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How parenting a PDA child taught me a better way to declutter, organize my home, and let go of perfectionism, with guest Casey Ehrlich #157

• Caroline Thor - Professional Organizer - KonMari® Consultant

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Discover how parenting a child with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) led me to a new, more realistic approach to decluttering, organizing my home, and letting go of perfectionism — lessons every overwhelmed parent can use.

Have you ever felt like you're failing because your home doesn’t look like a magazine?
Wondered why traditional organizing advice just doesn’t seem to work for your real life?

Me too.
Especially when autism, burnout, and daily survival were the reality — not pretty color-coded baskets.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Casey from At Peace Parents — a brilliant coach and mentor for families parenting PDA and neurodivergent kids.
Together, we talk about how raising a neurodivergent child completely changes your relationship with tidying, decluttering, and home organization. It forced both of us to rethink everything we thought we knew — even my beloved KonMari practices.
It made us ask: What really matters when you’re building a home? Matching cushions... or emotional safety?

During Autism Awareness Month, I wanted to have this real, important conversation.
Because whether you're parenting a child with autism, raising a kid with PDA, or just juggling the mental load of motherhood, you’ll find yourself somewhere in this story.

You’ll walk away with a fresh, intentional perspective on organizing your home — one that prioritizes calm over perfection, connection over control, and sanity over spotless surfaces.

If you’ve ever battled clutter, perfectionism, or the invisible pressure to "keep up," you need this episode.
This is your permission to choose what actually works for your family — not what looks good on Instagram.

Ready to let go and create a home that truly supports you?
Let’s dive in.

 đź‘‰ You can find out more about Casey’s work at At Peace Parents here:

Website - At Peace Parents

Instagram: At Peace Parents


I would LOVE to hear from you. Text Message me here.

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Speaker 1:

Hi there, I'm Caroline Thor, professional organiser, konmari consultant, teacher and mum of three. I started off my life as a mum feeling overwhelmed, disorganised and desperately trying to carve out some time for me amongst the nappies, chaos and clutter. One day, one small book called the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying changed everything and I began to learn strategies for making everyday life easier. Today, I have the systems in place that means life can throw almost anything at me, and I want to share them with you. If you're an overwhelmed mum struggling to keep it together, then this is the podcast for you. Grab a coffee and settle in for a quick chat with someone who gets your reality. Hello, and thank you so much for joining me today. I'm caroline, and today's episode is your permission slip to stop chasing the perfect home you see on instagram. We're talking about real homes, real families and, importantly, how creating a supportive space matters way more than matching cushions or even spotless floors.

Speaker 1:

I'm joined by Casey from At Peace Parents. Casey is an incredible coach and mentor for parents of kids with PDA. That's pathological demand avoidance and her work has made such a difference in my own family's life. I first found Casey through her amazing program when my own child was going through a really tough period of burnout. The tools, the understanding, the radical acceptance she teaches honestly, they shifted everything for us. In today's conversation, I'm going to talk to her about what PDA really is, how it shows up at home and how it impacts the way we live, organize and parent. Now, even if PDA isn't something you've come across before, this episode will be so helpful. If you have kids, it might just give you a new way of looking at things and a deeper understanding of kids who experience the world differently. I really hope it helps you understand a bit more about PDA and how we can support not just our kids but ourselves too. Let's dive in, casey, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

I was just saying to you, before we pressed record, that I have spent weeks listening to you in your amazing course, that you have your amazing program, amazing program and perhaps you would like to explain to everyone what PDA is pathological demand avoidance because this is what you and I have in common and how I found you that we both have kids with PDA. So I think it makes sense to start there by explaining what PDA is and why on earth I was listening to you for weeks on end. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2:

So PDA stands for pathological demand avoidance, or some people prefer the term pervasive drive for autonomy. The way that I understand and define PDA is as a nervous system disability or difference that is defined by a very sensitive threat perception around whether or not a child or teen or adult has autonomy and whether or not they perceive that they are equal to or above another. So what does that mean? Right, all of us have nervous systems and they are designed to perceive threat subconsciously before our rational brain kicks in, and that part of the brain tells our body to either go into fight or flight, or freeze and shut down to protect us, like if we were an antelope on the savannah and there was a lion chasing us. So for our kids, yours and mine, the brain is always perceiving threat around.

Speaker 2:

Not having freedom and choice and autonomy, which you can imagine for a kid is often especially if we're trying to keep them safe and our house is organized, or when they feel like we're putting ourselves or someone else is in a position of authority above them it actually tells their brain hey, there's a lion in front of you. And then their nervous system reacts and in accumulation, this can be so much nervous system stress that it can disable our children from sleeping, hygiene safety and or eating, and it is widely understood as a profile of the autism spectrum, although I've worked with many families and PDA adults who are ADHD or who just identify as PDA without being autistic. So there's still debate, but I think the defining feature is that, as parents like we are, it is often an invisible disability that is misunderstood as oppositional defiant disorder, and it can make it really hard to keep your house organized.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Now I'm so glad that you explained that, because I think if I tried to explain it I'd have gone off down a load of rabbit holes and it wouldn't have been very clear. So thank you so much for that. Those people that listen to this podcast regularly will know I started April Autism Awareness Month worldwide with a short mini series of six episodes back to back for organizing your home when you have kids with autism, and I felt it would be amazing to end this month of autism awareness with an episode where I'm talking to someone who really understands the type of autism whether it is autism or not, but pathological demand avoidance just to raise awareness of that as well, seeing as I have this ability to do that through the podcast.

Speaker 1:

But not only that. I think everything we're going to talk about today is also totally relevant and when it comes to organizing, I think it totally resonates. So I was really excited to have this conversation with you Now. You've spoken before about how understanding PDA shifted the way you parent, and it's totally shifted through you the way that my husband and I parent are not just our PDA kid but all three of our kids. So I'm interested to know did your home change too. Did you start to shape your space to support this new way of living and parenting? Or maybe you didn't? I'm just interested to know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I like to think of it, especially with PDA, because it's a fluctuating disability, so there are often seasons that are more intense and often parents don't learn about PDA until their child goes into burnout. So there's really like Casey, as a mom pre my son's burnout when he was like five, through burnout and recovery, which was about two, two and a half years, and then sort of finding our new equilibrium, which is punctuated by a younger sibling who is now we're figuring out his exact flavor of neurodivergence and whether or not he's internalized PDA. So I want to emphasize that like it's looked a lot different at different stages. So pre-understanding of my son, I was a pretty traditional parent. I had a full-time job in Washington DC. I had to commute 45 minutes and wear a suit, and I mention that because it's like I had to keep things orderly right and in order to do that there have to be like rules and routines and structure, because both my husband and I had to like get out the door and you know have our careers.

Speaker 2:

You know, take my kid to daycare and all the quote normal things that you do. But I had to leave my career and we ended up having to leave Washington DC when my son hit burnout because he stopped eating, stopped speaking and really like was just constantly in flight, fight, flight. And so what that looked like was a lot of lowering demands on him, so like not having expectations about like cleaning up or sitting at the table when we're eating or eating at mealtimes, or even that things have to stay in a certain room or that they have to be put away. Like really providing him the autonomy and equality to like, if you want to have every single stuffy out and you want them in every room with you so you can feel safe, like we're going to do that. Because at that point it was like it felt like life or death. So all of my type A linear organization stuff was like screw it, like I don't care, it's not worth it. So it was very chaotic, right. It was totally child led in the sense of like we did keep boundaries around bedtime, right, which was difficult to keep, but other than that, you know, he could eat when he wanted. I delivered it to him Crunchy snacks on the couch, crumbs everywhere.

Speaker 2:

You know it was chaos. It was total chaos and it wasn't necessarily good for my mental health or my sensory needs, but it was like everything had to take a back seat to what for me as a mother? I was like to what for me as a mother. I was like, if we don't change everything, my son's going to end up institutionalized in jail or not alive, and so I was just like fuck it, to be honest. And then when we moved to Michigan, because we needed to move to a lower cost place near family, move to a lower cost place near family we moved into a home and I, you know, two months later the pandemic hit. And I'll be honest, like it's only in the last year or so that I've been actually hanging pictures, so it has been not very organized or aesthetically pleasing for quite a long time, although I we have been eking out spaces and I'm happy to talk about what that looked like in different stages. But you know I still deliver food to my kids either under a blanket in my younger son's room or on the couch. So yeah, I mean I don't live like I would prefer, but the needs take preferences over my desires and I look at it as like a long game right.

Speaker 2:

Husband and I like, if we make a little bit of progress where it's like we take some stuff to Goodwill you know we actually donate some stuff or like take the we finally got to the point where we can like recycle consistently because we have to do it at different places. Like we have a mill that composts and then we have plastic bags that we like now can take the time to recycle at the library. Like we couldn't even do that we call it getting back to neutral, like not even getting ahead. But like I recycled this weekend and like made it to the library, recycled this weekend and like made it to the library. And that feels good that we have like those three recycling spaces. When, like when I was in the throes of burnout, I was constantly feeling guilty, so I'm like I can't even clean out a yogurt cup to recycle it, so yeah, I love, I love, love, love this, casey, because I am always banging on in this podcast about the fact we're not aiming for perfection.

Speaker 1:

We're not aiming for some sort of Instagram perfect home. You have the joy of seeing the view behind me while we're recording this and it's not great. It's good enough for me, I know where everything is in my little office and it's fine. But at the end of the day, we are looking to create a home that supports our ideal lifestyle. Now, because I follow the KonMari method. So that is great when life is running relatively smoothly. But, as you say, when your kid hits burnout and you physically can't leave the room that they're in for most of the day because you're their safe nervous system and their whole world will collapse if you're not within touching distance, your idea of your ideal lifestyle shifts radically. It's like my ideal lifestyle is that my kid is happy or that my kid is calm. And it's quite interesting because I was not this type A organized person.

Speaker 1:

When we rewind before I discovered the KonMari method, I was massively in chaos and overwhelmed and it was just horrendous. So I had three little kids. I was just fighting fires all the time, and this was before we had any diagnoses of anything. This was quite some years before. So I had had the luxury and I really do see it as a luxury of having those years to declutter, organize, set myself up with systems so that when the shit hit the fan, when my kiddo turned eight and went into burnout and I literally was fighting fires of a completely different type I had enough organization around me that I felt in control of my home.

Speaker 1:

I could remove any things that could be easily broken, and I think this is something that kids with PDA you don't want loads of stuff around because lesson when they lose control, they lose control and I just stopped having ornaments around and decoration. I literally got a box and cleared it all away because I didn't want them feeling bad that stuff had got broken. That wasn't okay. So like, let's go.

Speaker 1:

I'm not a minimalist person by any stretch of the imagination, so we went really minimalist for a while just to make them feel safe and for us to feel comfortable. And it's just a completely different way of thinking. And now that we're coming out of burnout, thanks to you and your program, we are able to start reintroducing things into our space that we feel safe to have there it's starting to feel different, but all the time I felt really lucky that my getting out of the front door with the kids that could leave the house was easy, because I had a tidied up entryway. Everything had its place. The kids had already been trained what went where since when they were little.

Speaker 1:

That, for me, helped me enormously to feel calm and in control and able to just focus on my kid when they needed me, because the rest of it was just sort of running itself, if that makes sense yeah yeah, and I think that is um a huge blessing that we had, because I'm not naturally organized, so for me to have that sense of control and calm in a few key areas of the home, while the rest of it looked like some sort of bombed hit, just helped me to feel calmer with the whole situation and able to support them a lot better, because my nervous system would have been shot if I was also trying to deal with the chaos of I don't know the entryway being terrible and no one finding anything in the bathroom and all this sort of stuff too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, anything in the bathroom and all this sort of stuff too. Yeah. So I have seen a post of a real I think it was or a story from you on Instagram not so long ago where you had created a space in your home for you, and I know your son had helped you with this. It was in the video. Would you like to tell everyone a little bit about that, because this is what I loved. I thought this was amazing sure.

Speaker 2:

Well, there's actually like. So we have this front porch, that it's. It's sort of like a three season porch, like it's covered, there's walls and there's windows and if you open them, they they have screens. However, because it's all windows, it gets extremely hot in the summer and it gets really cold in the winter. There's no air conditioning or heat.

Speaker 2:

So when the pandemic hit, we actually had to move my husband's. He was working for the Department of State here in Michigan on elections and the Department of Motor Vehicles, so he had to work through the 2020 election and the pandemic from home. So he was on the front porch and it was not super convenient to be hearing screaming all the time. My kids were home and my older one was in burnout, but we got space heaters like we got an infrared heater and two space heaters for the Michigan winter and we still haven't figured out the summer. But that was, you know, that was five years ago.

Speaker 2:

But when I started my first podcast, which is called PDA Parents, that I did with another mom here locally, we created a space across from him for me to write because there was also a blog and I was learning to edit the podcast and that was like the only thing I was doing besides caregiving, and I would get up early to do it before the day of caregiving. So I had this little space that he had set up with like a screen that I could put into my laptop. So that space existed for about two years and then I moved where I am now you can see me, but listeners can't see me, which is really I mean, it's probably like four by seven this corner of my bedroom it looks like it's an office, but I'm in my bedroom and I've created this little space to do all my social media and coaching. But now that my husband works for the business, we're both in the home trying to run at Peace Parents, and I don't have a lot of space to even meditate or do anything. So I decided to repurpose half of that porch once again.

Speaker 2:

That had sort of turned into like where we were storing like you know, the Costco order all the dog food for the service dog and I was like, okay, I'm going to clean it, I'm going to create this space again and again. It's not a big space and it doesn't have heat or air conditioning, but my son helped me do it and we put up a bookshelf to kind of separate my husband and my space, and I bought a not expensive carpet from Target and put up some framed postcards. My husband helped me do that. And then we just actually this wasn't in the social media bought a couch like a bright turquoise couch.

Speaker 2:

Oh, nice a couch like a bright turquoise couch, and so I've been navigating this conundrum which I know parents of probably a lot of neurodivergent kids face, which is like are we at the point where I can truly have this as my space or are we going to allow for autonomy and equality, a negotiation about how it's used and when it can be used by the kids? So my younger son has kind of appropriated the capital zone but I am setting the boundary of no food allowed on that couch because all the other couches have stains and are not pretty and are dark colors so that I cannot see all the stains because it bothers me. So I am keeping it somewhat my own.

Speaker 2:

Love that, yeah, and so it's nice. I mean, it feels sometimes like you're putting up very small barriers against a huge tide, Like that's how I feel, with my kids wanting to be in my space next to my nervous system, even if we're not engaging, like if I'm in in a space that's where they want to be. But yeah, it is the, besides this seven by four foot quarter of my bedroom which is my office. Um, that porch area is the other place that I consider my own the other place that I consider my own sort of Sort of.

Speaker 1:

I love that Sort of Until someone comes in and just sort of sits in there while you're there and doesn't leave. Yeah, no, I think. And it's so important because when I work with clients and the people in my membership as well, we're looking at sort of visualize your ideal lifestyle. Well, what does that mean for you? Would you like to have a space where that mean for you? Would you like to have a space where you can go meditate? Would you like to have a space where you can just sit and read or roll out the yoga mat or the yoga mats there and you don't have to move loads of stuff to get it out, that sort of thing. And I just loved it when I saw that because I thought, yeah, she's moving through this journey now with her kids and she's got to the point where her idea of her ideal lifestyle would be in an ideal world when everything worked every day. There is a space where she can go and be quiet and meditate and perhaps have it as her own one day. Who knows, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for you, casey, one day, who knows, I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed for you, casey.

Speaker 1:

But I really love that because I think we do need to carve out as parents, especially as parents of neurodivergent kids.

Speaker 1:

We need to carve out our own little safe space to protect our nervous systems to some extent or allow us to recharge, so that we can be the parents that our kids need us to be. Because if we're always just fighting fires and we never have any downtime which you and I have both experienced this long period of time where there is no downtime until they start coming out of burnout and during that time it is impossible, which is why I said at that time my ideal lifestyle was just an hour of calm. For him to feel calm would be amazing. That is enough, yeah, and and, as you said, the house, sod it, it doesn't. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

Our mental well-being and their mental well-being is more important than whether the scissors have got put away after they were used. There are going to be days, or perhaps months, where we go into times where systems can be put in place and we can have the capacity to do the tidying up or do the decluttering or, as you say, take the recycling, but it doesn't need to be all the time and we certainly shouldn't feel the pressure that it has to be all the time. Our home needs to support us and if how our home is feeling is good enough for us, I think in the moment, then that's fine. Yeah, there will be other iterations, obviously, other times when you start to put pictures up or whatever it happens to be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a journey, it's been. Took me five years to put up some of those pictures in my front porch, but it's OK.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely, I love that that you've done that. That's so cool. So what I'm wondering is I mean, I know that there are key areas of my home that when they are more organized than other areas, my life runs more smoothly. I feel calmer and in control. Do you have any areas of your home where, if they're a bit better put together, a bit more organized and less cluttered, it helps you feel calmer, or do you not notice that?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I certainly notice it. Oh, I certainly notice it. I certainly notice it. You know, I think, the areas. You know our entranceway. We have an au pair who lives with us who is a 20-year-old German. We've had at least one other person living with us for the last five years and at times two. So like one time we had an au pair who now works for our business and her fiance lived with us for three months. So we live in a fairly small house. I think it's like 1600 square feet. It's not huge. It felt huge after moving from Washington DC. So when the entryway is organized, like, I feel great. But I have to say it's usually not gear. But you know, I'll often go through a purge of like you know, I'm the one who cleans up that space. It just doesn't happen every week, for example. But our kitchen is pretty organized, like my husband and I are minimalists, like if we didn't have neurodivergent kids who like to collect things and won't let us throw things away.

Speaker 2:

I think we err on the side of like maybe too much minimalism, where like we don't even have decorations and like we share a really small closet and like I would wear the same thing every day, and kind of extreme in that way, just for convenience.

Speaker 1:

It is. I am not actually a minimalist, as I said to you before, but when it comes to my closet I can't be bothered, so I do wear the same. I've got this T-shirt and I've got three of them. I just keep rotating.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, totally. So a kitchen actually is pretty organized. We have a system that my husband likes to keep humming along. We don't have a pantry, so he's hung up like a curtain to go over so we don't see all the food in our little tiny closet, but our kitchen is organized. I want to do the caveat of, like, the first three years of living here in this house we didn't cook for ourselves as much as just like preparing food for the kids and then eating frozen meals and really simple stuff. But now we cook. I cook most night and I like to do that.

Speaker 2:

Let's see what else is fairly organized. Our clothing is organized because we don't have a lot like. We keep the kids, um and our clothing organized and we do fold like the konmari way, because because I've done the konmari and read her book and stuff, so that if there's clean clothes that are folded in their spots, that's something that regulates me a lot. Yeah, like the kids' toys and art is one that I just can't keep Like they just they repurpose things for things other than what the materials are for and they'll. You know I do a lot of strewing, so that's more of a like six months purge and then it gets really messy again and disorganized and then maybe we'll try again. But yeah, I would say my kitchen and my like closets and dressers for all the family's clothing is probably the most important brilliant, love it, and I love the fact that the rest of the house doesn't need to be it.

Speaker 1:

It would be lovely, perhaps, if it was, but it doesn't need to be if, on a daily basis, it makes our lives easier, as you say, to be stirring things around, leaving things. My kid did, um, an absolutely hilarious thing about a year ago where they suddenly decided they didn't do toys anymore and everything, everything out of their room apart from screens, got put into my bedroom like just on on an afternoon all out, all gone. I don't want it back. It's like well, what am I meant to do with all this now? So I'm quite fortunate that we do have a cellar. In fact, a bit like your space where I'm sitting is actually a corridor in the cellar that I've turned into a little tiny office space for me. So it ended up piled up down here for months until I had the capacity to deal with it. But yeah, so their rooms are sort of getting to the point now where we're fortunate that the toys are getting less.

Speaker 1:

My other two kids are older, so I don't have young kids in the house with lots of toys, but that used to be a huge problem. So I am very interested and I hope I'm sure we're on the same page with this one. So if you've got kids who are PDA, so the demand avoidant big time telling them right, we're going to tidy up now, can you come and help, is a massive trigger. I mean it just cannot happen. How can parents involve their kids in caring for their space without escalating stress or resistance?

Speaker 2:

I would love to know your thoughts on this because I have very clear views on this, but I would love to know what you think no-transcript a thinking about even the logic around how you understand learning, because we're so conditioned to think like if I don't explicitly teach this person to do it, they're not gonna learn right, and then take your time horizon and your fear from right now, like, let's, you know, my youngest is six, so I never, ever, ever make them clean up, never, okay, like I'm kind of extreme because it's not worth the cost to me of their nervous system activation. But what we do is I'm like okay, how do PDA kids learn? And many neurodivergent kids learn First. They learn by observation, watching, seeing what's in their environment, and sometimes this feels like osmosis because they might be on their screen while you're cleaning up and you're like, oh, they're not paying any attention, right? So we have really leaned into the boundary being not it's time to clean up and now you need to do it with us, but rather recently over the last two years. The boundary is you guys can do what you want, like you can get on your screen, you can play outside, but I'm not going to entertain you for the next hour because I'm going to have to clean up this space, right, and for someone who doesn't have a PDA kid listening you're going to be like is that even a boundary? But for someone who needs to deliberately signal safety and provide undivided attention as an accommodation, deciding to clean up or organize instead is actually a boundary.

Speaker 2:

So I've come to realize that even in that act of me doing it and them getting to do what they want, they're learning that I'm organizing or that and they like the way it feels. So now my kids will often come and help. I've noticed they really like when I spray things and wipe it down, they ask to do it. When I'm like putting the dishes away, my younger son will climb up and help me and I scaffold him. We do it together, right? I'm like here, you know, here's this, and he gets to put it in place and we take as long as it takes, right. But just last weekend my older son, 10, pda-er, cleaned his entire room by himself, right, and I scaffolded it. It's like here's two big bins for laundry Put one with your recycling and one with what you want to donate and one with what you want to throw away and just put it in the hallway and I'll take care of it Because that's the next step, right, it's like, okay, step after the observation is understanding.

Speaker 2:

Like okay, they understand this is a thing that happens. This is how it feels afterwards. This is part of the family culture interest because they have autonomy and then we scaffold it at their pace, right? And sometimes they have no interest and I don't. I'm just like, okay, get on your ipad if you want, and I'm going to be doing this, and some I can't even do that because they need my undivided attention. So it's a long game, right. It's like trusting that our kids can learn skills by observation and deciding that they want to do it based on when things need to get done for their space to feel good. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Totally on the same board. That's brilliant, love it. I've been doing exactly the same thing. My kid is the same as yours in that they aren't able to come and sit at the table with us for food. There's a massive anxiety around food. So about two years ago we started saying that all meals could be eaten in the bedroom so that's where obviously the plates and the bowls and all that other stuff are and I was just regularly going in and picking them up and walking out with them without saying anything. And just in the last few months we have had a real switch that when they finished eating, they bring the stuff down without me ever having had to say can you please bring your stuff down.

Speaker 1:

It has automatically happened and it was the same with dirty laundry being left on the floor that I would go in. The laundry basket is just outside their bedroom door, but I would go in each evening and say sorry to disturb you, I'm just going to take these and put them in the laundry basket. Sorry and off. I would go with the dirty laundry. And now, every time they get undressed, the dirty laundry goes into the laundry basket and it's taken months, as you say, of osmosis, of watching me just do it and never asking them to do it. And now it's happening, and I think for a lot of parents who don't have neurodivergent kids, it is so hard to get your head around why that would be okay because, like, well, you tell kids to do it and they should do it because you're the parent and you're asking them to do it.

Speaker 1:

But ever since my kids have been little, tidying up has been something that we've done for fun. I trained originally as a music teacher back in the day, and so I'd put music on and we'd dance, and then we'd see how many toys we could throw in the bin, and that was our tidying up ritual every evening. It was something we all did together. If they wanted to join in, they could, but there was never come on, you have to do this. But they did want to because it was a fun part of the evening, and so I I love your thoughts on that I think and I think it actually works with kids who aren't neurodivergent to say, um, I'm gonna do this now. If you want to help me, that would be great, but take the pressure off, because usually they then will, yeah, or if they feel they have to do it. There's something, especially with teenagers. It's like, well, you said I have to, so no, I don't Backfires on you completely. I love that he tidied his room up. That's so cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, also, like I can see how things start to tie into his special interest, which is football. So, like he wants to be an NFL player, right, brilliant. But first you know he wants to go play at a college, right? I have no idea if he's even going to go to college. I have no idea. Right, I'm not attached, I just want him to be the best version of himself.

Speaker 2:

But because he's decided he wants to go to college, I can say things that are true. Like you know, when you're ready, like I can show you how to scramble an egg or put your laundry in, because when you're at college, like you'll need to know how to do that. And he might be like, okay, mom, I'm not ready, but like I'm planting the seed to show him why it would matter, right, and so it's like, not nebulous. It's not just like you do this because I tell you to do it and I want you to do it, but rather like this actually is a skill that like, based on what you've said you want to do, like I'm happy to teach you whenever you're ready yeah, I yeah.

Speaker 1:

And my eldest child, who's now 17, about to turn 18 she's the one in our three kids who isn't neurodivergent um, and I've been doing the same thing with her all the way along ever since she was old enough to push buttons like do you want to come and help me with this? This is fun. Or when you move out later, this would be a good skill to have. Let me know if and it wasn't long before she was taking all her bedclothes off, putting them in the washer, then putting them in the tumble dryer and putting them back on without me even ever mentioning it. I mean, I think her sheets probably get washed more regularly than anyone in the house.

Speaker 1:

She's just got into this, she finds it fun, she, she likes the fact she can do it, and we actually went away on holiday without her for the first time in the summer, and it's very hard to clean my PDA kids room because I can't go in there when they're in there to clean and, um, he doesn't come out very often, so it gets good. I managed to vacuum around once, a little musty, um and off. We went on a holiday for a two-week holiday, taking him with us. The first thing my daughter did once we left the house. She spent the whole of the first day deep cleaning his bedroom because she knew when we came back the opportunity was gone and she knew he would like it.

Speaker 2:

He would love it.

Speaker 1:

And I just thought, wow, the fact she has those skills and she has the autonomy to do that herself without anyone even asking her. And I spoke to her at the end of the first day of our holiday how was your first day? It was not fun, but I've done it. I've deep cleaned the bedroom. I was like you did what she were like thank god, yes that saves me a job, okay.

Speaker 1:

so, um, I think many parents, especially mums, unfortunately really feel the pressure to have this perfectly tidy, instagram-worthy home, like they're somehow failing their family if, when guests walk through the door, it doesn't look like some sort of weird setup that no one actually has. And even when and this is especially for parents of neurodivergent kids even when you're dealing with massive daily changes and like everything's shifting all the time and you never know. So what would you say to those moms who feel like they're falling short?

Speaker 2:

I would say come over to my house and you'll feel a lot better. You know, I've felt that I really have Like I don't like clutter. I really don't. I am a minimalist and if it's up to me, I don't like having lots of stuff. I don't like the constant consumption of, especially the United States. It's like against my values and yet here I am constantly buying things off of Amazon to give my kids dopamine. So you know, I get it. I think anyone that you want to spend time with in your life, so anyone that you want to spend time with in your life barring your family, is someone you get to choose. At this point, now that we're in our 40s I don't know if you're in your 40s- oh, I'm in my 50s.

Speaker 2:

Well, you look great. If someone's going to judge me because I don't have an Instagram-worthy home, then that's a natural filter for their energy not to be in my life Because life is too short. You know, like I have a real home. It smells like my dog, it smells like cooking, it's messy, there's crumbs everywhere and we have a cleaner that comes every week and I have an au pair that does the kids' laundry and it's still chaos. You know, I do try and keep it clean in the sense that we have someone who cleans the kitchen and the bathrooms, like the scrubbing. You know I live with four boys and a dog. I live with two like a six-year-old, a 10-year-old, both neurodivergent, a 20-year-old au pair, male. I love that he's from Germany.

Speaker 1:

by the way, Says she's from Germany. That's very cool.

Speaker 2:

And so you can imagine like I do need there not to be pee caked on every surface of my bathroom, and so I need help with that. But like, as long as it's not gross, and even if it is, listen, if your kid's in burnout and it's gross, like you're surviving.

Speaker 2:

Survive in advance, but the aesthetics of, like the Instagram, perfection. It's just when I see that I'm like I try and be not judgmental, but I'm like you are living a very different life than me. Yeah, Like you just were not living on the same planet and the same planet.

Speaker 1:

No, and I think that anyone that has a PDA kid or a neurodivergent kid and they are taking up so much of your energy and your time every day. We have to prioritize where we put the energy that we have left, and sometimes, yes, it will be for a little bit of decluttering or a little bit of organizing. And the thing I teach in my membership is what we can do in 15 minutes Because, let's face it, no one has much longer than 15 minutes in our world. So that's what we're working on, and it's amazing what you can do in 15 minutes if you put your mind to it, and then let's get back to life and we'll grab the next 15 minutes when we can find it. So I love that. And one thing I wanted to say to you was because I feel incredibly grateful to you for this.

Speaker 1:

I, during my KonMari journey, had really learned radical acceptance for my home. I was like I don't care anymore what anyone else thinks. This is my ideal lifestyle in this home as it is, and if no one else likes it, that is their problem, because I feel comfortable in my space. Now I have got it to a point where I can walk in and I feel calm and in control, and that is all I want. It can look like whatever, but as long as I know where things are and we know where they're going back to, that's enough for me.

Speaker 1:

When we did your program, you taught us during the whole of the first module radical acceptance for our child and our situation with our child, and it was like a real light bulb moment for me because I'd already made that switch for my home. I used to worry so much what people thought about the house. I used to stand across the doorway barring people from coming in because I was embarrassed about the state of my living room. I've managed to let all that go. But to then apply that to my kids and our family situation was an absolute revelation and it has changed so much in our lives. So I'm so, so grateful to you for that.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you did the work. I'm so happy that we could synergize for that transformation. Yeah, I mean, I think this whole journey with neurodivergent and PDA kids is like learning to focus on what you have control over and that's never going to be other people's opinions about you, right. Like you could have the most Instagram worthy house and someone's going to come in and be like that color scheme sucks. You know, like people, people are going to judge and if they're're judgmental, like they're not a fit in my life right now and I don't know, I think applying that to everything from whether you're parenting, the way that your house looks, you know, it's just, you're just trying to live your life in the modern world and it's not easy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. That is amazing. Well, it's been an absolute joy talking to you. I could keep talking to you for hours, but your time is very precious, so, before you go, can you tell people where they can find out more about you? Can you tell people where they can find out more about you? Because there will be some people listening that are like, ah, this sounds like my kid and this is what my life's like, and they might want to do a bit of investigating. So where can they find out more?

Speaker 2:

Sure, so the two main places, well, three. The three main places that people find me are on our website, which is wwwatpeaceparentscom, and we have like six free courses, but you can go to the free course called Clarity to help you understand if like this is actually your child, if they are PDA, and see if it resonates. I'm on Instagram at Peace Parents and then our podcast, the at Peace Parents podcast. So any of those places, feel free to connect.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. I will make sure all of those links are in the show notes. Thank you, it's been an absolute joy, casey, and I hope we connect again at some point in the future. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was fun.

Speaker 1:

Well, I really loved having this conversation with Casey and I hope it gave you a new way of thinking about your home, your family and the pressure we so often put on ourselves. If you're a parent who struggles to find any time to get anything done, please now know you're not alone, and if you'd like a little gentle support to get started, I'd love to invite you to grab my free 15-minute declutter's kickstart. It's full of simple, realistic ideas to help you create a little more calm without needing hours you don't have. You'll find the link in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time. If you've enjoyed this episode, please send the link to a friend you know would appreciate it, subscribe and leave a review. I look forward to bringing you more organising tips next time, but if you can't wait until then, you can go to my website or find me on instagram, at carothor, or on facebook at carolineorganiser. Thanks for listening and I look forward to guiding you on your journey to find your clutter free ever after.