Hello, I'm Michelle Younghusband.

I've always loved to work with neurodivergent children. After having my own neurodivergent children I realised that typical parenting advice didn't work for my children. After completing my Social Work Masters (when my twins were toddlers) I amased all the knowledge I could on parenting neurodivergent children. Our children need radically different parenting and teaching approaches.

My work with children and parents changed to focus on current neuroscience of behavior, & development. As I have become more accepting of my neurodivergence; I have deepened into a focus on strengths, compassion, radical acceptance, and connection over task/goal completion.

The familes I work with move from a place of stress and worry about their child's future...to a deeper understanding of their child's unique wiring, closer relationships, reduced conflict, and a belief that their child will THRIVE.

My Story

From loving to play with other neurodivergent kids & have them feeling seen &understood-I had a knack for connection with neurodivergent kids. I thought I needed to study intensively to find a way to work best with neurodivergent kids-from a psychology degree to a Master of Social Work. It turns out, I just needed to find the research & theories to back-up what I intuitively did-playfully connect with others in my neurodivergent tribe and support them to thrive. Now I'm sharing these keys to thriving with parents, teens, & kids,

to understand neurodivergence,

lean into their strengths,

& connect with each other & thrive as a family.

The Latest from the Blog

Neurodivergent Parenting-why typical parenting advice is unhelpful

I tried all the typical parenting advice when my kids were little. It didn't work-often making things worse. I thought I was the problem because no matter how many books I read or degrees I had, the advice I was following was backfiring.

How did I solve this problem?

Digging to the root of the problem by asking, "Why?" & "Why Now?"

Your neurodivergent child is struggling, their behaviour has changed, & the whole family is affected. Enacting punishments, or imposing solutions typically will not solve the underlying challenges. It can often result in resentment, resistance, or passivity. It often increases a child's stress levels rather than decrease them.

Two questions that can get to the root of the problem and build autonomy, advocacy, and deepen your relationship with your child are, "Why" and "Why now?"

Dealing With Big Emotions-Ours & our child's.

Dealing with big emotions can be challenging, our own emotion's and our's child/ren's. Is is easy to trigger each other and build the emotional intensity of the moment. Sometimes this is fun...sometimes it's all fun and games until someone loses a...let's just say self-awareness and perspective.

This can be especially intense when we mix in divergent challenges such as, the overexcitabilities of giftedness, executive function challenges of ADHD, sensory challenges of autism, or the frustration resulting from not being able to speak or learning challenges.

Emotions can get BIG. So what do we do?

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