traditional approach on its head. Instead of treating the body like it’s broken, she asked a better question: What if the body is trying to solve a sensory problem? Discover Haptiv8—a smart insole that uses gentle haptic vibration and fun auditory rewards to gamify therapy and work with a child's nervous system. I also share my own personal experience as an adult tiptoe walker. It's time to stop restricting and start listening. 🔗 Connect with Nicki: www.haptiv8.com

"Someone told you a story about yourself. The mold was broken. Not you." — Avy

Stephanie Watterson is an editor, author, sensitivity reader, biracial adoptee, and writer with dyslexia. If those things sound like contradictions, that's exactly why she's on the show. In this conversation, we get into the orange in a row of apples, what disability actually means when you stop using it as a synonym for can't, and the difference between help and support — which is basically the difference between a one-night stand and a relationship.

You'll walk away with new language for your own brain, three questions you can ask any time something feels stuck, and the reminder that the seven tentacles were never the problem. The question is what color you want them to be.

Find Stephanie at contentauthoring.com, on LinkedIn, and her book Septtopus on Indigo, Amazon, and at Russell Books in Victoria.

“The term of being too much or being a lot — that framework is dangerous.”You’ve been handed that story your whole life. Too much. Too intense. Too scattered. And somewhere along the way, you started to believe it. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Dante Assad Williams — founder of NeuroBaddie™ — to pull apart the specific ways neurodivergent women get told to shrink, why they keep ending up in dynamics that don’t serve them, and what it actually looks like to stop adjusting yourself for people who were never qualified to evaluate you.This one covers the dopamine loop behind love bombing, the cost of choosing a good person who just isn’t your match, the audacity gap between how mediocre men move through the world and how high-achieving ND women hold themselves back — and what changes when you decide you’re the sun.Find Dr. Dante’s work at beacons.ai/dr.danteassad — link in show notes.

Ever find yourself rested on Monday but "wiped out by Wednesday" anyway?If that sounds familiar, you don't have a time management problem—you have a boundary infrastructure problem. In this episode, Avy explains why "unstructured access" to your time and energy is the silent killer of founder creativity. Learn how neurodivergent leaders can stop fighting their natural wiring and start designing a business that works with their brain instead of against it.What we’re diving into:• The 5 Boundary Leaks: From sneaky scope drift to the exhausting "founder bottleneck".• The BOUNDARIES Acronym: A 10-part framework to move you from reactive firefighting to proactive operational peace.• Plugging the Holes: Practical ways to stop being the shock absorber for your business.Ready to find your leaks? Take the free Boundary Leak Audit mentioned in the show to see exactly where your energy is draining!https://hub.avyhd.com/boundary-leak-audit

What if your 'ADHD symptoms' are actually your brain struggling to process white light or background noise?In this episode, I sit down with Jacki Edry to discuss the neurological processing issues that mimic or complicate ADHD and Autism. Jacki shares her harrowing and enlightening journey of recovering from brain surgery, which gave her a firsthand look at sensory overload—not as a professional, but as a person living it.We dive into:• Why the "broken" medical system misses sensory issues.• The difference between "Attention Deficit" and "Divided Attention."• Practical tools like Irlen spectral filters and FM systems.• How to distinguish between a "behavior problem" and a survival response."You cannot reason with your senses." If you’re a "squirrel" looking for the missing piece of your diagnostic puzzle, listen in.

“I tried delegating, and it didn't work.” If you’ve said this, you’ve likely concluded that you’re just too controlling or that no one can do the job as well as you can. Today, I’m calling "squirrel" on that. Your delegation didn't fail because of trust; it failed because three specific structural conditions were never in place before the handoff happened.For ADHD founders, building infrastructure requires sustained executive function—planning, sequencing, and documentation—which our brains often find difficult without support. We skip the system because the task feels more urgent than the infrastructure.Join me as we explore the O and D pillars of my BOUNDARIES framework: Ownership Clarity and Decision Rights, plus the essential Escalation Paths. It’s time to stop being the ceiling of your own business.Take the Boundary Leak Audit: https://hub.avyhd.com/boundary-leak-audit Book a Strategy Call: https://web.alistova.com/strategy-call-with-avy