Parenting Neurodiverse Teens: Practical Help for Hard Days

Parenting neurodiverse tweens and teens can feel overwhelming, especially when traditional parenting strategies don’t seem to work. In this episode, we talk with Carl Young and Joel Sheagren, co-authors of Embracing Hope: Innovative Strategies to Empower Parents Raising Neurodiverse Teens, about practical, brain-based strategies to reduce conflict, support emotional regulation, strengthen connection, and navigate the hard seasons with more hope.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What are parents of tweens and teens carrying right now that you know they want people to understand?
• Why do the tween and teen years often become especially hard for neurodiverse kids and their caregivers?
• One of the themes in your work is “understanding over stigma.” Can you tell us what that means?
• What are examples of behaviors parents are often blamed for, or blamed on the child, that may actually be rooted in neurodevelopmental differences?
• Many parents feel confused because traditional parenting advice doesn’t seem to work for their child with neurodiversity. 
• Can you explain executive functioning in a way that helps overwhelmed parents understand what their child is actually struggling with day to day? 
• What are some real-life ways those struggles show up at home?
• What are some common expectations we place on tweens and teens that may not match their developmental abilities? 
• How can parents shift toward more reasonable expectations without giving up on growth?
• What are some practical strategies to reduce conflict at home while still maintaining structure and boundaries?
• We understand that self-regulation is a learned skill that comes from years of our own regulation and then sharing it with our kids, called co-regulation.  What does co-regulation actually look like with a tween or teen who is escalating emotionally?
• How can parents respond differently to behaviors like impulsivity, shutdowns, avoidance, perseveration, or lying?
• Many caregivers say they feel like they’re “walking on eggshells.” It’s exhausting and creates so much stress in our homes.
• Where do you recommend families start when the home has fallen into a state of constant stress or chaos?
• How can parents introduce and maintain the “calm” in spite of the chaos that our kids’ neurodivergence may bring with it?
• What helps parents hold onto a connection with their child during seasons when everyone feels frustrated or discouraged?
• Sometimes families need help redefining success. How do you encourage parents to rethink what thriving can look like for neurodiverse tweens and teens?

Resources:

• Embracing Neurodiversity
• Embracing Hope: Innovative Strategies to Empower Parents Raising Neurodiverse Teens
• Raising Kids with Neurodiversity (ADHD, Autism, & Learning Differences)
• Suggested books for Raising Kids with Learning You

Transcript

Tracy Whitney 0:01

Parenting teens is not for the faint of heart. And if you are like me in the middle of raising teenagers, you understand that parenting teens is hard enough, but when you add layers of the impacts of trauma, prenatal exposure, and other normal diversities that impact how our kids behave, the hard factor can go up significantly. Welcome to Creating a Family. Talk about adoption, foster care, and kinship care. My name is Tracy Whitney, and I am the content director for Creating a Family, and I am also the host of this and our other podcast that drops on Saturdays. That podcast is short and is specific to a question sent in by a listener, and we answer that question and give you all sorts of tools and practical strategies, usually in 15 minutes or less. So today we are doing our one-hour podcast that is expert-based, and so we're going to be talking to Carl Jung and Joel Shagren. Carl Young is a parent, advocate, and international speaker focused on neurodiversity, especially fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, also known as FASD. He draws from both lived and professional experiences and works to help families, educators, and systems better understand brain-based differences and support neurodiverse individuals with dignity and hope. Joel Shagrin is an author, filmmaker, and advocate whose work centers on helping families and communities become more inclusive and supportive of neurodiverse individuals. Through storytelling, practical strategies, and advocacy, he helps parents navigate the challenges of raising neurodiverse children. Today we're talking about teens, to build stronger connections and a sense of belonging. They are the co-authors of Embracing Hope: Innovative Strategies to Empower Parents Raising Neurodiverse Teens. Welcome, Carl and Joel. Thanks so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Thank you for having us.

What are parents of tweens and teens carrying right now that you know they want people to understand?

Tracy Whitney 2:07

Your work, both in the book and in the organization that you founded to support families with neurodiversity, focuses on helping these families better understand neurodiversity, what it is, and how it impacts our kids with both dignity and hope. Joel, what are the parents of tweens and teens who are carrying that neurodiversity label? What are they carrying in life right now that you want people to understand to start this conversation off?

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Yeah, so stigma. They're carrying stigma, exhaustion, isolation, confusion, oftentimes. Um and um that's a heavy weight.

Tracy Whitney 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

When you're isolated.

Tracy Whitney 2:48

And

Why do the tween and teen years often become especially hard for neurodiverse kids and their caregivers?

Tracy Whitney 2:49

Carl, why do you think that these tween and teen years often become especially difficult for kids with neurodiversity and for their caregivers?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I would go so far as to say that the teen years are difficult for anybody, let alone somebody with a weight, uh, a brain that is wired differently. Uh, if we begin to look at behaviors as communication or symptoms, that changes the outlook and how we uh support our children or our teenagers.

One of the themes in your work is “understanding over stigma.” Can you tell us what that means?

Tracy Whitney 3:17

So one of your themes in the work, both in your book, is understanding over stigma. Joel, can you tell us what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Oftentimes our kids have trouble with a variety of issues like processing speed or not understanding cause and effect, right? And it's easy to show disgust and to shame. Why didn't you understand that? Why don't you act your age? Those kinds of things. When in fact, we need to seek to understand. Um, I'll give an example as it relates to that. My son has processing speed. He's diagnosed under the umbrella of FASD and dual diagnosed with autism. And with that comes ADHD and trauma because of the prenatal alcohol exposure, etc. So that's why we cover our four profiles the way we do. But the context was processing speed, and I thought it was disrespect. So I would say, his name is Sam, and he has given me permission. Uh hey, Sam, can you do the dishes? And I would get the pushback. He'd be on the couch on his device or watching TV or doing something. And he would give me the yabby, yabby, yabby pushback, right? And I would move toward it, don't be disrespectful before I understood what was going on, right? And so it was kind of fear-based, it was shame-based, etc. As a parent. That was my frame. But what he was having trouble with because of his brain differences is he couldn't access information to trans uh to do a transition. He needed time. And so I learned, hey Sam, in five minutes, you still might get the pushback because you're interrupting that space. Disregard it, it's not disrespect. Walk away. Guess what he was doing five minutes later? And it's like, oh my goodness, this works. And that started, and that started bringing the chaos down. Uh, is how I shifted to start to understand how his brain was working and what he needed. And what he needed was not the shame, he needed some time.

Tracy Whitney 5:40

It strikes me as I was looking over the book and preparing for today's conversation that this is one of those times, like many parenting times, that we have to face that when we're the parent or the caregiver or the adult in the room, as I say sometimes, it starts with us. The reframing, the shifting, the meeting them where they're at always starts with us. We have to be the ones to lead that.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Yep.

What are examples of behaviors parents are often blamed for, or blamed on the child, that may actually be rooted in neurodevelopmental differences?

Tracy Whitney 6:08

So, Joel, could you give maybe a few more examples, not necessarily specific to Sam, but some few more examples of behaviors that parents may get frustrated by or impatient with or get blamed for by other people who don't understand that may actually be rooted in those neurodevelopmental uh differences.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Um, why don't they act their age?

Tracy Whitney 6:30

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

They knew this yesterday. Right?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

And it's it's still accessing those memory pieces. And for our kids that have brain differences, that can look like a heartbeat in terms of what they remember, short-term or long term. Oftentimes our kiddos have long-term memories that are really, really excellent. But short-term is like if they're not interested in science or they're not interested in math, but teen, you know, teens fluctuate in that area in their interest. But if they're not interested in a subject, they may have been totally engaged that day, but the next day not remember anything. And so I would advocate for our son played soccer at a pretty high level until he was 16. I went to the coach and I said, once I knew what was going on, he may remember or he may not. So he's a good player, you know that, but he's not being disrespectful, he's not any of those kinds of things. Just keep in mind his brain difference is he may not have the memory, uh, the short-term memory to remember what you taught him the day before. He does he does well by repetition and by experience, etc. And so advocating for our kids is important too in those kinds. I didn't get into the diagnosis or anything of that. I just said he's got a brain difference, he's got a diagnosis assessment that's put him in a category that helps uh that we need to work with the memory and on sequencing and repeating things that's helpful.

Tracy Whitney 8:14

Carl, do you have any behaviors that you would add to that list that parents might be get blamed for, or they blame the child forgetting that it might be a neurodevelop develop neurodevelopmental difference?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Uh I yes, if you think about what causes uh dysregulation. If if a child is out with a parent shopping at the grocery store and becomes dysregulated, people around them that don't understand the situation will see a behavioral child that's throwing a fit or a tantrum. When if we view it through the lens that the child is dysregulated, which is a symptom of their brain-based difference, that can change the whole perspective. And it's on the parent, not that the parent has to educate every human being in the world or their world about it, because that's impossible. But if the parent can see the dysregulation for what it is, it decreases the frustration. It doesn't mean the frustration is going to go away, but it decreases the frustration. And there's ways to hold children accountable without discipline or shaming.

Tracy Whitney 9:20

Yeah. So we're looking at things like overstimulation or um being hungry, and hungry turns to hangry really quick with kids like this, um, being dehydrated.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Very much so.

Tracy Whitney 9:34

Good. So we're we're kind of framing it with that view and the Barb Clark called it brain-based glasses. Um, so we're framing it that way, looking at our kids through these brain-based differences.

Why do many parents feel confused because traditional parenting advice doesn’t seem to work for their child?

Tracy Whitney 9:49

Why then do parents feel so confused about traditional parenting advice that doesn't work for their kids?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Well, as a parent of children, both neuro neurotypical and neurodiverse, the methods that I used for my neurotypical kids would never and did never work for my son with brain-based differences. And it was incredibly frustrating for me. Mike, why can't you be like your siblings? We're all in the same house, you know. And then you go to the system of care for support, and they recommend you get parenting classes, and then the parenting teacher comes out and says, Well, you don't need me. So, well, you have other children, yeah. Um, yeah. Um, and the stigma that comes from bad what what the system of care sees uh so often is bad parenting because of the brain-based difference is just so hard on families, it's exhausting. So I don't know. Um, but that was where my frustration was born from.

Tracy Whitney 10:56

So Joel, do you have any things to add to why parents get confused about traditional parenting versus parenting with this brain-based lens?

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Well, for us, all sorts of things like understanding cause and effect. It's like, huh? Um, but in terms of the shame side from the outside, I'll speak to that for a minute first. I just learned they don't know what my family in my child is experiencing. They would have that meltdown, they don't know that the child is stuck. We call it perseveration as a technical term, uh, being stuck in something. I would just I just had to start framing it. I don't care what the Joneses think, right? It was uh it's our family and our kids, and we best understand how they work, right? Where it was frustrating, I think, if I'm understanding the question right, we went through nine schools to get our son graduated because the teachers didn't understand and they would try to push that pressure. I think you one of your questions was in that context of traditional parenting, right? And so, you know, it was like me. I move you're gonna respect me or else, right? And that's like that's crap parenting anyway. But we call it traditional parenting, right? But it it's it's not respectful parenting and it's fear-based parenting. And so operating out of that context of trying to understand is our framework.

Tracy Whitney 12:40

So yeah, I mean, kids that have a hard time with memory have a hard time with cause and effect or consequences attached to an action or predicting, um, that's a huge one for our kids. They they don't have the ability to predict in the same way that neurotypical kids do. So they're gonna make a choice that doesn't necessarily reflect what they think is gonna happen or should happen. But is it is it appropriate to levy a consequence, or really, when people say consequences in traditional parenting, they mean punishment against somebody who doesn't even understand what they did, why they did it, or why what happened happened. So I appreciate that kind of breaking it down that way. And I think traditional parenting and traditional education kind of go hand in hand in that way, that it's it's aimed at a very neurotypical brain, and neurotypical kids can typically kind of be resilient around consequences that maybe don't really match the infraction, where kids with neurodiversity have a harder time making that connection and being okay with it.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

I'll I'll give a somewhat yucky illustration. Think about trying to punish a dog that's pooped in the front yard, right? Two weeks later.

unknown 14:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

That's our kids. They just don't understand what the heck is going on here, right? So you're approaching it from a context of their memory and how their brain works, etc., would be like that sort of weird, weird illustration.

Tracy Whitney 14:28

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a actually pretty valid illustration.

Can you explain executive functioning in a way that helps overwhelmed parents understand what their child is actually struggling with day to day?

Tracy Whitney 14:34

Carl, would you be able to explain to us the the definition of executive function and skills in a way that helps parents who are listening today and they're just feeling overwhelmed as they try to understand what their child is actually experiencing and struggling with every day?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Well, it's executive function is something everybody takes for granted because you develop it over the course of your life. Uh, in neurodiverse kids, the ability to develop executive function is either delayed or not there. And if you think about it like Google Maps, which is constantly updating and you try to navigate to a different place, and all of a sudden you're in a construction zone. Unless Google Maps is updated, you're not going to get to your destination. And if you think of executive functioning as a map to life, and the map is incomplete, how are you going to function in day-to-day society? Uh, you're not going to recognize social cues in for the most part. Sure, there are some of us with FASD who do recognize social cues, but there are a lot of people who don't. Uh, like myself, I struggle with interrupting people constantly. It's part of being neurodiverse for me. And it's it's a skill that or it's a task I've been working to overcome all my life. And you don't learn that overnight. In executive function, you you can't just read a book and say, Oh, I understand what I'm missing. I'll employ that. That it doesn't work that way. It comes through a lifetime of experience. And if if that experience isn't locking into the brain, they're never going to get it back. At least not anytime soon.

Tracy Whitney 16:20

I'd like to interrupt here for just a moment to let you know that we have a prenatal substance exposure workshop for parents and for child welfare workers. It's three sessions. It's targeted at age and stage of the children in your home or the children that you are supporting in your child welfare community. We offer supports and strategies and resources, and these three sessions are all free for the rest of 2026 thanks to some of our very generous partners. If you go to bitly slash prenatal dash exposure dash training, that's bit.ly slash prenatal dash exposure dash training, you can get the workshops for free this year. Again, thanks to our very generous partners. Joel,

What are some real-life ways those struggles show up at home?

Tracy Whitney 17:17

what are some real life ways that that metaphor of the Google map and the updates might show up for kids at home? Let's talk about at home.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

I'll give an example. We call it in one of our chapters, um uh Who's Adam? It's based on a true story that happened at our house, right? Our son had a uh friend from church playing a practical joke on him. And in that typical teenage kind of not understanding anyway, they were pressing my son for all sorts of things that were just not appropriate, etc. And my wife was ready to call the police, and I recognized if they know they're gonna show up to threaten my son at the soccer game at that particular time, and et cetera, et cetera, as bad as that sounds, it's a bunch of teenage kids. It's a prank. Having been a prankster, uh, I recognized the prank, right? But never to this extent. These guys were like really pressing in for like illegal kinds of stuff, and it was church guys thinking it was funny. Uh, so it was kind of a double whammy. And afterwards, my wife said, You don't know these people from Adam. And he literally, so don't respond to him because the phone call was coming from a secondary person he didn't know. Who's Adam? was his question. So that's real life, right? Yeah, how how do you train that for because that's an executive function? Don't respond and don't call, but there's a high degree of wanting to connect with a community and people because they feel isolated. So we just called the chapter, I think it was cause and effect. We called the chapter no abstract reasoning. Uh, I don't remember. I um so yeah, but who's who's Adam? So that's the context of that. Anyway, at the back of each of our chapters in preparation for that question, I went to uh chapter. Uh all of our chapters have some brain science at the back of it, and we talk about we talk about executive function and we try to put it in the context. Think of it as air traffic control with everything coming at you. Um our kiddos don't have the ability to sort all of that out.

Tracy Whitney 19:50

And even the ability to uh catch what might have been clues along the way that this was a prank, and then apply that catch, again, going back to that ability to predict or not predict, what to expect, the social cues, the the prediction, the cause and effect, all of that jumbled into one. And you know, handling it in a way that doesn't shame our kids for what they didn't know, handling it in a way that, you know, we we may have caught it, you probably caught it pretty quick. But if our kids don't catch it, balancing, letting them have the experience for themselves, because again, the central goal of, you know, one of the central goals of being a teen is developing independence and that separation from mom and dad, but also belonging. And so they're pulling away from you, wanting to pull into their friends, like that whole jumble of how that plays out. That's such a great example. You were able to keep him safe and kind of walk with him through the process, and then now you can laugh later about who's Adam, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

You know, and speaking of shame, my son to this day, he's gonna be 25, doesn't understand shame, he doesn't get the concept. No, um, and we don't shame people for having the flu. So why are we shaming somebody with a brain-based difference they have zero control over?

Tracy Whitney 21:21

Right, right.

What are some common expectations we place on tweens and teens that may not match their developmental abilities?

Tracy Whitney 21:23

So when we're thinking about tweens and teens and this, the the typical parts of stage of life in adolescence, there are some common expectations that people have of this age and stage, but what are some things that we who are raising kids with developmental delays or neurodiversities, what are some expectations that we should be aware of and not kind of put on our kids because they're not ready for them yet?

SPEAKER_03 21:54

So the the term that's been used in the past has been dismaturity. Um And the more common or the more I think appropriate is uh developmental delays. And so a child may be 15 years old chronologically. And if you were to draw a box and divide that into four squares, you can put up in the upper left 15 chronological. But socially, emotionally, their ability to respond to decision making and all those exact could be completely half the age or a quarter of the age, you know, it's all over the place. So a 15-year-old socially might be seven, right? In the other quadrant, and five in the emotional side, because they don't know how to manage those emotions. So that's that's one way of looking at it, is just think, put it, put it in a square box and divide that those quadrants into uh different age based on is it emotional, is it social, etc. Uh it's different than the 15 year. And that's that's part of the the way I think we look at our children, and what we're starting to notice, we our son wasn't diagnosed till he was 14 because we really had no idea what FASD was, even though we brought our child, both of our children, home from the same birth mother at the hospital and oiling the alcohol. There were milestones that were missing, like in that developmental delay. And it was confusing to us because our son was smart and funny and creative and athletic, and the list goes on of all these wonderful strengths, right? But he didn't understand consequences, and his emotional regulation was so much lower than his age and all of those kinds of things. And so when we started to understand this is a brain-based difference, it helped us shift and start, you know, like we've spoken of earlier here. So then you just start to work with a myth, not necessarily lower the expectations, but adjust the expectations to understand that those emotional development and our son is much, much better at self-regulation uh by a long shot. I know how to push his buttons if I want it to be off, but we don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

And and one of the easy things that parents can do is don't like for me, I want to jump in. If my wife is having the conversation with her son about something that might be difficult, it's easy to want to jump in and add something, right? As a parent, don't do it. Because it's that air traffic control, they don't have too many things coming at them. And that can just set them off the deep end really quick, is just, and they're not being disrespectful again. It's you've given me too much information, I don't know what to do with it. And oftentimes it becomes explosive.

How can parents shift toward more reasonable expectations without giving up on growth?

Tracy Whitney 25:05

So I'm hearing you say that one of the expectations most people have of the adolescent years is the ability to multitask and the ability to handle different levels of information and then know what to do with them. And those are common expectations for adolescents, but probably misplaced when we're parenting a child that has some developmental delays, or we call it at creating a family, we often say many children in one body.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

That's okay.

Tracy Whitney 25:43

So Carl, do you have anything to add to that? Things that might be common expectations that maybe we should re-evaluate.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

The biggest thing that worked for us was to simplify instructions.

Tracy Whitney 25:57

That's so good.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yeah, uh, we went from five and seven, you know, five, seven, eight letter or word uh instruction sets to two and three word instruction sets and did it in steps, you know. Instead of clean your room, which is rather vague, uh, you know, can you go let's let's make this a game and go get all the socks out of your room for me. Simple.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Uh, you know, um, and and that worked. So we I didn't think it would work, but you know, some I'm like, well, we it's not gonna hurt to try. So yeah, uh, but the the simpler you can make it for somebody whose developmental timeline is different than their chronological timeline, the better the experience will be for everybody involved. The lower the frustration level will be for that tweet.

Tracy Whitney 26:45

Yeah. So shifting our expectations includes simplifying and clarifying. One of the things that we found helpful in our home is adding visuals when my kids were little, and I I look back on it now, and I probably had some a mix of neurotypical and neurodiverse going on in our house. But we used a lot of visuals as phones became their favorite possessions. We also used alarms and reminders on their phones to support and help us, and not always put me as the one saying, get this done. It was like a neutral third party when it was on their phone.

What are some practical strategies to reduce conflict at home while still maintaining structure and boundaries?

Tracy Whitney 27:29

Joel, what are some practical strategies that you can use as a family raising a neurodiverse teen or tween that can help reduce conflict in the home, but still maintaining that structure and the boundaries that are keeping everyone mentally and emotionally and physically safe?

SPEAKER_03 27:48

That's always hard because we have an expectation again, and we need those boundaries, but oftentimes the boundaries are about not always, and they're and boundaries are important for sure. So I say say it in the context. Look at is the boundary about you, or is the boundary about safety, or is the boundary needed for you know XYZ? Um because oftentimes we operate out of fear, right? And then it's a boundary about you when it's really not even necessary. But if it's a boundary about safety or something that's important, then that's different. And that that definitely is uh something to take into consideration. And then you have to balance well, do they even understand the cause and effect of the boundary or the reason behind the boundary? Because taking recess away at a playground for a kid at school, right? If it's a teaching uh educational setting, the best thing in the world for them might be to go get some energy out. And you've taken away all of that exercise that's so important for them when that becomes about the teacher, right? And just it's easy to identify that we can make that about us as a parent, that kind of an illustration. Uh, because the child may not even know or remember. It's kind of like the dog in the front yard type of thing. Why am I sitting in this room? Because they don't have the capacity to understand why aren't I out on the recess? And then that can cause a dysregulation.

Tracy Whitney 29:37

Carl, do you have anything you want to add to that?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

One of the things that my wife and I implemented early on in our parenthood was we would never, even if we strongly disagree, never disagree in front of the child. We did that privately when the child wasn't in the space. Because that sows it can sow dysregulation, especially in a neurodiverse child, and they can latch on to that disagreement. And that doesn't help anybody. So um the parents need to be unified in in how they approach parenting a child. You've you can disagree, just don't do it in front of the child.

Tracy Whitney 30:16

That's a great practical strategy for every parent.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah. It when we started that, it greatly, even in our neurotypical children, it greatly re reduced conflict amongst the whole family. So that's my that's my number one tip to any parent.

Tracy Whitney 30:33

That's great. CreatingAFamily.org would like to take a moment to say thank you to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption for sponsoring this podcast. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption believes that together we can ensure every child has a permanent loving family. Read stories of youth and families touched by adoption, including adoption from foster care, and access resources for parents, caregivers, and child welfare professionals at Dave ThomasFoundation.org. Let's move on then to self-regulation. In your book, you talk a lot about self-regulation. On your website,

We understand that self-regulation is a learned skill that comes from years of our own regulation and then sharing it with our kids, called co-regulation. What does co-regulation actually look like with a tween or teen who is escalating emotionally?

Tracy Whitney 31:14

there's a lot of information and support for self-regulation. And in the trauma-informed community, we're speaking to adoptive, foster, and kinship families. We understand that self-regulation is a learned skill that comes out of our own regulation as the adult in the room, and then sharing it with our kids, which is called co-regulation. So, what does co-regulation look like? Kind of maybe some practical examples or illustrations of what co-regulation looks like with a tween or a teen when you see that escalation starting to happen.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

I started breathing a lot.

Tracy Whitney 31:51

Deep breathing, yep.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

Deep breathing. And it actually is really, I find it myself doing it all the time for all sorts of reasons because I have a high justice meter, and that ticked me off. So just breathe, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

So it's so important because it goes back to the very first thing we talked about. It starts with us as parents. And so showing the calm, showing that you're respectful, showing that you're considered and want to understand. So start asking questions is kind of how we in a calm voice avoid the why questions and start asking the what and the how. What are you feeling right now? I need to know that. Um is it hurting your chest? Are you confused? You know, being very concrete and very short is helpful. But we do have, we're we're about to launch our self-regulation online course.

Tracy Whitney 32:59

Oh, fantastic. Keep us posted about that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

And a lot of a lot of it just in general is observation, asking questions, making sure that you're on the right track, not putting it on the child.

unknown 33:12

Yeah.

Tracy Whitney 33:13

Carl, what kind of things does uh or how does co-regulation look uh to you when you're working with a teen or a tween who's kind of escalating?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Oh, as a mid-50s individual with FASD, um, I have no idea what self-regulation is. Uh is something I've struggled with all my life. And it's gotten better over the years, quite frankly. But I was the primary person for my son. Um, my you know, my wife and I have been together 32 years, but she was outside the home working and I was a stay-at-home dad. So I was the primary for everything. So I've had to force myself to uh understand something that my brain doesn't want to do, which is self-regulation. But it became about being calm because I learned that when I was not calm, everything got worse. In in not just for him, but for me. And and that impacted the whole household. And you have two individuals with neurodiversity going at it all the time, you know negative things occur, and we wanted to avoid that as much as possible. So yeah.

Tracy Whitney 34:29

Well, thank you for sharing that. That's super vulnerable of you, and I appreciate it. I think it goes back to what Joel said uh just a little bit ago is is finding that calm and then finding a way to share it. I've noticed when I do the breathing that helps me regulate, all of a sudden the kid across from me is starting to breathe like I'm breathing, which I've I'm a grandmother now, and I was kind of just testing it out a little bit on my little guy. Um, he was fussing and I had him for the whole day. It was just me and him, and he was fussing a little bit, and I just started breathing really slow and deep. And sure enough, so did he. It was such a great reminder to me that, and so far he's showing signs of being very neurotypical. So showing signs of of being able to mirror and match that. And I shared my calm with him. And it just the way the human brain works is always so amazing to me when I get to see it like up close and in person like that. But you know, I have a 14-year-old, and if I come at it with no calm and I'm all hot mess, sure enough, the hot mess express has just run through our house and left chaos in its wake. So yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in here on Carl for a second. You do know how on the regulation, and you don't even know that. The other day he was in court testifying on behalf of a child. Uh, the lawyer was actually snickering that, and it was for an SSDI to get services, and the mom's desperate, right? And here the lawyer is, and Carl's texting me, and I'm thinking, he's regulating, he does it all the time. He texts me when he's upset about something, so upset. Oh, I'll bet getting it all out, like journaling or texting in the case of Carl, he does it all the time. And I've been thinking, I'm glad that he's sharing that because I'm his friend and I want to know that. But I think it's about Carl needing to regulate.

Tracy Whitney 36:51

That's great.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

So that's great. There they're find ways. I never thought of it that way, Joel. Yeah, I was thinking that the other day, and uh I thought it was brilliant. You may not even know it, but you're regulating and getting me dysregulated. Because I'm looking at it like I want to write that lawyer a letter.

Tracy Whitney 37:10

Um, that's great. That's great. Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_03 37:15

Yeah.

Tracy Whitney 37:16

So when parents are facing behaviors like impulsivity and shutting

How can parents respond differently to behaviors like impulsivity, shutdowns, avoidance, perseveration, or lying?

Tracy Whitney 37:23

down or freaking out or avoiding, ignoring perseveration, as you called it at the beginning, when they're just thinking round and round and round and round about the same thing, lying, all of those are very common behaviors in the tween and teen years. When you're parenting a child with neurodiversity, how can we look at those differently through that brain-based differences set of glasses and then respond differently? Um, Joel, I want to pop this to you first, um, and then we'll pop over to Carl because I'd like to hear both of your perspectives.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

So this journey of becoming a nerd in the world of neurodiversity started nine years ago. And we could not figure out we would call it lying, and it's confabulation. And I I've learned all sorts of words, right? Becoming a how but statistic do you want to know, and all of those kinds of things in the last nine years? It's like I'm amazed at the encyclopedia of these terms and understanding of it. And one of those terms is called confabulation. And confabulation is not a lie, it's our kiddos are emotionally filling in their memory in ways that may or may not even be real. And so being really patient and having the context to ask the questions, right? So uh think of yourself as a police officer and you've got 10 different witnesses and they all say something different. They're fabricating what they remember, right? And by the time that the officer's done with interviewing everyone, they have a pretty good idea of what actually took place because everybody had a different perspective, right? My wife and I uh I'm uh commercial photographer by trade, and I was in Alaska doing a project for Red Wing Shoes in deep snow. And my wife was not in the snow, but she was with me on the project, and we got back and she says it wasn't there wasn't that much snow there. I'm like, huh? I'm up to my waist in snow getting pictures, and so we all have a different perspective.

Tracy Whitney 39:48

Yeah. So patience and curiosity. Carl, what would you add to that?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

It's not personal to the parent. Um the child's you know, the child's response, whatever the response is, is generally a response to some other stimuli that happened either that day, the previous day, or the previous week, or whenever. It's not personal. And that was a hard lesson for us to learn as parents for my wife and I, just because we took everything personal, you know, all of the verbal attacks and things like that. And if your brain is dysregulated and you're already lacking impulse control or self-regulation ability, everything's gonna come out free-flow. And that's not a personal attack on me. That's just the way their brain works. And I didn't understand that about my son until after he left home.

Tracy Whitney 40:43

That's a tough one. Yeah, not taking it personally. Because we all grew up in a generation that said words hurt, words cut. Yes, and yes, they do, but when you understand the context behind the words or the origin, and I love that both of you keep talking about the survival strategy that this might be representing. And it's so important to remember that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Oh, yes. Well, yeah, as parents of neurodiverse kids, we're often in a in a state of survival mode all the time. And that is exhausting. So but if it's exhausting for you, how exhausting is it for your child? Who's trying to be normal? He's trying to be normal, right?

Tracy Whitney 41:27

Exactly. Yeah, because they know, they feel that they have these differences, they are not unaware of these differences.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Right.

Tracy Whitney 41:35

Yeah. So that brings us right to the next question. When a caregiver is feeling like they're walking on eggshells

Many caregivers say they feel like they’re “walking on eggshells.” It’s exhausting and creates so much stress in our homes. Where do you recommend families start when the home has fallen into a state of constant stress or chaos?

Tracy Whitney 41:42

all the time and they're exhausted all the time and they've got so much stress that they're managing all the time. Carl, what do you recommend they start with when they're trying to figure out how to address this state of chaos or stress in their homes?

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Well, the you're not walking on just eggshells at home. You're walking on eggshells in society.

Tracy Whitney 42:01

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

You're constantly aware that everybody's judging everything that happens.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Again, it goes back to it being it's not personal. Society, especially now with the um you know more than 20 years of social media, is very quick to judge that which they don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

And when you're a parent of a neurodiverse child, especially in my case, understanding may not come until after the child moves away and is an adult. No, uh, some parents have the luxury of learning early on that their child is neurodiverse, you know, autism, that's a fairly early diagnosis. Uh, FASD, uh, you know, ADHD, but if you go back to FASD, um, often that diagnosis doesn't come until they're in their teens. Even with the birth record, um, because of the stigma. And and then when a parent or mom especially talks about their child uh who has FASD, people are quick to assume that mom drank. Well, if the child is adopted, they still have to defend against the stigma. I we did, you know, my wife and I both did, and that's unfortunate. Nobody deserves that. Um, and that's an eggshell, you know. But then you also have to look at inside the home, and if your child is dysregulated, is it something I did to cause their dysregulation? How do I fix me? And it goes back to it, it's not personal, but how can you calm that? And Joel can talk very well about how he calm things. So yeah, but it's in you have to you have to take the personal out of it. It's not personal ever.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Yeah.

Tracy Whitney 43:49

Joel, you want to speak to some of the ways that you can calm those those states of chaos and stress?

SPEAKER_03 43:56

The context of safety and understanding their strength. Strengths, I think, might go into some of that. Uh, and just being curious again, what's behind, you know, asking the right question. We use metacognition a lot. Our book is really based on metacognition, yeah, which is to think about your thoughts, which are interventions that most therapists really don't use all that often. They use cognitive behavioral therapy and it goes back to that executive function. You need executive function to be able to do cognitive behavioral behavioral. And metacognition is a something a parent can ask. Are you sure you want to and then ask that question? Right? That that's getting getting the child to think, that's the metacognition piece of it. Um, is are you sure that you have the stamina? You know, think through it, right? Maybe a graph goes with it, but keeping things short, not stretching them out.

Tracy Whitney 45:01

Not using too many words.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

That's that's all they process, right? And so yeah, and so you know, it's fine in the strategy that's right for both you and your child. Some some of your children may not have the ability to even think about their thoughts as well as others. And so you have to find some other strategies. We're starting to explore Legos. Um, and the way that that works to help with those questions would be uh, I'll use the example of let's build, let's free build a mountain rescue base. What goes into it? How many people do we need? And then you throw in the things that could cause dysregulation in regular life that aren't going to be as much. So in the play therapy, there's a storm coming. Are we prepared for that? Do we have everything? So you're getting the child to start to think and to use her and build their executive functions so that they're better co-regulated, self-regulated in different areas.

Tracy Whitney 46:11

I there's a lot of kids out there that I've seen it happen where kids just have the sense of calm that comes over them when they're when they're building with Legos that can hold their attention in in ways that no other toy holds their attention. And hearing the way they think, like I'm thinking about I have two kids in particular that were way into Legos, hearing the way they think about what they're building, even when they're following a set of instructions for a pre-build, is just it's calm to their brain. It's just kind of like shifting everything into a groove that maybe things were kind of running off groove just a little bit before. And this just brings them all right into a new groove. And I love watching that happen.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

Yeah, and I'm I'm excited to learn some more of that because you could introduce, like if you're building a preset, right? And you've your instructions, let's just pretend they're all white and you're building a white car. What happens if you add a few other blocks in there? Is that what you want? Is you know, just using the Legos in that way. The other thing Carl and I stumbled into it was because we're thinking of uh how to build out an app to help our kids and to use some of those kinds of techniques within the app in different ways.

Tracy Whitney 47:31

Very cool. We would like to take a moment to thank the Jockey Being Family Foundation for partnering with creating afamily.org to build our library of free courses. Their generosity allows us to bring you expert-based information and practical parenting strategies that will strengthen your adoptive, foster, or kinship family. Our topics vary widely and we rotate several courses across the year, so there's always something new for you to explore. You can find this library at bit.ly slash JBF Support. That's B-IT.ly slash J B F support. We hope that you'll take a course or two, or maybe L15, and then tell a friend about the free library. Again, that's BIT.ly slash JBF Support. I hope you enjoy the learning. Joel, what can help a parent hold on to the connection with their child to prioritize

What helps parents hold onto a connection with their child during seasons when everyone feels frustrated or discouraged?

Tracy Whitney 48:31

that relationship, that safety that you talked about, or building that safety that you talked about in a season where things feel chaotic or stressful and there's a lot of conflict in the house?

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Well, in our particular case, it was 14 years and it had become 100% chaos, 24-7. And it was on me and my wife. Um, and so I can speak from experience, or chaos is now 1% in a given year rather than 24-7, right? So it it took time, but it was letting our son uh and daughter just knowing that they were love, they're absolutely learning how to manage. I'm I'm easily, I learned when you don't like something, you just show disgust. It was a body language, and I'm sure that I still do it to a certain degree, but I've worked hard at just being flat. And so that the our our children know that they're loved and they come back with us all the time. I'm to the point now my son wants to spend time with me, right? And that took time. You know, we go fish. Hey dad, can we go fishing? I'm in the middle, yeah. Okay, let's go fishing. Learning how to adjust.

Tracy Whitney 50:01

Yeah, I was just gonna say, more offer as many yeses as you can. Time, patience, and yeses. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

I just did that the other day. It's like, yeah, that can wait. I'll just make it a yes right now. So um letting them know that they're safe. And we've had a couple of incidences because our kids don't always understand consequences and what's gonna happen and wanting to get involved in things, but they'll call and say, Hey, I got in trouble, don't get mad at me, and blah, blah, blah. The fact that they would even call right as a teenager at that time is like we've done something right.

Tracy Whitney 50:41

Right, right. That they want to call. So good. Yeah, so good. Yeah, yeah. Carl, do you have anything to add to that that would um help a parent hold on to that connection or prioritize that connection?

SPEAKER_00 50:52

I would talk about rebuilding the connection. Um, my son and I lost our relationship for a good five years after he left home. And uh, since I started doing this work with Joel and coming out, and we created Embracing Hope, that relationship has changed to now where he calls and his girlfriend calls and says, Hey, can you explain this part of my brain to me so that my girlfriend understands it? And that's not a conversation we could have ever had before. So it's about reframing how I look at brain-based differences, yeah. Yeah, and then intentionally going after that repair, and intentionally seeking the repair.

Tracy Whitney 51:38

That's awesome. That's awesome. So when we're parenting children that are differently abled,

Sometimes families need help redefining success. How do you encourage parents to rethink what thriving can look like for neurodiverse tweens and teens?

Tracy Whitney 51:47

brain-based differences, how do we redefine success? I feel like society has kind of a narrow lane for what success looks like when you're raising tweens and teens, but neurodiverse tweens and teens need a different definition of success. So, Carl, can you help us redefine that?

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Success is different for everybody. Uh, with my son, success is putting his dirty dishes in the sink. And if we can accomplish that, that was a major win.

Tracy Whitney 52:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

So we need to re-look at or rethink how we view success. Success isn't always the PhD or the MD. Um, you know, in my son's case, just because he's because he sounds like an attorney doesn't mean he's ever gonna be one, but he has the ability to talk, and that is a success because a lot of people, even neurotypical people, can't communicate. Yeah, he doesn't always understand what he's saying, but he has the ability to talk. So, yeah, that's my number one thing. You need to redefine what success is. Success for your child is not the same as success for you.

Tracy Whitney 52:58

Yep. Joel, what would you add to that? How do we redefine or rethink about thriving and success?

SPEAKER_03 53:04

Well, the earlier we can start, the better off it can help our kids. But I think the interdependence, helping our kids understand they need supports is a huge success, right? But it's the little things because you you have to reframe what are the expectations that are gonna be, you know, for the age uh that they're emotionally at, right? And then celebrating that and with ice cream, you know, good ice cream, you really handled that well. Yeah, yeah, you know, we've done that a few times. So they do get those kinds of rewards, but they don't get the sticky chart, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

Yeah, the sticker chart, no, no, no, yeah.

Tracy Whitney 53:53

Or if you speed, you get a fine.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Yeah, just say no to the sticker chart.

Tracy Whitney 53:59

Yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_03 54:02

You know, I found it a huge success that our son had gotten in trouble, but he still called me because he knew he could, so that's huge, right? And now you now you have an opportunity to talk through consequences, and those consequences are more real, and yeah, they're not a two weeks later to that dog illustration, right? They're in the moment, and so, but not but keeping them shorter in terms of the conversations and asking questions, focusing on strengths and celebrating, doing a lot of celebrating.

Tracy Whitney 54:37

Yeah, that goes along with the yeses when you can celebrate any small progress, that all goes towards the bigger picture of redefining success, the small stuff.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

One thing to keep in mind is make them specific. Like we used to say, hey, that was a great soccer game. And our son may not have thought it was a great soccer game because he had the whole concept, right? So we started learning to be specific. Hey, that uh when you cross that ball over to Billy and he made the goal, that was a great play. So getting really instead of saying, hey, that was a great soccer game, because they don't have the concept or the uh the ability sometimes to frame it all. So being specific and concrete about what those wins are.

Tracy Whitney 55:28

So the theme that I heard from both of you in the area of defining success or redefining success is being present in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

Very much so, yes.

Tracy Whitney 55:38

Isn't that something that kids with no neurodiversity are so good at? They're so good at being present in the moment, and we can learn from them. We need to take it down and just be right there in the moment with them.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Yes, it's a lot of matter, right? I I would extend that to neurotypical kids too. Um, because if you can be present in the moment for any child, yeah, no matter their age, it that's something that that child will remember.

Tracy Whitney 56:04

Fair point. Very well said.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

My daughter held me accountable once we had gone out of town, out of state to a wedding, and we were the the four of us. There's uh we have a son and a daughter, my wife and I. We were at dinner with the four of us in front of a leg at a restaurant. And I picked up my phone to check it. My daughter goes, uh-uh, Dad, you need to be present. I just turned it all off. That's fantastic.

Tracy Whitney 56:34

And actually, I think that's probably a great way to end this conversation and um wrap it up by saying, Parents, be present for these kids that are depending on you to be safe and depending on you to offer your cum and your and your regulation to them so that they can learn how to do that for themselves. So, Joel and Carl, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate hearing your stories. I appreciate your vulnerabilities and sharing your successes and struggles along the way. And I hope that people go out and buy the book. It's called Embracing Hope. Thanks so much, and I appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.