TILT Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children

Flex School founder Jacqui Byrne shares her vision for creating powerful learning communities for gifted and 2e students through her unique educational model.

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Parent coach Zach Morris and Debbie answer a listener's question about sharing a new autism diagnosis with a 10 year old who embraces his neurodivergence but lives in a community / culture where the term "autism" has a negative connotation.

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In today’s conversation, I’m diving into the much-anticipated book Navigating PDA in America with the co-authors and thought leaders in the PDA space, Diane Gould and Ruth Fidler. We've touched on PDA in past episodes, but I learned so much from this book, and I’m excited to share it with you because PDA is a diagnosis bringing a lot of clarity and relief to families. As it gains traction in the neurodivergence space, the more we know, the better we can support PDAers in our communities. In this episode, we talk about the nuances of the PDA profile and how to one might determine if the identification fits, where North America stands in understanding PDA in comparison with the rest of the world, the challenges PDA individuals face in school and how they can effectively be addressed, what type of therapy is best for someone with a PDA profile, and much more.

Diane Gould is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker that specializes in serving autistic individuals. As the Executive Director and Founder of PDA North America, she founded the annual PDA North America conference held in Chicago that has changed the lives of hundreds of PDA (pathological demand avoidance/persistent drive for autonomy) families. She co-authored the book Navigating PDA in America with Ruth Fidler which was published in June 2024. In April 2024, Diane was diagnosed as autistic.

Diane has a private practice in the suburbs of Chicago, where she serves neurodivergent children, adults and their families. Over the last 40 plus years, she has worked for both private agencies and school systems. She currently focuses her practice on providing consultation and training. She works primarily with parents and regularly attends school meetings with them. Diane loves to train educators and therapists so they can better serve their students and clients. And learning about PDA, led her to begin the new PDA movement in North America. Diane formed PDA North America at the first American PDA conference in March 2020.

Ruth Fidler is an Education Consultant specializing in complex presentations of autism, Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) and emotional well-being. She worked at an all age non-maintained special school for 22 years until 2014 and has worked independently since then. Ruth worked within the school promoting interactive approaches and emotional well- being for pupils with varying autistic profiles.

As well as providing training, she regularly observes and monitors teaching and learning, supporting staff to embed and refine good autism and SEND practice. She often presents at local or national events and conferences for parents and for a range of professionals. She is co-author of the following books: Understanding Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome in Children, Can I Tell You About Pathological Demand Avoidance?, Collaborative Approaches to Learning, Girls and Autism, Being Julia, and Navigating PDA in America.

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Neuropsychologist William Stixrud PhD and Ned Johnson talk about their gamechanging book "The Self-Driven Child" and explain the importance of supporting our child's sense of control and autonomy.

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In today's episode, my guest reminds us that no one goes through life unscathed. We all face big, difficult challenges—it's part of being human. And when we encounter these challenges while parenting, it's up to us to help our kids make sense of things in healthy ways that foster resilience. But how exactly do we do that?

My guest, author-illustrator Sara Olsher, is a strong advocate for talking to kids honestly about the big things happening in our families. She speaks from her own experience, having navigated difficult conversations with her daughter during a messy divorce, followed shortly by a cancer diagnosis. Despite her fears about using the word "cancer," Sara knew it was important for her daughter to understand what was happening with accurate information. As Sara explained in our conversation, “Developmentally, the whole world revolves around them. So if you don't talk with children about these things, they’ll invent a story that centers on them, and they may conclude it’s their fault.”

I love talking with people who take their personal experiences and hard-earned wisdom and turn them into tools to help others feel more supported and confident. That’s exactly what Sara did, and today, she shares her journey with us. You'll hear how she navigated her divorce and used her daughter’s anxiety as an opportunity to learn the power of visual schedules and open communication in helping kids cope with tough situations. She also discusses the series of children’s books she’s written to help parents tackle heavy topics like chronic illness, hospice, cancer, and emotions. One thing that really stood out to me was how going through hard times can actually prepare our kids to live with uncertainty.

In addition to her books, Sara is the founder of Mighty and Bright, a company that helps kids and adults manage their lives more easily with magnetic visual schedules. She shares how she discovered visual schedules almost by accident, but how they transformed her daughter’s anxiety overnight. They sound like a game changer for many families, so definitely check out her resources if they resonate with you.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Sara Olsher.

After surviving a divorce and cancer all before she turned 35, mom and author-illustrator Sara Olsher took the lessons she learned about helping kids through major life changes and wrote a book. Then another, and another. She now has twelve picture books under her belt, and is the founder of Mighty and Bright, a company that helps kids and adults understand and manage their lives more easily using magnetic visual schedules. Sara was chosen as a 2023 Remarkable Woman by Nexstar Media.

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Dr. Manju Banerjee, VP of Educational Research and Innovation at Landmark College, talks about Landmark's vision for helping neurodivergent students thrive in college and in their careers.

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Just as technology evolves rapidly, so too do the ways drugs are consumed. For parents, it can be challenging to recognize when our kids are using, especially since many products on the market now resemble harmless school supplies or candy. And then if we find our kids are engaging in drug use, how do we even begin to navigate that?

That’s what we’re going to explore today with my guest Brenda Zane, whose oldest son struggled with an addiction to a high-risk lifestyle and illicit drugs for over five years. After nearly losing him to two fentanyl overdoses, Brenda left her marketing career to serve other families dealing with the fear, confusion, and feelings of helplessness of having a child who’s misusing drugs or alcohol, becoming a family advocate and co-founding the nonprofit organization Hopestream Community, where she serves parents of teens and young adults who struggle with substance misuse and mental health challenges.

This is such a powerful conversation and one I truly recommend all parents to listen to, no matter the age of their children, as it’s important to understand the landscape for drug access and use in the lives of today’s kids. During this episode, Brenda and I talked about the importance of open communication and understanding the reasons behind drug use, the dangers of high-potency THC products in younger users, and the challenges parents face when their teenagers experiment with substances, as well as explore the idea that there is a difference between “typical experimentation” and problematic use when talking about marijuana. I know that this can be one of those uncomfortable topics that many of us would rather avoid thinking about, especially if we have a history of substance abuse in our families, but it’s important for our kids' safety that we do the research and create spaces for these conversations to be had at home.

One last thing, please know that this episode contains references to drug abuse, overdosing, and mental health issues. So do what you need to do to take care of yourself if these are triggering themes for you.

Brenda Zane is a family advocate and co-founder of the nonprofit organization Hopestream Community. She’s passionate about serving parents of teens and young adults who struggle with substance misuse and mental health challenges. Brenda’s oldest son struggled with an addiction to a high-risk lifestyle and illicit drugs for over five years. After nearly losing him to multiple fentanyl overdoses, Brenda left her marketing career to serve other families dealing with the fear, confusion, and feelings of helplessness of having a child who’s misusing drugs or alcohol. You can hear Brenda weekly on the Hopestream podcast.

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Pediatric psychologist and author Mona Delahooke talks about her new book "Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children's Behavioral Challenges."

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Parent coach Margaret Webb and Debbie discuss how to help an autistic child with low self-esteem. They explore the importance of giving the child time to regulate and be alone, rather than assuming it is a sign of low self-esteem. They also discuss the window shade age, where children become aware of their differences from their peers. They emphasize the need to support effort rather than outcome and to make sure the child feels valued. The conversation ends with a reminder to trust in oneself as a parent and seek support if needed.

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My fall season is officially starting today and I’m kicking it off with a conversation with Dr. Billy Garvey on mental health. Billy, a developmental pediatrician with over 20 years’ experience working with children in Australia, met last year while he was traveling around the world on a fellowship to explore the connection between how children are parented and their mental health as adults. One of the outcomes of that fellowship is Billy’s new book, which is called 10 Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's Mental Health, which he was kind enough to send me an advanced copy of. So I wanted to bring him on the show to talk about that, but really to expand on that initial conversation I had with him but so that you all could be a part of it, too. We covered a lot of ground in this extra long episode, including challenges of accessing mental health support in Australia, the need for true inclusion and what that actually means, the importance of unconditional love for kids, attachment and temperament, the role of self-esteem, and the limitations of certain diagnoses, and much more.

Dr Billy Garvey is a developmental pediatrician with over 20 years’ experience working with children in a number of settings. He is a senior specialist at one of the largest tertiary pediatric hospitals in the world where he sees families, trains clinicians and other professionals working with children and conducts research in child development and mental health.

Dr Billy’s clinical and research interests include child development and mental health, multidisciplinary collaboration, improving health literacy and promoting community engagement to support all families. He holds clinical, advocacy and research roles in government and not-for-profit organizations at a national, state and local level. He is currently undertaking a PhD piloting a model to support child emotional and behavioral development in primary schools and is a Churchill Fellow exploring how social media can be used to support parenting. He is also the founder of Guiding Growing Minds, a social enterprise that aims to give all children the opportunity to reach their potential and live rich and meaningful lives. The Pop Culture Parenting podcast is part of this vision.

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