349: Tracking & Maintaining Progress, with Caroline Fitsimones

About this episode

In this episode, Penny Williams and Caroline Fitsimones discuss how to effectively track and maintain progress for neurodivergent children in a supportive and realistic way.

Progress with our neurodivergent kids can feel invisible. When you’re in the daily grind of meltdowns, school stress, and constant problem-solving, it’s so easy to believe nothing is working. I’ve been there. That heavy feeling of “we’re trying everything, and it’s still so hard.” In this episode, I’m joined by ADHD parenting coach and occupational therapist Caroline Fitsimones to break down what it really looks like to track and maintain progress in a way that’s realistic, supportive, and actually doable for families like ours. We talk about why tracking progress isn’t about perfection or pressure. It’s about clarity. It’s about moving from “everything is falling apart” to noticing patterns, pivoting with intention, and celebrating the baby steps that truly build growth. Caroline shares a powerful six-step framework that starts with vision casting and building family culture, then moves into strengthening ourselves as parents, installing supportive systems, targeting micro-steps for our kids’ skills, and finally reflecting and adjusting with grace. We dig into practical examples, from simplifying mornings to using visual schedules, to doing cost-benefit analyses on what actually…

People in this episode

Host: Penny Williams

Guest: Caroline Fitsimones

Topics covered

• neurodivergent kids
• tracking progress
• parenting strategies
• ADHD
• family support
• self-regulation

Keywords

• neurodivergent
• ADHD parenting
• progress tracking
• family culture
• self-regulation
• visual schedules
• parenting coach

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