Claim OwnershipBeyond the Label Podcast
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© 2025 Beyond the Label Podcast
Description
We’re Ty & Lisa Kellogg—parents to three great kids: Nora, Milo, and June. Our daughters are neurotypical, and our son is autistic. Since Milo’s diagnosis in January 2023, we’ve been learning how to navigate parenting, family dynamics, and life in ways we never expected.
Spoiler alert: We don’t have all the answers (to parenting or podcasting), but we’re figuring it out as we go. This show is our way of processing the highs and lows, sharing what’s real—grief, hope, fear, laughter—and connecting with others on similar journeys.
If you’re parenting a neurodivergent child, love someone who is, or just want an honest look at family life beyond the label, you’re in the right place. (We’re nice, we promise.)
32 Episodes
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We’d had a rough week and needed a reset, so on Sunday morning, we loaded everyone in the van and headed to Geneva-on-the-Lake. What started as a simple day trip became a reminder that Milo is so much more than his struggles. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spotify. Thank you for being here!
After Milo’s school meeting, where we discussed a change of placement as part of his IEP, we were left with heavy emotions and hard questions. In this episode, we sit with what came next: the grief, the challenges, and the small connections that help us keep going. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spotify. Thank you for being ...
Milo’s first-grade year started with so much promise, but just weeks in, we found ourselves in an unexpected and difficult conversation about his path forward. In this episode, we share what’s been happening behind the scenes as our family navigates a change in placement within his IEP. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spotify. ...
A summer evening at the pool brought to you by lots of laughter, lots of splashing... and one small, blue plastic bottle. In this episode, we talk about what it means to show up in a community space with Milo, how quickly moments can shift, and why we keep coming back, despite the unpredictability. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spo...
Has your child ever become fixated on a particular piece of clothing? We've been through this - many times - with Milo. We're talking about what these experiences have taught us about comfort and control, and why sometimes the easiest answer is just…let him wear the shirt. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spotify. Thank you for bein...
Today we're taking a trip to - you guessed it - the grocery store. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spotify. Thank you for being here!
We're sharing what back-to-school looks like in our family — the excitement and the anxiety that comes with change. Nora is thrilled to be in second grade, June is starting her second year of preschool, and Milo is beginning first grade. We talk about the mix of pride, grief, and worry that comes with parenting through transitions, and what it feels like when the unknowns of school are overwhelming. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Tha...
We’re exploring what success looks like as parents of an autistic, developmentally delayed child. When your child is on their own timeline and you’re feeling lost, how do you know you’re still on the right path? Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spotify. Thank you for being here!
The high of watching your son be greeted by a friend you didn’t know existed. The low of watching him get made fun of minutes later. All in the span of 10 minutes at a soccer game. Parenting an autistic child with cognitive delays requires a certain level of grit—and constant decisions about when to step in, and when to let things be. If your child is happy, is that enough? We're talking about it in our latest episode. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@...
A sunny beach day. A therapy pickup that should have been routine. Sometimes the smallest triggers can spark the biggest reactions—and that's just life with autism. In this episode, Lisa shares two recent moments that capture the whiplash of parenting a child with autism: how quickly things can shift from calm to chaos, and back again. From a coveted bucket at the beach to a misunderstanding about crackers, these stories illustrate the constant state of alertness that comes with navigating a ...
If you’ve ever taken a beach trip with little kids, you know how it goes—kids make fast friends in the waves or at the pool, spend a few days playing together, and then part ways without much ceremony. Everyone goes home. But for Milo, who’s autistic and often struggles to connect with peers, this kind of easy, spontaneous friendship hasn’t come easily—if at all. That’s what made this moment so special. He was just a kid on vacation, doing what so many kids do without thinking twice. This epi...
To Milo’s delight (thanks, Daniel Tiger), we went on a family trip! We spent a sunny week in Myrtle Beach, bouncing between the pool and the beach, and all our kids had a blast. In this episode, we share why we feel comfortable calling this trip “easy” — and how it compares to last year’s much tougher experience with Milo. Traveling with an autistic child who has sensory needs and gets easily overstimulated doesn’t come naturally—it takes patience, practice, and a lot of planning. We know tha...
In this episode, we’re looking back on Milo’s 2.5 years of preschool—how it began, what we learned, and how it shaped the next phase of our journey. From that first January morning drop-off to his final days in the preschool classroom, we share the highs and lows: navigating classroom changes, speech therapy, behavioral supports, and the big moments in between. We talk about what it looked like to pursue early intervention services without an autism diagnosis, how we found providers who could...
In the summer of 2021, just weeks after moving into our new home, we sat down with a service coordinator from Ohio’s Help Me Grow Early Intervention program. It was the first time we fully acknowledged Milo’s developmental delays—and the first time we reached out for help. In this episode, we walk through what that process looked like for our family, what we learned, and how it shaped the next steps in our journey. Plus, stay tuned until the end for our very first listener-submitted Glimmer. ...
Days after moving into our new home, Milo — just 2 years old — pushed over a heavy wooden chair, and something in us shifted. In this episode, we reflect on the early signs that something deeper was going on, the stress that surrounded that season, and the moment we finally reached out for help. Over the next several episodes, we’ll continue unpacking the stretch of time leading up to Milo’s autism diagnosis — the part of the story we briefly touched on in Episode 11: Diagnosis. Follow us on ...
Do you remember your earliest friend? One of the hardest things for us as parents is to witness how hard it can be for Milo to connect with other kids his age. He's increasingly eager and friendly and aware, but the communication gap is always there. What will friendship look like for Milo? Will it ever get easier? Spoiler alert - we don't know - but we're talking about it. -- Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend T...
Milo is getting ready to say goodbye to the early learning center where he began school-based services in 2022—and it’s bringing up a lot of emotions. In this episode, we’re sharing the highs and lows of his kindergarten year, and how we're feeling going into the summer. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song, "Sunshine," as our theme music. Follow Tom on Spotify. Thank you for bei...
Here’s something we’ve often wished was easier with our kids: just going outside. In this episode, we go back to a beautiful March evening when Milo couldn’t make sense of what we were doing—or what his sisters were doing—and we couldn’t figure out why everything felt so hard. We also share a few moments since then that have really surprised us. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel24@gmail.com Thank you to our friend Tom Evanchuck for the use of his song,...
Let's talk about the awkward, emotional, and often unspoken moments that can come with raising a neurodivergent child. Lisa shares a story she still replays years later and together we unpack the weight of apology, public perception, and the struggle between explaining and simply existing. If you've ever wrestled with whether to say "I'm sorry" or stood frozen in a moment you couldn't quite fix, this one’s for you. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthelabel2...
We’re talking about those rare moments when you meet people who just get it. From a chance connection at a splash pad to an unexpected friendship formed after a cookie decorating class, we share a few times when we felt truly seen as parents of a neurodivergent kiddo. Finding new friendships as adults just in general isn’t easy — it takes effort, trust, and a little bit of luck — but those real connections are worth it. Follow us on Instagram @beyondthelabel440. Email us at beyondthel...
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