- - What a Pet Parrot Taught a Woman About ‘Love, Compassion and Patience’ After Leaving a 'Cult' as a Teen (Exclusive)

Alexandra SchonfeldNovember 6, 2025 at 1:00 AM

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Courtesy of Covetower

Ellie the parrot and Jen Taylor-O'Connor. -

Jen Taylor-O’Connor opens up about her research in animal communication and how parrots helped to heal from trauma in the new documentary Parrot Kindergarten

Named for the teaching program she created for other bird moms, the documentary also dives into Taylor-O’Connor's experience with the Institute in Basic Life Principles — a group she now refers to as a "cult"

Through her work with the animals, Taylor-O'Connor says she now has "a lot more love, compassion and patience for people"

Jen Taylor-O’Connor grew up in what she calls a “garden variety Christian” home, though things changed when her family enrolled her in the Institute in Basic Life Principles, led by disgraced minister Bill Gothard, as a teen.

And now, decades after breaking free from IBLP — which Taylor-O’Connor, 45, refers to as a “cult” — she’s opening up about how her pet parrots helped her heal in the documentary Parrot Kindergarten.

Director Amy Herdy, whose previous work includes producing The Hunting Ground, executive producing Britney v Spears and co-creating Allen v Farrow, first came to learn about Taylor-O’Connor’s story through a “random email” in her inbox. At first, her manager thought it would be a great story for Herdy, who tends to lean toward “dark topics.”

Courtesy of Covetower

'Parrot Kindergarten' poster.

“When I dove into it, I realized, well, this isn't a story about a woman having been in a cult. That's a piece of it, but it's a small piece of it,” Herdy tells PEOPLE. “This is a story about her connection with her parrot and the tremendous journey they went on, and her attempts to prove that her parrot was capable of intentional communication.”

The film looks at Taylor-O’Connor’s ongoing research on animal communication and the establishment of her Parrot Kindergarten program, which helps teach other bird parents what she's learned. She recalls first being drawn to birds as a way to help combat feelings of loneliness and navigate the trauma she’d experienced as a child.

During her time in the IBLP training centers, Taylor-O’Connor says she was taught that “speaking can get you into trouble.” Fellow former members Jill (Duggar) Dillard, Derick Dillard and Amy (Duggar) King have also spoken out about their experience with the group.

“It made me very quiet and made me extremely introverted,” Taylor-O’Connor recalls to PEOPLE.

Though she’d had other birds before, when Taylor-O’Connor brought home her parrot Ellie, who is at the center of the documentary, she noticed that the bird was exhibiting anger and frustration — something Taylor-O’Connor believes stemmed from the trauma of being adopted and adjusting to a new environment. She found herself relating to Ellie and wondering how to help.

Courtesy of Covetower

Ellie and Jen Taylor-O'Connor in 'Parrot Kindergarten'

“I didn't want her to experience what I had felt from my training center experiences, which is you just keep it all inside and then it bubbles out in harder ways. I wanted her to always have a voice,” she says. “So, that's how it began to spur me into ‘What does it look like for her to communicate? What does it look like for other animals to communicate? What does it look like to give them agency and continue to push and push those boundaries so that we're really almost on equal footing in our relationships with animals?’”

As a result, she started teaching Ellie tricks and saw her demeanor totally change as she developed a love of learning.

O’Connor started posting about Ellie’s progress on TikTok over the pandemic and now has over 107,000 followers and millions of views. The bird, whom Taylor O’Connor refers to as “one of my best friends,” now knows hundreds of words, Taylor O’Connor explains in the film. In addition to learning how to ask for a snack or express when a body part is in pain, which she does using a tablet with pre-set images on it that she presses with her beak, Ellie also communicates about more complex feelings like grief.

Taylor-O’Connor added images of things from Ellie’s past to the tablet, such as previous homes she’d lived in as well as other birds who’d lived with them, including one named Lily. To her surprise, Ellie clicked on Lily’s image and asked to “Talk about feelings” — another pre-set option — and "I want to feel mad."

Courtesy of Covetower

Ellie filming 'Parrot Kindergarten'

“I didn't know what to do with it in that moment because I wasn't expecting it,” she says. “But I also hadn't dealt with my grief because it had been the pandemic when Lily died and there was a lot going on. So, she kind of opened for us this joint conversation and journey and grief that we didn't share prior to her selecting these things because they weren't things that she could express. As soon as she could, it opened it up for both of us.”

As she continues to navigate her trauma, Taylor-O’Connor says her relationship with birds has also impacted her relationships with the humans in her life. It has enforced the idea that “everybody's doing the best they can with the tools that were given.”

“I have a lot more love, compassion and patience for people in the sense of a human story than I did before,” she says. “I was upset and unhappy and a little bit angry about the things that had happened in the past and working with the animals, you just kind of learn that everybody's doing the best they can with the tools that were given to them, even the ones that are hard. So, while we all have choice in our lives and we make decisions every day about our conduct, I think that it helps me to forgive people who had hurt me in the past.”

Following its release in select theaters on Nov. 3, Parrot Kindergarten is now available to rent on Vimeo.

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”