In this episode of the Autism Mom Coach Podcast, host Lisa Candera talks with Dr. Taylor Day, a licensed psychologist specializing in neuro-affirming care for autistic children and their families.

Dr. Tay shares her personal journey and professional insights on creating a holistic, family-focused approach to autism care. They discuss the importance of not just supporting the autistic child but also providing much-needed support to the entire family, including siblings and parents. Dr. Tay explains the nuances between accommodation and over-accommodation, how parents can process their own grief, and offers strategies for helping children understand their own neurodivergence. The conversation covers previewing changes, collaboration between parents and children, and the importance of seeking support.

Tune in to learn how to create a balanced approach that benefits the entire family ecosystem.

00:00 Introduction

00:33 Special Guest: Dr. Taylor Day

01:34 Dr. Tay's Personal Journey and Professional Insights

02:26 Challenges and Gaps in Autism Care

04:02 The Importance of Family Support 07:20 Therapy and Personal Growth

11:08 Parental Challenges and Strategies

19:49 Accommodation vs. Over-Accommodation

34:25 Conclusion and Resources

To learn more about Dr. Tay, visit her website: https://drtaylorday.com/

In this episode of The Autism Mom Coach Podcast, I’m sharing a conversation from my appearance on Evolve with Dr. Tay with Dr. Taylor Day.

We talk about the part of autism parenting that gets overlooked: the parent’s nervous system. Not behavior charts. Not better scripts. The parent.

This conversation is about what it actually looks like to be your child’s safe person—without absorbing their distress, trying to fix what’s neurological, or burning yourself out in the process.

1. Why parent regulation comes before co-regulation
2. What “being the safe person” actually requires (and what it doesn’t)
3. How staying in your own lane reduces escalation
4. Why behavior is information and how the meaning we attach to it fuels stress
5. What it means to lead as the CEO of your autism household
6. How acceptance strengthens leadership rather than weakening it

For a long time, I thought I needed better answers, better strategies, better plans, better experts. What actually changed things was learning how to regulate myself under pressure.

You can still be the safe person. You can still lead. And you don’t have to do everything for your child to do that.

Dr. Taylor Day is a licensed child psychologist and parent coach specializing in neurodivergent-affirming care. She brings both clinical expertise and lived experience as an autism sibling, with a strong focus on supporting the entire family system—not just the child.

1. The Autism Mom Coach: https://theautismmomcoach.com
2. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook: @TheAutismMomCoach
3. Free Resource: The Autism Mom’s Meltdown Plan — a clear Before-During-After framework for supporting your child while staying regulated yourself

In this episode, Lisa talks with filmmaker Tyler Sansom and actor John Wells about the film Learning You. The movie follows a single father and his autistic son after the father removes him from an institution and takes him on an unplanned Christmas road trip.

The conversation explores why this story felt different to tell and to watch. Tyler shares how the film came to him through a producer parenting a profoundly autistic daughter and how interviews with families shaped the script. John talks about stepping into the role as a father raising an autistic son himself, and how closely the character’s experiences mirrored his own.

They discuss institutions, marriage breakdowns, system failures, meltdowns, and the way autism parenting requires constant recalibration. The focus stays on learning your child over time, reading early cues, and understanding behavior as information rather than something to correct.

1. What Learning You is about and how the story came to be made
2. Why the film centers on institutional decisions and their impact on families
3. How John’s experience parenting an autistic son informed his performance
4. How parents learn to recognize early signs before a meltdown escalates
5. Why behavior often reflects nervous system overload
6. How autism parenting evolves as children grow and change

To watch Learning You, visit https://www.learningyoumovie.com to find a theater near you or learn more about the film’s release.

In this episode, Lisa reflects on what parenting her son through years of severe anxiety, OCD, aggression, and hospitalizations taught her as he transitioned into adulthood. She shares three principles that carried her through the darkest seasons—and continue to guide her as an autism mom today.

1. How acceptance evolved from a one-time idea into a moment-by-moment practice
2. Why resistance to reality can interfere with decision-making during crisis
3. What unconditional love looks like when your child feels unfamiliar
4. How holding hope differs from denial—and why it requires courage
5. Why clearer advocacy came only after facing what was actually happening

The teen years forced me to accept what was happening in real time, love my child without conditions tied to outcomes, and hold hope even when there was no evidence yet. Those three principles changed how I showed up as a parent—and as an advocate.

1. Schedule a consultation: https://talkwiththeautismmomcoach.as.me/
2. Email Lisa: [email protected]

If this episode resonated and you’re carrying a lot right now—whether you’re in crisis or simply worn down—you don’t have to navigate it alone.

Schedule a one-on-one consultation at talkwiththeautismmomcoach.as.me and let’s talk through what support could look like for you.

In this episode, Lisa Candera sits down with autistic actress, writer, and filmmaker Bella Zoe Martinez, star of the short film Once More, Like Rain Man. Bella offers a candid look at what it’s like to navigate Hollywood—and the world—when autism is reduced to a single stereotype. Through humor and honesty, she shares the lived experience behind masking, exhaustion, and being misunderstood before you ever speak.

1. Why Rain Man has become shorthand for autism—and why that’s a problem
2. What it’s like to live under constant comparison to a stereotype
3. How autistic characters are often written as flat or robotic
4. What masking actually feels like from the inside
5. Why kids come home exhausted after holding it together all day
6. Why autistic people deserve to tell stories beyond autism

Hearing Bella describe masking as acting shifted how I understand what so many kids carry every day. When we see behavior as effort instead of defiance, the picture changes—and so does our response.

Once More, Like Rain Man

If this episode resonated with you, share it with another autism mom who’s tired of stereotypes and surface-level understanding. And if you want deeper support, schedule a consult at talkwiththeautismmomcoach.as.me.

Last week we uncovered the Expectation Trap — the moment you realize you’re holding someone to your internal rulebook and feeling irritated, disappointed, or flat-out furious when they don’t follow it. This week, we take it further. Because once you see the trap clearly, the real question becomes: now what?

This episode breaks down your three actual moves when someone’s behavior clashes with your values, standards, or instincts: let it go, make an adjustment, or enforce a boundary. These choices help you reclaim your steadiness, drop unnecessary resentment, and lead your home with more intention, especially during the holiday pressure cooker.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• How your expectations get built — and why the internal ones hit the hardest

• The power of choosing your battles instead of reacting from urgency or indignation

• Why “letting it go” is sometimes the most strategic move in an autism household

• What adjusting looks like when someone simply operates differently than you

• How to enforce a boundary without drama, panic, or self-judgment

When you stop holding people to your personal rulebook, you stop burning energy on the wrong things and free up bandwidth for what actually matters to you.

Ready to take this work deeper?

Work with Me: This is where we clean up the mental load, the resentment, and the overfunctioning so you have capacity again: https://talkwiththeautismmomcoach.as.me

Holiday season has a way of dragging every unspoken rule you live by straight into the spotlight. In this episode, I’m calling out the Expectation Trap — the moment where your values, routines, and instincts collide with people who make choices that feel completely upside down to you.

Here’s the truth: you are never the baseline for anyone else’s behavior.

The minute you stop measuring other people’s choices against your internal rulebook, everything from holiday plans to everyday interactions feels lighter and easier to lead through.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• How expectations form through structure, routine, and the rules you carry in your head
• Why holiday shifts land harder in autism households and spike nervous system stress
• The emotional weight that settles on you when you assume others think like you
• How releasing yourself as the “standard” creates breathing room in your body and your mind

This shift frees up the mental space you need to guide your home with steadier energy, clearer decisions, and far less resentment.

If this work speaks to what you’re living, here are a few ways to go deeper:

Schedule a consultation for private coaching and get tailored support for your family: https://talkwiththeautismmomcoach.as.me

Every November, we hear the same message: be grateful, make a list, count your blessings. But for many autism parents, gratitude lists fall flat. You already know what matters—your child, progress, small moments of peace. The problem isn’t awareness; it’s that your nervous system is still stuck in survival mod

In this episode, Lisa Candera, autism mom coach and host of The Autism Mom Coach Podcast, shares why savoring—not just gratitude—is the missing piece in emotional regulation for autism parents. You’ll learn how savoring helps your brain record safety and connection as real, not rare, and why that matters for both you and your child’s nervous system health.

Lisa explains how constant vigilance wires the body for stress, how negativity bias keeps you scanning for threat, and how brief, intentional pauses can retrain your brain to recognize safety. This isn’t mindset work—it’s nervous system retraining through small, consistent moments that actually stick.

By the end, you’ll know how to use savoring as a real-world regulation skill that shifts your body from tension to steadiness—one breath at a time.

• What savoring means and why it matters for autism parents
• How negativity bias keeps your nervous system stuck in threat mode
• The science of how savoring rewires the brain for safety and balance
• Why gratitude alone doesn’t create regulation without embodiment
• Simple ways to practice savoring in daily life without extra effort

Lisa’s Takeaway:

Savoring is how you remind your body that good moments count too. Each pause, each exhale, each second you let safety land—it all adds up to regulation and resilience.

Links Mentioned:

• Download The Autism Mom’s Meltdown Plan
• Schedule a consult with Lisa Candera

Before your autistic child can self-regulate, they co-regulate — through you.

Your nervous system becomes their roadmap. Your breath, tone, and posture tell their body whether it’s safe or in danger. This is why your steadiness matters more than any script or strategy.

In this episode, autism mom coach Lisa Candera breaks down the science and skill of co-regulation for autism parents — how two nervous systems sync, how stress transfers between you and your child, and how to use your own body as the anchor that helps them recover.

You’ll learn what’s actually happening in those intense moments — the fight, flight, or freeze responses you both experience — and how to interrupt the cycle by leading with your body’s cues instead of your child’s behavior. Lisa explains why co-regulation is often the missing piece in emotional regulation for autistic children and what it takes to build this skill over time, even when your own nervous system feels maxed out.

This episode goes beyond theory. You’ll get specific, repeatable tools for steadying yourself during meltdowns, transitions, or any moment of dysregulation, and see how these small shifts can reduce reactivity, shorten recovery time, and strengthen trust between you and your child.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• What co-regulation means and how it develops before self-regulation
• Why your nervous system sets the tone for your child’s emotions and behavior
• The patterns that keep autism parents stuck in survival mode
• How your own body history shapes your reactions under stress
• Five practical ways to use your body cues as steadying signals during meltdowns

Links Mentioned:

• Schedule a consult with Lisa Candera
• Download The Autism Mom’s Meltdown Plan

You’ve heard me say it before: regulation starts with you.

But what does that really mean when your child is melting down in front of you, your body tightens, your pulse spikes, and your mind goes straight to “make it stop”?

This is not a mindset issue. It’s biology. Your nervous system is wired to mirror your child’s. When they escalate, your body reacts. You feel it. And that’s why prevention and control, as much as we rely on them, only take us so far.

You can plan every detail, anticipate every trigger, and still find yourself in the middle of a storm, running on adrenaline. Because in that moment, what matters most isn’t what you do, it’s how you are.

In Episode 184 of The Autism Mom Coach Podcast, I talk about what it really means that regulation starts with you. I share what happens when you meet your child’s distress with your own, how your energy shapes the room before you say a word, and how to steady yourself when everything feels like it’s coming apart.

You’ll learn:

• The difference between reacting and regulating

• How your body’s signals matter more than your words

• Simple ways to bring yourself back to baseline

Regulation is awareness. It’s catching yourself sooner, breathing before you speak, and becoming the steady presence your child can lean on.

🎧 Listen to Episode 184: Why Regulation Starts With You — because your energy teaches your child how to find theirs.

Being the Calmest Nervous System in the Room: It’s one of the hardest parts of parenting an autistic child. But this isn’t about being zen or unbothered. It’s about learning how your body reacts, spotting it sooner, and choosing steadiness over reactivity.

That’s why working 1:1 with a seasoned autism mom and experienced coach is a game changer!

If you’ve been craving support + skills to do tomorrow better, schedule a consult HERE.