Transcript-Episode 26 — SEND Parenting

Automated Transcript Episode 26: Navigating the Sea of Parenting Advice: Reflection, Emotional Regulation and Self-Care for Neurodiverse Families

Speaker Dr. Maryhan

Please excuse any errors as this transcript has been automatically generated.

Dr Olivia KesselHost00:07

Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, i'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, i've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, i will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. In this episode, we'll be speaking to Dr Maryhan, a world-renowned parenting expert and psychologist who hosts the globally charting podcast How Not to Screw Up Your Kids. We'll be discussing looking at parenting advice with a reflective lens and ensuring that it is fit for purpose for your child. We'll explore the metaphorical emotional bucket where one more drop can cause dysregulation for our children, but also for us as parents. Our power as a parent to role model behavior for our children and realizing the importance of being able to do this is usually tied to our own self-care. Dr Maryhan's advice is a breath of fresh air. Well welcome, dr Maryhann, to the Send Parenting Podcast. It is an honor to have you on the show today.

01:37

I am a complete Uber.

01:38

Fan of your own podcast, how Not to Screw Up Your Kids, which I think is an absolutely fantastic title, because I think we spend our entire lives as parents worrying that we are going to screw up our kids in some way or another. And I guess that takes me to the topic of the podcast today is how do we, as parents, navigate all this parenting advice? I find your parenting advice really applicable to my child, who's neurodiverse, and I could see it applying also to a neurotypical and neurodiverse child. It fits for all children, basically, but some parenting advice does it and some parenting advice is old fashioned or it's just way out there and you have this little person that you're testing these things on, and I find, as a neurodiverse mom, some of this stuff really backfires and actually has a negative effect on the relationship or how you parent your child. As a parenting expert, i would love to get your view on how do we navigate this world of parenting advice, especially with the lens of neurodiversity. Oh, olivia, thank you so much for having me.

Dr. MaryhanGuest02:43

I'm so excited to be here and actually talking about this whole notion of parenting advice I have got you'll probably find, as we speak, having listened to the podcast I have some very strong views and I think that having these labels around various different parenting approaches can be incredibly divisive. It's this notion that you reside as a parent in a particular camp child led parenting, compassionate parenting, montessori And it's not that I disagree with the principles behind some of these, but we have more in common as parents in just our general day-to-day parenting and I don't think we need to hang our coat in one particular area. So for me, what's really important that we remember in parenting and that I try so much to do as I'm sure you do, olivia as well is about trying to help parents reconnect with their own gut instinct, their own true feeling about what is right for their family, and recognizing the uniqueness of every single family. So you and I might have exactly the same age children with exactly the same challenges, with exactly the same age difference, and yet the personalities of their parents, of the dynamics within our family, will mean that we should parent different situations in very, very different ways.

04:02

So my parenting advice is much more about really trying to connect with that, understanding that your family is different to other people and that we should be looking inwards but working in on our family, taking advice, listening to podcasts, reading books, but then doing it through a really reflective lens of okay, this is the strategy that is being suggested that I might use in this situation. How might that work with child A? How might that work with child B? Is that relevant? I actually align with my values as a parent and what I'm trying to instill in my children and the uniqueness of that child and the way that that child's lens views the world and how they interact. And then it means that when we come to strategies, we come to them feeling much more confident that they're going to work and that they're relevant to our family.

Dr Olivia KesselHost04:52

It's kind of like you've tested the tires and made sure that it's actually fit for purpose for your family.

Dr. MaryhanGuest04:58

Completely, and I think a lot of the advice that we get is great. It can be great advice, but either is supremely outdated and unless you're running an authoritarian culture within your family where it's very dictatorial, it's just not going to work. We're not in those days anymore.

Dr Olivia KesselHost05:14

You know, and I find as a parent I know. But you know, i find as a parent you have that like that's how I was raised. You know what I mean. So you also have to shed your snakeskin about how maybe you were raised as a parent and things like that. That's not the right way forward. Yeah, and we bring in so much.

Dr. MaryhanGuest05:30

You know, we are a product as an adult. We are a product of our own upbringing. There'll be aspects of the way that we were parented that we will love and would have, even in our teen years, would have said you know, that's what I'm gonna do as a parent. But there will also be other things that our parents did that we swore blind, we would absolutely never do, never say, and some of the things we've never done. But some of the things we catch ourselves and we're saying things and we're like, oh my God, i've turned into my mother.

Dr Olivia KesselHost06:00

So true, so true.

Dr. MaryhanGuest06:02

Yeah. so I just think we just need to be a little bit kinder to ourselves but also and really connect back. And it was. it's really interesting, i think And I suspect that it's probably a lot of the case in terms of when we're supporting children who are neurodiverse is that our confidence begins to get chipped away as a parent because we feel that there are, we're trying, strategies that everyone else is saying is working and is brilliant and is really helpful, and it's either backfiring or it's jarring massively. So we lose that gut instinct of knowing what's right for our children. and then either someone with a neurodiverse child or we'll just we'll get in contact with a great teacher who then gives us that answers the questions as to why our child might be behaving in a particular way, and then, once we've got that confidence of this is my child, this is their uniqueness, then we're much more empowered in that gut way. And that's where I think that, as parents of neurodiverse children, it differs from that neurotypical, because we, i think our confidence gets slowly chipped, chipped and eroded.

Dr Olivia KesselHost07:06

So that's such wise words because it's so true. And you look at other parents and well, it's working for them and their kids, you know, and your child doesn't match up. And then you speak to, you find your tribe, so to speak, and you find the other parents who are maybe struggling in a similar way and have tried really unique and interesting ways of how to parent, and you're like, well, that sounds interesting, maybe I can do that with my child and maybe I can find success and build up that confidence again.

Dr. MaryhanGuest07:32

Yeah, and I think that's what's so. That's a crucial part of parenting, just generally. But we talk about the old saying it takes a village to raise a child, And I think we've lost sight of that in lots of ways. We've become so much more fragmented We forget that we need that community to raise our children, and it's not just our family community but other parents too.

Dr Olivia KesselHost07:52

Yeah, and finding that community within a mainstream school where you might feel embarrassed or unable to discuss the kind of issues that you're having And the reality is 30% of that classroom probably is having similar issues, but there's still a taboo in terms of not talking about how wonderful your child is and how they learned to read before they were three, and all those things that you've never been able to brag about on the playground floor.

Dr. MaryhanGuest08:16

No, i think I have said in the past, i think I've never known anything as competitive in all of my years as parenting. In those and that's sort of when you're standing on that in that playground waiting to collect your child I think there's a real and I don't think it's. I think that competitiveness is almost about we just don't want to appear to have done a bad job, and so there's a lot of shame and embarrassment around talking about neurodiversity. It's almost as if it's a failing and other people I think through lack of education more than anything else are making judgments.

08:46

I mean, how often have you been in a situation where your neurodiverse child, who might be 11, 12, 13, appears to be having a two year old type tantrum, and you can feel the energy and the judgment from other parents. You know, god, they're not setting boundaries. They're letting them get away with murder. Why are they not? How dare they speak to them like that? And that's that. You know that is not how we raise children. That just creates tension and anxiety in us as parents of neurodiverse children And then leads us in those public situations to feel such shame that we don't always then meet our child at their needs in that moment, and so we perpetuate the shame that our children then pick up on that. There should be shameful about their uniqueness, which we should be celebrating, and we get into this spiral.

Dr Olivia KesselHost09:31

It's so true and it's so hard to detach yourself from that. But it's so important to detach yourself from that because the anxiety that you're then adding, as a parent, to the situation where the child already is experiencing a lot of anxiety it's having a meltdown, it almost it super charges it, you know. And so I think there's a huge and it's almost a gift, because as a parent, you need to learn how to not care about what other people think, to put your own emotions into a calmer place, so that you can be there for your child, and that's an incredible thing to learn how to do in any situation, and it's not easy. Do you have any tips for parents in terms of how to how to navigate those kinds of situations?

Dr. MaryhanGuest10:16

Yeah, it's a it is, and I think the best way is. It's a practice, but it's this idea. You're probably aware your listeners are aware about this idea, about emotional dysregulation, and I talk a lot about how important it is to allow our children to experience emotions. You know, my view is there's no such thing as a good or bad emotion. I'm not a big, i'm not a fan of positive emotions, negative emotions. Clearly, there are emotions we'd rather not experience, but there are emotions nonetheless, and it's really crucial that we don't attach any shame to any emotion. What we're really trying to do is help our children make different choices, and helping them make those different choices is so contingent on when they're experiencing that big emotion and they're dysregulated that their emotional dysregulation is not met by our emotional dysregulation, either because we're exhausted, either because we're embarrassed, we're ashamed, we're overwhelmed, whatever that might be. So I think there are some general principles that I would say about helping make sure that we are, then, not emotionally dysregulated. And the idea is, if you imagine that little Jack not even little Jack, 11, 13 year old Jack is has become emotionally dysregulated, is become overwhelmed, something that they thought was going to happen isn't gonna happen, i think that's happened out of sequence that they're expecting has not happened, and so they then feel overwhelmed. They experience this big emotion When it's then met by our big emotion because we're in a public place or we're feeling embarrassed. What's happened now is Jack's anxiety levels and his fear of the fact that what he was predicting was going to happen next is not happening is then met by our big emotion. He's Jack's gone from a. I'm overwhelmed that this is something new to. I'm overwhelmed this is something new, and my parents are overwhelmed that this is something new. This actually is a major problem. It isn't just a me struggling in this moment. I'm seeing that they are, so it must be huge and I really need to worry. When we're able to kind of help them contain that emotion and that containing that emotion is not about simply saying you need to calm down, there's nothing to worry about Containing as much more around, letting it, letting that emotion play out in a vessel that we hold for them because we're in a space of emotional regulation, not dysregulation then it's much better, our child's much more likely to experience the emotion and then come out the other end, and part of that is practice. But I think there are some underlying things that usually mean that we're more likely to be dysregulated, and that's just simply how much have we taken care of ourselves?

12:49

I often talk about this notion that our children have a bucket. we have a bucket too, and our bucket is filling. It's not a literal bucket, it's a metaphorical bucket, but it's filling throughout the day and it only takes that one last drop where the bucket overflows and we generally tend to think about oh, what was it that tips that? But there's a whole load of stuff that's been going in that bucket. So it's recognizing for us as parents. what are the things that fill our bucket? So when that last drop comes in and Jack is overwhelmed, we are then dysregulated ourselves.

13:19

But more importantly, what are the things that we need as parents, and also our children, that empty our bucket? What are the things that help us in, not just in that moment, because we can manage those moments if our bucket is at least half full, not completely full. So what are the things that we need? Is it that we need some fresh air regularly? Is it that we need to make sure that we've got enough sleep? Is it that we just need to be connected and around people and having discussions? Is it that we need some exercise? Is it that we need to read a book? Is it just that we need a cup of tea, five minutes on our own? It's being able to recognize that there's the in the moment, but there's the stuff that feeds into that in the moment, and both of those things are the areas that we need to be working on Makes so much sense to balance that out, And it's hard, I think, for parents sometimes to take that time.

Dr Olivia KesselHost14:06

But I've used this before. It's like the airplane analogy If you don't put your oxygen mask on first, you can't help your child. So it's actually you need to prioritize finding ways to empty that bucket so you have more room to be able to be that person who's regulated in the dysregulated moment, And some of the things you said there about when that child is having the dysregulation, it sounded to me kind of like a wave that you ride as a parent and let them experience it until they come out the other end. Is that how you, when you say you hold them as a vessel? how does that work practically if they're screaming and crying?

Dr. MaryhanGuest14:39

Yeah, I think it is exactly that. It is about riding that wave, and it's so important when we're talking about emotional wellbeing and we're trying to avoid our children trying to numb or pacify feelings, because that has its own dangerous precedent later on if we don't actually fully experience it. So in that moment it's about damage limitation. So it's an acknowledgement of how they're feeling and then creating that space for them to feel that emotion and to work through it, however that might be for them. Now we can always, once they've ridden that wave and we've ridden that wave with them and we've created that space for them. Of course we can have conversations around what might we do next time to be of help to them. What do they need? how might they want us to prompt them, prompt them to support themselves in those moments? But it's really important that we allow our children to experience that full emotion, because I think one of the ways that we screw up our children, whether they're neurodiverse or whether they're neurotypical, is we trained their feelings for fill the blank dot, dot, dot.

15:40

We trade their feelings for food. We trade their feelings for technology. We trade their feelings for distraction. We trade their feelings for a hug, for a toy, whatever it is, and that is not a good way. That's not a good precedent to set for our children, because they don't work through the emotions and instead they will actively seek ways to numb emotions rather than sit with a discomfort.

16:04

And the reality is that we know that that discomfort ebbs and flows, it comes and goes. It's not there in perpetuity. It feels like it in the moment, but it doesn't, and so I think that that's a really important bit about riding that wave and letting them fully experience that, regardless of the shame and embarrassment that that might give us. And we all hear incidences every now and again of incredible parents who then come up to us when our child is experiencing this big emotion in the supermarket, in the playground, in a shopping mall, in the cinema, and hold that space for us and empathize with us. So there are people out there who understand what we're doing, but we have to just have our blinkers on and just be in that moment with our child.

Dr Olivia KesselHost16:49

It's also probably just as important as a parent when we're having one of our dysregulated moments and I'm sorry, all parents have dysregulated moments with their children and regret it. but modeling then how we deal with those dysregulated moments for our child is key as well, because it's both of us, both the child and the parent, that are kind of in this what can sometimes be a tricky and challenging thing in people's busy lives and worlds and dysregulation happens and it's okay Completely and the saying that always sticks with me is children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say.

Dr. MaryhanGuest17:24

So when parents come up to me and ask me, how can I support my anxious child, how can my child be a bit more comfortable and be prepared to do things that push them out of their comfort zone, i always start with well, what are you doing? that models it yourself. And it's so crucial, which goes back to this notion of self-care. We often think self-care is a frivolity, it's selfish and, particularly when we're parenting neurodiverse children, we think it's really not an important thing. Their needs are so much more important than ours. But childcare is looking after. Self-care is childcare. It is the essential component to being fully present for our children when they need us.

18:03

And it is not about spa days. It can be, at the most basic level, the internal narrative and conversation you have in your head with yourself. You'd never speak to anybody else the way that you speak to yourself in your head. So it's you know. We have to kind of remember that. I think this notion of lavish holidays and spa days and all of this sort of stuff fabulous. If you can afford it, wonderful, go ahead with my blessing, but it's not about that. The fundamentals, it's the day-to-day things that we do to make sure that we've recharged ourselves. So we come to those moments with a bucket that isn't about to overflow.

Dr Olivia KesselHost18:38

You know, and it's the more the things that you do that are sustainable. You know, and I love a spa day, like everyone else, but you know it's a one off, maybe that you have that you've saved up for, but that's not going to last you the whole year. You need something that's more practical. You know, in the moment, and I know, like for myself, a good night's sleep is so important And without sleep I am, my bucket is overflowing when I open my eyes in the morning, and what I say to my daughter, because she often wakes me up several times a night, so that's why I haven't slept. Well, i say to her look, mommy is having a hard time right now because I haven't had a good night's sleep. And then, if she does, let me sleep for the night.

19:11

I say, look, how happy mommy is this morning because I had a good night's sleep. And look, we're both and you've had a good night's sleep, you know, and sleep is really important to both of us, isn't it? And she's like yeah, sleep is really important. I mean, still a challenge, and she still can't do it every night. But she's starting to understand that there are things that affect our emotions that aren't just about the situation that you know. It is about different situations, whether it be sleep, whether it be you're hungry, whether it be that you're just having a bad day. That can make your emotions go haywire Completely.

Dr. MaryhanGuest19:39

And that's why I love that bucket the bucket analogy for us to talk to our children and also for ourselves. It's for helping them recognize what are the things that fill their bucket and there'll be some things that fill their bucket regularly But it's also being able to recognize. Sleep is such an important aspect. It's linked to so much of our emotional wellbeing and our physical wellbeing. We, you know, when we sleep, our brain restores itself, our body restores our muscles, we consolidate our learning. It's when our growth hormones are secreted.

20:07

So it's about understanding the importance of that and what that does to contribute to your bucket and how full it already is, so that you know it's that understanding and that insight into what fills their bucket, but also, really importantly, what are the unique things that they can do to empty that bucket.

20:27

So if you've got a child who's struggling with their sleep either difficulty is falling asleep at night or they're waking regularly and often during the night okay, that's something you're going to keep working on because we want to make sure that they get enough sleep, but it's helping them think about all right, if my buckets already halfway or three quarters of the way full, what are some of the things that I can do that, give me that opportunity to recharge that is really useful for me, and whether that's reading, whether that's playing with something, having some sort of sensory stimulation, whether that's coloring, drawing something creative, whether that's kicking a football, punching their pillow, whatever it might be, it's being able to recognize that they have within themselves the ability to go into their own toolbox and use things that help them recharge, even if it isn't sleep.

Dr Olivia KesselHost21:12

Yeah, that's powerful because it's giving control back in a situation that feels uncontrolled. So actually I as a child or as a parent because I think you can use this advice for both is it gives you levers that you can pull upon and then doing it together and showing your child how to do it. I listened to one of your podcasts and you're like we might tell children a lot of wonderful stuff. They don't really take that in, but they look at what you're doing and that's what they model and that's what they actually absorbs into them. So it's a great way for you to improve yourself as a parent and then also, by default, improve your child, which is brilliant.

Dr. MaryhanGuest21:45

Yeah, and I think it's this whole idea that we quite often get exasperated because our children are just not being and maybe they're always on their devices or they're always on the go, but if they see us always on the go, always checking our emails, scrolling through our social media, racing from one thing to the next, not sitting down and reading a book, one of the often things that I get is why my children don't read a book. Well, how often do you sit and read a book?

Dr Olivia KesselHost22:13

Yeah, it's so true. I love listening to books or reading books. but how often do we look at social media? How fast are we going? It's always like come on, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. I think we live in a society that's like that. If we look in the mirror at the behaviors of our children that we're finding maybe frustrating and hard, and we look in the mirror and see which ones we do and then which ones we could maybe change to model for our children again, a better place for self-care for both the parent and the child, yeah.

Dr. MaryhanGuest22:42

And this isn't about me, goodness, as a parent, we get enough. We beat ourselves up about so many things as parents already. This isn't about saying you are responsible for the challenges that your child has. It's more a case of just simply saying if I want my child to slow down more, if I don't want them to have to instantly react to notifications that they get, if I want them to spend less time on devices, if I want them to just simply be, how much am I modeling Rush, rush. Your phone pings, you instantly pick it up, these sorts of things, and it's a work in progress.

23:17

I'm not saying that there is you're going to get this right all of the time The number of times I have said to my children you're always on your phone.

23:25

And then my children will say mum, you're always checking your inverted, you know, in speech marks, work emails, and so that is a wake up call. It's like right, okay, actually you're right, i do. I need to make a conscious effort And I go through periodic cycles where I literally I'm very fortunate enough to have an office at home, where I close the door on my office at eight o'clock in the evening and I leave my devices in there and I don't check them again. That's what I've had to do. It creeps back in and then I have to be, I catch myself and it goes back. So it's not about doing things right all of the time, but it's just being aware. If I'm asking my child to do X and Y, how am I modeling X and Y, and are there some tweaks that I could put in that might help shift them along the desired path that a little bit more quickly, because they can see?

Dr Olivia KesselHost24:12

me doing the same, and it gives you some freedom from your devices too and allows you to enjoy being part of the family or reading a good book or doing other things. So, yeah, it's very good advice And, as you say, not easy and it can slip at good advice, talking at advice. It's been really wonderful having you on the podcast today. What three top tips could you give parents, particularly looking through the lens of neurodiversity, for their parenting? I know that's a tough one, but Okay, i'm gonna.

Dr. MaryhanGuest24:41

I'll give you the three. The first one is I think this is a really important one is around having some form of reflective practice. Having some form of reflective practice allows us to unravel the autopilot habits that we tend to get caught up in as parents with neurodiverse, because we are trying to manage challenging situations in moments And actually, if we don't reflect, what we can find ourselves is going down a particular path because maybe we've read it in a parenting book or we've heard it in a podcast where we're getting friction and it might actually be that that strategy isn't going to be helpful for our child. It might help one child, but it might not help the other. So I think having some form of reflective practice now that doesn't have to be a journal. I'm a huge fan of journaling. I think it's a really helpful way of catching how you're feeling, whether you're overwhelmed, what's happening in terms of your family. But I do think having some sort of reflective practice is a really good way to check in that you're not going down a path too far that just simply isn't working. And I also think, with that reflective practice with yourself, but also with all other parties that are involved in raising your child to, whether you are co-parenting in the same home, whether you're co-parenting with your partner and you live apart, whether that's a relationship that you have with a school or a center that your child gets additional support from. I think that reflective piece is a really crucial part because it allows us to just make sure we're navigating. We're just checking our sat nav to make sure that we're on the best path. We're on the best route for our child and for our family. So that's the first one, i would say.

26:18

The second one is the self-care that we've talked about. Is that really reframe your relationship with the notion self-care? because it's something that you need to engage in and whether you see it as self-care is childcare, but it's your childcare for you, and that can be as simple as checking, catching yourself when you are having that critical conversation that you're about parent. You're failing your child, it's all your fault. You don't seem to be doing a good job If it's just simply checking in on that or it's just allowing yourself to wake up 20 minutes earlier and just have 20 minutes on your own in peace. Whether it's a bath, whether it's self-care, is just simply prioritizing your sleep so that you get enough. So it's that whole kind of reflective, the self-care.

26:59

And then the third one is about building a community and a tribe finding your tribe, your community, your cheerleaders, your supporters, people you can have honest conversations with about your experience, who are not going to judge, who are going to be there to support you, and where you can also share ideas and collectively help each other. I think that's such a crucial part. And your tribe may well be other parents with neurodiverse children, but they may well just be really close friends and family or colleagues at work. Connection is the crucial part that makes us human and that helps us overcome challenges. So let's stay connected rather than disconnected. Which is often what happens with when we're raising neurodiverse children is that we can feel very isolated and very alone. And it is about finding our tribe and the right tribe for us, and it will look different. My tribe will look different to yours, olivia, will look different to your listeners, and it's just accepting what unique tribe we need.

Dr Olivia KesselHost27:55

Those would be my top three. That is a fantastic top three and words to live by. It has been an absolute pleasure, dr Mary Han, to have you on the show today, and I will continue to be one of your number one fans listening to your podcast, and I advise anyone who's listening on the show. I'll have the details on my website and the podcast too, because you say it how it is, which is how I like to hear it. So thank you again. Oh, thank you, olivia.

Dr. MaryhanGuest28:20

It was an absolute pleasure.

Dr Olivia KesselHost28:25