Tash, A.K.A. Supernova Momma, is “a Certified Positive Discipline Educator (CPDE), veteran, military spouse, and stay at home mother to two autistic Black girls. She specializes in best practices for traditional child-rearing, motherhood balance, positive parenting, and autism acceptance. She says, “In the beginning of my motherhood journey, I struggled not to lose myself. When I looked for similar parents, or parents to be, around me, I couldn’t find a community. So I decided to share our experiences, our parenting, and our lives. That way, in the future, another new parent like me can have that one resource for realistic, relatable motherhood.”
Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA): I am thrilled to be talking with you because—as you know—autism coverage is so skewed towards certain perspectives that it leaves out perspectives of autistic parents, it leaves out the perspectives of parents who accept their kids as being autistic, it leaves out the perspectives of autistics of color—and here you are, all of those things.
Supernova Momma (Tash): It’s like a gift and a curse because I end up being all those things, all those left out things. Too many intersections.
TPGA: It’s crucial to make those perspectives part of the conversation, because they’re the reality of so many people. It’s frustrating to see the same stereotypical stories [about white autistic boys] played out again and again, mostly because that means the people left out aren’t seeing themselves, and so they’re not getting the identification that they need, or the support and the self-recognition and awareness that they need.
I just want to say thank you for the work that you’re doing. I really, truly appreciate it.
Supernova Momma: It’s important to me that I am transparent and share as much as we feel comfortable with because of exactly what you said, so that people who haven’t seen themselves can see themselves and that’s just being who I am at home sometimes.
TPGA: Okay, cool. Thank you very much. You identify as autistic?
Supernova Momma: I do, I identify as autistic.
TPGA: Do you have a formal diagnosis? (Not that I care or most of our readers care.)
Supernova Momma: Yes, I have had a formal diagnosis and both my daughters have.
TPGA: How was that process for you? Did your diagnosis come before or after your daughters were diagnosed?
Supernova Momma: My diagnosis came after my daughters’ diagnosis. My self-diagnosis—because I did self-diagnose first—came after my daughters were diagnosed. I did go through a period in school, in kindergarten, where they thought that I needed to be evaluated, but then they evaluated me and decided I was gifted. I went through my whole life course. Then when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, in Germany, they strongly encourage you to do a genetic test, if one of you has a sickle cell trait—and my husband has a sickle cell trait—so we did a genetic test.
When it came back, they terrified us because it was the highest risk they’d ever seen for a genetic disorder. I was immediately put on bed rest and constantly having to be evaluated and all this other stuff. Then eventually, because they were only looking for a chromosomal type issues, they said, “Oh, well, you’re going to be fine.” They allowed me to deliver her how I wanted to deliver her, which is squatting her out and everything, but I had already said I wanted to stay home.
Because my daughter’s Black, and we’re Black, I had a very strong foundation of saying, I didn’t want to send my children to a daycare or a preschool or anything before they were speaking, so that they could tell me if something was going wrong, if someone was harming them or not treating them like the other students— because of things I have seen in my life being raised in Georgia as a Black woman.
I stayed home with my children at first, working from home, but I still am very involved and so I was doing Montessori at home with my daughter, and letting it be child-led.
And when I would go to the doctor and we would look at milestones, [my daughter] Paris wasn’t meeting some of those milestones, and then just other things that you notice, like she doesn’t look when you call her name, she’s not waving goodbye and hello, she’s not shaking her head or nodding her head, those type of things—but she was engaging with me. I really get confused because she would laugh, she would engage with me in those type of things and as we know, autism signs, a lot of times, they’re very skewed towards the very specific type of autism and they don’t look at that whole spectrum that we all know.
I would question myself and then at the time, in Kansas, my husband was still in the military and so we had military doctors, pediatricians, and they would question me, and I wasn’t sure. Eventually, my husband decided he wanted to get out of the military because he didn’t feel like he was spending enough time with my oldest daughter, and I was pregnant with our youngest daughter and so we decided to come here to Georgia.
When we got here, and we found a new pediatrician, as soon as I got there, and I spoke to my concerns, they said, “Oh, let’s do a developmental screening right now,” and we did it together. He was like, “Oh, yes, she’s definitely showing high in all of those things. I’ve seen them so we’re going to get you a referral to the early intervention program, we’re going to get you a referral to an autism center.” Just immediately.
I was like, “Oh, wow, this is what being listened to feels like. This is what being supported feels like.”
When we moved to Georgia, we’d already decided we were going to move to Atlanta, Georgia, because anyone’s unfamiliar with Atlanta, Georgia. It’s different than the rest of Georgia.
I was born and raised in northwest Georgia. We wanted to be close to family, but we wanted to have access to things we would need for our children and then also, we wanted our children to be a little more safe than I was growing up. So we chose Atlanta. With Paris being in diverse programs, and getting the education that I need, and starting to research that I started because I’m obsessive researcher, because I get fixated and I’m autistic and a geek. [laughter]
TPGA: In the best way.
Supernova Momma: Yes. With all of that happening, I saw small signs of me, but it was like, “Oh, I’m also her mother.” Because Paris’s autism manifests in a lot of ways very similar to that coded White male autism. She’s a sensory seeker, she jumps and moves everywhere, she can’t sit still, she does not like to talk, she definitely has alexithymia, she definitely still has hyperlexia. She’s super intelligent, but she doesn’t want to speak to people. It’s very much that coded way that we all know autism.
TPGA: The little professor?
Supernova Momma: Yes. Even with the nonverbal, it’s not… I hate that term, I wish there was something for in the middle because she’s not nonverbal, she’s not even non-speaking, she speaks but there’s maybe one or two words or scripts and she—you can’t have a back and forth conversation with her. That’s where we were at the time and I was like, “Oh, that’s not really me. She summoned me but that’s not really me.” I didn’t jump out as much. Then Riley came.
When my youngest daughter Riley came, the way her autism manifests was like a big fat mirror. Some examples is, she had trouble walking. She didn’t have trouble walking because she couldn’t walk, she had trouble walking because of anxiety. When the floor changed from carpet to hardwood or grass, complete fear. Surfaces change, it takes forever to further cross. Any fast movements led to complete shock and being scared.
Most babies love to be swaddled, that’s comfort, yet, Riley: “No. Don’t do it.” It was just so many signs. And then as she got older and she started speaking, she was highly engaging. When we did the M-CHAT for Riley, because there was certain things, I was like, “Well, she does look in my eyes.” Then when the pediatrician did the M-CHAT he was like, “No, she looks at your face.” She finds a spot on your face and she looks at that and she’ll look away after she gives you what she knows everyone expects, which is some type of attention.
TPGA: Wow.
Supernova Momma: It was just all those things. Then when she got even older, she started naturally scripting and naturally masking. All toddlers, all small children mimic. There’s a difference between masking and mimicking. All smart children mimic. Riley masked. She becomes you. Your tone, your exact words and how you say them. Your mannerism, she becomes you, because she sees that everybody else thinks that’s acceptable. It’s something that no one told her to do. She just naturally does it. I was looking the whole time this was happening. I was like, “That is me. That’s everything that everyone told me about when I was a kid.”
Then even her first words they were scrambled up words all thrown together, but it was sentences instead of words and that was me. That’s a big joke in my family about how I would say sentences before I would say words. I ran before I walked, because I was scared and uncoordinated. I saw all those things in Riley and I was like, “I need to be tested.” [laughter]
It took forever. A diagnosis process is so hard for an adult. Initially, what I did was try to call my insurance and get them to give me a list of providers that diagnosed adults. That list that they gave me, I called each place. Some places did not diagnose adults at all, others didn’t take the insurance, just so many things. No one from the list my insurance company provided did diagnosis for adults. Then, from there I was like, “Okay.” Then I started reaching out to my girls’ autism centers. I was like, “Okay. You would have to have a list of psychologists.” They did. They were all psychologists who diagnosed children. They did not have any list of people who diagnosed adults.
Eventually, I started going to the universities in Atlanta. Luckily enough, I was able to reach out to Emory University. Emory does diagnose adults and they have different options. One of the options is, if they diagnose you for free, you have to be a part of their answering a whole bunch of surveys and questions and testing, but it’s so long. It’s like a two-year wait list. And then you can pay and they’ll diagnose you. Even that I think was like maybe a one-year wait list, [chuckles] but then they also have a list of providers in Georgia who diagnose adults, and it’s a legit list at that, but it literally had five people in my area.
There were a few in Northwest Georgia, there were few in South Georgia, but there were five here in over middle Georgia around my area. I had to pray that one of these five took my insurance and luckily one took my insurance.
TPGA: [chuckles]
Supernova Momma: [chuckles] That was how the process got started. Then even that was a six-month wait. Finding the place, that whole thing, took three to four months. Then I find the place and I find out that it’s still a six-month process to get my first initial assessment. and all that stuff going, and in the process in itself is three to six months of getting diagnosed, because it’s like 30 hours of assessments and surveys. That was how I got diagnosed. [laughs]
TPGA: That is a process. [chuckles] I’m glad you finally found somebody. I live near Silicon Valley, and you would think that with UCSF and with Stanford and all these places that we would have unlimited options and… no. It’s still hard to find people who will do adult diagnoses in this area. We probably have one of the highest concentration of undiagnosed autistic adults in the country, just being in Silicon Valley. I’m so glad you finally got the answers that you needed and I hope it’s been useful.
Supernova Momma: It has, and it hasn’t. I guess the best way to explain it is, I’m still in Atlanta, Georgia. There’s still not a lot of resources for support for adult autistic people. There isn’t an occupational therapist that specifically works with autistic people and adults. There isn’t those type of things, but having the answers of, “Yes, you’re autistic,” and having two daughters who have very different ways that their autism manifest, I get to see two different ends of the spectrum and I get to see what supports that they need, allows me to just use it on myself to be quite honest, you don’t stop being— [chuckles] You don’t stop being autistic just because you’re an adult. I can still use those things to be quite honest, if I know; I’m a sensory seeker, I’m a combo when it comes to sensory. I have a daughter who’s a sensory seeker and a daughter who’s a sensory avoider. I use stuff from both of their therapies to help me.
TPGA: That’s amazing. You talked about Riley automatically masking. The topic of masking can be a complicated one for people of color, because there is such a dynamic in which some autistic people are saying, “You need to not mask. You need to be yourself and you need to be autistic and you need to be out”—but behaving in a way that’s perceived as atypical has an extra layer of risk for people of color. I’m wondering how you think about that and grapple with that in your own life, and with your daughters?
Supernova Momma: With the parents that I teach, I have to be realistic about the community that I am nurturing in, and the community for my children and for the parents that I help, as a Black autistic woman. Three. Black. Autistic. Women. I can’t just be me anywhere I want to be. That is a setup to be incarcerated. That is a setup to be set up in so many different ways, to be harmed.
What I can do is build communities where I can be me. What I teach my parents [in my groups] is, there’s going to absolutely be some masking. I’m not telling you to teach your kids how to mask, but I’m telling you to be aware that your child will have to mask whether that be at school, whether that be at work, especially here in Georgia, whether that been public transportation or those different places, there are going to be situations where they have to.
As their parent, as their mother, I create spaces where my children don’t have to do that, and I make sure that they have those spaces regularly. Our home is a safe space and we are us, we do us. When I create groups, I want to make sure that they have playmates who are also neurodivergent. I honestly work my hardest to make sure that they go to a school that allows them to be them and be supported, but that can be difficult when you’re a budgeting parent and you’re having to deal with public school education.
The idea is to create as many spaces as possible where they can be them, but to be very honest and I guess realistic about the world that you live in and be aware that a child may have to mask to survive because they are Black and autistic.
TPGA: Do you feel like you have spaces where you get to be yourself outside of your home, or have you created your own community?
Supernova Momma: Oh, that has been a little more difficult just because of the pandemic. That was something that I really wanted to do, something that I have on my goals list. I want to create an autistic moms group, not an autism moms group. I want to create an autistic moms group, that meets up and supports one another regularly, maybe like once a week and they’re able to be themselves and do them.
In my home, me and my husband—because he’s diagnosed with ADHD—we have slowly started taking off our masks and realizing things that we do for comfort that we were hiding, but just naturally do. [laughs]
TPGA: That’s such great role modeling because, just being able to find spaces where you can relax as neurodivergent people is hard. Then having found each other; I’m so glad you have each other. That’s a relief to hear. That’s something I wish for more people, especially if they have relationships where there’s a neurodivergent and non-neurodivergent person, and that can be very hard.
Supernova Momma: Now, I will say me and my husband were laughing about this. We were talking as we’re starting to learn and especially learning ourselves. My husband was like, “I think every partner I’ve ever had was neurodivergent.” Of course if they’re not diagnosed, we struggle with whether to reach out to them and be like, “Hey, I think you should get tested,” but it was like they were able to deal with me and I was able to deal with them and some of the things you know that they did, and their personalities and stuff, I think we just find our person in those things. We were looking back and I was like, “Yes, I think every last one of those people were neurodivergent,” sometimes, maybe not autism, but ADHD or hyperlexia.
TPGA: Well it’s interesting. You talked about your older daughter, Paris, having more of the “little professor” kind of thing going on. A lot of times when those kids grow up, we see that people who fit more of that profile, they often pair up with non-neurodivergent partners because they take over the things that they’re not able to do, they seek a person who is their complement. I don’t know if you’ve seen that too.
Supernova Momma: Yes. I know exactly what you mean.
TPGA: I always find that really interesting. And then later into the life span, if the non-neurodivergent partner dies before the neurodivergent person does, then a lot of times the survivor is just at a loss because they have none of those skills that the other person in their life had. I get that that’s also part of partnership, a really long-lasting partnership, but it happens a lot.
I wanted to ask you about your approach to parenting and parenting coaching. One of the things that I really liked that I saw that you’d written about is being positive, but not perfect. I was wondering if you could talk about that some more, that approach.
Supernova Momma: I actually think because of my neurodivergence, because of my autism, I was able to pull this from what is already there but nobody else was seeing it for some reason. All of these gentle parenting, positive parenting, conscious parenting philosophies tell us that children are imperfect and they make mistakes, and so we should look at mistakes as learning opportunities. For some reason, everyone just seemed to only focus on that applying to children, like parents aren’t human. For me, it was like, if you’re going to have that mindset for your children, you have to have that mindset for yourself.
Adding that onto me being neurodivergent, me having autism, to me having a combo sensory processing disorder, and having horrible executive functioning, adding all those things together, I have to be mindful that I’m going to make mistakes. That I’m not perfect and that I’m going to have stronger boundaries than maybe a neurotypical parent may have or different boundaries, because I can be overwhelmed more easily. I have to communicate that to my children, because as you said, any lasting relationship or partnership has understood roles.
I don’t make myself become that perfect neurotypical mom. No, I’m me. I enforce and express my boundaries and support needs, and I allow my children to be them and express and enforce their boundaries and support needs, and then we can work just fine. If you’re looking at that approach for your children, you should be looking at that approach for you too, because you as a person deserve to be able to make mistakes just as much as your child does.
TPGA: I think that is such a wonderful and much needed approach. I try to avoid parenting forums as much as I can, but I can’t help being part of one since I run the forum at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism—which is not purely parent-oriented, it’s for parents, autistic people, professionals, and a lot of people who are a combination of all of those things. We do get a lot of judgmentalism instead of empathy with the parenting topics. It can be very difficult to come at it from the approach that you’re describing, and I think it’s really crucial to keep that at the forefront of our approach.
Supernova Momma: A bigger part of what I have to realize as an educator is that you have parents. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for the Black community because of what I didn’t know. Most of us aren’t taught what autism can look like, or how to support autism. We’re not taught about occupational therapy. Every time I help a new neurodivergent family, they tell me that when their child got diagnosed, they got sent immediately to ABA, into the Autism Center and they didn’t get anything else. That was it. To whatever ABA center there was, good luck. Here’s your diagnosis. Bye-bye.
Maybe if their child is school age, they might have got the IEP, but nobody told them about the IEP process. Whatever those teachers, aids, or school support people are doing, they think that’s right. If they’re supporting their children by working, they get no education. They’re doing what they know a lot of times, and a lot of what they know is very little.
If you come immediately to someone who’s already frustrated, who’s already doing what they know and seeing that it’s not working, they’re aware it’s not working, they’re frustrated, and then all that you have is judgment and criticism, they’re closing down on you immediately—so you didn’t help the child All you did was shame their parents, and the child is still in the same situation.
For me it is about the same, once again, applying the principles that we see in conscious positive and gentle parenting with the parent. I have to connect with the parent before I can correct the parent. Instead of, “How dare you? Blah, blah, blah,” I’ll say, “Oh man, I know it’s really frustrating when your child won’t take their medicine and everything like that, but I can tell you from my experience as an autistic person, that when I’m restrained, I’m going to be even more unopen to taking whatever you’re giving. I’m going to be even more forcible about saying no.”
Maybe having some videos or showing them different things about taking medicine and how it helps would make them more open to taking the medicine instead of restraining them, teaching them what the medicine does. It’s connecting, empathizing, “Hey, I see, I know that this is really hard,” then, “Hey, let me teach you maybe where I come from, let me tell you my experiences.” Instead of just judging and shaming and guilting and, it doesn’t help. Yay, you judged the parent, but the child is still dealing with that because the parent is now closed off to any message you have.
TPGA: It’s hard. I don’t know how much you know about the work that we do: Our editors are autistic and non-autistic parents, but all of our kids are all high support, mostly non-speaking or partially speaking; I think that is how you described Riley. With the very highest support needs, meaning all of our kids are in one-to-one support situations. One of the things that we’ve learned over time is that, again, the autistic insights apply to people of all communication and intellectual disability levels because the autism is the autism, the sensory and the processing and all that.
We’re always trying to connect with other parents. With those who have kids with the highest support needs, it’s hard to help them understand that autistic people who can communicate their experiences have a lot to offer, even if their experience seems very different from a non-speaking child’s. But we really have difficulty reaching a lot of those parents because—I think—that they’re so traumatized by the lack of supports, the kinds of things that you’ve described. On top of that, and I will admit, sometimes I’m guilty of this kind of shaming. I don’t mean to be, but it makes me so angry to see parents treating their autistic children badly, and in ways that are avoidable.
Supernova Momma: It’s triggering. You have to give yourself grace for that too, because I’ve been guilty of that. You see harm to a child and it triggers you, and you immediately become angry and then you’re not thinking, not connecting with that person. You’re just thinking, save the child.
TPGA: It sounds like I could maybe use a session with you. [laughs]
Supernova Momma: It’s very hard. It’s something that I have really worked hard on, and I think it also comes from me coming from the situation I come from. I was autistic, my mother didn’t know. My mother had seven children, I was the oldest of those seven children. I was a surrogate mother of those seven children. My mother was either working or trying to find ways to help support us, because my mom did love us. It was a really hard and horrible childhood, but there was never any lack of love, it was just, my mom just made horrible decisions because she didn’t really have an education and she didn’t really have any guidance or support.
That’s what I try to keep in mind. Of course, there are going to be parents that are just abusive, and there are going to be parents that are just hateful, that does happen. I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t happen. But the majority of these parents don’t have the education, the supports, or the resources they need, and so we [can’t be] disparaging them instead of finding the way to connect with them and helping them to find the support and resources. Educating them is really the way that we’re going to make any change. That’s what I try to do.
TPGA: I appreciate that so much. We do try to do that. We really do. We’ve been around since 2010, and initially we were more on the science and evidence side of things. And while we’re still on that side of things, we’re also on the neurodiversity and autism acceptance side of things.
Sometimes I find it hard though because of the way that our environment functions—there’s just so many people with trauma in our community, I guess is the short way to say it. We’ve got autistic people who have grown up unsupported and traumatized, and then we have parents who don’t have the support they need to help their children thrive who are traumatized in a different way. Sometimes having those two groups interact is not great.
Supernova Momma: The worst, the absolute worst.
TPGA: That’s what we’re often moderating. I think I didn’t have enough understanding and awareness, but hopefully I have more now after 12 years of moderating this community. Again, like you were saying, we have people that don’t have the supports they need, they don’t have the understanding and if we shut them down then they’re never going to get there.
We do have some autistic people who will come in and just shut parents down—and I completely understand why they would react that way to the things the parents are saying—but it’s not helpful to those parents or their kids. Then we also have autistic people who come in with a ton of empathy that they’re not “supposed” to have.
Supernova Momma: I find that so funny. That was another thing that made me get diagnosed is Paris does have alexithymia. She doesn’t really understand others’ emotions and she doesn’t really understand her emotions and we have to give her a lot of lessons and patience. Riley is hyper focused on emotions. Hyper-empathetic to the point where she can feel when the room shifts and she’ll look and say, “Are you okay mommy?” I’ll have to monitor how I feel, how I speak, how my face looks because she is so hyper aware of emotions, and that’s me.
That was another thing [that delayed my seeking an autism diagnosis myself] because everything you see on TV, everything you read about autism, talks about Alexithymia and most people who are autistic having Alexithymia and not understanding emotions. I was like, “Oh, no [that’s not me] because I’m hyper-empathetic to the point where it annoys my husband,” and then seeing that in my daughter I was like, “Oh, and she’s autistic? I definitely need to get diagnosed.”
TPGA: That’s so great that you have that recognition for you and for your family. That’s again one of those things that I think people who are making assumptions about autistic people who have communication disabilities don’t understand. My son is mostly non-speaking but he is what we call an emotional resonator. He senses all of the emotions. If people come in and speak to him with not even a harsh but just very firm voice, that can set him off because he thinks he’s being yelled at.
Supernova Momma: My Riley immediately says, “I’m sorry for yelling at you.” She’s giving you the script to apologize. If your voice comes first she’ll say, “I’m sorry for yelling at you,” and I say, “Oh, you feel like I was yelling at you?” “Yes, mommy yell.” I know exactly what you mean.
TPGA: Oh my goodness.
Is there anything else you wanted to let us know? What is the format of the parenting practice that you do? How can people reach you?
Supernova Momma: Absolutely. I have workshops and then I have an actual eight-week course. The two workshops that I have, one is specific to Black families and it’s about looking at how the parenting that we know of, that we’ve seen very closely mirrors monarchy, misogyny, and patriarchy and White supremacy. We look at the parallels in those and how that power is created, maintained, and enforced. We look at the parallels of how those people under those powers think, feel, and decide and what they do because of how that power is enforced. Then we talk about if we think that’s encouraging and something we want to continue with our children. We talk about what stressors and triggers and coping strategies look like, and how they’re different for Black families.
Then we go into the neurodivergent workshop which is specific. It’s called “Take Me As I Am.” It’s specifically talking about the different ways that children who are neurodivergent experience anxiety, and why. We talk about sensory processing; we talk about alexithymia versus hyper aware of emotions and empathy. We talk about the difference in communication, whether you’re speaking, you’re non-speaking or you’re semi-speaking, and how to still communicate with your children and not force them to be a verbal speaker just because you want them to be a verbal speaker. We talk about controlling the environment and making the environment conducive to your child, instead of being mad when your sensory seeker is getting in all of your bowls, maybe put away your bowls. We talk about different approaches, we talk about executive functioning and about using timers and routines and things to help with transitions.
It’s basically talking about, with a child who may have a neurodivergent disorder or a neurological disorder, what triggers their anxiety and what makes them “misbehave”—because we call it misbehavior but usually it’s them sensory seeking, or it’s them needing to communicate and not having the words or it’s them being very frustrated, because you just launched a transition on them out of nowhere, and you didn’t warn them, or have any type of slow processing there. It’s those small things.
If you learn those things about your child and you understand them, then you can get some tools and support resources to help you so that you’re not seeing that as misbehavior—because that child is taken care of. We talk about those things, and we also talk about how the parents in themselves can work and add some things to their household to help mitigate those issues.
That’s my “Take me as I am” course. Then I have an eight-week parenting course, and that course has a neurodivergent day where we talk about all that stuff. Then it has a parent day where we talk specifically with parents about how they express stress? What their triggers are? Where those triggers could be coming from? Triggers are usually stem from childhood, so we go into some childhood memories. It’s a really tough day.
We talk about coping strategies that are specific to them as parents, and that’s important to me as a neurodivergent woman because everybody kept saying, “Oh, you need to breathe. You need to count. You need to medicate.” That does not work for me. As a combo sensory processing disorder person, I like to bounce, jump and move. That calms me down. Talking to the parents about the idea of finding your coping strategies that work for you because many people thinks that coping strategies are one-size-fits-all.
I’m just going to be honest. We talk about those things and then after that, there’s a third day that is specific for early childhood development. Learning Piaget’s cognitive theory, learning Eric Erickson’s theory but also discussing how Eric Erickson was off on timeframes and not significantly putting in culture, putting in gender, putting in sex. We’ll talk about those things. Then talking about attachment theory and trauma theory and your window of tolerance and things like that. We talk about that on a specific day and then the rest of the days are about positive discipline—but first I want to focus on parents, neurodiversity, and understanding childhood development and brain development—and then we go into the parenting stuff.
TPGA: You’re laying a foundation.
Supernova Momma: Yes. We got to build a foundation, exactly. Some people are like, “Well why if it’s an eight-week parenting course, that means it’s all parents. Why do you still have neurodivergent day?” I’m going to say what I always say, because one out of 54 [people being autistic] is what the CDC thinks they know, but I feel like that number is a lot higher and then that’s just autism. If there’s somebody in your life, whether it be your children, whether it be your cousin, whether it be the children at the Rec Center, who’s probably neurodivergent, then as a neurodivergent parenting educator it is my job to make sure that you are educated and aware.
TPGA: Wonderful. Well thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Supernova Momma: Outstanding. Well thank you so much for thinking of me and inviting me to discuss this.
You can find Supernova Momma online at supernovamomma.com, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on YouTube.
