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

Is your whole morning held together by you, repeating yourself until the words stop sounding like words? Mama, you don't have to be everyone's personal prompt. In this episode, ADHD coach Sharon Collon shares how she went from crying in the car after school drop-off to letting the environment carry the load, plus the five-minute family meeting her kids actually turn up for.

Sharon Collon is a credentialed ADHD coach, parent expert and the founder of The Functional Family, and she's supported over 40,000 families. She's also living it every single day. Five humans under one roof, all with ADHD, alongside autism, OCD, ODD and Tourette's, in a house that, in her words, runs at a very special kind of intensity.

In this conversation, Sharon gets honest about what her mornings used to look like and the shift that changed them: moving from being the glue holding everyone together to building a home where the setup does more of the work. We talk about why behaviour is the slowest and hardest place to start, the small environment tweaks that make a big difference, and how to bring back the family meeting in a way that works for ADHD brains.

In this episode, you'll hear:

What a Tuesday morning looked like in Sharon's house before, and why it so often ended in tears in the car

Why verbal prompting stresses so many of our kids (and us), and what can carry that load instead

How to spot your family's friction points, including the ones your body braces for before anything has even happened

Why Sharon starts with the environment, not behaviour, and how those small shifts often lead to the behaviour changes

Simple setup tweaks that work: grouping things together, medication by the kettle, and why the shoes now live in the car

The tiny night-before habit that changed our own school mornings

The ADHD-friendly family meeting: a gratitude opener, a quick look at the week ahead, meal and shopping input from the kids, all done over build-your-own tacos in about five minutes

Why "side door" conversations feel so much safer for many kids than sitting face to face

What Sharon wants the mama in survival mode to know about grace, protecting your tank, and borrowing someone else's belief in you

The three strengths that show up again and again when Sharon strength tests her ADHD clients (and the one that's a little trickier to parent)

If you're running on empty, you don't need to try harder. You're already trying hard enough. Pick one friction point, make one small change to the setup, and see what shifts. You're not failing, mama, you're carrying a lot, and I'm cheering you on.

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Ever left a school meeting replaying everything you said, or everything you didn’t? Worried you’ll be “that mama” if you speak up, but scared your child will slip through the cracks if you don’t? You’re not alone, and this conversation is the gentle middle ground you’ve been looking for.

I’m joined by Dr Emily W. King, a school psychologist, author of The Neurodivergent Learner, and mama of two neurodivergent kids. Emily has sat on every side of the IEP (or EHCP) table, as the professional and as the parent, and she brings both perspectives with so much warmth and honesty.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Why a simple email before term starts can set up the whole year, and the “if you see this, please text me” detail Emily loves to include

How to compare what’s happening at home and at school without getting defensive, by getting curious about where a skill is working and why

Why body, sensory safety and sleep come first when you’re seeing resistance a few weeks into term

What it means when your child is “leaving it all on the field” at school, and how dialling back demands at home can help them recover

Why sharing more with educators, not less, opens doors for your child

If school feels heavy right now, let this be your reminder that you don’t have to choose between staying quiet and being “too much”. There’s a collaborative way through, and you’re already doing the hardest part by showing up for your child.

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It was the wrong spoon. That was it. That was the whole thing.

A normal morning. Music on, lunches being made, everyone getting ready. And then, out of nowhere, a child face down on the floor screaming, because he had the wrong spoon.

In this solo episode I'm sharing something I have been speaking on around the UK: the three-step reset. But first I take you into my kitchen, because I want you to know that we got to school with him still crying and me in tears, and that the thought going round my head was, what is wrong with me? Why can't we do this like every other family walking to school perfectly fine?

If you have had that morning, or that bedtime, or that supermarket, or that car park, this one is for you.

Here is what I want you to hear. The meltdown is not the problem. You are not the problem. Your child is not the problem. What is happening in your body and in their body, in that moment, is the thing nobody actually taught us about.

We have been told to be more consistent. Hold firmer boundaries. Stay calm no matter what. The unspoken lie underneath all of it is that you should be able to hold it together while your child falls apart, and that if you could just regulate hard enough you could override your own nervous system by sheer willpower.

That is not how bodies work. You cannot think your way to calm. You have to body your way there first.

So I walk you through the three steps. Pause, which is your body. Name, which is your mind. Respond, which is your action. In that order, every time.

It isn't a hack. It's a map. And you don't need 12 strategies, you just need one that works when everything is falling apart.

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Her sister was diagnosed with ADHD in middle school. So was her dad. And JoAnn spent years insisting it definitely wasn't her.

Her sister presented the way we all expect ADHD to look. Couldn't sit still, all over the place, pushing back against authority. JoAnn didn't look like that at all, so she assumed she was in the clear, and quietly carried a lot of shame instead. The klutziness. Running into walls. Going into class determined that today would be the day she paid attention, and catching herself 10 minutes later having heard none of it.

It took her husband, who is autistic and was diagnosed only about 18 months ago, pointing out the things that made her different from the norm before it all clicked into place.

I loved how she describes their marriage. They are jazz. He's the bass and the drum keeping everything on time. She's the saxophone doing riffs all around it to keep it interesting.

Then we get into what she actually does, which is helping mamas put down the guilt. And she says something I hadn't heard before: guilt isn't the villain. Used correctly, it is a pro-social emotion. It is the thing that nudges you to reply to the message you ignored, to repair the relationship, to reach back out. Guilt only turns dangerous when it stops describing what you did and starts describing who you are.

She walks through the guilt equation, which is expectations minus reality, and the gap versus gain shift, which is one of those tiny changes that quietly rearranges your whole day.

And then there is a coffee shop story involving the wrong woman, a free coffee and a genuinely spectacular misunderstanding, which she tells to make a point about what to do with the moments you would normally replay for weeks.

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She teaches families how to sleep for a living. And then her own bedtimes fell apart.

Michelle is a paediatric sleep specialist, so she knew every rule in the book. Bath, teeth, pyjamas, story, bed. It had worked. And then, seemingly overnight, it stopped. Bedtime battles climbing, teeth brushing refused, baths refused. She sat in it feeling baffled, convinced she must be doing something wrong, and quietly not telling anyone because how do you admit you are struggling with bedtime when bedtime is your job?

What shifted it wasn't a new technique. It was letting go of the shoulds and starting to ask a different question: what is my child's nervous system carrying right now, and how many demands am I stacking on top of it in the last 30 minutes of the day?

So she spread it out. Teeth after dinner. The nightly bath quietly retired, because honestly, how dirty are they? Instead of a routine her children had to get through, an evening they could float through.

We also get properly into the 4am wake-ups, because so many of us are living there. Michelle explains what is actually going on in the body at that hour, and it turns out to be several things at once rather than one thing you are failing to fix.

And her one small thing to try tonight is not what you would expect from a sleep specialist. It isn't dimmer lights or a calmer voice. It's jumping, tug of war with a dressing gown cord and pushing into the bathroom scales, because pressure through the body boosts melatonin naturally and laughing together does more for a nervous system than a quiet room ever will.

If bedtime in your house has stopped feeling like relief and started feeling like recovery, this one is for you.

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Grab the 5 ways to help your autistic and ADHD child switch off their busy brain at bedtime guide

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