My story is like so many of yours.

I’m a mom of two neurodivergent children. One of my children started therapy at the age of 10 months. Therapy was his shadow. He didn’t have time for extracurricular activities as he was going to occupational, speech, or social skills therapy. There were medications to manage, evaluations to do, and accommodations and services to fight for. Though his progress was slow, I was proud of every win.

I understood he would not be like other kids, but why was his progress not matching the efforts we made? Why did therapy not generalize into life?

It took me a while before I realized that as a surgeon, I was desperately looking for something to fix.

I then saw he was neurodiverse, not broken.

His differences did not limit him in any way.

It was agency that he lacked because of years of therapy of being told what to do and milestones to achieve.

What I needed a foster was not a way to make him like anyone else, but to foster his grit. No matter what his challenge if I could give him the resilience, the insight and the motivation to achieve his dreams and the skills, he could get anywhere into anything he wanted.

As a teen, he had aged out of therapy and he could not relate to me. I found him a mentor a few years older, and it made all the difference. He found his voice, his self esteem, and gained skills.

After seeing the difference this made in my son, I expanded this mentorship program to help other neurodiverse children. I continued to see the effectiveness of mentorship and the endless demand for this unique program. I use my years of experience in teaching executive functioning and mentoring to train mentors to be the ideal and effective role models.

I bring this experience to you and your child.