Where is the line between accommodating your autistic child and over-accommodating them? In this episode of The Autism Mom Coach, Lisa sits down with psychologist Dr. Taylor Day for a nuanced conversation about that exact questionโwhy the same behavior can be healthy accommodation for one family and over-accommodation for another, how parents drift into autopilot, and why the goal is never to strip supports away but to keep them available. They also dig into the grief, perfectionism, and “my child needs help, therefore I can’t” thinking that keeps so many parents from seeking support for themselves.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How to use one simple questionโ”Am I accommodating or over-accommodating?”โto step out of autopilot, and why the answer depends on your child’s current skills, capacity, and context rather than a fixed rule.
- Why making real changes requires preparation rather than teaching in the moment, including processing your own grief, helping your child understand their brain, and framing shifts as a low-stakes experiment you troubleshoot together.
- How Dr. Day’s “whole family approach” treats the family as an ecosystem, so that supporting your own regulation and mental health becomes one of the most direct ways to support your child.
About the guest: Dr. Taylor Day is a licensed psychologist specializing in neuro-affirming care for autistic children and families, including very early diagnosis and intervention. She holds a PhD in clinical psychology and is the founder and CEO of Dr. Tay Concierge Clinical Care, where she created the “whole family approach” after recognizing a gap in how autism care supports parents and siblings alongside the child.
Resources mentioned:
Related episodes:
- Being Your Child’s Safer Person with Dr. Taylor Day
- Autism Changes You, Part Two: The Hidden Cost of Caregiver Stress and Burnout (Ep #195)
- Self-Care for Autism Moms: Why It’s Your Responsibility (Ep #49)
Listen Here
TRANSCRIPT
โโWelcome to the Autism Bomb Coach Podcast. I am your host, Lisa Canara. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with autism. In this podcast, I am going to share with you the tools and strategies you need so you can fight like hell for your child without burning out.
Let’s get to it.
Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. I am so glad you were here, and I hope you are doing well today. I have a special treat for you. We are talking to Dr. Taylor Day. Dr. Day is a licensed psychologist specializing in neuro affirming care for autistic children and families, including very early diagnoses and early intervention.
She has a PhD in clinical psychology, and she’s the CEO and founder of Dr. Tay Concierge clinical Care. Her practice integrates the whole family approach, a process she created, utilizing evidence-informed principles after seeing a gap in autism care. Dr. Tay, welcome to the podcast. We are so happy to have you here.
Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Can we just start off telling us about how you got into this work and how you identified this gap? Because I think that what you are doing is so important and so needed, and so I’m just curious about how this came about.
Yeah, so it’s, it’s comes from a lived experience of being a sibling myself.
Um, so I have an autistic brother. Who’s 10 years younger than me. And so I was living and breathing and understanding this autism world, you know, long before I ever got into this profession. And one of the things, you know, my brother was diagnosed at 23 months of age, and that was through a lot of advocacy on my mom’s part.
Because like even nowadays, that’s still on the younger side. Like we absolutely can really, yeah. Yeah. At that age. You know, back then it almost never happened. And yeah, my mom just knew something was different, wanted to get him the support and so he got a lot of support. We had therapists in our home for like 40 plus hours a week, and so, you know, again, this was what we knew and like our family accommodated.
But I always talk about, no one really supported my parents in this. And then in turn. They didn’t always know how to support me through this journey as well. So I think that was a big thing. And then when I got into this field and like became a psychologist and was doing well, was doing all my training, I was like, it’s been, you know, like what it would’ve been like maybe 15 or so years at that point.
I’m. How has this not changed? Like how are we still so
focused on the autistic child, which is so important and not something we wanna fade, but how has it not expanded?
So it wasn’t until my final year of training in my PhD program I, we do a clinical internship. So you’re a full-time clinical that at, um, duke University Medical Center.
I got the opportunity to do a family therapy rotation all year round, and it wasn’t for like specific for autism and it just completely changed the way that I, I think about therapy and that I was doing therapy and. I realized, you know, it wasn’t something that was very, again, very common in the autism world, and I just took a lot of what I learned there, what I had learned throughout my training about autism.
Um, it took a little bit of time. I went into research first before I started my clinical practice, but I just, yeah, it, it was one of those things, lived experience and then my clinical training really helped me to develop, uh, an approach that feels so aligned, um, for me and helps. Families in a way that my family wasn’t helped.
Wow. That is just so profound and important. And I, you know, I always think about when I have, um, clients who have siblings, um, you know, kids with autism, with siblings, and I see that these siblings are going into areas of their own study and research that are supportive of the community. It’s like you could not have a better advocate at your side.
Tell me, you know, if you can sort of identify it as a sibling growing up with a, um, as a brother with autism, like where did you not feel supported? Where were the gaps for you?
Well, I think that some of it is one, my world completely changed, so I was an only child until I was 10, we’re 10 years apart, and then my brother came into the world.
Okay. Even when he was born, um, my mom had a very traumatic b birth, and so my brother was in the nicu, like from the outset, you know, there were. It was a different experience, but I think one of the biggest things, I actually have an episode where I dive into this on my podcast. I have an episode where I also brought my mom on the podcast.
’cause this is something we openly talk about. Like, I’m not gonna go out and talk about it publicly without having talked about it in my own family first. But I, I had this mentality, no one told me this, and I talk about this a lot. Well, my brother needs help, therefore I can’t need help. And it’s, and that’s how kids’ brains think are in very black and white ways, right.
Of like, oh, well I need to downplay what I need because he needs it, you know? And so, and we know as adults like. Even listening to that, we know that’s not true, but we don’t realize sometimes for kids how their brains think. But I even talk about this with parents, that this ends up being a very common pattern that I see with parents too, is my kid needs help, therefore I can’t need help.
And so all of our brains can have this tendency to think in black and white ways, and we have to realize the nuance in all of it.
That’s so interesting because, um, I, you know, I was diagnosed with A DHD later in life and my mom and I talked to her about it. She’s like, oh yeah, no, obviously, and you know, like, well, like why didn’t we address it?
And then the answer to me was so obvious. I wasn’t the house on fire. And I think that there is that, like when there’s somebody who has acute needs, that is where all your focus goes because you’re in this, you feel like you’re in this sort of life death battle. Yeah. So what about W were you able to see at that age and identify the gaps for your family or is that something that came with perspective?
Oh,
that’s definitely something that came with perspective because I think at that. That point, it was just, okay, like what is my role? And so I stepped very clearly into this helper role. I also, and I think some of this is inherent of my personality. I don’t think all of it was, you know, this artifact of having an autistic brother, but I’m, I can be very perfectionistic, very high achieving, you know?
So that was one of the roles that I ended up taking is like. Okay. Like, how can I get attention in other ways? Like what are those ways, you know, to garner that. And it, it was always like getting good grades, you know, like doing like winning things and like doing like those extra things. And it just came so naturally, but I didn’t have insight into it.
That was just. Who I was, and one of the most profound things for me was going to therapy. Probably I think about three years ago I started, and the irony is. I’m in the field, right? You would think that I had gone to therapy and it was like, you know, normalized for me and everything, but the way that I was largely trained as a psychologist is, okay, what’s the diagnosis?
And then you seek out therapy for that diagnosis. And I wasn’t, because I was trained in a very evidence-based program. That’s really how we approached things from a very data-driven thing. And I realized this, there was this whole other side of the therapy world that it was like. No, you can go to therapy just to have a space, you know, a container to be able to hold and to process.
So I finally was like, okay, I need to do this. I got into like some coaching first and had a coach, and then started like peeling back the layers, but doing, um, uh, modality that’s called internal family systems or IFS was.
I would think as soon as you, I was thinking about that. That immediately, okay.
Yeah.
It
was so profound and I had never done that as a psychologist. Now I incorporate it into my work all the time. But that helped me to understand these different parts and how they all, you know, contribute to one another. And what was in the driver’s seat when I was a kid, you know, 10 when. What we learn in early childhood tends to be the default of than what we do as adults.
But realizing those parts don’t always have to be in the driver’s seat. You know, sometimes we need to help them come up to speed with everything else that our brains know, and we can choose to do it differently. But a lot of times these are protective. Protector parts that have served a role and they’re used to doing that.
And so it, it was just such a helpful modality. So definitely through my clinical training, but also through my own healing journey in all of this as well.
That is so interesting. And I, I think like as soon as you started talking, I was thinking, oh, like you use. Research and analysis as your way is like a coping mechanism, right?
In some sort of way, right? And then you look back at that and you’re like, God, how brilliant was I at that young age to have incorporated that and how that served me. But then also being able to see. The function it was playing. Right. And now that you also have the space, I think that is so amazing.
Yeah.
And it led to a complete career change. When I say like I went into research, I was in academia, that was my plan all along. And then I got into that world and research is incredibly important. I still use it. But it wasn’t for me anymore, especially as I started peeling back the layers because there’s such a high achieving what’s next, go, go, go.
Like, you know, not recognizing the accomplishments. A lot of times it’s like, oh, you publish a paper, cool. What’s the next one? Um, and I started to realize like I wasn’t getting fulfillment out of that when I took away. Well, I still have the part that’s very high achieving, but when it wasn’t. The, the thing that was driving me every single day and what I started to realize, it took me a while to admit this, but I was like, wait, I do love clinical work.
You know, I didn’t think I did. And I think some of it was this. I think some of it was getting to do it in the way that I wanted to. I didn’t love, you know, this, like, okay, the patient shows up, you use this chapter of the manual and do it. And it was like, wait, I wanna like connect and I, I don’t want it to be this like.
Static and like it’s gotta go this way. And that’s the cool thing about opening my practice is I can choose to do, you know, clinical work the way that I want and the way that feels aligned. And so, yeah, it’s been a really cool journey.
That’s awesome. I’m curious, do you see you in some of your, um, parent clients of this high achieving, this is how I solve a problem, all the Yeah.
And. Yeah, that, that was definitely me. Like, I’m going to out research out resource this and we’re, you know, just gonna, like, this’ll be, you know, in the backseat at some point it’ll just be in the rear view mirror. And I see this with my clients too, and like the failure that they feel that they haven’t, quote unquote, solved this.
Right for their child. I, I’m wondering if you could speak to that and how you
approach that. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And the thing is, I share this story openly because one, yeah, it is helpful for families when they’re hiring me to know, like, you know, not only do I have the professional experience, I have this lived experience as a sibling, but I’m also very transparent, like.
I’m not perfect in this, right? I’m just a few steps ahead of you in this journey, and then can mm-hmm. Pull in my knowledge too. But like as a human being, like, it’s not like I have it all figured out and I’m just open and I choose to be vulnerable in that way, but really what a mentor or a guide. Any sort is, it’s just someone that’s a little further along in the journey than you are.
A lot of times we, you know, and I have like, I have a coach that I work with right now that I, I look up to her and I’m like, oh, she’s got it all figured out. And then I remember, nope, she’s human in this too. And so, but I think that lived experience actually really helps us. Understand what our clients are going through and how to support.
And I think over research mode, um, and overthinking mode is probably one of the biggest areas that I see parents be stuck in and feeling like they have to figure it all out before they try something. And sometimes then even if they jump in because they’re expecting such this high bar and like that, they figured it all out.
The troubleshooting becomes difficult. It’s like, well that didn’t work. You know, it’s like, how long did you try it for? You know? And I think that is a big piece and it’s one of the gaps that, you know, I saw and I ended up, you know, I love working with families in an intimate way in clinical services, but I actually developed a membership.
Where families can ask me questions, I can provide, you know, some next steps and some education in order to get things moving. Right. And it’s like, let’s try it out. Yeah. You’re not sure. Let’s come back to the table. And so I think working with someone too, you know, if you’re really stuck in this cycle, and I know you do this work as well.
It is so critical because otherwise you’re just like in this constant cycle that’s hard to escape and having that outside perspective can really shift that dynamic.
Yeah, no, definitely. And, and I just, I guess I feel like in the quote in, in the autism world, that there is this belief probably, you know, really supported by.
Everything that’s out there, do this, do that, that if you do enough or you do the right things, then your child will be okay, whatever that is for you. Right. And I see myself getting really stuck in that as well as like, well, did I not do enough? Did I not do the right things? And I see it in my clients too, and I think it’s a really hard area because there’s so much uncertainty in autism.
And then you bring in the comorbid diagnoses and just how that sort of. Soup interacts. Right. It’s a, it’s a really, it’s like no man’s land in some ways.
Absolutely. And that is a big part of my work that I work with parents on is. It, it really is grief that you’re processing and you know, I always am abundantly clear.
You’re not grieving your child, you’re grieving the shift of expectations. Those subconscious, you know, thoughts of how you thought your life would look like and how that’s different. And you’re grieving the fact that your child does live in a very neurotypical world. And so that means that they’re gonna have times where they have more challenges.
And that’s really hard as a parent to sit with. And so you’re grieving that and some of it is. We want to, I often find parents want to skip that and they’re like, okay, we’re good. Like we hop into action mode and this is what I find post-diagnosis a lot is like, what am I supposed to do? And I’m like, okay, great.
We’re supporting your child, but can we slow down and actually feel all these emotions, know how to process through these emotions because we have to go through that journey before we’re ever gonna get to a place of true acceptance. And, you know, I think that’s some of it is like when you’re not feeling enough, there’s a part of you that feels like you’re failing, and we need to work with that part to, to really accept what, what, you know, what the conditions are, so to speak.
That is so beautifully put and said thank
you. Yeah. Yeah. Really
truly it’s,
I, I mean, it’s literally listening to parents all the time of like, you know, it’s a collaborative relationship, so I didn’t. Develop all of this in a silo. It’s literally sitting in front of parents and hearing this processing and hearing where they’re getting stuck.
And I do wanna emphasize, I think this is one of the hardest things that I find for parents to do is actually seek support for themselves. Because it’s like, again, that that mentality of my child needs help, therefore I can’t. And it can feel very selfish or it can feel like I don’t have time to do this, which is why I developed the whole family approach.
’cause when I first started my business, I was like, okay, I wanna support parents and I wasn’t getting traction. And I realized, you know, full, being full forthcoming of like. Okay. We can’t just like, isolate it out. Like we have to say, like, I’m also gonna help your child in this ’cause that’s such a high value.
Yeah. Um, but it, it is so, so important and it, it’s about starting, I like to think of it like a big ball of yarn. We just need to start pulling on some strings. So it’s not about like, oh, you need to focus on yourself and go all in. What are those little strings we can pull in the ball of yarn right now?
Um, and I think that’s also sometimes where I find the field, or like social media, it’s like, do self care as a parent of an autistic kid, you know? And then your body, if you’re a parent listening to that is like, no, because I don’t have time. You know, that’s selfish. Or I don’t know where to start. And it’s like.
Okay. What is that one tangible thing? We can start working on that string that we can start. Pull. Yeah,
yeah. No, for sure. I have to say, I don’t know if I ever, well, definitely, I don’t know if I ever consciously felt that it was selfish to seek out help for myself. I truly believed I needed to fix this, and once I did, I would be fine.
Yeah,
I’m fine. This is an issue, right? And when I hit the wall on that and realized how, you know, I was impacting my son, like that’s really like what it started to turn it around for me. But I see the same thing in, you know, clients too is like, they’re like, oh, I want you to help me with my kid. I’m like, I definitely will.
But here’s the thing. You are the environment, right? And we need, you need the support as well, because you are like the through line for your child, right? No matter, like what’s happening. So yeah, it’s, it’s a hard shift to me.
It’s, and I find parents often, not always, but often seek us out when they feel completely helpless and hopeless.
Right? They feel like they’ve completely, they have no more options. And so they’re like, fine, I’ll try this, you know, whatever. And this.
What do you got? What do you got? Exactly.
And so this is where, you know, talking about this, I think is so important because we can do that before you hit rock bottom to really, you know, work through all of this.
And this is where. For me, the whole family approach comes into play. I like to think of the family as an ecosystem, right? Everything relies on one another. We can’t just say, let, let’s just work on your kid, because if you are so stressed out and you are human, you’re allowed to be stressed out. Your kid might, you might not have the.
Capacity for your kid to co-regulate with you. Right? And so that’s one tangible example of where it could be impacting your kid. And ironically, your, a lot of your stress could be coming from the, the fact that you’re driving to 500 appointments and advocating and like. Sitting in IEP meetings and you know, just feeling like, oh, what am I supposed to be doing?
Everyone is relying on me to know the answers and I don’t. Right. So it’s this vicious cycle and we can make so much faster progress when we target like all parts of the ecosystem, or at least multiple at once.
Yeah. No, that’s great. That’s great. Well, I’m gonna do a almost like a hard shift of topics, because when I was on your podcast, we started to have a conversation about accommodation demands and accommodation, and that line, where is the line?
And for autism parents, you know, you know, I mean, I’ve been described by a therapist as being, you know, having an enmeshed relationship with my son at some point. And I think for so many of this. That’s necessary at some point, right? Like we are their eyes, their ears, their voice. We’re interpreting, we’re trying to figure things out.
But I also think that as things evolve, we stay, we can, we can stay in that position and have a harder time letting go. And so I just want to hear from you how that comes up in your practice and how you think about it and address
it. Yeah. Before I dive into that, I just have to say I got. Such great feedback on our episode.
People just loved it in the conversations we were having. Um, you know, so I, yeah, people absolutely loved that. But yeah, this was one of the things that came up and I think we, we didn’t have a lot of time because we were talking about other things. Um. But really thinking about, I talk with parents a lot about this of what is accommodation, where you are supporting your child, and when does it become over accommodation and as simplified as this seems, even just sitting with that question of, am I accommodating my kid or am I over accommodating my kid?
And we don’t often think through this. And so you’re in autopilot mode. You’re so used to doing it. Yeah. I find most of the time when parents sit with this question, actually. Um, I have like a group therapy model where I work with parents and do parent coaching. I was talking about this two days ago, and like multiple parents are like, yep, I know I over accommodate.
Right? Like, you know, and it’s like, and some of it is. Sometimes that comes from this place of you previously needed to do that because your kid didn’t have the skillset and you just haven’t pruned things back. Right? Like they still need, the goal of accommodation is never to completely fade it. It’s always to make it available.
Now, that doesn’t mean your child is always gonna need it or use it, but we always make it available. And this is one thing that I find with the school system is a hard thing like. Oh, but they’re doing great. They don’t need it anymore. And it’s like, no, we need to make it available for them because what if they have a hard day?
What if their capacity starts to get a little bit more tapped? What if there’s a new novel area they’re going into? And so keeping that in mind, the goal is not to prune all accommodation back, but sometimes we might actually be doing too much and not allowing the child to show us the new skillset that they have.
Sometimes it comes from a place of great intention, but a lot of anxiety at the same point of like, you know, like, well what if I don’t do this? Like this is what my kid needs. And like having a lot of worry there. Um, I think, and then some of it is just like the default mode. That’s really what it is, you know?
And so I think coming back to what is, what does my child need in order to thrive, but where do I sometimes as a parent have to step back and let them learn and trial and error and we don’t wanna like. Thrust a kid into a world that they’re not ready for. That’s not what we’re saying. Um, but for example, I have a lot of families, you know, that resonate with the PDA profile and then they learn about PDA, and then they go into this world of, okay, lowering demands.
Unfortunately with social media, the way that it’s often talked about and it, there’s so much nuance with this, and I do work with families on lowering demands, but I’d say one of the main reasons that a lot of these families seek me out is they’ve gone almost to no demands, and it is burning out the family ecosystem like no other.
And they feel exhausted. They don’t know where to go. And so sometimes we actually work too. Understand what demands we need to add back in what boundaries we need to add back in, um, still within this low demand framework. But that’s a great example of over accommodation of like, oh, well, I, I’m supposed to be dropping demands.
Oh, so I don’t expect anything out of my kid. And. You know, a lot of times too, like we don’t need to be skill building all the time in your kids’ journey, but that’s not a place that they’re gonna skill build from. Um, and so sometimes we do prioritize the mental health and we have fewer demands. But then once kids come out of burnout, how do we start layering some of this in as well?
Yeah, it’s so incredibly nuanced and just a couple of things. One of the things that I see, especially with my clients whose children might have gotten, let’s say a later diagnosis, is they’re like, well, I don’t want to basically penalize them for being autistic and basically, you know, be abusive in that way.
Like, you know, they’re autistic, like, I can’t do this. That there’s that piece. I would say one of the bigger areas that I’ve had when it comes to that piece, is my own anxiety slash fear of with if and when I pull back, the clap back, I’m gonna get from my child and not wanting to endure it essentially.
Right. And so, you know. I have to learn and I, you know, I talked to, you know, um, other parents now is like, get ready. There will be the clap back. But that’s not necessarily a problem. But that’s really hard when you’re like, okay, in the container, that’s great. But when I’m trying to get out the door in the morning and there’s another child and I’m late for work, like, you know, there’s like so many things that can factor into it and makes it really easy to be like, well, I’m just not just go back to the default.
Yeah. And so,
absolutely. I think that. Yeah, it, I mean, it is so nuanced is what it comes down to. Um, I always say though, when we’re making these shifts, and this is a big mistake that I see with parents is they just try it, right? Like, and then they’re trying to teach in the moment, well, your kids are already dysregulated, so they’re not thinking with logic and reasoning, you are likely dysregulated.
That is not the moment that we are skill building like ever. Um, and so some of it is. How do we prepare them for that and how do we start talking about that? And sometimes that work of preparation actually comes from two different places that are not directly related to this, but are highly entangled with.
This is number one, you processing your grief in all of this, right? Of like, again, really coming to this place of acceptance. And some of it is. We’re not talking about like you just saying like, oh, everything’s fine, acceptance. But it’s like understanding your reality and understanding what you have to navigate and not trying to clinging onto it and control everything.
And, and maybe you’ve come to acceptance in other ways, but this might be a new playground that you gotta play with. The other thing is, and I find this is missing a lot, is how much are we helping your child to understand themselves and their brain and you know, what their neuro type is. And I think this is so incredibly important and it’s not a quick conversation.
It really is ingrained over and over. And so this is a great example of where I would be talking once the kid understands themselves and starts to understand, you know, some of those support needs, some of the strengths like. Even talking about like, Hey, we are gonna make some changes. Here’s why, you know.
Your body is probably gonna feel really uncomfortable, right? My body is probably gonna feel really uncomfortable. It might feel really hard, but we’re gonna figure it out together. And one of the frameworks that I love, and I teach parents a lot of is, let’s call it an experiment, right? Okay. We’re. Do an experiment together.
And here’s the thing, I really need your input of what this feels like. You know? And then if your child doesn’t have consistent spoken language or a consistent mode of communication, we can use their behavior as their communication and as feedback. But it’s about experimenting. Did this work? Did I try to do?
Change way too much at once. Right? It’s like, okay, I’m gonna let my kid be independent in their morning routine. And it’s like, okay, that probably isn’t realistic. Like, you know, maybe it’s like, okay, I’m gonna let them pick out their outfit today. You know, versus even like, get dressed by themselves today and like, was that possible?
How did that go? How can we tweak it a little bit? But if your, you know, your child is a collaborative partner in this too, and I think that often increases buy-in.
That’s so, these are such great points, and I remember my son.
Um, you know, I was starting to fade back the reassurance of right, that loop that I was in with him and what we had to do, and we did this in partnership with, you know, someone like you, a therapist clinician, is say, listen, this when your OCD is saying you need mom to say whatever, over and over, mom is gonna say once.
You know the answer. Second is I’ve answered your question, and then third, she’s not gonna respond to you. But really previewing that because when if I just did that cold, he would’ve been like, yeah. You don’t even care, like what’s happening. And so we had to actually come up with even like, like a sort of like a, I would put the stop sign sign up just to like, and I would say, that’s my signal that I really do care, but this is just me trying to help you with your OCD.
Like, but there was a lot of previewing of that because he, you know, I had been in that loop with him and so just to do cold Turkey but have been. Very abrupt and just, you know, startling to
have. Absolutely. Yeah. I, I think that’s a, a perfect example of this idea of previewing or prepping, um, and just talking through it.
And remember, it’s not one time you have to do this right, like it’s over and over again. That’s, you know, what we know about many autistic kids is that repetition is really supportive. And also, you know, that’s a little more nuanced and tricky with the mental health piece. Um, but can we also have you as the parent modeling this as well?
That’s such a helpful way so they get to see it, you know, and. Also that is almost, if we think of an exposure framework, that is a step of the exposure, right? They see you doing it and then they’re like allowing their nervous system to adjust to it as well. So yeah, there, there’s so many steps in this, but I think a simple piece just for listeners to come back to is, again, what is that?
Asking yourself the simple question and trusting your intuition. Like, is this accommodation or is this over accommodation? And I wanna highlight this part that you said like at one point you had a therapist say like. You know about enmeshment and sometimes we do have to remember that outside people aren’t going to understand whether sometimes I do see, you know, families seeking out, you know, providers who maybe don’t really understand autism as much as maybe they ideally should.
Um, sometimes this is family members too that are constantly questioning like, well, why are you doing this? And this is a script I gave to one of my parents I’m working with recently, like. Well, what am I supposed to say when people say like, well that’s not, you know, normal. Like, why do you keep doing this?
And it’s, I like to actually use an agree, then explain method of lean in and say, yeah, you’re right. It’s not normal and. My child is neurodivergent, so I have to do things differently as opposed to constantly battling of being like, well, let me tell you why I have, you know, it’s like lean in and agree with them.
Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. That isn’t normal in all of this, but I think that is an important piece too, is realizing other people might not always understand, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re over accommodating. They just might not understand how your child’s brain is wired and what the supports they need and what’s gonna really help them to thrive.
Yeah, no. Agreed. And in this context, I mean, it was a provider we’d been with for a while and he was in a, with us, through a really acute moment. That moment, what he was describing is like, Ben’s, you know, was so focused on me for his emotional regulation, and we were just in this and we were, we were like, literally, it was COVID.
We were like, just like together like this, right? And it’s like, yes, that is what’s happening. Right. But it’s also the thing that is keeping everyone safe at the moment. Like, and so it, it’s, again, it’s so
nuanced.
It’s
what a great example of what you are describing was named as enmeshment actually was a over accommodation versus another family could work with a provider.
They’re naming it as enmeshment. Maybe this per this provider doesn’t have the autism knowledge, and maybe that’s just simply accommodation and it looks different, right? And so. Yeah, so I think it’s such an important point that the same behavior might be over accommodation for one family in a certain context, and that same behavior could be accommodation for a different family that’s at in a different set of, you know, conditions and context.
Absolutely, and I think so much of it goes back to what you said before about. The parents trusting their own intuition and this being nuanced. And so I think that there’s like that old school of consistency looks like same thing every time, and that is not what it is to live in the autism world.
Mm-hmm.
Right, but yet a lot of parents of autistic kids, their brains crave that. The predictability and the consistency. And so I think this is something just to be mindful of, of like, ’cause it can feel like, especially if being very perfectionistic, just to tie this back, ’cause it really is all related, it can feel almost like a failure, right?
If every day you’re used to doing something and then it doesn’t work one day, it’s like. And it can create panic, like, oh gosh, why didn’t it work? And it’s like, okay, but did the conditions change, right? Mm-hmm. Is someone more stressed? Did someone have lower capacity? You know, did, was there a part that maybe you thought you did but you didn’t do?
And that actually maybe you didn’t do as much prep in preview and it’s like, oh, that’s a great marker. No, that’s actually not over accommodation. That really sets my child up for success. And so sometimes those hardships actually allow us to evaluate what is working and what truly is effective and get out of that autopilot mode of like, okay, I always do it this way.
You know, you get to prune a little bit and decide what’s important there.
Oh wow. That’s so helpful. Dr. Tate, thank you so much for coming on, having this conversation. Please tell us how can families find you? How can they work with you? What are you offering? Give us the goods.
Yeah, absolutely. So my main website is just Dr.
Taylor day.com. It talks about my clinical services. We do diagnostic evaluations throughout the lifespan. Um, I actually have a psychologist that works with me as well that, um, specializes, you know, in. Older like kids, like teens and adults, and working with parents to explore their own neurodivergence, which can be an important part of this.
We offer therapy services, including a unique group therapy model. And then as I referenced, we actually have a educational membership. So these aren’t clinical services for families that are looking for, maybe you have a therapy team, but you’re looking for a little bit more support and to get out of this cycle of overthinking.
Um, and then. I love, you know, come, come listen to Lisa and my podcast episode over on my podcast called Evolve with Dr. Te. It was an amazing conversation, and I’m sure if you’re listening to Lisa’s podcast, you already love and adore her. Um, but yeah, lots of different ways. Yeah, we’re,
yeah, we’re gonna replay that podcast here too, because I the conversation as well.
Yeah.
Oh, that would be so perfect. And then we can also link, I have a, um, opt-in that kind of describes when I was talking about like some of this like boundary setting, um, of like where to choose to, you know, have some of these boundaries or have some of these demands and how to make those decisions from an aligned.
Place in terms of your family values. Um, but I have an opt-in that I can share with that as well if people are interested in downloading that.
Perfect. We will link all of that in the show notes.
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure to have you on.
All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of the Autism Mom Coach podcast. I will talk to you next week.
Thanks for listening to the Autism Mom Coach. If you are ready to apply the principles you are learning in these episodes to your life, it is time to schedule a consultation call with me.
Podcasts are great, but the ahas are fleeting. Real change comes from application and implementation, and this is exactly what we do in my one-on-one coaching program. To schedule your consultation, go to my website, the autism mom coach.com, work with me and take the first step to taking better care of yourself so that you can show up as the parent you want to be for your child with autism.
