Brooke Tidwell
Autism Advocate | Parenting Specialist
At a Glance
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AuDHD homeschooling mom of two neurodivergent kids
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Late-diagnosed autistic at 33; ADHD diagnosed in her teens
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Twelve years working professionally with autistic children — before knowing she was autistic herself
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Nine years as a certified early childhood general and special education teacher, including three years teaching a self-contained special education class
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Currently developing assessments and curricula for a national publisher in the areas of special education and language arts, early childhood through middle grades
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Early Childhood Special Education certified
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Content creator and storyteller building the case for neurodiversity-affirming parenting
What I'm Here for
I've spent twelve years working with autistic children.
I'm in my second year of knowing I'm autistic myself. The collision of those two things is what I'm here to talk about.
If you're a parent raising a neurodivergent kid, you already know the work isn't only about your child.
It's about you — what you bring, what you remember from your own childhood, what you didn't know about yourself until you were in too deep to step back. The exhaustion is real, the love is real, the loneliness of it is real.
I'm here to make all of that feel a little less lonely and a lot less impossible.
Autism Was My Special Interest Before I Knew I Was Autistic
I built a career around autism long before I had the language for why.
I started as a general education teacher who specialized in inclusion — writing individualized programs into mainstream curriculum so autistic students could learn alongside their peers.
After six years of that, I moved into a self-contained autism class and ran it for three years. Then I shifted again, this time into curriculum development for a national education publisher, where I help build the assessments and language arts materials that get used in classrooms across the country, with a specific focus on making content accessible and neurodiversity-affirming.
Across all of that, I was the person who knew autism.
I was the colleague other teachers called when they needed help reading a student. I was the one writing the IEPs, designing the visual scaffolds, training the staff on AAC. I had thirteen years of education and professional training in autism and development. I was good at it because I cared. I was good at it for a reason I didn't know yet.
I can't claim a simple connection to neurodiversity — I live it. My autism isn't separate from me. My neurodiversity is who I am. I am neurodiversity, and neurodiversity is me.
Diagnosed at 33
I received my autism diagnosis in November of 2024, at 33 years old, with the ADHD diagnosis I'd carried since my teenage years suddenly making a very different kind of sense.
The years that followed have been a quiet earthquake.
So many things I thought were personal failings — the burnout I never seemed to recover from, the way I'd over-prepare for ordinary conversations, the way my body would shut down after social events that other people seemed to enjoy — turned out to be the load of being autistic in a world that didn't know I was, and that I didn't know I was either.
Just over a year into this, I am nowhere near done figuring out what it means.
What I do know is that the experience of looking back at your own life through a new lens — finally — is something every late-diagnosed adult deserves to have.
Raising the Family I'm Also Inside Of
I homeschool a teenage daughter with ADHD and an AuDHD son.
We are a family of three neurodivergent brains under one roof, navigating the kind of daily life that no parenting book really prepares you for.
Co-regulation when you're already dysregulated. Demand avoidance when you're the one who has to make dinner. The particular kind of guilt that comes from snapping at a child who is doing exactly what their nervous system is built to do.
I'm not writing about parenting from the outside looking in. I'm writing from the middle of it. The strategies I share are the ones I'm using this week, the ones that work some days and don't on others, the ones I'm still figuring out.
What I'm Building Here
My work for Parenting Autism Therapy Center is content that meets parents where they actually are — not where parenting books pretend they are.
Short videos, written pieces, visual explainers, social media posts that translate research and lived experience into something a tired parent can actually use at 9 PM after the kids are finally asleep.
I bring a curriculum developer's instinct for what makes content actually land — multi-modal explanations, visual scaffolds, plain language that respects the reader's intelligence. I bring a special educator's understanding of how autistic and ADHD brains process information.
And I bring an autistic mom's understanding of why the standard advice so often misses.
Who I'm Speaking For
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Parents of neurodivergent kids who feel like they're translating between two languages
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Late-diagnosed adults discovering their own neurodivergence while raising neurodivergent children
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Homeschooling and unschooling families navigating ND learning differences
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Parents tired of advice that assumes a neurotypical family and a neurotypical child
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Anyone who has been told their child is "fine, just sensitive" for the tenth time
What to Expect from my Work
Honest. Specific. Not soft-pedaled.
I won't tell you to "self-care" your way out of a hard parenting moment. I will tell you what helped me when my own kid was dysregulated and I had nothing left in the tank.
I'll cite research when I'm leaning on it and own when I'm just speaking from experience.
I'll be a parent talking to other parents, not an expert holding court.
Background & Training
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Content Developer, Curriculum Associates — special education and language arts assessments and curriculum, accessible and neurodiversity-affirming content
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Early Childhood Special Education Educator and Case Manager — self-contained special education class
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Early Childhood Educator — general education with inclusion specialty
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District Top 10 Teacher of the Year (out of approximately 5,000 educators)
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Early Childhood Special Education Add-On Certification
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Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education, cum laude
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Project Harambee, Kenya — medical outreach volunteer