Neurodiversity-Affirming Caregiver Learning is about understanding your neurodivergent child’s sensory experience, communication and executive functioning needs.
Secure attachment relationships in childhood hard-wire children's brains for how they will engage in future important relationships. Attachment parenting involves establishing a relational foundation that is consistent, co-regulated, and deeply loving; that changes dynamically as the child and parent grow; and that forms a relationship template that includes connectedness, curiosity and compassion, for themselves and others. This is why secure attachment is so important, for children’s mental health.
Children see themselves through the eyes of their important adults:
parents, carers, teachers, group leaders.
If a child is regularly regarded as challenging or oppositional, they will begin to see themselves thus and will have difficulty outgrowing their negative self-image. It is also true that frequent or intense parent-child conflict squeezes the joy and fun out of family life, impacting everyone.
Relational difficulties are common in families with one or more neurodivergent individuals, and one or more neurotypicals. This isn’t surprising, when you understand the significant differences in how these different brains experience the world, connect with others, and get their (very similar) relational needs met!
Seeking help with parenting your neurodivergent kid is a brave step, because genuine relational repair usually requires change in both adults and kids; neurodiversity-affirming parenting is never about ONLY the child. Everybody learns, everybody grows, and everybody benefits as a result!
Trained and resourced parents are equipped to raise competent, clear-thinking neurodivergent kids who lean into life with confidence and kindness.
Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Learning is about understanding your neurodivergent child’s sensory experience, communication and executive functioning needs. It is about deepening your child’s attachment relationship with you, by understanding their needs and parenting with an open heart and mind. It is about interacting with your child in ways that support their mental health and emerging resilience. It is about learning to advocate for your child in the family, at school and elsewhere. And it is all about joy, and understanding, and compassion, and love!
Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Learning opportunities are provided individually, to couples or in small group formats.
Caregiver Learning & Support Services
Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Learning
Neurodivergent kids need secure attachment relationships with their primary carers; their mental health and optimal social/emotional development depends upon it. Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Learning helps parents of autistic/neurodivergent kids adapt well-established Adlerian parenting techniques to make them accessible, affirming and effective, within their own family.
Past participants confirm that Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Training improves their understanding of their child’s needs, communication and behaviour, without the use of behavioural modification techniques. This six-session training supports secure attachment, promotes developmental gains in autistic/neurodivergent kids, and allows neurotypical and neurodivergent parents to reclaim the delights of parenting their kids as the unique individuals they truly are!
Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Learning
- Available in-person or virtually.
- 6 sessions, each at 2 hours long (total 12 program hours).
- Parents, grandparents, foster-parents and parent groups (E.g. ASD Parent Support groups) are welcome to contact Ruth for more information about booking a program for your group!
Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Support & Consultation
Parenting neurodivergent kids can be challenging. Sometimes it is tough to decide whether to put on your cheerleader hat, your advocate hat, your open-and-curious hat, or to start (once again) designing a brand-new-never-seen-before, kind of hat! At complicated or stressful times, it is helpful to unpack the load with a neurodiversity-affirming clinician and work together to understand what is happening with you, your child, your family, or the school - and to work together to get things back on track, for you and your child.
Ruth provides Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Therapy, to parents of all neurotypes! We all want to raise mentally healthy kids; kids who are resilient when life gets hard - and joyful, confident and creative in their own unique ways, all through their growing-up years. Parenting roles change as quickly as kids grow and change, and our job is to keep pace with their ever-changing needs, as best we can! Ruth enjoys supporting parents of neurodivergent kids to understand their own and their child’s daily experiences, to prioritize self-regulation and self-care, to navigate parent-child conflict with clarity and compassion, and to change hats calmly and smoothly, when needed!
Emergency Neurodiversity-Affirming Parent Consultation
On a short-term, emergency basis, Ruth provides 2-session consultations for adults who are parenting neurodivergent kids. You set the agenda based on your specific situation, and we lean in together to address your immediate needs or concerns. Those who are parenting are welcome to reach out for information or to request an urgent, 2-session consultation.
Every effort is made to provide this service within 14 days of your initial request.
- Includes: Two 1-hour appointments for 2 adults (virtual or in-person);
- individualized guidance around your specific situation;
- follow-up notes via e-mail after second session;
- signed copy of Ruth’s book: Neurodiversity-Affirming Psychotherapy: Clinical Pathways to Autistic Mental Health.
"Neurodiversity is not just a matter of social justice, it is a matter of human rights. "
– Judy Singer