April 2, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode, we speak with Amanda Diekman about how her parenting changed when her six-year-old son went into autistic burnout. He lost verbal communication, stopped eating most foods, and couldn't follow basic routines. Faced with a crisis, Amanda chose to stop trying to fix him and instead removed demands to create safety.
She explains how this shift became the foundation of low-demand parenting—an approach that prioritizes accommodation, reduces expectations, and gives children more agency. We discuss the fear many parents feel when stepping outside conventional norms, how control-based parenting damages relationships, and why even “high-functioning” children may be silently struggling.
Amanda also shares how living in a community centered around disability shifted her perspective on independence and success. We cover specific strategies, including how her family uses language like “you’re forcing me” to signal power imbalances, and how she reframed daily routines to support healing.
Low-demand parenting isn’t just for neurodivergent children—it challenges the broader parenting culture and offers a different way to relate to our kids.
🔗 Learn more about Amanda Diekman
- https://www.amandadiekman.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/lowdemandamanda
- https://www.instagram.com/lowdemandamanda
- https://www.youtube.com/@lowdemandamanda
- https://www.pinterest.com/lowdemandamanda/
- Amandas Podcast episode on The Myth of Permissive Parenting: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-myth-of-permissive-parenting/id1770185265?i=1000677324284
🗓️ Recorded March 21th, 2025. 📍 Barcelona, Spain
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jesper Conrad (00:00):
Today we're together with Amanda Diekmann,
and, amanda, it's a pleasure tomeet you and I look forward to
our chat today.
Welcome.
Amanda Diekman (00:08):
Thank you so much.
I'm really glad to talk to youall.
Jesper Conrad (00:12):
Yeah, I have wondered where to start.
When I read your homepage, someof the words popped into my
mind and I was like, oh, thatsounds wonderful.
And the two words was radicalacceptance.
I like that.
So if we can start there, whatis radical acceptance to you?
(00:34):
And I really I love those words.
It's like accept them radicallywith a lot of love.
Amanda Diekman (00:41):
You got it.
Yeah, I mean there's a wholebody of work.
I'm thinking of Tara Brock andothers who've done a lot of
writing and teaching on radicalacceptance.
But I like that.
You asked what does it mean tome?
So I'm not going to talk aboutthe people who've taught me
theoretically.
I actually really want to talkabout my kids.
(01:03):
Actually, last night I, sort ofaccidentally, I was watching
videos of the kids when theywere little, with them and we
were laughing and enjoying howcute they were.
And then, um, I just kept goingafter they left the room and I
and I accidentally watched avideo of one of my kids in a
really difficult moment.
Um, I probably at the timerecorded it to show some
(01:26):
therapist to be like, what isgoing on here or like this is
the kind of behaviors we'redealing with.
I don't normally record theirhardest moments, but it really
caught me off guard.
I was in this like very oh,they were so cute mindset, and
then I suddenly was watching ourhardest stuff and I was
(01:46):
transported back there instantlyto being so confused and
overwhelmed and trying so hardto do it right and consulting
all the experts and feeling verylike my kids were a project I
had to fix and that seasonlasted longer than I wish it did
(02:09):
.
When I look back, I have tohave a lot of compassion for
younger me and how I was tryingto do the right thing and I was
participating in a widerparenting culture that says
consult the experts, doeverything the experts tell you
to do.
But it wasn't until it all likethe bottom, really dropped out.
(02:30):
When my middle kid turned six hewent into autistic burnout,
which I didn't know was autisticburnout I had.
I didn't know he was autistic,I'd never heard of burnout for a
six-year-old.
But it looked like all theclassic markers of good
childhood and good parenting,like feed them healthy food,
make sure they get exercise, bepolite to your parents, go to
(02:51):
school Just the basics of fallasleep at night instead of
staying awake all night.
To me at the time, the very fewexpectations that I might hold
on to were just absolutelyimpossible.
The very few expectations thatI might hold on to are just
absolutely impossible.
And in that season I was facedwith a decision like is this a
(03:14):
colossal failure or can I lovehim just like this?
And I found in myself thisreally clear knowledge that the
way I'd been doing it was notworking, and his little
six-year-old body was telling methat, in every way possible,
this is not working for me, mom.
And so then I practiced thisother thing, which was okay what
(03:34):
if you are good enough, justlike this?
What if I can love you justlike this?
What if you don't have tochange one singular thing to be
exactly right for me?
Change one singular thing to beexactly right for me.
And that, to me, was when Ifirst, viscerally in my body,
felt radical acceptance.
I felt what it was to say youdon't have to change, I'll be
(03:56):
the one who changes.
If the world isn't ready foryou, then I'll become the
activist and advocate that couldbe one small piece of making
the world a safer place for youto land.
And it changed my life.
And ultimately, I think thatthat is the heartbeat of
everything that I do is fromlooking at that beautiful child
(04:18):
and saying I choose you justlike this.
Cecilie Conrad (04:25):
So that was a real turning point.
Amanda Diekman (04:28):
It was a massive shift, also tracing back.
I mean I was a veryperfectionist child who was
trying desperately to be safe bymeeting all the expectations
and doing everything right.
So I didn't have any likelegacy of my own story for this
kind of disobedience against thestatus quo, for saying no, I'm
(04:52):
going to do things my own way.
I mean there were countlessnuggets along the way that I had
that in me, but my dominantparadigm was like do it right at
all costs.
So to make this kind of shift,it was huge.
Cecilie Conrad (05:08):
It sounds massive, so had you learned
about the idea of radicalacceptance before, or did you
feel it first and then learn itafter?
Amanda Diekman (05:19):
Well, I am an ordained pastor, so my tradition
educationally and theologicallyis the Presbyterian church, and
I served as a pastor for 10years.
That isn't a central part of myidentity anymore and I'm in
many ways struggling to be apart of something called the
church in the way that it'sexpressing itself today.
(05:40):
But I think that at its best,Christian theology is trying to
express a God who loves usradically and accepts us just as
we are, and so in many ways Ihad many, many reps at that.
I had been trained in that forthree years at a master's degree
(06:00):
and taught about it everysingle week from the pulpit and
at the same time, when it wasreally on the ground here with
me and my kid, it felt like anentirely different beast than
I'd ever confronted before.
Cecilie Conrad (06:16):
I have to do a little bit of thinking.
I just didn't have theChristianity in my matrix there
Because at its core, basically,it is radical acceptance.
But there is a differencebetween the spiritual movement
of Christianity and thesystematic organized religion in
(06:41):
institutions.
Yeah, and we haven't talkedabout this before on the podcast
.
Actually I don't know if weshould go down the route of the
religious one or the spiritualone.
Maybe we should do a second ofthat and prepare a little better
and continue with theacceptance of our children and
(07:03):
how that's.
Jesper Conrad (07:04):
Yeah, the interesting part I would like to
continue from.
It is like how some people dotheir religion.
It's the same.
I sometimes see how people dotheir parenting in the base of
what comes from the inside.
(07:25):
There there is the deep love,there is the.
If we talk Christianity, thenhe took the children to him and
everybody was accepted and lovedlike they were.
And as a parent, when you'restanding with your newborn child
, you just feel a very, verydeep love and you feel the
connectedness.
(07:46):
But then what comes after isthe fear of fitting in, is the
fear of doing right, is the fearof what would the neighbors say
?
There's so many of these thingsthat affects parenting and when
I look back at the areas ofbeing a father, I'm not proud of
(08:10):
.
Some of the things they have incommon is it is when I have
been afraid of being embarrassedin front of other people it's
deeply rooted in me.
It.
It's also where Celia and I canhave argues if we have any.
She can say whatever she wantsto me when we are home, but if
(08:32):
she says it when we are out andabout, something happens in me
and it just gets so much.
There's something deeply weirdin me I still have to work with.
That is the what would theneighbors say?
Or they're afraid of thejudgment.
And when it comes to being aparent and then choosing
homeschooling, unschooling,living with our kids at home,
(08:54):
like you also do, then in thefirst couple of years of being a
dad with my kids home, now I'mat ease with it, but the first
couple of years, oh my god, thefear, yeah.
So how was it for you to takethat shift of being a mom?
who lived with.
Can you say more in control?
(09:15):
Or you wanted to control howyour life was, to saying, okay,
I will love them how they are?
What about the love of theneighbor?
Were you afraid how you wouldbe judged?
Where were you?
Amanda Diekman (09:29):
Yeah, absolutely , it's an interesting one.
So there's two pieces.
I was deeply with you that Ilived part of my life from my
own experience and part of mylife from other people's eyes,
imagining what they would sayand do, even in our own home.
(09:49):
I would imagine, well, what ifsomeone saw this, or what if
they did this when someone saw?
And so, even when I should havebeen safe from that gaze, I
brought it in myself and it wasreally crippling to my innate
(10:09):
wisdom, to my ability to trustmyself, which I think is one of
the biggest things that's beenstolen from us.
I don't want to blame individualparents for this reality,
although our own story obviouslycomes into play and we do have
agency here.
But man, as a parenting culturefrom the beginning, especially
I'm speaking as an American whenwe are first going to the
(10:34):
pediatrician's office, evenbefore our babies are born, when
we're just kicking ideas aroundwith fellow pregnant people,
there is such a pervasive senseof there is one right way to do
this Are you going to be a goodmom, are you going to get it
right?
And if you get it wrong, thejudgment is really intense here.
Cecilie Conrad (10:59):
And what does it look like to get it right?
I'm just culturally curious.
I mean, I don't know howdifferent it really is.
Amanda Diekman (11:08):
Right.
Well, I mean, it's very hollow,so getting it right.
Typically here looks like yourkids obviously go to school, but
they do well in school.
They both get good grades butare also sort of simultaneously
popular well-liked, with lots offriends getting invited to
everybody's birthday party,maybe a leader in class and then
(11:31):
at the same time are involvedin a couple of well-chosen,
well-balanced extracurricularactivities that they genuinely
enjoy.
I mean, it's impossible.
Like, as I'm casting this,you're probably like wait, this
is not a thing.
It's not a thing, but it'sstill leaders no they can't all
be leaders Exactly.
It doesn't work like that, um,and then at home are respectful,
(11:57):
responsible, kind of do thingsthe first time they're asked
around the house, kind to theirsiblings.
Jesper Conrad (12:04):
um, masked around the house, kind to their
siblings growing towardsindependence and getting a good
job one day Sounds a littlestressful Sounds, international
though, I mean, it's not thesame we would expect for
children in Europe.
Amanda Diekman (12:22):
It's the same, the same picture.
Okay, well, that's good tocheck.
Cecilie Conrad (12:26):
It could be that the reality looks different or
the way to handle it, but itlooks like it's the same.
There's a difference in theextracurricular thing that we
saw when we visited the Statesversus in Denmark, where it's
more you bike there yourself.
There's a lot of differences.
But this getting it right,doing it right, how is the
(12:46):
successful child kind of the?
Amanda Diekman (12:49):
same roughly the same roughly yeah and the I I
was largely that child.
I got it right most of the time.
I had pretty epic meltdowns athome over some of the pieces and
I certainly was very extremeabout my doing in a way that
(13:10):
there's this sort of when I wasat I went to Duke University in
the early 2000s and there was amovement there to define
something that they felt likewas really toxic, especially for
women on campus, really toxic,especially for women on campus,
and they ended up naming iteffortless perfection, that that
was what was supposed to bedone, that you're supposed to
get it all right but never breaka sweat, never let them see you
(13:36):
struggle, and that wassomething I was never
particularly good at.
The effortless part, like ittook me a ton of work to achieve
that level of perfection, but Iwas going to do it one way or
the other.
And I married a collegeprofessor, kind of like at the
top of traditional academicsuccess, and so you know,
everything pointed to us atleast trying to live into this
(14:00):
vision of goodness.
And yeah, at the same time,when you talk about neighbors,
it's so great because then thisother thing was happening.
So when my oldest was two,before my other two children
were born.
We moved into an intentionalcommunity in the city that we
(14:21):
live in, right downtown, soeverything's very walkable and
there's 14 houses, about ahundred neighbors and we live
with.
Our intention is to center theexperience of our neighbors with
disabilities, and so many of myneighbors are disabled.
We have a explicit practiceamong us of care and centering
(14:44):
of that lived experience and sowe have all kinds of different
types of disability andexperiences of disability, level
of support needed.
But I learned from my neighborsover and over and over again
that this picture of the goodlife that I've been handed is
not the only picture and in factthere's like real cracks.
(15:06):
I knew it, but witnessing themliving a very different truth
and pulling me into that wasreally powerful.
So the biggest thing that Ilearned was that independence is
utterly a myth and thatinterdependence is the good life
.
That's what we're actually madefor and that makes sense
(15:30):
theoretically to me.
But witnessing my friends whoneed certain kinds of support in
order to move through their day, that there is no part of their
identity that could believe inthe myth of independence Because
I think I could believe it, Icould pretend it, that I could
do this by myself.
But that's not their truth.
There's things I can't do formyself that I need other people
(15:54):
to do for me, and witnessingthat neediness between them as
the most beautiful expression ofhumanity like what better way
is there to be in the world thanto deeply need other humans it
just changed everything for me.
And, of course, this is my kids'only reality.
They only know what it's liketo be unschooled in a community
(16:16):
of lots of disabled people andso, yeah, they didn't ever have
a world where that livedexperience was on the margins,
like it's always been at thecenter for them.
So then, when I discovered that, oh, we're all neurodivergent
and I don't know whether some ofmy kids are going to live
independently in the long termor whether they're going to want
(16:38):
to and that's just already apart already apart they're like
oh well, I've got 30 neighborswho are beautiful, thriving
adults, who live in community,either with their parents or
with other adults, becausethat's what they need in order
to survive and thrive.
So, yeah, it's kind of like Ihad this imaginary neighbor view
that was judging me, but myreal neighbor view was like
(17:01):
welcome to the party, this isthe good life.
Well, what a gift.
I know it is, and, of course, myhusband and I made the decision
to move here.
So there was also a part of usthat was like, yeah, we don't
want the right.
You know we were acting like wewanted all the regular thing.
But people that want theregular thing don't move into a
community like this.
Cecilie Conrad (17:23):
What an amazing context to live in.
Amanda Diekman (17:30):
It's really special, it really is.
Cecilie Conrad (17:36):
I was thinking about.
You said when your second childwas six years old, he had an
autistic burnout.
What does that mean?
I don't think all my listenersknow what it means and I don't
(17:57):
think I could define it, somaybe we should clarify what
that actually looks like becausethat was your big turning point
right it was yeah, yeah, um.
Amanda Diekman (18:09):
In context, it was also in the fall of 2020,
when all of our supports fellout.
Cecilie Conrad (18:15):
Everything fell apart, yeah right.
Amanda Diekman (18:17):
so it's not a coincidence that that that
happened for us.
In fact, um, I know a prettymassive cohort of kids who went
through a similar experience.
Their families didn't know theywere autistic.
They'd been just kind of likestruggling along.
We had a lot of supports.
We had speech therapy andoccupational therapy and a
babysitter and a really lovelyplay-based preschool.
(18:41):
It was all great and I thinkthat's what was kind of like
holding life together, great.
And then and I think that'swhat was kind of like holding
life together and then when allof that fell apart and we were
just home together, it was, itwas really really difficult.
So what?
Autistic burnout is a fairly newconcept.
The research is maybe in thelast 10 or 15 years and I think
(19:05):
that now we're expanding it toneurodivergent burnout, as it
seems like it's not a uniquelyautistic experience and probably
so.
It has three characteristics.
Burnout tends to come with arapid or sudden decrease in
(19:25):
skills.
Rapid or sudden decrease inskills.
So for an adult it might looklike you can't cook dinner
anymore, you can't do a meeting,can't take notes.
You know that kind of like you,just the things you used to be
able to do.
You just can't.
For my kid.
He couldn't play in any kind ofback and forth manner.
(19:46):
He couldn't eat.
It almost always impacts basicneeds.
So he had a narrow, but notthat narrow diet and he went
down to only being able to eatpretzels and Nutella in that
period of time for a couple ofmonths.
That's all he could eat, andthen he couldn't leave the house
(20:08):
, he could hardly leave his room, he couldn't talk anymore.
He had been very verbal andthen lost all that verbal
communication.
So that's the first piece andit looks different for everybody
.
But it's either a patterneddecrease over a pretty short
period of time or for us it wasfrom one day to the next.
Just one day he had the skills.
The next day, boom, it was gone.
(20:30):
The second piece is pervasiveexhaustion and again, for adults
you kind of expect that to belike laying in bed or you wake
up in the morning and you stillfeel tired.
But for a kid it looked like,um, like his emotional register.
Just there was nothing in thetank, so any tiny provocation
(20:54):
led to just a huge overflow ofexplosion.
And then the third piece is adramatic increase in sensory
sensitivity or sensoryvolatility.
So that just is like really onthe body level.
The brain is no longer able toprocess that level of stimuli.
So for him, he couldn't hear,he couldn't listen to us
(21:16):
breathing or like the tinylittle mouth noises that you
make as you're preparing tospeak, things like that.
Those were no longer tolerableFor a lot of kids that can't
wear clothes.
They'll have to be naked forlong stretches of time.
Lights having only a dark,cave-like room is the only
(21:36):
possibility for functioning.
So it's a really severe realityfor those of us who experience
it.
But, like you pointed out, it'salso really hidden For most
people whose kid goes intoautistic burnout.
They don't know what it is whenit starts, and that was our
reality as well.
You figure it out as you'relike what is this?
Jesper Conrad (21:59):
I have no idea.
It sounds like almost if you'rea parent to it, you would be
like you would be freaked out,and if you don't have the tools,
you might even just think mykid has gone mental and there's
something wrong and I need tofix it immediately.
(22:21):
Drug it, do something, fix itRight.
Amanda Diekman (22:24):
I can't just let this happen was the feeling
yeah, right I can't just letthis happen.
It was the feeling yeah, yeah,right, which made it all the
more difficult to do the thingthat I actually needed to do,
which I think this is importantto say.
For burnout, it can look also,depending, you know, if, like a
(22:45):
teenager, you would think, ooh,this is serious, massive
depression, and it's oftenco-occurring with depression and
anxiety.
But what's really important isthat the treatment is almost the
opposite of what you would dowith either depression or
anxiety, and that pursuingtraditional treatment is really
destructive for the person who'strying to heal because burnout
is essentially like too much fortoo long trying to heal because
(23:08):
burnout is essentially like toomuch for too long.
And what you need to do is givethat person a really
substantial I call it a cozynest, but like a really
substantial margin for them to.
If they if you know, if it'ssensory stimuli is too much for
them, let it go.
Don't try to like, push theiredges.
They need a really wide bertharound them of like.
(23:30):
We will not cross yourboundaries, we will keep you
safe and if you pushed yourteenager into some sort of an
inpatient treatment or you haveto talk to somebody about this
or opposite action, which is aclassic for depression.
You know, your body says rest.
Well, that means you need toget up and move.
(23:51):
All of those things would bereally unhelpful for that person
and can be what exacerbates itbeyond.
Just um, you know, a reallyscary and difficult time, but
not not a life-ending time, butit can easily tip.
Jesper Conrad (24:08):
Amanda, to be honest, as a dad, part of me,
when I look back, would havehandled it with a lot of
shouting and just to say it likeit is, because there's probably
someone out there who's likehow can you give that amount of
space and have that amount oftrust?
Can you give that amount ofspace and have that amount of
(24:31):
trust?
Because my own inadequate,inadequate yeah, difficult word
for me my own lack of being ableto fix it would come out as
aggression maybe, or like tryingto shout the child to at least
behave or something.
So I think many people havethat.
(24:53):
So how was it to put a brake onthe?
I need to fix this right nowand I cannot fix it with force,
right?
How was that?
Amanda Diekman (25:10):
Well, I think in some ways, what saved me is
that I am autistic too andthere's some part of me that
really recognized what was goingon with him, like when I wasn't
so terrified, when I wasn'tlike I have to fix this, when I
was really more with myempathetic what would this be
like for you?
Like what?
(25:30):
When I wasn't like what isgoing on so I can fix it.
But when I was genuinely likewhat is this, what is going on
here?
I, I, there was some kinship Icould recognize.
Oh yeah, when the world is toomuch, a part of me needs to
retreat.
And when, when people ask mequestions that I I'm not ready
(25:52):
to answer, a part of me wants tojust yell at them, to shut the
F up, like he was doing to me.
You know, I, I, there was a, akinship there.
I was like, yeah, there's apart of me that feels that way
and I could see that if all myresources suddenly left me
overnight, I would be only thatpart, that's all that would be
(26:14):
left, and that really helped.
I mean, it was a big part ofhow I got diagnosed and how he
got diagnosed as I went down arabbit hole of like, wait, if
you are, then I am.
And so we ended up both gettingdiagnosed autistic a month
apart.
Um, and the other thing thatreally helped me is that I began
(26:38):
to see.
So I just tried some stuff,because, like what can you do?
You know, of course I tried alot of wrong things, like I
tried forcing him into the car,I tried only bringing him food
that he wouldn't eat, and youknow it, just everything
escalated.
And so I thought, like what ifI just let things go?
Nothing had prepared me forthat in my parenting culture.
(27:00):
Like no one ever says letthings go.
Like the big worst thing youcan be is permissive, right, and
so I was like, oh, but I feellike I can't just keep expecting
more.
He's telling me this is all toomuch.
So the for our first success wasbreakfast.
Our old routine was like youhave to come downstairs, you
pick out your own cereal, yousit at the table and you eat it,
(27:22):
and it's just, it was the worsttime of day.
That's actually what the videothat I stumbled on watching was
a breakfast meltdown, and Ithought, what if I could just
drink a cup of coffee, get myother two kids fed without
anyone getting seriously hurt,like how great would that be?
That's kind of where myexpectations were at that point,
(27:42):
and so I just started withlittle things.
I was like, okay, you don'thave to come downstairs, you can
, or no.
I started with come downstairsbut I made like a little
barricade around him so at leasthe didn't have to see his
siblings while he was eating.
And then we backed it up Okay,you can eat your cereal in your
room.
But then the sound of mepouring the milk was true, or it
(28:05):
was opening the bag, I don'tknow.
Something was like it was asensory trigger.
So then I started preparing thebowl of cereal outside the room
and then bringing it in, and itfelt like, cause, I think the
big fear that parents have islike, well, if I start letting
things go, it's just going tosnowball, and then they're never
going to be able to blah, blah,blah again.
And so at first it did feellike that Cause.
(28:31):
It was kind of peeling theonion, like, okay, now you can't
sit at the table.
Okay, now you can't even pickyour own cereal.
Okay, now you can't even pouryour own cereal, right.
But what it actually was wasfinding it was getting back to
his actual capacity instead ofall of the pushing past that
he'd been doing.
And it turned out his actualcapacity was eating the cereal
in his room, which was a realvictory, because it wasn't
pretzels and Nutella, and andalso my other two kids could eat
(28:55):
peacefully without being hurt,and I got to drink my coffee.
I was like, oh my gosh, what ahuge win.
Okay, breakfast in the roomworks.
And then I just got curiouslike, well, if we can do that,
what else can we do?
And so we just started lettinggo, letting go, letting go and
figuring out where his realcapacity was.
(29:17):
Someone had me do an exercisewhere they were like write down
10 things that you know he cando, and they were like open your
eyes when you wake up in themorning, like pee when I carry
you to the bathroom.
They were very low bar kind ofthings, but there were 10 things
on there that he could actuallydo, and that was helpful to
(29:42):
start to define thingspositively as well, not only in
what we were losing, but in whatwas still there.
And then what we saw and thisis like the big message that I
want to share is that the big,scary thing that everybody tells
you is going to happen.
It didn't happen.
He didn't.
He isn't stuck in his roomdemanding that I bring him
(30:05):
everything, demanding that Ibring him everything.
He healed and he grew.
His capacity increased.
The more I accommodated him,the safer he felt, the more he
was able to do, and thatcontinues to be the the main.
The bar we live by today iswhen you're safe enough, you
(30:26):
will thrive.
Cecilie Conrad (30:30):
Congratulations.
Sounds like it's been a roughand long journey.
Amanda Diekman (30:39):
I'm prouder of that than anything else in my
life.
You must have been very afraidI was.
I was.
I was terrified, and so manyparents are, and those are my
people.
You know, if people arelistening and they're like, yes,
like I hover at the edges ofevery community waiting for
someone to mention how bad itcan be, because people will just
(31:03):
toss out there like, oh, doesyour kid like pinch their
sibling?
And you're like pinch, likethat would be great.
Jesper Conrad (31:10):
We're way past pinch, that would be on the
positive list.
You can pinch your siblingPerfect.
Amanda Diekman (31:16):
It was just a pinch you know.
So, anyway, those are my people.
That's what I end up attracting.
The folks who are terrifiedfeel like they failed, like
nothing works and like they'rethe on the outlier of what many
experience, which make you takeit really serious and and give
(31:58):
that space for healing.
Jesper Conrad (32:01):
But I'm then thinking about you, with the
story you're telling aboutgiving radical acceptance,
giving love, giving space.
What about all the ones wholive the normal life?
Amanda Diekman (32:18):
Yeah.
Jesper Conrad (32:21):
And it just makes me afraid that we oversee the
whole specter of where childrenare hurt in this demanding way
of being a parent we have in, asyou say, in this parenting
culture.
Cecilie Conrad (32:41):
Yeah, so what you're saying is if you're not
autistic and you don't get aburnout.
You might still be hurt by thatway of parenting.
Oh, yes, oh, you might that'swhat I was thinking about as
well.
Yeah, because that way ofparenting where there is this
(33:05):
kind of rule book that you haveto come down from your room and
you have to pick out your cereal, you have to pour it yourself,
you have to eat it at the tableat a specific time in a specific
way, you probably have to bedressed before and there's a
rule of toothbrushes before orafter all these things, this is
top-down parenting and for anautistic child that can just be
(33:30):
two million times over the top.
But that doesn't mean it's notwrong for everyone.
Amanda Diekman (33:37):
You got it, man.
Yes, I love what you guys aresaying.
I know and I'll get that frommy vantage point People will be
like, well, I get why I need todo this for my autistic child,
but my other kid no.
You know, I need to keeppushing them and I'm like no,
you know.
First of all, really look atthem, because they'll be oh,
they're doing fine.
(33:57):
Well, can we back up and reallylook like how do you?
How fine are they?
Have you asked them if they'refine?
Are they?
Have you asked them if they'refine?
And even if they say they are,one of my favorite questions to
ask my kids is what's the worstpart?
(34:18):
I just want to reallyexplicitly give them permission
to tell me what's wrong, becauseI think that there is again.
And our kids want to please us,they're hardwired to want to
make us happy and some kids,especially if we're talking
about these kids that aresuffering silently.
(34:40):
They're doing well on theoutside and on the inside things
are not okay and they're noteven if they can't imagine a
different world, where theirparents don't control every
aspect of their life, but theystill know in some part of them
that it doesn't feel right, thatthey want something more, and
I've never met a kid that's beenhighly controlled, that I've
(35:02):
met with and worked with, whohasn't on some level wished that
things could be different.
So I like to give my kids a lotof permission to tell me.
The worst part and where westarted with some of these
demand drops was around myyelling at them so like owning
that I was doing something Ididn't want to.
(35:25):
I said, look, I'm yelling atyou with what we called my big
voice, because sometimes I don'tactually get loud, I'm just
really intense and that is justas scary, even when it's very
quiet.
So we named it my big voicebecause I would try to wiggle
out and be like I didn't yelland they were like, well, it was
scary, uh.
(35:45):
So I said I'm going to try notto use my big voice.
I really, really don't want to,but I need your help.
Like, what are what's the worstpart about when I use my big
voice?
And when I use my big voice, Ineed you to start to say, like
we agreed you weren't going todo that.
So, and then we made, outsideof the moment, we made an
(36:08):
agreement that if I was using mybig voice because they weren't
doing something that I thoughtthat they were supposed to do.
We agreed I was going to let itgo.
So then, in the moment, if itgot hard, I was empowering them
with agency to talk back to meand I think that that's a really
small but important shift thatparents can make.
In the beginning, as you'redeconstructing this hierarchy of
(36:31):
parent control is to if youwant more, right Like we can't
change the world for parentsthat don't want more.
But I think parents want someparents, the parents listening
to you.
Now they want more than this,but they've only been given this
one paradigm is giving our kidstrust our kids that I've become
(36:57):
the parent I have, because Ibecame the parent my kids needed
and I trusted them to tell mewhat they needed and they knew
man and they've helped me, andnot in a parentified way where
I'm putting too much on them orI'm asking them to be my
caretaker or you know I own thework.
But I trust them in the momentif they say you said that you
(37:23):
were going to let this go andnow you're forcing me, so our
family language is forcing.
If they ever feel forced, thenthey say you're forcing me, so
our family language is forcing.
If they ever feel forced thenthey say you're forcing me and
that's a reminder that I'm usingmy power or I'm using control
and that we're going to back upand we're going to let it go
until we have genuinecollaborative agreement and they
don't feel forced.
(37:43):
And if they ever feel forced,then we stop.
And I mean man giving kids thatcontrol and that power like
they use it for good.
I think we have this fear thatif we give our kids more control
or more power, that they'regoing to, you know, go off the
rails and I have not found thatto be the case.
I mean, certainly they do, butso do I.
(38:05):
So we're human, we're allowedto go off the rails sometimes,
but on the whole I think theycan really.
I've found that my kids canreally be trusted to own more
power in the family dynamic andto hold me accountable to my
better, to my best self.
Cecilie Conrad (38:23):
Well, if you can let go of a specific way things
have to be, then there is moreto say that things go wrong.
Well, that means you'll have tohave a clear idea about what it
is when it goes right.
Yeah, so if you open that boxup a little bit and say, okay,
but my idea of what's rightmight not be the only version of
(38:47):
right, well then it doesn't gowrong when everyone in the
family has a voice.
I think it's funny how, even inthis conversation we're having
with each other and we'reclearly on the same page we
still use this language kind ofwe allow our children to have
some power, whatever you know,we let them have control as if
(39:11):
it was ours to take.
I mean, it's, there's somethingwrong with the whole
linguistics of it and and it.
I know you don't think that way.
Actually, it's just the way we.
We can somehow get it, but it'shard because it's such a deeply
rooted way of thinking aboutchildren and parents and our
(39:32):
responsibility and our role, andso I get it.
I'm not criticizing you, me oranyone else for using this
language.
It's just it's in there in thelanguage and it's funny to look
at.
Yeah.
I also wanted to mention.
So we came from the autisticburnout and how that points
(39:53):
clearly at some problems inparenting.
And then you said very clearlyhow this is not right for anyone
, or we maybe both said andthese other children it might
look like they're thriving, butprobably they're not, they're
just adapting.
(40:13):
I also have a big heart for theparents, because if you have to
live your life with that kindof control, you have these
awesome humans around you whomyou love with all that you are,
and yet you have to enforce allthese things and you have to be
(40:36):
in that policeman, control,systematic, organized,
perfectionist role.
You have to be a version ofyourself you don't want to be
and you have to ruin on a dailybasis your relationship with the
most important people in yourlife in order to arrive at that
success situation.
(40:58):
And I think I feel sorry alsofor the parent, because they're
just you know it's just on thebackbone, they're just rolling
with the culture, they're justdoing what they think is right
and they have this fear that youtalked about before.
You know, if I let go just alittle bit, all falls apart.
So you, you're based on thatfear, you're holding on to your
(41:22):
power, you're holding on to yourstructure.
You're holding on to thatcereal box and you're not
pouring it because the child hasto do it, and if he doesn't
pour it himself, it will allfall apart, which is oh my god.
You could just sit down, chat,you know right?
Amanda Diekman (41:38):
maybe not even have breakfast, whatever right
you know, say he's intermediatefasting, then it's problem
solved I know I love the waythat you brought in the cost to
the parents of like you'redestroying the relationship with
the most important person inyour life.
(41:59):
I think that that is so true.
It also is destroying yourrelationship to your own
intuition.
I think a lot of parents havean urge to let things go, and
then they shove it down with alot of shame and oh, I can't do
(42:20):
that, and fear.
And then that deep intuitivesense of like this doesn't
really matter.
Deep intuitive sense of likethis doesn't really matter.
Why would this relationshipneed to be one of like zero-sum
game?
We have an intuitive sense thatit could be okay to let this go
, to say you know what, thisdoesn't even matter to me the
(42:41):
cereal and all of that.
And then we deny it, we push itdown, we wrap it up in fear,
and so then we're less and lessconnected to ourselves as well.
You know we're also destroyingour relationship to our own
intuitive knowing.
Cecilie Conrad (43:00):
I think we could reframe letting go, and that
would help a lot of parents ifthey didn't have to think about
it as something they've beenholding on to, working hard to
keep in place for however manyyears, and now you're letting go
.
That feels like somewhat awaste.
But how about just changing theparadigm to stepping into some
(43:25):
sort of flow, starting tocooperate, embracing intuition
because that's what it is?
Yeah, talk about it as aletting go, but really it's not.
The letting go is the smallestpart, but the big part is to
start living in real connectionwith these most important people
(43:47):
in our lives, and includingourselves.
Real connection with what do Ireally see here?
What do I really feel?
What do I really think is righttoday?
Yeah, so I think that mightjust be helpful for anyone.
Amanda Diekman (44:03):
What I find in working really closely with
parents is that in the beginningit does feel like letting go,
and a big part of what themethod that I'm trying to get
down on paper is what are themechanics of letting go?
Well, like, what does itactually look like to release an
expectation durably,consistently, over time, and to
(44:24):
slow it down enough to break outlike each individual movement
and how that adds up into anoverall symphony.
I think that what builds overtime is everything that you're
mentioning and that it quickly,the paradigm quickly shifts.
But for me, there is thismiddle moment where I describe
(44:45):
it like you know the old cartoonwhere the guy like runs off the
cliff and then like for asecond they don't know that
there's no ground underneaththem, and then they just start
to drop.
It's like that initial run offthe cliff where there's like
nothing underneath you anymore.
I mean, the great thing is likeyou free fall and you realize,
oh, this is actually life, likeI wasn't meant to be back there,
(45:05):
I meant to be like in the wideopen or whatever.
You, however you want to likerecast it, but but there is this
like divestment from dominantparenting culture moment that a
lot of people.
It's kind of like howde-schooling is an important
part before you can get all theway over into like and we're
good with whatever you like,have to pull out all the ways
(45:29):
that that other dominant mindsetis in there.
And I feel like for what I'mtrying to do is stand right at
that edge, at that initial spotwhere people kind of run off and
be like I got you, let's figurethis, let's take these first
steps together.
Jesper Conrad (45:49):
Well, maybe that's the good transition to
asking the question you usuallyask yes, amanda, I would love to
continue the talk and I thinkwe should do so at another point
before this episode.
Um, then, some of the things wehave talked about you call low
demanddemand parenting, and ifpeople want to get to know more
(46:12):
about you, the work you do andlow-demand parenting, where
should they go, where do theyfind you and how to get hold of
you?
Amanda Diekman (46:22):
Well, in addition to being I guess it's
maybe the second proudest thingI am, besides helping my son
heal from burnout is writing thebook Low Demand Parenting.
So it's in a book Um, it's onlyin English, but there there's
print, kindle and audio bookversions all over the world.
And um slowly but surelyworking on translation into a
(46:45):
couple of other languages, andthat is probably the cheapest
and best condensation of mythoughts into one place.
But you can also find me on theinternet.
I write and share as Low DemandAmanda and I have a podcast the
same name as my book, lowDemand Parenting, and on the
(47:08):
topics that we were talkingabout today, there's one podcast
in particular called I can'tquite remember the name, but it
has to do with how permissiveisn't really a thing and it's my
deconstruction of, like how theoriginal research came up to
believe that this was permissiveand then why I don't think that
matches with modernneuroscience.
(47:29):
So if people are like, wait, butI do think this is a problem,
that might be a place to dig alittle deeper and learn a little
bit more about how we've beenconditioned to believe it is.
Jesper Conrad (47:41):
That's wonderful.
I will put the links in theshow notes.
Absolutely, Amanda.
It was a wonderful talk Ireally enjoyed it.
Cecilie Conrad (47:50):
Thank you same to you.
It was an interestingconversation, thank you.
Today we're together with Amanda Diekmann,
and, amanda, it's a pleasure tomeet you and I look forward to
our chat today.
Welcome.
Amanda Diekman (00:08):
Thank you so much.
I'm really glad to talk to youall.
Jesper Conrad (00:12):
Yeah, I have wondered where to start.
When I read your homepage, someof the words popped into my
mind and I was like, oh, thatsounds wonderful.
And the two words was radicalacceptance.
I like that.
So if we can start there, whatis radical acceptance to you?
(00:34):
And I really I love those words.
It's like accept them radicallywith a lot of love.
Amanda Diekman (00:41):
You got it.
Yeah, I mean there's a wholebody of work.
I'm thinking of Tara Brock andothers who've done a lot of
writing and teaching on radicalacceptance.
But I like that.
You asked what does it mean tome?
So I'm not going to talk aboutthe people who've taught me
theoretically.
I actually really want to talkabout my kids.
(01:03):
Actually, last night I, sort ofaccidentally, I was watching
videos of the kids when theywere little, with them and we
were laughing and enjoying howcute they were.
And then, um, I just kept goingafter they left the room and I
and I accidentally watched avideo of one of my kids in a
really difficult moment.
Um, I probably at the timerecorded it to show some
(01:26):
therapist to be like, what isgoing on here or like this is
the kind of behaviors we'redealing with.
I don't normally record theirhardest moments, but it really
caught me off guard.
I was in this like very oh,they were so cute mindset, and
then I suddenly was watching ourhardest stuff and I was
(01:46):
transported back there instantlyto being so confused and
overwhelmed and trying so hardto do it right and consulting
all the experts and feeling verylike my kids were a project I
had to fix and that seasonlasted longer than I wish it did
(02:09):
.
When I look back, I have tohave a lot of compassion for
younger me and how I was tryingto do the right thing and I was
participating in a widerparenting culture that says
consult the experts, doeverything the experts tell you
to do.
But it wasn't until it all likethe bottom, really dropped out.
(02:30):
When my middle kid turned six hewent into autistic burnout,
which I didn't know was autisticburnout I had.
I didn't know he was autistic,I'd never heard of burnout for a
six-year-old.
But it looked like all theclassic markers of good
childhood and good parenting,like feed them healthy food,
make sure they get exercise, bepolite to your parents, go to
(02:51):
school Just the basics of fallasleep at night instead of
staying awake all night.
To me at the time, the very fewexpectations that I might hold
on to were just absolutelyimpossible.
The very few expectations thatI might hold on to are just
absolutely impossible.
And in that season I was facedwith a decision like is this a
(03:14):
colossal failure or can I lovehim just like this?
And I found in myself thisreally clear knowledge that the
way I'd been doing it was notworking, and his little
six-year-old body was telling methat, in every way possible,
this is not working for me, mom.
And so then I practiced thisother thing, which was okay what
(03:34):
if you are good enough, justlike this?
What if I can love you justlike this?
What if you don't have tochange one singular thing to be
exactly right for me?
Change one singular thing to beexactly right for me.
And that, to me, was when Ifirst, viscerally in my body,
felt radical acceptance.
I felt what it was to say youdon't have to change, I'll be
(03:56):
the one who changes.
If the world isn't ready foryou, then I'll become the
activist and advocate that couldbe one small piece of making
the world a safer place for youto land.
And it changed my life.
And ultimately, I think thatthat is the heartbeat of
everything that I do is fromlooking at that beautiful child
(04:18):
and saying I choose you justlike this.
Cecilie Conrad (04:25):
So that was a real turning point.
Amanda Diekman (04:28):
It was a massive shift, also tracing back.
I mean I was a veryperfectionist child who was
trying desperately to be safe bymeeting all the expectations
and doing everything right.
So I didn't have any likelegacy of my own story for this
kind of disobedience against thestatus quo, for saying no, I'm
(04:52):
going to do things my own way.
I mean there were countlessnuggets along the way that I had
that in me, but my dominantparadigm was like do it right at
all costs.
So to make this kind of shift,it was huge.
Cecilie Conrad (05:08):
It sounds massive, so had you learned
about the idea of radicalacceptance before, or did you
feel it first and then learn itafter?
Amanda Diekman (05:19):
Well, I am an ordained pastor, so my tradition
educationally and theologicallyis the Presbyterian church, and
I served as a pastor for 10years.
That isn't a central part of myidentity anymore and I'm in
many ways struggling to be apart of something called the
church in the way that it'sexpressing itself today.
(05:40):
But I think that at its best,Christian theology is trying to
express a God who loves usradically and accepts us just as
we are, and so in many ways Ihad many, many reps at that.
I had been trained in that forthree years at a master's degree
(06:00):
and taught about it everysingle week from the pulpit and
at the same time, when it wasreally on the ground here with
me and my kid, it felt like anentirely different beast than
I'd ever confronted before.
Cecilie Conrad (06:16):
I have to do a little bit of thinking.
I just didn't have theChristianity in my matrix there
Because at its core, basically,it is radical acceptance.
But there is a differencebetween the spiritual movement
of Christianity and thesystematic organized religion in
(06:41):
institutions.
Yeah, and we haven't talkedabout this before on the podcast
.
Actually I don't know if weshould go down the route of the
religious one or the spiritualone.
Maybe we should do a second ofthat and prepare a little better
and continue with theacceptance of our children and
(07:03):
how that's.
Jesper Conrad (07:04):
Yeah, the interesting part I would like to
continue from.
It is like how some people dotheir religion.
It's the same.
I sometimes see how people dotheir parenting in the base of
what comes from the inside.
(07:25):
There there is the deep love,there is the.
If we talk Christianity, thenhe took the children to him and
everybody was accepted and lovedlike they were.
And as a parent, when you'restanding with your newborn child
, you just feel a very, verydeep love and you feel the
connectedness.
(07:46):
But then what comes after isthe fear of fitting in, is the
fear of doing right, is the fearof what would the neighbors say
?
There's so many of these thingsthat affects parenting and when
I look back at the areas ofbeing a father, I'm not proud of
(08:10):
.
Some of the things they have incommon is it is when I have
been afraid of being embarrassedin front of other people it's
deeply rooted in me.
It.
It's also where Celia and I canhave argues if we have any.
She can say whatever she wantsto me when we are home, but if
(08:32):
she says it when we are out andabout, something happens in me
and it just gets so much.
There's something deeply weirdin me I still have to work with.
That is the what would theneighbors say?
Or they're afraid of thejudgment.
And when it comes to being aparent and then choosing
homeschooling, unschooling,living with our kids at home,
(08:54):
like you also do, then in thefirst couple of years of being a
dad with my kids home, now I'mat ease with it, but the first
couple of years, oh my god, thefear, yeah.
So how was it for you to takethat shift of being a mom?
who lived with.
Can you say more in control?
(09:15):
Or you wanted to control howyour life was, to saying, okay,
I will love them how they are?
What about the love of theneighbor?
Were you afraid how you wouldbe judged?
Where were you?
Amanda Diekman (09:29):
Yeah, absolutely , it's an interesting one.
So there's two pieces.
I was deeply with you that Ilived part of my life from my
own experience and part of mylife from other people's eyes,
imagining what they would sayand do, even in our own home.
(09:49):
I would imagine, well, what ifsomeone saw this, or what if
they did this when someone saw?
And so, even when I should havebeen safe from that gaze, I
brought it in myself and it wasreally crippling to my innate
(10:09):
wisdom, to my ability to trustmyself, which I think is one of
the biggest things that's beenstolen from us.
I don't want to blame individualparents for this reality,
although our own story obviouslycomes into play and we do have
agency here.
But man, as a parenting culturefrom the beginning, especially
I'm speaking as an American whenwe are first going to the
(10:34):
pediatrician's office, evenbefore our babies are born, when
we're just kicking ideas aroundwith fellow pregnant people,
there is such a pervasive senseof there is one right way to do
this Are you going to be a goodmom, are you going to get it
right?
And if you get it wrong, thejudgment is really intense here.
Cecilie Conrad (10:59):
And what does it look like to get it right?
I'm just culturally curious.
I mean, I don't know howdifferent it really is.
Amanda Diekman (11:08):
Right.
Well, I mean, it's very hollow,so getting it right.
Typically here looks like yourkids obviously go to school, but
they do well in school.
They both get good grades butare also sort of simultaneously
popular well-liked, with lots offriends getting invited to
everybody's birthday party,maybe a leader in class and then
(11:31):
at the same time are involvedin a couple of well-chosen,
well-balanced extracurricularactivities that they genuinely
enjoy.
I mean, it's impossible.
Like, as I'm casting this,you're probably like wait, this
is not a thing.
It's not a thing, but it'sstill leaders no they can't all
be leaders Exactly.
It doesn't work like that, um,and then at home are respectful,
(11:57):
responsible, kind of do thingsthe first time they're asked
around the house, kind to theirsiblings.
Jesper Conrad (12:04):
um, masked around the house, kind to their
siblings growing towardsindependence and getting a good
job one day Sounds a littlestressful Sounds, international
though, I mean, it's not thesame we would expect for
children in Europe.
Amanda Diekman (12:22):
It's the same, the same picture.
Okay, well, that's good tocheck.
Cecilie Conrad (12:26):
It could be that the reality looks different or
the way to handle it, but itlooks like it's the same.
There's a difference in theextracurricular thing that we
saw when we visited the Statesversus in Denmark, where it's
more you bike there yourself.
There's a lot of differences.
But this getting it right,doing it right, how is the
(12:46):
successful child kind of the?
Amanda Diekman (12:49):
same roughly the same roughly yeah and the I I
was largely that child.
I got it right most of the time.
I had pretty epic meltdowns athome over some of the pieces and
I certainly was very extremeabout my doing in a way that
(13:10):
there's this sort of when I wasat I went to Duke University in
the early 2000s and there was amovement there to define
something that they felt likewas really toxic, especially for
women on campus, really toxic,especially for women on campus,
and they ended up naming iteffortless perfection, that that
was what was supposed to bedone, that you're supposed to
get it all right but never breaka sweat, never let them see you
(13:36):
struggle, and that wassomething I was never
particularly good at.
The effortless part, like ittook me a ton of work to achieve
that level of perfection, but Iwas going to do it one way or
the other.
And I married a collegeprofessor, kind of like at the
top of traditional academicsuccess, and so you know,
everything pointed to us atleast trying to live into this
(14:00):
vision of goodness.
And yeah, at the same time,when you talk about neighbors,
it's so great because then thisother thing was happening.
So when my oldest was two,before my other two children
were born.
We moved into an intentionalcommunity in the city that we
(14:21):
live in, right downtown, soeverything's very walkable and
there's 14 houses, about ahundred neighbors and we live
with.
Our intention is to center theexperience of our neighbors with
disabilities, and so many of myneighbors are disabled.
We have a explicit practiceamong us of care and centering
(14:44):
of that lived experience and sowe have all kinds of different
types of disability andexperiences of disability, level
of support needed.
But I learned from my neighborsover and over and over again
that this picture of the goodlife that I've been handed is
not the only picture and in factthere's like real cracks.
(15:06):
I knew it, but witnessing themliving a very different truth
and pulling me into that wasreally powerful.
So the biggest thing that Ilearned was that independence is
utterly a myth and thatinterdependence is the good life
.
That's what we're actually madefor and that makes sense
(15:30):
theoretically to me.
But witnessing my friends whoneed certain kinds of support in
order to move through their day, that there is no part of their
identity that could believe inthe myth of independence Because
I think I could believe it, Icould pretend it, that I could
do this by myself.
But that's not their truth.
There's things I can't do formyself that I need other people
(15:54):
to do for me, and witnessingthat neediness between them as
the most beautiful expression ofhumanity like what better way
is there to be in the world thanto deeply need other humans it
just changed everything for me.
And, of course, this is my kids'only reality.
They only know what it's liketo be unschooled in a community
(16:16):
of lots of disabled people andso, yeah, they didn't ever have
a world where that livedexperience was on the margins,
like it's always been at thecenter for them.
So then, when I discovered that, oh, we're all neurodivergent
and I don't know whether some ofmy kids are going to live
independently in the long termor whether they're going to want
(16:38):
to and that's just already apart already apart they're like
oh well, I've got 30 neighborswho are beautiful, thriving
adults, who live in community,either with their parents or
with other adults, becausethat's what they need in order
to survive and thrive.
So, yeah, it's kind of like Ihad this imaginary neighbor view
that was judging me, but myreal neighbor view was like
(17:01):
welcome to the party, this isthe good life.
Well, what a gift.
I know it is, and, of course, myhusband and I made the decision
to move here.
So there was also a part of usthat was like, yeah, we don't
want the right.
You know we were acting like wewanted all the regular thing.
But people that want theregular thing don't move into a
community like this.
Cecilie Conrad (17:23):
What an amazing context to live in.
Amanda Diekman (17:30):
It's really special, it really is.
Cecilie Conrad (17:36):
I was thinking about.
You said when your second childwas six years old, he had an
autistic burnout.
What does that mean?
I don't think all my listenersknow what it means and I don't
(17:57):
think I could define it, somaybe we should clarify what
that actually looks like becausethat was your big turning point
right it was yeah, yeah, um.
Amanda Diekman (18:09):
In context, it was also in the fall of 2020,
when all of our supports fellout.
Cecilie Conrad (18:15):
Everything fell apart, yeah right.
Amanda Diekman (18:17):
so it's not a coincidence that that that
happened for us.
In fact, um, I know a prettymassive cohort of kids who went
through a similar experience.
Their families didn't know theywere autistic.
They'd been just kind of likestruggling along.
We had a lot of supports.
We had speech therapy andoccupational therapy and a
babysitter and a really lovelyplay-based preschool.
(18:41):
It was all great and I thinkthat's what was kind of like
holding life together, great.
And then and I think that'swhat was kind of like holding
life together and then when allof that fell apart and we were
just home together, it was, itwas really really difficult.
So what?
Autistic burnout is a fairly newconcept.
The research is maybe in thelast 10 or 15 years and I think
(19:05):
that now we're expanding it toneurodivergent burnout, as it
seems like it's not a uniquelyautistic experience and probably
so.
It has three characteristics.
Burnout tends to come with arapid or sudden decrease in
(19:25):
skills.
Rapid or sudden decrease inskills.
So for an adult it might looklike you can't cook dinner
anymore, you can't do a meeting,can't take notes.
You know that kind of like you,just the things you used to be
able to do.
You just can't.
For my kid.
He couldn't play in any kind ofback and forth manner.
(19:46):
He couldn't eat.
It almost always impacts basicneeds.
So he had a narrow, but notthat narrow diet and he went
down to only being able to eatpretzels and Nutella in that
period of time for a couple ofmonths.
That's all he could eat, andthen he couldn't leave the house
(20:08):
, he could hardly leave his room, he couldn't talk anymore.
He had been very verbal andthen lost all that verbal
communication.
So that's the first piece andit looks different for everybody
.
But it's either a patterneddecrease over a pretty short
period of time or for us it wasfrom one day to the next.
Just one day he had the skills.
The next day, boom, it was gone.
(20:30):
The second piece is pervasiveexhaustion and again, for adults
you kind of expect that to belike laying in bed or you wake
up in the morning and you stillfeel tired.
But for a kid it looked like,um, like his emotional register.
Just there was nothing in thetank, so any tiny provocation
(20:54):
led to just a huge overflow ofexplosion.
And then the third piece is adramatic increase in sensory
sensitivity or sensoryvolatility.
So that just is like really onthe body level.
The brain is no longer able toprocess that level of stimuli.
So for him, he couldn't hear,he couldn't listen to us
(21:16):
breathing or like the tinylittle mouth noises that you
make as you're preparing tospeak, things like that.
Those were no longer tolerableFor a lot of kids that can't
wear clothes.
They'll have to be naked forlong stretches of time.
Lights having only a dark,cave-like room is the only
(21:36):
possibility for functioning.
So it's a really severe realityfor those of us who experience
it.
But, like you pointed out, it'salso really hidden For most
people whose kid goes intoautistic burnout.
They don't know what it is whenit starts, and that was our
reality as well.
You figure it out as you'relike what is this?
Jesper Conrad (21:59):
I have no idea.
It sounds like almost if you'rea parent to it, you would be
like you would be freaked out,and if you don't have the tools,
you might even just think mykid has gone mental and there's
something wrong and I need tofix it immediately.
(22:21):
Drug it, do something, fix itRight.
Amanda Diekman (22:24):
I can't just let this happen was the feeling
yeah, right I can't just letthis happen.
It was the feeling yeah, yeah,right, which made it all the
more difficult to do the thingthat I actually needed to do,
which I think this is importantto say.
For burnout, it can look also,depending, you know, if, like a
(22:45):
teenager, you would think, ooh,this is serious, massive
depression, and it's oftenco-occurring with depression and
anxiety.
But what's really important isthat the treatment is almost the
opposite of what you would dowith either depression or
anxiety, and that pursuingtraditional treatment is really
destructive for the person who'strying to heal because burnout
is essentially like too much fortoo long trying to heal because
(23:08):
burnout is essentially like toomuch for too long.
And what you need to do is givethat person a really
substantial I call it a cozynest, but like a really
substantial margin for them to.
If they if you know, if it'ssensory stimuli is too much for
them, let it go.
Don't try to like, push theiredges.
They need a really wide bertharound them of like.
(23:30):
We will not cross yourboundaries, we will keep you
safe and if you pushed yourteenager into some sort of an
inpatient treatment or you haveto talk to somebody about this
or opposite action, which is aclassic for depression.
You know, your body says rest.
Well, that means you need toget up and move.
(23:51):
All of those things would bereally unhelpful for that person
and can be what exacerbates itbeyond.
Just um, you know, a reallyscary and difficult time, but
not not a life-ending time, butit can easily tip.
Jesper Conrad (24:08):
Amanda, to be honest, as a dad, part of me,
when I look back, would havehandled it with a lot of
shouting and just to say it likeit is, because there's probably
someone out there who's likehow can you give that amount of
space and have that amount oftrust?
Can you give that amount ofspace and have that amount of
(24:31):
trust?
Because my own inadequate,inadequate yeah, difficult word
for me my own lack of being ableto fix it would come out as
aggression maybe, or like tryingto shout the child to at least
behave or something.
So I think many people havethat.
(24:53):
So how was it to put a brake onthe?
I need to fix this right nowand I cannot fix it with force,
right?
How was that?
Amanda Diekman (25:10):
Well, I think in some ways, what saved me is
that I am autistic too andthere's some part of me that
really recognized what was goingon with him, like when I wasn't
so terrified, when I wasn'tlike I have to fix this, when I
was really more with myempathetic what would this be
like for you?
Like what?
(25:30):
When I wasn't like what isgoing on so I can fix it.
But when I was genuinely likewhat is this, what is going on
here?
I, I, there was some kinship Icould recognize.
Oh yeah, when the world is toomuch, a part of me needs to
retreat.
And when, when people ask mequestions that I I'm not ready
(25:52):
to answer, a part of me wants tojust yell at them, to shut the
F up, like he was doing to me.
You know, I, I, there was a, akinship there.
I was like, yeah, there's apart of me that feels that way
and I could see that if all myresources suddenly left me
overnight, I would be only thatpart, that's all that would be
(26:14):
left, and that really helped.
I mean, it was a big part ofhow I got diagnosed and how he
got diagnosed as I went down arabbit hole of like, wait, if
you are, then I am.
And so we ended up both gettingdiagnosed autistic a month
apart.
Um, and the other thing thatreally helped me is that I began
(26:38):
to see.
So I just tried some stuff,because, like what can you do?
You know, of course I tried alot of wrong things, like I
tried forcing him into the car,I tried only bringing him food
that he wouldn't eat, and youknow it, just everything
escalated.
And so I thought, like what ifI just let things go?
Nothing had prepared me forthat in my parenting culture.
(27:00):
Like no one ever says letthings go.
Like the big worst thing youcan be is permissive, right, and
so I was like, oh, but I feellike I can't just keep expecting
more.
He's telling me this is all toomuch.
So the for our first success wasbreakfast.
Our old routine was like youhave to come downstairs, you
pick out your own cereal, yousit at the table and you eat it,
(27:22):
and it's just, it was the worsttime of day.
That's actually what the videothat I stumbled on watching was
a breakfast meltdown, and Ithought, what if I could just
drink a cup of coffee, get myother two kids fed without
anyone getting seriously hurt,like how great would that be?
That's kind of where myexpectations were at that point,
(27:42):
and so I just started withlittle things.
I was like, okay, you don'thave to come downstairs, you can
, or no.
I started with come downstairsbut I made like a little
barricade around him so at leasthe didn't have to see his
siblings while he was eating.
And then we backed it up Okay,you can eat your cereal in your
room.
But then the sound of mepouring the milk was true, or it
(28:05):
was opening the bag, I don'tknow.
Something was like it was asensory trigger.
So then I started preparing thebowl of cereal outside the room
and then bringing it in, and itfelt like, cause, I think the
big fear that parents have islike, well, if I start letting
things go, it's just going tosnowball, and then they're never
going to be able to blah, blah,blah again.
And so at first it did feellike that Cause.
(28:31):
It was kind of peeling theonion, like, okay, now you can't
sit at the table.
Okay, now you can't even pickyour own cereal.
Okay, now you can't even pouryour own cereal, right.
But what it actually was wasfinding it was getting back to
his actual capacity instead ofall of the pushing past that
he'd been doing.
And it turned out his actualcapacity was eating the cereal
in his room, which was a realvictory, because it wasn't
pretzels and Nutella, and andalso my other two kids could eat
(28:55):
peacefully without being hurt,and I got to drink my coffee.
I was like, oh my gosh, what ahuge win.
Okay, breakfast in the roomworks.
And then I just got curiouslike, well, if we can do that,
what else can we do?
And so we just started lettinggo, letting go, letting go and
figuring out where his realcapacity was.
(29:17):
Someone had me do an exercisewhere they were like write down
10 things that you know he cando, and they were like open your
eyes when you wake up in themorning, like pee when I carry
you to the bathroom.
They were very low bar kind ofthings, but there were 10 things
on there that he could actuallydo, and that was helpful to
(29:42):
start to define thingspositively as well, not only in
what we were losing, but in whatwas still there.
And then what we saw and thisis like the big message that I
want to share is that the big,scary thing that everybody tells
you is going to happen.
It didn't happen.
He didn't.
He isn't stuck in his roomdemanding that I bring him
(30:05):
everything, demanding that Ibring him everything.
He healed and he grew.
His capacity increased.
The more I accommodated him,the safer he felt, the more he
was able to do, and thatcontinues to be the the main.
The bar we live by today iswhen you're safe enough, you
(30:26):
will thrive.
Cecilie Conrad (30:30):
Congratulations.
Sounds like it's been a roughand long journey.
Amanda Diekman (30:39):
I'm prouder of that than anything else in my
life.
You must have been very afraidI was.
I was.
I was terrified, and so manyparents are, and those are my
people.
You know, if people arelistening and they're like, yes,
like I hover at the edges ofevery community waiting for
someone to mention how bad itcan be, because people will just
(31:03):
toss out there like, oh, doesyour kid like pinch their
sibling?
And you're like pinch, likethat would be great.
Jesper Conrad (31:10):
We're way past pinch, that would be on the
positive list.
You can pinch your siblingPerfect.
Amanda Diekman (31:16):
It was just a pinch you know.
So, anyway, those are my people.
That's what I end up attracting.
The folks who are terrifiedfeel like they failed, like
nothing works and like they'rethe on the outlier of what many
experience, which make you takeit really serious and and give
(31:58):
that space for healing.
Jesper Conrad (32:01):
But I'm then thinking about you, with the
story you're telling aboutgiving radical acceptance,
giving love, giving space.
What about all the ones wholive the normal life?
Amanda Diekman (32:18):
Yeah.
Jesper Conrad (32:21):
And it just makes me afraid that we oversee the
whole specter of where childrenare hurt in this demanding way
of being a parent we have in, asyou say, in this parenting
culture.
Cecilie Conrad (32:41):
Yeah, so what you're saying is if you're not
autistic and you don't get aburnout.
You might still be hurt by thatway of parenting.
Oh, yes, oh, you might that'swhat I was thinking about as
well.
Yeah, because that way ofparenting where there is this
(33:05):
kind of rule book that you haveto come down from your room and
you have to pick out your cereal, you have to pour it yourself,
you have to eat it at the tableat a specific time in a specific
way, you probably have to bedressed before and there's a
rule of toothbrushes before orafter all these things, this is
top-down parenting and for anautistic child that can just be
(33:30):
two million times over the top.
But that doesn't mean it's notwrong for everyone.
Amanda Diekman (33:37):
You got it, man.
Yes, I love what you guys aresaying.
I know and I'll get that frommy vantage point People will be
like, well, I get why I need todo this for my autistic child,
but my other kid no.
You know, I need to keeppushing them and I'm like no,
you know.
First of all, really look atthem, because they'll be oh,
they're doing fine.
(33:57):
Well, can we back up and reallylook like how do you?
How fine are they?
Have you asked them if they'refine?
Are they?
Have you asked them if they'refine?
And even if they say they are,one of my favorite questions to
ask my kids is what's the worstpart?
(34:18):
I just want to reallyexplicitly give them permission
to tell me what's wrong, becauseI think that there is again.
And our kids want to please us,they're hardwired to want to
make us happy and some kids,especially if we're talking
about these kids that aresuffering silently.
(34:40):
They're doing well on theoutside and on the inside things
are not okay and they're noteven if they can't imagine a
different world, where theirparents don't control every
aspect of their life, but theystill know in some part of them
that it doesn't feel right, thatthey want something more, and
I've never met a kid that's beenhighly controlled, that I've
(35:02):
met with and worked with, whohasn't on some level wished that
things could be different.
So I like to give my kids a lotof permission to tell me.
The worst part and where westarted with some of these
demand drops was around myyelling at them so like owning
that I was doing something Ididn't want to.
(35:25):
I said, look, I'm yelling atyou with what we called my big
voice, because sometimes I don'tactually get loud, I'm just
really intense and that is justas scary, even when it's very
quiet.
So we named it my big voicebecause I would try to wiggle
out and be like I didn't yelland they were like, well, it was
scary, uh.
(35:45):
So I said I'm going to try notto use my big voice.
I really, really don't want to,but I need your help.
Like, what are what's the worstpart about when I use my big
voice?
And when I use my big voice, Ineed you to start to say, like
we agreed you weren't going todo that.
So, and then we made, outsideof the moment, we made an
(36:08):
agreement that if I was using mybig voice because they weren't
doing something that I thoughtthat they were supposed to do.
We agreed I was going to let itgo.
So then, in the moment, if itgot hard, I was empowering them
with agency to talk back to meand I think that that's a really
small but important shift thatparents can make.
In the beginning, as you'redeconstructing this hierarchy of
(36:31):
parent control is to if youwant more, right Like we can't
change the world for parentsthat don't want more.
But I think parents want someparents, the parents listening
to you.
Now they want more than this,but they've only been given this
one paradigm is giving our kidstrust our kids that I've become
(36:57):
the parent I have, because Ibecame the parent my kids needed
and I trusted them to tell mewhat they needed and they knew
man and they've helped me, andnot in a parentified way where
I'm putting too much on them orI'm asking them to be my
caretaker or you know I own thework.
But I trust them in the momentif they say you said that you
(37:23):
were going to let this go andnow you're forcing me, so our
family language is forcing.
If they ever feel forced, thenthey say you're forcing me, so
our family language is forcing.
If they ever feel forced thenthey say you're forcing me and
that's a reminder that I'm usingmy power or I'm using control
and that we're going to back upand we're going to let it go
until we have genuinecollaborative agreement and they
don't feel forced.
(37:43):
And if they ever feel forced,then we stop.
And I mean man giving kids thatcontrol and that power like
they use it for good.
I think we have this fear thatif we give our kids more control
or more power, that they'regoing to, you know, go off the
rails and I have not found thatto be the case.
I mean, certainly they do, butso do I.
(38:05):
So we're human, we're allowedto go off the rails sometimes,
but on the whole I think theycan really.
I've found that my kids canreally be trusted to own more
power in the family dynamic andto hold me accountable to my
better, to my best self.
Cecilie Conrad (38:23):
Well, if you can let go of a specific way things
have to be, then there is moreto say that things go wrong.
Well, that means you'll have tohave a clear idea about what it
is when it goes right.
Yeah, so if you open that boxup a little bit and say, okay,
but my idea of what's rightmight not be the only version of
(38:47):
right, well then it doesn't gowrong when everyone in the
family has a voice.
I think it's funny how, even inthis conversation we're having
with each other and we'reclearly on the same page we
still use this language kind ofwe allow our children to have
some power, whatever you know,we let them have control as if
(39:11):
it was ours to take.
I mean, it's, there's somethingwrong with the whole
linguistics of it and and it.
I know you don't think that way.
Actually, it's just the way we.
We can somehow get it, but it'shard because it's such a deeply
rooted way of thinking aboutchildren and parents and our
(39:32):
responsibility and our role, andso I get it.
I'm not criticizing you, me oranyone else for using this
language.
It's just it's in there in thelanguage and it's funny to look
at.
Yeah.
I also wanted to mention.
So we came from the autisticburnout and how that points
(39:53):
clearly at some problems inparenting.
And then you said very clearlyhow this is not right for anyone
, or we maybe both said andthese other children it might
look like they're thriving, butprobably they're not, they're
just adapting.
(40:13):
I also have a big heart for theparents, because if you have to
live your life with that kindof control, you have these
awesome humans around you whomyou love with all that you are,
and yet you have to enforce allthese things and you have to be
(40:36):
in that policeman, control,systematic, organized,
perfectionist role.
You have to be a version ofyourself you don't want to be
and you have to ruin on a dailybasis your relationship with the
most important people in yourlife in order to arrive at that
success situation.
(40:58):
And I think I feel sorry alsofor the parent, because they're
just you know it's just on thebackbone, they're just rolling
with the culture, they're justdoing what they think is right
and they have this fear that youtalked about before.
You know, if I let go just alittle bit, all falls apart.
So you, you're based on thatfear, you're holding on to your
(41:22):
power, you're holding on to yourstructure.
You're holding on to thatcereal box and you're not
pouring it because the child hasto do it, and if he doesn't
pour it himself, it will allfall apart, which is oh my god.
You could just sit down, chat,you know right?
Amanda Diekman (41:38):
maybe not even have breakfast, whatever right
you know, say he's intermediatefasting, then it's problem
solved I know I love the waythat you brought in the cost to
the parents of like you'redestroying the relationship with
the most important person inyour life.
(41:59):
I think that that is so true.
It also is destroying yourrelationship to your own
intuition.
I think a lot of parents havean urge to let things go, and
then they shove it down with alot of shame and oh, I can't do
(42:20):
that, and fear.
And then that deep intuitivesense of like this doesn't
really matter.
Deep intuitive sense of likethis doesn't really matter.
Why would this relationshipneed to be one of like zero-sum
game?
We have an intuitive sense thatit could be okay to let this go
, to say you know what, thisdoesn't even matter to me the
(42:41):
cereal and all of that.
And then we deny it, we push itdown, we wrap it up in fear,
and so then we're less and lessconnected to ourselves as well.
You know we're also destroyingour relationship to our own
intuitive knowing.
Cecilie Conrad (43:00):
I think we could reframe letting go, and that
would help a lot of parents ifthey didn't have to think about
it as something they've beenholding on to, working hard to
keep in place for however manyyears, and now you're letting go
.
That feels like somewhat awaste.
But how about just changing theparadigm to stepping into some
(43:25):
sort of flow, starting tocooperate, embracing intuition
because that's what it is?
Yeah, talk about it as aletting go, but really it's not.
The letting go is the smallestpart, but the big part is to
start living in real connectionwith these most important people
(43:47):
in our lives, and includingourselves.
Real connection with what do Ireally see here?
What do I really feel?
What do I really think is righttoday?
Yeah, so I think that mightjust be helpful for anyone.
Amanda Diekman (44:03):
What I find in working really closely with
parents is that in the beginningit does feel like letting go,
and a big part of what themethod that I'm trying to get
down on paper is what are themechanics of letting go?
Well, like, what does itactually look like to release an
expectation durably,consistently, over time, and to
(44:24):
slow it down enough to break outlike each individual movement
and how that adds up into anoverall symphony.
I think that what builds overtime is everything that you're
mentioning and that it quickly,the paradigm quickly shifts.
But for me, there is thismiddle moment where I describe
(44:45):
it like you know the old cartoonwhere the guy like runs off the
cliff and then like for asecond they don't know that
there's no ground underneaththem, and then they just start
to drop.
It's like that initial run offthe cliff where there's like
nothing underneath you anymore.
I mean, the great thing is likeyou free fall and you realize,
oh, this is actually life, likeI wasn't meant to be back there,
(45:05):
I meant to be like in the wideopen or whatever.
You, however you want to likerecast it, but but there is this
like divestment from dominantparenting culture moment that a
lot of people.
It's kind of like howde-schooling is an important
part before you can get all theway over into like and we're
good with whatever you like,have to pull out all the ways
(45:29):
that that other dominant mindsetis in there.
And I feel like for what I'mtrying to do is stand right at
that edge, at that initial spotwhere people kind of run off and
be like I got you, let's figurethis, let's take these first
steps together.
Jesper Conrad (45:49):
Well, maybe that's the good transition to
asking the question you usuallyask yes, amanda, I would love to
continue the talk and I thinkwe should do so at another point
before this episode.
Um, then, some of the things wehave talked about you call low
demanddemand parenting, and ifpeople want to get to know more
(46:12):
about you, the work you do andlow-demand parenting, where
should they go, where do theyfind you and how to get hold of
you?
Amanda Diekman (46:22):
Well, in addition to being I guess it's
maybe the second proudest thingI am, besides helping my son
heal from burnout is writing thebook Low Demand Parenting.
So it's in a book Um, it's onlyin English, but there there's
print, kindle and audio bookversions all over the world.
And um slowly but surelyworking on translation into a
(46:45):
couple of other languages, andthat is probably the cheapest
and best condensation of mythoughts into one place.
But you can also find me on theinternet.
I write and share as Low DemandAmanda and I have a podcast the
same name as my book, lowDemand Parenting, and on the
(47:08):
topics that we were talkingabout today, there's one podcast
in particular called I can'tquite remember the name, but it
has to do with how permissiveisn't really a thing and it's my
deconstruction of, like how theoriginal research came up to
believe that this was permissiveand then why I don't think that
matches with modernneuroscience.
(47:29):
So if people are like, wait, butI do think this is a problem,
that might be a place to dig alittle deeper and learn a little
bit more about how we've beenconditioned to believe it is.
Jesper Conrad (47:41):
That's wonderful.
I will put the links in theshow notes.
Absolutely, Amanda.
It was a wonderful talk Ireally enjoyed it.
Cecilie Conrad (47:50):
Thank you same to you.
It was an interestingconversation, thank you.
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