How authentic ADHD representation makes better kids’ shows (with Jamie Piekarz from HappyNest)

What does it take to put ADHD on screen without turning it into a checkbox? Jamie Piekarz, SVP at HappyNest Entertainment and showrunner of Paris & Pups, joins Nathan Friedman to talk about building the animated series inspired by Paris Hilton, who has spoken openly about her ADHD.

Jamie shares how her team worked with Understood to create nuanced ADHD characters, and why tools like “chill skills” and a visual task tracker help every kid. She and Nathan also discuss what neurodivergent team members bring to the creative process, and how feedback from parents is shaping the show’s impact — from the screen to the toy aisle.

Watch Paris & Pups on YouTube Kids: https://www.youtube.com/@ParisAndPups Visit the brand shop: https://www.walmart.com/brand/parispups/20064071

Nathan Friedman: Welcome to "Minds at Work," the podcast for leaders who embrace neurodiversity in business. I'm your host, Nathan Friedman, co-president and chief marketing officer of Understood.org, the leading organization focused on helping anyone who is navigating neurodivergence.

Each week, we're here exploring how neurodiversity sparks innovation and how we, as leaders across industries, can create a more inclusive future for all.

Today, I'm talking with Jamie Piekarz, senior vice president at HappyNest Entertainment, which is a kids and family entertainment company. She's the showrunner for "Paris & Pups," which is an animated children's series inspired by Paris Hilton.

We all know that Paris has talked openly about having ADHD, and for this show, Jamie and her team consulted with Understood for insights about how to incorporate authentic ADHD characters into storylines in the show.

Here's a short clip from an episode where Slivington, a pup with ADHD, is getting a little overexcited about going to a concert.

Slivington: I don't want to be late! Being late gives me the zoomies! Gotta zoom, gotta zoom, gotta zoom! Watch my tiara!

Baby: Slivington, remember your chill skill! Deep breath in through your nose and hold. Then let it out your mouth.

Slivington: I'm good. Thanks, Baby!

Baby: Thanks, Baby.

Nathan: Kind of relatable, if I'm honest.

"Paris & Pups" is now in production for season two, and I want to talk to Jamie about our collaboration, and also about the creative process behind this show. I'm delighted to be speaking with her. Jamie, welcome to "Minds at Work."

Jamie Piekarz: Thank you for having me.

(01:53) Jamie discusses her career background in children's television and research.

Nathan: To get started, I'd love for you to tell us a bit more about yourself, your background, your career.

Jamie: Sure. I have quite a big background in kids' TV. I'm from Canada — I should say that first. My career started in Canada at a cable network called YTV. So, I entered the industry when cable came onto the scene, which was quite exciting because we went from one major broadcaster with a finite number of hours to fill with kids' programming to where we are today.

So, I started as a producer, also a researcher. I have a master's degree in educational technology, with a focus on research, formative, summative evaluation of kids' shows, learned everything about audiences. And I've done everything. I've done producing, creating, writing. I've written live shows.

As I went through my career, the place where I worked, YTV, was acquired by Corus Entertainment. By the end, I was a production executive. For those listeners who don't know what a production executive does, they determine their needs for a network, and then they go and they search for programming that would fit their mandate.

At the time when I was a production executive, Corus had, I think, 11 kids' networks. So, we had YTV, which catered to 6 to 11. We had Treehouse TV — those were the biggest networks in Canada — which was a preschool network. Disney, Disney+, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. We licensed those brands and still made some content for those networks. Teletoon, Cartoon Network, Télétoon en français in French, because we're a bilingual country.

Nathan: For those who don't know, Canada is a bilingual country.

Jamie: It is! So, it was an incredible time to be in kids' TV. We also acquired an animation company called Nelvana, and you will all know it because they produced shows like "Babar," and I think they did the majority of service work for Nickelodeon and Disney: "Bubble Guppies," "Max & Ruby." I mean, I could just go through the list and you'd be like, "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah."

I became also a showrunner for those shows. So, that's my background. And then I moved to the States during COVID, headed up preschool for Apple TV+, and now I'm at HappyNest.

Nathan: Awesome. You've focused on kids' entertainment. Can you talk a bit about how you got into kids' entertainment versus other types of entertainment?

Jamie: You know, I feel like it's a calling. I always knew I would do it. I remember seeing "Sesame Street" for the first time when I was young, and I think it just had such an impact on me. I also grew up on a farm with nobody around except for my siblings, and we played all the time. So, we would make up stories. Storytelling was always natural for me.

Nathan: Sounds like your energy is on that creative side versus more of the other kind of commercial slash big-company side, right? How do you create — is that a fair statement?

Jamie: Yeah. It's funny because I do a little bit of both. All my experience is from big corporate entities, like all those networks I previously mentioned. But then I always had a toe in creative. I had the fortune of always having bosses that recognized that to keep me happy, I had to be on a show, like as a producer or a showrunner. So, I did a little bit of both, right?

Nathan: Yeah, you needed that dip in creativity. It couldn't just be a spreadsheet. I've been in jobs where grounded in creativity, but then it grew more into Excel sheet management, and I'm like, that's not for me.

We touched on "Paris & Pups" just a minute ago, but can you tell us a little bit more about "Paris & Pups," about how the show came about and how you got involved?

(06:05) The origins of "Paris & Pups" and incorporating authentic ADHD representation.

Jamie: Sure. It came about before I joined HappyNest. The short answer is Paris Hilton loves cartoons and always wanted to have a cartoon. So, somebody from HappyNest said, "Well, we'll make you that cartoon." She knew that Paris had quite a bond with her puppies, and that was the beginning of: why don't we do a show around the bond between a young girl inspired by Paris Hilton and her pups?

Nathan: And how did you get involved with this specific show? You joined HappyNest, but was it for the specific show?

Jamie: Yeah, they knew that they needed a showrunner, and they asked me to do it.

Nathan: And what makes this show educational? Because there's different purposes of certain shows: entertainment, edutainment, educational. Is there something about the makeup of the show that really pushes into one category versus another?

Jamie: It's interesting. I think if you're making shows for kids, you always want to have an impact. This show is not designed instructionally, meaning that we didn't go in with a curriculum. "Sesame Street" would be a good example of a show that's instructionally designed. They come up with a curriculum, they test every show, they do focus group testing with kids constantly. I mean, they are the gold star of instructional programming.

This show is edutainment, maybe. It is a light touch of education with a huge amount of social-emotional impact, let's put it that way.

Nathan: And I think that's a really critical, important element, particularly for kids growing up, that social-emotional learning and the constructs around it. And that's particularly why neurodiversity was critical to the show. A, Paris is a huge supporter of the neurodivergent community, as well as she has publicly stated she has ADHD. Can you tell us a bit more about how it was working neurodiversity into the show?

Jamie: Absolutely. I'll tell you how it came about. When you design a show, when you start with a show, we have the concept, but we also have to work on character. Characters are defined by traits. So, I got together with the head writer, Cindy Boveda Spackman, and we designed from the ground up.

We knew we wanted Paris Star — that's what she's called in the show, but we actually call her Star. We knew that she was going to be 11 years old, and we had to start thinking about, well, who is she? We did a personality deep dive, and we loosely based it on Paris Hilton. We took her traits, some of her traits, like kindness and spontaneity and creativity and enthusiasm — all those traits — and we started creating that character.

From there, we created the pup characters, and there were five of them. We had to make sure they all differentiated. That's what you want to do so that the traits rub against each other and they create comedy. That's the ultimate goal.

So, we did all that work, and we started meeting with the team. We were introduced to Rebecca Groen, who heads up Paris Hilton's impact team.

Nathan: And we should say that's at 11:11 Media, which is a broader company that Paris is driving the force behind.

Jamie: Yeah. Rebecca Groen from 11:11 said, "You know, we work with Understood, who you could get some guidance in terms of ADHD."

And then it struck us, oh, my goodness, we can refine the characters that we created with the help of Understood to make them more neurodivergent and authentic.

Nathan: And I think that last part is critically important, because the authenticity.

Jamie: Yeah. Oh, yeah. What happened was we decided that two of the characters, one of the pups, would be neurodivergent with ADHD. But then we had to differentiate Star from Slivington, who's neurodivergent.

Andy Kahn, who is the psychologist we worked with and I call him the educational consultant, helped us with creating these characters so that they would be authentic. They weren't token characters for ADHD, which you can talk a lot about that you see in other kids' shows that just kind of check a box and they're hyperactive. It just doesn't do anything for anyone, quite frankly.

It's really due to Andy's help that we have these fulsome characters full of personality and that are nuanced, right? They're complex characters.

Nathan: And they are. For those who may not know, Dr. Andy Kahn is a licensed psychologist on staff at Understood. He worked hand-in-glove with you and others on the show to not only understand what authentic representation means of ADHD and neurodiversity in the show, but also how it could impact some of the storylines, I understand, right? And what that inclusion looks like.

(11:47) Developing supporting characters and universal coping strategies like chill skills.

So, we talked about Slivington. What are the other characters that were created?

Jamie: There are three other pups that she owns, and then in season two, we're introducing a new character.

Nathan: Oh, really?

Jamie: Yeah! You're the first to hear that.

Nathan: Wow, breaking news, everybody!

Jamie: Oh, yeah! The three other characters, it was interesting too, because even though we had two characters with ADHD, we gave skills to the other characters not only to help with ADHD, but to also see how they react to certain ADHD behaviors.

That provided so much storytelling. We have Diamond, who's a Chihuahua who gets really impatient with Slivington. So, we mine a lot from that, and how she can adjust to help Slivington.

We have Baby, who is versed in chill skills — Andy thought of that — chill skills, which helps. They're basically breathing techniques that Slivington can use.

Diamond, I think, came up with the Star Tracker. I'm probably wrong, fans are going to kill me, but it might have been Star. The Star Tracker is a book, and when they have a complex task, they bring out the Star Tracker and they map out visually the steps they need to take to accomplish something. Then when they accomplish a step, the pups put a paw print on it.

These are not just for kids with ADHD. This speaks to the universal design for learning. It helps everybody! It helps me, for goodness' sakes.

Andy was very clear about every single strategy or skill that we are bringing into the show, that it will help all children and parents of children. Our audience is obviously kids five to eight, but we are also targeting millennial moms.

We get a lot of audience feedback from these millennial moms who are just praising the show: "Oh, if I had this as a child," or "If I had this earlier when my kids were younger." It's pretty overwhelming and exciting.

Nathan: We've also seen that trend of parents, particularly millennial moms, getting their children diagnosed, and they go through that diagnosis as well. So, it's meaningful for a lot of different people.

Speaking of different people on the team, I believe you guys had a group working with you as interns, right? Exceptional Minds?

Jamie: Oh, yes, we did. Yeah. We have interns every semester. They are key to our business. They hail from all over the States, but there's one school in particular that we work with, and they are called Exceptional Minds. They focus on animation and visual effects for post-secondary kids with autism.

We have one student who is actually editing music videos for us. I had worked with him before on another show, unrelated, and he was in the recording booth with me when we were working with actors. His sense of timing and his sense of music was so incredible, I thought, "Oh, my gosh, he's the one that we need to make these music videos."

These kids know everything about animation. These kids that come to us, they know more than I do. They know more than anyone, and they are so helpful. They're very good at research. They're good at creativity. They read scripts, they chime in. It's so amazing to have these interns.

Nathan: It's underscoring a lot of the strengths of neurodivergent individuals, right? Creativity, connecting dots, really good at specific tasks. Leveraging that blended team really generates positive outcomes, especially in the creativity process, because we know roughly half people in the creative industry are neurodivergent.

Jamie: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

(16:09) The importance of authentic representation in media beyond performative box-checking.

Nathan: With that fundamental understanding, there's representation opportunities that you guys identified in popular culture. I have ADHD and dyslexia, and I'm trying to remember back when I was growing up if there was a character on a TV show who reminded me of myself. I think it would have been really powerful to see more of that when I was a kid. Is representation something that's been important to you, not only with this show, but in your other work as well?

Jamie: Yeah, absolutely. The industry changes, and there are hot-topic themes that run through. Geena Davis, her institute did a big study on female representation in kids' media, and it was abysmal. And then you saw a reaction to that research, and all of a sudden, we saw female animated characters as leads in series. We saw them in even in background scenes, where it's just crowds, it was mostly male. And then we started seeing more females.

I just read yesterday in the Kidscreen daily email that we're right back down again. So, this is the problem. There are these hot-topic issues. It was DEI during COVID. Then it was neurodiversity. Kindness had a moment.

The problem becomes is that these come and go, but you have to bring them forward and it has to just be part of a kid's show. It can't be a hot-topic response. That's the problem.

Nathan: The reactionary nature of it is troublesome, right? Representation of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation — all of those things can populate, but it's that nuance of how does somebody who's LGBT come across without stereotyping? How does neurodivergence come across without stereotyping? Because everyone's journey is different, and everyone has different experiences.

Jamie: Yeah. Listen, as an executive, I've seen thousands of pitches. These are written-form ideas or PowerPoint ideas of a show, and it's like, "We have this kid, check. We have the other kid, check." It's not authentically integrated. There are no educational consultants. It's so lacking.

But there is this idea that if I check the boxes of, "I have autism represented and ADHD in my show," that it will get made. That does happen. But I think the more responsible executives — of course they see through that — and they make sure that it is poised for success and that there is a real commitment to carrying that forward in future programming.

(19:24) Audience reactions, merchandise tie-ins, and future plans for "Paris & Pups."

Nathan: Is viewer feedback at all driving some of the incorporation of these inclusions?

Jamie: It's interesting. It used to be in the day we would get reports on feedback from audiences through the network, right? So, we would get them every week and we would read the reports. Today, it's really a matter of having a social media strategy. If you don't have social media, you're never going to hear from the viewers.

We have so much feedback from our viewers, especially parents. I would love to read you some of the —

Nathan: Yeah, do it! You're talking about getting in the comments, right? These are what people are saying, and that's real-time feedback.

Jamie: Of course, all of these are from parents or whatnot. Here's one: "I feel so seen. I wish this had been around when I was a child. I will definitely watch this with my son, who also has ADHD."

And then here's another one: "As if I couldn't love this woman anymore" — she's talking about Paris Hilton — "and then she goes and makes a cartoon that younger me would have loved. I can't wait to watch this with my ADHD daughters. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was nine years old, but it was the '90s and no one understood the struggle."

So, it just goes on and on and on. It is so moving, and we get these all the time. I'm sure through Understood, you get these kind of comments as well, right?

Nathan: We do. I think that the lived experience that's infused in the shows is so important. When you have that authenticity and the lived experience, you get authentic responses back from audiences.

Jamie: Yeah. It's interesting, too, we have a toy line that's at Walmart and Amazon. I heard a story that when they were pitching — I believe it was Walmart — that one of the women they were pitching about the toys had a son who was neurodivergent. So, you're seeing this in all walks of life.

One of our toys we worked with Andy to develop, it's called the Slivington Plush. It's a plush version of Slivington, the poodle, and she talks and she has activations on her body. Andy was integral in helping us devise her dialogue around the calm mode. She has a calm mode that kids need to calm her down. And also, he helped us devise dialogue around her zoomie mode. She's famous for her zoomies, and things that she would say that would indicate to a kid that she has energy she has to release.

So, it's pretty phenomenal. We've worked it into our toys. We have books at Scholastic. It mentions it in the book. So, we follow through. We're very intentional with the messaging.

Nathan: Yeah, and that intention comes through whenever I've seen the show or I've been privy to some of the developments that happened behind the scenes. Can you tell us a bit more about what's happening next in season two or beyond?

Jamie: Oh, you are so bad, Nathan! Never! No!

Nathan: Just a couple things. Just a couple of advance notes. We'll keep it under embargo.

Jamie: There will probably be an album. We have 10 new songs, which is quite —

Nathan: For a kids' album?

Jamie: Yeah. And music videos, for sure. The music is fantastic. And then we have this really interesting new character that I'm never going to divulge.

Nathan: A lot of things are emanating with Paris Hilton and her efforts. She's a trailblazer and she's making a real-world impact, right? That's what matters. 11:11 Media and Paris have been great partners with Understood.

On behalf of everyone and the people we serve at Understood, we just want to thank you, Jamie, and your team for helping to drive the authentic representation that means so much to so many people.

Jamie: Well, we couldn't have done it without you, honestly. It was revelatory working with your company, I've got to say.

Nathan: Thank you very much, and everyone check out "Paris & Pups."

Jamie: Please, on YouTube!

Nathan: Thanks for tuning in to "Minds at Work." I hope today's conversation inspired you to think differently about how to harness the power of neurodiversity in business.

If you want to know more about our guest today or the work we're doing here at Understood.org, please check out the show notes. For those looking for resources to better advocate for themselves and others, please visit u.org/work.

"Minds at Work" is brought to you by Understood.org. To help us continue and expand our work, please donate at u.org/donate. That's the letter u.org/donate.

The show is produced by Julie Subrin, Alison Hochlander, Max Mackenzie, and me, Nathan Friedman. Mixing is by Justin D. Wright. Briana Berry is our production director, and Laura Key is our executive director. And I'm your host, Nathan Friedman.

Please join us next time when we'll continue exploring how difference can spark connection and shape a more inclusive and creative future of business.