Low Demand Parenting

In this episode, I’m answering a listener question I hear all the time: What does low demand actually look like?

I walk through the foundations of low demand parenting by breaking it down into a clear, practical process—using real-life examples to show how we identify what’s too hard, drop demands that aren’t doable, and increase accommodations in ways that actually bring relief. I explain how low demand isn’t about “giving up” or being permissive, but about attuning to capacity—our kids’ and our own—and responding with intention instead of force.

I also introduce the six-step low demand process, unpack how demands work like a layer cake (surface demand → expectation → adult need), and share how learning to truly listen to our kids’ communication changes everything.

If you’ve ever felt confused, overwhelmed, or unsure whether you’re “doing low demand right,” this episode is meant to give you clarity, structure, and reassurance that there is a path through this.

What if the hardest part of low demand parenting isn’t your child’s needs — but what their needs bring up in you?

In this solo episode, we will explore the deep inner work beneath low demand parenting: how many of us were taught to suppress our needs, feel ashamed of them, or believe they hurt other people…and how those old messages get activated when we’re raising kids with big needs of their own.

This episode unpacks why so many parents feel burned out, resentful, or stuck in a painful “it’s me or it’s my kids” mindset, and offers a different framework: your needs and your child’s needs are not in competition. They are deeply interconnected.

I share mindset shifts, lived examples, and practical steps for rebuilding a compassionate relationship with your own needs — without abandoning your child, without self-sacrifice, and without shame.

This episode is especially for all my beloved fellow parents who feel exhausted, overwhelmed, or quietly resentful. I hope that this episode helps you imagine a world where both you and your kids can be needy, sensitive, and deeply connected, all at once.

Additional Resources:

The Low Demand Reset - your gentle reflective guide to the new year

Low Demand Parenting book: a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere. Get the first chapter free!

Why is everything with my kid so hard?: Take the quiz to find your first step forward!

Low Demand Parenting Blog: a treasure trove of low demand wisdom

Follow us on social for updates on the podcast, blog, and more!

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The Low Demand Parenting Podcast is your space to let go of the pressure and embrace a more joyful, authentic approach to parenting. We hope you enjoyed this episode and would be honored if you left us a review which helps us reach more parents just like you!

In this episode, I sit down with my friend and neighbor Jeff Parrott to talk about parenting a PDA, pressure-sensitive child while letting go of the “typical” parenting manual. Jeff shares their family’s pivot from high academic expectations to unschooling, how discovering PDA reframed everything, and why consent became the key non-negotiable in their parenting. He walks me through his family’s practical, proactive demand-drops (like rethinking laundry and mealtimes), handling criticism as a father, and the affirmation that anchors him: “connection over correction.” If you’ve ever wondered how to live out your low demand beliefs when your identity is tied to achievement, this conversation is a powerful roadmap.

About Jeff:

Jeff Parrott is a proud father and husband in a neurodiverse family and is committed to learning from his lived experience practicing Low Demand. With a focus on personal growth, he is committed to the appreciation, understanding, and support of neurodiversity, sensory sensitivities, Pervasive Drive for Autonomy (PDA), and Low Demand. Jeff has B.E. degrees in engineering (Biomedical and Electrical) and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences (Women’s Health and Reproductive Endocrinology) and has much experience in academic and pharmaceutical development laboratories. A persistent problem solver, he strives to find everyday solutions that work for his beautiful, developing, gifted family. In this space, he identifies with the username @JeffAugmen. “Augmen” is a Latin for “growth.

Mentions in this episode:

Occupational therapist Jenna Meehan, of Be Me OT in Durham, NC: https://www.bemeot.com/

PDA framing; “pressure-sensitive kids” (Dr. Naomi Fisher, reference by Jeff)

Additional Resources:

Low Demand Parenting book: a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere. Get the first chapter free!

Why is everything with my kid so hard?: Take the quiz to find your first step forward!

Low Demand Parenting Blog: a treasure trove of low demand wisdom

Follow us on social for updates on the podcast, blog, and more!

Instagram

Facebook

Pinterest

The Low Demand Parenting Podcast is your space to let go of the pressure and embrace a more joyful, authentic approach to parenting. We hope you enjoyed this episode and would be honored if you left us a review which helps us reach more parents just like you!

In this episode, I sit down with writer and disabled parent Jessica Slice about what it looks like to practice low demand parenting… and also not. Jessica shares how parenting her autistic daughter showed her that “endless freedom” actually made her child more anxious — and that loving, predictable structure was the real low demand move for their family. We talk about how disability culture dismantles shame, why some kids panic in the face of too many choices, how to build rules that are genuinely child-centered, and why no one on the internet gets to tell you whether you’re “doing low demand right.” This conversation is a permission slip for families who need containers, timers, and posted rules on the wall, not because you’re trying to control your kid, but because that’s what actually lowers demands in your unique family culture.

In this episode we talk about:

Why “low demand” can’t be one-size-fits-all

How Jessica realized unlimited choice was actually the demand for her autistic daughter

The family’s TV setup: timers, platform limits, and why it calms her kid

Using rules to reduce suffering, not to control behavior

Parenting inside disability culture — naming needs without shame

The difference between “parent-imposed rules” and “kid-centered structure”

Letting go of performing “good parenting” for outsiders

Why no one can look from the outside and decide whether what you’re doing is “low demand”

My Guest:
Jessica Slice is the Toronto author of four books about disability and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Guardian, The Globe & Mail, LitHub, Alice Wong’s bestselling Disability Visibility, Slate, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and more. She’s also been featured in Vogue, The New Yorker, PBS, NPR, The Cut, the BBC, and more. She lives with her husband, two kids, and two dogs.

https://www.jessicaslice.com/

https://bookshop.org/shop/jessicaslice

https://jessicaslice.substack.com/

Additional Resources:

Get the customized coaching you desire and deserve with my wonderful Low Demand Coaching Team!

Low Demand Parenting book: a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere. Get the first chapter free!

Why is everything with my kid so hard?: Take the quiz to find your first step forward!

Low Demand Parenting Blog: a treasure trove of low demand wisdom

Follow us on social for updates on the podcast, blog, and more!

Instagram

Facebook

Pinterest

The Low Demand Parenting Podcast is your space to let go of the pressure and embrace a more joyful, authentic approach to parenting. We hope you enjoyed this episode and would be honored if you left us a review which helps us reach more parents just like you!

In this solo episode, I get to dive into one of the most radical, healing, and countercultural practices in Low Demand Parenting: listening deeply to our kids. As the third step in the six-step Low Demand Method, listening is the heart of it all—the bridge between understanding and letting go. Together we will explore how to listen when our kids won’t answer a single question, when what they say triggers us, and when their truth doesn’t match what we wanted to hear. I share real-life stories, practical tools (like “bark if you love cereal!”), and deep reflections on the power of curiosity, differentiation, and radical humility. This episode will help you release the pressure to “get it right,” and instead, open your ears—and your heart—to what your child is really communicating.

Additional Resources:

Low Demand Coaching with our incredible team. Receive support and compassion; get un-stuck with practical help; find someone to talk to who fully gets it.

Low Demand Parenting book: a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere. Get the first chapter free!

Why is everything with my kid so hard?: Take the quiz to find your first step forward!

Low Demand Parenting Blog: a treasure trove of low demand wisdom

Follow us on social for updates on the podcast, blog, and more!

Instagram

Facebook

Pinterest

The Low Demand Parenting Podcast is your space to let go of the pressure and embrace a more joyful, authentic approach to parenting. We hope you enjoyed this episode and would be honored if you left us a review which helps us reach more parents just like you!