Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids

Fans of the Showtime and Paramount+ series Couples Therapy spent a whole season getting to know Marjorie and Jason Caffrey. One of the most memorable episodes centered on a heated disagreement about their son, Ryan. Marjorie had taken him to the pediatrician for an ADHD evaluation without telling Jason first. Jason felt shut out of a huge decision about their child.

More than a year after their sessions with Dr. Orna Guralnik ended, the couple joins Juice Box host Jessica Shaw on a new couch to talk about where things stand now.

It turns out...

We’re dropping into your feed a week early to announce a new investigative podcast from Understood.org. It’s called Zero Reject: The Uncertain Future of Special Education. This is episode 1. If you like it, follow Zero Reject wherever you get your podcasts.

Beth Gellman-Beer spent her whole career fighting for kids with disabilities — first as a student written off as “lazy,” then as a federal civil rights attorney who found her dream job protecting students like her younger self. 

Then her entire office was eliminated.

Reporter Anya Kamenetz traces Beth’s journey from...

In 1975, a federal law promised every child with a disability a free appropriate public education. Fifty years later, that promise is on shaky ground. Jessica talks with education reporter Anya Kamenetz, host of Understood’s podcast series Zero Reject, about cuts at the Office for Civil Rights, the roughly 25,000 complaints left in limbo, and why meetings for Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, feel like a battle. Plus: the parents who built special education, and what gives Anya hope.

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Tehrima Rai spent years being told her son was “just picky.” Relatives blamed her parenting, and she struggled to get help. But Tehrima, a pediatrician herself, trusted her instincts and kept searching until she found the real answer: ARFID, an extreme fear of food that’s more common in neurodivergent kids. Through feeding therapy, logbooks, and her own experimentation, she helped her son eat — and finally healed deep wounds of her own.

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Psychotherapist and ADHD expert Merriam Saunders spent years locked in daily battles with her strong-willed daughter. No form of discipline worked. Then one ordinary blowup led to an unexpected realization: The problem wasn’t defiance, it was an ADHD skills gap. And, crucially, she realized it wasn’t her daughter’s job to fix it. 

Merriam shares what happened the moment she chose connection over control, and how that choice reshaped their relationship for good.

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Jessica is off this week, but we didn’t want to leave you without something great to listen to. So, in honor of back-to-school, we’re sharing an episode about school refusal from another Understood podcast, called In It.

Why do kids sometimes refuse to go to school? And what can families do about it, both in the moment and to avoid it in the future?

In this episode, hosts Gretchen Vierstra and Rachel Bozek hear from Erin, a returning guest whose family has struggled with school refusal challenges for years.

The hosts also...

For years, Margaret Ables believed the kindest thing she could do for her autistic child was to help them blend in. Then a single article reframed everything she thought she knew about acceptance and disclosure, and what her kid actually needed from her. She and host Jessica Shaw dig into the messy, evolving work of showing up as yourself in a world that isn't always built for you. This is a candid, funny, occasionally heartbreaking conversation about shame, self-advocacy, and belonging.

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Alynda Wheat Savage and her husband Dave were never big rule followers. They brought that punk rock spirit to parenting their son, Jack, who is neurodivergent. So when Dave was diagnosed with glioblastoma, they threw out the rulebook to help Jack process and grieve in a way that worked for him. 

Alynda shares how they protected Jack through diagnosis, decline, and loss. Her story is sometimes funny, always unflinching, and full of heart.

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Melena Blanton is a clinical psychologist and mom of two neurodivergent kids in Eastern Kentucky. She’s had to fight through lack of resources and small town prejudice to get her kids the help they need. That’s meant driving hours for evaluations, training as a tutor herself, and building a scrappy sisterhood of moms doing the impossible. This is what advocacy looks like when the system is broken.

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In this episode of our sister show Hyperfocus, listener Jenna Plonsky opens a raw conversation about ADHD, late diagnosis, and the mental health struggles many women face in silence. 

From postpartum depression to PMDD, this episode explores how hormonal shifts intersect with neurodivergence — and why so many go undiagnosed for decades. It’s an honest look at shame, self-perception, and the turning point that comes with finally understanding your brain.

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Rainy Saturdays just got a whole lot better. Leslie Bushara, chief program officer of the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, reveals how she’s taking notes from neurodivergent kids and their parents to build a space that’s welcoming to every kind of learner, including yours. From muted paint colors to reimagined animations, Leslie shares what happens when you actually listen to kids. 

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For a transcript and more resources, visit Everyone Gets a Juice Bo...

Alison Cho grew up in a tight-knit Korean American family where Harvard and medical school weren’t just dreams, they were expectations. Alison had undiagnosed ADHD and autism, and she often felt like she was letting her parents down. Now she’s raising two neurodivergent kids of her own. And she’s navigating the same cultural expectations she grew up with, this time as the parent. In this funny and tender interview, Alison explores what she wants to keep from her upbringing — and what she wants to leave behind.

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Two experts in ADHD went decades without realizing they had it themselves. Katie Severson, a speech pathologist, and Lori Long, a child psychologist, co-run The Childhood Collective and host the Shining With ADHD podcast. But both received their own ADHD diagnoses only after becoming mothers. They talk about late diagnosis, the shame that came before it, and how it shapes their parenting.
 

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For a transcript and more resources, visit Everyone Gets a Juice...

Rae Jacobson has spent her career covering ADHD and neurodivergence. She hosts the Hyperfocus podcast and helps lead Understood’s editorial team. But even with all that knowledge, she still can’t get the school to evaluate her daughter for an IEP. Here’s how she’s supporting her daughter while they wait for school services.

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For a transcript and more resources, visit Everyone Gets a Juice Box on Understood.org...

Brittney Crabtree, mom of four and co-host of the Moms Talk Autism podcast, gets refreshingly honest about what she calls “grieving the gap.” That’s the particular sadness of watching your neurodivergent kid fall behind their peers. She talks about building a “friendship portfolio,” vetting safe people to open up to, and why actually feeling your feelings is the best strategy.

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For a transcript and more resources, visit Everyone Gets a Juice Box on Understood...

Debbie Reber tried everything to make traditional schools work for her neurodivergent kid. Three schools. An IEP. Therapists. OTs. Educational consultants. But homeschooling? That was a hard pass. 

Then her husband got a job offer on another continent and her options got very small, very fast. What followed was six years she never planned for — and wouldn’t trade for anything.

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Parenting is hard. But parenting with ADHD adds a whole new layer of complexity. 

In this episode, journalist and documentarian Danielle Elliot shares her experience as a single mom navigating routines, decision-making, and the small daily choices that shape a child’s world. 

From sleep training to following her love of travel, Danielle is learning to embrace her own neurodivergence — and discovering how it can fuel both challenges and strengths in her parenting. 

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Laura Jackson thought her daughter’s struggles with math were just a normal part of school — until tears, anxiety, and frustration revealed something more.

After a long journey, Laura discovered her daughter has dyscalculia. So Laura worked closely with experts and used targeted strategies to support her learning. Today, her daughter is excelling in algebra and geometry, building confidence, and learning to become her own advocate. 

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Laura Mayer opens up about the challenges of balancing an ambitious career with the nagging feeling that she needed more space for her neurodivergent daughter. 

She shares the gut-wrenching moments of juggling long hours and the many to-dos that come along with a new diagnosis. In the end, trusting herself led to bold choices. They not only reshaped her priorities but led her to a career shift that worked better for her and her family.

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After ADHD and autism diagnoses reshaped his family, Dion Chavis began looking back at how he parented his teenage daughter — and forward at how he’s raising his young son. In this conversation, he shares the lessons he learned about academics, connection, anger, grace, and apologizing. It’s an honest look at how parenting evolves and what happens when you decide to grow alongside your kids.

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Our episode today starts with that call from school every parent dreads…

Jessica talks with mom and education advocate Tricia McGhee after a classroom discipline incident forces a bigger conversation about neurodivergent kids and school systems that just aren’t built to flex. 

In this episode, we’re also looking at what happens when getting a diagnosis doesn’t lead to help or services — and why collaboration  with schools matters just as much as understanding our own kids.

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Some kids don’t fall apart in public. They save it for home — because it’s the one place they feel safe enough to let go. When teachers and professionals say a child is “fine,” we parents are often left questioning our instincts. They’re the experts, right?

In this episode, psychologist and mom Dr. Arielle Schwartz shares how trusting her gut led her to uncover her son’s dyslexia and sensory differences, and how following that intuition ultimately changed his life.

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Parenting can feel like a detective mission, especially when your kid has more than one diagnosis.

Mom (and yes, a very insightful therapist) Camila de Onis shares her story of tracking her daughter’s meltdowns, sensory triggers, and unexpected behaviors to figure out that her daughter has ADHD and OCD — and is academically gifted to boot. 

From mysterious school episodes to blowups at home, she takes listeners through the twists, dead ends, and “aha” moments of seeking evaluations, understanding diagnoses, and learning how to help a kid whose brain is a truly fascinating puzzle.

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Most of us have been there. Your kids are full tilt. You’re overstimulated, overbooked, and running on empty. Losing it happens — and so do the guilt and shame that follow.

Today, Jessica sits down with therapist and mom Michelle Puster to talk about the overwhelm, guilt, and burnout behind mom rage, especially when raising neurodivergent kids. They share their own strategies (like mindfulness and self-compassion) to ease the intensity, help you reset your nervous system, and make you feel like yourself again.

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In our very first episode of Everyone Gets a Juice Box, Jessica gets real with fourth-grade teacher and mom Bayla Weisman about using AI to support kids with ADHD at home and in the classroom. From visual schedules and social stories to doom piles, busy sports calendars, and picky eating, Bayla shares what’s actually helping her family stay afloat. 

Turns out AI can be an amazing tool — not a crutch — in the messy middle of parenting neurodivergent kids.

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Journalist and radio host Jessica Shaw is swapping celebrity interviews for a whole new beat: parenting kids who learn and think differently. 

As a mom of two, she knows the chaos, victories, and everyday struggles that come with the territory.

Everyone Gets a Juice Box is a space for parents to laugh, vent, celebrate wins, and tackle the messy realities of neurodiverse parenting. Nothing is off-limits — from school struggles to mom rage. Join us for honest, unfiltered conversations with parents who get it. We share the tea, the struggles, and, of course… the juice.

For...