My Story

​I’m late diagnosed AuDhD, and self diagnosed PDA (Autistic + ADHD with a PDA profile). I’m the parent to two neurodivergent teens, ages 17 and 20.  Before having kids, I taught high school and college for 7 years, and earned a masters degree in English.  

About five years before my oldest was born, when I started thinking about having children of my own, I switched my professional focus from teaching upper grades to early childhood education.  Much of my early ECE experience centered around Magda Gerber’s RIE philosophy, one that focuses on treating young children with respect and dignity. I completed the RIE Foundations 80 hour course in 2001, along with 24 ECE credits, and worked in child care centers and as a nanny before having my own kids, when I shifting to being a stay at home mom (by far the hardest job I have ever had!).  During that time, I maintained a steady focus on building collaborative skills within our family. I completed the P.E.T. instructor training course in 2016, when my kids were 9 and 11.

After discovering I am AuDhD in 2021, I realized the field of neurodivergent parenting has been my focus all along, specifically PDA. Before transitioning to be a PDA specific parent coach in 2024, I worked as a special education at a private neuroaffirming therapeutic school, with a focus on working with autistic children who have a PDA profile.  I’m currently EEC certified Lead Teacher: preschool and EEC teacher: infant/toddler.  I also continue to work 1:1 with PDA’ers in a school setting as a consultant.  

Though my work as a teacher clarified a lot for me about working with PDA’ers (in a nutshell, "hey, this approach works beautifully for other people's kids, too, what do you know?!"), I found it was the challenges of parenting over the years that helped me develop and clarify the collaborative skills specific to PDA.  Collaborative approaches (such as Gordon’s PET, Rosenberg’s NVC, Gerber’s RIE, and Ross Greene’s CPS) have been my own personal hyperfocus for 20+ years.  

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About Coaching Sessions

On an even more personal level, I completely understand how hard it can be to navigate parenting when none of the traditional approaches to parenting work.  So that is where I focus in coaching, on helping you as a parent to honor both yourself and your own needs and autonomy, right along with your child’s, through building concrete collaborative skills, while also on understanding and staying mindful of the root of PDA’er anxiety: the cyclical relationship between anxiety and demands.  Pushing for compliance only increases anxiety and resistance, which then increases demand avoidance, leading to more pushing, which leads to more anxiety, and so on.  Our joint focus in coaching often largely becomes, “if not traditional discipline, then what? How do we approach this conflict/ problem/ situation collaboratively?”, and also on understanding the specifics of PDA, and why shifting our mindset and learning collaborative skills can have such positive impacts on family dynamics.  This process can be deeply affirming and reassuring for parents, as we move away from common behaviorism/ manipulative methods of raising kids, and move towards a focus on relationship and connection. 

I offer intro sessions at a discounted rate ($50) on Google Meet, and we can chat a bit about what you’re struggling with right now, how I can help, and what resources we might draw on so you can preview the process and kind of “see the big picture”.  Ideally, both parents attend these sessions, but I also work with individual parents.  

I am not able to bill through insurance, as I am a consultant/coach, not a therapist, but I try to keep my rates accessible for most families.  My rates are:

Intro (60 min) session: $50

1 (60 min) session: $110

package of 5 (60 min) sessions: $500

Parent coaching happens on Google Meet, so it isn’t limited by geography.  

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Update 1/29/26:​

I AM accepting new clients, but my roster is pretty full, so I’ve been limiting/ filtering intakes in two ways.  

The first is age.  Long term coaching spots are limited to parents of children ages 2-7.  (I’ve been focused on early childhood education for 25+ years, and I feel like I can be the most help to parents of younger kids.  Scroll down if you are the parent of children 8 and up!)

Second, I ask that all interested parents of kids ages 2-7 start watching part one of my PDA communication training before reaching out to schedule, and commit to finishing it before we meet for the first time.  

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The training prerequisite seems like a lot to ask, I know, but it helps keep coaching accessible.  It filters out parents who are looking for a behaviorist approach, creating more space and access for families who are seeking neuroaffirming support.  It also benefits you in that the training functions like a jump start on coaching, so we can dive right in, and you should be able to get a really good sense of what a typical coaching session is like during your introductory hour.  

If you're not quite ready to jump into the training, check out my blog to get a better sense of how I approach and support PDA'ers!

Intro sessions are an hour long, and they are discounted from my normal hourly rate of $110 to $50, in part because I recognize and appreciate that you just donated $59 to PDA North America to buy the training, but more importantly, you spent 2.5 hours of your life watching it.  Nothing is more precious than time for parents of young PDA’ers, and I appreciate your leap of faith. 

When you reach out (keri@pdaparentcoaching.com), let me know either that you've seen the training, or that you intend to do so before we meet, and I’ll send you my next available dates and times, and you can pick a couple in order of preference.  Currently, my next available new client appointment is two to three weeks out, so not too long to wait.  I schedule most sessions between the hours of 9 and 3, Eastern Standard US time.

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Coaching Session Details and Process:

The day before any session, I’ll send you a reminder email with the google meet link, as well as payment information and details (Venmo and PayPal, sent to my business account).   

I ask that you don’t pay me until the session is complete.  I have trouble owing people anything, so if you pay me in advance I feel like I HAVE to meet with you, which makes me not want to meet you.  It’s a PDA thing, clearly, but easily solved.  And once I meet with you and get to know you in the intro session, you can pay me in advance, no problem.  (Or not in advance, also no problem.) I prefer to not do any billing, so if you could keep current on what you owe without my input that is much appreciated.  Although, if you do need my help remembering, I’ll try! We can talk and find the best way to remember/remind if needed.  

I offer text reminders five minutes before your session. I generally only offer this reminder accommodation to anyone who forgets appointments, but feel free to mention that you’d like a text even if the topic hasn’t come up yet.    

Missed and cancelled appointments policy: I appreciate whatever notice you can give me, but I don’t charge you, and I don’t care.  Not in a callous “I don’t care” kind of way, but in a “genuinely unbothered, I guess I get an unexpected break today, lalala” way.  (This is made easier by the fact that I don’t have to refund anything, since you haven’t paid yet.)

 I have a policy of never scheduling a follow up during an intro session, because I want coaching to be zero pressure.  For you, for me.  I prefer to end the session with “let me know via email if you’d like to continue”.  I want you to be sure you *want* to continue, and you’re not just signing up because it can be hard to say no.  (Again, I’m projecting, but still.  What would work for me as a client? That’s what I do.)

Should you decide to email me to continue, for every session after that, you can pay before or after the session, and you can decide to just pay for the individual session ($110), or you can pay $500 for a package of 5.  I only ask that you pay within two weeks of a session or before our next session, whichever is sooner. 

Packages of 5 should be used within six months, but if you decide to stick with individual sessions, you can schedule anytime you like.  It can be weekly or occasional.  

If you pay for a package, every reminder email you get after that includes “this is prepaid session X of 5”.  If the session doesn’t happen for some reason, I send another email to you to remind us both that session X wasn’t used.  Then I forward that to you again in the reminder email for your next session.  This way, we both have all the history of each package as an email chain.  (It keeps me sane to do it this way, because I don’t need to keep any records and it’s easy for both of us to track.)

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For Parents of Children 8 and up: 

I’m offering a one time consultation ($50) to anyone who watches BOTH part one and part two, to help you troubleshoot and figure out next steps. 

I also have two short term coaching spots (short term = five additional sessions) in my schedule for parents of older kids.  These spots are reserved for families who have watched the full two part training (5 hours total) and would like help with implementation.  These spots are sometimes waitlisted, or booked a few months in advance. 

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