People talk about leadership like it only happens in boardrooms and conference rooms. Like presence is something you practice on a stage, and purpose is something you discover on a retreat.
Mine happened in a living room. In a stroller on a daily walk. In a therapist’s office. In hours of physical therapy that sometimes produced visible progress – and sometimes didn’t.
Six years ago, I made a decision that would cost me professionally but give me everything that matters. I stepped back from my career to pour myself into the early development of my son, who was born with developmental delays associated with autism spectrum disorder.
What followed was the most demanding work of my life – and the most clarifying.
He could not walk. He could not talk. Today, he can do both. And I learned a strength I didn’t know I possessed.
The Gift of Noticing
My high sensitivity trait is often something I’ve had to explain or defend. In professional spaces, sensitivity is sometimes coded as a liability – too emotional, too perceptive, too much.
But it was my sensitivity that first told me something was different.
At mere months old, I began noticing subtleties in my son’s development that concerned me. His pediatrician thought I was worried over nothing. My husband, at first, agreed. I trusted what I was picking up – and I moved quickly, because I understood instinctively that in early childhood development, time is everything.
That moment crystallized something for me: the capacity to perceive what others miss is not a weakness. It is a form of leadership intelligence. Sensitivity, wielded with confidence, is precision.
Calling an Audible
Once I understood what we were working with, I made a decision that would reshape our lives entirely. I made my choice. I sacrificed years of earning power. And I stepped onto what I can only describe as the most important court I’ve ever been on.
There’s a developmental window in early childhood – roughly the first seven years – where the brain’s neuroplasticity is particularly pronounced. The pathways are still forming. The architecture is still being built. I knew from my coaching training and everything I’d learned about human development that if I got in the arena during that window, I could help my son’s brain complete the work it had begun.
So that’s what I did.
I collaborated with physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and specialists. I learned the PECS communication system. I designed what I can only describe as developmental coaching programs – customized, daily, iterative – built around my son’s specific neurological needs.
I drew from my athletic background, too. In college basketball, we had twice-daily practice sessions during preseason. I applied that same discipline to my son’s development. Twice a day, I was laying down his language centers, working through physical therapy sequences, building his occupational skills, reading him social stories.
Week by week. Month by month. Year by year.
I recalled my college basketball days – the twice-daily practice sessions – and applied that discipline to my son’s development. The same grit. The same discipline. A completely different arena.
The Long Game
I want to be honest about what this season actually looked like, because people often want the highlight reel without the dailiness of the work.
There were weeks – sometimes what felt like eons – where I saw no visible progress. My son would hit a wall, or I would, or a therapist who doubted my instincts would push back in ways that made me question myself. I let some of those therapists go.
What I held onto was love, and a vision. Not of who my son was in any given hard moment, but of who he could become – and what our family life could look like if I was willing to stay on the court.
I think about the biblical parable of the Talents often. The idea that we are given gifts to steward, develop, and return multiplied. My son is my greatest talent. I received him as he was, understood the assignment, and committed to developing his fullest potential with everything I had.
He could not walk. We reversed that disability. He could not talk. We reversed that too.
I will never forget the moment I heard him say “ma-ma.” My heart leaps with joy even today when I hear him say “mom.” There are no words for what that sound means to a mother who fought for it.
His social emotional learning continues to grow stronger every day, and our work together is ongoing – because this kind of development is never a destination. It’s a practice woven into our life journey.
Presence Is a Practice – Not a Performance
Here’s what six years of this work did to my own presence: it deepened it in ways I could not have manufactured in any other context.
As a certified coach, I had trained in self-regulation. But the emotional demand of this season required more than training. I sought therapeutic support. I meditated. I walked my son in the stroller almost daily – those walks were as much for me as they were for him. I stayed connected to community: the library, a women’s Bible study, family, close friends.
All of this happened, by the way, during COVID. The isolation that would have been crushing was held at bay by intentional community-building and the discipline of showing up – for him, and for myself.
What I learned about presence is this: you cannot offer it to others when you’re depleted. Caring for my own mental health was not a luxury. It was a leadership imperative. It was part of the work.
Purpose Doesn’t Always Look the Way You Imagined
I spent years building a career in coaching and development. I had a professional identity I was proud of. And then life asked me to set it aside for something I hadn’t fully anticipated.
Parenting neurodivergency daily is one of the most challenging and most profound things I’ve ever been asked to do. It required every tool in my coaching toolkit, every ounce of athletic grit, every drop of the empathy that my sensitivity makes available to me.
It also clarified my purpose in a way that professional success never quite had.
My son is my magnum opus. Not a detour from my calling – the very center of it.
And what I built during those six years – the developmental frameworks, the coaching-informed approaches to speech acquisition, the methods I innovated in collaboration with specialists – I intend to share. One day soon, I hope to distill those approaches into a program for parents of infants and toddlers navigating similar terrain.
Parenting neurodivergency daily is probably one of the most challenging and greatest things life has asked me to do. It taught me a strength I didn’t know I possessed.
If You’re in This Season
Every family is different. Every child is different. I want to be clear that what worked for us may not map exactly onto your situation – and that is okay.
What I do believe, with everything in me: invest in early intervention if you can. The infant and toddler window is precious. The neuroplasticity of those early years is a gift. If you have access to early childhood specialists, use them. And if you’ve missed that window – know that there are still meaningful interventions available at every stage of development.
The work is never wasted. The love is never wasted.
And to every parent in the trenches right now – the ones who are sleep-deprived and uncertain and giving everything they have in rooms no one else sees: you are doing sacred work. Keep going.
Are you a parent, educator, or leader navigating neurodiversity? I’d love to hear what you’re learning. Feel free to reach out – this is a conversation worth continuing.