Hey There
​You'd move mountains for your kid - but sometimes it just doesn't feel enough.
​
That bright, curious child that was so fun to be around when they were little?
​
Where did they go?
This doesn't feel like 'normal' teenage behaviour.
​
​
You feel their confidence is ebbing away - or flat out gone.
​
They're working hard at school, but the results aren't matching the effort. Anxiety around grades and exams just keeps going up and often that anxiety spills out into everyday life.
Or they've gone past that stage and they're disengaging from schoolwork. It's boring. Pointless. After all, there 'won't be any jobs with AI, so why am I trying anwyay?'
​
Some of our teens? Frankly, being real a****. Because fighting is a great way to hide what's really going on in there.
​
Whatever they're doing - it's like the 'real kid' - the one you've always known - is hiding.
​
They've learned it is safer to disappear than to try, and be found wanting.
​
Sometimes they come back. A summer away from school - and there they are again. The delighted laugh. The big ideas. Energy to burn. And then September comes, and they fold themselves away again.
​​
​But it can change.
​
You can get your summer child back for good.
This if for you if...
-
Your teen has ADHD or dyslexia
-
Your teen is withdrawing from you (more than feels 'normal' for a teenager)
-
Their confidence, joy, spark are - gone
-
They're anxiously working all the time (without any satisfaction from it)
-
Or they're disengaging from it all
-
You want to help...but you don't know how...and you suspect they won't do what you suggest anyway
-
School has become hostile territory, rather than a support network
-
You're beginning to dread dinner - and the fights that erupt or the silence that hangs
-
Homework battles? Not any longer, they defeated you a while back
Your teen's brain is just fine thank you
Your teen's brain is not broken. And neither is your parenting.
​
The problem is that the school system was built for a different kind of learner and nobody gave you the map for navigating it with a neurodivergent teen.
So you're doing what any brilliant parent would do: improvising, researching, worrying, and trying to hold it all together.
​
But there's another way. When you understand how your teen's brain actually works and how to work with the system rather than against it, it all feels lighter.
​
The arguments get fewer (or at least a little less intense - after all, teenage-hood is a turbulent time). The school conversations get easier. And you start to feel like you're on the same team as your teen again.
That's what I'm here for.
What does working wtih me look like?
Month 1: The 'training' bit:
Learn about YOUR teen's neurodivergence
Is this his ADHD, or is he just a d**k?
-
Learn about how neurodivergence might be impacting your teen in ways you might not expect, so that you can actually tell when they're just being a d**k
-
Find out how to get your kid to open up to you again so that you know what's really going on in there
-
Discover a strategy to devise coping strategies with your teen that will actually work for your teen (not generic 'have you tried a list?')
-
Identify the language that dissolves shame around their struggles and instead builds their self esteem
-
​Get scripts and advice about how to approach school and others to build a support team around your teen
-
Teach your teen to advocate for themselves so that they can get the help they need
​
This is where I bring my years of experience as a teacher, a neurodivergent mum of neurodivergent kids to bear. Not telling you what to do - but working with you to share strategies and approaches that have worked: for me, for my family and for the hundreds of students and families I've worked with over the years.
Months 2 - 6
Support - when YOU need it
You're never more than a few hours away from help.
​
After the initial 'training' period, instead of weekly calls that can just become one more thing on our list - come to office hours.
​
My zoom room is open throughout the week - no need to book.
​
Bring whatever questions, concerns, issues you have.
​
Come as often as you like. Some clients turn up weekly (or more), others just arrive when they really need it.
​
Different time zone?
Crazy schedule?
Not a problem:
​
Just send a message any time and I'll get back to you with a video response.
​
Either way -
​
We'll work through what's bothering you, practice difficult conversations, try out new ideas.
Or just have a good, old fashioned vent.
​
Because sometimes you just need someone on your side, who knows what it's really like.
​
By the end of the 6 months, you'll have a host of strategies up your sleeves that will help you walk the tightrope of parenting a neurodivergent child.
​
Hi!
I'm Katie
An Oxford-educated English specialist, an Orton-Gillingham trained dyslexia and ADHD specialist, and a secondary school teacher with years of classroom experience, in particular with teens with ADHD and dyslexia.
​
But the credential that matters most to the parents I work with?
I'm also a neurodivergent parent of neurodivergent young adults. I have sat exactly where you're sitting.
I know what it feels like to love your child fiercely and still feel completely lost about how to help them.
​
I'm not here to tell you what you should be doing. I'm here to walk beside you and help you figure out what works for your family.
What this looks like in ten years
It's hard, in the middle of it, to picture where this goes.
So let me tell you what has happened for former clients.
​
Somewhere in their mid-twenties, the teens I've worked with come out the other side of something most people never knew they were in. A kind of grief. They grieved the brain they didn't get. They felt that particular shame of being bright and struggling, of watching things come easily to everyone else while they just couldn't keep up. And then, slowly, they came through it.
​
I won't pretend life gets easy. It doesn't, and it won't. The things they find hard, they'll still find hard. But they stop carrying it as shame. The can let go of they can't do, or they find a way round it - technology, routines, the right people.
​
They're finding their own way to a life that is 'well lead'. It might be a different path to the one their peers are taking, but it's no less exciting, satisfying or fun.
​
What's left is someone lighter. More opinionated than they used to be. More willing to take a risk. Curious again, in the way they were as a small child, before all this started.
​
It's as though the child you remember has come back. Older, and with far more idea of who they are... but unmistakably them.
​
That's the work. And it's where we're heading.
Writing Revolutionaries
If you're looking for support for yourself AND academic help for your teen, you're in the right place for both.
Writing Revolutionaries is my specialist small group programme for neurodivergent and underperforming teens from age 12 to 17 - designed to rebuild confidence and boost their skills as English scholars.
Taught in a way that actually works for brains like theirs.
Some families work with me on both. Others start with one and come back for the other.
3 Steps to Rebuild Your ADHD or Dyslexic Teen's Confidence
Start here - it's free
Not sure where to begin?
This free guide gives you three practical, parent-tested action steps.
You'll learn how to:
​
Step 1: Understand what "surviving" really looks like for your teen (and why it's not attitude or laziness)
​
Step 2: Help your teen see they are not the problem and start to shift the story they tell about themselves
​
Step 3: Get those around them, teachers, grandparents, friends on your team, with confidence even if those conversations have felt daunting before
​
Each step comes with a quick action tip you can use straight away.
C, parent of year 7
"I feel like I manifested you or something."
C, parent of year 11
"I'm so glad I found you. You've made this journey so much easier."
M, parent of year 12
"Your advice has kept our daughter and us grounded. Thank you - keep up this great work that you do."
