367: Systems that Work with the Brain, with Angela Kingdon, Ph.D.

Angela Kingdon has a system for everything, and for years it never occurred to her that not everyone wants that. Angela is the founder of the Autistic Culture Podcast Network, home to more than thirty shows hosted by autistic and AuDHD creators. She built it after her own burnout, the kind that came after learning to mask so well that she finally got the friends, the relationships, and the career she had always wanted, and then lost all the capacity to keep holding it together. Podcasts were what brought her back. In this episode, we talk about what it really means to build systems that work with your brain instead of against it, and why that is so much bigger than color coded bins and a label maker. Angela walks through her own sensory systems, the loop earplugs she keeps in the car, the three scarves she carries because she cannot regulate her own body temperature, and then we get into the part every parent needs to hear: what happens when the systems we build for our kids turn out to be our systems, dressed up as help. Angela shares the moment she realized her son's messy piles of clothes were a system she simply had not respected, and how a shift she calls sun parenting to moon parenting changed the way she saw his choices. We talk about the word system itself, and why sometimes the fastest way to get your kid on board is to never call it that. This is a conversation about control, about grief, and about the relief that comes when you finally understand the goal was never to get your kid to do things your way. It was to help them find their own. Not sure where to start with your neurodivergent child? Take the free quiz: parentingadhdandautism.com/quiz Ready to stop collecting strategies and start getting real support? Apply for the SIGNAL Parenting Program: parentingadhdandautism.com/signal More from this episode: parentingadhdandautism.com/367 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/beautifully-complex--6137613/support. You can find additional resources at parentingadhdandautism.com. It's not just about the struggles, it’s about progress, one step at a time.