You are listening to episode 79 of The Autism Mom Coach, Grief Myths.

Welcome to The Autism Mom Coach podcast, I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with Autism and other comorbid diagnoses. I know what it is like to wonder if you are doing enough or the right things for your child and to live in fear of their future.

I also know that constantly fueling yourself with fear and anxiety is not sustainable for you or of any benefit to your child. That is why in this podcast I will share practical strategies and tools you can use to shift from a chronic state of fight, flight to some calm and ease. You are your child’s greatest resource, let’s take care of you.

Hello, everyone and welcome to the podcast. I hope you are doing well and I am so glad you are here. Like I said last week, we are going to be doing a deep dive into grief. And I know that sounds miserable, but I urge you to stay tuned because it won’t be. I have done a deep dive into the topic of grief and I’m going to talk to you about it in a way I bet you have never heard before, and one that I think will deeply resonate with your experience. This is not going to be a cookie cutter recitation of the so-called stages of grief. This is something specifically tailored to you and your experience.

I think this is important because grief is an issue that is always creeping just below the surface for us and it needs to be understood in the unique context in which we experience it. And I’m a fan of facing things head on. I think this is especially important with grief because ignoring it or resisting it is not a strategy or a solution. That’s because it’s still there and the more we resist it, it persists. It does not go away, it remains, it festers and it usually explodes out of us in a way that feels all of a sudden or out of nowhere. This is because it is a pent up emotion that has not been released.

So we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to shine a light on it and we are going to normalize it. We’re also going to create safety for ourselves to experience our pain so that we can move forward. But before we talk about grief in the way that I want to talk about it for Autism moms, I want to spend this episode talking about the misconceptions around grief because there are a lot of them. And these misconceptions may be getting in your way of understanding your own experience and validating it for yourself.

So I’m going to share with you five myths or misconceptions about grief that you may have heard somewhere, read somewhere or they’re just in the air. And these misconceptions might be getting in your way of understanding or validating your own experience.

First, grief only relates to death. Well, that’s not true, grief isn’t exclusive to death. Grief is a natural human response to loss, any loss including death. Over the course of our lives, we experience all sorts of losses, relationships, jobs, our health, experiences, life taking a turn that we did not expect. In fact, in some ways I think death is easier to grieve because the loss is so tangible, a person was alive and now they’re not.

And when I say easier to grieve, I don’t mean that the death is easy. I mean that the concept of grieving around death is so expected and validated by those around us. There are books about it. There are support groups. There is a general societal acceptance and expectation of mourning a person who passes. By contrast, there is not much guidance or support about the process and the experience of grieving a child who is still alive. How do you grieve for a person sitting right in front of you?

It seems strange and counter to what most of us think about when we think about grief. And if this is you and you’re associating grief with death, you might not realize that you’re actually experiencing grief related to your child’s diagnosis or their struggles. You might not even realize that you are experiencing grief related to your child’s diagnosis, their struggles, how you expected life to be and how it is.

Myth number two, grief follows a linear path. One of the most prevalent misconceptions about grief is that it’s a linear process with distinct stages that people move through in a predetermined order. This belief originates from a misunderstanding of the five stages of grief model created by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross that was based on her study of terminally ill patients. The five stages model is a theory and it’s a very useful one, but it’s not prescriptive as in every person has this exact same experience of grief.

It’s just the opposite, grief is non-linear and it is an individualized experience where individuals may revisit various emotions and stages over and over. So while it may be comforting to have a general idea of some of the emotions and experiences you may have during the grieving process, the five stages, they’re not a checklist that you need to complete to end at acceptance. Moreover, I don’t think the five stages of grief is a helpful theory for Autism parents, and I will tell you why. 

First, as I have said, the theory was built around an actual death. It is not based on the lifelong experience of Autism parents raising children with an invisible disability. Moreover, the loss we are experiencing is not one and done. It’s more like a loss by a 1,000 paper cuts, all of the daily big and small experiences we have or don’t have related to the Autism diagnosis. Every meltdown, every therapy appointment, IEP meetings, sleepless nights, Instagram posts of our friends’ kids doing ‘normal things’.

That is why I think it’s important to focus less on the stages and more on the fact that grief is a non-linear and individualized experience. This means however you are experiencing grief, you aren’t doing it wrong. You shouldn’t put pressure on yourself to experience an emotion like anger or acceptance at any certain time. You could feel hopeful one day and angry the next, or even the next moment. Whatever it is, your experience is completely valid and there is no way you are doing it wrong.

Myth number three, time heals all wounds. Grief doesn’t adhere to a schedule. The notion that time heals all wounds oversimplifies the grieving process, especially for us because we are not dealing with a one and done loss as crass as that sounds, we are dealing with loss every day. While time can and does ease the intensity of grief, it doesn’t change the fact that we continue to experience loss associated with our expectations versus reality.

Myth number four, grief has an expiration date. It does not. Grief evolves over time, but it doesn’t disappear. Rather, we find ways to adapt and live with a loss by integrating it into our lives. And for sure, if grief had an expiration date, I would say that 10 years needs to be it. And I will tell you I have been raising a child with Autism for 15 years and I still grieve.

Things like the first day of school, that one really gets me. It’s all of the pictures on social media of my son’s peers doing things that he’s not going to do or may never do. And that’s a loss and it hits me every time, it doesn’t matter that he’s been diagnosed for over a decade. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this, it still hurts.

Myth number five, grieving is a betrayal of your child. Now, this one is for us. Some parents do not allow themselves to grieve or even acknowledge their grief because they view it as a betrayal of their child. That somehow if they have sadness about how their child is or isn’t, that this flies in the face of unconditional love. To this, I say both and, you can both love your child endlessly and feel sadness and loss.

Another reason Autism parents may struggle to acknowledge loss is because of the messages we get from society, messages like, God only gives you what you can handle. You are so strong. You’re so good with him. You are such an inspiration. All of these sentiments are well meaning or honestly, they’re just clumsy things people say to us because they don’t know what else to say or maybe they’ve actually said I’m sorry, who knows.

But the message that I get, at least when I hear all this is like I’ve been awarded a prize and I don’t have a right to grieve. When you hear things like, God only picks special moms to be special needs kids and you’re like, “Okay, now, I need to live up to some ideal of this very special hand-picked person who now needs to navigate all of this stuff without a handbook.” That is just way too much pressure for anyone to bear.

The fact is, is that we do experience grief and it is different and it’s a little bit uncomfortable that we are in some way grieving the child in front of us, the child that we love. And I think it’s really important for us to break our own rigidity, our own all or nothing thinking in this respect and just think both and, two things can be true. I can love this child. I can advocate my heart out for him or her.

I could walk in front of traffic for them and I can still be a little bit sad that they’re not going to graduate from high school. They won’t go to college. They struggle to make friends. They’re not invited to birthday parties. Whatever it is, it’s not a betrayal of your child and in fact, you pushing down your own grief, the only person you’re betraying is yourself. You’re creating more pain for yourself and let’s face it, we don’t need more pain, we’ve got plenty of it to deal with.

And remember our experience as Autism moms is unique, it does not conform to stages or tidy theories. So don’t ever judge yourself for feeling bad, don’t ever tell yourself that you should be finding a silver lining or making lemonade out of lemons or any of that. Feel as bad as you want to feel for as long as you need to feel it because that is the pathway to healing.

Alright, that’s it for today’s episode. I hope this was helpful and I hope it helps you open up to the loss that you may be experiencing in a way that promotes healing. Next week, we are going to talk about loss and grief for Autism moms in a way that I bet you’ve never heard before and in a way that I think will really help you process some emotions that you might be pushing down.

Until then, if you are struggling with how things are versus how you expected them to be, if you are struggling to find joy in your parenting experience, I want to help you with that. Schedule a complimentary consultation for my one-on-one program and let’s talk about whether it makes sense for us to work together to improve your parenting experience. Alright, I will talk to you next week. Have a great 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, theautismmomcoach.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.

You are listening to episode 78 of The Autism Mom Coach, Grieving the Life Not Lived.

The Autism diagnosis is like a death. It is the death of our expectations about how we believed our parenting experience would be and how we believed our child’s life would be. This death is a real loss and one that we need to acknowledge and grieve so that we can move towards acceptance and joy. Unfortunately, this is a topic that is so often overlooked by the parents who are experiencing it. Maybe it is because you believe you are not justified in feeling grief for a child who is alive or that you just think I don’t have time for this, my child needs me.

Whatever it is, I am here to tell you that your loss is real and your grief deserves a place at the table and you deserve to be seen and held as you navigate the experience. This is why I’m going to dedicate the next few episodes of the podcast to grief. I know this doesn’t sound too exciting, but I promise you, it will be helpful in shining a light for you in how grief is showing up in your life and how you can better support yourself through the process without getting stuck in it. Stay tuned.

Welcome to The Autism Mom Coach podcast, I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with Autism and other comorbid diagnoses. I know what it is like to wonder if you are doing enough or the right things for your child and to live in fear of their future.

I also know that constantly fueling yourself with fear and anxiety is not sustainable for you or of any benefit to your child. That is why in this podcast I will share practical strategies and tools you can use to shift from a chronic state of fight, flight to some calm and ease. You are your child’s greatest resource, let’s take care of you.

Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am going to spend the next couple of episodes of the podcast doing a deep dive into the topic of grief. This is something that we all experience as parents raising children with Autism, whether we realize it or not. In fact, this topic does not get the attention it deserves because, for one thing, I think most people associate grief with death, and you may be one of those people.

You may be grieving in ways that you’re not even aware of because you only think of grieving as something you do when someone passes away or a relationship ends. Another reason the topic of parent grief is passed over is because we believe we don’t have time to grieve. The clock is ticking and we need to help our kid so we ignore the oxygen mask and hyper focus on our child and helping them, which, by the way, may be a symptom of the grief you are experiencing and a way of avoiding your own pain.

I remember when my son was diagnosed and this was 13 years ago, I went to the Autism Speaks website and I downloaded the workbook, it was called The First 100 Days After the Diagnosis. And I remember breezing by the sections on the stages of grief thinking I don’t have time for this. I just need to know what I need to do for my kid, and I need to get started doing it right away.

If this sounds familiar to you, I invite you to stay tuned to the next few episodes where I am going to talk all things grief to bring awareness to the fact that you may be grieving in ways you do not even realize. And how staying stuck in this grief is actually preventing you from arriving at true acceptance of your child’s diagnosis and standing in your way of enjoying your parenting experience.

Alright, so let’s get started. Grief is a natural response to loss, any loss, not just death, the loss of a relationship, the loss of a home, the loss of a job, the loss of your expectations. You expected life to go one way and it went another. That’s loss and the grief that you feel around that loss is real. And I don’t think we give this type of loss the respect that it deserves because again, we associate grief with death and maybe we feel uncomfortable grieving for a child who is alive or maybe we feel like it’s a betrayal somehow of our unconditional love for our child.

And then maybe we tell ourselves things like, you have no right to grieve. You should be grateful. At least your kid is alive or whatever it might be. And yes, of course we are grateful that our children are alive but this is actually a way that we can use gratitude against ourselves. Because what we are really saying is, I don’t have the right to grieve this. And I am here to tell you that you 100% do.

The diagnosis of Autism is not a death, but it is the death of your expectations, the expectations of the neurotypical parenting experience, the expectations of the kind of life your child would live and the kind of experiences that you would have with him or her. And yes, there is so much joy in raising our children and in achieving milestones that we were told were a never or a no way, so much joy. And there is a lot of pain. Maybe your child doesn’t speak, so you never get to hear her voice unless she is crying.

Maybe you imagined bonding over sporting events and your child has zero interest. Maybe you imagined long conversations or going shopping or going out for lunch dates, and again, your child could care less or this is just not something they’re comfortable with, and it’s not something that you get to do together. Maybe you assumed your child would understand or care about birthdays and holidays and they don’t and you miss this bonding experience with them.

Maybe you are mourning the fact that you will never attend a high school graduation or a college graduation or take prom pictures. All of this is a loss. And on top of all of this, I think one of the biggest things we lose as Autism parents is ease and certainty, the ease and certainty of believing your child will talk, they will potty train, they will make friends, they will learn fractions, they will get invited to parties, graduate and get a job.

Before Autism, we just assumed that our kids would do all sorts of things with usually minimal effort. And whether that was true or not, we had beliefs about all kinds of things without having proof that they would ever happen but this belief created feelings of ease and certainty for us. So before or without an Autism diagnosis, we would probably be less stressed, less hypervigilant and less likely to view every potty accident, tantrum or awkward friend interaction as evidence that we are not doing enough, our child is falling behind and that they are going to have a miserable future.

We just viewed all of this as a normal part of parenting and a normal part of our child being a child. That ease and certainty dissolves pretty quickly when your child receives a diagnosis of Autism, which is the very definition of uncertainty. We just don’t know at the age of two whether or not our child will ever speak, we don’t know. We don’t know whether or not we should be saving for a 529 plan or an able account.

We don’t know if they will be able to do the activities of daily living without substantial assistance, we just don’t know at that point. And this is all a loss. And a loss, just like a death needs to be grieved. That is because grieving is the gateway to acceptance, true acceptance. And true acceptance, radical acceptance goes beyond we have a diagnosis and an IEP, it goes beyond attending the Autism walks, wearing a ribbon or a puzzle piece or whatever it is this day. All of that is surface level acceptance.

Radical acceptance is much deeper work, but it can never happen if we are not allowing ourselves to grieve in the first place, if we are not allowing ourselves to acknowledge the loss to begin with. That is why it is so important to recognize that this diagnosis is a loss, if that’s true for you. I mean, if you were expecting to have a child with Autism and this was all part of the plan, then this doesn’t apply to you.

But if you were not fantasizing about early interventions, speech therapy and IEP meetings while you were pregnant then this probably does. So this is why it is important to check in with yourself and to be honest with yourself about what you are experiencing. So many of us disregard our own emotions. So many of us numb ourselves out to our own emotions so that we can take care of our kids or that we can avoid the real pain that we are experiencing.

And again, yes, you can do that. That is something that you can do, but it’s not a solution or a strategy that works, not for the long term. It will catch up with you and so that’s why I’m encouraging you to take a look at the thoughts and the feelings that you are having around the diagnosis. To do that, I’m going to give you a few questions to journal about.

First, what do you wish was different and why? Second, what did you imagine your parenting experience would be like and how is it different? Third, what did you imagine your child’s experience would be like and how is it different? What things did you imagine doing together that you either don’t do or it takes a lot or so much more effort than you ever imagined? Journal on these questions so that you can stop carrying this heaviness inside of your body, put it on paper and let it live outside of you.

And most importantly, remind yourself that there are no wrong thoughts or feelings. Sure, there are things that we think and feel that we might not announce on Instagram or our annual holiday card, but that does not make them wrong or you wrong for having them.

Alright, that is it for this week’s episode. Next week we are going to talk about grief myths and how they may be standing in your way of processing the emotions you are feeling and how dismantling those myths is a step towards acceptance of your own experience. In the meantime, if you are struggling to accept your child’s diagnosis, whether they are 2, 12 or 22, I can help you with that.

In my one-on-one coaching program, I provide clients with the space and tools they need to get out of pain and experience real joy in their lives even when they don’t look the way they had imagined. To book your complimentary consultation call for my program go to the show notes or my website under Work With Me. We will talk about your struggles and whether it makes sense for us to work together. Alright, I will talk to you next week. Have a great 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, theautismmomcoach.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.

You are listening to episode 77 of The Autism Mom Coach, Defining Success for Your Child With Autism.

The school year is right around the corner or has already begun, depending on where you live, and of course, depending on whether you have school age children. Nevertheless, with each new school year, challenge or opportunity that our kids face, whether they are 2, 12 or 23, the topic of success is one that is important for us to consider or really to reconsider. This is because, generally speaking, what we think about when we think of success, i.e. good grades, activities, friends, going to college and getting a job is based on the standards for people who are neurotypical.

So then when we look at our children and compare them to their peers, there are often gaps, socially, emotionally and developmentally. And this can be really difficult to see all of the work, all of the effort, and there are still gaps. These gaps exist not because our children are not working hard or because we have not done enough to support them. They exist because the standards that are out there don’t account for the differences that our children present.

That is why it is so important to decide what success means for your child on their terms. This does not mean that you don’t challenge your child or have high expectations for them. It means that you have appropriate expectations, given the fact that they are Autistic plus, because most of our children with Autism also have another comorbid diagnosis.

When we do this, when we measure success by appropriate standards, standards tailored to our children, we can celebrate our kids’ accomplishments and foster in them a sense of self-confidence. So that they continue to work towards their goals from a sense of being capable versus being behind. And we get to enjoy and celebrate our children for who they are and not who we think they should be based on standards that are not inclusive of who they are.

That’s why for this week’s episode, as school approaches or maybe it’s already begun, I want to do a replay of an MVP podcast episode that I did around this time last year. In this episode, I talk in detail about defining success for your child with Autism in a way that feels good to you and is supportive of them.

Now, listen, none of this is easy, we all know that. And I have firsthand experience with working really hard to support my child and seeing him work so hard, but still there are gaps between him and his peers. And as he’s gotten older, those gaps have gotten bigger and that is really painful. If this is something that you are struggling with personally, I can help you with this. I understand the struggle and I also know how I can help you because I have helped myself through very similar situations.

So take a listen to this episode and if you are like, “Yes, but still I need some help, I’m not feeling great”, schedule a complimentary consultation for my one-on-one coaching program. During the consultation, we’ll talk about what you’re struggling with and whether it makes sense for the two of us to work together. Alright with that, enjoy the episode.

Welcome to The Autism Mom Coach podcast, I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with Autism and other comorbid diagnoses. I know what it is like to wonder if you are doing enough or the right things for your child and to live in fear of their future.

I also know that constantly fueling yourself with fear and anxiety is not sustainable for you or of any benefit to your child. That is why in this podcast I will share practical strategies and tools you can use to shift from a chronic state of fight, flight to some calm and ease. You are your child’s greatest resource, let’s take care of you.

Okay, onto today’s topic, defining success for neurodivergent children. I want to shine a light on how our beliefs about what success is, drives so much of the fear, anxiety and sadness of parenting a special needs child. This is because generally speaking our views of academic, social and emotional success for our school age children are based on standards, modeled on neurotypical children and imposed on everyone else.

And look, I am not saying that these standards are serving neurotypical children, but they certainly are not serving our neurodivergent children because they don’t even account for them. Just think about the typical classroom rules. So, I pulled these from different classroom posters I found on Amazon, and teachers websites, and from a couple of school districts around the country. And here are some of the most common rules that I found.

First, follow directions the first time given. Okay, are you kidding me? Seriously, the first time, does that mean I can’t ask questions? What if I didn’t understand? What if the directions weren’t clear? Use indoor voices. Okay, what does this mean? My voice is the same inside and outside, please explain. Be courteous and respectful at all times. Okay, does this mean looking people in the eye? Because that’s going to be a problem. Or does this mean that I can’t hold my ears when my classmate with the squeaky voice is talking? Because again, a problem.

Four. Actively participate in class discussions. By actively do you mean running around the classroom? Probably not. Five. Stay seated during classroom activities and events. Okay, no, that’s just not happening.

These are pretty daunting standards for most children but nearly impossible for neurodivergent kids. Neurodivergent children measured by these standards are not being set up for success. They are being set up for judgment. And here is the thing, these standards modeled on neurotypical people are everywhere, classroom rules, school curriculum, testing, there is virtually no area of our children’s lives where they are not being compared against a standard that does not account for their uniqueness. Again, standards that see their uniqueness as a problem.

As long as we are participating in the society we really can’t get away from these standards. But that said, we don’t have to adopt them as our personal standards of success. Now, this is so much easier said than done because we have been breathing this air for a long time. But I do think that there is so much benefit to challenging these standards of success and creating our own because when we don’t, here’s what I see happening. First, we see our children’s differences as problems to be solved.

There is a standard of what ‘normal’ kids should be doing and our kids aren’t doing it. So, time to get to work and make them as normal as possible. Again, whenever I say normal, imagine it in quotes, and what normal means I mean it’s really anyone’s guess. Now, no judgment here. Being normal essentially means being safe, to the primitive our brains and our nervous systems who just want to keep us safe and protect our young, being just like everyone else is safety. Of course, we want to feel safe.

Of course, we want our children to be safe. But just ask yourself, what is more dangerous to your child, being different or believing that there is a problem, being different or believing that there is something wrong with them because they are different?

The second thing I see happening is we don’t see our children. When we are hyper aware of all the things that make our kids not like the others and hyper focused on their deficits we are not able to see them, who they are. We only see what we believe is wrong with them. And because of this we really are missing out.

Third, When we are not defining success for ourselves we don’t really celebrate the small stuff. And for our kids the small stuff is actually the huge stuff. So, for example, your child is five years old and they are finally potty trained, woohoo, so exciting. And while you are thrilled by this and you are excited, you kind of temper your excitement with, well, I mean they should have been potty trained by the time they were two. I mean, five years old, that’s way too old.

Or let’s just say your eight year old finally knows how to recite their ABCs and again you’re super proud and you really are excited for them but you remind yourself, well, I mean he is eight years old after all, he should have learned this when he was in kindergarten. So, you see what I’m saying here. You’re excited but not really. You’re excited but then you’re still comparing it to the model of what you think it should have been, instead of just believing that this is an amazing success, period.

So, these are just some of the consequences that I see of not defining success for ourselves. We suffer, our relationships with our kids suffer and our relationships with ourselves suffer. But here’s the good news, you do get to decide what success means for you even if no one agrees with you. You get to decide that your child is a raving success even if they never meet an IEP goal, even if they never play a sport, even if they never step foot into an integrated classroom.

To do so though you need to challenge your own mental rigidity and all or nothing thinking about what it means to be a success. But to do this we need to challenge our own mental rigidity and all or nothing thinking about what it means to be a success. We need to challenge the standards that we have been force fed all of our lives to do this. But when we do this we can focus on our children’s strengths and potential instead of counting their deficits and constantly trying to catch up.

And when we do this we get to see our children for who they are and not who we think they should be. Here is what I challenge you to do. Finish the following sentence, my child is successful because. And then put your brain to work on finding evidence of your child’s success. You can do this by asking yourself questions like, how is my child strong? How are they resourceful? How are they hardworking? How are they loving and kind? Why is my child the hardest working person I know?

What are some examples of my child displaying their genius in a way that is not capable of testing or standards? What are some examples of my child displaying genius in a way that is not capable of being captured by any standardized test? And then finally, every day challenge yourself to spot a success, any success, big or small.

Maybe success is getting on a school bus with a new busy driver. Maybe it is wearing headphones in a crowded lunch room. Maybe it is trying to play a sport at lunchtime. Maybe it is communicating a want or a need. Maybe it is rebounding from a setback or a disappointment. Put your brain to work on spotting success. We are so good at spotting deficits because really that’s what we’ve been trained to do and there’s no judgment there. But you can put your brain to work on spotting success and I promise you, you will find them.

And you can make this visual for yourself and your child by creating a success jar. This is just a clear jar or a container where you can add a note each day as an example of their success. This will help you remember especially on the hard days that there is always light. And you can also use it as a tool to foster self-confidence in your child by encouraging them to add their own examples of their own success.

Okay, that’s it for this episode but before I go I want to remind you, the school year is fast approaching and now is the perfect time to have a coach. So, if you are interested in learning how you can transform your relationship with Autism, with your child and with yourself, I encourage you, schedule a one-on-one consultation with me and let’s see if coaching is the right fit for you. Now is the perfect time as we begin the new school year to step out on a completely different foot.

So, you can do that on my website, theautismmomcoach.com. If you have any questions for me you can email me at lisa@theautismmomcoach.com. Thank you so much for listening and 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, theautismmomcoach.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.

You are listening to episode 76 of The Autism Mom Coach, Tantrums Versus Meltdowns.

Welcome to The Autism Mom Coach podcast, I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with Autism and other comorbid diagnoses. I know what it is like to wonder if you are doing enough or the right things for your child and to live in fear of their future.

I also know that constantly fueling yourself with fear and anxiety is not sustainable for you or of any benefit to your child. That is why in this podcast I will share practical strategies and tools you can use to shift from a chronic state of fight, flight to some calm and ease. You are your child’s greatest resource, let’s take care of you.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I hope you are doing well and I hope you enjoyed last week’s episode, the three big meltdown mistakes and solutions. As I was taking a look at my roster of podcast episodes, it occurred to me that I had not yet done what the difference is between a tantrum versus a meltdown. So I thought that now would be a perfect time to do that because I don’t want to assume that all of you know the difference.

And I also assume that at some point, if not now, later, a person who is new to this journey of Autism is going to find this podcast and that this information will be important to them. So whether or not you are familiar with this information or not, take a listen and share the episode with someone in your life who you think might benefit from it. It could be another mom of a child with Autism or maybe it’s from somebody else in your life like a family member or a friend who might not understand your child’s behaviors and you want to share with them a little bit more information. This podcast will be perfect for that.

Alright, let’s start this conversation by talking about the similarities between tantrums and meltdowns because there are similarities. Like I said, to the untrained or inexperienced eye, they look very much the same. First, they usually involve children, small children. They are generally loud and disruptive, they involve crying, screaming, kicking, pushing. And of course the classic example of a child who is tantruming or melting down, flailing about on the ground but these similarities are pretty much it.

These things might look alike, but they are so different, nevertheless, when things look similar, we tend to think about them the same way. We use mental shortcuts in our brain to put things into categories so that we can quickly assess them and understand how to respond and we all do this. For instance, you see your neighbor walking a four legged animal on a leash and most of us would think dog and usually it is, but not always.

But then imagine every time you were on the walking trail, or just taking a walk, you see a four legged animal trotting alongside a human and you have to determine from scratch what the heck it is. That would take a lot of mental energy. And since our brains detest expending energy unnecessarily, it creates shortcuts. So if it looks like a dog, if it walks like a dog, then we conclude it is a dog. As useful as mental shortcuts can be, they can also create a lot of misunderstandings and suffering.

And I think the distinction between tantrums and meltdowns is one of those areas, it looks like a tantrum, it sounds like a tantrum, that does not mean it’s a tantrum. However, so many of us were socialized to associate screaming, yelling, uncooperative kid with bad kid or bad parent or both. And for every parent who has ever had the experience of their child acting out, whether a tantrum or a meltdown in front of other people, you have likely had that thought or that fear that other people are judging you.

And this is because you know the mental shortcut, you know that when you see a yelling, screaming kid, it signals in your brain that this is possibly a brat or a bad parent. You have probably used or heard other people using this shortcut and now you fear it’s being applied to you. I say all of this to normalize the experience for you and also to normalize the folks in our lives who don’t get it, how could they? If you’re not living in this world and you see something that looks like a duck and walks like a duck and talks like a duck, you’re going to conclude it’s a duck.

And the same thing is true with the distinction between tantrums and meltdowns. However, like I said, there are differences and I want you to know this for your own edification and how to think about and how to respond to the behaviors. But also as you’re kind of an ambassador at this point, if you’re a parent of a child with Autism, you are a representative. And that does not mean that you need to educate the general public every time you go out, but there will be times, there will be people that you will want to share this information with and so here we go, let’s talk about the differences.

First, purpose. Tantrums, generally speaking, are goal oriented. The goal might be candy at the checkout aisle, more screen time or avoiding a task like chores. During a tantrum a child is acting out for a particular reason and they have some control over it. They might even stop long enough just to make sure that you are watching them because tantrums, since they are goal oriented, require an audience.

I remember my sister had a tantrum every night after dinner, well, not every night, just the nights it was her turn to do the dishes. Sometimes I was so sick of listening to her that I would offer to do them for her, just so she would shut up and then miraculously the tears would disappear. This does not happen with a meltdown. Meltdowns are not goal oriented in the way that a tantrum is. Meltdowns stem from sensory overload or emotional overwhelm.

The triggers could be changes in routine, something they perceive as unexpected, sensory sensitivities or difficulties in communication, both in saying what’s going on and even in understanding what’s going on in the first place in order to communicate it. I would also add the stress of masking over a long period of time.

Take our children who are at school or program all day, they’re trying to keep it together so much and then they lose it the moment they walk in the door. This isn’t a tantrum. It’s not goal oriented in the sense that they want something, it’s that they are completely flooded and overwhelmed. So again, we aren’t talking about calculated crying. We aren’t talking about a child who is going for an Oscar. We are talking about a full out fight or flight stress response that has been activated.

A kid who is melting down often appears to be out of control because they are. They again are in a full out stress response and their rational thinking is offline, they are just reacting and reacting.

The second difference between tantrums and meltdowns has to do with age. Tantrums are a normal part of childhood development and we expect to see tantrums from toddlers and kids in their early years of elementary school. But as they develop and become more capable of expressing themselves with language and more attuned to social norms and expectations, they usually have fewer tantrums. Autism meltdowns, on the other hand, have no age limit.

I remember explaining this to my therapist, who looked at me very quizzically when I told her about my 14 year old having a meltdown in public. She found it quite surprising that a 14 year old would do this especially in front of their friends. But unlike a neurotypical child, our kids usually don’t care much about who is around or watching. Again, they’re kind of out of their minds at that point, there is no rational thinking.

They are not assessing the audience and making calculations about how the behavior might impact them in the future. In fact, most of them don’t really even have that capability to begin with. This is all to say, Autism meltdowns do not have an age limit. So again a big difference with tantrums.

And another thing that makes it really confusing, because we interpret the behavior. And when we see the behavior coming out of somebody who is 10, 15, 20, 25 plus years old, we interpret that behavior very differently than we do it coming out of a five or a six year old, that’s both for us and for other people. For instance, I get much more triggered by my son’s behaviors now that he’s older and bigger and stronger than I did when he was younger. I perceive them differently in my nervous system.

And the same thing is going to go for other people, hearing a blood curdling scream from a 15 year old and him yelling and screaming, people will react to that a lot differently than a five year old and so that’s one of the reasons. And I know that people differ on this about how much they share about their child’s disability with other people.

I have always taken the approach of more is better because I want to educate people on why we might just leave a party and not say goodbye. Because sometimes my son is too flooded and yes, he’s 15, yes, you think that he should be able to handle it, but the fact is sometimes he can’t. And so having people understand that is a benefit but sometimes they don’t and we still have to make the decisions that we make.

Alright, the third difference between tantrums and meltdowns, intensity and duration. Now, of course, tantrums can be intense, but the intensity is usually short lived and sometimes they go as quickly as they come like a passing lightning storm. The child gets what she wants or he realizes that his behaviors aren’t working and they fade down to a whimper. Autism meltdowns are intense and they can be long lasting.

I will never forget my son’s meltdown about Minecraft, it lasted for two or three hours because he was playing Minecraft and he lost his pigs and his house burned down because apparently he had it in survival mode, not creative. And he lost all of his work, apparently, and he was just beside himself for hours, screaming, inconsolable. It just did not matter what I said to him, how I tried to help, he was out of it.

So much so, he was so triggered by this, it was so emotionally overwhelming for him that the next day when his one-on-one aide asked him if he had played Minecraft the night before, before reading the note from me in his communication book, of course. He asked my son and my son exploded again, he was inconsolable again a day later. So meltdowns can be intense and they do not come and go in five minutes, sometimes they do, but that’s not all the time.

The fourth difference, resolution. I already touched on this, but tantrums usually end once the person gets what they want or they don’t see a benefit in continuing, meltdowns on the other hand, do not. And I find this so frustrating. You can make all the promises, you can give in to whatever you think your child wants and they will still be melting down. This is because in so many cases, the child doesn’t even know what he or she wants or have the ability to communicate it or express it when they are in this fight, flight response.

And this goes for verbal children too. I can tell you from my experiences with my son who is very verbal that when he is overwhelmed, when he is flooded, communication basically just shuts off. He is just reacting, he’s just screaming, he’s just yelling. He can’t even gather his thoughts for a second to really express what’s going on so I can understand it.

And the fifth way the tantrums and meltdowns are different is in response. Now, I think this is the biggest or really one of the most important differences to understand. You do not respond to a tantrum and a meltdown in the same way, well, you can try, but it’ll probably backfire. So all of that great advice that we get from the parents or the onlookers about you shouldn’t give them his way or you should take away the iPad or you should do this or you should do that. That’s from people who do not get it.

So for tantrums we usually employ the traditional disciplines. You ignore it or you tell the child if you keep doing it, then there will be a punishment or there’s an immediate punishment. Now, this most of the time works for a tantrum and there have been times where my son is in the very beginning parts of a tantrum where I’ve been able to cut it off at the pass and he was able to redirect and there wasn’t a meltdown.

Now, sometimes tantrums, if they go on too long for any kid, especially our kids, pretty quickly will turn into a meltdown. And once this happens, the if you do this then I will do that types of punishments for my son at least have backfired. Because when he’s losing it, when he’s yelling and crying that he lost his game, me telling him that, “If you don’t stop, I’m going to take the game away”, would just send him through the roof. It would make it worse. It would really be like throwing gasoline on a fire.

And this is the important part to remember because again, we’re seeing the behaviors and we’re reacting to the behaviors, but mostly with our unconscious thinking. And no matter how educated any of us are about Autism, there are parts of us and maybe bigger for some than others that are like, he should just be listening to me. He shouldn’t be doing this. This is bullshit, he’s doing this on purpose. All of those thoughts come up. Totally natural.

But when those thoughts come up during a meltdown and we start responding to our children from those thoughts, we are most likely going to respond in a way that escalates the meltdown. So just remember, a meltdown is not a teachable moment. Instead of threats or consequences, the response to an Autism meltdown must focus on safety first and then moving the child into an environment with less stimuli. This could be leaving the birthday party early. Done that a bunch. Going into a quiet room, lights off to decompress. It could mean tight squeezes or hugs or earphones.

It all really depends on your child and the situation but the idea here is not to lecture or make an example in front of your friends that you do discipline your child. It is to respond to the overwhelm that they are experiencing with as much calm as you can so that you can help them regulate. The teachable moment is not for now, it’s for later once everyone is regulated.

Now, the things that you do to try to downregulate your child during a meltdown might look like taking it easy on them to the outside world. It might look like you’re letting them get away with it. It might look that way to people who don’t know but you do know. And right now, during a meltdown your job is not to educate the general public on Autism or to defend yourself, it is to keep you and your child safe. And the way that you do that is really just focusing on, how can I help them regulate themselves?

And for you, in order for you to do this, it’s really tuning out all of the other noise about what other people will think, because that will make it harder for you to stay regulated and then regulate them. And that’s why so many of us during a meltdown know that the tantrum advice, the old school advice of all of the things that we should do. It doesn’t work.

And so I want you to focus on what you do know that works, what works for you and do that. Because you do know the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum and you know that your child isn’t doing this because they’re a bad kid. They are flooded and you want to be able to respond to them from that perspective.

Alright now, that is the difference between tantrums and meltdowns. I am sure there are some I missed but I think that those are the big ones. Now, if you are struggling to manage your emotions when your kid is melting down or if you are adding fuel to the fire during their meltdown or struggling to take your child out in public because you fear what other people will think or you’re struggling in your relationships with family members or friends who don’t get it. All of these are topics that I help my clients with in my one-on-one coaching program.

So if these are areas that you are struggling in and that you want some support in, I can help you. To learn more, book your complimentary consultation for my one-on-one program. You can do this in the show notes or on my website theautismmomcoach.com/workwithme. Alright. 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, theautismmomcoach.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.

You are listening to episode 75 of The Autism Mom Coach, Meltdown Mistakes & Solutions.

In this episode of the podcast I am going to share with you the three biggest mistakes I see during meltdowns, both personally and in my clients and what you can do to reduce these mistakes or stop them altogether. Stay tuned.

Welcome to The Autism Mom Coach podcast, I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with Autism and other comorbid diagnoses. I know what it is like to wonder if you are doing enough or the right things for your child and to live in fear of their future.

I also know that constantly fueling yourself with fear and anxiety is not sustainable for you or of any benefit to your child. That is why in this podcast I will share practical strategies and tools you can use to shift from a chronic state of fight, flight to some calm and ease. You are your child’s greatest resource, let’s take care of you.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am so glad you are here and I’m so glad to be here with you. I can’t believe it’s August already. I hope all of you have been enjoying the summer and finding ways to keep your kiddos occupied and finding some time for yourself as well. And of course, I hope that the meltdowns this summer both for you and your child, have been low. But if that is not the case or you anticipate that meltdowns might be making a comeback as we move from summer into the school year, listen up.

I’m going to share with you the three biggest mistakes I see during meltdowns and what you can start to do now to either stop these altogether or at least reduce them. Remember, we’re never going for perfect here, never, ever, it’s just not possible. But whatever you can do to make this easier on yourself, whatever you can do to stop making it harder on yourself, that’s what we want to do. And there’s a lot of things that you can do, so that’s good news.

Alright, the number one mistake during a meltdown that I see parents making, myself included, is resisting it. This should not be happening, not again, why me? Whether, it’s he should understand that we need to go, I gave him the three minute warning or I should not have to have a battle royale with my daughter just to get her out of the bathtub. All of these thoughts about the meltdown, about your kid or about yourself, they are creating resistance to the fact that in this moment your child is melting down.

The more you resist it, the more suffering and the more stress you create for yourself. And then guess what happens when you are jacking up your stress levels during a meltdown by resisting it? Well, you are much more likely to melt down yourself either internally or externally and this is not helpful.

So the antidote to resistance is dropping into what is happening right now, dropping your resistance, dropping your agenda for how you think it should or should not be and letting yourself accept right now it’s like this. Because when you do that, when you drop the resistance, first you stop jacking up your stress levels, which is always good. And then you’re able to turn on that rational brain that we all have and ask yourself, and now what? Because meltdown’s happening, the only thing we need to figure out now is what’s the next right decision? And that decision is never, ever resisting the meltdown.

Mistake number two, talking too much. Now, this is one I am definitely guilty of. My son’s melting down and all of a sudden I decide to become hyper verbal with him. I do not recommend this because the more we talk, the more instructions we give, even the more alternatives that we provide. You want your iPad, but you can’t have your iPad. How about your coloring book? And it’s, yeah, iPad or coloring book. Now, if that works, great. If the distraction works, wonderful.

But what I have seen is that the distraction doesn’t work and instead we’re saying, “Well, this is the reason you can’t have the iPad. I already told you about this, I already gave you the warning.” And the more we talk, the more we talk, the more we talk, the more jacked up they get and also the more jacked up we get. We are increasing our stress and their stress. So less talking, less talking to them, instead, you want to give your child very short brief sentences that they can understand. We are leaving now. Things like that, you want to keep it simple.

And you want to watch the tone of your voice because your voice will communicate message before your words register in their brain. They’re going to get the meaning of your message by the way you’re talking to them. So if you’re able to drop into a low, more prosodic voice and give them clear instructions, their nervous system is going to receive it differently than if you were speaking like this. That tone communicates your annoyance with them and what happens? They get more annoyed with you and the fire keeps burning.

We want to stop throwing embers on this fire so that it can cool down. And one of the ways that you can do that is by talking less to them. Now, if you want to talk to somebody while this is all happening, talk to yourself, use your internal voice to self-soothe yourself. We are safe. It is okay. I can get through this, whatever it is. The way that you talk to yourself, the voice that you use when you talk to yourself can have a soothing impact on your nervous system and that’s what we need right now because they’re already bonkers, we don’t need to be bonkers too.

So talk less to them, talk more to yourself. And when you’re talking, be aware of your tone, be aware of your voice, be aware of the message that it is sending.

And the third mistake that we all make during a meltdown is catastrophizing. And within catastrophizing I want to count the all or nothing thinking, the future tripping, all of it. All of that noise that goes on between our ears, that is creating more stress for us. So thoughts like, I’ll never be able to go to a restaurant again. He never listens. If she is doing this now what is she going to be like when she’s five or 10 or 15?

And oh, my God, other people are judging us, they are seeing this, they think I’m a bad parent. We’re never going to have friends. We’re never going to get invited back, all of this. Now, I am not saying that you never think about how to manage your child’s behaviors and the impact that those behaviors have out in public or just their general ability to function in society.

What I am saying is that right now in this moment that is not the time to do it. I promise you, this will only make it worse for you and for your kid because you will start panicking and overreacting and co-escalating with them. Now, a meltdown that could have been done in 20 minutes is lasting much longer, both in reality and in your head, because you carry it with you for the rest of the day, if not longer.

So the antidote to catastrophizing during a meltdown is that you need to make it your job not to indulge in these thoughts because you will have them, these thoughts will pop up. Your job is to notice them like a cloud floating by and not attach to them. Let them pass because if you attach to them, if you focus on them, you are throwing flames on the fire. You’re getting more stressed out and that’s not helpful to you or your child.

So instead of catastrophizing, the all or nothing thinking, the future tripping focus on the here and now. Redirect your brain to what is happening right now and what is the next right decision for you and your child in this moment.

Alright, that’s it for the big three. Now, all of these mistakes are common and these solutions are super simple, but none of them are easy. It takes a lot of conscious effort and practice to shift from reacting to responding, especially during a meltdown, but it is possible. Even when your kid is going bonkers, we all have the ability to lower the temperature both for ourselves and our child. If this is something that you struggle with, I can help you. Meltdowns are my jam and in my one-on-one coaching program this is exactly what I teach my clients to do.

I teach them how to keep their cool even when their child is losing it by teaching them the practical tools and strategies tailored to their real lives. And so I’m not going to tell you what to do with your child, you probably actually know. I’m going to tell you the how, how you can show up in a way that is supportive to you and your child so that when they are melting down, you’re not joining them.

To book your complementary consultation for my one-on-one program, you can do that in the show notes or you can go to my website theautismmomcoach.com and click Work With Me. Alright, that is it for this episode. 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, theautismmomcoach.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.

You are listening to episode 74 of The Autism Mom Coach, Powerful Questions.

In this week’s episode I am bringing you a most valuable podcast episode. This was episode 20, Powerful Questions. And in this episode I talk to you about how we so often are asking ourselves negative questions. And we just do this by default. This is what our brains do. They feed us negative thoughts, we have a negativity bias. And this comes out all of the time in the questions we ask ourselves. We ask ourselves dead end questions like, why me? Why my child? Why is everything so hard? Why can’t I catch a break? You get the idea.

And when we do this we set our brain on the path of thinking of all of this negativity. We are the victim of our circumstances, life is happening to us. And this is really disempowering. When we are asking ourselves these questions, what we are really doing is, we are resisting reality. We are pushing against what is. And for those of you who are familiar with Byron Katie you know what she says about this, “When I argue with reality I lose but only 100% of the time.” And that’s what happens when we’re asking ourselves negative questions like why me, why my child or even things like, why doesn’t he understand this? Or why isn’t he listening to me?

All of those questions are arguing with reality and they’re not helping us move forward. And so that’s why I want to talk to you about powerful questions. And in this episode I give you an example of five of the powerful questions that I ask myself when I find myself going towards the negative, which happens. And that really is the point. You have to work at this. You have to notice that you’re doing it and you have to make the decision to redirect your brain.

So in this episode you’re going to get five examples of powerful questions. And when I was relistening to this, realized that I didn’t put in my most powerful question that ask myself and that is the ultimate question that is the opposite of resisting reality, totally embracing it is, and now what? This is what’s happening and now what? That question puts my brain on the path of finding answers, of tapping into my resilience, of tapping into my resourcefulness because the fact is, it’s happening and I have a choice and so do you.

You have the choice to stay stuck in the misery of wishing it weren’t so or and now what, what am I going to do about this? So with that, here is the episode about powerful questions. I hope that you find this helpful and I hope that you implement it. That is the key. Listening to the podcast episode is great but actually implementing the work is what will move you forward. Alright, enjoy.

Welcome to The Autism Mom Coach podcast, I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with Autism and other comorbid diagnoses. I know what it is like to wonder if you are doing enough or the right things for your child and to live in fear of their future.

I also know that constantly fueling yourself with fear and anxiety is not sustainable for you or of any benefit to your child. That is why in this podcast I will share practical strategies and tools you can use to shift from a chronic state of fight, flight to some calm and ease. You are your child’s greatest resource, let’s take care of you.

In this week’s episode I am going to teach you one of my favorite strategies for getting out of my own way. I use this strategy when I feel stuck and I find myself arguing for my limitations instead of for my potential. The tool is called powerful questions. It is a brain based strategy to shift from limiting beliefs to possibility.

The best way to define powerful questions is to contrast them with the questions we usually ask ourselves, the dead end questions like, am I doing enough? Am I doing the right things? Why me? Why my child? Why is my life so hard? These are dead end questions. These questions assume something is wrong with us or the world and they put us in a place of victim, life is happening to us.

These questions are dead end because they’re not really questions at all. They are more like a limiting belief with a question mark at the end. By contrast, powerful questions are open minded. They are thought provoking. They open up space for inquiry and discovery. And here is the best part. Our brains do not like open loops. So powerful questions are a way of directing our brains to find answers to move us forward. Here are some examples of powerful questions.

What can I learn from this? Who better than me? What if this is not a problem? How can I support myself in this moment? If I wasn’t taking this personally what would I do? These are the questions I ask myself all of the time and I want to show you how I use them.

So, the first question. Who better than me? This is a great question to ask yourself when you find yourself in victim mentality, when you’re thinking things like my life is so hard, or why is this happening to me, or why is this happening in my life. This question really pumps me up because when I think about it, when I really think about this question and the answer to the question it’s like who better than me is right?

I mean Autism or more specifically being a parent of a child with Autism has changed my life, yes. But in reality it has made me more of who I am. I am an advocate. I am a teacher. I am a collaborator. I am a connector. I am resilient. And I am resourceful. This is who I am. So, who better than me to guide my son on his journey? Who better than me to speak up for him? Who better than me to challenge the experts? No one, that’s the answer, no one. In other words, this question for me lets me reclaim my power. It helps me shift from why me victim to hell yeah, yes me.

Question number two. What can I do in this moment to support myself? We spend so much time and energy trying to support our children while completely neglecting ourselves. This question is designed as a reminder to stop and look inward. You are a big part of this equation. It matters how you are feeling. So, ask yourself, in this moment what can I do to support myself? Can I take a walk? Can I walk away? Can I turn off the catastrophizing soundtrack?

By regularly asking myself this question and turning inward it has helped me to begin to build the muscle of attending to my own needs. And this has been really helpful in terms of my reactivity to my son. It has helped me slow down, it has helped me stop before I react, not every time but it has helped.

Question number three. What else could be true? So, remember from the quote from Byron Katie, we are either believing our thoughts or we are questioning them. We believe our thoughts. So, this question is inviting you to explore other possibilities. Could something else be true? Could the opposite of whatever it is you are believing, could that be just as true? For example, my client had a disagreement with her husband when he told her that she did not need to hover over her 12 year old as he played with the neighbors.

In her mind she did have to hover. She had to keep a close eye on him. He could get mad. He could yell at the other kids. He could get into a fight. She was so focused on her worse case scenario thoughts that she did not even consider the fact that he might not have an issue at all. And that if he did he and the other kids could resolve it without her.

This was not even available in her brain which by the way this is exactly what happened because while she was arguing with her husband or having a disagreement with her husband she was not outside watching her child. And he did get upset when he was tagged first in a game and he yelled. And it was no big deal, the kids just went about their business as kids do and nothing else happened. The point here is to notice when you are holding on tightly to a thought and gently ask yourself, what are the other possibilities.

I think you will start to find that the more you open yourself up to other possibilities or at least the possibility that not everything will be a worst case scenario shit show, the more that will become your reality.

Question number four. Am I taking this personally? This is a big one for me because I will be honest, I take my son’s behaviors personally. And I have a lot of justification for it because I believe my own boss. I am a single mother. I do everything for him. He should be more grateful and on and on. So anyhow, taking things personally is something that I do, I am aware of it. So, this is a question I’m always asking myself, am I taking this personally? And just to remember, I talked about this in episode two, why it’s an issue, why it’s a problem when we take things personally.

When we take things personally we make them personal. We make it about what kind of person our child is. He is ungrateful. We make it about us. They are doing this to me, or at me, or to spite me. And we make it about our parenting. We somehow find ways to blame ourselves for not doing enough, not being enough, you get the picture. When you ask yourself this question, am I taking it personally just do a quick scan for any judgmental thoughts that you are having about your child, yourself or your parenting.

If they pop up, chances are you are taking something personally, which leads nicely to question number five which is one of my favorites. If I was not taking this personally what would I think, how would I feel and what would I do? For this question I just try to imagine that I am unable to take behaviors personally. It’s just not even available to me. Kind of like in that movie Liar Liar where Jim Carrey could not lie for 24 hours, it was actually impossible, something like that. I am just magically unable to take things personally.

So, if that were the case how would that make things different for me. How would I show up differently? So, for example, if my son is late getting on the bus in the morning and it’s after I have told him to get out of bed over and over and he’s delaying, and delaying, and delaying. And if I’m not able to take it personally that he’s not listening to me, and I’m not able to make it personal that he’s disrespecting me, then what do I do?

Well, he’s a 14 year old boy so my actions in some ways might be the same. I’m still on him to get him out the door, make sure he has everything. But I’m not adding to it all of this judgment, all of this angst. I am showing up very differently when I’m not taking it personally. So, whenever you just find yourself in a situation where you’re feeling a bit annoyed by your child or something that they’re doing, just ask yourself, if I weren’t taking this personally, what would I do? Would I ignore it? Would I walk away? Would I redirect them but without the judgment?

Try this one out, this one can be a gamechanger because I think what you’ll find the more you do it is how much you are probably taking things personally and didn’t even realize it in the first place.

Okay, to sum up. Powerful questions are a way of shifting from limiting beliefs and directing your brain to find answers to move you forward. Here are the five questions that I introduced to you today. One, who better than me? Two, what can I do in this moment to support myself? Three, what else could be true? Four, am I taking this personally? And five, if I was not taking this personally, what would I think, how would I feel and what would I do? And these are just five examples of course.

And you can be as creative with this as you want. The point here is you are either believing your thoughts or you are questioning them. So, get to questioning them in a way that moves you forward.

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, theautismmomcoach.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.