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The Empowered Parent with Dana Baltutis
Welcome to The Empowered Parent Podcast.
This podcast is a space for parents to learn, reflect, and grow.
Each week, we explore topics that help parents understand themselves and their children more deeply - from communication and connection, to supporting neurodivergent development at home and in the community.
We’ve had wonderful conversations with experts, parents, and professionals - including speakers from the Neurodivergence Wellbeing Conference, and a special series following one mum’s journey in unschooling her child.
Every episode is here to inspire curiosity, compassion, and confidence in your parenting journey.
Don’t forget to follow along, share your reflections, and join the conversation.
You can connect with me at danabaltutis.com or mytherapyhouse.com.au.
Let’s celebrate neurodivergence.
Let’s celebrate belonging.
Episodes
107 episodes
BEN'S STORY: Episode 2 - Ben Changed How We Saw The World
You can love your child fiercely and still feel completely unprepared for what their body asks of you. Steve Wellings, Ben’s dad, joins us again to help you meet Ben properly: a gentle, funny, observant kid living with quad athetoid spastic qua...
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BEN'S STORY: Episode 1 - A Difficult Entry Into the World
A baby can arrive and split your life into a before and after. When Steve Wellings and his wife Marie move to Seattle for a military posting, they imagine a simple path: work, a home in the burbs, footy, and a couple of kids. Their first daught...
Letting Go Of The Imagined Child To See The Real One
Parenting can crack open the life you thought you were going to have. One day you’re holding a picture of family holidays, school concerts, easy mornings, and a child who moves through the world the way you expected. Then the real child arrives...
YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE MY PEACE - A MOTHER'S STORY: Episode 6: Raising Kids Who Thrive
The hardest part of parenting isn’t the chaos, it’s what we start believing about ourselves and our kids when the chaos keeps coming. For the final chat in our Empowered Parent Program series, we sit down with Sam Primerano to talk about what h...
YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE MY PEACE - A MOTHER'S STORY: Episode 5: From Burnout To Clarity With An Adult ADHD Diagnosis
A late ADHD diagnosis doesn’t just add a label, it can rewrite your entire personal history. Sam joins me for an honest, detailed chat about what finally pushed her to seek an adult ADHD diagnosis, how it landed after years of coping, and why t...
YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE MY PEACE - A MOTHER'S STORY: Episode 4 - From Migrant Childhood To Confident Parenting Boundaries
Your kid’s “weird” behaviour might be communication, not defiance and the same might be true of your younger self. We sit down with Sam to trace how a culturally diverse childhood, undetected neurodivergence, and unmet emotional needs shaped he...
YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE MY PEACE - A MOTHER'S STORY: Episode 3 - From Socks To Social Cues: Parenting Through Sensory Needs
A toddler who can’t tolerate socks. A child who goes quiet for hours at childcare, then suddenly finds their voice. A kid at a party who slips outside with a juice box and quietly watches the clouds because that’s what their body needs. These m...
YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE MY PEACE - A MOTHER'S STORY: Episode 2 - What If Rest Is Part Of Parenting?
Sam was a full-time nurse who couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t sit with herself, and felt like rest meant failure. Then she became a mum and everything changed, not neatly, not politely, but in the way matrescence often does: it cracks you open a...
YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE MY PEACE - A MOTHER'S STORY: Episode 1 - About Our Family
“You are not allowed to take my peace.” That line lands hard because it comes from someone who spends her days caring for others and her nights parenting three kids aged five and under. We’re joined by Sam Primerano, a registered nurse and mum,...
ALL4ONE: A FATHER'S STORY: Episode 6: From Carer To Founder
Brad’s doing the things many families are told to stop hoping for: he’s building a life with purpose, friendships, and a sense of belonging, not just “being cared for”. Graham joins us for a heartfelt final check-in on how Brad is travelling no...
ALL4ONE: A FATHER'S STORY: Episode 5: You Can Love Deeply Without Burning Out
Watching your child step into independence can be the proudest moment and the most unsettling one. Graham Clark joins us to speak honestly about what happened when his son Bradley, an autistic young adult, moved into his own home and Graham’s f...
ALL4ONE: A FATHER'S STORY: Episode 4: From Safety To Independence Through Supported Living
Buying a home for your child sounds like a practical decision until you realise it also forces a whole new identity for everyone involved. We sit down with Graham to unpack how his family moved from assuming Bradley would live with them forever...
ALL4ONE: A FATHER'S STORY: Episode 3: School Was The Anchor And Then It Ended
School can feel like it’s “for the kids”, but for many families it’s also the first place a parent stops feeling invisible. I sit down with Graham to keep following Bradley’s journey from childhood into adulthood, starting with the school years...
ALL4ONE: A FATHER'S STORY: Episode 2: The Survival Years Of Neurodivergent Parenting
Some parenting seasons are loud, messy, and relentless and you don’t even realise you’re surviving until you finally stop to breathe. We pick up Graham's story as a full-time carer for his non-verbal, neurodivergent son Bradley, stepping into t...
ALL4ONE: A FATHER'S STORY: Episode 1: The Beginning
A child can be sleeping through the night, walking on time, and lighting up your world with cheeky joy, and you can still end up facing a diagnosis that changes everything. Graham Clark joins us to start a special six-week series, sharing what ...
Unschooling Series with Paige Carter (Parent, Advocate, Community Leader, Business Owner) Week 9: When We Stop Pushing, Children Start Healing
What changes when a child’s wellbeing takes the lead and everything else rearranges around it? In this series finale with Paige Carter of Inclusive Oak, we follow a family through unschooling and burnout recovery, anchored by one unforgettable ...
Unschooling Series with Paige Carter (Parent, Advocate, Community Leader, Business Owner) Week 8 - We Moved Into A Caravan And Found Our Pace
What if the bravest choice is to stop doing what everyone expects and start doing what your child needs? We sit down with Paige Carter to unpack a seismic family pivot: renting out the house, moving into a caravan, and giving a neurodivergent c...
Unschooling Series with Paige Carter and Sarah Lovett : Week 7 - Rethinking Education When Safety Comes First
This week on The Empowered Parent Podcast I sat down with Sarah Lovett from Our PDA Kids and Paige Carter from Inclusive Oak. Both Sarah and Paige are parents of children with Pathological Demand Avoidance, or Persistent Demand for Autonomy, an...
Unschooling Series with Paige Carter (Parent, Advocate, Community Leader, Business Owner): Week 6 - Recovery, Stability, Then Expansion: Trusting A Child’s Pace
Say yes to slower. That simple pivot—away from pressure and toward real choice—turned a chaotic season into a week with fewer meltdowns, easier car rides, and a hydrotherapy session full of laughter. We open up about parenting a PDA child with ...
Unschooling Series with Paige Carter (Parent, Advocate, Community Leader, Business Owner): Week 5 - A Family Weighs CBD For Epilepsy And PDA
What happens when you remove the biggest triggers from a child’s day and the seizures stop? We sit down with Paige Carter to unpack a remarkable shift since Oakland left school, the role stress and heat play in absence and atonic seizures, and ...
Unschooling Series with Paige Carter (Parent, Advocate, Community Leader, Business Owner): Week 4- Hydrotherapy and Drop Offs
Change doesn’t wait for the perfect schedule, and neither do big feelings. We sit down after a long day to unpack a week where a 30-minute hydrotherapy session brought relief, the weather kept us indoors, and Oakland leaned hard into the comfor...
Unschooling Series with Paige Carter (Parent, Advocate, Community Leader, Business Owner): Week 3 -Small Wins, Big Steps In Unschooling
Ever watched a child light up at the zoo, then shut down at the hospital and wondered how to bridge those worlds with care, dignity, and actual access? We dive into a week that held both: a quiet bus at Monarto where curiosity bloomed, and a cl...
Season 2 NEURODIVERSITY - Episode 10: Every Colour Matters - Closing Thoughts on Neurodiversity (Dana Baltutis, Speech Pathologist and Parent Coach)
The rainbow stretches across the sky – vibrant, diverse, and complete only because each colour exists. This powerful metaphor frames our season finale on neurodiversity, reminding us that human brains, like rainbows, aren't meant to be identica...
Season 2 NEURODIVERSITY - Episode 9: Photography As Therapy: Motherhood, Bipolar, And Neurodiversity (Bianca Buliga: Parent, Artist, Photographer, Advocate)
What if a camera could say what your voice can’t? We sit down with Bianca, a neurodivergent artist and mother living with bipolar II, ADHD, and autistic traits, to explore how art, therapy, and the right clinical support helped her turn pain in...