How do you teach your community to see children beyond their disabilities while acknowledging the role those disabilities play in their lives? This episode promises to empower parents and communities with actionable strategies to foster friendships and build a supportive environment for children with special needs. We explore the nuances of language and perspective shifts that are essential for helping everyone recognize the strengths and limitations of children with diverse needs.
Personal stories and real-life examples breathe life into our discussion, revealing the profound impact of shared experiences and connections. From breaking down complex topics into manageable pieces to finding common ground through shared interests, we provide practical advice on nurturing inclusive relationships. Hear how a father's patience with mountain biking helped a child with autism find his tribe, underscoring the significance of supportive interactions and purposeful social activities.
Our episode also delves into the critical role of modeling positive behavior and effective communication. Discover how maintaining a calm demeanor and having a game plan can empower children to navigate social situations gracefully. We explore strategies for dealing with uncomfortable interactions and the potential impact on relationships, emphasizing the importance of grace, patience, and self-compassion. Join us as we strive to build a community where every child feels valued and included, demonstrating true, undying love in special needs parenting.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program is made possible by friends and partners
of the Special Parent Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I believe that empowering parents of special
needs children is like givingthem the superpower of
unconditional love andunbreakable determination.
They are not just parents, theyare true champions shaping a
bright future for theirincredible children.
I'm Dr Deanna Iverson and I'mglad you're here.
Have you ever wanted to helpneighbors, family and friends?
(00:35):
Welcome and embrace your familyand your special needs child?
This is part two of a series onhow can I help other children,
friends and family members befriends with my special needs
child.
Welcome to the Special ParentPodcast, and I am so glad that
you are here to join me today.
Last time, we talked about ourgoal as special needs parents is
(00:57):
to strengthen interactions withfriends and family for the
needs of ourselves and ourchildren.
Today, we're going to continuetalking about how we can
strengthen these interactionswith others in our life and in
our circle so that we and ourchildren also can build
friendships, strongrelationships and a community
(01:19):
that they can thrive on and thatcan help them throughout a
lifetime.
As humans, we all need thathelp.
We all need community.
We all need people to be aroundus and surround us.
We need those who havestrengths in areas that we do
not, and we have strengths thatwe can bring to a situation, and
we need a community thatrecognizes our strengths and
(01:40):
gives grace and helps with ourlimitations.
So today, as we continue thatdiscussion, we're gonna start to
talk about people are not theirdisability, and that includes
children.
A lot of times we catchourselves saying things such as
my child with, or my child whohas, or I have, and it's a label
(02:03):
.
Now there's nothing wrong withthat label.
That label and I have a wholepodcast on that already is
disarming that word disabilityand embracing the fact that
sometimes labels can be verygood for us.
So labels are not bad.
I'm not anti-label.
This is sometimes veryimportant.
It's important to get help.
It's important sometimes tohelp other people understand our
(02:25):
situation or to have adifferent perspective.
At the same time, it is onlyone part of who we are.
For example, we can sayso-and-so is a really great
football player or so-and-so ison the LA Lakers.
That is one part of who theyare.
(02:45):
That is not the totality of whothey are.
That is one skill set that theyhave.
That is not necessarily theirheart and their soul either.
So when we talk about things,we might say so-and-so is a
lawyer or so-and-so is aneducator.
These are aspects of who we are.
They are important labels.
They give some information.
(03:06):
Sometimes they lead to somevery wrong assumptions, and this
can happen with disabilitylabels too.
They give some information.
They definitely help when itcomes to medical appointments
and they sometimes help when itcomes to friendships.
They also can make or lead toit comes to friendships, they
also can make or lead to, Ishould say, some wrong
assumptions by others.
(03:27):
So I think it's very importantthat we, as parents of children
with special needs, that we getout there with our community,
our friends and our friends'children, and we teach them to
say, yes, my child has thisdisability, and and then we
continue the conversation.
This is what it means for them,these are the limitations,
(03:48):
these are the strengths, inaddition to this disability.
This is who my child is, andthat's what's important is, we
have to start changing thelanguage and the verbiage,
because no one else is going tochange it.
They don't walk it, they don'tknow it.
We have to start doing that.
So people are not theirdisability, but their disability
(04:09):
is part of who they are as ahuman, and I think it's
important for us, as specialneeds children, to recognize
things and when we get togetherwith other people and we start
talking about possibly thelimitations we need to normalize
the discussion of limitations.
Even in our friendships groupswe can say well, you know how,
you're not the best at that, soyou do this or that.
(04:30):
Maybe when you're playing gamestogether you say you know how
in Trivial Pursuit you're reallygood with the history facts,
but so-and-so is really goodwith the arts facts.
That's what makes us unique anddifferent.
And with my child's disability,they're not really good with
this, but they are really goodat this and that's how we're
going to normalize thediscussion of a disability is
(04:50):
just simply a unique abilitythat gives us different
challenges than people see inthe everyday world.
So, open those conversations,create that comfort level for
people, create a safe space forthem to talk to you.
And then you have to decide howmuch you're going to share and
we talked about that in thefirst episode that sometimes
some people are very receptiveand it helps them change and it
(05:13):
helps them mold and it helpsthem understand Other people.
It just creates more judgmentand sometimes you don't find
that out until you find that out.
But if you can create an openspace, most people are willing
to walk through it.
Disabilities can affectdifferent parts of different
people.
Physical disabilities aresometimes much more obvious, and
(05:36):
so people will see them andthey will make assumptions again
sometimes wrong assumptionsabout what a person's ability is
.
But there are physicalabilities, there are cognitive
disabilities, there are combinedcognitive and physical.
There's learning disabilities,which might be a little
different than cognitive.
There's disabilities that mightjust affect us more
(05:58):
behaviorally, and some of thesedisabilities might be caused by
childhood trauma.
As I, as a trauma therapist,understand, childhood trauma
does create the brain to wiredifferently and this can cause a
disability that the childwasn't born with.
It's not caused by genetics,but it's still a challenge that
this child now has, and theystill, in their heart of hearts,
(06:27):
want to be loved and acceptedand part of a community and
belong.
It's important to teach allchildren, all children,
especially children who arefound on that neurotypical
spectrum, especially them torecognize their own limits, to
recognize the need for living incommunity and the importance of
other people in their lives.
They do not have to be the oneto do everything.
Time with different types ofpeople with different abilities
(06:47):
will help them learn that, andthey will learn that from
watching you, wanting to spendtime with people, as well as the
conversations that people havewith those with disabilities,
those without disabilities,about how to interact.
So most welcomed questions whenthey know someone is sorry.
(07:07):
Most people welcome questionswhen they know that someone is
trying to understand them.
So how can we, as special needsparents, be more open and
welcome to questions?
Some of you have said this.
I've read this in books.
I'm reading right now theBecoming Brave Together book.
It's amazing.
But they talk parents.
Parents talk a lot about thejudgment that's felt from people
(07:34):
outside of this special needsworld and we as parents
sometimes are not open andwelcome to any communication
because we're expecting thatjudgment that sets us up for
failure as well as someone else.
We're not going to grow acommunity if we're that way.
Now there are times we need toprotect ourselves and shut down
(07:56):
and move away from those thatare critical, but there are
times that we need to embraceand be open and be willing to
walk through some of those hardconversations.
So how can we welcome questions?
First of all, when someone asksa question, we have to learn to
recognize if it hits anemotional ping in ourselves, if
it's going to hit us hard in anemotional place.
Let's be honest and be like wow, I'm really glad you asked me
(08:19):
that question.
I may not be ready to answer ityet.
That kind of hit me.
Can I have some time to respondto that?
Can I get back to you on thatplease?
It was a great question.
I just need some time to kindof filter, not necessarily what
to say, but how it made me feeland they might say I'm sorry, I
didn't mean to offend you andyou can be like I know, I know
(08:46):
and you know what.
That's why I need time, becauseI also don't want to answer in
offense, and so I think thatthat's an important thing.
Take a break if it hits you inkind of a wrong way, if you
really don't know the answer, ifthey ask a question about a
disability you don't know, oreven about your child's
disability, because maybe theyhad an interaction or read
something online and you're like, really I haven't heard that
before or no, we don't have thatexperience Be willing to say
let me look into that and I'd behappy to get back to you and
(09:08):
continue the conversation later.
That's also a good thingbecause, as much as we are
experts on our own children,just like doctors will call
themselves experts in theirfield.
They don't know everybody withevery case in their field and
there's always an outlier, anabnormality Whoa, where did that
come from?
And so it's okay for us tosometimes say, okay, yeah, my
(09:32):
child does have that disabilityand you read that from online,
or you had another friend whosechild had it and they had that
experience.
I haven't had that.
I'm going to look into it.
I'd love to talk to you aboutit later, but I'm not familiar,
so I'll get back to you.
So that's two ways.
We can kind of take some timefor ourselves as parents to get
back to people.
But the important thing is yougot to get back to them because
(09:53):
that keeps that opencommunication.
If they do ask a question thatyou're ready to answer, be
careful with how many feet youjump in with.
Sometimes we say, jump in withboth feet and we can really
overwhelm someone and thenthey're not even ready to
process it.
They don't live in this worldand for us all that information
(10:13):
was gained over maybe years oftime or months of research and
for us it's already just inthere and you just feel like you
can just spill it out.
Oh, let me tell you all thethings.
And for them it's already justin there and you just feel like
you can just spill it out.
Oh, let me tell you all thethings.
And for them, they can't takein all the things.
And so if they ask a reallygreat question and you've got
the really great answer,consider breaking that answer up
into pieces.
(10:34):
You know, I think one of themost important things to know is
and stick to that one point andreally go deep in that point
with them until all of a suddenyou notice you've lost their
attention.
Then maybe next time you guysget together, or even if you
think of something, send them atext message or an email.
Hey, I love that you asked methat question.
I wanted to give you anothernugget, or I wanted to expand on
(10:56):
that for you.
This is something else to thinkabout, or something I learned.
Love to talk about it with youif you have time next time.
So try not to give them thenovel all at once.
That's another way to remainopen to questions is you don't
make the other person feeloverwhelmed with your responses.
Plus, we're not trying to gainsympathy here, lord knows.
That's not what we want.
We want to have theserelationships, these friendships
(11:18):
and family members are placesfor us to feel safe too, so we
want to make sure that we'rekeeping that space safe for us
by not all of a sudden allowingit to be our dumping ground.
That's what that one specialfriend is for, all right, so
people are not their disability,but it is a part of them.
Disabilities can affectdifferent people in different
ways, so let's be open to thequestions.
(11:41):
Now focus on similarities.
This is kind of part two.
I talked about this in part oneof the podcast of this episode.
I wanted to re -circle backaround and talk about it again.
I wanted to revisit this.
We're talking about differencesthat are good and finding
similarities.
It can be as simple as you bothlove chicken nuggets and I say
(12:01):
chicken nuggets because my son,I think, talks about them every
day.
You both love chicken nuggets.
So maybe one of theinteractions we're going to say
is to the mom of the child,who's neurotypical, we're going
to say, hey, my son really wantsto be friends with you and he
loves chicken nuggets.
Does your kid love chickennuggets?
Oh, yeah, my kid loves chickennuggets.
Oh, this is great.
Why don't we do a chickennuggets day and we're going to
(12:25):
buy some frozen chicken nuggetsand maybe we're going to cook
them up and we're going to trydifferent dipping sauces.
And it could be as simple asyou're like I'm trying to get my
kid to explore differenttextures, or different this or
different that, or maybe we'regoing to have different types of
chicken nuggets and we're goingto and it's an exploratory
thing where they're doing itwith a friend, they're creating
a relationship, a fun experiencetogether, and maybe also then
(12:48):
it makes them feel morecomfortable to try that
different chicken nugget or thatdifferent dipping sauce.
So focus on those similaritiesfavorite foods, favorite
subjects, favorite things to do,hair colors hey, you both have
brown hair.
Hey, you both have blue eyes.
That's kind of unique becauseit's a recessive trait.
Let's talk about what thatmeans.
So you both have somethingunique and different about you
(13:10):
and that helps build that bondof we're all unique.
In some ways, commonalities makeit easier for children to
relate, same for adults.
But sometimes we forget to helpchildren find commonalities.
But sometimes we forget to helpchildren find commonalities.
So if we can be talking to ourfriends and our family and say,
hey, let's find ways that we canfind commonalities in our kids
(13:31):
so that way our kids can developempathy for each other and they
can encourage each other.
They can see the world frommultiple perspectives, and
that's just helping childrengrow that, because they don't
have that ability yet.
Multiple perspectives andthat's just helping children
grow that, because they don'thave that ability yet.
Children are selfish.
We know that.
We're parents, they're selfish.
We can help them grow.
They can grow that.
Let's see the world fromanother perspective.
(13:51):
Someone else's likes dislikes.
They might be trying dippingsauces I'm really stuck on
chicken nuggets today.
Maybe I'm hungry.
They can try different dippingsauces and one kid's like, oh, I
love the honey mustard and theother kid's like, oh, gross, I
only like ketchup or something.
So for my older son it took along time for him to find his
(14:12):
tribe and when he was a freshmanin high school we were camping
with some friends and one of theguys had a mountain bike and
Jaden was like, whoa, what's thehow's that different from a
regular bike?
And it was a dad who just saidwell, let me show you.
And my son who's?
You know, my older son hasautism and he it became this
(14:35):
tinkering thing for him becausemountain bikes are actually
quite, quite complicated.
They have all these movingparts and pieces and all this
stuff.
So then he wanted to ride amountain bike and it has now
grown into the fact that he ison the mountain biking team at
his school and that has becomehis tribe.
He has friends through that,he's part of a club at school
and until that experience with adad at the campground who just
(14:59):
was tinkering with his own bikeand open to saying to my son,
what would you like me to showyou about it?
And my son was like, well, yeah, and that dad was so patient I
talked about being patient.
A dad of a neurotypical childwas so patient with my son to
teach him every little detail.
And now my husband has embracedit and they mountain bike
together.
(15:19):
That's their thing and it hasactually helped my son with
sensory issues.
The idea of sweat was like, ohno, we don't like the way our
clothes cling to us.
Well, now, because he loves themountain biking and the getting
into the bike and all that,he's OK with it during that time
Not all the times, but it'samazing how, when someone can
(15:40):
just be open to showing someonesomething, and so that's
sometimes what we have to do iswe have to help other adults
learn how to just be open andsay well, just, will you take a
moment and just show them this,because it took extra patience
than it normally would have withanother kid.
Another thing is encourage thoseinteractions by having
(16:02):
conversations with parents,simply saying my son or my
daughter really would like to befriends with your child, and I
know that they may not be ableto hang out every day or be best
friends at school, but can wehave that chicken nugget party?
Can we go do ice cream?
Can we do a swimming thing atthe local pool?
When we find the commonalitiesand we encourage the
interactions, if we're veryconscious and very purposeful
(16:26):
about setting up interactions,it's going to help grow that
friendship circle and it willhelp teach other people to feel
more comfortable.
Setting up interactions thatare fun and appropriate for both
peers or family members, bysimply asking fun and
appropriate for both peers orfamily members, by simply asking
hey, how can we make this work?
And in part one I talked about,for example, birthday parties
(16:48):
or summer parties or whatever,and maybe your child is not
appropriate for the big party.
What do we do and I talkedabout that encouraging
interactions by saying you know,thank you so much for the
invite to your party wherethere's going to be, you know,
20, 30 people.
This is going to beoverwhelming, but my child
really likes to be friends withyour child.
Could we the next day, the nextwhatever you know, could we
(17:11):
come an hour before, an hourafter, whatever works for you
guys?
That's why I say ask thatparent, how can we make this
work?
And then maybe my child cancome over and do this specific
activity or whatever and stillfeel that inclusion.
So when we encourage thoseinteractions, we are teaching
others, both parent and child,and we are helping ourselves and
(17:32):
our children.
Encouraging open communicationby being willing to listen to
any questions that they ask,preparing yourself for questions
and the answers you may have togive.
That may hurt.
It might be more like a youknow, ptsd kind of thing, that
post-traumatic.
Okay, I got to talk about thisagain, something that you're
(17:53):
going to talk about again, thatmaybe it was a surgery they went
through.
My son had spinal surgery andthat's a situation that I talk
about.
But every time I do it justtakes that emotional piece of
energy for me.
You probably just heard it whenI mentioned it just now.
Sometimes there are experiencesthat are just not pleasant for
(18:13):
us to go through and they holdon to us and we have to be
willing to talk about them again.
So we have to prepare ourselves, we have to think about it, we
have to practice it.
Sometimes I practice mirrortalking.
It does feel awkward, don't getme wrong, but it does help.
So parents are usually willingto help make interactions
successful.
(18:34):
Other parents they really are,because they're looking for that
social fun connection too.
They don't know how and you maynot know how, but if you're
willing to work together and tobe open and to talk about those
situations, then you're going togrow together in this.
These extra efforts go a longway.
(18:54):
I have read about a parent whohelped some of the neighborhood
kids that were in the kids inthe classroom learn sign
language.
Her child was partially deafand so sometimes they, the other
children, would be going on inconversation and even though her
child could read lips and wasdoing pretty good, it was just
(19:14):
really hard to track, or on aplayground or something like
that.
So the school welcomed her inand the neighborhood group
welcomed her and she set forthand said I'm going to teach some
of the kids basic sign languagenot how to have full
conversation or anything likethat, but basic ways they can
communicate with my child whenthey want to get something done.
And then everybody was included.
Everybody learned a new skill.
(19:35):
It was awesome and they hadsuch a positive turnaround from
that Recognizing different cueswe may have to teach children
and parents.
Hey, if you see my child do this, for example, some tics are
heightened when a child getsstressed.
If you see them do this or youhear them say that, please come
(19:57):
get me right away, because thatmeans that they're stressed or
they're overwhelmed or they'reoverstimulated and it's probably
going to lead to them having abehavior or whatever it might be
, and I don't want to have themgo through that and I don't want
you to have to go through that.
So sometimes teaching them torecognize different cues can be
very helpful.
Learning how to play withdifferent rules.
(20:18):
Now we teach your kids all thetime.
Rules are important and I dobelieve they are important, but
not all rules fit all people inall situations.
So sometimes we have to sayit's okay to come up with some
different rules depending on whoyou're playing with.
So there are certain games, forexample, especially sports games
(20:38):
that require more physicalactivity, that might benefit
from some different rules whenwe're playing with children with
disabilities, and I gave thegreat example in the first
episode of this series about myolder son inviting my middle son
, with special needs, to comeplay with his friends and play
baseball, and he basically setup with his friends.
(20:58):
What that was going to looklike Feeling accepted and
involved might mean findingspecial needs community.
For example, we have a littleleague in our area that has a
special needs group and whatthey do is there's only two
teams because there's not a lotof kids that join it.
They play baseball and theyinvite local high school teams
(21:20):
or other little league teams tocome and play with the special
needs team and then, before thegame, the coaches sit down with
the other team and they explainhow you're going to play
differently, how the rules aregoing to be different.
It's not about letting the otherteam win, it's about having fun
in the game, and there aresometimes people that go that we
can't always let other peoplewin, and then I always argue
(21:42):
back.
You know there are a lot ofareas in their life that they
struggle that you don't knowabout.
Maybe this is an opportunityfor them to win when they don't
have it otherwise.
So it's okay sometimes to tellthe little league team hey,
you're going to play and havefun, they're going to score most
of the points and you're goingto show them how to be a
graceful winner and a gracefulloser, and we're going to walk
(22:06):
this path together.
And that is one of the goals,and that is not only to have the
children with disabilities onthis little league team.
Not only have the children withdisabilities have the
opportunity to play a game, it'salso an opportunity to teach
multiple other teams an amazingsocial skill.
They wouldn't have theopportunity to do otherwise and
give them a chance to just playtogether with the kids that have
(22:26):
unique needs, and they reallydo have a good time.
We've never had a badexperience, in fact, usually we
have teams that ask if they cancome back the next season and
then their parent group getstogether and like spoils the
Dickens out of the Little Leagueteam, the special needs team.
So it's it's super, super sweet.
Um, sometimes our autism kidsare very rigid about rules, very
(22:48):
, very rigid, and so it's reallyhard for them to learn to play
with different rules.
Um, for example, my oldest sonhas autism and, especially when
he was younger, he's very, veryrule focused.
Rule focused because, you know,a follows B and or, I'm sorry B
follows A.
I know my alphabet, I promise,and he just didn't.
He didn't want to deviate fromthese rules that either he had
(23:10):
set up or the game had set up,even if it was better for other
people playing.
That took us a long time becausewe were dealing with one child
that had some uniquedisabilities and another child
that had autism and had someunique abilities and their needs
did not necessarily go together.
They clashed.
Well, they're siblings, so wehad to learn to navigate that
clash.
(23:30):
Sometimes we can just avoidthat clash with friends and
family members, but sometimes wecan't, and family members, but
sometimes we can't.
So the best thing to do is staypatient.
Deep breath, mamas, deep breath, we got this and consistent.
Stay patient, stay consistent,stay kind, stay loving.
Remind them that you are tryingto teach them a life skill,
(23:59):
that there are going to be timesthat 100% of the rules are
always going to matter andthere's no deviation, and then
there's going to be times intheir life where they're going
to have to say, okay, I'm goingto look at the human side of
this and not the rule side ofthispical child.
Let's talk about role modeling.
Children observe how weinteract, react to people and to
(24:25):
situations.
And if we interact and reactwith oh my gosh, I can't believe
that happened and we're stunnedand shocked and they think they
need to be stunned and shocked,this is something we need to be
(24:47):
dramatic about, then and if wemodel that calm thinking way
about it, then that's whatchildren are going to pick up.
Next time they see a child witha disability have a meltdown or
next time they see a child witha disability act
inappropriately, they're notgoing to have this strong
reaction.
They're going to say, oh, mymom's already said, there's a
game plan.
I know what I need to do.
I talked about this in the firstpart of this.
Was that creating a game plan,empowering children.
(25:10):
What do I need to do when thishappens?
Let's do that.
So, as we as parents say, well,here's the game plan.
Oh, wow, interesting.
I can understand, but I canunderstand without the emotional
response, and I can say, yeah,I understand why you felt that
way.
Let me give you a big hug.
Let's create a game plan andlet's keep moving forward and
(25:32):
remember, if you need to beflexible, we need to be flexible
.
Sometimes that means hey, let'stake a break.
Maybe we've had anuncomfortable interaction and we
need to not get together nextweek.
I'm going to work through thatwith my child.
Can you help work through thiswith your child?
That's when we've got to beopen to questions, when the mom
comes to us and said, hey, wehad that uncomfortable
interaction and we say, oh mygosh, I'm sorry, my kid did that
(25:55):
.
Now I advocate you don't needto apologize to your kid, but
sometimes it's okay to just sayI am sorry, my kid did that, I'm
sorry they did that, and nowI'm going to try to work with
them on it.
Do you still want to gettogether next week or next month
?
And if they say no, I think weneed a little bit of a break.
Okay, I understand, let mecheck back in with you then and
you can keep working through it.
(26:16):
Hey, how is that going?
Have you found ways to workthrough it?
Maybe you're going to researchsomething and say, hey, here's
some things I found that mighthelp you and your child work
through this.
Unfortunately, some things canlead to a friendship ending,
even a family ship ending, andwe never want that.
But when that happens, it's thebest thing for us again to be
(26:40):
the role model and say to ourkid hey, that's just God pruning
that from our lives.
We don't really like it.
It doesn't feel good, pruninghurts.
You cut a tree's branches.
It hurts, but we're going torise above this, we're going to
learn from this and we're justgoing to continue on with those
that want to be part of ourfriend and family group and are
(27:00):
comfortable with us, because,hey, they're just not
comfortable and we don't need tocontinue to expose ourselves to
that because that can beuncomfortable for us.
We also don't need to exposethem to something they have not
figured out how to deal with yetand we can hope that they do.
If you don't know the answers,it's okay to let someone know.
(27:24):
You'll get back to them,whether that's a child or an
adult.
Modeling this process andimportance of learning about
others is what we have to do.
So let's review from the twoweeks of talks here.
We can change the world byworking one parent, one neighbor
, one family member and onefriend at a time.
(27:45):
We have to be graceful whenwe're teaching and guiding
others and we also have to beforgiving with ourselves and
them if the process doesn't gothe way that we hoped.
Timing of conversations arevery important helped.
Timing of conversations arevery important.
For example, there was a time Iread this on another parent's
blog where someone had used theword retard in a game and it
(28:08):
completely broke down an entireneighborhood friendship.
And it was because the specialneeds parent at that point
immediately went on the attackhow dare you use that word?
And they got angry and therewas a fight and the other person
was like I'm sorry, it justcame out.
They didn't mean to offend.
Yeah, they were in the wrong,but them being in the wrong is
(28:29):
not what's important.
It's swallowing our emotionalresponse for a minute, sometimes
as a parent, and helpingsomeone learn how to
appropriately respond or howsomething made you feel we're
not going to necessarily changesomeone overnight and we're
definitely not going to changeit with fighting and anger and
offense.
Self-compassion for ourselves,forgiveness for others that's
(28:53):
what is important for us to doand as we model that, we
strengthen ourselves, westrengthen our children and we
strengthen everyone else.
Because, folks, as I've said inother podcasts, this is special
needs parenting, and that meansthis is true, undying love.
Thank you so much for joiningme here today, and I hope you
(29:14):
have a great one.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
This program is made possible by friends and partners
of the Special Parent Podcast.
For more information and tojoin our mailing list, visit
specialparentorg.
This program is made possible by friends and partners
of the Special Parent Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I believe that empowering parents of special
needs children is like givingthem the superpower of
unconditional love andunbreakable determination.
They are not just parents, theyare true champions shaping a
bright future for theirincredible children.
I'm Dr Deanna Iverson and I'mglad you're here.
Have you ever wanted to helpneighbors, family and friends?
(00:35):
Welcome and embrace your familyand your special needs child?
This is part two of a series onhow can I help other children,
friends and family members befriends with my special needs
child.
Welcome to the Special ParentPodcast, and I am so glad that
you are here to join me today.
Last time, we talked about ourgoal as special needs parents is
(00:57):
to strengthen interactions withfriends and family for the
needs of ourselves and ourchildren.
Today, we're going to continuetalking about how we can
strengthen these interactionswith others in our life and in
our circle so that we and ourchildren also can build
friendships, strongrelationships and a community
(01:19):
that they can thrive on and thatcan help them throughout a
lifetime.
As humans, we all need thathelp.
We all need community.
We all need people to be aroundus and surround us.
We need those who havestrengths in areas that we do
not, and we have strengths thatwe can bring to a situation, and
we need a community thatrecognizes our strengths and
(01:40):
gives grace and helps with ourlimitations.
So today, as we continue thatdiscussion, we're gonna start to
talk about people are not theirdisability, and that includes
children.
A lot of times we catchourselves saying things such as
my child with, or my child whohas, or I have, and it's a label
(02:03):
.
Now there's nothing wrong withthat label.
That label and I have a wholepodcast on that already is
disarming that word disabilityand embracing the fact that
sometimes labels can be verygood for us.
So labels are not bad.
I'm not anti-label.
This is sometimes veryimportant.
It's important to get help.
It's important sometimes tohelp other people understand our
(02:25):
situation or to have adifferent perspective.
At the same time, it is onlyone part of who we are.
For example, we can sayso-and-so is a really great
football player or so-and-so ison the LA Lakers.
That is one part of who theyare.
(02:45):
That is not the totality of whothey are.
That is one skill set that theyhave.
That is not necessarily theirheart and their soul either.
So when we talk about things,we might say so-and-so is a
lawyer or so-and-so is aneducator.
These are aspects of who we are.
They are important labels.
They give some information.
(03:06):
Sometimes they lead to somevery wrong assumptions, and this
can happen with disabilitylabels too.
They give some information.
They definitely help when itcomes to medical appointments
and they sometimes help when itcomes to friendships.
They also can make or lead toit comes to friendships, they
also can make or lead to, Ishould say, some wrong
assumptions by others.
(03:27):
So I think it's very importantthat we, as parents of children
with special needs, that we getout there with our community,
our friends and our friends'children, and we teach them to
say, yes, my child has thisdisability, and and then we
continue the conversation.
This is what it means for them,these are the limitations,
(03:48):
these are the strengths, inaddition to this disability.
This is who my child is, andthat's what's important is, we
have to start changing thelanguage and the verbiage,
because no one else is going tochange it.
They don't walk it, they don'tknow it.
We have to start doing that.
So people are not theirdisability, but their disability
(04:09):
is part of who they are as ahuman, and I think it's
important for us, as specialneeds children, to recognize
things and when we get togetherwith other people and we start
talking about possibly thelimitations we need to normalize
the discussion of limitations.
Even in our friendships groupswe can say well, you know how,
you're not the best at that, soyou do this or that.
(04:30):
Maybe when you're playing gamestogether you say you know how
in Trivial Pursuit you're reallygood with the history facts,
but so-and-so is really goodwith the arts facts.
That's what makes us unique anddifferent.
And with my child's disability,they're not really good with
this, but they are really goodat this and that's how we're
going to normalize thediscussion of a disability is
(04:50):
just simply a unique abilitythat gives us different
challenges than people see inthe everyday world.
So, open those conversations,create that comfort level for
people, create a safe space forthem to talk to you.
And then you have to decide howmuch you're going to share and
we talked about that in thefirst episode that sometimes
some people are very receptiveand it helps them change and it
(05:13):
helps them mold and it helpsthem understand Other people.
It just creates more judgmentand sometimes you don't find
that out until you find that out.
But if you can create an openspace, most people are willing
to walk through it.
Disabilities can affectdifferent parts of different
people.
Physical disabilities aresometimes much more obvious, and
(05:36):
so people will see them andthey will make assumptions again
sometimes wrong assumptionsabout what a person's ability is
.
But there are physicalabilities, there are cognitive
disabilities, there are combinedcognitive and physical.
There's learning disabilities,which might be a little
different than cognitive.
There's disabilities that mightjust affect us more
(05:58):
behaviorally, and some of thesedisabilities might be caused by
childhood trauma.
As I, as a trauma therapist,understand, childhood trauma
does create the brain to wiredifferently and this can cause a
disability that the childwasn't born with.
It's not caused by genetics,but it's still a challenge that
this child now has, and theystill, in their heart of hearts,
(06:27):
want to be loved and acceptedand part of a community and
belong.
It's important to teach allchildren, all children,
especially children who arefound on that neurotypical
spectrum, especially them torecognize their own limits, to
recognize the need for living incommunity and the importance of
other people in their lives.
They do not have to be the oneto do everything.
Time with different types ofpeople with different abilities
(06:47):
will help them learn that, andthey will learn that from
watching you, wanting to spendtime with people, as well as the
conversations that people havewith those with disabilities,
those without disabilities,about how to interact.
So most welcomed questions whenthey know someone is sorry.
(07:07):
Most people welcome questionswhen they know that someone is
trying to understand them.
So how can we, as special needsparents, be more open and
welcome to questions?
Some of you have said this.
I've read this in books.
I'm reading right now theBecoming Brave Together book.
It's amazing.
But they talk parents.
Parents talk a lot about thejudgment that's felt from people
(07:34):
outside of this special needsworld and we as parents
sometimes are not open andwelcome to any communication
because we're expecting thatjudgment that sets us up for
failure as well as someone else.
We're not going to grow acommunity if we're that way.
Now there are times we need toprotect ourselves and shut down
(07:56):
and move away from those thatare critical, but there are
times that we need to embraceand be open and be willing to
walk through some of those hardconversations.
So how can we welcome questions?
First of all, when someone asksa question, we have to learn to
recognize if it hits anemotional ping in ourselves, if
it's going to hit us hard in anemotional place.
Let's be honest and be like wow, I'm really glad you asked me
(08:19):
that question.
I may not be ready to answer ityet.
That kind of hit me.
Can I have some time to respondto that?
Can I get back to you on thatplease?
It was a great question.
I just need some time to kindof filter, not necessarily what
to say, but how it made me feeland they might say I'm sorry, I
didn't mean to offend you andyou can be like I know, I know
(08:46):
and you know what.
That's why I need time, becauseI also don't want to answer in
offense, and so I think thatthat's an important thing.
Take a break if it hits you inkind of a wrong way, if you
really don't know the answer, ifthey ask a question about a
disability you don't know, oreven about your child's
disability, because maybe theyhad an interaction or read
something online and you're like, really I haven't heard that
before or no, we don't have thatexperience Be willing to say
let me look into that and I'd behappy to get back to you and
(09:08):
continue the conversation later.
That's also a good thingbecause, as much as we are
experts on our own children,just like doctors will call
themselves experts in theirfield.
They don't know everybody withevery case in their field and
there's always an outlier, anabnormality Whoa, where did that
come from?
And so it's okay for us tosometimes say, okay, yeah, my
(09:32):
child does have that disabilityand you read that from online,
or you had another friend whosechild had it and they had that
experience.
I haven't had that.
I'm going to look into it.
I'd love to talk to you aboutit later, but I'm not familiar,
so I'll get back to you.
So that's two ways.
We can kind of take some timefor ourselves as parents to get
back to people.
But the important thing is yougot to get back to them because
(09:53):
that keeps that opencommunication.
If they do ask a question thatyou're ready to answer, be
careful with how many feet youjump in with.
Sometimes we say, jump in withboth feet and we can really
overwhelm someone and thenthey're not even ready to
process it.
They don't live in this worldand for us all that information
(10:13):
was gained over maybe years oftime or months of research and
for us it's already just inthere and you just feel like you
can just spill it out.
Oh, let me tell you all thethings.
And for them it's already justin there and you just feel like
you can just spill it out.
Oh, let me tell you all thethings.
And for them, they can't takein all the things.
And so if they ask a reallygreat question and you've got
the really great answer,consider breaking that answer up
into pieces.
(10:34):
You know, I think one of themost important things to know is
and stick to that one point andreally go deep in that point
with them until all of a suddenyou notice you've lost their
attention.
Then maybe next time you guysget together, or even if you
think of something, send them atext message or an email.
Hey, I love that you asked methat question.
I wanted to give you anothernugget, or I wanted to expand on
(10:56):
that for you.
This is something else to thinkabout, or something I learned.
Love to talk about it with youif you have time next time.
So try not to give them thenovel all at once.
That's another way to remainopen to questions is you don't
make the other person feeloverwhelmed with your responses.
Plus, we're not trying to gainsympathy here, lord knows.
That's not what we want.
We want to have theserelationships, these friendships
(11:18):
and family members are placesfor us to feel safe too, so we
want to make sure that we'rekeeping that space safe for us
by not all of a sudden allowingit to be our dumping ground.
That's what that one specialfriend is for, all right, so
people are not their disability,but it is a part of them.
Disabilities can affectdifferent people in different
ways, so let's be open to thequestions.
(11:41):
Now focus on similarities.
This is kind of part two.
I talked about this in part oneof the podcast of this episode.
I wanted to re -circle backaround and talk about it again.
I wanted to revisit this.
We're talking about differencesthat are good and finding
similarities.
It can be as simple as you bothlove chicken nuggets and I say
(12:01):
chicken nuggets because my son,I think, talks about them every
day.
You both love chicken nuggets.
So maybe one of theinteractions we're going to say
is to the mom of the child,who's neurotypical, we're going
to say, hey, my son really wantsto be friends with you and he
loves chicken nuggets.
Does your kid love chickennuggets?
Oh, yeah, my kid loves chickennuggets.
Oh, this is great.
Why don't we do a chickennuggets day and we're going to
(12:25):
buy some frozen chicken nuggetsand maybe we're going to cook
them up and we're going to trydifferent dipping sauces.
And it could be as simple asyou're like I'm trying to get my
kid to explore differenttextures, or different this or
different that, or maybe we'regoing to have different types of
chicken nuggets and we're goingto and it's an exploratory
thing where they're doing itwith a friend, they're creating
a relationship, a fun experiencetogether, and maybe also then
(12:48):
it makes them feel morecomfortable to try that
different chicken nugget or thatdifferent dipping sauce.
So focus on those similaritiesfavorite foods, favorite
subjects, favorite things to do,hair colors hey, you both have
brown hair.
Hey, you both have blue eyes.
That's kind of unique becauseit's a recessive trait.
Let's talk about what thatmeans.
So you both have somethingunique and different about you
(13:10):
and that helps build that bondof we're all unique.
In some ways, commonalities makeit easier for children to
relate, same for adults.
But sometimes we forget to helpchildren find commonalities.
But sometimes we forget to helpchildren find commonalities.
So if we can be talking to ourfriends and our family and say,
hey, let's find ways that we canfind commonalities in our kids
(13:31):
so that way our kids can developempathy for each other and they
can encourage each other.
They can see the world frommultiple perspectives, and
that's just helping childrengrow that, because they don't
have that ability yet.
Multiple perspectives andthat's just helping children
grow that, because they don'thave that ability yet.
Children are selfish.
We know that.
We're parents, they're selfish.
We can help them grow.
They can grow that.
Let's see the world fromanother perspective.
(13:51):
Someone else's likes dislikes.
They might be trying dippingsauces I'm really stuck on
chicken nuggets today.
Maybe I'm hungry.
They can try different dippingsauces and one kid's like, oh, I
love the honey mustard and theother kid's like, oh, gross, I
only like ketchup or something.
So for my older son it took along time for him to find his
(14:12):
tribe and when he was a freshmanin high school we were camping
with some friends and one of theguys had a mountain bike and
Jaden was like, whoa, what's thehow's that different from a
regular bike?
And it was a dad who just saidwell, let me show you.
And my son who's?
You know, my older son hasautism and he it became this
(14:35):
tinkering thing for him becausemountain bikes are actually
quite, quite complicated.
They have all these movingparts and pieces and all this
stuff.
So then he wanted to ride amountain bike and it has now
grown into the fact that he ison the mountain biking team at
his school and that has becomehis tribe.
He has friends through that,he's part of a club at school
and until that experience with adad at the campground who just
(14:59):
was tinkering with his own bikeand open to saying to my son,
what would you like me to showyou about it?
And my son was like, well, yeah, and that dad was so patient I
talked about being patient.
A dad of a neurotypical childwas so patient with my son to
teach him every little detail.
And now my husband has embracedit and they mountain bike
together.
(15:19):
That's their thing and it hasactually helped my son with
sensory issues.
The idea of sweat was like, ohno, we don't like the way our
clothes cling to us.
Well, now, because he loves themountain biking and the getting
into the bike and all that,he's OK with it during that time
Not all the times, but it'samazing how, when someone can
(15:40):
just be open to showing someonesomething, and so that's
sometimes what we have to do iswe have to help other adults
learn how to just be open andsay well, just, will you take a
moment and just show them this,because it took extra patience
than it normally would have withanother kid.
Another thing is encourage thoseinteractions by having
(16:02):
conversations with parents,simply saying my son or my
daughter really would like to befriends with your child, and I
know that they may not be ableto hang out every day or be best
friends at school, but can wehave that chicken nugget party?
Can we go do ice cream?
Can we do a swimming thing atthe local pool?
When we find the commonalitiesand we encourage the
interactions, if we're veryconscious and very purposeful
(16:26):
about setting up interactions,it's going to help grow that
friendship circle and it willhelp teach other people to feel
more comfortable.
Setting up interactions thatare fun and appropriate for both
peers or family members, bysimply asking fun and
appropriate for both peers orfamily members, by simply asking
hey, how can we make this work?
And in part one I talked about,for example, birthday parties
(16:48):
or summer parties or whatever,and maybe your child is not
appropriate for the big party.
What do we do and I talkedabout that encouraging
interactions by saying you know,thank you so much for the
invite to your party wherethere's going to be, you know,
20, 30 people.
This is going to beoverwhelming, but my child
really likes to be friends withyour child.
Could we the next day, the nextwhatever you know, could we
(17:11):
come an hour before, an hourafter, whatever works for you
guys?
That's why I say ask thatparent, how can we make this
work?
And then maybe my child cancome over and do this specific
activity or whatever and stillfeel that inclusion.
So when we encourage thoseinteractions, we are teaching
others, both parent and child,and we are helping ourselves and
(17:32):
our children.
Encouraging open communicationby being willing to listen to
any questions that they ask,preparing yourself for questions
and the answers you may have togive.
That may hurt.
It might be more like a youknow, ptsd kind of thing, that
post-traumatic.
Okay, I got to talk about thisagain, something that you're
(17:53):
going to talk about again, thatmaybe it was a surgery they went
through.
My son had spinal surgery andthat's a situation that I talk
about.
But every time I do it justtakes that emotional piece of
energy for me.
You probably just heard it whenI mentioned it just now.
Sometimes there are experiencesthat are just not pleasant for
(18:13):
us to go through and they holdon to us and we have to be
willing to talk about them again.
So we have to prepare ourselves, we have to think about it, we
have to practice it.
Sometimes I practice mirrortalking.
It does feel awkward, don't getme wrong, but it does help.
So parents are usually willingto help make interactions
successful.
(18:34):
Other parents they really are,because they're looking for that
social fun connection too.
They don't know how and you maynot know how, but if you're
willing to work together and tobe open and to talk about those
situations, then you're going togrow together in this.
These extra efforts go a longway.
(18:54):
I have read about a parent whohelped some of the neighborhood
kids that were in the kids inthe classroom learn sign
language.
Her child was partially deafand so sometimes they, the other
children, would be going on inconversation and even though her
child could read lips and wasdoing pretty good, it was just
(19:14):
really hard to track, or on aplayground or something like
that.
So the school welcomed her inand the neighborhood group
welcomed her and she set forthand said I'm going to teach some
of the kids basic sign languagenot how to have full
conversation or anything likethat, but basic ways they can
communicate with my child whenthey want to get something done.
And then everybody was included.
Everybody learned a new skill.
(19:35):
It was awesome and they hadsuch a positive turnaround from
that Recognizing different cueswe may have to teach children
and parents.
Hey, if you see my child do this, for example, some tics are
heightened when a child getsstressed.
If you see them do this or youhear them say that, please come
(19:57):
get me right away, because thatmeans that they're stressed or
they're overwhelmed or they'reoverstimulated and it's probably
going to lead to them having abehavior or whatever it might be
, and I don't want to have themgo through that and I don't want
you to have to go through that.
So sometimes teaching them torecognize different cues can be
very helpful.
Learning how to play withdifferent rules.
(20:18):
Now we teach your kids all thetime.
Rules are important and I dobelieve they are important, but
not all rules fit all people inall situations.
So sometimes we have to sayit's okay to come up with some
different rules depending on whoyou're playing with.
So there are certain games, forexample, especially sports games
(20:38):
that require more physicalactivity, that might benefit
from some different rules whenwe're playing with children with
disabilities, and I gave thegreat example in the first
episode of this series about myolder son inviting my middle son
, with special needs, to comeplay with his friends and play
baseball, and he basically setup with his friends.
(20:58):
What that was going to looklike Feeling accepted and
involved might mean findingspecial needs community.
For example, we have a littleleague in our area that has a
special needs group and whatthey do is there's only two
teams because there's not a lotof kids that join it.
They play baseball and theyinvite local high school teams
(21:20):
or other little league teams tocome and play with the special
needs team and then, before thegame, the coaches sit down with
the other team and they explainhow you're going to play
differently, how the rules aregoing to be different.
It's not about letting the otherteam win, it's about having fun
in the game, and there aresometimes people that go that we
can't always let other peoplewin, and then I always argue
(21:42):
back.
You know there are a lot ofareas in their life that they
struggle that you don't knowabout.
Maybe this is an opportunityfor them to win when they don't
have it otherwise.
So it's okay sometimes to tellthe little league team hey,
you're going to play and havefun, they're going to score most
of the points and you're goingto show them how to be a
graceful winner and a gracefulloser, and we're going to walk
(22:06):
this path together.
And that is one of the goals,and that is not only to have the
children with disabilities onthis little league team.
Not only have the children withdisabilities have the
opportunity to play a game, it'salso an opportunity to teach
multiple other teams an amazingsocial skill.
They wouldn't have theopportunity to do otherwise and
give them a chance to just playtogether with the kids that have
(22:26):
unique needs, and they reallydo have a good time.
We've never had a badexperience, in fact, usually we
have teams that ask if they cancome back the next season and
then their parent group getstogether and like spoils the
Dickens out of the Little Leagueteam, the special needs team.
So it's it's super, super sweet.
Um, sometimes our autism kidsare very rigid about rules, very
(22:48):
, very rigid, and so it's reallyhard for them to learn to play
with different rules.
Um, for example, my oldest sonhas autism and, especially when
he was younger, he's very, veryrule focused.
Rule focused because, you know,a follows B and or, I'm sorry B
follows A.
I know my alphabet, I promise,and he just didn't.
He didn't want to deviate fromthese rules that either he had
(23:10):
set up or the game had set up,even if it was better for other
people playing.
That took us a long time becausewe were dealing with one child
that had some uniquedisabilities and another child
that had autism and had someunique abilities and their needs
did not necessarily go together.
They clashed.
Well, they're siblings, so wehad to learn to navigate that
clash.
(23:30):
Sometimes we can just avoidthat clash with friends and
family members, but sometimes wecan't, and family members, but
sometimes we can't.
So the best thing to do is staypatient.
Deep breath, mamas, deep breath, we got this and consistent.
Stay patient, stay consistent,stay kind, stay loving.
Remind them that you are tryingto teach them a life skill,
(23:59):
that there are going to be timesthat 100% of the rules are
always going to matter andthere's no deviation, and then
there's going to be times intheir life where they're going
to have to say, okay, I'm goingto look at the human side of
this and not the rule side ofthispical child.
Let's talk about role modeling.
Children observe how weinteract, react to people and to
(24:25):
situations.
And if we interact and reactwith oh my gosh, I can't believe
that happened and we're stunnedand shocked and they think they
need to be stunned and shocked,this is something we need to be
(24:47):
dramatic about, then and if wemodel that calm thinking way
about it, then that's whatchildren are going to pick up.
Next time they see a child witha disability have a meltdown or
next time they see a child witha disability act
inappropriately, they're notgoing to have this strong
reaction.
They're going to say, oh, mymom's already said, there's a
game plan.
I know what I need to do.
I talked about this in the firstpart of this.
Was that creating a game plan,empowering children.
(25:10):
What do I need to do when thishappens?
Let's do that.
So, as we as parents say, well,here's the game plan.
Oh, wow, interesting.
I can understand, but I canunderstand without the emotional
response, and I can say, yeah,I understand why you felt that
way.
Let me give you a big hug.
Let's create a game plan andlet's keep moving forward and
(25:32):
remember, if you need to beflexible, we need to be flexible
.
Sometimes that means hey, let'stake a break.
Maybe we've had anuncomfortable interaction and we
need to not get together nextweek.
I'm going to work through thatwith my child.
Can you help work through thiswith your child?
That's when we've got to beopen to questions, when the mom
comes to us and said, hey, wehad that uncomfortable
interaction and we say, oh mygosh, I'm sorry, my kid did that
(25:55):
.
Now I advocate you don't needto apologize to your kid, but
sometimes it's okay to just sayI am sorry, my kid did that, I'm
sorry they did that, and nowI'm going to try to work with
them on it.
Do you still want to gettogether next week or next month
?
And if they say no, I think weneed a little bit of a break.
Okay, I understand, let mecheck back in with you then and
you can keep working through it.
(26:16):
Hey, how is that going?
Have you found ways to workthrough it?
Maybe you're going to researchsomething and say, hey, here's
some things I found that mighthelp you and your child work
through this.
Unfortunately, some things canlead to a friendship ending,
even a family ship ending, andwe never want that.
But when that happens, it's thebest thing for us again to be
(26:40):
the role model and say to ourkid hey, that's just God pruning
that from our lives.
We don't really like it.
It doesn't feel good, pruninghurts.
You cut a tree's branches.
It hurts, but we're going torise above this, we're going to
learn from this and we're justgoing to continue on with those
that want to be part of ourfriend and family group and are
(27:00):
comfortable with us, because,hey, they're just not
comfortable and we don't need tocontinue to expose ourselves to
that because that can beuncomfortable for us.
We also don't need to exposethem to something they have not
figured out how to deal with yetand we can hope that they do.
If you don't know the answers,it's okay to let someone know.
(27:24):
You'll get back to them,whether that's a child or an
adult.
Modeling this process andimportance of learning about
others is what we have to do.
So let's review from the twoweeks of talks here.
We can change the world byworking one parent, one neighbor
, one family member and onefriend at a time.
(27:45):
We have to be graceful whenwe're teaching and guiding
others and we also have to beforgiving with ourselves and
them if the process doesn't gothe way that we hoped.
Timing of conversations arevery important helped.
Timing of conversations arevery important.
For example, there was a time Iread this on another parent's
blog where someone had used theword retard in a game and it
(28:08):
completely broke down an entireneighborhood friendship.
And it was because the specialneeds parent at that point
immediately went on the attackhow dare you use that word?
And they got angry and therewas a fight and the other person
was like I'm sorry, it justcame out.
They didn't mean to offend.
Yeah, they were in the wrong,but them being in the wrong is
(28:29):
not what's important.
It's swallowing our emotionalresponse for a minute, sometimes
as a parent, and helpingsomeone learn how to
appropriately respond or howsomething made you feel we're
not going to necessarily changesomeone overnight and we're
definitely not going to changeit with fighting and anger and
offense.
Self-compassion for ourselves,forgiveness for others that's
(28:53):
what is important for us to doand as we model that, we
strengthen ourselves, westrengthen our children and we
strengthen everyone else.
Because, folks, as I've said inother podcasts, this is special
needs parenting, and that meansthis is true, undying love.
Thank you so much for joiningme here today, and I hope you
(29:14):
have a great one.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
This program is made possible by friends and partners
of the Special Parent Podcast.
For more information and tojoin our mailing list, visit
specialparentorg.
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