Redefining Success for Families with Neurodivergent Children with Talia Zamora

In this week's episode of The Autism Mums Podcast we welcome Talia Zamora to the show.

Biography

Talia Zamora, Award-Winning Coach and bestselling co-author, encourages and uplifts women from Neurodivergent families who are struggling to find balance, clarity, and direction through bespoke one-to-one coaching. With a supportive, accepting, and inclusive approach, she helps clients reconnect with their self-worth, build confidence, and set realistic, meaningful goals that align with their lives. Drawing on both lived experience and professional expertise, Talia’s unique coaching style empowers women to take control, make progress, and redefine success on their own terms. Her work is grounded in simplicity, compassion, and the power of being truly seen and understood.

Key Takeaways

• Accidental Journey to Coaching: Talia’s path to becoming a coach began unexpectedly, driven by her own experiences as a parent of neurodivergent children.

• Identifying Common Struggles: Many neurodivergent families face challenges related to societal expectations and the pressure to conform to typical parenting norms.

• The Importance of Self-Compassion: Talia emphasizes the need for parents to recognize their unique family dynamics and to approach parenting with kindness toward themselves.

• Momentum vs. Balance: Talia discusses the concept of prioritizing momentum over traditional work-life balance, focusing on maintaining progress rather than achieving a perfect equilibrium.

• Breakthrough Moments: Clients often experience significant breakthroughs when they learn to communicate their needs and establish boundaries in both personal and professional contexts.

• Creating a Supportive Environment: Talia highlights the value of creating a nurturing atmosphere at home that accommodates the unique needs of neurodivergent children.

• Practical Tools for Change: The episode offers actionable strategies for parents, including the idea of a "done list" to celebrate achievements and the importance of questioning societal norms in parenting.

Mentioned in This Episode

Talia's 101 Neurodivergent Traits download is available here: https://www.taliazamora.com/

Talia's Wellness Day:

Unmask & Unwind

A Neurodivergent-Friendly Wellness Day on Saturday 19th October 2025 for Women Who Want to Thrive. If you’ve been craving a day to slow down, breathe, and refill your cup this is your invitation.

Find out more here: https://www.taliazamora.com/wellnessday

Connect with Talia

[email protected]

www.taliazamora.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliazamora/ https://www.facebook.com/TaliaZamoraBusinessandFamilyCoach

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Victoria Bennion: Welcome to the podcast, Talia. It's great to have you here with us today.

Talia Zamora: Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here.

Natalie Tealdi: Can you start by telling us what inspired you to start your coaching journey and how your personal experience helped to shape your approach?

Talia Zamora: My coaching journey, probably happened by accident. What I mean by that is that it wasn't really a lifelong dream to work for myself and, to be a coach. I'd been working in business improvement and. Continuous improvement. Within industry there's something called Lean Six Sigma, and it's about practicing different ways and systems and process to improve your business and make it easier and, manage it well. I came to an end of a contract and I was struggling to find something that would fit around my kids because as you know, your kids have more need for hospital appointments and for you to pick them up from school because they don't necessarily want to, go to the clubs and they get exhausted and burn out and they need to be at home. So I, I really needed something part time and flexible. [00:01:00] So at the end of the contract I was on, I just thought, okay, let's. C, give myself a bit of a break to be there for the kids and then retrain as something that I can do for myself. So it took a few months, I got myself a coach and then was talking to her about what would be best to do with my skills, and that's when it highlighted that actually being a coach would. Worked well for me because of all the business improvement and continuous improvement that I'd got, and in the background at the same time was I was starting to train as a coach. I was doing quite a lot of training for my kids, so as, again, you might well know the system when you get your kids diagnosed because both mine are autistic. At the time I hadn't had a diagnosis, so the system suggests that you go to parenting courses, which at the time I got really annoyed about and didn't see the logic and thought that, you know, I'm not a bad parent, are you judging me? But actually realized very quickly how, valuable they were and how amazing it was that somebody understood other people were in the same boat. That there [00:02:00] were certain quirks about my kids that I hadn't even realized were quirks and their traits were shining through that. Became quite prominent that actually it wasn't normal for everybody else. Within the first two, three years of coaching, it then became quite clear that I was working with a lot of neurodivergent women without advertising.

That I was neurodivergent. And without saying this is me. It just became almost magnetic. Slightly. No, that might sound a bit funny, but it's just, that was who I was attracting without deliberately doing it. So it came to a point where I'd done so much training and was looking to do more, and I thought actually, this is a good time for me to become a neurodivergent coach.

And at the same time I started training with a charity called Advance, who's local to Meen Hartford. And they support, mainly A DHD and autistic families. So I particularly trained with them. So I coach with them as a charity and that's family coaching. And directly through my own business [00:03:00] that's more female business focused, and that's with women who've got neurodivergent traits themselves or diagnosis, but also have a family at home that they're, having to build their life around 

Victoria Bennion: So through your working with neurodivergent women. What are some common struggles that you see?

Talia Zamora: Common struggles, are actually about life itself. It's in terms of how you navigate with your children. a lot of the time, I feel as a parent of autistic kids that we try and do things that everybody else is doing. And we do that with ourselves and our children, so be it that going to parties as an adult, it's taken me a while to realize actually there certain types of parties I like to go to, but normally, previously I just pushed myself to do it. It's the same with kids. There are only certain types of parties they might feel comfortable going to. And then also things like swimming lessons or going to football or going to ballet or things like that. We think it's the norm and that we should be doing it with [00:04:00] our kids, and we kind of try and coax them into doing it and they don't wanna do it, and they're kicking up a stink and having a tantrum or coming home and quite distressed. So I think one of the hardest. Things, when I'm working with someone is there to help them to realize that they need to do it their way and it's okay if that's not what everybody else is doing and that it's really important to have to be. Regulated at home and in a nice way and, and feel comfortable. So especially with extracurricular stuff, where we've got a choice, whereas school, we don't have as much choice. So that's can be a challenge in itself. So I think helping people to realize they don't have to fit into the social norms of society is huge.

Victoria Bennion: I think that is huge, isn't it? Just thinking from like my son and those, the expectations that, we had for him before he had his diagnosis. Like parties, as you were saying, are they awful? And school trips, things like that, that [00:05:00] which he couldn't actually access. And just as a parent parenting him, that took me a little bit of an adjustment just to actually be able to say, no, actually that's not gonna work.

No.

Talia Zamora: Yeah.

Victoria Bennion: But it's, you are very caught up with what's expected,

I think for a good long time. 

Natalie Tealdi: We've talked about this more recently, haven't we, with the summer holidays and seeing the adverts for festivals or family days out , and we're sort of in that place where you think, oh yeah, that'd be great. And then you think that wouldn't,

Talia Zamora: Yeah,

Natalie Tealdi: would not fit for us.

Talia Zamora: Happens to me a lot. I totally understand that.

Natalie Tealdi: Mm, yeah.

Yeah.

Talia Zamora: Quite often. Previously anyway, will book things, take my kids to them, and then just feel so disappointed that, oh, why are you not enjoying it? Why is this not working? Everybody else is having a great time. They've been here for hours and you wanna go home already.

So I think it takes a really long time to wake up and think. Actually, I don't have to keep on doing this

and I don't, especially when it comes to really [00:06:00] expensive things like taking your child to the theater or to circus or something

and they're really distressed about it I think it really takes a long time to realize, oh yeah, this is not working and I, why am I doing it?

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah, 

Victoria Bennion: a hundred percent. 

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah. I think I see things and I think, actually, am I thinking of it from, it's something I would like to do, or is it something they would like to do? And often it's me. So yeah, it's not gonna work for them, so,

Talia Zamora: But it is

also you mirroring what other people are doing.

Natalie Tealdi: Mm.

Talia Zamora: Thinking, okay, they're doing it, so I'll do it and this is gonna be fun. It's, having that realization that, oh, I don't need to do it that way, I can do it my way.

I think that really does help.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, I agree. Would agree. Definitely.

Natalie Tealdi: Mm. You talk about momentum over balance. Can you explain a little bit about what that means, especially for neurodivergent families?

Talia Zamora: It. Normal to hear people saying [00:07:00] work-life balance, need to get a work-life balance and one of the reasons I started working for myself is because I wanted a work-life balance. But does balance, especially in a neuro detergent family, does that really exist? I mean, are we thriving for something that's not really actually, doable because, from my own experience, a lot of things change very quickly. And so you might get your kids into a club and you might get them into going to a tutor or extra learning, and you might get in the flow for maybe a couple of months doing certain things, whether it's swimming or ballet or something like that. And then it switches. They're done very quickly. Especially you've got an A DHD child. They potentially could get quite bored very quickly. It's like if it's not, fast paced enough, they're gonna be like, oh, I don't wanna do this anymore. Can I do something else? And I'm one of those parents that changed my child's sport literally every term because they'd got fed up like, okay, we'll do volleyball now.

Okay, we'll do football. Okay, we'll do, and we just changed all the time. So, it [00:08:00] made me realize, actually momentum is probably more of what I'm doing is keeping going. Not necessarily keeping a balance, but I'm just keeping going a nice pace and for me and my family, and that's also come through identifying that actually I need to do what's right by my family and not right by what everybody else does.

So it came to the point of dropping some of the extracurricular things, thinking why are we doing this? We just kept the momentum and at the speed that was good for us instead of. What could happen is that you hit a wall and you just stop everything and there is no balance. 'cause you know, foods and having a good, diet as such will go out the window, sleep goes out the window, you know, you are working too many hours and obviously that's not great either, but I just think that sometimes it can go up and down, especially school holidays if you're working for yourself. Actually that can look very, very different in terms of the work hours, in comparison to the hours of the kids. So, I feel like [00:09:00] momentum's more realistic for me anyway.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah,

absolutely. No, I think that makes a lot of sense. So what kind of breakthroughs have you seen with the clients that you work with?

Talia Zamora: Some of the biggest breakthroughs are seeing clients, realize that they can communicate and do things in a different way that they've been. Whether that be in a work situation or a workshop situation or going to a meeting or doing a presentation or whether it's with your kids and your family at dinner time or picking them up from school or, having a chat with, the teachers at the gate or anything like that and encouraging them to drop the mask slightly. And do it for more of a natural place that they're comfortable with to watch, what they're saying in terms of jumping in and saying, yeah, my kids will come to the park on the weekend. And then thinking to yourself, how are we gonna do this? Like, that's not realistic. We can't get out of the house at nine o'clock in the morning. So. Communicating that actually what your needs are. That actually, that doesn't work for me, but maybe we could do it at 10 o'clock instead of nine [00:10:00] o'clock. And then when it comes to meetings and talking to people saying, actually, can you slow down a little bit? My processing is not, as fast or just saying, I didn't catch that. Taking care of yourself so you don't have to stress later that. Actually, I didn't know half of that meeting. I missed it. Also taking care of yourself instead of in terms of the boundaries for work, whether it's you work for yourself or for employer, like cutting off in the evenings and not doing anymore if that works for you or if you're an evening person, making sure you've got time in the middle of the day to have a break and rest, not overloading your day. Whereas it's very easy to put so much in your day thinking, know I'm gonna do an appointment, I'm gonna get the shopping done, get the lounge. No one's just jump pick up the kids, have a meeting, you put it all in there, and then you get to the end of the day and get so deflated that I didn't know half of that and like, I really need to still have that meeting with so and so. Being really realistic and communicating to people. Actually, you know what, I haven't got that much time today, but tomorrow would be better. And, checking in with yourself. And [00:11:00] making sure that actually, that you are not overdoing it. I think that's a big, a big thing in terms of releasing people from actually feeling like they're not doing enough and overdoing things and not setting boundaries and actually saying, you know what, it's okay.

You can do less. Less is more, I often say is that you're more productive and you can get things done in a much better way if you're not spinning plates all the time.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, that's

really good. That's really good tips. That's something I do far too much, particularly on a Monday. Like try and fit that whole to-do list on the Monday, and actually it can be spread through the week.

Talia Zamora: Yeah, it is so true, isn't it? I mean, there's an element of satisfaction if you do manage to get it done, but the drop in your adrenaline when you haven't got much of it done is worse. So yeah, it's, much better to cut it down a bit. I also tell people to do a done list because quite often if you don't get everything done on a Monday, for instance,

and you're disappointed in yourself, I'm sure if you wrote a done list next to it.

Of all the things that weren't [00:12:00] written on your to-do list, you'd see how much more you did actually get done.

Victoria Bennion: I like that

idea. I'm gonna do a done list.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah. 

Talia Zamora: really satisfying. Especially 'cause you could tick it afterwards if you're one of those people that gets motivated by ticking.

Victoria Bennion: I really do. 

Talia Zamora: So yeah, you two could even swap done lists with each other. What have you done today? Like what?

What have you achieved? 

Victoria Bennion: Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah. Sometimes they even add stuff on just so I can tick it off,

Talia Zamora: Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's so satisfying.

Victoria Bennion: yeah.

Natalie Tealdi: So what's one small shift that listeners can make today to move closer to the life that they want?

Talia Zamora: When it comes with family, it's, stepping back a little bit, taking your foot off the pedal a little bit, listening to the people around you, especially your kids, we quite often get stuck in this mode of like I mentioned, being normal and sticking to what everybody else does. Thinking we have to do it that way. We [00:13:00] have to do it that way. Like for instance, when I was switching from being employed to working for myself, start my own business, in my head I kept on saying, I can't do that. I've gotta provide for my children.

I've gotta pay my mortgage. And that was my mantra in my head. But actually. It's like all the things you're telling yourself that you can't do. And even with your...