Neurodivergent Girls, Puberty and Relationships – 90 minute training

For school staff, parents and carers, and the professionals around them

She won’t start the work. She tears up the page that isn’t perfect. She holds it together all day at school and falls apart the moment she gets home. Underneath all of it, very often, is the same thing: rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), an intense emotional, and sometimes physical, response to real or perceived rejection, criticism or disapproval.

Like all our training, this is preventative mental health work. So much of the distress experienced by neurodivergent girls is created or deepened by environments that misunderstand them, and RSD is one of the most misunderstood pieces of the picture.

Duration: 1.5 hours (60 minutes training, 30 minutes Q&A)

Format: Virtual (unless otherwise arranged)

Price: £360 (no VAT)

Scheduling: UK time; twilight and evening sessions available

The challenge

RSD rarely gets called by its name. In the classroom it gets labelled low effort, poor attitude or defiance. At home it looks like explosions over tiny corrections, or a child who won’t try anything new. The behaviour is the protection; the pain underneath is the point, and until the adults around a young person understand that, the standard responses (sanctions, reward systems, public praise) tend to make it worse.

For masked autistic girls the stakes are highest. Years of small corrections, of being told they’re fine when they’re not, of holding the mask in place all day, build a nervous system permanently braced for rejection. School sees a polite, quiet, coping child and reports no concerns. Home sees what it costs.

And RSD does not end at eighteen. The child who tore up her work becomes the adult who redrafts an email eleven times, dreads the appraisal for weeks, or hears an ordinary request from a partner as proof she is unlovable. This webinar covers the whole lifespan, so it works equally well for staffrooms, parent groups and workplaces, and many attendees will recognise themselves as well as the young people they support.

What you’ll learn

  • What RSD is, and what it isn’t. A clear, neuroaffirmative definition: not an overreaction, not manipulation, and not a character flaw, but a nervous system doing exactly what it has learned to do.

  • Where RSD comes from. How emotional invalidation, masking, and differences in emotional processing build rejection sensitivity, and why it maps so closely onto the profile of the masked autistic girl.

  • What you might see at home. The huge reaction to the tiny correction, after-school restraint collapse, the child who won’t try, and what actually helps, from connection before correction to holding boundaries without withdrawing warmth.

  • What you might see in the classroom. The blank page, the torn-up work, the pupil who won’t answer even when she knows, and practical language swaps that lower the threat without lowering a single expectation.

  • RSD in adults, in relationships and at work. How the same fear shapes partnerships, feedback, promotion and burnout, with practical guidance for partners, colleagues and managers.

  • What helps, at any age. Four foundations that ease rejection sensitivity over time, and one practical change every attendee commits to making that week.

Who this training is for

SENCOs, teachers and support staff, pastoral and mental health leads, educational psychologists, health and social care professionals, parent carer forums, workplaces, and parents and carers. All of our training is positive and neuro-affirmative, set in the wider neurodiversity framework, and delivered by neurodivergent trainers who know this experience from the inside.

Book this training

Contact us to book, or to talk about a bespoke version for your school, service or workplace. As with all our school training, we strongly encourage making it staff-wide: RSD responds to environments, and environments are built by every adult in them.

If this page has raised something for you or your family, you don’t have to work it out alone. Our free online community and monthly family workshops are open to everyone: start on our Community page.