Every year, as summer winds down, we start making lists. School supplies. New backpacks. Schedules. Forms. Meet-the-teacher nights. All of these things are important. But before you begin preparing for the school year, I'd encourage you to pause and ask yourself one simple question: How do I hope my child feels by the end of this school year? Not what grade you hope they earn. Not what class you hope they get into. Not even what skills you hope they master. How do you hope they feel? Maybe your word is confident. Maybe it's happy, connected, understood, empowered, curious, accepted, or capable. Take a moment and write that word on a sticky note or a piece of paper. Put it somewhere you'll see it throughout the school year. Let it become your North Star. As parents of twice-exceptional and neurodivergent children, we make countless decisions throughout the year. We advocate in meetings, communicate with teachers, decide when to push and when to step back, and help our children navigate both challenges and successes. Having a clear vision of how we hope our child experiences the year can help guide those decisions. One quote we often use at REEL comes from Dr. Yong Zhao: "Human beings not only have the potential to be great in their own unique way, but also need to be great in their own unique way. They need to be great and relevant in order to be happy, to be psychologically healthy, and to have a strong sense of self-worth." I love this reminder because it shifts our focus. Our children do not need to become someone else. They need opportunities to become more fully themselves. Our role is not simply to help them succeed in school, but to help them discover who they are, what they enjoy, what they are good at, and what helps them thrive. Start by Seeing the Whole Child One of the best places to begin is with the Whole Child Snapshot. This simple one-page tool introduces your child to teachers, counselors, and support staff by focusing on who they are as a whole person. Rather than beginning with challenges or accommodations, it begins with strengths, interests, what helps them learn, and the environments where they thrive. It is a simple shift, but a powerful one. When we change the way we talk about our children, we change the way the world sees them, and how they see themselves. As educators begin to understand your child's strengths alongside their support needs, conversations become more collaborative, more hopeful, and ultimately more effective. I also encourage you to complete the Whole Child Snapshot with your child. Use it as a conversation starter. Ask questions like: What are you really good at? What do you enjoy learning about? When does learning feel easier? When is it harder? What helps you do your best? What would you like your teacher to know about you? These conversations are about much more than filling out a worksheet. They help children begin to understand themselves, recognize their own strengths, and identify the environments and supports that help them be successful. That self-understanding becomes the foundation for something even more important: self-advocacy. Helping Children Find Their Voice Research continues to reinforce the importance of teaching self-advocacy skills to neurodivergent learners. A 2025 literature review published in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that autistic adolescents and young adults who develop self-advocacy and self-determination skills experience better educational outcomes, stronger self-concepts, healthier relationships, greater persistence, and improved quality of life. Self-advocacy is about much more than asking for accommodations. It begins with understanding yourself, recognizing your strengths, identifying what you need, and learning how to communicate those things to others. A child who can say, "I learn best when...", "I get stuck when...", or "It helps me when..." is beginning to build skills that will serve them throughout school and well into adulthood. That is why we created this short video on strengths-based language, the Strength-Based Language Cheat Sheet, and our Student Voice & Self-Advocacy Scripts. Together, these tools help children first understand themselves, then learn how to communicate their strengths and support needs with confidence. The scripts begin with simple language for young children and gradually become more sophisticated through upper elementary, middle school, high school, and the transition into adulthood. As children grow, so does their understanding of themselves. Their confidence increases, their learning needs evolve, and the ways they advocate for themselves naturally become more nuanced. Like any important life skill, self-advocacy develops over time. It grows through hundreds of small conversations, opportunities to reflect, and chances to practice using their voice in safe and supportive environments. Keep Coming Back to Your Word As the school year unfolds, come back to the word you wrote down. When you're preparing for an IEP meeting, writing an email to a teacher, or helping your child through a difficult day, ask yourself: Will this move us closer to my child feeling confident? ...connected? ...understood? ...capable? If the answer is yes, you're moving in the right direction. Preparing for school is about much more than buying supplies or organizing schedules. It is about helping our children understand who they are, recognize their strengths, communicate their needs, and discover that they have something valuable to contribute. When we begin there, we are preparing them not just for a successful school year, but for a lifetime of understanding themselves and confidently advocating for what they need. That journey begins with one conversation, one strength, and one word.

A Familiar Scene A 19-year-old passes every exam, debates philosophy with professors, and reads at a college level — but ends the semester with a mediocre grade because half the homework never got turned in. That same young person forgets to eat lunch, can’t answer an email that’s been sitting for three weeks, and has a full shutdown when the laundry isn’t done on time. How can someone this capable be this stuck? This is daily life for many twice-exceptional (2e) youth — young people who are intellectually gifted and navigating ADHD, autism, or another learning difference. Their minds move fast. Their executive-functioning systems, the ones that manage time, initiation, and follow- through, often move at a different pace entirely. It’s important to note that 2e is not one profile: a gifted autistic teen and a gifted teen with ADHD can have opposite regulation needs — one may crave novelty, the other may be overwhelmed by it. Everything below is a starting point for understanding a young person, not a fixed checklist. The Scaffolding Gap Adolescence and the transition to adulthood — often called the transitional-age-youth (TAY) period — break down into two overlapping jobs. From roughly ages 12 to 18, the goal is to build an identity and begin learning to self- regulate somewhat separately from family. From roughly 18 to 25, the goal shifts to deploying that identity into the real world — college, work, bills, relationships. Here’s the catch: intellectual maturity often masks executive-function gaps. Through the teen years, invisible scaffolding — parents managing schedules, schools structuring the day — quietly keeps things afloat. Then, almost overnight around age 18, much of that scaffolding disappears. Capability stays high. The operational tools needed to run a life independently are still catching up. That mismatch is the scaffolding gap, and it’s often where capable young people suddenly look like they’re struggling for no visible reason. A Brain Built to Learn From Cause and Effect The teenage and young-adult brain isn’t broken — it’s wired for exactly this stage of life. It runs hot by design: built for impulsivity, intense emotion, and risk-taking, which, paired together, drive rapid learning (Casey et al., 2008; Steinberg, 2008). One mechanism makes this especially relevant to how 2e youth learn from mistakes: the adolescent brain shows a heightened neural response to the gap between what it expected to happen and what actually happened — a reward-prediction-error signal in the striatum that peaks during the teen years (Cohen et al., 2010). In plain terms, the teenage brain is unusually primed to learn from the difference between “what I thought would happen” and “what happened.” Cause and effect isn’t just a teaching strategy for this age group — it’s the brain’s preferred channel for encoding a lesson. Productive Failure: Why the Struggle Itself Is the Point That neural wiring is exactly what a learning approach called productive failure is built around. Productive failure means learners grapple with a complex problem — and often fail to solve it — before receiving direct instruction. The struggle itself, not the right answer, is what builds durable understanding (Kapur, 2016). For 2e youth specifically, the deeper goal isn’t just academic content — it’s practicing regulation. ADHD is linked to measurably lower frustration tolerance: in one controlled study, children with ADHD were significantly more likely to quit a frustrating task than their peers without ADHD (Seymour et al., 2019). So the real skill being built is the capacity to tolerate distress, not just to solve the problem in front of them. Caregivers build that capacity through scaffolding — providing external support as a child navigates a hard emotional moment (Paley & Hajal, 2022). And how the struggle is structured matters: when researchers tested productive failure with younger students, the benefit didn’t show up automatically — it depended on whether students were given an explicit step to compare their own attempt against a model solution (Mazziotti et al., 2019). In other words, unstructured struggle alone doesn’t teach much; struggle paired with reflection does. Structured productive failure becomes low-stakes practice for tolerating distress, arguably the more transferable skill of the two. Struggle also hits 2e youth harder than it might hit their neurotypical peers. In one study of online learning, neurodivergent students reported significantly higher extraneous cognitive load than neurotypical peers — the toll of environment and format, not the difficulty of the material itself — with no difference in the load created by the material’s actual complexity (Le Cunff et al., 2024). When demands outweigh capacity, the brain shifts into survival mode: anxiety, perfectionist paralysis, meltdown, and — without recovery — burnout. Why 2e Youth Need a Safe Haven, Not a Fixer This is where physical and emotional scaffolding matters. Adolescents and young adults naturally return to their caregivers as a secure base for co-regulation — but only if that base has reliably proven safe (Allen & Miga, 2010; Moretti & Peled, 2004). Home should be the one place a 2e young person can drop the mask and exist without being evaluated. A useful way to picture this is the window of tolerance — a clinical heuristic, not a precise map of the brain (Corrigan et al., 2011). Inside the window, a young person is regulated, engaged, and able to learn and connect. Above it is hyper-arousal: panic, rigid thinking, control-seeking, stimming. Below it is hypo-arousal: shutdown, forgetfulness, task paralysis, masking or fawning. The goal of a secure base isn’t to keep a young person from ever leaving the window — it’s to be the reliable place they can return to when they do. Over-Scaffolding and Under-Supporting Caregivers tend to drift toward one of two patterns, often on different days: Over-scaffolding looks like doing tasks the young person is developmentally capable of attempting, so they rarely experience natural consequences. It can start to feel like you’re their manager, not their parent — and mistakes get met with lectures instead of co- regulation. Under-supporting looks like a young person repeatedly overwhelmed with no framework for asking for help, and no predictable “safe” space built into the day. Most caregivers land somewhere between the two, and that’s normal. The goal isn’t perfection — it’s noticing the pattern. What Parents Can Do Instead Parents don’t have to fix mistakes or prevent them from happening. What they can do is co- regulate, engineer the environment, and help their young person account for their energy. Co-regulation is about offering comfort, not fixing the problem. It starts with matching the moment, not the fix, to the state. In hyper-arousal: limit sensory input, offer deep pressure or slow breathing, offer more choice and autonomy. In hypo-arousal: simplify the task, introduce gentle movement or a change of scenery, break the task into smaller steps. In either state, predictable routines, transition warnings, and visual timers help. Practically, this can look like helping a young person set their own alarm instead of reminding them of the time, or sitting quietly together after a disappointment and debriefing later — without shame — rather than immediately fixing it. Environmental engineering means continuously tuning the surroundings — sensory input, predictability, complexity, novelty, interest, transitions, agency, equilibrium — to support capacity rather than strain it. This connects to established research on sensory processing (Dunn, 2001) and self-determination theory, which shows that autonomy, competence, and connection all fuel intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Energy accounting treats energy — not just time — as the resource that needs managing. That can look like a simple daily rhythm: a morning check-in, a task block, a genuine interest anchor, another task block, an exit ritual, and a low-demand evening. The goal is to notice patterns together without judgment, build in pauses before the crash rather than after it, match effort to actual capacity that day, and practice planned exits — a simple “two-minute warning, what’s a good stopping point?” goes a long way. Rest isn’t the reward for productivity. It’s the input that makes productivity possible. Reframing Failure as a Data Point Underneath all of this is one shift in framing: a mistake isn’t proof that something is wrong with a young person — it’s information. When a caregiver responds to a forgotten assignment or a blown deadline with curiosity (“I noticed you didn’t give up when that got hard — let’s look at where it went sideways”) instead of rescue or lecture, the young person gets to practice treating failure as a data point instead of a verdict. That’s the skill that transfers into adulthood, long after any single mistake is forgotten. A Word for Parents There’s something worth naming here, too. For most families, the Transitional Age Youth (16–25) years are when a parent is meant to gradually return to themselves — to rediscover time, identity, and rhythms that got set aside during the years of hands-on parenting. For parents of 2e youth, that return is often delayed. Instead of stepping back, many find themselves stepping in more, carrying a heightened watchfulness long after their peers have exhaled. It’s alright to grieve that. Grieving the version of this season you expected to have — more freedom, less worry — doesn’t take anything away from how much you love your child. Both things can be true at once: you can ache for the return to yourself that hasn’t come yet, and still show up, fully, for the young person who still needs you. Naming that loss, rather than pushing past it, is often what makes it possible to keep offering the steady presence they need. Conclusion This stretch of life — early adolescence through the mid-twenties — is messy and chaotic for everyone, and especially so for 2e youth, whose intellectual capability and executive- functioning tools rarely mature on the same timeline. The path through it is not linear. There will be setbacks that look, in the moment, like proof that nothing is working. But with consistent scaffolding — a caregiver who co-regulates instead of fixes, an environment tuned to actual capacity, and a family that treats energy as something to be managed rather than spent until empty — 2e young people can build the operational skills to match their intellectual ones. Over time, what once felt like constant friction can start to feel like flow. About the Author Danielle C. Park, MA, ACAS 2e Neurodivergent Coach danielleparkcoaching.com hello@danielleparkcoaching.com References Allen, J. P., & Miga, E. M. (2010). Attachment in adolescence: A move to the level of emotion regulation. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27(2), 181–190. Casey, B. J., Jones, R. M., & Hare, T. A. (2008). The adolescent brain. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124(1), 111–126. Cohen, J. R., Asarnow, R. F., Sabb, F. W., Bilder, R. M., Bookheimer, S. Y., Knowlton, B. J., & Poldrack, R. A. (2010). A unique adolescent response to reward prediction errors. Nature Neuroscience, 13(6), 669–671. Corrigan, F. M., Fisher, J., & Nutt, D. J. (2011). Autonomic dysregulation and the Window of Tolerance model of the effects of complex emotional trauma. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 25(1), 17–25. Dunn, W. (2001). The sensations of everyday life: Empirical, theoretical, and pragmatic considerations. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 55(6), 608–620. Kapur, M. (2016). Examining productive failure, productive success, unproductive failure, and unproductive success in learning. Educational Psychologist, 51(2), 289–299. Le Cunff, A.-L., Giampietro, V., & Dommett, E. (2024). Neurodiversity positively predicts perceived extraneous load in online learning: A quantitative research study. Education Sciences, 14(5), 516. Mazziotti, C., Rummel, N., Deiglmayr, A., & Loibl, K. (2019). Probing boundary conditions of productive failure and analyzing the role of young students’ collaboration. npj Science of Learning, 4, 3. Moretti, M. M., & Peled, M. (2004). Adolescent-parent attachment: Bonds that support healthy development. Paediatrics & Child Health, 9(8), 551–555. Paley, B., & Hajal, N. J. (2022). Conceptualizing emotion regulation and coregulation as family-level phenomena. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 25(1), 19–43. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. Seymour, K. E., Macatee, R., & Chronis-Tuscano, A. (2019). Frustration tolerance in youth with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 23(11), 1229–1239. Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28(1), 78–106.

I spent my childhood convinced I was from another planet. Decades later, I stood in my own kitchen saying, "Please don't pretend to be a dog." My child looked up, offended. "Coyote,” he corrected me. Then he howled—not in anguish, but with the strained urgency of a creature trying to cross a communication barrier I had not, until recently, known existed. A few months earlier, we had both been identified as autistic, six weeks apart—a revelation that reframed my own childhood conviction that I was from Jupiter and left me willing my child to stop being a coyote. I understood that his transformation into animals was an expression of feeling so alien that he did not consider himself human. But I had been the alien child once, and I knew how that story went. The last time he howled, a group of kids had taped his mouth shut. What I hadn't yet realized was that the coyote wasn't a deficit—it was a developmental doorway. What Is a Special Interest? If you're raising an autistic or 2e child, you already know the thing I'm talking about: the topic your child reads about, draws, talks about, dreams about, and, on occasion, becomes. Researchers estimate that special interests are present in about 90% of autistic individuals. What has changed (dramatically, and recently) is how we understand them. For most of the past century, special interests were treated as symptoms to be reduced rather than strengths to be cultivated. The word "autism" itself was coined by psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler to describe a self-centered retreat into fantasy, a definition that positioned deep imaginative engagement as pathology from the very beginning. Leo Kanner, who formally named “autism”, observed that autistic children exhibited intense, absorbed preoccupations, and framed it as evidence of social withdrawal rather than cognitive depth. The DSM codified this logic through successive editions, classifying special interests as "restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior"—diagnostic criteria for something wrong. In deficit-focused eras, autistic children were themselves compared to animals, a history worth holding in mind when we encounter a child who insists, with complete conviction, on being something other than human. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, interventions that pathologize or restrict special interests remain common. A colleague recently met with parents who wanted to take away their three-year-old's math books because it 'wasn't normal' to love math that much. The instinct to make autistic humans appear “less autistic” still runs rampant. What the Science Says Now The neurodiversity movement shifted the terms of the conversation. Judy Singer's coinage of "neurodiversity" in the late 1990s and Steve Silberman's landmark NeuroTribes reframed autistic minds as variation rather than defect, and researchers began asking not how interests interfere with learning, but how they might support it. Cognitive science has since offered a more precise vocabulary for what special interests actually are. Monotropism—first theorized by Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser, and Wenn Lawson—proposes that the primary feature of autism is a tendency toward singular attentional focus. Rather than distributing attention broadly across stimuli, autistic minds submerge deeply into a single channel, producing what researchers call “flow”—intense concentration, creative engagement, and the loss of awareness of time and self. What cognitive science calls “monotropis”, gifted education calls a "rage to master." They are the same phenomenon, observed from different disciplines—and both fields, when they encounter it, call it a strength. Special interests, in other words, are learning in its most motivated form. In practice, they do three jobs at once: Cognitive anchor. The interest is reliable terrain in an otherwise unpredictable sensory and social world, and that predictability creates the safety that makes engagement possible. Regulation tool. Engagement with a special interest measurably drops nervous system arousal, reducing stress and anxiety while improving overall functioning and wellbeing. Relational bridge. For the child who struggles to connect, the interest is where connection starts. As Thomas Armstrong observes in The Power of Neurodiversity, these children's interests define who they are—which means talking to them through the lens of their interest meets them where their brain is most open. It says: I see you. When my own child began drawing groups of coyotes—inspired by the sound of them hunting in packs in the hills behind our house—I initially assumed it was a solitary interest. But the research was pointing toward something I hadn't yet considered: that the interest might not be pulling him away from social connection, but toward it. I began to speculate that perhaps it was the concert of these animals that mattered most—the chorus, the groupness, the ruminations of a child whose howl had not yet been answered. Perhaps the interest wasn’t entirely solitary, but a bid for connection. And perhaps if I could just let him be a coyote, someone would howl back. Researchers have confirmed what I was beginning to suspect: special interests function simultaneously as social initiators, social facilitators, and anxiety regulators. And students can actually improve their areas of challenge by working in areas of interest—meaning the choice between addressing challenges and honoring strengths is a false one. Temple Grandin doesn't see these passions as obsessions, but as clues to what these students can be in the future. It's worth noting that adults are becoming admired for their special interests: the founder who cannot stop talking about the company, the professor whose entire career is one deep interest pursued in public, the hiring managers at tech companies who now ask for 'spiky profiles' instead of well-rounded ones—we call that expertise. In children, we too often call it a symptom. The question is no longer whether special interests matter. It is how to work with them. What Actually Helps Start where the child is. That phrase comes from the researchers who first described monotropism, and it is the whole approach in five words. Leveraging a special interest is not a complete solution to every challenge—but it is the opening through which more comprehensive support becomes possible. Find the interest, then honor it. Before an interest can be developed, it has to be noticed. Strength-based educators use structured tools for this—the C.L.U.E.S. interview, part of the Suite of Tools developed by Robin Schader and Susan Baum, walks practitioners through collecting information, looking for connections, uncovering patterns, exploring options, and seeking joyful learning (think: everything standardized testing never touches). At home, the tool is simpler. Watch what your child returns to when nobody is directing them. (Homeschoolers call a version of this strewing: leave books, objects, and materials in your child's path and see what they pick up.) Then ask whether the environments they spend their days in make room for it. Rather than asking neurodivergent kids to adapt to a fixed, "normal" environment, it is possible to alter the environment to match the needs of their own brains. In practice, that means working with the school to some flexibility: math worksheets built around Pokemon, a research project where your child gets to be the class expert on coyotes or WWII aircraft, a teacher willing to let the interest carry the learning target rather than compete with it. Outside school, look for interest-based camps, clubs, online programs, or a mentor who shares the passion—and protect unstructured time for your child to simply go deep on their own. Let the interest deepen in stages. In strength-based education, a student's deep interest is not incidental to their talent—it is often the clearest signal of where that talent lives. The Pathways Model, developed by Baum and colleagues, organizes learning into three progressively deeper types of engagement. Type I experiences are exploratory—they broaden exposure and ignite curiosity: a nature documentary, a wildlife center, a book of animal facts. Type II experiences build the skills needed to go deeper: research methods, writing, presentation. Type III investigations produce original work that addresses real questions and can be shared with others who share the passion. At Bridges Academy, a Los Angeles school for neurodiverse learners where these frameworks are practiced rather than theorized, a fifth grader who arrived at the school gifted, highly anxious, friendless, and convinced she had nothing to offer, channeled her interest in anxiety into a student-designed survey on school stress. Her data was adopted by the school. She became an advocate, then a lead in the school play. Outcomes like this are measurable: in one study, when talent development opportunities were extended to underachieving students, 82% reversed their pattern within a year. And a 2026 scoping review of 39 studies found that across school, home, and community settings, interventions built on special interests consistently improved social initiation, interaction duration, communication quality, and wellbeing. Don't take the interest away. Attempts to restrict or eliminate special interests often intensify rather than diminish them, and removing a cherished interest strips a child of their primary source of comfort, strength, and meaning. Schools do a gentler version of this with the best intentions -- pulling a child out of the one class they love for remediation in the areas where they struggle, which teaches the child that what they're best at matters least. What looks like social withdrawal is often a mismatch of frequencies rather than a failure of desire: autistic kids who lack agemates with similar interests and intensities face particular difficulty forging friendships. The author Ron Suskind discovered that his son Owen's Disney obsession wasn't a retreat from connection—it was what finally let the world in. This is why interest-based groups (a Minecraft server, a herpetology club, a D&D table) often do more for an autistic child's social life than the 'social skills' classes parents are taught to seek out. A social skills class teaches scripts, while an interest group provides the proverbial pack. And if the interest is niche, the pack may live online—that counts, too. The Coyote Was the Curriculum One evening, my child was outside howling when a girl from his grade arrived with her parents for dinner. She wanted to play, but my kid was currently barking at the fence. I had, at this point, spent several months reading every paper published on the subject of autistic special interests and social-emotional development. I had highlighted things. I had taken notes. I knew, theoretically, what to do. Or at least what to try. "He’s a coyote now," I said, pointing to my child, who had pivoted from the fence and was now barking at us. I crouched beside the girl. "Do you want to be a coyote too?" I felt almost embarrassed asking this—after what my kid had been through, socially, my body anticipated some kind of revulsion. But children are naturally kind and accommodating. The small newcomer considered my question with the gravity of someone being asked to sign a contract. Then she crossed the threshold from our back door into the wild. A few minutes later, they were both tilting their faces to the sky, howling in unison. I had never once seen my child play successfully with a peer and had always feared the howling would be what kept him alone in the world. But now, here they were, finding their pack. About the Author Kathleen Hale is an autistic author, parent, and doctoral student based in Los Angeles. Her research focuses on twice-exceptional (2e) learners, strength-based approaches to cognitive diversity, and the phenomenon of undiagnosed autism in humans born before 1990, particularly among those assigned female at birth. She writes at Autism Motherlode. References American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596 Armstrong, T. (2025). The power of neurodiversity. Hachette. Baum, S. M., Schader, R. M., & Hebert, T. P. (2014). Through a different lens: Reflecting on a strengths-based, talent-focused approach for twice-exceptional learners. Gifted Child Quarterly, 58(4), 311-327. Baum, S., Schader, R., & Owen, S. V. (2017). To be gifted and learning disabled: Strength-based strategies for helping twice-exceptional students with LD, ADHD, ASD, and more. Prufrock Press. Fuentes, J., et al. (2020), as cited in Howlin, P. (2021). Adults with autism: Changes in understanding since DSM-III. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51, 4291-4308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04847-z Jiang, X., Zhang, X., & Drani, S. (2026). The effect of special interest intervention on the improvement of social skills in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A scoping review. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-026-00544-2 Leekam, S. R., Prior, M. R., & Uljarevic, M. (2011). Restricted and repetitive behaviors in autism spectrum disorders: A review of research in the last decade. Psychological Bulletin, 137(4), 562-593. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023341 Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139-156. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361305051398 Nowell, K. P., Bernardin, C. J., Brown, C., & Kanne, S. (2021). Characterization of special interests in autism spectrum disorder: A brief review and pilot study using the special interests survey. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51(8), 2711-2724. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04743-6 Pellicano, E., Fatima, U., Hall, G., Heyworth, M., Lawson, W., Lilley, R., Mahony, J., & Stears, M. (2022). A capabilities approach to understanding and supporting autistic adulthood. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1, 624-638. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00099-9 Reis, S. M., Madaus, J., Gelbar, N., & Baum, S. (2025). Strength-based pedagogy for smart students with disabilities: Using interest-based strategies for academic and personal success. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003511861 Schader, R., & Baum, S. (2024). Suite of Tools (Rev. ed.). Bridges Education Group. Silberman, S. (2015). NeuroTribes: The legacy of autism and the future of neurodiversity. Avery. Suskind, R. (2014). Life, animated: A story of sidekicks, heroes, and autism. Kingswell.

As a pediatric occupational therapist, one of the most common questions I hear from parents of twice-exceptional (2e) children is: "Why does my child have such big reactions when they're so incredibly smart?" Twice-exceptional children are those who are both gifted and have one or more learning, developmental, or neurological differences such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia, anxiety, or sensory processing differences. These children often possess remarkable creativity, advanced vocabulary, exceptional memory, or deep interests, while simultaneously struggling with tasks that seem effortless for their peers. From an occupational therapy perspective, one of the most misunderstood challenges for 2e children is emotional regulation. Parents often describe their child as "overreacting," "melting down over small things," or "getting stuck" when expectations change. These behaviors are rarely about willpower or defiance. Instead, they are often signs that a child's nervous system is overwhelmed and needs support. What Is Emotional Regulation? Emotional regulation is the ability to recognize, manage, and recover from emotions in ways that allow us to participate successfully in everyday life. For children, this means being able to: ● Handle frustration when things don't go as planned. ● Transition between activities. ● Recover after disappointment. ● Solve problems when challenges arise. ● Express emotions safely. ● Stay engaged during learning. ● Ask for help when needed. These skills continue developing well into young adulthood and rely heavily on the maturation of the brain and nervous system. Why Is Emotional Regulation So Challenging for 2e Kids? Many 2e children experience a mismatch between their cognitive abilities and their emotional, sensory, or executive functioning skills. For example, a child may: ● Read at a middle school level but become devastated by losing a board game. ● Understand advanced science concepts yet struggle to begin homework. ● Hold sophisticated conversations while becoming overwhelmed by the sound of a crowded classroom. ● Create elaborate stories but have difficulty organizing their backpack. This uneven developmental profile can be confusing for parents and teachers. Because these children appear highly capable, adults often expect emotional skills that simply haven't developed yet. The Occupational Therapy Perspective Occupational therapists look beyond the behavior to understand why a child is struggling. Emotional regulation is influenced by many interconnected systems, including: Sensory Processing Many 2e children have sensory processing differences that affect how they interpret and respond to the world around them. A child who is overwhelmed by noise, clothing textures, bright lights, or busy classrooms may appear anxious, irritable, or oppositional when, in reality, their nervous system is working overtime. Others constantly seek movement, deep pressure, or heavy work because these experiences help organize their bodies and improve attention. Executive Functioning Executive functioning includes skills such as: ● Planning ● Organization ● Working memory ● Cognitive flexibility ● Impulse control ● Emotional control When these skills are still developing, everyday tasks can feel overwhelming, leading to emotional outbursts that seem disproportionate to the situation. Interoception Interoception is our ability to notice internal body signals such as hunger, fatigue, muscle tension, excitement, or anxiety. Many 2e children have difficulty recognizing these signals until their emotions have escalated significantly. Occupational therapy often includes activities that help children become more aware of what their bodies are communicating before reaching the point of overwhelm. The Social-Emotional Demands of Being Gifted Gifted children often experience emotions with great intensity. They may demonstrate perfectionism, heightened empathy, strong moral reasoning, or frustration when their ideas exceed their current abilities. These characteristics can amplify emotional responses, especially when combined with ADHD, autism, anxiety, or sensory processing differences. Red Flags That May Warrant an OT Evaluation While every child experiences strong emotions at times, consider seeking an occupational therapy evaluation if your child frequently: ● Has intense meltdowns that seem out of proportion to the situation. ● It takes a long time to recover after becoming upset. ● Avoids certain clothing, foods, sounds, or environments because they feel overwhelming. ● Constantly seeks movement, crashing, spinning, or rough play. ● Struggles with transitions throughout the day. ● Becomes emotionally overwhelmed by homework or daily routines. ● Appears "fine" at school but falls apart at home. ● Has difficulty recognizing when they are hungry, tired, anxious, or overstimulated. ● Frequently argues because expectations feel rigid or inflexible. ● Has challenges participating in family activities because of emotional dysregulation. These challenges do not necessarily indicate a disorder, but they may suggest that your child's nervous system would benefit from additional support. What Parents Can Do at Home Supporting emotional regulation doesn't mean eliminating difficult emotions. Instead, it means helping children build the skills to navigate them successfully. Build Connection Before Correction Children regulate best through relationships. When your child is upset, focus first on helping them feel safe and understood before attempting to teach, correct, or problem-solve. Simple statements such as: "I can see this feels really hard right now." or "I'm here with you." help calm the nervous system more effectively than lengthy explanations. Watch for Patterns Keep track of when meltdowns occur. Ask yourself: ● Was my child hungry? ● Did they have enough movement today? ● Was the environment too loud? ● Were there unexpected changes? ● Were demands too high after a long school day? Patterns often reveal triggers that can be addressed proactively. Incorporate Daily Sensory Activities Many children regulate better when sensory needs are met consistently throughout the day. Examples include: ● Climbing playground equipment ● Obstacle courses ● Carrying groceries ● Pushing or pulling heavy objects ● Animal walks ● Swinging ● Nature hikes ● Digging in the garden ● Building forts ● Yoga ● Deep breathing paired with movement The goal is not simply to "burn energy" but to provide the nervous system with organizing sensory experiences. Create Predictable Routines Visual schedules, countdowns, and consistent routines reduce the mental effort required to transition between activities. Knowing what comes next helps many 2e children feel more secure. Teach Emotional Awareness During Calm Moments Practice identifying emotions when your child is already regulated. Ask questions like: ● "What does your body feel like when you're excited?" ● "How does your tummy feel when you're nervous?" ● "What helps your body feel calm?" This strengthens interoceptive awareness and gives children a language for their experiences. Celebrate Progress, Not Perfection Regulation develops gradually. Instead of expecting your child to stop having big emotions, notice small signs of growth: ● Recovering more quickly ● Asking for a break ● Using a calming strategy independently ● Recognizing emotions earlier ● Accepting help from an adult These are meaningful milestones that indicate the nervous system is becoming more flexible and resilient. When to Seek Additional Support If emotional challenges are interfering with your child's participation at home, school, or in the community, early intervention can make a meaningful difference. Occupational therapists evaluate how sensory processing, executive functioning, motor skills, emotional regulation, and participation interact in daily life. By identifying the underlying factors contributing to dysregulation, therapy can help children develop practical strategies that improve confidence, independence, and engagement across settings. For twice-exceptional children, the goal isn't to change who they are. Their curiosity, creativity, intensity, and unique perspectives are often among their greatest strengths. Instead, occupational therapy helps build the foundational skills that allow those strengths to shine while making everyday life feel more manageable. At Therapeeps Occupational Therapy Services, we believe every child deserves to feel understood. When we look beyond behaviors and support the nervous system through connection, sensory integration, and meaningful participation, children are better able to learn, build relationships, and thrive—exactly as they are. LEARN MORE: American Occupational Therapy Association – Information on pediatric occupational therapy and sensory integration. Kelly Mahler – Resources on interoception and self-awareness. Mona Delahooke – Brain-based approaches to understanding children's behavior. SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) – Resources specifically for families of gifted and twice-exceptional children. The 2e Center for Research and Professional Development – Research and educational resources focused on twice-exceptional learners. References: American Occupational Therapy Association. (2025). Bridging the gap: Sensory integration and mental health in pediatrics. Occupational Therapy Practice. Discusses the relationship between sensory modulation, emotional regulation, and mental health, highlighting occupational therapy's role in supporting children with self-regulation challenges. American Occupational Therapy Association. (2024). Cognitive, emotional, and sensory regulation in pediatrics. Children & Youth Special Interest Section. Reviews the interconnected roles of cognitive, emotional, and sensory regulation and provides examples of occupational therapy interventions to support self-regulation. Ayres, A. J. (1979). Sensory Integration and the Child. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services. Daniels, D. H., & Price, V. (2018). The Zones of Regulation: A Curriculum Designed to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control. Think Social Publishing. Delahooke, M. (2019). Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children's Behavioral Challenges. PESI Publishing. Mahler, K. (2019). The Interoception Curriculum: A Step-by-Step Framework for Developing Mindful Self-Regulation. Kelly Mahler LLC. Neihart, M., Reis, S. M., Robinson, N. M., & Moon, S. M. (Eds.). (2015). The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children: What Do We Know? (2nd ed.). Prufrock Press. Schaaf, R. C., & Mailloux, Z. (2015). Clinician's Guide for Implementing Ayres Sensory Integration®: Promoting Participation for Children with Autism. AOTA Press. Schaaf, R. C., Dumont, R. L., Arbesman, M., & May-Benson, T. A. (2018). Efficacy of Occupational Therapy Using Ayres Sensory Integration®: A Systematic Review. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 72(1). This systematic review summarizes the evidence supporting Ayres Sensory Integration® intervention when delivered with fidelity. Schaaf, R. C., & Miller, L. J. (2005). Occupational therapy using a sensory integrative approach for children with developmental disabilities. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 11(2), 143–148. Silverman, L. K. (2013). Giftedness 101. Springer Publishing. Webb, J. T., Amend, E. R., Beljan, P., Webb, N. E., Goerss, J., & Olenchak, F. R. (2016). Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults (2nd ed.). Great Potential Press.

When Even the Best Plans Fall Apart My 18-year-old sister and I planned what was supposed to be the perfect New York City summer adventure. By day two, we were fighting every single day, and I could not figure out why we kept ending up in the same place. After a fun day at The American Museum of Natural History, we were exhausted and needed to take a break. Our next plan was to end the day by watching the sunset at Summit One Vanderbilt. But every “perfect” plan has its own flaws. We didn’t buy tickets in advance, and unsurprisingly, all the tickets were sold out. For the next hour, we sat on a park bench trying to figure out what to do next. And the whole time, my sister did nothing but complain. The tickets. Her dying phone. How we were wasting the entire evening. It was relentless, and it pushed me to my limit. Without knowing it at the moment, I accidentally raised my voice, made the call on what we were doing, and we moved forward (but not without any damage). For the next hour and a half, we were quiet. We made our way to the next spot, and something settled enough in me to think clearly. I pulled out my phone and started writing down everything I was feeling, because I knew if I didn't process and get it out, I would say something I'd regret again. Once I had it written down, I showed her my notes. Before she read, I told her, "My intention isn't to fight or make this a debate. Instead, I want you to understand how your complaints pushed me to a place I never want to go with you, and I want us to find a way forward." She nonchalantly said, “Okay,” and then, she read my note. Once she finished, I got curious. I asked her what made her go into full complaint mode. I asked what she could try next time when she felt herself heading there. And I asked why she thought moving from complaint mode to solution mode would actually matter. Once I had her buy-in, everything shifted that evening and the remaining 5 days of our sisters' trip. Now, when that spiral starts, I can say "complaint mode", and she knows exactly what it means and what to do instead. My sister carries an impressive resume, and emotional regulation is still a work in progress for her. What I learned on our New York trip is that when fundamental needs aren't met like when we're exhausted, hungry, or overwhelmed, even the most capable people can fall apart. As a parent of a 2e child, you probably already recognize that pattern. That trip gave me something I didn't expect. It reminded me exactly why the work I do matters, and it inspired me to create The 3C Process. What is The 3C Process? The 3C Process is a three-step framework for moving from "manager mode" into "coach mode" with your child. It works especially well when you're building a new routine, working through a recurring friction point, or trying to break a cycle that keeps coming back. The three steps are: Curious, Co-create, and Celebrate. Curious is the starting point. The goal is to ask non-judgmental questions that help you understand your child's actual experience (not fix it, not correct it), just understand it. When a child feels like a parent is genuinely trying to get them rather than redirect them, they stop bracing for fight-flight-freeze mode. Then, that shift opens the door for everything that follows. Co-create is where the real building happens. Instead of handing your child a routine or a checklist, you build something visual together. A system your child helped design is one they feel ownership over. That ownership is what makes them want to follow through without needing a reminder from you every single time. Celebrate is the final step, and the most underestimated. When you specifically name a win, even a small one, you create a positive reinforcement loop that makes your child want to do it again. Vague praise gets tuned out, but specific praise lands. The 3C Process in Action Here's what this looks like across three situations that come up for many families with a twice-exceptional student. Scenario 1: Co-Creating a Morning Routine Morning routines are one of the most common friction points for families of 2e learners. If your mornings feel like a daily negotiation, try this before the school year starts. Curious: Ask your child what their ideal morning actually looks like. When do they naturally want to wake up? What do they actually do when the alarm goes off? Which part of the morning feels hardest for them? You're not correcting anything here. Instead, you're learning from their experience. Co-create: Once you understand how they see the morning, write down together what the ideal routine looks like from waking up to walking out the door. Let them do as much of the writing as possible. The goal is a visual they can reference on their own without coming to find you first. Celebrate: If they did even one thing from the list, even just putting their bowl in the sink after breakfast, name it: "I saw that you put your dishes away right after eating this morning. That was great." Naming one thing clearly helps them build momentum. Scenario 2: Co-Creating a Routine for Tasks They Resist Every 2e student has at least one task they avoid. Before you try to push them through it, take time to understand what focus actually looks like for their brain. Curious: Ask your child what it feels like when they're in "focus mode." How do they know they're there? What's usually around them when it happens (i.e. music, a specific spot, a certain setup)? You're not asking rhetorically. You're genuinely trying to understand their brain. Co-create: Together, write down their personal focus mode list. These are the things that help them get into a working state. When a hard task is on the horizon, ask them to look at the list and choose one thing to try first. This turns "just start" into "here's your toolkit." Celebrate: When they use something from the list, name it specifically: "Awesome job using your playlist to get started on that essay." You're not just praising the output. You are also reinforcing the strategy so they'll reach for it again. Scenario 3: Navigating Emotional Shutdowns Together This one takes the most patience, and it's the one that can change your relationship the most. Emotional shutdowns like yelling, going silent, crying, and completely shutting down, are almost always a sign that your child's nervous system is overwhelmed, not that they're being difficult on purpose. Before you can build anything around this, you need shared language for it. Curious: After the moment has passed and things are calm, ask them: "What do you think made you [yell / go quiet / cry] during that moment?" You're not revisiting it to assign blame. You're helping them start to notice what happens in their body before things escalate. Co-create: Explore whether there's a code word (something either of you can say) when the conversation starts to heat up. Common ones are "timeout," "pause," or "break." Or choose something completely silly together. The sillier, the better because in a tense moment, the unexpected can cut right through it. Celebrate: The first time your child uses that word, even imperfectly, thank them. It means they felt themselves escalating and chose to try something different instead of letting it spiral. That is a significant skill. Thanking them for it specifically tells them you saw it, and that it mattered. Tips for Running The 3C Process Well Before you try any of the scenarios above, a few things to keep in mind. Your tone is everything. The moment your voice sharpens or your face shows frustration, your child's nervous system reads that as a signal to go into fight-flight-freeze mode. The calmer you stay, the more safe they feel. Emotional safety is what makes the rest of the 3C Process possible. It helps to have a mantra to come back to in the middle of a hard moment. Mine is "observe, don't absorb," something I came across the /empaths community on Reddit. For me, it means: if someone around me is escalating, I don't have to take that in. I can notice it without absorbing it. Yours might be as simple as the word "calm". Think of that mantra as something you repeat internally that will ground you when you’re in a hard moment with your child. Your child won't always give you thoughtful, open answers in the Curious step. If your child is used to questions from you being followed by a correction, then one-word answers and shrugs are normal. If they shut down, it's okay to ask: "When would be a better time to talk about this?" Setting a specific time gives them a chance to show up more regulated. When it comes to Co-creating, some students won't pick up a pen no matter what. If that's your child, start writing yourself first, then pass it to them, and ask, "Can you write the next one?" That small handoff makes it collaborative without making it feel like an assignment. The goal is something they helped build, not something that was done to them. With Celebrating, only recognize what you genuinely noticed and genuinely mean. Twice-exceptional students are especially good at detecting when praise doesn't feel earned. Authentic and specific will always land better than enthusiastic and vague. Ready to Take This Further This Fall? The 3C Process is a powerful place to start, but here's the truth: building routines and systems that actually stick takes time, repetition, and someone who shows up consistently with your child week after week. That's exactly what we designed our Back to School program to do. This fall, we're launching a school-year program for students who need support building the routines and systems that prepare them before essays, quizzes, tests, and other cognitively demanding tasks pile up all at once. Students work one-on-one with a dedicated Executive Function Tutor every week, with built-in accountability so progress doesn't stop between sessions. And parents don't just receive updates. Instead, they get a real partner in the process. Spots are limited to 40, and enrollment opens this month. If this sounds like exactly what your child needs heading into the school year, join the waitlist now to be the first to know when doors open. JOIN THE WAITLIST About Presh I started my career as a high school Math and Computer Science teacher. One of the most defining moments of that chapter was working one-on-one with students who had learning needs, and realizing that these students were more than capable of the work in front of them. What tripped them up wasn't intelligence. It was that their brains struggled to start, manage, and follow through. As a classroom teacher, I didn't have the bandwidth to give them the individual coaching they needed. So I built something that could. That became Executive Function Tutors, where we've now coached 500+ students on the systems, routines, and skills that help them work with their brains instead of against them. If you want more content like this, practical tools for parents of twice-exceptional learners, then I share tips and strategies on my YouTube channel. I'd love to see you there! Youtube channel

REEL and Parents Helping Parents (PHP) co-host a parent talk on navigating the transition from adolescence to young adulthood for twice-exceptional (2e) and neurodivergent youth. ADHD therapist, coach, and parent Danielle shares practical, research-informed strategies for supporting teens and young adults (ages 18–25) through this critical transition, including: Why the "scaffolding gap" between high school and adulthood hits 2e and neurodivergent youth especially hard Concrete scripts for building independence without over-functioning for your teen Productive failure: why struggle (not the right answer) builds durable learning, and the extra scaffolding 2e youth need The window of tolerance and how to support hyper- and hypo-aroused nervous systems Why caregivers being a steady "secure base" matters more than getting everything right Environmental engineering and energy accounting for sustainable capacity Local resources (Edgewood Drop-in Center, Access Cove) and recommended professionals for transition-age support Presented as part of REEL's ongoing parent speaker series in partnership with Parents Helping Parents. Read the 2e Transition From Adolescence to Young Adulthood transcript here: Introduction — Teresa There we go. Starting once again. Welcome everybody. So tonight we are representing REEL. We've got Yael and myself, Teresa, and we're also in partnership with PHP. So, some of you might have joined us from PHP. I would love for you guys to put in the chat maybe the age of your kiddos, what's brought you here, if you had some interest or some curiosities. Also, if you found us through REEL or if you found us through PHP, just let us know in the chat kind of who you are and how you got to us because we're hoping to get to know you guys tonight. So, welcome. PHP that we're partnering with is Parents Helping Parents. So, hopefully you guys got a chance to know PHP. If you don't, they have a lot of great support out there. Parents Helping Parents provides support through many different stages of families' lives and transitions, from birth to early interventions in school, adulthood, and even independent living. They cover a lot of disabilities, and you can see over on the right hand side autism, ADHD, dyslexia, physical disabilities, and so much more. PHP does a lot of great work, and they do that through the services provided. They help by sharing information and resources, special education, connection and support groups like the one you joined tonight with us, and milestones and assistive technologies. I always highly recommend them for everything, but assistive technologies is great. They can really help you out with their lab there. So, that's who PHP is. Now, who are we? We are REEL, and we're a Silicon Valley based organization that helps twice exceptional kids thrive in school and beyond by raising parent and educator awareness. We do this through practical research based strategies, and a lot of community-based work also. This is for educators. We create and curate resources and workshops. We've got some great workshops that we do in schools to help educate the educators, and also at some local universities. And for parents, we do things like this. We have support groups, discussion groups, and we'll get into a little bit more about what that is. So, what is twice exceptionality? Maybe you are familiar with it, but maybe this is the first time you're experiencing it. We talk about twice exceptionality in a similar vein to Dr. Susan Baum when she talks about distinguishing traits and strengths that also come along with complex challenges often found in traditional classrooms or traditional parenting techniques, for kids that are autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, have general anxiety disorder, and so much more. So twice exceptionality is the coming together of both. We've got these amazing, wonderful kids who have distinguishing traits that might be in art or it might be in math and science, maybe in 3D printing and jazz music. So many possibilities where our kids show up with strengths and beautiful possibilities, and complex challenges that happen often in traditional environments too. So what we're looking for is just support for that whole child. Sometimes that is a visual, at least you might be familiar with these things where you see age-based expectations throughout their lives and their schooling. What we see quite a bit in twice exceptionality is the asynchronous profile — kids that have really high highs, and then we have these challenges. These could be things like lagging skills that they're learning, or things that they'll just find great ways to accommodate throughout the rest of their lives in their own unique ways. We work through that as a community and share ideas with each other for these things. So it's that jagged, asynchronous profile. REEL supports you guys through a wonderful website. As you can see, we have resources for educators up there along with parents. So, please check it out. Some great past events, too, and we look forward to new events coming up. Parent services are what Yael and I do quite a bit of, and that's our wheelhouse. We put together expert speaker series, parent support groups. We have an amazing private Google group that, if you're not already a part of, please join. We have over a thousand parents in that group and it's wonderfully supportive — ask questions, gather resources, those kind of things. We also do paid services like one-on-one consultations and facilitated small group discussions, but as you can see, the majority of our services are free. We do that on purpose. It's really important to us that you guys have a community to come to and resources you can trust. Parent toolkits are there, along with I want you to see some of our past events, but keep in mind we are now rolling into our fall events. Those will be, I think we're going to announce them in August. So, really soon now you guys get to see what the new lineup is for this year, and we share a lot of amazing things. So, please come back or join our mailing list so that you know what this fall is going to bring. All of these events that you see here are recorded on our website and you can watch the recordings for free. So check it out there. Check us out on our social media sites also. And that brings me to Danielle. I'm excited to introduce Danielle tonight. If you're part of our Google group, you may have seen her responses. She's a very thoughtful contributor to our Google group when it comes to ideas about supporting transition age groups. Danielle is an ADHD mental health therapist and coach. She's also a parent, so she's going to bring some great lived experience along with wisdom from her career. She specializes in supporting high-risk neurodivergent transition age youth. Tonight she'll be sharing with us practical strategies for navigating transitions into adulthood, including energy accounting, environmental engineering, and productive failure. Let's hear more about that one. After Danielle gets a chance to talk, she will stick around hopefully and do a little Q&A with us before we go into our breakout rooms and get a chance to talk with each other more after her talk. So, I am going to see if Danielle would like to take over the sharing, and I'm going to stop sharing. Host Do you want to try to make Rosa the interpreter while you're doing that? Yeah. Let me poke around and we'll do that, too. And if you could go ahead and spotlight her, that would be wonderful. Thank you. Yay. We've got your slides. You're good to go. We got to get you off mute, though. Danielle Let me unmute myself. Okay. Thank you so much for the introduction. I'm super excited and very grateful to be here to talk about something I'm so passionate about, and just a little bit about me. I am an ADHD individual myself. I have an 11-year-old neurodivergent son as well, twice exceptional. I've worked with transitional age youth and teens for about 10 years now — first as a volunteer mentor with unhoused folks, then as a clinical case manager. And then now the last 5 years I've been predominantly working with neurodivergent, including twice exceptional, transitional age youth. So, super excited to share things that I've picked up along the way. Oh, and also there is a QR code here — if you'd like to follow along with your own slides, you'll be able to download them through the QR code. All right. So, here's a familiar scene, as Teresa was explaining earlier, with the jagged, spiky cognitive profile. This is just one example of how it can present: a 19-year-old acing their AP calculus exam, with the ability to debate philosophy theorems with professors, and at the same time that young person is not submitting homework, fails the class, forgets to eat lunch constantly, and has a really tough time answering emails. They're just having a full-on shutdown when laundry isn't done. And laundry sucks, my goodness. So how can someone this capable be so stuck? Well, there is a scaffolding gap between adolescence and transitional age, 18 to 25. The main goal generally speaking in adolescence is to build identity, learn to self-regulate separately from the family. This continues on to 18 and beyond, and the goal is to deploy that identity into the real world, with college, career, bills, relationships — lots of transitions, a lot of milestones, driving. But the issue here is that in adolescence, for twice exceptional youth, their high cognitive abilities can often mask their executive functioning gaps, but it's kind of invisibly scaffolded at school by parents. That vanishes at 18 to 25, and it's almost like walking off a cliff — the school is no longer providing scaffolding. College is a whole other ball game. Expectations are rising, and for twice exceptional folks, for neurodivergent folks, the operational tools are still catching up and executive functioning is years behind. I do want to stop and highlight that twice exceptional is not one thing, it's a huge umbrella, like it was mentioned earlier. So for a high ability autistic teen, or a high ability teen with ADHD, they will have opposite regulation needs. One will crave novelty, the other will be overwhelmed by it. If they're lucky, they have ADHD and have both, with conflicting needs existing simultaneously. Every framework in this presentation is just a starting point for understanding, not a fixed checklist. Here are some concrete scripts that could help bridge that gap — helping with the steps and not the answers, and it's helpful to do this as early as possible. Some examples: instead of reminding them of the time, help them set their own timer or alarm. Instead of focusing on "you're so smart," highlight the effort — "I noticed you didn't give up when it got hard, how can I support you?" When they forget their homework or forget something at school and you want to bring it over, instead of doing that, allow them to take accountability at school. Let them tell the teacher, and later on if they're willing, debrief with them: how can I support you? If a youth is ripping up their artwork because it isn't perfect and is having a meltdown, just being able to sit with them and still have unconditional positive regard, and just to be with them, is enough — breathe together, and if willing, talk about it later. The pattern underneath is to help with the process, not the outcome. So what exactly is productive failure? It's kind of what it sounds like — helping learners grapple with a complex problem, often failing to solve it before receiving direct instruction. It's the struggle itself, not the right answer, that builds durable understanding. Why this fits the adolescent, transitional age youth brain is that it's actually the best at learning from cause and effect during this time. The brain shows a uniquely heightened neural response to the gap between what was expected and what actually happened — a reward prediction error signal in the striatum that peaks during the teen years. Productive failure is built exactly around that gap. But there is a caveat for twice exceptional youth. A big part of productive failure is that there's resolve at the end, that they do get support, they understand what was missed, they find the resolve, they complete or achieve what they started. This is a little trickier for twice exceptional youth. For all neurodivergence, this is linked with lower frustration levels, and there is still careful scaffolding that is needed. There's a higher cognitive load that leads to the lower frustration levels, so it's still helpful to provide that scaffolding and support. Generally speaking, the transitional age youth brain runs hot, and it's by design. It's wired for impulsivity, intense emotion, and risk-taking, and it's exactly those same variables that facilitate really rapid learning. For neurodivergent and twice exceptional youth, the everyday toll is much heavier. Neurodivergent students report way more cognitive load than neurotypical peers, so if you're fatigued easily, you have to pace yourself. A separate study, that's contested, did link high IQ to higher nervous system reactivity, and it's what I've observed and what I experience, so I decided to add it in. This is the window of tolerance, to help visualize the nervous system and different states of being. It's not a precise brain map, but I do find it helpful to understand regulation. The red, the orange there, is when there's high stress, high energy, panic — rigid thinking is highly relevant here, more control-seeking behavior, stimming. Way below that is hypoarousal, the complete opposite — very low energy, shutdown, forgetfulness, task paralysis, freeze response, masking, fawning. Right in the middle is that window of tolerance, when one is regulated and engaged. This is when the brain can learn optimally and the social engagement system turns on. When one is hyperaroused or hypoaroused, the brain actually turns the social engagement system off — it's not what it's prioritizing. So for your youth, if you notice hyperarousal, it's helpful to limit sensory input, offer deep pressure, slow breathing, more choice and autonomy, and simplify the task in front of them. For hypoarousal, you want to add a little more stimulation — gentle movement, a walk, a stretch, introducing novelty, something interesting, a change of scenery. Break the task into very tiny, easily manageable steps, and add sensory input, music, a favorite fidget toy. But in either state, predictable routines, transition warnings, and visual timers are helpful. Social mirrors are so important during adolescence and beyond. Reflective appraisals are what adolescents believe about how they're being seen by the people around them. Parents, teachers, peers, mentors — it really can affect their long-term self-esteem regardless of how brilliant they are and regardless of their high strengths and abilities. Twice exceptional youth, unfortunately, often receive way more correction than accurate reflection of their strengths. Many cope with this by trading authenticity and masking for a surface-level sense of belonging. But there's good news: caregivers as a secure base. If anything, if you take anything away from this presentation, this is what I want to highlight. Caregivers are the safe base from which youth can launch into the world and take risks, and they are the warm safe haven they can return to when the world gets too cold. This is enough. This is enough. There are studies that show that even though they're pushing you away a lot more, and they want to be on their own and fighting for independence, they will naturally come back when they get overwhelmed, and return to their secure base for co-regulation. I just wanted to share a short video to highlight this. [The group experienced technical difficulties getting the video's audio and picture to share — several minutes of crosstalk between Danielle and the hosts troubleshooting screen share and sound follow in the source captions.] Thank you for waiting. Back to play. So, if you have time, the music does make it — I think it was a P&G commercial, they make these amazing commercials called the "Thank You Mom" series, super sweet. That showed a video portrayal of how it's enough to just be the safe haven, a consistent warm safe place the youth can return to after they make mistakes or when the world is too harsh. Here are some easy check-ins to see where we're at as caregivers, because on any given day we could lean one way or the other. Just check in to see if we're over-scaffolding — ask yourself: are we doing tasks that they're developmentally capable of attempting? Are they rarely experiencing their natural consequences, and do you feel like their manager, not their parent? On the flip side of that is under-supporting — the youth repeatedly feeling overwhelmed with no framework, no help, mistakes met with lectures instead of co-regulation, and not a predictable safe space to land in that day. We've all been there, so no judgment. Most caregivers land somewhere in between. The goal is just to notice the patterns and repair when there's a rupture, not perfection. That is enough. So, on to environmental engineering for optimal capacity. This is my own synthesis of research, based on what I've observed in my clients and myself. These eight variables are something that I adjust and tweak every day for sustainable energy and optimal capacity. Checking in on my energy, where I'm at, making sure I'm sleeping well, upkeep, food, nutrition, sensory equilibrium — either taking sensory input away or adding it. I love strong input, I think it's my more ADHD brain that just loves that. Predictability, agency — is it complex enough for my brain, is it fun enough — novelty, interest, and transitions. Being mindful of transitions is really great. Which leads me to energy accounting. This by far has been the most helpful to me personally. I love this concept. I think I spent my entire life so ambitious, just go, go, go. I want to get things done, I want to be productive. But I have a race car mind and a 1980s Toyota Corolla that just needs constant maintenance and attention, and I just can't go as fast as I want no matter how hard I try. Once I started prioritizing my energy, being more mindful of putting that first, over time I was able to put patterns together, understand my body a lot better, and really match effort to actual capacity that day. Build pauses before the crash, not after. Practice planned exits — have a 2-minute warning, think ahead of time about what's going to be the stopping point. What's going to help me? Do I have an interest anchor to pull me out of that monotropic focus? The example at the top there is what energy accounting can look like. For me, having a very enjoyable slow morning routine is a must — the thought of coffee in the morning is what gets me out of bed. Knowing that I don't have anything until noon that I have to focus on, and really enjoying my time — walking the dog, getting some sunshine — then moving into a task, making sure I have an interest anchor after that re-energizes me. Then going back to another task block, having an exit ritual already planned, and then a very slow, low-demand evening, because sleep has always been tough, and from what I know, very tough for neurodivergent, twice exceptional folks, especially with the mind racing. Rest isn't the reward for productivity, it's the input that makes productivity possible, and this is especially important during this time when there's so many milestones and so much to learn. I did want to leave these two resources here: Edgewood Drop-in Center and Access Cove, both on the peninsula. This is for young adults to drop in — both are similar spaces for social activities, learning independent living skills, education and employment support. There's a community clothing closet and even a food bank, peer support, and a lot of recreational activities for both. Here are some professional services from people I know personally and highly recommend. Dr. Horn is amazing — he doesn't market as working with neurodivergent folks, but he is neurodivergent himself, and he can really see someone's soul and be that positive reflection, and help foster and nurture that person. Shameless plug, I'm in the middle there — I love talking to parents all the time, so feel free to reach out to me anytime, we'd love to speak with you and just chat. And lastly, Gustavo Belchan — he specializes in working with transitional age youth, mostly ADHD. There are references there too, so if you download the slides, you'll be able to obtain them. Host Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. Keep going. Danielle Oh, I just said thank you so much. Host I was going to say, would you mind going back to the QR code for the slides? I think people wanted a chance to download them. Thank you so much, that was awesome. AI Created Presentation Summary Helping Twice-Exceptional Youth Navigate the Transition to Adulthood When a young person can debate philosophy with a professor but can't get their laundry done, it's easy to wonder how someone so capable can also feel so stuck. That contradiction was the starting point for a recent REEL parent talk, co-hosted with Parents Helping Parents (PHP), featuring Danielle Park, ADHD therapist, coach, and parent, on navigating the transition from adolescence to young adulthood for twice-exceptional (2e) and neurodivergent youth. Danielle is a Board Certified Autism Specialist (#2533582), Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT #128591), and Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC #10398) in the state of California, supervised by Jim Rutherford, LMFT (#42435), at SMC BHRS. The scaffolding gap Danielle opened with a concept that reframes a lot of what parents see in the 18-to-25 range: the scaffolding gap. Throughout adolescence, a young person's high cognitive abilities can mask real executive functioning gaps, gaps that are often invisibly propped up at school and at home. Once that support disappears in the transition to adulthood, it can feel like walking off a cliff. College raises expectations right as the built-in scaffolding vanishes, and for twice-exceptional and neurodivergent young adults, the everyday tools they need are still catching up. Danielle was careful to note that twice-exceptional is not one thing, it's a huge umbrella. A high-ability autistic teen and a high-ability teen with ADHD can have opposite regulation needs: one craves novelty, the other is overwhelmed by it. Every framework she shared, she said, is a starting point for understanding, not a fixed checklist. Small scripts that build big independence Rather than abstract advice, Danielle offered concrete, everyday scripts parents can use right away: helping a teen set their own timer instead of reminding them of the time, highlighting effort ("I noticed you didn't give up") instead of praising intelligence, and letting a young person take accountability at school rather than stepping in to fix a forgotten assignment. The underlying pattern is to support the process, not the outcome. Why productive failure matters, with a caveat One of the more research-grounded parts of the talk covered productive failure, the idea that struggling with a problem before receiving direct instruction builds more durable understanding than being handed the answer. The teenage brain is wired for this kind of learning, showing a heightened response to the gap between what was expected and what actually happened. But Danielle added an important caveat for 2e youth: productive failure only works if there's resolve at the end, meaning the young person still gets support and reaches a sense of completion. Given that neurodivergence is linked with lower frustration tolerance, that scaffolding still matters. Reading the nervous system Danielle also walked through the window of tolerance, a way of understanding when a young person is regulated and able to learn versus hyperaroused (panic, rigid thinking, stimming) or hypoaroused (shutdown, task paralysis, masking). Recognizing which state a young person is in points to very different responses: limiting sensory input and slowing things down during hyperarousal, versus adding gentle movement and novelty during hypoarousal. In either state, predictable routines and transition warnings help. Caregivers as a secure base If there was one takeaway Danielle asked parents to hold onto, it was this: caregivers are the secure base a young person launches from and the safe haven they return to when the world gets too cold. Even when a teen is pushing hard for independence, they will naturally come back for co-regulation when overwhelmed. Being that steady, dependable presence, not a perfect one, is enough. Managing energy, not just time The talk closed with two practical frameworks Danielle uses in her own life: environmental engineering, or tuning variables like sleep, sensory input, predictability, and novelty for optimal capacity, and energy accounting, which means building in pauses before a crash rather than after, planning exits ahead of time, and treating rest as the input that makes productivity possible rather than a reward for it. Danielle closed with local resources for young adults, including Edgewood Drop-in Center and Access Cove on the peninsula, and recommendations for professionals who specialize in supporting transition-age youth. This talk was part of REEL's ongoing parent speaker series, presented in partnership with Parents Helping Parents.

Your kid held it together all day. They answered questions, navigated the social minefield of the cafeteria, and made it through class after class without saying a word to anyone about how hard everything felt. And here's the thing… they may not have even known how much they were holding in. For many gifted and 2e kids, the effort is so constant and so automatic that they don't have the language for it, or even the conscious awareness. They just know that by the time they walk through your front door, something gives way. Does this sound familiar? If you're raising a gifted or twice-exceptional child, this scene probably plays out regularly. And if you've ever wondered why a kid who "seemed fine" at school can be so dysregulated at home, there's a concept that explains it pretty well: the hidden workload. What Is the Hidden Workload? The hidden workload is everything your child is managing that nobody sees on a report card or a behavior chart. It's the mental, emotional, and sensory effort gifted and 2e kids expend just to get through a typical school day, often while appearing completely fine on the outside. It shows up in five key areas: Cognitive Intensity Gifted brains are wired to think deeply, and often in ways that don't map neatly onto a standard classroom. Some gifted and 2e kids process information very quickly and are done before the lesson has really begun. Others have slow processing speed, meaning they're thinking in complex and sophisticated ways but need more time to get there, which creates its own kind of friction in a fast-moving classroom. In either case, when the environment isn't calibrated to how their brain actually works, they aren't just waiting patiently. They're managing frustration, suppressing boredom, or struggling to keep up with a pace that doesn't fit them. The cognitive engine is running hard all day, and that takes a real toll. Masking Masking is the process of hiding or suppressing traits that feel socially unacceptable in order to fit in. For many 2e kids, it's practically a full-time job layered on top of the actual school day. It can be conscious or unconscious. Some kids are acutely aware that they're performing a version of themselves that feels more acceptable. Others have simply internalized the rules of fitting in so deeply, through years of social feedback and trial and error, that the adaptations happen automatically without any deliberate thought. Either way, it is profoundly draining. It can look like: Forcing yourself to sit still when your body needs to move Making eye contact even when it feels uncomfortable Suppressing the urge to stim or move in ways that feel regulating Studying the people around you, cataloguing their social rhythms, and carefully mimicking what you observe so that you seem like you belong Research has increasingly linked chronic masking to burnout, anxiety, and depression across a range of neurodevelopmental profiles, not just autism. Kids with ADHD, anxiety, learning differences, and giftedness itself can all engage in masking in ways that are just as exhausting and just as invisible to the people around them. Two resources worth bookmarking: Understood.org's short video on ADHD masking, and for a deeper dive, Dr. Devon Price's book Unmasking Autism. Emotional Labor Many gifted kids are born with what psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski called overexcitabilities, meaning their nervous system is wired to feel, perceive, and respond more intensely than average. This isn't a choice or a phase. It's neurological. What this means practically is that your child isn't just managing their own emotions during the school day. They're absorbing everyone else's too. They notice when a classmate is upset before the teacher does. They replay a hallway conflict for the rest of the afternoon. They feel the weight of something that didn't even happen to them. For gifted and 2e kids, the emotional volume is turned up significantly higher than average, and managing that level of input all day in a busy, unpredictable environment takes a real toll. (For a deeper dive, this article from Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) is a great starting point.) Sensory Load For many 2e kids, a school building is a sensory obstacle course: fluorescent lights, crowded hallways, cafeteria smells, scratchy uniform tags, unpredictable fire drills. Most people filter this out automatically. For kids with sensory sensitivities, that filtering requires active neurological effort, depleting the same resources needed for learning and emotional regulation. By the afternoon, there may simply not be much left. Social Fatigue For gifted and 2e kids who often feel out of sync with their peers, too intense, too quirky, or just genuinely interested in different things, social navigation can feel like performing in a play where everyone else knows the script and they're improvising every line. Day after day, that performance takes a real toll. Why Teachers Often Don't See It One of the hardest things about the hidden workload is that it's invisible by design. The kids expending the most effort are often the ones who look completely fine from the outside. Teachers observe behavior. A child who is sitting quietly, participating appropriately, and not causing disruption looks like a child who is doing well. There's no visible signal that anything is wrong. This is especially true for gifted kids who may be intellectually engaged even while emotionally overwhelmed, and for 2e girls, who are often socialized to internalize rather than externalize distress. The result is a significant gap between what teachers see and what parents experience at home. Both observations can be true simultaneously. They're just seeing different parts of the picture. When parents raise concerns that don't match the school's data, they can sometimes be perceived as overprotective or overly anxious. But behavior at home is data too, and it's worth taking seriously. Why Home Is Where It All Comes Out Your child falling apart at home is not a failure. Not yours, and not theirs. It’s actually a real sign of trust. School demands performance. Home is where kids can finally exhale and be exactly as they are without the mask or the effort. Dr. Ross Greene, author of The Explosive Child, describes how kids spend their regulatory resources throughout the day and arrive home already depleted. When they're finally somewhere safe, the effort of holding everything together simply stops. What looks like a meltdown is often just the end of a very long day of invisible work finally catching up. What Actually Helps Protect the transition home. When your child walks in the door, resist the urge to ask about their day or address homework right away. What they need first is decompression: No demands or decisions required Lower stimulation, quieter environment, away from loud or fast-moving screens A snack Unstructured free time to do whatever they want without direction For many 2e kids, this transition window isn't optional. It's maintenance. Advocate for both challenge and support. Many 2e kids need work that genuinely engages their strengths and accommodations that address their challenges, at the same time. If your child has an IEP or 504, make sure it reflects the whole picture. Help teachers understand masking. Come to the conversation with information rather than frustration. Share what you observe at home, describe specifically when and how it happens, and frame it as solving a puzzle together. Many teachers have simply never been taught about masking, and a school counselor or psychologist can sometimes serve as a helpful bridge. Take burnout seriously. Chronic fatigue in kids doesn't always look like tiredness. It can look like: Defiance or emotional outbursts School refusal Physical complaints without a clear medical cause A child who used to be curious and engaged who suddenly just isn't anymore If you're seeing a consistent pattern, talk to your pediatrician and consider an evaluation from a psychologist familiar with twice-exceptionality. You're Not Imagining It The hidden workload is real, significant, and one of the most underrecognized challenges facing gifted and 2e kids in traditional school settings. When we start naming it, with our kids, with their teachers, with each other, we can start building environments where they don't have to spend every ounce of themselves just getting through the day. About the Author Erica Salzman is a Licensed Educational Psychologist based in Los Angeles. She specializes in strength-based assessment, consultation, and support for neurodiverse learners. Erica is the founder of The Exceptional Learner. www.theexceptionallearner.com

As we move into the end of summer, many families are beginning to prepare for a new school year. For parents of twice exceptional kids this transition can bring a unique mix of anticipation, excitement, and uncertainty. While many back to school checklists focus on buying supplies and new clothes, occupational therapists recognize that successful transitions involve much more than backpacks and lunch boxes. There is also an important detail which involves preparing your child's nervous system, helping their emotional regulation, setting up routines, and developing relationships. We need to ask ourselves, “how can we support our child's unique strengths so they can thrive in their new environment?” Twice exceptional children often surprise adults with remarkable abilities alongside other challenges. Many children who are twice exceptional can read several grade levels above peers but they struggle to write a sentence. They can solve a complex math problem but become overwhelmed with transitions. They have great memory but find it difficult to organize their materials, they are highly creative but experience intense sensory sensitivities. and they develop deep empathy but struggle to navigate relationships. This uneven development can make school both intellectually stimulating and emotionally exhausting. These differences are not deficits to be fixed, they are important clues that help us understand how a child experiences the world. Many parents wonder about academic readiness but regulation is the foundation for learning. A regulated nervous system allows a child to: manage frustrations, recover from mistakes, engage with peers, attend and focus on instructions, solve problems, and think about a variety of different options. Before asking your child to practice handwriting or complete a worksheet or review an academic concept, consider how their body is feeling. Ask yourself: Is my child getting enough movement throughout the day? Do they know what helps them feel calm and alert and ready to learn? Are their daily routines predictable? Have they had opportunities for joyful play? Supporting regulation before increasing a demand typically leads to greater success. We want to rebuild a daily routine gradually. Summer schedules often look very different from school schedules. Consider making gradual shifts in your child's routine over the one or two weeks before school begins. It might be helpful to practice several weeks before school starts. For example: offer an earlier bedtime wake up a little earlier in the morning create a morning wake up routine (would it be helpful for your child to wake up with a nice glass of grapefruit juice next to their bed? Maybe some pillow squishes? Do they need you to raise the shades in the morning and have natural light wake them up?) Would it be helpful if your child's clothes were already picked out the night before? Do they have a checklist of what needs to go in their backpack? Do they need help packing their backpack? What about eating breakfast at school day times? Creating predictability reduces cognitive load and helps children to feel more secure. When we talk about preparing the sensory system we know that every child has a unique sensory profile. There are some children who need a lot of movement, there are others who avoid sensation, some are easily overstimulated in a busy classroom or with many children around rather than trying to eliminate their sensory needs. We need to try to understand them. We can ask ourselves: What helps my child's body to feel ready to learn? What helps when school feels too overstimulating? How do I help my child tune into their body to know when they need to take a break? Practice sensory tools prior to school beginning. For example: Would it be helpful if your child had a swing in the garage? or a tree swing? Would swinging for 10 minutes prior to school help their nervous system feel calm and regulated? Would it be helpful if your child had some heavy work activities to do before school? Does your child need to do some weight lifting before they get in the car or the bus to get to school? Does your child need calm quiet time before school? Would it be helpful to have a rocking chair at the table while eating breakfast? Would they like to read at the table before school? The goal is not to make sensory needs disappear, it's to build awareness and develop effective strategies that work. Many 2e children have lots of ideas but they have trouble planning, organizing, initiating, and making changes to their plans. This is all part of executive functioning. It may be helpful for children to have: A visual schedule of the morning routine A checklist or to-do list of specific activities such as brushing teeth Creative checklist for backpack stations A homework routine Calendar systems Color-coded folders When children are able to develop systems and practice using them they are more likely to have success in learning. New transitions can often bring mixed emotions and your child's emotional regulation system may be heightened during this time. Your child might feel excited or nervous or curious or sad that the summer is ending. They may be worried about making new friends or concerned about who their new teacher will be. It is important to allow space for these feelings. It is normal to feel curious about a new situation and offering or normalizing these feelings can help. Offering them “drips” of information, just one little suggestion per day may be helpful; this might be best offered when they are mostly regulated. It is also helpful for children to have been prepared ahead of time about what is to be expected. This might mean: Visiting the campus of the school if possible Meeting the teacher prior to school Practicing classroom routines through pretend play using social stories Reading books about starting school Looking at photos of the classroom Talking about supportive adults that they might be able to find during the day These can help your child to feel like they have more control and creates an emotional safety and supports learning. The beginning of the new school year is not about perfection. It is about helping your child feel safe, connected, understood and ready to engage. Some children will walk confidently into the classroom on the very first day and others may need extra time, additional support or opportunities to co-regulate with trusted adults. Both experiences are valid. About the Author At Therapeeps Occupational Therapy services, we believe that every child develops along their own unique pathway. By understanding their individual differences, supporting their regulation and building strong relationships, we help children develop the confidence and skills they need to participate meaningfully in everyday life. If you're wondering how to support your child's sensory processing, executive functioning, emotional regulation or School participation we'd love to help. Therapeeps Occupational Therapy Services provides individualized, play-based occupational therapy, parent coaching, and school collaboration throughout the Bay Area. Together we can create strategies that build on your child's strengths and help them thrive in the new school year. Brooke Olson, BS, OTR/L, BCP, SIPT With more than 25 years of experience in pediatric occupational therapy, Brooke Olson is passionate about helping children and families thrive through a neuroaffirming, relationship-based approach. Brooke founded Therapeeps Occupational Therapy Services to provide individualized, family-centered care grounded in sensory integration and the DIR®/Floortime® model. She specializes in supporting children with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences, executive functioning challenges, feeding differences, emotional regulation, and twice-exceptional (2e) profiles.

I have started more planners in my life than I can count. Paper planners, app-based ones, even a chaotic color-coded sticky-note phase I would rather forget. Not to mention the 24x18 whiteboard calendar that still read “September” as Thanksgiving approached, a loving tribute to my gift for starting systems and my brain’s total indifference to maintaining them. I am twice-exceptional, and for a long time I assumed the unused planners meant something was wrong with me. It took an embarrassingly long time to notice that my systems did not collapse at random. They collapsed the moment no one was holding me accountable. The semesters I stayed organized were the semesters I had a standing meeting with an advisor and a study partner who expected me to show up. Executive function support for 2e learners turns out to depend less on the systems you choose and more on the people surrounding you. If you are parenting a 2e kid, you have probably lived a version of this. The planner that worked for a week. The color-coded folders that looked beautiful and stayed empty, while the papers they were meant to hold ended up crumpled at the bottom of a backpack. The folders themselves are rarely the problem, and your child certainly isn’t either, though ‘lazy’ and ‘unmotivated’ often get written between the lines anyway. REEL’s blog is full of excellent, specific tools for exactly this. One blog post walks through ten of them, from body doubling to erasable clipboards, and the back-to-school executive function guides cover planners, calendars, and timers in depth. I am not going to re-list those. I want to talk about the thing underneath them, the reason a good tool sticks for one kid and never quite catches on for another. I want to move beyond processes and tools. Executive function develops from the outside in. Young children, especially, cannot manage their own attention or impulses, so the people around them do it out loud and on purpose, for years, until the skill is slowly internalized. Self-regulation is largely co-regulation that has been practiced enough times to go it alone. For 2e kids, whose wiring makes development uneven by definition, that internalizing runs on its own timeline, often well behind the developmental milestone calendar and sometimes well into adulthood. I’ve been there. None of that is a verdict on anyone’s parenting. It is simply how the skills get built, and 2e brains, as we all well know, build it on their own schedule. So, when a planner fails, it is usually because the planner requires a kid to develop, alone, a skill they are still in the middle of borrowing from the people around them. And that borrowing was never meant to come from one person. A kid assembles executive functions out of a whole web of threads. Some of those threads are people. A teacher who offers lunch check-ins, a friend or group that studies alongside them, a sibling, a coach, a boss, the parent at the kitchen table. Other threads are the kid’s own. The metacognition of noticing which supports actually help, and the self-advocacy of asking for them by name. Parents are one thread among many, and, truthfully, often not the one that works best. What holds is the entire web, not any single strand in it, and over time the strongest strands are the ones the kid weaves themselves. What a Relationship Does That a Planner Can’t “Relationship” is a vague word, but here is some of what it actually breaks into. A regulated presence. Sometimes the hardest part of a task is starting it, and a calm person in a familiar room makes starting possible. This is body doubling, a form of “co-regulation” rather than mere supervision. You are not checking the work or hovering over it. You model what it looks like to work steadily, lending them some calming ballast. A parent answering emails at the same table, a study hall full of other working kids, a friend on a silent video call, an older sibling reading nearby, any of them can do the job. The presence itself is key. Accountability that is real. Presence and accountability are different things, and 2e kids can usually tell them apart instantly. Accountability is a specific commitment that a specific person will actually follow up on. “I’ll do it later” is not accountability. “I’ll text you a photo of the finished page by 7” is. Concrete, short-term goals. Whether a teacher with a standing Friday check-in, a tutor, a classmate in the same course, or a coworking partner, accountability is critical. And it often works better when it is not a parent at all. It works because someone cared enough to follow up, which feels nothing like being nagged, even if the message is the same. A counterweight to shame. A 2e kid can score three grade levels ahead on every aptitude test and get lost, in the best way, for hours in a novel, a coding project, or a half-built or drawn world of their own. The same kid will watch a C appear in a class where they understand the content well, usually because of things like missing packets rather than misunderstanding concepts. Without support, many kids conclude that if they are this capable, the failures must be their fault. A system of organization alone cannot talk a kid out of that story, and a poorly implemented system tends to confirm that shame rather than mitigate it. A person who sees the missed deadlines up close and stays curious instead of disappointed gives the kid a new perspective. The unevenness becomes a fact about their wiring rather than a reflection of their character, and school can go back to being a place where they are good at some things and still working on others. Collaborative problem-solving. This is the one we tend to skip, and it may be the most powerful. Rather than handing out prepackaged systems, building them together and treating the missteps as data instead of failures helps them build ownership. Relational support means showing up to help kids enact their vision rather than trying to manage and fix their “flaws.” When a plan fails, you get curious together about why, and they can practice the skills that actually last, which is designing and recognizing supports that work for them. You Can Accomplish Most of This Without Hiring Anyone I will let you in on something of an open industry secret as someone who is an executive functioning coach for a living: A good executive function coach is not mostly providing some groundbreaking processes. The strategies are largely familiar, many of which are discussed at length through REEL’s various resources. With a few exceptions that come from our educational training and experience, what a coach really provides is relational and recurring: a standing time, a person who expects you, someone who can translate school into a familiar language and provide accountability outside the parent-child dynamic, someone who gets to be curious instead of worried. A warm demander. An adolescent whisperer if you will. That is the active ingredient. The trick is that you do not have to recreate it by yourself. Most of it can be spread across the people already in your kid’s life. What a coach offers is convenience, really, several of these support threads bundled into a single standing relationship with tried-and-true processes at the ready and a history of understanding and building trust with adolescents. A few ways families do it: Spread the load on purpose. Loop in a teacher for a standing lunch or after school check-in, a tutor, a relative your teen actually likes, an older sibling or student down the street. Accountability often lands better when it is not coming from a parent, and a kid who learns to assemble their own support people is practicing the most transferable skill there is. Normalize co-regulation. Set up a standing check-in, and notice it need not be with you. Five minutes, same time, predictable and low-drama. Teresa’s account of a teacher’s weekly open-period check-in is a perfect example of how much one reliable touchpoint can do, and it came from a teacher, not a parent. Be the body double, when you can. When you cannot, a peer coworking call or a sibling at the same table covers it just as well. Lead with “I wonder” instead of “you need to.” This goes for any adult in the picture, parent or teacher. Anything that opens with “you need to” is likely to get tuned out. The gentler and more collaborative the phrasing is, the more likely kids are to think out loud alongside you than default to defensiveness. The Point Is for the Scaffolding to Fade This can sound like a recipe for dependence, so it is worth saying plainly that it is the opposite. Every borrowed piece of regulation, from you, from a teacher, from a friend, from a coach, is on its way to becoming the kid’s own. The standing check-in someone else used to run turns into a habit they keep without prompting. Noticing what actually helps, and asking for it by name, the metacognition and self-advocacy, stop being things the adults scaffold and become things the kid does. A teenager who can email a teacher and say, “here is what actually helps me learn,” is the whole game. No one is on the hook forever, and no one is on the hook alone. We are all just lending a kid some executive function until the loan is paid back in skills. And if they still lean on a few support people throughout their educational journey and even well into adulthood, that is not a failure either. We all do. Body doubling has never let me down. I wrote a good chunk of my dissertation at the kitchen table, across from my wife, while she did the real work. Building Threads in Your Web If you want the specific tools, REEL has already curated many of them. Start with When Organizing Feels Hard: 10 Tools That Help and the back-to-school executive function guides. For the wider picture of supporting your child day to day, see Supporting Your 2e Child at Home and School. And if you would rather not do any of this alone, well, that is entirely the point. Join a REEL parent group or workshop or the wonderful Google Group and add a few more threads to your web of support! About the Author Maxwell J. Greenberg is an academic and executive functioning coach specializing in twice-exceptional learners and a historian of American education. For more on his coaching, visit www.maxwelljgreenberg.com or reach out directly at maxwelljgreenberg@gmail.com.

Family vacations are often filled with excitement, anticipation, and the hope of creating lasting memories together. At the same time, travel can place significant demands on a child's nervous system, especially for neurodivergent and twice-exceptional (2e) children. New environments, unfamiliar foods, changes in routines, sensory input, crowds, disrupted sleep schedules, and uncertainty can quickly overwhelm a child's nervous system. For many 2e children, travel may also bring heightened anxiety, intense questioning, difficulty with uncertainty, and strong emotional reactions when things do not go as expected. As parents, it can be easy to focus on the places we want to see and the activities we hope to experience. But when traveling with neurodivergent and 2e children, it can be helpful to start with a different question: What do we want our child to remember about this trip? At the end of a family vacation, most children will not remember every attraction, museum, or landmark they visited. What they are more likely to remember is how they felt. Did they feel safe? Did they feel heard? Did they feel supported when things felt hard? Did they have opportunities to rest and regroup when they needed them? Did they feel connected to the people they love? When we approach travel through this lens, the goal shifts from completing an itinerary to creating experiences that allow everyone to participate, connect, and enjoy being together. Travel naturally comes with uncertainty. Flights get delayed. Restaurants are crowded. Weather changes. Plans shift. Activities do not always go as expected. While we cannot eliminate these unexpected moments, we can help our children build the skills and confidence to navigate them. One of the most important ways we do this is by supporting their nervous systems. Supporting regulation is not lowering expectations. It is recognizing that a regulated nervous system is the foundation for flexibility, learning, enjoyment, and connection. When children feel emotionally safe, physically regulated, and genuinely heard, they are better able to adapt to new experiences and unexpected challenges. The goal is not a perfect vacation. The goal is to create the emotional, mental, and physiological space that allows children to discover they can handle new experiences, recover from difficult moments, navigate the unexpected, and maybe even have fun doing it. Three Ways to Create the Emotional, Mental, and Physiological Space Children Need to Thrive While Traveling 1. Protect Time for Regulation One of the most common mistakes families make when traveling is trying to fit too much into each day. When you have invested time and money into a vacation, it is tempting to maximize every moment. However, many neurodivergent and 2e children need downtime built into the schedule to process, regulate, and recover from the demands of travel. Even enjoyable activities require energy and can place significant demands on a child's nervous system. Consider intentionally scheduling breaks throughout the day. For one child, this might mean spending an hour reading quietly in the hotel room after lunch. For another, regulation may come through movement and activity, such as swimming in the hotel pool, taking a walk, or spending time at a playground between sightseeing adventures. These breaks are not "wasted vacation time." They are often what makes the rest of the vacation possible. Building regulation time into the day can reduce evening meltdowns, improve flexibility, and help children participate more successfully in the activities that matter most. Sometimes doing less allows your family to experience more. 2. Reduce Uncertainty Through Previewing and Planning Many neurodivergent and 2e children feel more comfortable when they know what is coming next. Before your trip, share photos of where you will be staying, watch videos of attractions, discuss transportation plans, and talk through what a typical day might look like. During the trip, review plans together and provide reminders about what is happening next. Involve your child in planning when possible. Let them help choose activities, research destinations, or discuss meal options. When children have a voice in the process, travel often feels more predictable and manageable. As children become more familiar with the plans, you can gradually help them answer their own questions. "Yup, we talked about what we're doing after lunch. Do you remember?" "First we're walking to the aquarium. Then what did we talk about doing after that?" This helps children build confidence in their own ability to remember, anticipate, and manage uncertainty rather than relying entirely on adults for reassurance. At the same time, normalize that travel can bring anxiety. Many children worry about sleeping in a new place, eating unfamiliar foods, navigating airports, getting lost, missing home, or simply not knowing exactly what will happen next. Rather than dismissing those concerns, acknowledge them. "It makes sense that you're feeling nervous. Traveling can be exciting and a little scary at the same time." When anxiety is treated as normal rather than something to avoid, children often feel less alone in their experience. 3. Listen for Concerns and Make Space for Them Many anxious children ask the same questions repeatedly. Sometimes they are looking for information. Often, they are communicating a concern that has not yet been fully addressed, or they don’t have the words yet to communicate how they are feeling. One of the most powerful things we can do is let our children know that their concerns are welcome. You may not be able to change the vacation plans. However, understanding what is worrying your child may help you make small adjustments that significantly improve their experience. Perhaps they need a break before a crowded activity, recovery time afterward, headphones, a comfort item, or simply the reassurance that someone understands why a particular part of the day feels difficult. When children feel heard, they learn something important. Difficult feelings do not have to be ignored or pushed through. They can be acknowledged, supported, and worked through together. Being heard and supported brings out the best version of a child. Travel will always include the unexpected. But when we build in opportunities for regulation, communication, and connection, we create the space children need to grow. They learn that they can adapt, recover from difficult moments, and navigate new experiences successfully. The most successful family vacation is not necessarily the one where you see the most attractions or check every item off the itinerary. It is the one where your child comes home knowing: "New things can be hard, but I can do hard things. My family understands me. I can ask for help when I need it. And I can enjoy the adventure, too." About This Article This article was adapted from Tips for School Trips: How to Make Trips Accessible to Neurodivergent Students, where REEL educators, families, and community members shared their experiences and ideas for helping 2e and neurodivergent children successfully navigate school trips and new experiences. The insights in this article come directly from parents and educators who have walked this path and discovered practical ways to support children's emotional, mental, and physiological needs while traveling. At REEL, we believe that one of the most powerful resources for families is connection with others who truly understand the journey. Join our REEL community for more ideas, resources, and support from parents and professionals who "get it." You are not alone.

When parents hear the term executive functioning, they often think about homework, missing assignments, forgotten backpacks, or struggles getting out the door in the morning. While school is certainly one place where executive functioning skills are needed, it is not always the best place to learn them. For many neurodivergent and twice-exceptional (2e) children, school carries high stakes. Mistakes can affect grades, parent and teacher relationships, and self-confidence. When children are already feeling stressed, frustrated, or overwhelmed, it can be difficult for them to practice new skills. One of the best places to build executive functioning skills is often outside of school, during low-stakes activities children actually care about. Family day trips create natural opportunities to practice planning, organization, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and problem-solving in ways that feel meaningful and enjoyable. The goal is not perfection. The goal is to help children experience success, make mistakes, adjust, and discover that they are capable of figuring things out. Elementary School: Let Them Help Plan Young children love feeling important and involved. Before a trip to the zoo, beach, museum, or local festival, invite your child to help with simple planning tasks: What should we pack? What do we need to bring if it rains? What snacks should we take? What are the three things you most want to see? These activities build early planning, organization, and working memory skills. The key is to keep the experience collaborative rather than testing them. If they forget sunscreen or water, that becomes an opportunity to problem-solve together rather than a lesson in failure. "Hmm, we forgot water. What could we do now?" Real-life problem-solving is often more powerful than any worksheet. Middle School: Put Them in Charge of a Piece of the Adventure Middle schoolers are often ready for a little more responsibility. Instead of planning the entire day, give them ownership over one part of it. They might: Research lunch options Navigate part of the route Compare ticket prices Create a packing checklist Plan the schedule for the afternoon This is a wonderful opportunity to strengthen task initiation, planning, prioritization, and flexible thinking. Middle schoolers also begin to encounter one of the most important executive functioning lessons: Plans change. The restaurant may be closed. The weather may shift. Traffic may delay arrival. These moments become opportunities to practice cognitive flexibility in a supportive environment. Rather than solving every problem for them, invite them into the process: "That was our original plan. What do you think our options are now?" High School: Practice Life Skills Before They Matter As teenagers move toward adulthood, day trips can become practice runs for the executive functioning demands they will eventually face independently. Consider gradually increasing responsibility by asking your teen to: Plan the itinerary Create a budget Estimate travel times Make reservations Pack for themselves Manage a timeline for the day Many teens enjoy the challenge when the activity aligns with their interests. A trip to a sporting event, concert, favorite city, hiking destination, or specialty store can provide meaningful motivation to engage in planning and organization. The goal is not to create perfect planners. The goal is to create opportunities for teens to experience the connection between preparation, flexibility, and success. Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome In our Executive Function Facilitated Small Group Discussions, we often talk about how executive functioning challenges are not a matter of intelligence or motivation. Task initiation struggles can look like avoidance. Working memory struggles can look like "not listening." Cognitive flexibility struggles can look like rigidity. When we understand the skill underneath the behavior, we can focus on building the skill rather than correcting the behavior. Day trips provide countless opportunities to do exactly that. When a child forgets something, gets stuck, becomes overwhelmed by a change in plans, or struggles to get started, we can view the moment as practice rather than failure. These are the experiences that help children develop confidence in their ability to navigate challenges. Build Confidence Through Success The beauty of day trips is that they are low stakes. If something goes wrong, no one has “failed”. Hopefully, if there are challenges, they are the type we learn from and can laugh about down the road. That safety creates space for children to take risks, try new strategies, and build executive functioning skills without the pressure that often accompanies schoolwork. Over time, children begin to internalize an important message: "I can make a plan." "I can solve problems." "I can adapt when things change." "I can figure things out." And those may be some of the most important executive functioning skills of all.

One Sunday afternoon when my daughter was in elementary school, she was invited over to the house of a middle school student. This older classmate, Sarah, had written a play and had cast several children of various ages in the roles. Everyone was excited. When I came to pick my daughter up, Sarah was filming the play in her front yard. You could see spray paint on the grass which were Sarah’s blocking marks, indicating where each actor should stand. She kept yelling ‘cut’ and directing the children on how to stand, how to deliver their lines, how to have stage presence. You could tell that Sarah was serious about getting this production performed. No one was eager to leave, so I went over and talked to Cindy, Sarah’s mother for a bit. Cindy told me that she was floored that this was her daughter. Sarah hated school, and consistently resisted writing. She did the least amount that was ever required on any assignment. Teachers were frustrated and exasperated; school had not been going well for Sarah. Cindy struggled to reconcile the story of her daughter as a student in school with this one, this version of her daughter who had stayed up all night writing this multi-page script, who had organized various children in different grades, and brought them together on a weekend to put on this play. Sarah was able to write and produce work when reframed in an area of interest. Sarah came alive when writing for the stage, imagining how the actors would move, and visualizing the play. Her motivation soared, her strengths could shine, and her engagement and enthusiasm completely changed. We need more success stories like Sarah’s. How do we get there? In order to successfully identify a child’s strengths and interests, start by opening your mind to the possibilities. As Dr. Susan Baum says, “Magic happens at the intersection of strengths and interests.” Once you understand what makes a child light up, you’ll be able to support, encourage, and nurture it. Summer is a great time for our children to explore and grow in ways that there often just isn’t time or energy for during the school year. In this article, I walk through three ways to help your child identify and nurture their strengths this summer: 1: Observe Intentionally & Be Inquisitive Observe your child as they play this summer. Provide a variety of materials to experiment with and activities to try, and see what they gravitate towards. In some circles this is called the “strewing strategy.” For example, place a book on butterflies in the living room, leave some paint and clay out in the playroom, and set aside some space in the garage for some building materials. Every so often, switch out what’s available. Now sit back and observe what your child gravitates to on their own. What materials do they experiment with? What books catch their interest? What other interests do these materials and choices spark for them? What are they curious about? Your child likely has a support network of other people, all of whom are a great resource to learn more about your child. Or maybe they’re close with a grandparent, aunt, or other family member. Their siblings may have some interesting insights. Camp counselors, extra curricular coaches, and parents of your child’s friends are all other great potential sources of new information. Questions to ask yourself and others: What gets my child excited? What subjects/things seem to come naturally to my child? What does my child seem most interested in? What does my child choose to do during free time? What types of projects/assignments does my child gravitate towards? What are the best three things about my child? Often the best information can be found by directly speaking to the source. Sit down with your child and conduct an interview. Ask them about their interests. Ask them what they feel they are good at. Discuss with them what you are observing, and what they’ve observed about themself. Together you can generate ideas, and come to agreement on areas of strength and current interests. Questions to ask your child: What are some things you are curious about right now? Are there any activities you’ve heard of that you’d like to try out? Are there any activities you’re currently doing at home or in school which you’d like to do more of? What do you like to do when you have free time? If your child is struggling with articulating their preferences and interests, you can use a variety of tools online to help scaffold the process. Some are available for free on the internet, and others are administered by trained professionals. Get started by checking out REEL’s Strength-Based Assessment Tools list in our Resources section. 2: Create Opportunities Now that you have some ideas about what your child might be interested in and where their strengths lie, you can begin to nurture those sparks. Depending on your own availability and your child’s age and independence level, you can find ways to do this either through outside camps, clubs, classes, mentors, and activities, or by working with your child on your own. It is best to be clear what the expectation of commitment is for your child, and when the decision points will be where they can decide if they want to continue or pivot to something else. Before the summer project or class begins, make sure you’ve established: How many classes will they be signing up for? When will you check-in and evaluate how things are going? During that check-in, reflect on what they learned: What did they like about an activity? What would they have preferred to have done differently? This can help you as you look for the next interest to pursue. Eventually you and your child will get better at identifying promising ‘leads’ and should begin to settle in on some areas on which to focus. Here are just a few ideas to get you started: Entrepreneurship activities: help your child identify a simple business idea (Lemonade stand on the corner? Craft stand at a local park?), write up a budget, and try their hand at selling something on their own. There are also classes for kids who are interested in entrepreneurship, including several online options. Creative expression options: enroll your child in an art class, a local theater production, a sculpting studio class, etc. There are nearly endless options! Alternatively, your child may enjoy watching learn-to-draw videos on YouTube or other online, independent tutorials. Deep dive into a topic of interest: if your child is interested in a particular topic, such as outer space, you can support this interest in a variety of ways. Take them to the local library and help them find age-appropriate books. Help them do research on the internet. Look for local classes or enthusiast meetups on the topic. Opportunities to teach or work with a mentor: Look for a mentor who could meet with your child to support their interest. In addition, explore ways your child can become a mentor to younger students, including teaching a class or running a summer camp. Sports: encourage your child to join a sports team or class. Gaming (card games, board games, social games, etc): don’t be afraid of gaming! Within reason, even video game playing can provide lots of interesting fodder for thinking about storytelling, plot, cooperation, and many other skills. Beyond the world of video games, there are lots of other interesting games out there, including meetups for Magic the Gathering and Pokemon, board game parties, Dungeons & Dragons classes (online as well as in person), live action role playing (LARP) clubs, and more. There are plenty of online classes and tutorials available on how to design and develop engaging games. Don’t worry too much if your young child tries something out and decides they don’t like it. While it is true that as they grow older, they will benefit from sticking with activities for a longer time, when they are just starting out it is primarily important to teach your child to not be afraid to try new things. It is part of normal development to change one’s mind, and there’s always something to be learned along the way. REEL has collected a great list of ND and 2e friendly summer camps for children: ND Friendly Summer Day Camps ND Friendly Summer Sleep Away Camps 2e Specific Summer Programs Things to try: Create a family summer goal chart Everyone is a lifelong learner! Model your own learning and growth with a summer chart. At the start of summer, everyone in our family - parents included - identifies at least one goal that they have for the summer. For example, a few years ago our family summer chart looked like this: my goals were to write daily and read more non-fiction, my daughter chose to learn to ride a bike and swim at least once a week, and my older son had a goal of teaching himself calculus. Create a daily tracker on a poster board (one box for each day, for the full 10 or so weeks of summer) and hang it somewhere everyone in your house sees it regularly, like the kitchen. As the summer progresses, mark daily when each person has made progress towards their goal, gather and check in on progress periodically, and celebrate milestones as you all learn to learn together. Remember, experiences should be joyous. Let your child, especially at the novice level, take the lead on finding and growing their curiosities and interests. And model lifelong learning! Above all - make sure there is time every day for your child to do something that they love. 3: Foster Self-Esteem Fostering self-esteem is a year-round project. Summer is a great time to engage deeply with your child, helping them to better understand themselves and their gifts. Make sure your child knows, and believe it in your bones: people who are different are AWESOME. Neurodivergent individuals have incredible gifts, thanks to their unique brain wiring. For instance, many dyslexics credit their dyslexia for their enhanced visual-spatial abilities, including Dr. Beryl Benacerraf, who attributes her success as a radiologist to her dyslexia, writing, “I live in a world of patterns and images and I see things that no one else sees.” Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes, writes that “some autistic people can detect patterns that others miss.” Dr. Ned Hallowell, an expert on ADHD, describes ADHD individuals as having “ferrari brains.” Neurodivergent individuals are very often extremely creative and charismatic leaders and as such make fabulous and successful entrepreneurs. Things to try: Watch movies and read books with neurodivergent characters One great way to share this with your child over the summer is to read books or watch TV shows which feature neurodivergent characters in a positive light. Discuss the stories with your child. What makes these individuals unique? What makes them great? In what ways do they struggle, and how did they deal with these challenges? For example: A few summers ago my daughter and I watched Geek Girl together. After every episode we would discuss the main character’s friendships and relationships. This helped her as she was navigating the social complexities of early middle school. For another great example, click here. REEL maintains a great list of books with ND characters here. Some Parting Thoughts As you try all of these things out for yourself, you’ll inevitably have questions. Something won’t go quite as planned and you’ll want nuanced ideas or resources, or just some reassurance that you’re on the right path. Having a group you can turn to in those moments can make all the difference. If you’re not already part of REEL’s online parent support community, I encourage you to join. It’s a great way to ask questions, get support, and be among others on similar paths as your own. Lastly - this summer, remember to take time for yourself and do something that brings YOU joy every day. All of us deserve the wonderful feeling of being able to spend time doing something we love, accomplishing something we’re good at, each and every day.