Coaching with Clio

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San Francisco, CA
Coaching with Clio

I’m a certified integrative health coach and mom to two beautiful boys.

My mission is to help parents prioritize themselves and feel less overwhelm and more joy in their parenting.

02/24/2026

New substack today - there's a lot going on, and I tackle topics like grief, radical acceptance, advocacy, and more. https://open.substack.com/pub/coachingwithclio/p/notes-on-radical-acceptance-advocacy?r=22lae5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

02/01/2026

This is my son’s happy place right now- the bike park. He can do this for hours. We are in a tough season right now and having a regulating, outdoor activity is so amazing. It provides important vestibular and proprioceptive sensory input, as well as the endorphins that intense cardio gives. It also gives the parents a break from co-regulating with him!

01/28/2026

(photo of my kid crushing oyster shells at the beach - a recent bright spot)

I shared a very honest Substack this week about being in crisis — what it looks like in our family right now, how support sometimes only comes once the struggle is visible, and why caring for ourselves as parents isn’t optional in these seasons.

If you’re navigating school refusal, PDA, burnout, or just a period where everything feels harder than it “should,” this one is for you. 💛

You’re not alone — even when it feels that way.
🔗 Read the full post on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/coachingwithclio/p/on-being-in-crisis?r=22lae5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

01/20/2026

We are very much in it right now trying to figure out how to accommodate and support our PDA child. And one kind of interesting twist has been his interest in doing chores to earn money. For me it really illustrates the importance of autonomy. It seems like this would be a very high demand activity, but since he is deciding to do it and he is being compensated, he’s very much in control and seems to enjoy doing these chores. Between yesterday and today, I think my kids must’ve been half the things on this list. It’s really prompting me to think about dropping demands and providing autonomy and how they’re both such important accommodations for a PDA child. Other things in this photo – the tale of our emotional support animal, shadow (sensory input, tactile, calming nervous system for him to co- regulate with). A jar of honey that we allow him to put on many of his foods. (Sugar provides dopamine). A strewn scholastic sheet for him to look at with no prompting from me. Our messy table shows it all! What’s been working for your PDA child or loved one? Huge thank you to for introducing me to these concepts via their paradigm shift program.

01/18/2026

All about squeezing in some much needed self care, and this is where it can happen right now. At the bike park, while my older son is fully occupied and well regulated by this intense sensory experience.

01/13/2026

Photo - weekly fire with my older son - it's one of his happy places. This reframe is inspired by the work of Casey Erlich (), whose insights into PDA parenting and shifting how we measure “success” have been incredibly helpful for our family.
Substack here: https://open.substack.com/pub/coachingwithclio/p/changing-my-metrics-for-parenting?r=22lae5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

01/06/2026

Perhaps one of my greatest mindset shifts of the past year has been readjusting my expectations. Our two-week school vacation over the holidays was exactly what I anticipated—a mix of highs and lows, moments of joy alongside some incredibly difficult ones.

Before the break, I got some great advice from parent coach : have everyone in the family write down what they’d like to happen over the holidays. That could be favorite foods, activities, or more general hopes. I wrote down quality 1:1 time with my kids, watching a movie, singing music with other people, going to church, and making foods that felt special.

By resetting my expectations—specifically, letting go of the idea that we’d spend during the break together in perfect harmony—those things did happen, and I felt a lot more peace. The hard moments were still really hard, and we’re very much in the process of figuring out the big and small changes we need to help everyone in our family thrive. But showing up with realistic expectations felt like a game changer.

How were your holidays?

12/19/2025

This morning started with sibling conflict, which led to almost two hours of me being on high alert as I tried to prevent more from happening. By the time we left for school, I was out of energy and patience and feeling pretty grumpy. Luckily, the bike ride helped me calm down and reset (and it always helps the kids, too!)
There are a couple of important points I want to highlight here:

1. Parental bandwidth is finite.
Running out of patience doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us, or that we’re doing a bad job. We’re human—and caring for PDA or neurodivergent kids can be incredibly demanding. It’s normal to run out of bandwidth. When we can recognize that it’s happening and respond with kindness and self-compassion, we can also start to notice patterns and make changes that help us avoid getting stuck in this really hard place as often.

2. Being on high alert is exhausting—and it’s usually reactive.
Living in a constant state of vigilance takes a huge toll. A lot of my work with parents focuses on identifying proactive strategies that reduce how often families end up there. This isn’t about criticism or guilt—sometimes reactive parenting is the only option while you’re still finding the right supports and resources. And even with proactive strategies, it will still happen sometimes. But small, thoughtful changes add up, and every bit of work toward what supports your family truly matters.

What drains your bandwidth the fastest right now?

12/16/2025

This change wasn’t simply about organization. It was about reducing demands—for us and for our kids.

What’s one small task you could simplify or remove to give yourself more bandwidth?

12/12/2025

This year, we’re approaching the holidays with a healthy dose of realism.

After a long stretch of reacting to challenges as they came up, we’re finally gaining insight into what’s been driving some of our family’s hardest moments—particularly related to PDA and nervous system stress. That understanding has allowed us to step back, re-think our expectations, and plan a holiday season that prioritizes regulation and capacity over tradition for tradition’s sake.

For us, that means:
• more 1:1, child-directed time
• more separation when needed
• more structure during an otherwise unstructured season
• and letting go of the idea that “together” automatically equals “quality”

It’s been both hard and freeing to release the holidays I imagined and make space for what actually works for our family right now.

I wrote more about this—including sibling dynamics and how we’re shifting our approach—on Substack. https://open.substack.com/pub/coachingwithclio/p/approaching-the-holidays-with-a-healthy?r=22lae5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

If the holidays are feeling daunting for your family, I’m also currently taking a small number of reduced-rate coaching clients as part of my certification process. If you’d like space and support to think through what shifts might help, you’re welcome to reach out or book time with me here: https://calendly.com/coachingwithclio/30min

12/10/2025

Home tour part 2!

With home tour part 2, I'm also going to go through and describe how each support helps.

Morning and evening schedules – These help reduce demands and shift power dynamics. I go through and check off each part of our morning routine until “teeth” is the only thing left. Then I use declarative language to make an observation about it—this makes it less of a demand coming from me and more about something we simply do every day.

Weighted lap pad – My son sleeps with a weighted blanket, and the lap pad seems to help him feel calmer by providing proprioceptive sensory support.

The Ultimate Book of Cross-Sections – This is his current calming activity of choice, and it’s been a favorite for a few years. His amazing autistic brain has always been curious about how things work and what things look like inside, and this book is 100% about that.

Cat tower – We got a cat about a year ago in hopes that having another calm nervous system in the house might help everyone. Shadow (our emotional support animal) definitely provides us with a model of how to relax, and now that he’s grown into a very furry 15 pounds, he also provides lots of weighted cuddles.

E-bike – If nothing else, this just makes me happy! Not driving in rush hour every morning helps me stay more resourced and calm. It also helps that our route to school is basically the same every day and always takes the same amount of time. Driving with traffic and parking would vary daily. Plus, being outdoors has always been hugely regulating for our son.

Crash pad – Another great way to get proprioceptive input (he likes to get squished under it or jump onto it).

Swing (from ) – Probably the most used sensory support in our house. Breaks during dinner? Unwinding after school? The swing is #1. What’s funny is we’ve had it for years, but it wasn’t until we opened up more floor space in the living room that the kids really started using it.

12/09/2025

I thought I’d do a quick home tour today, especially since I just spent two hours cleaning after the weekend. 😅 (Backstory: I teach private music lessons Mon–Wed, so this is usually my big weekly reset—otherwise I’m not sure I’d find the motivation!)

With our kids needing a lot of supervision and 1:1 time—and one of them being PDA—cleaning and tidying just doesn’t happen much these days when they’re home. At least not in this season. But I did want to show you some of the supports we’ve put in place around the house for our autistic, PDA son, because the home environment makes such a huge difference in reducing his stress.

What are some of the supports that are helping your family right now?

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San Francisco, CA
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https://www.coachingwithclio.com/

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