Beautifully Complex

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Join parenting coach and mom-in-the-trenches, Penny Williams, as she helps parents, caregivers, and educators harness the realization that we are all beautifully complex and marvelously imperfect. Each week she delivers insights and actionable strategies on parenting and educating neurodivergent kids — those with ADHD, autism, anxiety, learning disabilities... Her approach to decoding behavior while honoring neurodiversity, and parenting the individual child you have will provide you with the tools to help you understand and transform behavior, reduce your own stress, increase parenting confidence, and create the joyful family life you crave. Penny has helped thousands of families worldwide to help their kids feel good so they can do good.

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Recent Episodes
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Recent Reviews
  • EmilyH03
    Penny is a gem
    I was recently a guest on Penny’s podcast and can tell you she is just as genuine and kind-hearted when she’s not recording as when she is. Penny not only puts great heart but also great value into her podcast and I am so grateful for this gift she brings to the world. Thank you Penny! 💛💛💛
  • beachin mama
    Valuable Resource
    My daughter was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and I’ve since been struggling with what she needs and how I can best support her. Beyond the initial diagnosis from her pediatrician, there are months long waitlists to see specialists and therapists. It’s a lonely place to be. But this podcast feels like the perfect mix of education and therapy for those of us living with or caring for someone with learning differences. From one mom to another, thank you!!
  • doctorTND
    5-Star Review - Dr. Tay
    I absolutely love this podcast because Penny’s energy is infectious and engaging. As a licensed child psychologist, this is a podcast I love tuning into to hear from others in the field. I have added this podcast to my mix!
  • Drakegrad4
    Great/practical information & examples.
    I love listening to these short topics!! I just read/jotted down the last school episode. I’m trying to be more helpful & learn different ways I can help my Alex -7 years old. Ty Penny & guests
  • N Munoz
    Good content but host voice can be annoying
    I really like the content but sometimes Penny’s voice can really get on my nerves. She drags her words out like a valley girl and sometimes my ADD brain can’t take it and I have to turn it off.
  • Go Marc
    Dr. Matt Zakreski episode has immediate action items for schools and parents
    This episode lays out information that schools and educators can have to support ADHD students at any grade level. Thank you for the CTAs and CSFs I can immediately articulate to my child’s school and that are driven by data.
  • Nottoohappymom
    Such a wonderful resource!
    You have interviewed so many people whose work is so helpful for me! You are a blessing and I am so glad I found you. Looking forward to many more podcasts from you.
  • Jean Marie 2022
    Love this podcast!
    I have been listening to this podcast for about a year in an effort to better understand connect with and support my 8 year old daughter who is uniquely wired. Penny has such a calming presence and I appreciate the expertise, resources and perspectives she provides.
  • Softball Mon
    So helpful
    I love it when Luke is on the podcast! He’s so funny and gives great advise! Thank you so both Penny and Luke for sharing your experiences and wisdom!
  • Jenny Maree
    Your podcast opened a door to SEEING my child
    Thank you so much for your podcast. Early October 2022 I had a realization that my almost 7 year old son could have ADHD. That led me down a path to learn more and came across your podcast and I’ve learned so much and am very thankful and grateful because now I can help my son in new ways because I understand him more and his needs rather than be annoyed by his behaviors. We have recently seen an Occupational Therapist for play therapy which was so eye opening. We also have an upcoming appointment with the pediatrician for the official ADHD diagnosis. Thank you so much for your podcast and sharing your knowledge and bringing on all your helpful guests. Sincerely, Grateful Mama
  • Cadyiyvag
    It could be a better informational, useful, strategies, etc
    What I look in a podcast is not found here unfortunately, I just listened to the “supporting vs enabling”‘episode, I was expecting a more substantial information rather a chat of 2 mothers comparing who has it worse at home because kids don’t help at home! I had a high expectations… perhaps other families find it useful, but this is not my space so I move on….
  • Ur mama #1
    Great information
    I’m so glad that I have found this podcast. It has really helped me with different strategies for helping my daughter. I look forward to each new episode. Thank you for sharing.
  • Neonseaglass
    So grateful
    I am really struggling to help my daughter. I am trying to understand and learn as much as I can so she feels supported and heard. I am often challenged by watching her do all the things I did that created such struggles in my life. I found out later in life I suffered from ADHD. My daughters was discovered Senior year of high school. This podcast has helped me tremendously! It’s given me tools to help her that I wish my parent/family/friends or teachers knew about. I appreciate your podcast and use this as an effective way of applying and understanding! It’s very comforting to have this information! Thank You!
  • Westeph4
    Thank you 🥰
    Dear Penny, thank you for supporting parents on this journey. I was a challenging kid with undiagnosed ADHD, so thank you for helping the families of all the little me’s out there!
  • Gkennedylaw
    Penny keeps these topics real, relevant and helpful
    This show presents contexts for all of our Adhd episodes that don’t seem to make sense in the moment. It’s like listening to a good friend who happens to have real world experience and expertise on a topic (Adhd parenting) that is super important to you. Penny, please continue your awesome work. You’ve really helped my wife son and me. I can’t believe how relevant your topics and speakers are. It’s clear you have and are living through all of these situations. Thank you!!
  • themariashow#1
    I feel seen
    It’s just so comforting to hear that I’m not alone in parenting my little with ADHD. My husband also has ADD so I really benefit from these strategies. Thank you for your advocacy.
  • Nikkihouston
    Love!
    This podcast has been so enlightening! I’ve learned so much and love how everything is broken down. I now have a better understanding for my child and how to help him.
  • ReganY
    Such a helpful podcast!
    I’m so grateful I stumbled upon this podcast! It’s been so helpful in providing great suggestions, advice, guidance, and validating anecdotes that have made me feel empowered as a mom to an atypical 6-yr-old. Thank you!!
  • Slightly Spacey Energizer Bunn
    Great empathetic perspective, very insightful
    I’m a trained life coach and ADHD coach, but I’m also a single mom of a neurodiverse ADHD teenager. The challenges are myriad, and creativity, compassion and understanding for yourself and your child are essential. Penny offers so many honest reflections and thoughtful approaches, both in her expert interviews and her solo episodes. Lots of practical recommendations. I am so glad I recently found this podcast. In fact I’m writing this review because I wish I’d found it years ago, and I hope this will help other parents find it sooner.
  • Grateful in Chicago
    Best of the best
    THE most helpful resource we have. Not to say that our ADHD clinicians don’t have an essential role - they do. But these podcasts have opened our eyes to so many realties our 10yo faces, and the ways to navigate them all. It’s like just downloading a lifetime of experience - we don’t have to learn anything the hard way. Penny you and your family have saved us from so much heartache, you’ve made our lives so much better, and we couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you!!!
  • Moxiejen
    Priceless and needed
    Penny’s podcast is exactly what every parent of a neuro-diverse children needs to hear. It’s equal parts clear thinking and action plans, responsive care for our children, and hope. And we desperately need all three. Thank you Penny!
  • Pepper+3
    ADHD Mom
    This podcasts has helped me to be a better Mom to my ADHD son. I felt so alone and listening to this podcast has helped me to understand I am not. Thank you Penny for sharing your Journey and wisdom!
  • ineedanewremote
    Helpful
    I’ve just found this podcast and it’s already been so helpful, it’s helped me to understated my child and helped me to be more compassionate in dealing with her behavior.
  • Razoon
    As a mom of an ADHD son I can’t thank you enough
    I’ve listened to tons of episodes from this podcast and have even enrolled in the behavioural change course. I can’t begin to thank Penny enough for the ginormous efforts she puts in giving us free information and sharing her own experience. Like her son, mine is also ADHD and Dysgraphic. I find the info she shares and the feelings she has as a mom incredibly relatable and it makes me feel a little less lonely in this journey. There’s just such a huge huge amount of valuable guidance here. I prefer listening to her journey and coupling that with psychologist opinions and podcasts instead of only listening to health specialists because her perspective is very very useful and comes at you from a different angle. I just love this podcast and am so incredibly grateful to her for caring so much about other parents and helping them cope with this. I hope that God blesses her and her child and that she’s keeps seeing the amazing results of all the hard work she’s put in while raising him.
  • vnpalumbo
    Immensely Helpful!!
    I am beyond grateful to have found this podcast. My son is 7 years old and for the past 3 1/2 years we have been through many trials and tribulations as a family when he was diagnosed with ADHD & ODD. This podcast makes me feel at home, like I am not alone in the struggles, and offers tremendous insight in all of the difficulty situations that may arise in raising a child with ADHD. Thank you, thank you & thank you!! You are a blessing to us parents!
  • Adussia
    Great informative listen
    Love this podcast.
  • Mommy Sophie
    Thank You Jesus!
    I am so thankful to of found this podcast. As a parent of a child with ADHD who needs all the help possible. This totally is what I need.
  • Samilesm
    Wish I Had Found this Sooner
    My ADHD child is a teen now, but I still learn a lot and have gotten some helpful ideas of things to try from the podcast. Thanks so much the insights you and your guests provide, Penny!
  • AubreyZambrella
    Amazing
    This podcast has opened my eyes to so many topics. I am so grateful to Penny for sharing her insights.
  • As Dawg
    Love your podcast
    I am a dad and a listen to your podcast in the morning before I wake up my kid. I learn a lot, but see things very different than you sometimes like Episode 79. Maybe it’s because I am a dad but I care very little what strangers think of me especially people that don’t live day to day with my child. Also while I agree you like your kid, empathize with them, and put them in situations they can succeed but. My job as a parent is not to like my kid but love them which is not about being their best friend, and if I made the world ready for my child I would be doing her a disservice. She would never be ready for the real world on her own then. Like they say you can make the road ready for your kid or you can make your kid ready for the road. I pick the later. Keep up the great podcast though. Got to wake up my liittle girl now.
  • hdhcueks
    I love this podcast
    So relatable. I tear up half the time when something really hits home.
  • Jkatherined
    So fun this last episode!
    Seriously Luke rocked that episode! Hope he is back soon! So many insights for me and my two sons 16 and 13 that helped me so much!! Thanks for being so brave and honest.
  • Ang from Ga
    Wow!! Awesome episode!
    Omg! Just wow! LOVED hearing from such an amazing and intelligent 18 year old. Luke sounds like a hilarious and brilliant young man. I have a brilliant 14 year old son who has been diagnosed with ADHD, but he also refuses to take his medicine. He wants to figure things out for himself (as he says). So many things that Luke describes sound like my son. He hates feeling “forced” to do things and gets overwhelmed easily. He doesn’t like us to ask him too many questions and cannot stand intense emotions. He’s hilarious and witty and seems to have a constant and endless stream of memes, songs, jokes, sayings, quotes, etc... looping through his brain. He loves to laugh and wants everything to be fun (which school is NOT). We homeschool, and I have tried to accommodate and tailor all of his assignments to what he can manage, without getting overwhelmed. I loved that Luke explained how “do your best” sounds to him. That makes things so much clearer to me, realizing that the phrase doesn’t motivate my son in any way. I love the suggestion of small and attainable goals for him. I so appreciate Luke educating us on how he thinks. It’s extremely helpful to me as I try and help my son. I would love Luke’s insight on: -Taking meds (if he does); and how he views that - phone and video game usage; does he think this harms if he’s on them too much? -diet: do you like a variety of foods? My son is a junk food junky and hates fruits and veggies -friendships; do you think it’s hard to make friends? -always planning and looking ahead; my son is almost never thinking about the present. He is always planning the next “thing” or “item” or “activity” that he wants to do Any advice for mom, is greatly appreciated. Luke and Penny, thanks for sharing. Y’all are both adorable and helpful!!
  • Building Blocks Parenting
    Love Penny’s Podcast!
    I am a parenting guidance coach and I recently started listening to this podcast for deeper insight into the experience of parents with children with ADHD. This has been incredibly helpful for me and very personally moving. I am not a mother (unless we’re including fur babies 😉) but my partner has ADHD and I’m realizing how his unmet needs from childhood have transferred over to his adult self because of his parents’ lack of understanding how to respond to a child with ADHD. There have been such great life changing takeaways from this. Thank you!! 🙏
  • PedImm
    Parenting ADHD Podcast
    Penny has such insights to understanding the child who thinks and learns differently. Focusing on the child’s strengths and creating a safe place in the home where your child can feel wonderful about what they can do is a huge shift parents can make. Sometimes as parents we fall back on the way our parents parented us. We think if it worked for me then it will work for my child. But if you are really honest with yourself you can find beliefs you are holding as “not true”.
  • Mtravao3
    Forget parenting norms
    My son is 13 and not once have I thought to look at this from the perspective you shared. Seriously a big game changer for me. I know it will take getting used to but I’m excited about this. I realize now that he isn’t 13 in so many ways mentally. What comes natural to most people isn’t clicking for my son. I’m so tired of being irritated everyday. I need to look at this whole thing differently. Things got so bad in school that I’m homeschooling now. I’ve always known my son didn’t hit milestones at the same time as other kids his age but I kept pushing thinking I had to catch him up. I really need to scale it back a few years because of the developmental delay. It really never occurred to me. Thank you! I would love to hear about your take on homeschooling and how to socialize your child into society. My son has never had a real friend and now that he is homeschooled he is lonely. It breaks my heart. He does not understand social cues at all. Again thank you for helping me to see the light. I have renewed hope!
  • HayHay4321
    Awesome podcast
    This podcast has helped me through some tough times with my kiddo. They are so informative and it’s interesting topics. I definitely recommend giving them a listen!
  • awholefamilyofADHD
    Love you but I need help too!
    I love listening to your pod cast! In feel so validated, understood and guided when I listen. However, I myself am a mother with ADHD of two very different ADHD children and as much as I listen and memorize certain things you say and suggest, I forget when I’m in the moment. Can you suggest how to raise children and provide correction for behavior when I am just as impulsive and explosive. The behavior and punishment really hit home for me because I struggle with discipline. I’m certainly not physically or emotionally abusive. But I am explosive and a yeller. Any ideas?
  • Logo17
    Really great show
    I love the tactical, honest and real rawness Penny delivers in this podcast. I hit subscribe and definitely can’t wait for the next show!!! For that listener that is ADDICTED to creating their future. For the listener who KNOWS they are destined for greatness but didn’t believe they could actually make money in it. This podcast is for you. Penny asks very candid and heart opening questions.
  • Paradise48Thx2Jah
    I feel so understood
    I’m only 3 episodes into this podcasts and I have never felt so much relief. My daughter is a teen and we are just now learning that she may have ADHD. All the issues we have been having are making more sense now that ADHD is a visible part of the equation. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience and for sharing the quote, “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” This is life changing. I’ve have been struggling with parent guilt and I feel the weight being lightened. My struggles are real and more difficult than others realize.
  • mamanyannyan
    Very Helpful
    This podcast and the accompanying website has been a lifesaver for me and my recently diagnosed ASD/ADHD 5 year old. I felt so lost after the diagnosis and everything I had read and tried from typical parenting books in the last few years had exploded in my face. I was so tired of trying parenting techniques that just made my child angrier and more depressed. This podcast introduced me to a whole new way of both seeing and interacting with my child. I can’t recommend this podcast highly enough.
  • Jaydensmommmmma
    Great information but the delivery needs work
    I really want to like this podcast. I think the information is great. But I can’t focus on the information because your voice is so monotone and drawn out. It’s very distracting.
  • Bluskies3
    Wonderful!
    What a wonderful and priceless resource, thank you for this podcast!
  • Cfar7717
    Becoming Obsessed
    Over the last 2 months I have been obsessed with podcasts in general, but then I found this podcast and I have now become even more obsessed! It has such amazing information! It is like seeing into my own life because of growing up as a child that was diagnosed with ADD young and often misunderstood; but then fast forward 20 years and my son is also diagnosed to have ADHD and we have had a very hard time to figure him out and make life successful with him and for him. This podcast and the info from it has shed so much light on how to approach things and look at things differently and I’m only 7 episodes in! Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!
  • NicknameisFLO
    The best place to find valuable information
    I thank you so much for doing this. Your podcast has truly helped me to understand best practices and has also given amazing resources. My daughter was recently diagnosed with ADHD. While I knew something was there early on her school denied my request. However, now we have things in place at the school. Your podcast has helped not only me but daughter to be better advocates for her. I am often feeling so much joy after listening because I understand my child now. Things are much smoother in our home. And her teachers are better understand ADHD as well. So thank you so much I am so happy I found your podcast. We have only been listening for two weeks now of course we started from the very beginning. This is our car ride routine. Thank you!!
  • KevinHatfield-SOC
    Great topics - Awful Presentation
    The volume of grammar mistakes and your monotone voice make it impossible to listen! Having said that, it’s clear you’re well educated but speaking is not for you.
  • Cxlwest
    Help in the real world
    I stumbled on this podcast on one of those days when I was ready to give up. It gave me a real boost when I needed it. This entire series of podcasts is a wonderful mix of encouragement, empathy and tips for real life with an explosive child. It is obvious that as a parent Penny has walked this road of discouragement, stress, frustration, and fear but has helped me get the tools to feel hope, optimism and positivity. THANK YOU!
  • ahyduk
    This Helped so Much
    I have been struggling with how to deal with my daughters resistance to make friends. This was a real eye opener and so helpful. I am so glad to have found it!
  • Lover33whang
    So far so good but...
    please stop smacking your lips while you talk. It’s very distracting.
  • MissMeliss117
    Thank you!
    My son was recently diagnosed with ADHD and I have felt at such a loss of where to go next and this podcast has been such an answer to my prayers and constant worries. I feel like I have so much more knowledge on how to navigate thru this after just listening to a few episodes. I can’t thank you enough!
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