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A transformative guide to supporting your suffering kid in burnout--so you feel seen, confident, capable, and compassionately ready to change your life.

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New in October 2026

The Parent's Handbook for Kids in Burnout

 

Is your child or teen exhausted, overwhelmed, melting down constantly, and suddenly unable to keep up with life?

 

Maybe they can’t get to school anymore or every day is a battle. Maybe every request turns into a meltdown. Maybe they’re spending hours on screens, struggling to eat or sleep, losing skills they once had, or retreating from friends and family. Maybe you’re hearing, “I can't,” over and over again—and you don’t know what to do.

 

What if this isn’t laziness, anxiety, or defiance? What if it’s burnout?

 

Childhood burnout can be devastating for kids and families. And because burnout can look like anxiety, aggression, school refusal, depression, or misbehavior, it’s easy to respond by adding more pressure at exactly the moment a child's brain and body desperately need less.

If your kid is in burnout, life feels like it’s falling apart at the seams and you feel like the worst parent in the world.

The Parent’s Handbook for Kids in Burnout is here to help.

 

Inside this practical, browsable, comprehensive handbook, you'll learn how to:

  • Recognize the signs of burnout and understand its three distinct phases
  • Tell the difference between something that is hard and something that is too hard for your kid
  • Reduce unnecessary demands without giving up on your child or teen’s overall growth
  • Support basic needs like food, sleep, hygiene, movement, and connection
  • Navigate school refusal, school accommodations, and alternatives to traditional schooling
  • Create a practical plan to make your home safer during meltdowns, aggression, self-harm, or other crises
  • Find medications and therapies that actually fit your kid’s capacity and help them heal
  • Support your child or teen’s growing self-knowledge, autonomy, and self-advocacy
  • Recognize your own parental burnout and sustain yourself through a long recovery journey

 

What if you’re not alone, what if someone out there truly understands and knows what to do in the hardest, most terrifying moments?

 

Designed for exhausted parents, this is a handbook you can read straight through or flip straight to the wisdom you need STAT. It includes quizzes, practical tools, phase-by-phase guidance, reflection prompts, charts, and downloadable companion resources to help you turn ideas into action.

Here’s the good news: Your child’s capacity can change. Recovery rarely happens in a straight line. It’s never exactly the same from person to person. And you don't have to have the whole path figured out today.

 

You just need to know what your next step is.

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Amazon (Aus)

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 Kelsie "Mick" Olds

The Occuplaytional Therapist, author of Your Child's Point of View

 

 

"When I try to sum up Amanda's handbook, I keep reaching for metaphors.

It's a life preserver thrown to a drowning person

- and I work with many, many drowning families who need these lifesaving words.

It's a road map out of a dark place

- and I know so many who feel like the darkness is complete and have no idea how to find their way out.

 

I think all of these come back to one thing.

This book is hope.

Hope that you're not alone, because someone has written down exactly what's happening to you. Hope that you're not lost forever, because someone has been there before and found a way out. Hope that your child will be okay again someday. I can't think of anything that could possibly be more meaningful than that."

Debbie Reber

host of the Tilt Parenting Podcast and author of Differently Wired

 

 

"The Parent's Handbook for Kids in Burnout is a massive undertaking and an extraordinary gift to families. It's clearly born from Amanda Diekman's deep lived experience, her passion for helping other families, and her remarkable ability to synthesize research and best practices into compassionate, practical guidance. Comprehensive, accessible, and deeply neurodivergent-affirming,

this is the handbook every family navigating a neurodivergent child's burnout will want by their side."

Dr. Megan Anna Neff

Author of The Autistic Burnout Workbook

 

"I get asked for a resource like this all the time, and I can't think of a better person to write it.

Amanda Diekman brings both the lived experience and the clarity that parents of kids in burnout need."

 

 

Join our book launch team!

 

  • Get an early digital copy
  • Peak behind the scenes
  • Support the release with reviews, shares, and all the good vibes
  • Connect with other parents navigating burnout and seeking healing

 

Join here!

Low-Demand PARENTING

 

Written by the creator of the groundbreaking Low-Demand approach and a respected parenting advocate, this book is your ultimate companion on the path to nurturing strong, connected relationships with your children.

 

Parent to neurodivergent children and autistic adult, Amanda Diekman outlines a parenting approach that finally lowers the bar for the whole family, enabling the equilibrium of the home to be restored.

 

Low-demand parenting allows you to drop the demands and expectations that are making family life impossible and embrace the joyful freedom of living life with low demands.

 

Full of practical resources and scripts that are easy to implement in busy everyday life, this book is your flashlight and your map to parenting your uniquely wired child.

 

It will not tell you where to go, but it will help you find your way so you and your family thrive.

Find it on Amazon

Buy here

Find it at Barnes & Noble

BUY here

Find it at an Indie bookstore near you

Find it here

 

Diane Gould

Founder PDA North America

‘Parents of neurodivergent children, especially parents of kids who fit the PDA profile of autism, will benefit from reading - in addition to giving clear guidance,

her heartfelt journey of acceptance is a beautiful read.’

Debbie Reber

host of the Tilt Parenting Podcast and author of Differently Wired

 

"An empowering and compassionate guide

for parents seeking an alternative approach to raising their children. This book beautifully captures the essence of low-demand parenting, providing practical strategies to honor children's boundaries, build trust, and nurture their authentic selves. It's a game-changer for those ready to embrace a radically respectful and joy-filled relationship with their kids.

A must-read

for any parent looking to break free from traditional parenting norms."

Barry M. Prizant, Ph.D.

CCC-SLP, Author of Uniquely Human

 

"Drawing from her expertise and life experience as an autistic adult, Amanda Diekman's 'Low-Demand Parenting' offers a compassionate and practical guide for parents that will increase their understanding and the experience of their neurodivergent children. Parents will be set on a path to foster genuine connections and develop a positive sense of self.

‘Low-Demand Parenting' is a breath of fresh air

given all the discipline oriented approaches that confront parents, and will be a valuable resource for creating a nurturing environment where children can thrive and be celebrated for who they are.”

 

This book is a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere.

 

At our low point, I was suffering from PTSD from my parenting journey. I had multiple kids in crisis in the midst of a global pandemic. We were deep in the darkness.

I wrote this book to people in that dark place. There is a path forward to healing, wholeness, joy, and connection. You can learn to meet your own needs without asking too much of your struggling child. You can support your vulnerable kid without punishments, rewards, endless compromising, or power battles. You can experience ease and joy in your parenting life.

It's the low-demand way.

This book is readable, practical, walking you through the approach step-by-step with 30 pages of resources at the back so you can apply what you've learned.

 

If you've read all the parenting books, and the advice sounds good, but nothing works for your kid, this book is for you.

 

If you've started to blame yourself, to believe that it's your fault for not being consistent, calm or in control enough, this book is for you.

 

If your needs as a parent are always ignored by experts and teachers, if you feel like you're always giving without any support for you in return, this book is for you.

Get the first chapter free!

Read our story of transformation from burnout into a life we truly love.