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. 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. 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. She found herself relating to Ellie and wondering how to help. “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?’” As a result, she started teaching Ellie tricks and saw her demeanor totally change as she developed a love of learning. Note: Explore more positive stories like this on human interest and animal wonders. - People