We're joined by a really special guest this week, Tanya Kemp. Tanya is a registered counsellor and parent consultant specialising in neurodiversity trauma and the parent Child Connection. Tanya's own journey has equipped her with unique insights on supporting autistic children.

Biography

Tanya Kemp is a registered counsellor and parent consultant, specialising in neurodiversity, trauma, and parent-child connection. With over two decades of clinical experience and additional training in mindfulness, somatic work, and neurodiversity-affirming practice, she supports families raising autistic and neurodivergent children. Tanya is also a solo mum to her 11-year-old autistic daughter, and together they’re traveling the world—learning, living, and world-schooling along the way. Her lived experience, combined with global research and integrative therapeutic approaches, makes her a trusted and compassionate guide for families navigating neurodivergence.

Key Takeaways

Understanding Neurodiversity: Tanya emphasises the importance of recognising and embracing neurodiversity as a valuable aspect of human variation rather than a deficit.

Parent-Child Connections: Building strong relationships with autistic children involves active listening, empathy, and validation of their feelings and experiences.

Practical Strategies for Support: Tanya shares actionable techniques that parents can use to support their autistic children, including creating structured routines and sensory-friendly environments.

Empowering Families: She highlights the need for parents to feel empowered and informed, equipping them with the tools they need to advocate effectively for their children.

Celebrating Differences: Emphasising the uniqueness of each autistic child, Tanya encourages families to celebrate their strengths and individuality.

Community Support: The importance of finding and fostering community connections is crucial for both parents and children, providing a sense of belonging and shared experiences.

Navigating Challenges: Tanya discusses common challenges faced by families and offers insights on how to navigate them with resilience and positivity.

Education and Advocacy: She stresses the role of education in breaking down stereotypes and fostering a more inclusive society for neurodivergent individuals.

Self-Care for Parents: Tanya reminds parents to prioritise their own well-being, as caring for themselves enables them to better support their children.

Continuous Learning: The journey of understanding and supporting neurodiversity is ongoing, and Tanya encourages parents to remain open to learning and adapting as they grow alongside their children.

Connect with Tanya Kemp

Website: https://www.tanyakemp.com/

Facebook - https://facebook.com/parentingautisticchildrenmatters

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/parentingautisticchildren/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-kemp-0b32022ab/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@parentingautisticchildren

Tanya's offers

A 5 day video series on the 5 things every parent should know when their child receives an autism diagnosis.

A free training for parents and carers on the autism brain through the lens that Tanya parents - a neurodiversity affirming lens that really shifts how parents and carers think about their child's day to day challenges and what kind of support they need. Also to understand the neurodiversity movement, ableism and be part of the solution for a better future for autistic people.

You can access these offers via Tanya's website here: https://www.tanyakemp.com/

Connect with The Autism Mums

https://theautismmums.com/

Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theautismmums

Follow us on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theautismmums

Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theautismmums

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Natalie Tealdi: Hi, it's Natalie. Unfortunately, I was unable to

be in today's interview, but before we begin, I just wanted to say

hello and let you know. It's a really good one. Hopefully you'll

agree

Victoria Bennion: That's right. Today I'm joined by a really

special guest, Tanya Kemp. Tanya is a registered counselor and parent

consultant specializing in neurodiversity trauma and the parent Child

Connection. Tanya's own journey has equipped her with unique insights

on supporting autistic children.

Natalie Tealdi: If you've ever felt overwhelmed or unsure in your

parenting journey, this episode has some really valuable, practical

advice and stories that we hope will be helpful to you.

Okay, let's hand over to

Victoria and Tanya.

Victoria Bennion: Welcome to the podcast, Tanya.

Tanya Kemp: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Victoria Bennion: So you've taken quite an unconventional path, I

guess you would say, in supporting your daughter. So I wondered if

you could start by talking a little bit about your journey with her

and [00:01:00] how you found your way to

neurodiversity affirming parenting.

Tanya Kemp: My daughter was really young when I started noticing

differences in her. She was diagnosed autistic when she was just 17

months old, which is quite young. And by that stage I had already

done a master's in psychology and so I was quite attuned to

developmental milestones and what they would look like.

I'd been working with families

with multiple and complex needs already for about 10 years. So I was

already in the field but not specializing in autism in particular.

When she was diagnosed and we were. Basically directed by the

psychologist in terms of this is the therapy that you need to do.

It just didn't really resonate

with me. It just didn't feel to me like this is. What I wanted for my

daughter, you know, for in her terms of her long-term development and

her life. And so I started to dig really deep into all the autism

interventions and what therapy would look like and autism in

[00:02:00] particular.

And that kind of steered me on

a path of studying relationship development, intervention and DIR

floor time and Stuart Shanker self reg programs, which was all based

around. Relationships, development and nervous system safety. And

that path really got me into the circles of, really listening to

autistic adults and how autistic adults talk about their experience

of therapy and what that meant for them as adults now in the world.

So I was really very strongly

influenced by that. I spent hours and hours just reading autistic

adult experiences and then. I suppose with my background in

psychology, did a deep dive into the research and what people were

saying and was the gold standard and what they were really measuring

in those gold standard studies.

That's why I decided, what I'm

gonna go with meeting my daughter where she's at. Assuming that she's

competent, assuming that she is [00:03:00]

communicating even though it's different to what we would expect her

to do and yes. That's when I started practicing in this area.

And the more I practiced, the

more I learned from the families that I worked with. And that was

helpful because I was able to help families better, but I was able to

help my daughter better and understand her better. So it's been this

dual learning process, both to help others, but really essentially to

help my daughter.

Victoria Bennion: That's really fascinating, so useful that you had

that background as well.

Tanya Kemp: Yes, absolutely.

Victoria Bennion: Who or what would you say has the biggest impact

on autistic children's success?

Tanya Kemp: Parents. I think like every human being that comes

into this world, our parents or primary caregivers are the ones who

has most impact. Nobody. Knows their child better. Nobody is more

invested in their child. And it's always so interesting to me how

parents will doubt themselves in the beginning.

They'll think, oh, I need to

listen to all the professionals. I need to do what people [00:04:00]

tell me to do, even when often they will later say. That kind of went

against my gut instinct that went against what I really felt like I

needed to do. And sometimes, it can take years before parents

actually start to trust themselves, right?

Children learn through

relationship and those initial relationships, that first relationship

with the primary caregivers is the most impactful on a child's life,

I think.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, that makes sense. And what you say about

learning to trust yourself as parents. My son had the eating issues

and I remember, being told he'll eat when he is hungry. You just put

it in front of him. He'll eat when he's hungry. He did not eat when

he was hungry. And it did go against my instincts, but do what we

learn.

Tanya Kemp: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's never too

late, right? Just like it's never too late for our children to learn

and develop and grow. It's never too late for us as parents to take

on a new path and begin again. It's a journey. We don't have to get

it right, right from the [00:05:00]

beginning.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, absolutely. Can you talk a bit about ways

to discuss your child's diagnosis with them that is in a positive

way?

Tanya Kemp: I always say that, the earlier you start to talk

about the brain and different people having different brains and

spotlighting things that are different for different people. And in

saying that, focusing not just on the challenges, but certainly

focusing just on the things that are different and some of those are

strengths as well.

So always talk about, you bake

the cake first by mentioning, oh wow. You know, I noticed that you

really. Focused on this thing, you know that you were doing this, you

can really focus on Minecraft for so long that's one of the things

that your brain is really good at. It goes into this attention

tunnel, right?

Whereas my brain is here,

there and everywhere, so you're just spotlighting differences.

Talking about some brains. I always say to parents, say. Talk about

some brains like this and some brains do that and it's not so much

about better or worse. And then I think later as children get

[00:06:00] older, they really start to

adopt that language as well, and they start to recognize.

These things are more

different for my brain. It's not that I'm bad at them, it's not that

I'm broken. It's not that there's something wrong with me. It's my

brain does better with this type of thing, then later as they get

older, we start to talk about the umbrella of neurodiversity, right?

So there are many people like

you. There are many people with brains that develop differently.

You're not. The only one, you're not the outsider, you're just like

many others like you, but the majority of brains are like this. And

so that's why sometimes things can be difficult and we can have

misunderstandings.

I think the younger you start,

the more natural it is. It just becomes part of your day-to-day life

and conversations. And also I think again, it's never too late

because sometimes when children are older, having that understanding

of their brain can , give a real sense of relief and just.

Ah, it's not that I'm broken.

It's not that I'm not a good neurotypical, I'm a good neurodivergent

[00:07:00] person. Everything that I'm

experiencing is valid for how I'm wired. And I think that changes the

narrative that changes the picture a little bit, even though it can

still be difficult, of course, because the world isn't built for

neurodivergent brains.

There are very real

challenges. Going alongside with being neurodivergent. But at least

it's not because you're bad at being neurotypical. It's just the

world is built for neurotypical brains.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, I really like that. I remember a friend of

mine shared a video when my son was going through the diagnosis

process and we knew he was going to get his diagnosis and he was

struggling so much at the time and she sent me a video, it was a

cartoon one, and it explained a child who was having difficulties

with.

Sensory things, eating food, things that he struggled with. And I got him to watch it and it just

explained autism really. And you could see, he was like, that's like

me. And it was like a relief in him. I think so, [00:08:00]

yeah.

Tanya Kemp: Absolutely. I did the same thing. I showed my

daughter videos and the ones that she resonated with, she did watch

them over and over again. 'cause that's how her brain works. And it

was so validating. I remember she was about four or five. And she

watched a video about Greta Thunberg and how about the environment?

And she described some things

about herself. My daughter was just glued to the screen and she was

like, that's what I'm like, I'm exactly like her. I can't stop

thinking about the same thing. And so it was really meaningful to me

because I thought she self-identified, she noticed, and she looked up

to somebody who she was able to identify with.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, that's so important. That's really good. So

on that note, how do you think we can give our children more

opportunities for agency?

Tanya Kemp: Well, I think that's a really big question. I think

one of the first things that we can do to support our children with

agency is just in the way that we communicate. I think from the

really early years, when our [00:09:00]

children are different and when they don't respond to us in the way

that we expect them to respond, we start changing how we communicate

because we're trying to get a response.

We're trying to create that feedback loop, that reciprocity, and so we end up using a very

particular type of language called instrumental language, which is

means to an end language. Asking questions, sometimes questions that

we already know the answer to. Or just asking questions for the sake

of asking questions.

Also prompting, we tell our kids what to do all the time instead of, leaving space for them to

think and have agency around doing even simple things. Just the way

if you use declarative language and say something like, here's your

dinner and you put it down instead of saying, take a bite, like you're saying, here's

your dinner. There's an opportunity for your child to have agency and

start eating. Instead of just following an instruction or, oh, it

looks cold outside, I'm gonna put my jacket on and look at their

jacket and wait and give them time. You're giving a very small

opportunity for them to actually make [00:10:00]

the choice.

And that agency is so critical

for. Internal intrinsic motivation and independent thinking, and

ultimately problem solving. It's critical for a child's wellbeing to

have agency, and we have opportunities to give up agency in very

small moments throughout life simply by not prompting everything and

slowing ourselves down, giving indirect information and waiting for

our child to make a choice.

And it's not about having

passive aggressive, oh, I'm gonna say this and hope that you will do

the thing that I want you to do. It really is about being in a

mindset of I have space, I have time, I'm gonna scaffold this

interaction, and I'm gonna give my child the opportunity, the time

that he needs, or she needs to process and make a decision.

And I think there are many,

many opportunities for that throughout the day in everyday life.

Victoria Bennion: I could do more of that. That's useful. That's

useful. I think sometimes we can get very wrapped up in, [00:11:00]

we've got to get out the door, we've got to do this, we've got to do

this without leaving that room.

Tanya Kemp: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And even

just, not even just in getting things done, but in simple experience

sharing ways, we're so often stuck, like you say, in getting things

done, getting out the door, moving through, our schedule or our

routine, but just making comments. And not expecting anything in

return, waking up and saying, oh, I had such a terrible sleep, and not go, why do you think I had a terrible sleep? Or, how did you sleep? Just sharing, again, it's an

opportunity for your child to think about and decide whether they

want to share their experience as well. It's very interesting when

you look at this because in general conversation, we use comments and

just experience sharing language.

All the time, our conversation now is really all about experience sharing, and yet with autistic

children, we don't communicate in that way. We're so focused on the

things that need to get done. We don't slow down enough to comment

[00:12:00] and wait and be okay with the

fact that our child might not respond.

Just to be okay with that because they might not respond and it, we don't need to force that

response because then again, that takes their agency away as well.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, absolutely. So what have been your top

three most important lessons learned in parenting an autistic child?

Tanya Kemp: The first one is myself. I learned that I needed to

do a lot of work on myself to be able to be available for my

daughter. I really needed to. Understand my triggers, understand how

to manage those triggers, how to regulate myself....