ARCC: Awareness, Resilience, Clarity & Compassion
Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Compassion-based tools and practical strategies for parents and professionals navigating neurodivergence. Learn to regulate, advocate, and create systems—at home and at work—that foster belonging, confidence, and authentic thriving.
When Food Becomes Another Battle
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Summer 2026 | Issue 33 Short on time? Read the full piece on the blog here, or settle in and read it below. When Food Becomes Another Battle Eating disorders in kids with autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, and why the picture looks different for each Renata found out almost by accident. She was packing her daughter's lunch and noticed, not for the first time but for the first time she really let herself notice, that the same five foods...
Not defiance: his nervous system.
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Summer 2026 | Issue 32 Every family has a story about the moment things shifted. For Sofia, it was watching her youngest son Pedro fall apart at a family gathering, for what felt like the hundredth time, while her husband and her older son looked on with frustration she recognized, shared, and hated herself for sharing. Pedro was eight. At home he was gentle, curious, easy to be with. In a crowd, especially when his four-year-old...
The Mask That Worked Too Well
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Summer 2026 | Issue 31 Why teaching our kids to fit in can quietly teach them to disappear This issue continues in full on the blog. [Read it here →] Kara always thought she was the socially adept one in the family. Her mother was shy, painfully so, in a way that confused Kara as a kid. So without ever deciding to, Kara built herself a different way of being: confident, polite, easy to talk to, able to connect with nearly anyone....
The Child Who Feels Everything: Highly Sensitive Kids, Neurodivergence, and the Nervous System
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Spring 2026 | Issue 30 The Child Who Feels Everything: Highly Sensitive Kids, Neurodivergence,and the Nervous System For parents of children and teens who experience the world more intensely than most Claire, a parent I work with, tells the story of her daughter Mara from the very beginning. Mara was a few weeks old, with an ordinary newborn diaper rash. But when Claire went to clean her, Mara made a sound neither Claire nor her...
From the Couch to a Career: Employment Pathways for Neurodivergent Young Adults
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Summer 2026 | Issue 29 From the Couch to a Career: Employment Pathways for Neurodivergent Young Adults in New Mexico What Belle's story opened. What Alix Dean's work makes possible. In a recent issue, we introduced you to Belle. Whip-smart, ADHD, highly sensitive to her sensory environment, and without a diploma after years of school that simply did not fit how her mind worked. She tried a job. Then another. Both ended within days,...
Before the Summer Slips Away: Helping Neurodivergent Teens Find Structure, Purpose, and Maybe Even a Job
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Spring 2026 | Issue 28 Before the Summer Slips Away: Helping Neurodivergent Teens Find Structure, Purpose, and Maybe Even a Job A practical and gentle guide for parents who can see what their teen cannot yet see Josh is seventeen, has ADHD, and right now he cannot think past graduation. Finals are ahead of him like a wall. The family trip after graduation is the light on the other side of that wall. Everything else, including his...
Edited Version. When School Doesn’t Work: Pathways to a Diploma and Employment
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Spring 2026 | Issue 27 PRO 21st Annual Conference: Follow-Up Report When School Doesn’t Work: Pathways to a Diploma and Employment For Neurodivergent Students and Young Adults Belle is whip-smart. Anyone who spends five minutes with her knows it. But school was a different story. The fluorescent lights, the noise, the rigid schedules, the expectation that she perform on demand in an environment that felt physically overwhelming. It...
When School Doesn’t Work: Pathways to a Diploma and Employment
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Spring 2026 | Issue 27 PRO 21st Annual Conference: Follow-Up Report When School Doesn’t Work: Pathways to a Diploma and Employment For Neurodivergent Students and Young Adults Belle is whip-smart. Anyone who spends five minutes with her knows it. But school was a different story. The fluorescent lights, the noise, the rigid schedules, the expectation that she perform on demand in an environment that felt physically overwhelming. It...
Why neurodivergent kids are the bigger target — straight from the AG
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Spring 2026 | Issue 26 Online Safety · Sextortion · Cyberbullying The Night Sally Snuck Out the Window What one girl's story tells us about neurodivergent kids, online vulnerability, and the question every parent deserves to ask. Sally was in high school when it happened. She had been identified as autistic later than most. She was the kind of kid who compensated well enough in elementary school that no one thought to look deeper...
The Butterfly-Card Version of Mother's Day Isn't Yours. This Is.
The Understory Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Spring 2026 | Issue 25 For the Mothers Who Never Stop There is a version of Mother’s Day that gets a lot of airtime: brunch, flowers, a card with a butterfly on it. Children who sleep late and make breakfast and say thank you without being asked. And then there is your version. Your version may include a child who woke at 5am and couldn’t say why they were upset, only that everything was wrong. A morning that required more...
Transforming What We Face Into How We Flourish Compassion-based tools and practical strategies for parents and professionals navigating neurodivergence. Learn to regulate, advocate, and create systems—at home and at work—that foster belonging, confidence, and authentic thriving.