Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children

I really enjoyed exploring unschooling, deschooling, freedom, and liberation with Akilah Richards, host of the Fare the Free Child podcast and author of the book Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work.

I reached out to Akilah after seeing her TED talk, which led me to her book, and then her podcast, and I knew I wanted to invite her to join me in conversation. A recurring theme in this podcast, and in Tilt, is doing our own inner work as parents, and I love how Akilah talks about relating our own reparenting to freedom, decolonization, and liberation.

Akilah shares her personal story of going from traditional schooling to unschooling to deschooling, and how she and her husband came to consider the idea of raising free people, what that means, and how they’ve navigated the realities of making unconventional choices that can sometimes make other people uncomfortable. She also shares how they think about the success and what a fulfilled life looks like for her family, as well as how her work aimed at decolonizing parenting has resonated with people worldwide.

You'll learn:

What it means to be raising a “free child” and why it can be a threatening or uncomfortable concept for many people

What “mad question asking” is and how parents can use it to get unstuck

How unschooling is tied to decolonization

What “deschooling” is versus “homeschooling” and “unschooling”

What “confident autonomy” is and why Akilah considers that a hallmark of “success” in her children

How Akilah and her partner dealt with the barriers (social, cultural, and more) when they chose the unschooling path for their family

What a “savor complex” is and how it can transform the family experience

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Journalist and author Jessica Slice comes back to the show to share her family’s experience with PANS, or pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome, which began when her daughter experienced a sudden and severe change in behavior and functioning following a viral illness. Jessica recently shared her story in a viral article in New York Magazine, and today she takes us deep into what happened to her daughter, the medical dismissal her family encountered, and the long path toward getting a diagnosis and treatment. We also dig into why PANS and PANDAS remain controversial, what researchers believe may be happening in the brain, and what Jessica learned through both her family’s experience and her reporting. And importantly, we talk about what parents can do if their child experiences a sudden, dramatic onset of symptoms that they suspect could be PANS or PANDAS, including where to begin and how to advocate for care.

About Jessica Slice

Jessica Slice is a journalist, author, and podcaster. Her book, Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World was one of NPR’s top books of 2025. She has been published in Modern Love, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Guardian, The Globe & Mail, LitHub, Alice Wong’s bestselling Disability Visibility, Slate, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and more.She’s been featured in Vogue, The New Yorker, PBS, NPR, The Cut, the BBC, etc.

She is the co-author of Dateable: Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down, This is How We Play, This is How We Talk, and the forthcoming We Belong which was co-authored with the late Judy Heumann. She lives in Toronto with her family.

Things you'll learn from this episode

How Jessica’s daughter’s sudden, dramatic loss of functioning after a routine virus ultimately led to a PANS diagnosis

Why PANS symptoms can be mistaken for psychosis, autism-related behavior, or other mental health conditions, potentially delaying appropriate care

How PANS differs from PANDAS and why infections beyond strep may be associated with sudden-onset neuropsychiatric symptoms

What researchers are exploring about immune dysfunction, the blood-brain barrier, and the basal ganglia in understanding PANS

Why controversy, conflicting medical guidance, insurance barriers, and treatment costs can make accessing care extraordinarily difficult for families

How parents can advocate for evidence-based care, evaluate trustworthy medical information, and keep pushing when their child’s sudden changes aren’t adequately explained

Resources mentioned

Life with PANS: When a Virus Causes Psychiatric Symptoms (Jessica’s story in New York Magazine)

Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World by Jessica Slice

Jessica Slice’s website

Jessica Slice’s Whatever What Is (Substack)

Jessica on Instagram

Jessica Slice on What We Can All Learn from Disabled Parenting (Tilt Parenting podcast)

PANS/PANDAS Physicians Network Page

PANS/PANDAS Support Groups

Allison Raskin on the Made Visible podcast

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Beth Gellman-Beer spent her whole career fighting for kids with disabilities — first as a student written off as “lazy,” then as a federal civil rights attorney who found her dream job protecting students like her younger self. But on one ordinary night, a phone call changed everything: Her entire office had been eliminated.

In the premiere of Zero Reject, reporter Anya Kamenetz traces Beth’s journey from an unfair fourth-grade classroom to the front lines of a sweeping overhaul at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — the agency families turn to when a school isn’t meeting their child’s needs. Anya breaks down the reduction in force that gutted OCR’s staff, what it means for the 25,000 families still waiting for a response to their complaints, and the plan to dismantle the Department of Education altogether. With fewer people to enforce the law, what happens to the students the system was built to protect?

https://lnk.to/zerorejectFD!fulltiltparenting
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Psychologist, speaker, and author Dr. Mona Delahooke talks about her new book Brain-Body Parenting, and the power in understanding and responding to children's complicated behavior as a symptom rather than a problem.

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Today I’m welcoming Amanda Diekman back to the show to talk about her new book, The Parents Handbook for Kids in Burnout: A Low Demand Approach to Healing and Thriving, and what parents need to understand when their child is experiencing burnout. Amanda will explain what burnout actually is, how it can show up differently across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, and why it’s so often mistaken for anxiety or depression. We talk about the signs parents may miss, what’s happening beneath the surface when a child can no longer meet the demands of everyday life, and how a low demand approach can create the conditions for healing. And importantly, Amanda shares what recovery can look like, how parents can support their child without inadvertently adding more pressure, and why healing from burnout requires us to rethink our expectations, timelines, and ideas about progress.

About Amanda Diekman

Amanda Diekman is the author of the bestseller Low Demand Parenting and also the exhausted mom of three kids who have all experienced burnout. With relentlessly hopeful determination, Amanda turns her struggles into signposts, guiding the way into true healing for burned out kids—and their parents too. She lives in Durham, NC, and spends her days homeschooling, writing, and supporting vulnerable neighbors.

Things you'll learn from this episode

How low demand parenting goes beyond simply asking less and instead centers attunement, collaboration, and responsiveness to a child’s capacity

Why burnout is a protective response to prolonged stress and how it can be mistaken for anxiety or depression

How pervasive exhaustion, loss of skills, and extreme sensitivity can signal that a child is experiencing burnout

Why burnout may progress from “I can’t do this” to withdrawal, disordered eating, self-harm, or other risky behaviors

How the three phases of burnout—from total rest to returning curiosity and recovery—can help parents understand the healing process

Why trusting a child’s signals, finding community, and holding onto hope are essential for supporting recovery

Resources mentioned

Amanda Diekman’s website

The Parent’s Handbook for Kids in Burnout by Amanda Diekman

Low-demand Parenting: Dropping Demands, Restoring Calm, and Finding Connection With Your Uniquely Wired Child by Amanda Diekman

Amanda Diekman on Instagram

Why is everything so hard? Quiz on Amanda’s website

Parent Coach Amanda Diekman on Low-Demand Parenting & Finding Connection with Your Child (Tilt Parenting podcast)

A Deep Dive Into Autistic Burnout with Jodie Clarke (Tilt Parenting podcast)

A Conversation with Dr. Megan Anna Neff About Autistic Burnout (Tilt Parenting podcast)

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