You Don’t Want a Hug, Right? The Hilarity and the Hard of Raising Humans with Neurodiversity Gwen & Kristen

One year!! Can you believe we made it this far, friends? Because we sure can’t. You Don’t Want a Hug has officially been published for a year, and it has been a wild ride.In today’s episode, we’re sharing joy, frustration, hope, and gratitude as we look back on this last year of podcasting. We’ll be discussing the many lessons we’ve learned, reading notes sent to us by you lovely listeners, offering advice here and there, and we’re going to be pretty raw and honest about the future of the pod...

And we’re not going to sugar coat it friends: navigating puberty with neurodivergent kids is rough. And it’s not just because we have to explain to our kids the importance of showering and explaining the function of certain parts of their anatomy in great and uncomfortable detail.Puberty also brings with it some intense emotional and personality changes. The little kids that we knew so well are maturing into adults that we often don’t understand quite as well anymore, and that transition can ...

Burnout. It’s a word that comes up often in society and is often synonymous with being tired and needing a vacation. But when it comes to neurodivergent folks, autistic burnout can look radically different and have long-lasting effects.In today’s episode, Becca Lory Hector shares her experience of being diagnosed with autism as an adult after an extensive bout of autistic burnout. She explains why her burnout occurred, what support she wished she had received, and what might have kept her fro...

Isolation and loneliness are realities for parenting raising humans with neurodiversity. We’ve experienced both and know how difficult it can be through the many ages and stages of our kids’ lives.In today’s episode, we talk all about isolation and loneliness and their impact on neurodiverse families. We go into the data behind it, share stories related to feelings of isolation in many different areas of our lives, and offer strategies for how we’ve coped over the years.In this episode, you’l...

Therapy plays an important role in our neurodiverse children’s lives… But let’s be real: the act of constantly driving all over to drag our kids into dingy, uncomfortable waiting rooms multiple times a week is not fun. In this episode, Gwen and Kristen dive into this phenomenon: why parents of neurodiverse kids end up in this situation, how to make the process and experience a little more tolerable, and when it might be time to pull the plug on certain therapies (and escape the excruciat...

Sports can be critically important to a child’s development and even their family’s place in the community. That’s why our kids, regardless of ability, deserve more than a church basement to hone those social connections and their skills as athletes!In today’s episode, we’re interviewing Jen VanSkiver, Chief Officer of Strategic Growth for Special Olympics of Michigan and her daughter’s biggest advocate. You’ll learn how Jen has helped to facilitate the creation of a first-of-its-kind Unified...