Cristina Collins

Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) Parenting Specialist

At a Glance

Mother of an 18-year-old son — she has lived the whole stretch from little-kid chaos to launching a young adult.
Was the kid who was failing until an adult finally became curious instead of frustrated.
Neurodivergent herself — ADHD, significant sensory differences, and a mind that tends to go deeply into whatever captures her attention.
Former Family Advocate and Behavioral Intervention Specialist, with experience in IEPs, school meetings, family team meetings, and behavioral support.
Has sat in those rooms professionally — and as a mother.
Navigated co-parenting from courtroom conflict to genuine, lighthearted peace.
Lifelong scholar — degrees in psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, and clinical psychology, with a doctorate in progress.

You're Not Failing. You're Doing the Hardest Version of This.

If you're here, you're probably tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix.

You may have become a translator, advocate, scheduler, researcher, sensory detective, and the person your child finally falls apart with after holding themselves together all day.

Maybe you've sat across from professionals talking about your child in terms of behaviors, deficits, goals, and interventions while thinking:

But do you actually know my kid?

Maybe you've gone home afterward and wondered whether you're doing any of this right.

I want to start somewhere other than what's wrong with your child.

I want to get curious about who they are, what their nervous system is experiencing, what they're trying to communicate, and what they need from the people who love them most.

I Was the Kid in Those Meetings

I have ADHD, but nobody knew it until I was in high school.

As a kid I spent a lot of time in a dreamworld inside my own head — vast, imaginative, endlessly entertaining. School was different. If something didn't capture my interest, getting myself to do it felt nearly impossible. I procrastinated, lost things, forgot things, missed assignments, and was constantly disorganized. But when something fascinated me, I was all in.

By my sophomore year I was failing most of my classes and facing being held back. I kept hearing the same sentence:

"You're smart. If you would just apply yourself..."

I wanted to. I just didn't know how.

Over time, words like careless, lazy, forgetful, and aloof became the way I saw myself. I carried a lot of shame, wondering why I couldn't do what seemed to come so naturally to everyone else.

That summer, my mom sent me to a military academy hoping it would "fix" me.

Instead, something life-changing happened: someone finally became curious about me.

Counselors and teachers recognized that something else might be going on and began helping me understand how my brain worked. Structure. Routines, reminders, timers, and my beloved daily to-do lists. It felt like I'd discovered the cheat code to my own brain.

The girl who was nearly held back eventually earned a bachelor's degree, two master's degrees, and is now pursuing a doctorate. I didn't suddenly become smarter. That brain had been there all along.

I stopped fighting my brain and started learning how to work with it.

I tell you this because your child is somewhere in that story right now. And because I know from the inside what it does to a kid when one adult finally decides to be curious instead of frustrated.

Sometimes all a kid needs is to be understood — and given the chance to discover the superpowers waiting to be unlocked within.

Eighteen Years of Being Somebody's Mom

My little nugget is eighteen now, and being his mother has been the greatest accomplishment of my life.

But I was never the mom who had it all together. Finding two matching socks could be a victory. There was always another school form waiting to be signed, another soccer schedule I'd lost track of, or a last-minute shuffle to make sure there was a clean, reasonably unwrinkled uniform shirt ready for school. And playdates? Now I was responsible for someone else's tiny human too.

It was often the little things that challenged me most. Motherhood required executive functioning around the clock, and my ADHD came right along for the ride.

But so did the strengths of my neurodivergence.

Maybe because I remember what it felt like to be misunderstood, I've always aimed to understand what's underneath with him — what his actual thought process is — rather than just trying to correct the behavior in front of me. Eighteen years later, through every version of him and every version of me, we've stayed deeply connected.

Parenting also taught me the single thing I carry into every session:

You cannot regulate another person by force. You can only become steady enough that steadiness becomes available to them.

I learned that slowly — at kitchen tables, during car rides, and in arguments I didn't always handle well but learned to come back and repair.

That last part matters. I got things wrong. Regularly. Repair is not the consolation prize for imperfect parenting. Sometimes repair is where some of the most important parenting happens.

Still Learning About My Own Brain

Something many parents discover along this road is that looking closely at their child's wiring can start raising questions about their own.

It did for me.

For most of my life, I thought ADHD explained the way my brain worked. And in many ways, it did.

But there are pieces of me I've become curious about beyond ADHD — the sensory overwhelm, the intensity with which I experience certain things, the way I can disappear into a subject for hours, and the exhaustion that comes from environments other people seem to move through easily.

Eventually, I started asking:

Could autism be part of my story too?

I don't have a definitive answer to that question.

I've completed a number of screening and self-report measures out of curiosity, and what they've given me more than anything is a clearer understanding of how I experience the world.

One of the clearest pieces is sensory.

Sound especially.

My system notices things other people seem able to filter out. Background noise doesn't always stay in the background. Crowded environments can cost me more energy than they appear to from the outside, and I've learned that quiet and recovery time aren't luxuries for me.

They're maintenance.

That experience is one reason I take sensory needs so seriously with families.

The noise level at dinner. The fluorescent lights at the grocery store. The clothing that "shouldn't" be uncomfortable but absolutely is. The transition nobody warned anyone about. The seemingly tiny environmental change that completely overwhelms a nervous system already running at capacity.

Sometimes changing the environment can accomplish more than demanding that the person tolerate it better.

And if learning about your child's neurotype has started making you wonder about your own?

There's room for that here too.

How I Work

My approach is relational, neurodiversity-affirming, trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and deeply strengths-based. I lean most heavily on Emotionally Focused Therapy and Family Systems Theory while drawing from other approaches when they're useful.

I'm not interested in handing you a generic behavior chart and sending you home.

I want to understand your child, your family, your nervous system, your resources, and what is realistically possible on a Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. when everybody is tired and dinner still needs to happen.

Because families live in kitchens, cars, classrooms, grocery stores, sibling arguments, bedtime routines, rushed mornings, and the ten minutes before everyone has to get out the door.

I'm not interested in making your child fit an arbitrary idea of "normal." I'm interested in helping your family find a better fit for one another.

What We'd Work On Together

Understanding what's underneath behavior — what your child may be communicating through actions, patterns, avoidance, overwhelm, shutdown, or distress.
Co-regulation — learning how to offer steadiness while also recognizing when your own nervous system is reaching capacity.
Parent burnout — making room for exhaustion, resentment, guilt, grief, and the complicated emotions parents sometimes feel afraid to say out loud.
School and system navigation — IEPs, 504 plans, meetings, advocacy, and communicating effectively with the professionals supporting your child.
Sensory needs at home — identifying changes in environment, routine, expectations, and transitions that may reduce unnecessary overwhelm.
Parent alignment — when two loving parents have completely different instincts about what the same child needs.
Your own neurodivergence — particularly if understanding your child has started helping you recognize yourself.
Repair — what to do after yelling, losing patience, misunderstanding each other, or simply having a hard day.
Grief and adjustment — making room for expectations you may need to release without confusing that grief with how deeply you love your child.
Connection — protecting the relationship with your child while still providing structure, guidance, and boundaries.

What to Expect in Session

I'm warm, curious, and direct. I'll ask a lot of questions, and if I notice a pattern, I'll probably name it.

You can be honest with me about the hard parts.

The resentment.

The exhaustion.

The moment you handled badly and can't stop replaying.

The guilt you feel because you love your child more than anything and still sometimes desperately need a break.

You don't have to clean those feelings up before bringing them into the room.

They're information, not a parenting report card.

We'll get curious together about what's happening underneath them and what you need too.

Because supporting your child's nervous system shouldn't require permanently abandoning your own.

Silence doesn't make me nervous. Sharing silence is an art form in itself.

And sometimes we'll laugh.

Parenting a neurodivergent kid can contain enormous tenderness, genuine difficulty, unexpected humor, complete absurdity, and some of the most beautiful moments imaginable — occasionally all before lunch.

You don't need to become a perfect parent.

You need enough understanding, support, and room to keep learning the child in front of you — while giving yourself permission to keep learning who you are as a parent too.

Credentials & More

Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) — AMFT #156870
All sessions are virtual. I coach clients worldwide and provide therapy to clients in California.
Supervised by: Dr. Harry Motro, LMFT #53452
Employed by: New Path Family of Therapy Centers

Education:

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in International and Multicultural Education, Racial Equity and Justice concentration — University of San Francisco (in progress)
M.A. in Clinical Psychology, Marriage and Family Therapy — University of San Francisco
M.S. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology — Carlos Albizu University, Miami
A.A. in Emergency Management — Community College of the Air Force
B.A. in Psychology — San Francisco State University

Clinical Training & Modalities:

Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, USF Center for Community Counseling and Wellness. Family Advocate, Family Mosaic Project. Behavioral Intervention Specialist, Seneca Family of Agencies — crisis intervention, wraparound care, IEP and school-based support, and transition planning for youth and families.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Family Systems Theory, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), crisis intervention, and neurodiversity-affirming psychoeducation

Specialty Areas

Parenting Autism