The Empowered Parent with Dana Baltutis
Welcome to The Empowered Parent Podcast. This podcast is a space for parents to learn, reflect, and grow. Each week, we explore topics that help parents understand themselves and their children more deeply - from communication and connection, to supporting neurodivergent development at home and in the community. We’ve had wonderful conversations with experts, parents, and professionals - including speakers from the Neurodivergence Wellbeing Conference, and a special series following one mum’s journey in unschooling her child. Every episode is here to inspire curiosity, compassion, and confidence in your parenting journey. Don’t forget to follow along, share your reflections, and join the conversation. You can connect with me at danabaltutis.com or mytherapyhouse.com.au. Let’s celebrate neurodivergence. Let’s celebrate belonging.
Episodes
Dana's reflections on 2025.
danabaltutis.com, mytherapyhouse.com.au, https://mytherapyhouse.com.au/your-childs-therapy-journey/ https://www.danabaltutis.com/services
What changes when a child’s wellbeing takes the lead and everything else rearranges around it? In this series finale with Paige Carter of Inclusive Oak, we follow a family through unschooling and burnout recovery, anchored by one unforgettable moment: a teacher who shows up at a caravan park simply to say hello, offer a gift, and hold the thread of belonging. No pressure, no performance—just proof that connection trav...
What if the bravest choice is to stop doing what everyone expects and start doing what your child needs? We sit down with Paige Carter to unpack a seismic family pivot: renting out the house, moving into a caravan, and giving a neurodivergent child time to recover from burnout. It’s not a retreat from learning; it’s a redesign of life around safety, trust, and capacity.
Paige shares how they balanced two very...
This week on The Empowered Parent Podcast I sat down with Sarah Lovett from Our PDA Kids and Paige Carter from Inclusive Oak. Both Sarah and Paige are parents of children with Pathological Demand Avoidance, or Persistent Demand for Autonomy, and both run successful services supporting families just like yours.
Sarah talked about burnout, why it happens, and how we can support children who find school overwhelming. She ...
Say yes to slower. That simple pivot—away from pressure and toward real choice—turned a chaotic season into a week with fewer meltdowns, easier car rides, and a hydrotherapy session full of laughter. We open up about parenting a PDA child with low demand strategies, how we detach from outcomes, and why autonomy is not a luxury but a lifeline for regulation.
We dive into the recovery–stability–expansion arc an...
What happens when you remove the biggest triggers from a child’s day and the seizures stop? We sit down with Paige Carter to unpack a remarkable shift since Oakland left school, the role stress and heat play in absence and atonic seizures, and why the family is cautiously considering CBD oil after exhausting conventional options. From risperidone’s early wins and later costs, to stimulants that sparked agitation, to a...
Change doesn’t wait for the perfect schedule, and neither do big feelings. We sit down after a long day to unpack a week where a 30-minute hydrotherapy session brought relief, the weather kept us indoors, and Oakland leaned hard into the comfort of screens and familiar routines. Rather than fight it, we explore why control, predictability, and co-regulation can be smart strategies when a child’s world is filled with p...
Ever watched a child light up at the zoo, then shut down at the hospital and wondered how to bridge those worlds with care, dignity, and actual access? We dive into a week that held both: a quiet bus at Monarto where curiosity bloomed, and a clinical setting where pushing past tolerance backfired. Along the way, we unpack the practical tools that make community life possible for neurodivergent kids, from hydrotherapy ...
The rainbow stretches across the sky – vibrant, diverse, and complete only because each colour exists. This powerful metaphor frames our season finale on neurodiversity, reminding us that human brains, like rainbows, aren't meant to be identical. Each carries unique colours, patterns, and brilliance that contribute to the whole.
Throughout this season, we've explored what truly neuroaffirming spaces...
What if a camera could say what your voice can’t? We sit down with Bianca, a neurodivergent artist and mother living with bipolar II, ADHD, and autistic traits, to explore how art, therapy, and the right clinical support helped her turn pain into purpose. From a turbulent childhood in post-communist Romania to a leap-of-faith move to Adelaide during the pandemic, her story threads vulnerability with resolve, and invit...
A five-minute visit can hold a whole season of hope. I sat down with Paige Carter of Inclusive Oak to trace the delicate return of motivation after school burnout, and name a stage many families live inside: curiosity without capacity. Oakland asked to see his friends, stepped into the classroom, then stepped back out, overwhelmed but determined enough to hug classmates in the hallway. We call that progress, and we ta...
What happens when a clinical psychologist with ADHD parents two neurodivergent children? A uniquely insightful perspective on navigating family life with different brains. Dr. Claire Milligan opens up about her journey from struggling parent to practice director of Maple Leaf Psychology and Allied Health, sharing the moment when everything changed - when her pediatrician asked, "Which one of you has ADHD?"
What if the bravest thing you could do for your child’s education was to stop pushing and start listening to their nervous system? That’s the pivot Paige Carter makes as she chooses unschooling to help her autistic son, Oaklan, recover from severe burnout - replacing schedules and demands with safety, curiosity, and radical patience.
We dig into what autistic burnout really looks like at home: fragile toleran...
What happens when we reframe neurodivergence not as a deficit, but as a natural variation in brain architecture? Sarah Eagle, founder of Joy Diving Australia and late-diagnosed autistic woman with ADHD, offers a refreshing perspective that celebrates brain differences rather than pathologizing them.
After losing her brother Ben during a psychotic episode in 2001, Sarah channelled her grief into walking 600 ki...
What happens when cultural identity meets neurodiversity? Psychologist Anushka Phal knows this intersection intimately as a Fijian Indian, born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, who received her own ADHD diagnosis as an adult. This revelation sparked both personal healing and a passionate mission to create mental health spaces where multicultural, neurodivergent individuals truly belong.
"When I go...
What happens when the professional becomes the parent? Despite 14 years working in the disability sector, Paige Carter found herself completely lost when her son was diagnosed with autism at age two and a half. That moment sparked a powerful realization: if someone with her experience felt overwhelmed, how do families with no prior exposure to disability navigate this journey?
Paige shares her family's r...
What happens when we truly embrace neurodivergence as a fundamental part of human diversity? Joanne Hatchard, founder of Better Being Me and creator of the "Be Me Completely" course, brings profound wisdom from both personal and professional experience to this conversation about acceptance, connection, and living authentically.
Diagnosed with dyslexia at 16 and later recognizing her own autistic ide...
"Sometimes I feel things very intensely," reveals Violeta Abarzua Vasquezas she shares her journey of discovering neurodivergence in both herself and her children. This revelation transformed not only her understanding of her family but sparked the creation of Mingle Co – an organisation dedicated to building genuine connection for neurodivergent people.
After 21 years working across the disability ...
What if challenging behaviours aren't problems to fix, but signals showing us how a child's brain works? Dr Vanessa Spiller, clinical psychologist and FASD expert, revolutionises our understanding of neurodivergent children through her groundbreaking "Mind the Gaps" model.
Drawing from both professional expertise and lived experience as a foster carer, Dr Spiller explains that neurodiversi...
Welcome to Series 2 of the Empowered Parent Podcast, where we explore neurodiversity and attunement to children with "rainbow brains." I'm setting the foundation for upcoming conversations with parents, professionals, and neurodivergent individuals by sharing insights from the recent Neurodiversity and Wellbeing Conference.
• Neurodiversity, a term coined by Australian sociologist Judy Singer, ...
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