Is your bright child overwhelmed with social, emotional or academic challenges?
If so, the Unique Path to Thrive course will help! Learn how to build your child's life on their strengths, and shore up challenging behaviors, anxiety, executive function and screen overuse.


Your child can live a happy, healthy, productive life that syncs with the unique way their brain is wired.
Even if you lie awake wondering…
- How can my child succeed academically when time management, organization, and planning are hard for them?
- Is it possible for my child to enjoy peace and calm when they often experience big emotions, big behaviors, or anxiety?
- Will my child ever enjoy friendships and belonging when it’s hard for them to make friends?
- Can my child work around learning difficulties and still tap their full potential?
- Is it possible for my child to find a place in the world that celebrates their unique strengths, passions, and gifts while supporting their differences?
Unique Path to Thrive:
The 8-Step Program to Parent Your Bright + Quirky Child to Thrive at School, Home and Beyond
Bright + Quirky has guided thousands of parents of ADHD, anxious, autistic, dyslexic, and gifted kids to build their strengths, shore up lagging skills, and experience long-term social, emotional, and academic success.
Learn and Master the 8-Step Thrive Cycle to Build Your Child’s Uniquely Flourishing Life
This expert-led, research-backed framework has been developed through 15 years of working with uniquely bright, neurodivergent families. Each week, we focus on one of the 8 proven steps in the Thrive Cycle, empowering you to navigate your child’s challenges and create lasting change. With small, intentional shifts in mindset, language, and actions, parents and children can experience continuous 1% gains that create a journey to thriving—one step at a time, you and your child will experience milestone wins.

The Unique Path to Thrive Course Outline

Module 1 - Step 1
Lead with Strengths
Learn how to shift from focusing solely on alleviating your child’s neurodivergent symptoms to building their life leading with their strengths and passions. Learn how bright, quirky individuals build happy, productive lives they love by leaning into their unique gifts. Create a personalized Strengths Mind Map for your child and define inspiring end goals. Embrace the art of 1% gains to make meaningful progress at home and school that fits your child’s uniquely wired brain. Fall in love even more with the remarkable person your child truly is.

Module 2 - Step 2
Become a Self Scientist
Learn the Self Scientist Model to uncover the root causes of stress and struggles in your child’s life. Collaborate with your child to run experiments together so they can build a toolkit of strategies, life skills, hacks, and habits that fit their uniquely wired brain. By adopting the Self Scientist mindset, redefine failure as a stepping stone to growth. There’s only winning and learning. Give your child the lifelong gift of becoming an empowered problem solver and a confident agent of change in their own life.

Module 3 - Step 3
Calm Big Emotions & Behaviors
Learn how to soothe big emotions and challenging behaviors by calming the nervous system and resolving conflicts peacefully. Bright and quirky kids do well when they can, and when they can’t, you can equip yourself with an effective toolbox of strategies to support lagging skills and address unsolved problems. Learn how to cool your own nervous system, along with the priceless art of collaborative problem solving, to foster understanding and cooperation with your child and their teachers.

Module 4 - Step 4
Build Executive Function Skills
Unlock your child’s potential with practical strategies to improve focus, organization, time management, and productivity. Learn how to shape environments, scaffold tasks, and use empowering phrases to strengthen executive function. Avoid last-minute homework crises and end-of-semester chaos by teaching your child how to focus and break tasks into manageable steps, creating a smoother, more productive daily routine at home and school.

Module 5 - Step 5
Ease Anxiety
Help your child manage the anxiety and stress that often accompany ADHD, learning differences, autism, and giftedness. Learn to spot thinking traps, choose more helpful thoughts, and navigate challenges like perfectionism and fear. Learn to be a non-anxious, calming presence in your child’s life and empower them with strategies to reset to a place of calm and confidence.

Module 6 - Step 6
School & Learning
Step into the role of a confident advocate for your child at school. Navigate Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and 504 Plans with greater ease, crafting strength-based goals that celebrate their unique abilities. Create a one-page profile to help teachers and coaches better support your child. Learn to identify flex points in their education and address mental health challenges that impact learning, ensuring your child thrives academically and emotionally.

Module 7 - Step 7
Making & Keeping Friends
Learn how to help your child make and keep friends, one of the most important ingredients to a long term satisfying life. Learn how to navigate rejection sensitivity and the desire to fit in. Learn helpful strategies to bolster social intuition, like the levels of friendship and reading the room. Help your child find a friend and a spare they click with and enjoy. Learn how to find your child’s people, with whom they can feel comfortable and authentic.

Module 8 - Step 8
Balance Screens & Wellbeing
Guide your child to use screens in a balanced way that supports their learning, socializing, and joy without compromising their well-being. Shift from enforcer to mentor, teaching them to make empowering choices online. Learn how to develop engaging offline interests and friendships, as a family and individuals. Learn how to guide your child to enhance their physical well-being through healthy eating, movement, and better sleep.
You’ll finish the 8-Step program with a framework that’s customized to your child’s unique strengths and challenges, with the confidence of knowing exactly what to do to ease the friction they experience in the world and optimize their path to flourishing.
Traditional Approach vs. Our Approach
( 🫠 vs. 🙌 )
Traditional Approach | Our Approach |
---|---|
🫠 Focus solely on remediating deficits. | 🙌 Focus mainly on strengths so kids can build a life on what they’re good at and enjoy. |
🫠 Do interventions for a child. | 🙌 Teach the child how to be in the driver's seat of building their best life by solving problems and unwrapping their gifts. |
🫠 Most teachers lack training in helping neurodivergent students succeed academically. | 🙌 Advocate for your child by easily sharing cutting-edge, neuroscience-based resources with your child’s teachers. |
🫠 Kids feel broken, dumb, or like a failed version of “normal” because they don’t know how to make things better. | 🙌 Teach kids how to be a self-scientist and run experiments to build their toolbox of what works for their unique brain. |
Traditional Approach |
---|
🫠 Focus solely on remediating deficits. |
🫠 Do interventions for a child. |
🫠 Most teachers lack training in helping neurodivergent students succeed academically. |
🫠 Kids feel broken, dumb, or like a failed version of “normal” because they don’t know how to make things better. |
Our Approach |
---|
🙌 Focus mainly on strengths so kids can build a life on what they’re good at and enjoy. |
🙌 Teach the child how to be in the driver's seat of building their best life by solving problems and unwrapping their gifts. |
🙌 Advocate for your child by easily sharing cutting-edge, neuroscience-based resources with your child’s teachers. |
🙌 Teach kids how to be a self-scientist and run experiments to build their toolbox of what works for their unique brain. |
Imagine What Your Child’s Life Could
Look Like a Year From Now
For parents seeking a framework that supports creating calm, connection, and confidence while empowering their child to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically.

Emotional Calm
A feeling of calm and safety in the nervous system and family, previously on fire due to stressors, anxiety, and rejection sensitivities.
Executive Function Success
New skills for focusing, organizing, managing time, completing assignments, and helping out at home.


More Friends & Connections
New insights and tools for making and maintaining friendships through shared interests and teamwork.
Academic Success
A better fit between child and learning environment, with good-fit classroom accommodations and tips for school advocacy.


Happy, Confident Strength-Based Living
Living a life of joy, built by blowing on the embers of what your child enjoys and what they’re good at.
Balance of Online & Offline Wellbeing
Healthy screentime boundaries so your child can enjoy their online time and also thrive in learning, get enough sleep, and have energy for joyful activities.

Featured At:




What You'll Get:

The 8-Step Unique Path to Thrive Course
A proven framework to help parents reduce friction, nurture strengths, and guide their child toward flourishing. This expert-led, research-backed framework will Help Your Neurodivergent Child Thrive Beyond Social, Emotional, and Academic Challenges
8 Live Co-Working Sessions
Collaborative, guided sessions to work through each step of the program with expert support. Multiple Assessments. Clarify your child’s difficulties, strengths, and interests with targeted assessments.
Weekly Coffee & Conversation Sessions
Connect with other parents on the same journey for support, ideas, and shared experiences. Led by Licensed Family Therapist, Debbie Steinberg.
Ongoing Expert Q&A, Office Hours, and Coaching
Access monthly live Q&A sessions, office hours, and expert coaching to get personalized insights and solutions.
High-Touch Community Support
Join a members-only group with specialized coaching from masters and PhD-level experts. Connect through virtual Coffee & Connection sessions for validation, support, and actionable advice.
Plus, you’ll be backed by our 14-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. We know that you’ve probably tried many things that haven’t worked, so we don’t want you to feel any risk in trying this program that actually will work when you put the work in.
Why the Unique Path to Thrive Program Has Been So Successful for Thousands of Parents
This 8-Step plan is a one-stop hub for guidance from the best neurodiversity experts and successful neurodivergent people with lived experience, the latest research-based tools and strategies, and guidance from been-there-done-that mentors with a comprehensive approach.
We’ve done the research for you and boiled it down into quick tips and tools you can use immediately.

Meet Your Guide
Licensed Family Therapist, Debbie Steinberg
Hello, I’m Debbie Steinberg, a licensed marriage and family therapist with over a decade of experience helping uniquely bright individuals thrive. Since 2009, I’ve supported bright adults, kids, and families through challenges related to ADHD, anxiety, autism, and dyslexia. I founded Bright & Quirky and led our parenting IdeaLab, helping thousands of families along the way.
I earned my undergraduate degree at Middlebury College and my Master’s in Child, Couple, and Family Counseling at Antioch University in Seattle. I’ve had the privilege of speaking at Harvard, Stanford, and being inducted into the Cognitive Diversity Hall of Fame. But more than my professional journey, I understand this personally—I’ve raised my own bright and quirky family and am dedicated to creating a life that nurtures both strengths and challenges.
With a global community of over 50,000 people in more than 150 countries, I’m excited to guide you in designing your most uniquely bright life. Together, we’ll work toward building a life where you can truly thrive.