For me, parenting felt like being lost in a sea of constant overwhelm, and I did not understand why. To find relief, I sought many different parenting approaches. Some of what I learned was really helpful, particularly in the realms of positive parenting and simplicity parenting, and I ended up getting trained to lead workshops around both of these concepts.

But then, at one of my workshops, a parent asked, “I understand what to do when my kid loses it, but what do I do when I lose it?” She said the quiet part out loud. I was struggling with the same issue and, honestly, I didn’t really know how to answer her. In a desire to better support parents, I took more training, this time in life and business coaching, as well as mindfulness. I moved from primarily leading workshops to working with parents one to one.

When I had a client with ADHD, who also had a child with ADHD, I wanted to understand it better. Besides, I had a hunch that both my kids had ADHD (and indeed they do). So, I began ADHD specific coach training through ADDCA International. While it felt like a natural path, it also began an unraveling of my own (undiagnosed) ADHD, which explained a lot of the overwhelm I was experiencing.

Through all of this, I had a keen sense something in the parenting advice was missing. It was the piece that often left me wondering why things that seemed to work for everyone else didn’t work well for me and my kids. The reality is that parenting complex kids is quite different from parenting typical kids, especially when you are neurodivergent yourself.

This is where ImpactParents came into the picture for me. Reading Elaine and Dianes’ stories was like reading my own. I felt understood as a parent for the first time. I remember thinking “they get it.” As a coach, I resonated with ImpactParents’ coach approach immediately. It turned out that the key piece that was missing from much of the parenting advice I had previously received was the lens of the neurodivergent/complex kid. ImpactParents was beneficial -- it helped me with supporting my kids and helping myself.

So here I am, in a full circle journey of sorts, joining ImpactParents as a bench coach! I started out working with parents, and here I am again -- with a twist. Not only do I enjoy supporting parents, but I also very much enjoy supporting young adult students (who have ADHD & ASD). The combination is wonderful for me, and I am excited to dive into parent coaching and continuing my work with young adults with ImpactParents.