Neurodivergent Conversations | Autism, ADHD, AuDHD, PDA, Emotional Regulation, SEND parent, Meltdowns, Special Needs Parent

That Sounds Fun Network
That Sounds Fun Network

What’s it really like parenting a child with ADHD and autism? How can parents, teachers, and communities better support neurodivergent children? How do autistic and ADHD individuals experience the world? Each week, we explore these questions with practical strategies, emotional insight, and real stories. I’m Greer — a mum of two boys (and two dogs!) raising a child with special educational needs (SEN) alongside my husband. Our daily life looks different from the norm, but it’s full of love, advocacy, and growth. I started this podcast to create a space for parents of neurodivergent kids, educators, and allies to learn, connect, and build understanding together. You’ll hear parenting tips, advocacy guidance, sensory strategies, and personal reflections that shine a light on both the joys and challenges of neurodivergent parenting. Through heartfelt solo episodes and guest interviews, we’ll talk about EHCP or IEP processes, school support, emotional regulation, and the big feelings that come with raising ND kids. Whether you’re here as a parent of an autistic or ADHD child, a late-diagnosed adult, a teacher seeking insight, or someone wanting to understand the neurodivergent world, this podcast is your space to grow, connect, and know you’re not alone. Welcome to The Unfinished Idea — a podcast all about parenting, autism, ADHD, and life in a neurodivergent family. Here, we open up honest conversations about neurodiversity, raising neurodivergent children, and navigating the everyday realities of SEN parenting.

  1. 3d ago

    Why We Start With the Environment, Not Behaviour

    Is your whole morning held together by you, repeating yourself until the words stop sounding like words? Mama, you don't have to be everyone's personal prompt. In this episode, ADHD coach Sharon Collon shares how she went from crying in the car after school drop-off to letting the environment carry the load, plus the five-minute family meeting her kids actually turn up for. Sharon Collon is a credentialed ADHD coach, parent expert and the founder of The Functional Family, and she's supported over 40,000 families. She's also living it every single day. Five humans under one roof, all with ADHD, alongside autism, OCD, ODD and Tourette's, in a house that, in her words, runs at a very special kind of intensity. In this conversation, Sharon gets honest about what her mornings used to look like and the shift that changed them: moving from being the glue holding everyone together to building a home where the setup does more of the work. We talk about why behaviour is the slowest and hardest place to start, the small environment tweaks that make a big difference, and how to bring back the family meeting in a way that works for ADHD brains. In this episode, you'll hear: What a Tuesday morning looked like in Sharon's house before, and why it so often ended in tears in the car Why verbal prompting stresses so many of our kids (and us), and what can carry that load instead How to spot your family's friction points, including the ones your body braces for before anything has even happened Why Sharon starts with the environment, not behaviour, and how those small shifts often lead to the behaviour changes Simple setup tweaks that work: grouping things together, medication by the kettle, and why the shoes now live in the car The tiny night-before habit that changed our own school mornings The ADHD-friendly family meeting: a gratitude opener, a quick look at the week ahead, meal and shopping input from the kids, all done over build-your-own tacos in about five minutes Why "side door" conversations feel so much safer for many kids than sitting face to face What Sharon wants the mama in survival mode to know about grace, protecting your tank, and borrowing someone else's belief in you The three strengths that show up again and again when Sharon strength tests her ADHD clients (and the one that's a little trickier to parent) If you're running on empty, you don't need to try harder. You're already trying hard enough. Pick one friction point, make one small change to the setup, and see what shifts. You're not failing, mama, you're carrying a lot, and I'm cheering you on. GUEST LINKS:  Follow Sharon here Check out her website Listen to the podcast GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhausted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Why We Start With the Environment, Not Behaviour

  2. Oct 29

    How to collaborate with your neurodivergent child’s teacher, with Dr Emily W. King

    ****Join the priority list to be one of the first to grab a copy of the book*** Ever left a school meeting replaying everything you said, or everything you didn’t? Worried you’ll be “that mama” if you speak up, but scared your child will slip through the cracks if you don’t? You’re not alone, and this conversation is the gentle middle ground you’ve been looking for. I’m joined by Dr Emily W. King, a school psychologist, author of The Neurodivergent Learner, and mama of two neurodivergent kids. Emily has sat on every side of the IEP (or EHCP) table, as the professional and as the parent, and she brings both perspectives with so much warmth and honesty. In this episode, you’ll hear: Why a simple email before term starts can set up the whole year, and the “if you see this, please text me” detail Emily loves to include How to compare what’s happening at home and at school without getting defensive, by getting curious about where a skill is working and why Why body, sensory safety and sleep come first when you’re seeing resistance a few weeks into term What it means when your child is “leaving it all on the field” at school, and how dialling back demands at home can help them recover Why sharing more with educators, not less, opens doors for your child If school feels heavy right now, let this be your reminder that you don’t have to choose between staying quiet and being “too much”. There’s a collaborative way through, and you’re already doing the hardest part by showing up for your child. GUEST LINKS:  Follow Emily here Check out here book here GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhasuted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    How to collaborate with your neurodivergent child’s teacher, with Dr Emily W. King

  3. Oct 22

    The Three-Step Reset: What to Do in the Middle of a Meltdown

    ** GET THE EXHAUSTED TO EMPOWERED COURSE HERE. USE COUPON RESET TO GET $20 OFF** It was the wrong spoon. That was it. That was the whole thing. A normal morning. Music on, lunches being made, everyone getting ready. And then, out of nowhere, a child face down on the floor screaming, because he had the wrong spoon. In this solo episode I'm sharing something I have been speaking on around the UK: the three-step reset. But first I take you into my kitchen, because I want you to know that we got to school with him still crying and me in tears, and that the thought going round my head was, what is wrong with me? Why can't we do this like every other family walking to school perfectly fine? If you have had that morning, or that bedtime, or that supermarket, or that car park, this one is for you. Here is what I want you to hear. The meltdown is not the problem. You are not the problem. Your child is not the problem. What is happening in your body and in their body, in that moment, is the thing nobody actually taught us about. We have been told to be more consistent. Hold firmer boundaries. Stay calm no matter what. The unspoken lie underneath all of it is that you should be able to hold it together while your child falls apart, and that if you could just regulate hard enough you could override your own nervous system by sheer willpower. That is not how bodies work. You cannot think your way to calm. You have to body your way there first. So I walk you through the three steps. Pause, which is your body. Name, which is your mind. Respond, which is your action. In that order, every time. It isn't a hack. It's a map. And you don't need 12 strategies, you just need one that works when everything is falling apart. GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhasuted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    The Three-Step Reset: What to Do in the Middle of a Meltdown

  4. Oct 15

    The Guilt Equation: Why Mum Guilt Is Really an Expectations Problem

    Her sister was diagnosed with ADHD in middle school. So was her dad. And JoAnn spent years insisting it definitely wasn't her. Her sister presented the way we all expect ADHD to look. Couldn't sit still, all over the place, pushing back against authority. JoAnn didn't look like that at all, so she assumed she was in the clear, and quietly carried a lot of shame instead. The klutziness. Running into walls. Going into class determined that today would be the day she paid attention, and catching herself 10 minutes later having heard none of it. It took her husband, who is autistic and was diagnosed only about 18 months ago, pointing out the things that made her different from the norm before it all clicked into place. I loved how she describes their marriage. They are jazz. He's the bass and the drum keeping everything on time. She's the saxophone doing riffs all around it to keep it interesting. Then we get into what she actually does, which is helping mamas put down the guilt. And she says something I hadn't heard before: guilt isn't the villain. Used correctly, it is a pro-social emotion. It is the thing that nudges you to reply to the message you ignored, to repair the relationship, to reach back out. Guilt only turns dangerous when it stops describing what you did and starts describing who you are. She walks through the guilt equation, which is expectations minus reality, and the gap versus gain shift, which is one of those tiny changes that quietly rearranges your whole day. And then there is a coffee shop story involving the wrong woman, a free coffee and a genuinely spectacular misunderstanding, which she tells to make a point about what to do with the moments you would normally replay for weeks. GUEST LINKS:  Follow JoAnn Grab some of JoAnn's resources GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhasuted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    The Guilt Equation: Why Mum Guilt Is Really an Expectations Problem

  5. Oct 8

    Why Standard Sleep Advice Doesn't Work for Neurodivergent Kids

    She teaches families how to sleep for a living. And then her own bedtimes fell apart. Michelle is a paediatric sleep specialist, so she knew every rule in the book. Bath, teeth, pyjamas, story, bed. It had worked. And then, seemingly overnight, it stopped. Bedtime battles climbing, teeth brushing refused, baths refused. She sat in it feeling baffled, convinced she must be doing something wrong, and quietly not telling anyone because how do you admit you are struggling with bedtime when bedtime is your job? What shifted it wasn't a new technique. It was letting go of the shoulds and starting to ask a different question: what is my child's nervous system carrying right now, and how many demands am I stacking on top of it in the last 30 minutes of the day? So she spread it out. Teeth after dinner. The nightly bath quietly retired, because honestly, how dirty are they? Instead of a routine her children had to get through, an evening they could float through. We also get properly into the 4am wake-ups, because so many of us are living there. Michelle explains what is actually going on in the body at that hour, and it turns out to be several things at once rather than one thing you are failing to fix. And her one small thing to try tonight is not what you would expect from a sleep specialist. It isn't dimmer lights or a calmer voice. It's jumping, tug of war with a dressing gown cord and pushing into the bathroom scales, because pressure through the body boosts melatonin naturally and laughing together does more for a nervous system than a quiet room ever will. If bedtime in your house has stopped feeling like relief and started feeling like recovery, this one is for you. GUEST LINKS:  Check out Michelle's website Grab the 5 ways to help your autistic and ADHD child switch off their busy brain at bedtime guide GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhasuted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Why Standard Sleep Advice Doesn't Work for Neurodivergent Kids

  6. Oct 1

    Different Isn't Wrong: Marriage When You Both Have Different Brains

    ** Sign up to the Beautifully Wired Summit for Free** She married young, with an anxiety diagnosis, and assumed the wedding would fix it. It did not. Jackie is back, which makes her my very first repeat guest, and this conversation went exactly where you would expect two ADHD brains to go, which is everywhere. We didn't prepare questions. We just hit record. She talks first about showing up authentically online versus in real life, and why the internet has always felt safer than a room with two people in it. Then we get into marriage, and this is the bit I keep thinking about. Jackie married two weeks out of college with what she was told was anxiety and what turned out to be undiagnosed ADHD and a stack of sensory differences she wouldn't understand until she was 31. Her husband's brain works nothing like hers. For years, that difference felt like a choice he was making, and when something feels like a choice, it feels like an attack, and then you're both defensive and nobody is actually talking. What changed was understanding that every brain is just trying to feel safe, and different brains find safety in different places. She is also clear about the line, which I appreciated. Neurodivergence isn't an excuse for bad behaviour. You do not get to say I can't. But you absolutely get to say I do it differently. We talk about the "manual car" idea, which is possibly the kindest reframe I've heard for the fantasy that a partner should just know. We talk about touch, and the moment Jackie realised it wasn't her husband she was recoiling from, it was a specific type of touch. And we talk about the middle chunk of life, the survival years, where the laughter quietly disappears and you look up one day and realise you're partner roommates. GUEST LINKS:  Check out Jackie on Insta Find her book here GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhasuted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Different Isn't Wrong: Marriage When You Both Have Different Brains

  7. Sep 24

    Special Interests Are Not a Reward: Autistic Culture with Dr Angela Kingdon

    ** Sign up to the Beautifully Wired Summit for FREE** She was 21 years old before she found out that most people do not love their job. Angela grew up in a family where her dad fell in love with cars at 12, shined shoes outside a church for a quarter a go, bought and fixed up his first car at 16, and built a life inside the thing he loved. Nobody sat her down and explained any of this. She just absorbed it. Find the thing at 12. Charge for it at 16. Build the career. So she did. First book of poetry at 7. First novel at 12. Writing other people's papers for money at 16. And then a 30-year career as a ghostwriter with more than 2,000 books behind her. It wasn't until a friend's dad's retirement party, when Angela earnestly asked him when he first knew he loved insurance, that she found out the rest of the world was not operating this way at all. What she describes, of course, is monotropic focus. And here is why I wanted to talk to her about it: going all the way down the rabbit hole builds a kind of confidence you cannot get anywhere else. Angela says she has imposter syndrome about plenty of things, but never about writing. Which is why she is so firm that a special interest is not a reward and should never be used as one. Her advice for the 10-year-old in an Oxford pub with a stack of books about German tanks was simple: fill the house with German tanks. We also talk about the harder side, which nobody warns you about. Special interests move on. Sometimes right after you have learned everything about skateboarding, or bought the expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card, or rearranged the bedroom. There is real grief in that, and Angela names it honestly. Then she takes us somewhere I found genuinely brilliant, which is autistic culture. We talk about autism almost entirely in medical language, and yet for most of human history it was simply the way certain people were. Angela has boiled it down to 10 pillars of autistic culture, and she tells a story about her grandmother, cut glass and an encyclopaedic knowledge that came from absolutely nowhere except pure, deep interest. GUEST LINKS:  Check out Angela's Substack GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhasuted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK SPONSOR LINKS:SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow. Seeds by Orchard App - App Store Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Special Interests Are Not a Reward: Autistic Culture with Dr Angela Kingdon

  8. Sep 17

    When the Old Way of Parenting Stops Working

    Register for the Beautifully Wired Summit: Understanding, supporting, and celebrating ADHD and Autism in girls and women. If you started out with a clear picture of the kind of parent you'd be, and then real life quietly dismantled the whole thing, this episode is going to feel like someone finally gets it. This week I'm joined by Carrie Grant, mom of four (one of whom joined their family through adoption), an autistic mama herself, and someone who has run a support group for more than 300 SEND families for nearly 15 years. Carrie talks about the moment she “jumped ship” from the parenting she'd planned to a completely new way of doing things, and how that shift was less a few tweaks and more a total worldview change. We get into what it means to become a “professional parent” overnight, learning the acronyms, writing the endless emails, holding two worlds together, and how she and her husband David landed on different pages for a while before finding their way back to the same one. Carrie shares the reframe that stuck with me most: our kids don't rise up into our world, we grow up through theirs. She has zero interest in making her children look more neurotypical, and so much interest in who they actually are. We're also honest about the hard parts. The mornings that swallow whole hours, the days you barely recognize yourself, the loneliness of feeling like no one around you understands. Carrie's answer to all of it is community, the kind of people you can sit with and just say “this morning was hard” without explaining a single thing. She talks about holding space, being held in mind, and why other SEND parents are, in her words, the most amazing parents she's ever met. And if you're running on empty right now, her take on self-care alone is worth the listen. Spoiler: she gives you full permission to ignore the advice that doesn't fit your life. Come sit with us. It does get easier, and you are so far from alone in this. GUEST LINKS:  Grab Carrie's Book Follow Carrie GET THE LINKS The Unfinished Idea Website Join the Unfinished Community  Exhasuted to Empowered Follow me on socials:  INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK SPONSOR LINKS: SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    When the Old Way of Parenting Stops Working
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What’s it really like parenting a child with ADHD and autism? How can parents, teachers, and communities better support neurodivergent children? How do autistic and ADHD individuals experience the world? Each week, we explore these questions with practical strategies, emotional insight, and real stories. I’m Greer — a mum of two boys (and two dogs!) raising a child with special educational needs (SEN) alongside my husband. Our daily life looks different from the norm, but it’s full of love, advocacy, and growth. I started this podcast to create a space for parents of neurodivergent kids, educators, and allies to learn, connect, and build understanding together. You’ll hear parenting tips, advocacy guidance, sensory strategies, and personal reflections that shine a light on both the joys and challenges of neurodivergent parenting. Through heartfelt solo episodes and guest interviews, we’ll talk about EHCP or IEP processes, school support, emotional regulation, and the big feelings that come with raising ND kids. Whether you’re here as a parent of an autistic or ADHD child, a late-diagnosed adult, a teacher seeking insight, or someone wanting to understand the neurodivergent world, this podcast is your space to grow, connect, and know you’re not alone. Welcome to The Unfinished Idea — a podcast all about parenting, autism, ADHD, and life in a neurodivergent family. Here, we open up honest conversations about neurodiversity, raising neurodivergent children, and navigating the everyday realities of SEN parenting.

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