Sometimes, tiny, funny things happen in my life as a momma of two brilliant, charming daughters who—because they are 15 and 11—have underdeveloped pre-frontal cortexes. This occasionally makes them assholes, and they literally can’t help it.
(I tell myself this daily for my own sanity.)

I write about motherhood often because I am a mother.

It will remain a very large part of my identity until they’re graduated and out of the house. Truthfully, even though they are at the very special stage of life called “driving-your-mother-ins ane,” I am not in a rush for that to end just yet.

Otherwise, I’ll miss moments like this:

My youngest daughter loves the outdoors. Trees, especially.

We have some pretty questionable pine trees in our backyard that went through some shit during a couple of winter storms. Nevertheless, she will climb damn near to the top.

I think she might be part bird.

She has free range over the neighborhood for the most part, as long as she has her phone.

Anyway, birds. Right.

I got a call from her while I was in the laundry room making dinner… Joking. (Lame attempt at humor which actually just exposed how much of a weirdo I am. Oops. You’re either lining up to get my number now or unsubscribing from my Substack.)

She called to tell me there was a food truck in our neighborhood.
Not to tell me she wanted food, like I had thought… Nope.
Just, “It’s cool there is a food truck here.”

That was my child, reporting live from the neighborhood two blocks away at 6:15 PM.

I thanked her for the information and went back to doing LAUNDRY.

About 12 minutes and 34 seconds later, my phone rang again.

This time she was crying.

“I accidentally stepped on a dead baby bird’s head on the sidewalk,”
she sobbed.

Just a couple of weeks before this, she had found a few deceased baby moles in our backyard.
Heartbreak.
Pure heartbreak for her.

She talked about how it wasn’t fair, and she knows that on a personal level because it wasn’t too long ago she lost her grandma.
Boy, did I agree with “not fair,” because that was MY MOMMA.

But as a momma, I couldn’t let that be the message while she was sitting in the heartbreak of mourning baby moles.

We talked it through.

She cried, and I explained how lucky those baby moles were that she noticed them; now they actually had someone who loved and cared about them.

She decided to bury them, and that was that.
(I’ll also add that a few days later she dug into their grave to “check on them…” God help us.)

But this time, she accidentally stepped on the bird.

I tried to tell her it was okay,
he didn’t feel it,
he was already dead.
…Because that was all truth.

She said the worst part was the sound it made—a “squish”—right before she realized what it was.

Then she cried harder.

I gave her space to cry and reassured her she had nothing to do with the death of this bird.

I didn’t know how long this phone conversation was going to be, or what the neighbors thought of a child walking around the block sobbing loudly into a phone, but just like that, she was ready to get off.

Still a little sniffly, but calmer— and the same for my heart.

Eventually, she came home because she was invited to go get frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf for “No Weigh Wednesday.”
She was only invited because her mother —me— told her big sister that was the only way she was allowed to go with her boyfriend.

Of course, she agreed.

This is the part where the universe said, and I quote:

“Here. Try again, but alive and fluffy.”

I was summoned to the front yard because there was a baby bird in the grass. I expected another tragedy, but there he was:
alive, stupidly cute, and very much in the — “I have wings but absolutely no credentials” phase.

Either he was learning to fly or he didn’t listen to his bird mom and left the nest too early. Listen… Sometimes you just gotta let them learn the hard way.. And I am not one to judge a fellow mother—bird or otherwise.

I am also not a bird expert. I know they fly, chirp, and eat worms.
I’m also secretly terrified of birds. Not a joke.

I told the girls I believed the little dude was just learning to fly. I also repeated that myth about not touching them because the momma will reject them if they smell like humans. We’ve all been told that, right?

I decided he was probably confused because the grass was so long it felt like he was lost in the deep woods. I pulled the grass away to give him and his momma a clearer shot.

In that moment, he opened his little mouth in response to my hand—MOTHER? FOOD? LIFE? YES?

He did it three times.

My motherly instincts kicked in: this baby was hungry.

And he was scared—albeit in the animal-body way: I am exposed, I am hungry, I am not where I should be… He was still scared.

And that is how I became a foster bird mom for 10 minutes.

My youngest was determined to find a worm, and sure enough, she did.

No, I didn’t chew it up.
Yes, my oldest daughter actually asked if I was going to.
Who does she think I am?

Instead, I got a rock from the landscaping and made fresh worm ceviche.

Still worried about the human-smell myth, I fed him with a piece of grass.

My kids decided I was a trustworthy stand-in and left for their frozen yogurt.

The bird took two bites of smooshed worm goop.

I did my part.
Honestly… Way easier than making my own kids dinner.

I also get credit for facing a fear, because I will risk my dignity, bladder control, and personal safety for one helpless little sky toddler.

Apparently, momma bird came back.

I saw a bird hanging around the area later, and last I checked, the baby bird was gone.

I’m pretty sure that bird family is the same one that wakes me up every morning at sunrise lately.

So, anyway.

Today had one of those tiny, funny moments where big emotions, laundry, dinner, and having a heart all collided.

Share Sparkplug Letters: A Soulbirth Project

I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. That goes for what I post on social media too.

If I post something, I mean it. I don’t usually delete things. That’s not who I am. Sure, I’ve gone back and edited a post before if I needed to correct something or own a mistake. I’ll absolutely do that because I have no problem owning my shit.

But deleting a post? That goes against everything in me. And I did it anyway.
Not because of what I said— but because of what strangers decided it meant. More specifically, because of what complete fucking strangers decided it said about me as a mother.

Here’s what happened:

My daughter got a “promposal” from her boyfriend. He made her a poster, got her a stuffed animal, his mom took a picture, sent it to me, and I posted it because it was cute. It was sweet. My daughter was smiling a real, genuine, happy smile, and I wanted to share that.

I also made a joke, because I am, in fact, a person with a sense of humor and I’m hilarious. I said I didn’t get permission to post it but I’m used to the “ughhh mom”s and joked that I was just killing it at this whole momming-a-teenage-daughter thing. (See? Hilarious.)

Apparently, because there is no sarcasm font and because people online are allergic to nuance, that got turned into:
I blatantly disrespected my daughter’s boundaries and posted something she specifically asked me not to post.
Except she didn’t ask me not to post anything. That part was made up entirely.

Then there was the sign.

Yes, it said, “I might punch a wall if you don’t say yes.”
And yes, if you didn’t have context, I understand why that would make you pause. Before I had the context, I paused too.
Then I asked questions.
Then I got context from my daughter.
Then it made sense.
And in case you didn’t know…that’s how normal people move through the world when something could mean more than one thing.

The stuffed monkey she’s holding is the same one mentioned in the story about Punch—the viral monkey.
(I’m not explaining it but here’s a link— super cute story.)

So the sign was a play on words.
Punch. The monkey. Not punch like domestic violence. Not a threat.
A joke built around the monkey.

I have no problem with genuine concern.

A friend privately messaged me to say the wording could absolutely be taken the wrong way. That was fine. She wasn’t rude. She wasn’t condescending. She wasn’t creating a whole story about me or my child from one photo. She simply pointed out what someone might see, and I appreciated that. I explained the context, and that was that.
That is concern. That is normal. That is human.

Then there was Threads. Holy shit.
What I thought was one self-righteous comment turned out to be a pile-on.
And it spread. Fast. Imagine going viral for something that others decided about you which is everything you are against. Love that for me!

Suddenly strangers were doing what strangers on the internet love to do
most: building a whole moral narrative out of incomplete information and presenting it as fact.

According to them, I was publicly disrespecting my daughter by posting something she didn’t want posted. I was promoting domestic violence. I was ignoring obvious red flags. I was a clueless mother. I was naive. I was unsafe. I was the kind of woman who would miss the signs… and there was more.

That part is what made me feel sick. Not because I can’t handle disagreement and definitely not because I need everyone to like me. But because people were publicly turning me into the exact kind of mother I am not.

That is what hit. I am not blind to red flags. I am not naive to toxic behavior. I am not some mother smiling through warning signs because the promposal was cute and came with flowers and a stuffed animal.

I already fought like hell to get my daughter out of a toxic relationship once before.

I know what it looks like when a girl is losing herself and calling it love. I know what it feels like to be the mother standing there saying the hard thing over and over while your daughter thinks you are the enemy. I know what it cost me to hold that line anyway. That was, without question, one of the hardest seasons of motherhood I have lived through so far.
(I wrote about that here.)

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So for strangers to take one photo, invent facts, and publicly flatten me into some clueless, abuse-enabling parent? Yeah. That one got under my skin.
Actually, no. It got deeper than that.

It hit old wounds. Because I know what it feels like to be misunderstood. I know what it feels like to have people decide who you are without actually knowing you. I know what it feels like to question yourself as a mother even when you are carrying more than most people can see.

So yes, I deleted the post. And I hated doing it because it felt like defeat. It felt like swallowing my words. It felt like old versions of me coming back up— the ones who stayed quiet when people got me wrong because correcting them felt too heavy.
But healing wounds are funny like that.
They’re healing…And they still hurt.

And maybe that’s why this got to me the way it did. Not because strangers know me— they don’t. But because I do. And because my daughters do.

So that’s what really matters.

What matters is that after all the fighting and all the fear and all the exhausting months of trying to get my oldest daughter to see what I saw, she came back to herself. The fog lifted. The light came back. And when I asked her later if she still wished I had shut up the way she wanted me to back then, she told me no.

What matters is that my youngest daughter— who doesn’t always express feelings easily— said to me, “when I’m crying and you talk to me, that’s how I know you care.”

So no, maybe strangers on the internet don’t know my truth. Whatever.

But my girls do. They know I have their backs. They know I will protect them. They know that if something is wrong, I will not look away. They know that if they are hurting, I come closer— I stay. They know I mean what I say.

And if you really know me, you know that too.
So think what you want, I guess. People always will. But opinions are not facts and strangers making me into a story that fits their outrage does not make their version true.

I know who I am. More importantly, my daughters know who I am. And that means a hell of a lot more to me than any viral pile-on ever

Share Sparkplug Letters: A Soulbirth Project

Homework with my 11-year-old is not ever something I want to do. In fact, if I’m being honest, it’s something I dread. I often put it off until the last minute—but really, what I’m doing is putting it off until I can dig up the energy to sit down and do it through the overwhelm of life.
(This is a pattern, read about what Leonardo Da Vinci taught me here. 😉)

I’ve written about this before, but if you’re new here, my 11-year-old is my youngest of the two daughters I have. She is a whole vibe. She is vivacious. She’s… a lot. It is important to note that does not mean she’s “too much.”

Deeper than that, though, she’s neurodivergent. Diagnosed with ADHD, NVLD, anxiety… and I definitely think there’s probably more, but the point is not about labeling her anyway. This is just factual information.

(Side note: NVLD is a real condition that does not get the recognition it deserves. I will always call attention to this condition specifically when I mention it because people should know. A quick explanation of what it is: a brain-based disorder where a person has strong verbal skills — talking, reading — but struggles to understand visual-spatial information. I encourage you to research beyond that.)

So, if I stop to think about why I actually hate homework with her, it’s because of that. It’s because, as her mother, I feel like I am quite literally the only person who understands her. I just can’t get other people to. That is a lot of work.

Anyway… this writing is about the moments I actually find joy in doing homework with her. The moments where I learn something too. The moments where, somehow, something meaningful happens in the space between us.

“Improvising a Dream” is an article she had to read and answer questions about —blah, blah, blah. The assignment gave her eight articles to choose from, and she had to pick three. So if I’m the one helping with the assignment, then yes— I’m picking what I find interesting.

This article was about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Of course I know that speech. Of course my interest peaked when I came across that article because justice is important to me. Equal rights are important to me.
(They should be important to everyone, but that’s another conversation.)

What I found out was that I actually didn’t know about the speech.
I knew the speech. I didn’t know how it came to be.

I do now.

In the opening paragraph, the article says MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech is a treasured and well-known artifact of the civil rights movement.

Yep.
I knew that.

Then came this line:

“What’s not widely known, though, is that these famous words were largely improvised.”
Me: Wait… what?

The article explained that MLK had a speechwriter, Clarence Jones.
At first I was like, Oh…
I didn’t know how I felt about that because I’d always thought he simply got up there and said what he said.
But I kept reading.

Organizing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, took so much of MLK’s time that he didn’t really have the chance to focus on what he was going to say as the speaker delivering the closing speech.

When I looked at it that way… yeah, that makes sense.

Twelve hours before the march began, MLK sat down with his team and his speechwriter. They bounced ideas around out loud—mentioning specific groups like labor unions, political arguments about jobs and housing, and religious quotations. Clarence Jones took notes on everyone’s input and drafted the speech. The group agreed it needed more revisions before it was really ready, but by then the meeting ended and people needed sleep.

The next morning, Jones delivered the final copy of the speech to MLK.

It did not include the words: “I have a dream.”
Me: Oh… this is getting GOOD.

During the speech, in front of a crowd of about 250,000 people, MLK initially read what was on the paper.
The written speech was timed to last about four minutes.

He spoke for sixteen.

And thus, one of the most famous speeches in human history became what it became.

It gets better.

Famed gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, a friend of MLK’s, stood near the stage. Recalling the moment later, Clarence Jones said Jackson shouted:

“Tell them about the dream, Martin!”

It isn’t known for sure whether MLK actually heard her, but after that, he set his prepared notes aside and spoke from his heart and soul:

“Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.”

The rest —twelve full minutes of that speech— was ad-libbed.

The improvised portion included lines from “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” and the old spiritual “Free at Last.”

And “I have a dream” didn’t come from nowhere, either.
MLK had used those exact words a couple of months earlier in a speech he gave in Detroit. They didn’t have the same impact then.

This time, they did.

That day, the audience was made up of hundreds of thousands of people who had traveled across the country to stand in solidarity against oppression in the dreadful deep summer heat.

And this —this right here— is the kind of silver lining I find in moments of dread when it comes to sitting down and doing homework with my kid.

Not every moment is like this.
A lot of them are hard.
A lot of them are frustrating.
A lot of them make me want to avoid the whole thing altogether.

But then every so often, something opens:
I learn.
She learns.
And somehow it becomes meaningful.

Maybe that’s the reward for showing up over and over and over again, even when I don’t want to.

Maybe that’s all I’m trying to say.

I sat down because I had to help her with homework.
But somewhere in the middle of it, the article taught me something, I got to share that wonder with her, and the whole thing became bigger than an assignment.

It became a moment.
And when those moments happen, they matter.

I can’t really explain it better than that.

🗣️Talk to Me

Are there parts of parenting you dread that still surprise you with meaning sometimes? Tell me about your silver linings. I know they matter.

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Author's note: 
     →If you've ever sat down to “help” with homework and realized you were      
          actually the entire after-school teaching staff—welcome.
     →If you’ve ever sat beside your kid feeling defeated, exhausted, or wildly     
         unprepared—this one’s for you.
      →For every mother who’s ever stared at a homework page and thought, 
        “I did NOT sign up for this shit,” and yet showed up anyway— I see you.

There are not many times I find joy in sitting down to help my 11-year-old, 6th-grade daughter with her homework. In fact, it’s mostly consumed by existential dread, and I have to really work up the motivation to do it. (I’m just being honest.)

My kid is neurodivergent. She has ADHD and something most people have never heard of called Non-Verbal Learning Disorder (NVLD). I don’t feel like explaining that right now—but I wrote about it here if you want to check it out. The most important thing to know is that NVLD does not mean she isn’t verbal.

With all that being said, homework is never just homework.
It’s usually:
classwork she didn’t get finished in class
—plus—
actual homework meant to be done at home.

     (Side rant: Why are we doing this? Assigning schoolwork to a child who has     
     already spent their entire day in school—as if that’s a reasonable expectation? 
    What adult do you know who loves bringing work home? Exactly. 
     More on that later, maybe…)

She is NOT independent with her homework.
I am NOT able to just “help.”
I am her after-school, unpaid teacher.
I am TEACHING her what she should have learned in class but just… didn’t.
And somehow no one notices?

She recently brought home a Social Studies assignment where she had to research a person from the Renaissance and create a slideshow about everything she learned. They were given class time to work on this. But research is basically summarizing—and summarizing is incredibly hard for kids like her. Not exactly fun.

But honestly? This assignment SHOULD have been fun.

Her person was Leonardo da Vinci.

Full transparency—I didn’t know shit about this man.
He’s an artist. Mona Lisa. That’s all I had.

She had to answer questions about his life and contributions. She did some of it, but she missed SO many cool things because she was just trying to get through the assignment.

She wasn’t excited at first. She just wanted to answer the questions.
One prompt asked:
“If you met me in person, what question would you ask me?”
Her answer:
“Can you help me with art?”

Oh honey…

Let me tell you what I learned: Leonardo da Vinci was a fascinating human being. Brilliant. Ahead of his time. And neurodivergent as fuck.

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The Lightbulb Moment

A switch flipped in me.
I was excited out of my mind to show her the magnificence in the way his mind worked —the way HER mind works—when people don’t ask her to change it.

But she wasn’t excited. She was in tears because I kept changing things she had worked (so hard) to do. And that killed me, because I know exactly how she felt. She’s often told, directly or indirectly, that what she does is “not good enough.”

What I was doing wasn’t criticizing her.
I was trying to stretch that beautiful brain she has—the one she hates because it makes everything way harder than it’s “supposed” to be.

Leonardo da Vinci was a self-educated genius. No formal schooling. Quirky as fuck. A little unhinged, maybe, because he dissected human bodies just so he could draw muscles more accurately. Still absolutely fascinating, but also a little creepy…To each neurodivergent their own.

Did you know it took him YEARS to finish the Mona Lisa because he kept getting distracted studying what LIGHT does to the human eye?
If you cannot hear the brilliance in that, then you are boring and live on the surface. I said what I said.

Leonardo da Vinci was celebrated for his mind.
No one tried to medicate it, tune it down, or shove it into a box. They let him do his thing because they recognized the brilliance he had to offer the world.

That’s my kid.
Her brain is brilliant. She thinks in all directions—sideways, upside down, back and forth, in circles…

But we medicate that part of her because it’s a “distraction.” A distraction that is actually a superpower—one that has to be dimmed so she can “fit in” inside a classroom.
Gross.

That was the point of me trying to show her Leonardo da Vinci.

Through her tears—and through her saying she felt like I was telling her that her work wasn’t good enough (which I’m EXTREMELY proud of her for naming, because naming feelings is BIG) — she finally caught on to what I was trying to show her.

Not the full depth. But enough.
For the first time, someone showed her that her brain is beautiful.
That there is nothing wrong with it.
Nothing wrong with her.

We finished the outline.
The slideshow is next, and I’m honestly chomping at the bit to help her with it. I have to stop myself from doing the whole damn thing because this research has fascinated me.

She still doesn’t see it that way. That’s okay.
She’s a kid who just wants to be a kid. A free-spirited, fascinating, marches-to-the-beat-of-her-own-drum kid.
A neurodivergent kid—without that being her label.

The Point Is This:

The label isn’t what the world thinks it is.
It’s creativity. It’s passion. It’s the burning need to know “why” behind almost every.single.thing.

It’s the same people from the past who were admired for being “a lot,”instead of being told they were “too much.” And it is WELL past time the fucking world caught up with that concept.

Her question for Leonardo now isn’t just: “Can you help me with art?”

It’s:
“Some people say your brain works differently, like mine with ADHD.Do you think maybe your mind is actually a superpower that helps you see the world differently?”

And the answer is: YES.

🗣️Talk to Me

If homework time has ever turned you into a detective, a tutor, a therapist, and a hype-woman all in one night… same.
You can always send me a message or comment if you need someone who gets it… because hi— that’s me.

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Share Sparkplug Letters: A Soulbirth Project

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I love my Facebook memories sometimes.

This one popped up from when my kid was 5 years old.
She’s 11 now.

She’s still just like this.

She’s neurodivergent, by the way.
(That is NOT a limitation.)

This memory is so her that I’m actually laughing out loud, because I can literally see her entire neurodivergent reasoning pattern already forming at FIVE.
(AKA: the signs.)

She had a bowl of popcorn.
She dumped the bowl of popcorn on her lap.
Her little:
“I just wanted to see what would happen.”
—THAT IS THE MOST HER SENTENCE SHE HAS EVER SPOKEN.

Her dad: “So can I turn my cup of coffee over on top of you?!”
Her: “No!”
Me: “Why not?”
…And then the chef’s kiss— the Crème de la Crop:
Her: “It will spill!”

THE AUDACITY. THE CONFIDENCE.
THE COMPLETE FAILURE TO CONNECT HER OWN LOGIC TO THE NEXT MOMENT.
The precious, broken causal chain— her neurodivergent mind speaking out loud…
She was basically saying:
”The rules apply to ME doing experiments on the universe — not the universe doing experiments on ME.”

That is my kid absolutely on brand:

✓Cause-and-effect curiosity
✓Literal logic
✓Experiment-driven thinking
✓Zero practical awareness of consequences
✓FULL confidence in the correctness of her hypothesis—and absolutely NO transference of logic onto others

Now… let’s talk about the signs.

Because this is EXACTLY the early seed of her NVLD/ADHD cognitive style:

→Testing a hypothesis
→Hyperfocusing on the idea
→Not anticipating the next step
→Zero awareness of the “big picture” consequence
→ Total confusion when an adult applies her own logic back to her

That was baby Taytum inventing her very first cognitive loophole.

And looking at now…
We’re still living in the popcorn era —just with much bigger “bowls.”

Assignments.
Chromebooks.
Social dynamics.
Executive function tasks.

She still does things because “I wanted to see,”
…and then gets confused when it turns into a mess.

That’s the gut-wrenching part. Because no one else can see it the way I do.

And the bowls now?
Well—they’re heavier.
They matter more.
And they hurt more when they spill.
And they are not easy to clean up because they’re not just popcorn.

This memory is tender and it’s revealing.
It perfectly captures her beautiful, brilliant, neurodivergent mind —
long before the world started misunderstanding it.

🗣️Let’s Talk About it

Do you remember when you first saw the signs?
Maybe this triggered something in you to look back and search for them.

I have a passion for the ND mind.
I have a huge compassion for the parents of the children with the ND mind.
I know how lonely it can feel.
You’re not alone.
I’m right here.

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Share Sparkplug Letters: A Soulbirth Project

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When the System Becomes the Harm

I expected my daughter’s hardest battles to come from inside her own mind —
from her ADHD, her overwhelm, her sensory storms, her impulsivity.

I never expected the hardest part would be the people who were supposed to help her…
Not helping her.

I wasn’t prepared for the teachers.
I wasn’t prepared for the system.
I wasn’t prepared for the quiet, relentless harm done in fluorescent-lit classrooms by adults who think they “know better.”

And god, was I unprepared for the day my daughter came home from school and told me she felt “stupid.”

Or the day another kid called her “dumb.”

Or the day she told me she knew other kids saw her as different
— and the way she said it broke me in half.

The pain she feels is magnified tenfold— better yet, onehundredfold—by me.
Because I’m her mom.

This isn’t a story about a child failing.
It’s about the school system failing her.

Who She Really Is (If They’d Only Look Long Enough)

My youngest daughter is… a lot.
In the most beautiful, chaotic, brilliant ways.

Don’t confuse “a lot” with “too much.”

She’s imaginative.
Curious.
Loud (in the way life should be lived).
Hilarious.
Sarcastic.
Unfiltered — which is both her ND brain and her natural personality.

She’s easily excited, easily delighted, and shockingly good at remembering jokes.

Her brain works differently, and that difference is her superpower.

She’s a verbal learner — a rare profile.
A child who can absorb information if it’s spoken, but shuts down when it’s visual or abstract.
Not many people operate like that.
And that makes it a “learning disability.”

While I’ve learned to see this as a strength, the school sees it as a problem.

They see laziness where there is cognitive mismatch.

They miss everything that makes her extraordinary.

What’s worse is…
They see what they call effort on their end—
is actually lack thereof.
And as a matter of fact—
it’s their inadequacy of understanding.

The Shift No One Prepared Us For

When she was younger, the ADHD meds worked beautifully.
They helped her focus.
They helped her thrive.
She blossomed.

Then came 3rd grade — the year rote learning ended and applied learning began.
*Rote learning is memorizing facts through repetition, focusing on short-term recall.
*Applied learning involves understanding concepts and applying them to new situations, fostering critical thinking and long-term retention.)

The year NVLD (Non-Verbal Learning Disorder) shows itself.

Suddenly:
She fell behind.

Homework triggered tears.

She couldn’t keep up.

Her confidence collapsed.

She said she felt stupid.

She stopped loving school.

All at once it was like her ADHD had gotten worse…
I had her tested.
(Something that—regrettably—wasn’t done fully before her initial ADHD diagnosis.)
The psychologist saw “Severe ADHD.”
That was it.

I didn’t know better.
Not yet.

I asked what meds we needed.
We adjusted.
We experimented.
But nothing worked.

Because this wasn’t ADHD getting worse.
This was NVLD appearing — quietly, invisibly, profoundly.

Her old therapist wasn’t… “it.”
I found that out when we made the switch to a new one.

It wasn’t until this therapist reviewed her old testing that everything clicked.
He asked:
“Did anyone explain the massive gap between her verbal and visual scores?”

No.
No one had.

He explained NVLD—
and:

How it isn’t in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

How it’s often mistaken for things such as ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder—Aspergers especially—and how it can be a co-diagnosis, too.

How it often appears in 3rd/4th grade.

How it turns “smart kids” into “struggling kids” overnight.

How schools don’t understand it.

And suddenly it made perfect sense.

A Quick Explanation of NVLD (Because Most People Have Never Heard of It)

NVLD stands for Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, and the name is… honestly horrible.

People hear it and assume it means “non-speaking,” when in reality it’s the opposite.
Kids with NVLD are usually extremely verbal— (my kid is definitely verbal…Sometimes too verbal... As in she talks, and talks, and talks. 😅)

NVLD involves right-brain deficits, while left-brain verbal skills often remain strong.
Their brain learns best through words, not visuals.

NVLD affects:
Problems with fine motor skills (think handwriting.)

Visual/spatial reasoning.

Abstract problem solving.

”Reading between the lines.”

Self-regulation.

Impulsivity
*Unlike ADHD’s core impulse-based issues, this stems from poor nonverbal processing… My kid has both ND diagnoses. NVLD explains why she struggles.

Understanding tone and nonverbal cues.

Organization.

Executive functioning (Think planning and self-control.)

Written expression that requires planning.

Complex, multi-step instructions.

Math that isn’t straightforward.

Anything that requires interpreting context instead of words.


NVLD does NOT affect:
Intelligence.

Creativity.

Personality.

Curiosity.

Humor.

Memory.

Verbal ability.

Imagination.

NVLD kids are often:
Articulate.

Imaginative.

Emotionally aware.

Detail-oriented.

Verbally gifted.

Compassionate.

Clever and quirky (the best part ❤️)

But because NVLD isn’t widely known, these kids get mislabeled as:
Lazy.

Defiant.

Unmotivated.

Sloppy.

”Not trying”.

Dramatic.

Behavioral problems (hello impulsivity…)

In a nut-shell, NVLD affects how they understand — not their desire to understand.

And the biggest issue of all:
NVLD isn’t in the DSM yet.
So schools receive zero training on it.
They don’t recognize it.
They don’t know how to support it.
And many kids fall through the cracks, mislabeled for YEARS.

The good news?
Experts are fighting to formally recognize NVLD and rename it (Developmental Visual-Spatial Disorder/ DVSD) so kids like my daughter aren’t misunderstood forever.

Because these kids aren’t broken— they just need to be taught in the way their brain learns best.

The First Failure: Denied. Twice.

I thought,
“Okay. We have the missing piece. She needs an IEP.”

She was denied.
Twice.

I signed both denials, and for a long time I carried shame about that.
But now I know:
Just because I didn’t know better then—I didn’t fail her.
The system failed both of us.

I accepted a (very vague) 504.
I thought we were saved.
But the 504 was:
“extra time”
“small group”

That’s not NVLD support.
That’s the accommodation equivalent of handing someone a bandaid after they break their leg.

Extra time only prolongs the shutdown.
Small group does nothing if the instruction itself isn’t accessible.

But I didn’t know better yet.
So I trusted them.
And…she kept drowning.

The Teacher With No Compassion

4th grade was when the real collapse happened.
Her teacher lacked empathy — and ND kids survive on empathy like oxygen.

Without it, she stopped trying.
Not because she didn’t want to —
but because she couldn’t.
Her brain hit a wall she had no tools to climb.

5th grade helped emotionally, but not academically.
Because kindness is everything… but kindness doesn’t replace correct support.

We’re in 6th grade now.
I showed up with a lot more knowledge this year.
I named her shutdown patterns.
I named her accommodations and what they might look like in a classroom.
We revised the vague 504 for what accommodations should be.

I entered this school year with optimism for the first time
since learning of her NVLD diagnosis.
Because I was clear.
Because I had learned.

And then the very first test happened.
Three class periods (Oh good, that “extra time” accommodation…🙄)
Crumpled paper.
Doodles.
Shutdown.

Her teacher emailed me the test and said:
“I wanted to show you in case it didn’t make it home.”

When I saw the test…I froze.
I told her I needed time to process before I could fully respond to the email.

And then she replied:
”No need to respond. We know the burnout our children can cause us.”
And the worst part?
”She can when she wants to.”

Red.
Red.
I saw so much red.

Because this sentence is the weapon schools and teachers use to justify their own failures.
Because “won’t” and “can’t” are not the same.
Except to them— they are.

I wrote back a long, detailed, painstaking explanation.
It took me hours to compose this email.
I started it by telling her that what she had said— and so wrongfully assumed—was the exact reason I needed to respond.

Because she needed to understand:
What the heck NVLD is.
What shutdown looks like—
(Ahem… that crumpled up, drawn all over test for one.)
What her 504 requires— and how none of those accommodations were met (They can take their “extra time” and shove it.)
Why telling a ND child “she can when she wants to” is harmful and so, so, SO wrong.
And why this was a symptom, not defiance.

And the teacher responded with:
“Thank you for expressing your concerns.”

And that part?
Well…That’s when I knew it wasn’t a misunderstanding.
It was negligence.

The Moment Everything Snapped

Another test.
Another failure.
Another spiral.

I looked at the test— the one that came after that email.
I looked at the teacher’s comments.
I looked at the unmodified instructions.

And I asked my daughter:
“Did anyone modify this?
Break it into steps?
Explain it differently?”

She said no.
Because they didn’t.

This was the moment I snapped.
I emailed the teachers:
“Show me how you met her accommodations. I need proof.”
I didn’t get a response.

Three weeks later?
Still nothing.
No “I received your email…”
Not even another “Thank you for expressing your concerns…”
Nothing.

Crickets.

Why?
Because there was nothing to show.

I realized her passing grades in the past were because I was doing the school’s job at home.
Hours every night.
Tears— so. many. tears.
(Hers and my own.)
Crying over simple assignments because they weren’t modified.
Shut downs.
Breakdowns.

And I hit my limit.
I AM NOT THE TEACHER.
I AM NOT THE ACCOMMODATION.
I AM NOT THE INTERVENTION PLAN.
I AM HER MOTHER.

I stepped back.
Her grades tanked.
…And for once, I let them.
That was my proof that I was doing their job and —quite literally— the only one not letting my kid fail.

But the failure was theirs — not hers.
And not mine.

The District Tried to Lie — and I Didn’t Blink

Two times denied an IEP through the school’s evaluation…
Because she didn’t “meet special education criteria.”

I learned what an Independent Educational Evaluation was.
With that knowledge, I requested the IEE.

The director of Special Education told me:
“You can’t have one.”
Because her denial was over a year ago.
Lie.

“You need to go through the school again.”
But with a different school psychologist for a new evaluation.
Lie.

Listen—
before I realized the level of gaslighting the school system really does,
I would have caved.
I would have felt defeated.
I would have done exactly what they told me to do.
But, I know better now.

I cited the law.
*In Indiana that is:
you can request an IEE after a year if you disagree with the school’s prior evaluation. Parents have the right to one publicly funded IEE per school-conducted evaluation within a two-year window from the original evaluation’s completion. The district might suggest retesting first before funding.
Key word:
Suggest.

And wouldn’t you know…
Magically:
“We’ve decided to approve the IEE.”

And guess what?
Her diagnosing psychologist —
the ONLY professional who truly saw her —
is on the approved list of “qualified evaluators”.

That is MY win.
My flex.
My moment.

But then they sent a letter saying:
“Even if she gets the IEE, she might not qualify for special education.”
Translation:
“We plan on denying her again.”

I emailed them back and asked:
“Is this letter saying what it looks like it’s saying?”
It’s worded in a way that makes one assume what special education is vs. what it’s not.

Because please understand this:
Having an IEP means you receive “special education” services,
but it doesn’t necessarily mean being in special education.

It doesn’t mean being in a separate special education classroom.
It doesn’t mean “special education” placement.

Kids with IEPs absolutely can remain in gen. ed. classrooms.
”Special education” services means support.
That’s it.
(Which now that I think about it —it’s wild that they based her denials on “not qualifying” FOR SUPPORT. 🤯)

The reply I got…holy shit.
”I think a conversation regarding the evaluation and special education process might be helpful. This would allow us to gain clarity around your concerns. We think that a phone call would help.”

Absolutely not.
We are not doing verbal loopholes.
We are not doing coercion.
We are not doing narrative-shifting.

Because I said what I said.
The letter says “the evaluation itself is not the sole determiner of special education eligibility,”
And I want to be certain that YOU understand what that actually means.
Because I do.

So, I said no thanks.
I’m not confused.
I’m making sure you’re aware that I can read between the lines.
And because I know— If it’s not in writing, it didn’t happen.

Funny how things start happening when you’re holding the school system accountable.

After three weeks of an email that went ignored by the teachers—
the principal called with the counselor in the room.
I let that call go to voicemail.
She’d like to discuss the “plan.”
I didn’t call back.

I don’t care about a “plan.”
I want action.
Show me.
Then I’ll believe you.
Or, I’ll let you know if you’re doing it wrong.

What Scares Me the Most

She’s only 11.

She already believes she’s stupid.
Already is aware her brain is different.
Already knows the kids in her class know she’s different— not that her brain is different.
Already believes that because her brain is different— then that’s the problem.

That makes me afraid.

I’m afraid she’ll stop trying all together
and no longer want to try.

I’m afraid she’ll lose her spark.

I’m afraid high school will break her before she ever gets the chance to see who she truly is.

I’m afraid she’ll lose friends as the gap widens.

I’m afraid I’m the only one who understands her — and that she’ll grow up in a
world that misunderstands her.

And part of me fears:
If I don’t fight,
no one else will.

What I Want Her to Believe Instead

I want her to know that “hard” doesn’t mean “can’t.”

I want her to know that being different doesn’t mean being broken.

I want her to want to try again — not because she “should,” but because she finally believes she can.

I want her to know that life won’t always be like this —
that there WILL be environments that fit her.

That someone besides me WILL understand her.

That she WILL find her way.

That her brain is beautiful and capable and extraordinary.

That she is allowed to take up space in the world exactly as she is.

That her empathy — not her pain — becomes her superpower.

And I want her to grow up knowing:
The world does not get to decide her worth.
She does.
And I see it.

What Parents of ND Kids Need to Know

Listen, pay attention, and observe when your child shuts down.

Don’t mistake overwhelm for defiance.

Know the difference between “won’t” and “can’t.”

Know your rights.

Ask for proof.

Demand documentation.
If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist.

A 504 is not always enough.

A child can be gifted AND disabled.

A child can be joyful AND struggling.

A child can be smart AND fail without the right support.

The DSM doesn’t define whether your child’s struggle is “real” or not.

And schools will absolutely let your child drown if you don’t fight.

The Line I Want This Story to Leave Behind

She isn’t broken.
The system is.
And I will not let it teach her otherwise.

❔ Have Questions ❔

If you made it this far… Thank you for reading.

But also— maybe things started clicking.
Maybe you are also a parent of a ND child diagnosed with ADHD or ASD…
But you’re feeling that there’s something else.
Follow that feeling.
Ask questions.
GET ANSWERS.

If you want more information about NVLD— I strongly suggest you check out the following resources:
•NVLD Project
•Child Mind Institute
•Understood

🗣️Talk to me

If you have questions that maybe only a fellow ND momma with a ND child might understand—feel free to reach out to me by sending me a message or leaving a comment…
I see you.
I’m with you.
It’s exhausting— but you’re not alone.

Leave a comment

Share Sparkplug Letters: A Soulbirth Project

Find me on IG @soulbirthstudios

I’m not sharing this to shame a kid.
I’m sharing it because emotional harm doesn’t magically begin at 25.
Sometimes it starts in their sophomore year of high school.
Sometimes it starts quietly.
Sometimes it starts in your own home.
And sometimes…
it takes a parent who refuses to look
away to name it until they finally hear it.

The Beginning of the Disappearing Act

My daughter is naturally bright, joyful, empathetic, intuitive — a kid who feels deeply and cares hard.

Which is exactly why I noticed the shift.

People always talk about mothers having a “sixth sense.”
Mine is more like a siren. A built-in lie detector.
I read people, I read energy, I read the shift in the air when something is off.
And I trust that.

And from the very beginning, something about this boy made that siren go off. It started off only humming but soon it was blaring.

I didn’t know how bad it would get.
Not yet.
But I felt the first warning tremor.

Then it happened:

She began shrinking—obviously not physically…
Emotionally.
Energetically.
Spiritually.
Piece by piece.

She apologized constantly.
She changed herself to avoid upsetting him.
She started hiding things from me — something she had never done.
She thought everything was her fault, even when she knew deep down it wasn’t.
She texted him back instantly out of fear, not affection.
She carried guilt that didn’t belong to her.

I was watching my kid fade and her heartbreak was breaking my heart even more.
That’s the part you can’t understand when you’re a kid.
It’s not until you’re a parent yourself you realize that when your parent(s) said— “this hurts me more than it hurts you,”— holy shit… it really does.

The Behavior That Crossed the Line

Let me be clear:
This was not “normal teenage drama.”

This was control.
Manipulation.
Emotional abuse.
And it escalated fast.

He monitored her Snap score.
Accused her of talking to other boys.
Made her block friends.
Manipulated her with silence.
Love-bombed her when she got close to leaving.
Slut-shamed her for what she wore.
Turned every insecurity of his into a responsibility of hers.
Ignored her to punish her.
Told her she was “overreacting” when she named his behavior.

She was 14.
Fourteen.

And he made her feel responsible for his emotions while never taking responsibility for his own.

The Other Parent Who Made Everything Worse

This part still makes my jaw clench.

His mother excused everything.

She didn’t take screenshots I had as proof.
She didn’t intervene.
She didn’t tell him “no.”
She didn’t set boundaries.
She didn’t respect my daughter’s boundaries.
She didn’t help.

She asked me to “give him another chance.”
She told me he “really cared.”
She acted like I was overreacting for restricting the phone to protect my daughter.
She insisted “they’re just kids” and “they’ll talk at school anyway.”

She treated it like a breakup between adults trying to “work things out.”

But they were kids—both of them.
And he was hurting my daughter.

And she let it happen.

The Moment I Realized I Had No Choice but to Let It Play Out

I had blocked him.
Cut off communication.
Restricted the phone.
Tried to break the cycle.

But they still saw each other at school where he was “perfect” —
because he didn’t have constant access to her.

No rapid-fire texts.
No guilt traps.
No monitoring.
No drama.

He behaved when he didn’t have control.

And that’s when I realized:

I cannot save her from a lesson she hasn’t learned yet.

So I made the hardest parenting decision I’ve ever made.
The “feel it in your gut” decision that everything about this is wrong:

I gave the phone back.

Not because I trusted him.
Not because I liked him.
Not because I thought he changed.

But because she wasn’t going to learn the truth while I was trying to save her from it.

It made me sick.
I felt like I was handing her over to the wolves.
But I did it anyway.

And it took exactly seven days for him to show his true colors again.

The Hardest Work I’ve Ever Had to Do

What nobody tells you is this:

Getting your kid out of a toxic relationship feels a lot like trying to pull them out of quicksand while they’re screaming at you to let go.

She wasn’t herself.
She was lying.
Hiding.
Defending him.
Choosing his comfort over her safety.
Believing his version of reality.
Shrinking around him.
Shrinking around me.

And yet…

I had to keep showing up with love
even when she treated me like I was the problem.

Because I wasn’t fighting her.
I was fighting the version of her she became around him.

But I refused — REFUSED — to lose her.

So I kept showing up.
Every day.
Every conversation.
Every tear— sometimes more of my own than hers.
Every lie.
Every apology.
Every disappointment.
Every time she doubted me.
Every day she thought I was the enemy.
Every exhausting moment from the fight that felt like I couldn’t win.
Every instance I contemplated if I should just give up.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t.

I stayed.

Because she was worth fighting for even when she couldn’t see why.

The Moment the Spell Finally Broke

People imagine one lightning-bolt moment.
One final straw.
One big “aha.”

But emotional manipulation doesn’t break like that.
Not when you’re talking to someone— your kid— who thinks that it was love.

It breaks slowly.
Cracks first.
Splinters.
Then finally shatters.
And it fucking hurts the whole way through it all.

She saw the truth long before she believed it.

But one night, sitting across from me, her face soft and tired and finally open, she said:

“It’s not a me problem.
It’s a him problem.
And I can’t fix someone who can’t even see what they’re doing.”

And that…
that was it.

Not because he changed.
Because she did.

She finally believed she deserved better.

She finally saw her worth.

What I Hope She Carries Forward

I hope she remembers:

Love does not require you to shrink.
Care should not cost you your identity.
Relationships aren’t supposed to hurt that way.
Your responsibility is never someone else’s brokenness.

But most of all…

I hope she remembers who she is.

And if she ever forgets —
if she ever finds herself dimming again —
I’ll be right here paying attention.

Not to rescue her.
Not to shame her.
But to remind her of her worth
until she sees it again for herself and then believes it.

What Parents Need to Know

Listen — deeply.
Kids tell you everything in the space you create.

Know your kid.
Their energy shifts before their words do.

Don’t dismiss what they can’t yet articulate.
You are their translator.

Remember what it felt like to be them.
Their feelings are real to them.
And guess what? That means their feelings are real. Period.

Step in when the line is crossed.
They need you to see what they can’t.
Whether it be that they are being treated wrong—
or they’re treating someone else wrong.

Teach what you had to learn the hard way.
Boundaries.
Accountability.
Self-worth.
Red flags.

Be the mirror that shows them who they are.
Until they can see it themselves.
And yes, sometimes that will feel impossible.
It will be hard. It’ll probably get harder.
Don’t give up on them.

The Line I Want This Story to Leave Behind

This wasn’t a breakup story — it was a becoming story.
The boy wasn’t her lesson — her worth was.

And if she ever forgets it again, she won’t be starting from zero.

Share Sparkplug Letters: A Soulbirth Project

Find me on Instagram @soulbirthstudios

Let Me Tell You Who I Am

The scheduler.
The advocate.
The medication manager.
The appointment tracker.
The emotional interpreter.
The academic strategist.
The one who knows every nuance of both kids.
The one who sees the cracks before they form.
The one who absorbs every meltdown.
The one who notices every unspoken struggle.
The one who reads every email.
The one who writes every email.
The one who catches every oversight.
The one who protects.
The one who anticipates.
The one who gives a shit.

To put it all in one phrase…
I am the entire structure of my family, and nobody even realizes it.

When you’re that person, there is no room to fall apart.
Because if I fall apart, who puts it back together?
I’m the one keeping it together in the first place.

It’s actually hard to say all of this without feeling like I’m sitting in self-pity. Or like I am feeling sorry for myself.
Whatever people want to call it.

But honestly?
I do feel sorry for myself sometimes. And I wonder if anyone ever feels sorry for me.
Or better yet, sorry for everything they put on me, and expect me to carry relentlessly like it’s not too much for one person. It is.

The truth is, I don’t think anyone realizes the mental toll I carry.
I do it so consistently that it’s become invisible—or worse, it’s created the illusion that I don’t need help. I do need help.

But no one can do it the way I do. Maybe that’s my fault for doing it all from the beginning. Maybe that’s my fault because, until now, I never tried—really tried—to name it.

Truthfully, that’s because I never thought I had the right to. But now this monster I created? I can’t get away from it.

I have the words to name the exhaustion. So I’ve named them.
Still—no one hears me.
I have the clarity to know that holding everything is exhausting.
Still—no one really knows, or acknowledges, what “everything” actually is.

I’m tired.
Burnt out.
Annoyed.
Angry.
Frustrated.

But I’m also proud that I keep doing it anyway.
Not because “no one else can” or “no one else knows how,” but because I CAN.
And I do.

Letting it go isn’t an option.
So I’ll keep:
Doing the work.
Making progress.
Creating structure.

But I am damn sure not going to be quiet about it anymore.

This is me finally acknowledging myself and refusing to apologize
for the resentment that naturally grows from invisible labor.