Long before I had the words neurodiversity literacy, I understood what it felt like to move through the world a little differently.

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Then I became a mom—and I started seeing those differences through my children's eyes, too.

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First came dyslexia. I watched one of my children work incredibly hard at something that seemed to come naturally to everyone around him. I learned early that struggling and not trying can look remarkably similar from the outside.

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Then came ADHD.

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And with it, another education in the enormous distance between what people see and what a child may actually be experiencing.

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But it was PANS that turned our family's world upside down.

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Almost overnight, things my son had always been able to do became incredibly difficult. Anxiety, overwhelm, behaviors that didn't seem to make sense from the outside—suddenly we were living in a world where people could see what was happening, but they couldn't always understand why.

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And I watched how quickly a struggling child could be misunderstood.

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Lazy.

Difficult.

Weird.

Not trying.

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Those words land differently when you know the child they're being used to describe.

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Because I knew how hard my child was trying.

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I knew the funny, smart, creative kid underneath the moments other people found difficult.

And I knew there was so much happening inside him that nobody else could see.

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That experience changed the way I looked at inclusion.

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I began asking a question I couldn't shake:

How can neurodivergent children truly belong in spaces with their peers if we never teach those peers what neurodiversity actually is?

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We teach children about different cultures, different families, different bodies and different experiences because understanding helps us live alongside one another with empathy and respect.

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Different brains deserve that same understanding.

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That's where More Than What You See began.

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What started as a book inspired by one child and one family's experience became something much bigger: a commitment to helping children understand that brains can work differently—and that behavior rarely tells us the whole story.

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Today, that commitment has grown into the More Than What You See Neurodiversity Literacy Initiative, with a mission to help schools move beyond simply making room for neurodivergent children toward creating communities built on understanding, inclusion and genuine belonging.

Because every child deserves more than access to the room.

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They deserve to know they belong there.