Kristin Herbert

Main Areas of Focus

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Neurodiverse Relationships & Attachment

Relationships require difference; if we all perceived our experience of the world in the same way, we would have nothing to relate to one another. Difference enlivens and enriches our individual worlds. Just as reading enables us to imagine living in another body, another gender, age, place, and time, so do our partners and children.

 

But sometimes, differences can feel scary, frustrating, or alienating. We may feel alone or rejected when our partner or parent doesn’t understand or validate our feelings and experiences. We may get louder or use more evidence as we try to persuade one another of our goodness, our authenticity, our truth. We may be trying to understand and adjust to a diagnosis of our child while wondering whether we and/or our partner may also be neurodivergent.

 

Like partners in adult relationships, children are wired to notice their parents’ most nuanced responses. When they sense disconnection, their bodies respond instinctively.

We all go into survival mode to preserve our safety. But two frightened nervous systems cannot reconnect in healthy ways, and we can find ourselves stuck in patterns that don’t feel good.

 

Parents of neurodiverse children need extra support to stay connected to one another and to their children as they navigate such ever-changing challenges. I support parents as they strive to understand and support their children and relate to one another from their most authentic selves.

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Creating Safety

Together, we will create a non-judgmental space that assumes that everyone wants to love and be loved. We’ll use a both-and approach, where everyone’s feelings are valid, everyone’s behavior makes sense as a communication, and everyone has an important role in co-creating family culture. We’ll focus on cultivating curiosity and acceptance through reflective listening and validation.

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Boundaries

The most intimate relationships, paradoxically, feature clear boundaries. We will explore the boundaries that do and do not exist in your family and how boundaries can support better connections. We’ll map the boundaries that feel right to you and practice having conversations to understand one another’s needs and negotiate boundaries.

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Child-centered Approach

Parenting is one of the most vulnerable and challenging human experiences. We all want our children to thrive. Being a neurodivergent child in a world designed for neurotypical people is often difficult, and watching your child suffer is excruciating. As children try to cope with sensory overload or struggle with self-esteem, parents can veer into well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective and even counterproductive strategies. We will work together to decipher behavior as communication, understand and validate needs, formulate child-centric goals, and craft a working model of communication that respects everyone’s perspective. As parents informed by each child’s ongoing input, you’ll be better able to forge a shared approach to achieve your family’s best experience.