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Keeping Up with the Kiddos: Balancing Special Needs & Neurotypical Siblings · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Inchtone podcast. I've been here with two child therapists that are local to my area, New Jersey, Carrie Adams and Christina Rahm of Love Play Grow. Guys, thank you so much for being here today. Oh, I love me some therapy.
• 0:17
  Speaker B: Thanks for having us.
• 0:18
  Speaker C: We're so excited to be here.
• 0:20
  Speaker A: Love me some good old inner child healing. Carrie, give us a little overview about what you provide at Love Play Growing.
• 0:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So we're a boutique private practice who really lean into motherhood and providing services for family and children for a broad spectrum of different things going on in the family unit. And our goal is honestly to bring joy back to parenthood and help families be their best self that they can be.
• 0:50
  Speaker A: It's phenomenal. I, you know, as someone who just leans into the whole deeply feeling kid narrative and how we as a village can help our children become the best versions of themselves through therapy and play. I just love what you guys are doing.
• 1:06
  Speaker B: We love that and we love it.
• 1:09
  Speaker A: So you guys know my story. And having both a typical child and two children with non speaking autism, Millie and Mac, One of the things that I get a lot as a, as a mother with such a diverse and complex family makeup is how do I hold space for the growth of my typical child in relation to her siblings having severe special needs? You know, talk to me about what that looks like in a therapy session and what your directive would be as therapists to help those typical child children that have a very complex family makeup.
• 1:41
  Speaker B: I think number like the first thing that comes to my mind is our goal as therapists is just to hold space. Right. The number one factor of therapy is that therapeutic relationship. And it is, it's allowing them to come raw to whatever feelings they have to being a part of that family system. Because I think a lot of times at, at certain points of their development, they do get overlooked, right? Because they are the typical one. And I think people forget that they have really big feelings related to being a part of that family system.
• 2:16
  Speaker C: I think guilt is a big feeling that can get in the way. Feeling bad for things that no one can help. And I think, Carrie, you know, if I could just add to what you're saying about acceptance. I think accepting the difficult feelings that go with having many different types of developing kids in one family system, it would really be to own the guilt that can sometimes go with that.
• 2:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. Like, I think when you, when you have non speaking autism as a keystone of a family makeup, you know, the typical sibling dynamics just Aren't there? And yet, to your point, there's still a lot of deeply heavy emotions that go alongside growing up in a family that looks like ours and holding space for that.
• 3:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, right, for a typical sibling, it's a loss of what they thought a sibling relationship was going to look like. And you bring up such a great point of parents being like, oh, I just wish it was quiet for that. Wish another family was. I wish my house was, which is cacophonous.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: Like, I wish I was just like, oh my God. You know.
• 3:35
  Speaker B: And for a typical child, it could look like, wish my sibling could just barge in my room and steal my stuff and fight with me. And that goes back to the guilt of even wishing that that could happen. And why can't we just accept what we have? And that's really hard for typical siblings, especially depending on where they are in development.
• 3:56
  Speaker A: I always wonder, and I'd love to get your take on this, you know, modeling as a 41 year old mother to be present and mindful, like I always try to say, like, be where my feet are, be in the moment and respond in all the ways that I've learned is the best way. Do you feel that the typically developing child in a family with a lot of complex needs learns that earlier and is that a good thing or do they, does that put a weight on them to rise to a higher level before there are many different developmentally ready for that?
• 4:26
  Speaker C: I think both can be true and I don't think either one is a bad thing. I think that depending on how your family frames things. Right. So Carrie, you said before that there's, there's a lot of loss when you have a family with differing needs and when you're really good about just putting it out there and accepting all of the big and deep and sometimes conflicting feelings that go with this stuff. All of these conversations can become both and.
• 5:02
  Speaker A: Yes. And always. Yeah, I love that.
• 5:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:05
  Speaker A: Talk about the, you know, the big G word, I guess, is grief. You know, I, I do a lot of talks and I, and I know it gets laughter, but you know, no woman living in Manhattan at 29 gets pregnant for the second time and goes, you know what? I want two kids with non speaking autism. Right. Like, that's not part of what I was sold growing up. I wasn't sold that in this very, you know, typical trajectory that I was on then. I think no child wakes up and goes, I want a sibling that is not portrayed in any of the books about younger sisters. And the way that they develop next to each other and fight and steal clothes, you know, it's. It starts so young, you know, so there is a grief and loss that is tied to the loss of a trajectory or a narrative that you somehow cling to even from a young age, even from like a typical developing 10 year old as to what they feel like they deserve.
• 6:04
  Speaker C: I don't know if you guys remember, but I remember growing up thinking I was going to have so many kids. Like I had it all planned out.
• 6:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, Carrie is. Well, Carrie is. Carrie is. Have so many kids.
• 6:16
  Speaker B: I have a gaggle. But the running joke was prior to me having my first. Like I wasn't having kids.
• 6:23
  Speaker A: So. Okay, so the joke really is on you. Yes, exactly.
• 6:28
  Speaker C: But we all create stories and that.
• 6:30
  Speaker A: Starts from when we were little.
• 6:32
  Speaker C: Like, what you ever played MASH as a kid?
• 6:35
  Speaker A: Where are you going to? Yeah. Grief is losing and loss is loss and, and the loss of something that you desired so deeply to want and have, like, it challenges you in a way that does feel like grief. It's, it's not, it's a, you know, it's non linear, it goes back and forth, it ebbs and flows.
• 6:53
  Speaker B: And I think you bring up a great point because years ago grief was someone, it was a tragedy. Someone died, you lost something. And really what we've learned is the way the brain takes in grief is through. Through different experiences. It can be an experiential loss for yourself of what you anticipated, the idea of what you had. And then how do you overcome and work through that? Because we are storytellers, human beings are, we all tell stories. I don't know if anyone has like sat in their car and told themselves a story of like how the day is going to go. It's all about expectations and it's how.
• 7:34
  Speaker C: We make sense of the world is through stories. It's how we learn.
• 7:37
  Speaker A: Right. And I think, you know, changing the narrative to that it's okay to grieve the loss of something that you really deeply wanted. Right. Like it's okay to feel. I, I've been blessed to be in a part of an organization where I actually got to know a few gentlemen who lost limbs in active combat. And you know, that's a loss. That's a deeply grieving loss too. But it's. And it sounds so silly because it's a limb or it's a hand, but like that changed their whole life too. And so I think grief does set you on a different trajectory. And it's also the receipt that you loved, I always like. That's my favorite, like Glennon Doyle quote is like, grief is the receipt that you wave in the air. Being like, I love something. Like, I love the idea of what I was envisioning for myself. I did love that. I wanted that so deeply. But this. But the trajectory I'm on now and my children's is not wrong either. And it doesn't. And it can still be as magnificent and full of magic, but it's just going to look a lot different.
• 8:39
  Speaker C: I think a big part of accepting reality starts with acknowledging the loss and the grief. And it is very real. There are many different types of losses, and grief goes with loss.
• 8:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:56
  Speaker C: My favorite metaphor, I don't know if it's a metaphor or analogy, but my favorite idiom about grief is like, if you imagine grief is like a box with a button inside, and when the button gets pushed, that's like a grief reaction. Right? Because grief is also something that, like you said, it ebbs and it flows.
• 9:18
  Speaker A: It.
• 9:19
  Speaker C: The. The. The feeling of sadness doesn't tend to change with grief. It's very powerful. It's a very powerful type of sadness that people have the expectation that it'll get better over time.
• 9:30
  Speaker A: Right.
• 9:30
  Speaker C: So if you imagine this box and there's a button that, when it gets pushed, that's grief. It's this intense, deep sadness that doesn't really change. And inside is a ball. The ball bounces around the box. And every time the ball hits the button is when we get flooded with this really deep, intense sadness. When we're first presented with whatever form of loss it is, the ball is huge. So the button gets pushed a lot.
• 9:59
  Speaker A: Right.
• 9:59
  Speaker C: And what happens over time is the button doesn't change. The ball gets smaller. So the ball might bounce around a lot, and it only hits the button maybe a couple times now, but every time the button gets put, it's pushed. It's the same intense, sad feeling that really doesn't change.
• 10:16
  Speaker A: I.
• 10:17
  Speaker C: And I love that that's one of the hard things about grief is that, like, the feeling doesn't really change that much.
• 10:24
  Speaker A: Well, I love that. I love that visual. And I. And I know that within your practice, you guys do a lot of play and art to resemble those big feelings and. And. And visually align what that emotion might feel like. And I think it's powerful for adults, too. I want to go back to play therapy because I think we all need a little play. That's really powerful. That's a really powerful way of describing it that I Had always used. And now I'm going to use your one. But is. Was like grief is this core. And if you talk about it and share and realize and live and it starts to dissolve a little bit into your life and not become the center of how you live.
• 11:01
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 11:01
  Speaker A: You know, and it just. It's. It's always going to be a part of you. But the more you just allow it to be one part of you and not the core of you, it won't drastically change like your entire life. It just becomes a part of your. Of your life and your lived experience.
• 11:17
  Speaker C: I think that's it. I think that's the thing with grief is that it. It is different than other feelings because it's very powerful and it can tend to take over if you're not really aware of what it is and really accepting of how deeply sad it is.
• 11:35
  Speaker B: I was just gonna say I feel like too, for people. Right. Human beings, we don't like the feeling of grief. So we actually try and fix it.
• 11:44
  Speaker A: Right.
• 11:44
  Speaker B: And trying to fix it instead of just being makes it bigger. It makes worse. It makes it feel like we're not being heard and understood. And really our message is. Is like we sometimes just need to let things be right. It's okay to have those big feelings. It's okay to not have all of the answers.
• 12:05
  Speaker A: Like, it just is. I always say, like it just is. There's nothing we can do. There's no amount of gripping or shapeshifting that we can do. It just is.
• 12:16
  Speaker C: I think the more that people know, like every time the button gets pushed, it is. It's the same feeling. Intense sadness. People can get rocked by that feeling, like there's something wrong with them. There's nothing wrong.
• 12:27
  Speaker A: Right. Right. From a. How do you think it's best to lean into those big feelings? Specifically, I like the special needs family dynamic when the typical child is experiencing these big feelings over what they don't have within their family or within their siblings. What. What might that look like? Will that. Will those behaviors present in a certain way? How can mothers and fathers that have cognitive diversity in their family react best to those feelings from their typical child? And I. And I beyond just maybe letting them share because I think sometimes even getting them to the point of sharing is tough.
• 13:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, Christina and I always go back to less is more. That's the foundation of what we believe in is less is more. So it's allowing and creating open spaces for whatever comes up. Because you're right, Sarah. It might be. Sometimes it looks like anger and like acting out. And sometimes it looks like shutting down.
• 13:31
  Speaker C: Sometimes kids have a specific flavor of firefighter freeze they love to constantly grabbed from. Other times they like the whole buffet.
• 13:39
  Speaker A: Right, right. Well, that I didn't realize that this was gonna, this is gonna rise. But the less is more concept is literally the inch zones over milestones for me. It's celebrating the small ability or whatever is given to connect or to develop that's worthy of deep acknowledgement. And being grateful for doesn't have to be this like grandiose, like sit down, like life altering heart session. It can look like the second before they leave the car when they go to school.
• 14:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think for a lot of parents. Right. It's hard to envision what that looks like because I think our natural response is you love your siblings no matter what. And while that is the foundation of it all, at the same time we need space to. Siblings are human beings, so they're going to do things to make us mad, they're going to annoy us. And through all of that, especially when you have, you know, these dynamics happening, it is creating space for whatever feelings are coming up. And those feelings may be big and they may be uncomfortable to deal with because as a parent, your initial reaction is like, I don't want them to feel that way. I don't want them to feel that way about their siblings. But, but sometimes we just need the space for it to happen. And honestly those feelings can pass much faster if the space is created.
• 15:09
  Speaker A: You know, I think, yeah, I, I think a lot about the verbal communication of my oldest. And she'll say something like, it's just really annoying that, that like they never put their stuff away. And I, I sound like a broken record being like, yeah, that is really annoying. I would be annoyed too. And it's almost like the number of times that that has to be said over and over again for a typically developing child. Like that's how they learn. They learn through the modeling of it, but also just saying, continuing to hold space for the same annoying thing, you know, the repetition.
• 15:45
  Speaker C: Are you going to change your answer? Are you just saying that? How many times am I going to hear that same mantra from you until I really believe that we're on the same page here.
• 15:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. And they always think with these, like typical sibling, siblings can know that something is not going to happen from their atypical sibling. Like the typical one can know at the same time still be really damn well annoyed by it. And you know, that's okay. Like I think Sometimes is why their special needs motherhood is seen. Like, you know, people will say to me, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you do it. Well, I do it because that's my norm. I think for a lot of parents, they get caught in this cycle like what should be X? Well, it's not, it's not. And just the acceptance of that, this.
• 16:30
  Speaker B: Should be, it should be. We just need to throw it out the window.
• 16:34
  Speaker C: It's a cognitive distortion, you know, shooting on ourselves.
• 16:37
  Speaker A: It really is. Yeah. Talk to me more about that. Is it, is it a society that does it? Is it, is it the narrative? Is it the stories that we just ingest through the structures of our own homes?
• 16:52
  Speaker C: You can attack this, you could attack this from so many angles.
• 16:55
  Speaker A: Right.
• 16:56
  Speaker C: Think about people with disabilities. Historically they weren't seen. People with disabilities were hidden in. Previous generations were hidden away. So you know, I think another sort of like secondary message that's coming around now is the fear of over diagnosis or the fear that, you know, all these kids have all like 1 in 36.
• 17:20
  Speaker A: Like it was 1 in 78 five years ago. Now it's 1 in 36. Right. I get that a lot. And I'm like, I think we're paying attention.
• 17:28
  Speaker C: I believe it definitely is. And I think it also goes with acknowledging there's just different types of brains out there. Not one type of brain is better than any other. There's a lot of research that shows that without people with different types of brains, we wouldn't be anywhere near as technologically or culturally as advanced as we are. We need differences. Different isn't bad.
• 17:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, I was talking about this like the reason that Microsoft and Silicon Valley leaned into neurodiversity hiring because of the skill sets of autistic individuals. Now they probably were doing it from a self isolating standpoint at first, which is fine. I, I'm, you know, personally being hired to talk about it to companies because I think there's some beautiful aspect of the expansion of that acceptance. And it's not just we accept the differences. It's like, nope, they offer something to us.
• 18:24
  Speaker C: Yeah, we like really relish in it. The, you know, the shooting on ourselves is a cognitive distortion because it comes with an expectation of what is right and what is wrong. And I think as we progress as a society, we're acknowledging and really accepting and loving differences because we're realizing that it's part of what makes us all better.
• 18:47
  Speaker A: Well, I, you know, again, I could, I can blow sunshine and rainbows up your tushes all day long because I believe in the work that you're doing so much for children. But think about one of the things in my own work that I never thought was going to rise to the top was how emotionally intelligent Gen Z is in the workplace.
• 19:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, I love it.
• 19:08
  Speaker A: I freaking love it. It makes me so happy. I was, you know, starting into this world of speaking and doing Q and A and fireside chats at companies in New York, and I really was like, okay, let's affect these mothers and parents that are just so siloed into the expectations of what life is supposed to look like. And the best questions have literally come from these 27, 28 year old young girls, young men who are like, I have a, a nephew that I see for Thanksgiving every year, and I just want a way to connect with them. Like, what? And I'm thinking, I was not expecting that. How beautiful is this next generation? I. And I'm like, Gen Z, you get a really damn bad rap. Okay?
• 19:46
  Speaker C: That's like a societal expectation. Right. Every generation has to like, hate the incoming generation.
• 19:53
  Speaker A: But I wasn't hating on them. I was not even. I guess I was, was expecting to have to teach more of the, of the acceptance. And what I'm realizing that they've grown up with a deeper sense of emotional intelligence if they're raised in a family who supported the kind of work that you're doing, which is this broad sense of emotional development and childhood development and child rearing from an open space. I was not expecting that to be such a win within the special needs and neurodiversity movement at all.
• 20:25
  Speaker B: Well, I think for them, right, it's been their norm. It's been, it's talked about every day. Where I think in the previous generations, I mean, at least for millennials, we were the generation of, like, it opened our eyes that people can be different and accepted and that there are beautiful elements of being different. Right. The previous generations, everyone needed to be very cookie cutter, where now it's, if you're not different enough, you're not doing it.
• 20:56
  Speaker A: That's a whole nother.
• 20:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
• 20:58
  Speaker C: It's actually like, it's cool to be weird.
• 21:00
  Speaker A: Right?
• 21:00
  Speaker C: Right.
• 21:01
  Speaker B: And, you know, going back to a lot of what we've been talking about, we use this book often in therapy called the Beautiful Oops. And honestly, like, it's sometimes when we make a mistake, the most beautiful things happen. From those mistakes, the most beautiful things come from, like, the oops. I didn't mean that. And I think as we progress, we can kind of take what previous generations maybe didn't get right. They didn't, like, get it a hundred percent. And we can figure out how to make those beautiful oopses out of that. And that's, like, the beauty of being different.
• 21:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. Like, you're not being buried, you're being planted. I always say, like, that oops didn't lock you down. It just planted you in a different way.
• 21:43
  Speaker B: Right. Yeah. It's resiliency.
• 21:45
  Speaker A: It's resilient. I mean, gosh, I always think about grit. And, like, I. To be full disclosure, my parents wouldn't care, but I'm always like, you guys didn't teach me how to be gritty. Like, I don't have grit. It was so painfully difficult. Like, the world is yours or you can dream anything you want to be. And you get to Brooklyn, New York, and you're like, really? I don't have grit to, like, work here. I think that emotional grit is such a high currency now because, gosh, to be able to weather into oops and to fail is such a huge lesson in life to learn, and it's awesome when you get it.
• 22:18
  Speaker B: And that's like, something that Christina and I believe really strongly about, is that kids need to learn how to fail.
• 22:24
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 22:25
  Speaker B: We need failure to learn how to be successful.
• 22:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker C: Can't be a great winner without being a great loser.
• 22:31
  Speaker A: Right, right. But. But why isn't that. Why isn't that discussed, like, every damn day, guys. Like, that needs to be. Because I think as a. As a parent and when you're modeling to your children what you are showing them, a successful adulthood, like, every which way, they're looking at you to see how to be a person. Right. And so if they don't see you fail and they only see you, quote, unquote, like, winning at life, winning at your job, they just think that that's the norm.
• 22:59
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Think about how much anxiety goes into parenting, too. Nobody wants to mess up. Everyone wants to get it right.
• 23:07
  Speaker A: What's right? What's right? Like, well, yeah.
• 23:10
  Speaker B: And honestly, though, you're teaching your oldest typical child that you can do hard things.
• 23:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:17
  Speaker B: This can be really hard and really magical at the same time.
• 23:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. I believe that you choose your hard. You choose your hard. And some of the things that are hard, you're not going to get to choose. You're not.
• 23:29
  Speaker C: Yes, that's true.
• 23:30
  Speaker A: You know, and I think that the navigation of life is Going to be a constant choosing of your hard and. But when it comes to the special needs things, the things that you don't choose are, you're going to have to buckle down even bigger on saying, like, I'm going to make this, I'm going to learn, I'm it. What seems like a failure is actually just planting me into becoming stronger and healthier with a better mindset on anything in life. Right. You know, I, I was laughing with someone, they were like, if you had 12 hours to get yourself to London and set up at an Airbnb with the kids, could you. I was like, yeah, yeah. Like I, and I would, like, I would be like, oh, I'm going to do it in like 11. Like I would, I would love that. But that's just me, right? And it doesn't make my brand of special needs motherhood any better than anyone else's. It's just that like when you start to lean into the things that make you, you, the hards get, the hearts don't look as hard or they don't feel as hard, right. They just look more like an acceptance to all the life up and ups and downs. What would be one thing that you would both, you know, dictate to special needs parents who are really trying to give as much as they can to their typical child while also being a caregiver to their, to their special needs children?
• 24:42
  Speaker C: God, this is such a good question because I think that it goes back to me for guilt, right? There can be so much guilt in parenting special needs children because if you, it can feel like if you paid attention to one, the other, if you have like a, you know, more typically developing child or you know, whatever other kids are losing out. I think it is so important to just acknowledge that whatever you do, however guilty you end up feeling, that that's part of it. And the most important person I think that can get lost in parenting differently abled kids within one family system are parents. And I think parents often let themselves and their needs slide first. Sleep, exercise, good food, like all of those basic primary things can be forgotten about. Right. And then you're better able to give yourself what you can to each of your kids.
• 25:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I always say like my ability to respond in the best way to all the different cognitive differences and dive of all my kids starts with me being the healthiest and best version of myself. Right. As my typical one's getting older, there are times where like she's going to bed after me, so I gotta go to bed. Like I don't know what to tell you. Like, I'm, I'm white. The mother or father choosing their own health, mental health, physical, all those things to then respond in the best way they know. I mean, we're, we're inundated, right. As millennial. Well, I'm a geriatric millennial. A geriatric millennial parent. I'm a devotee of, you know, Brene Brown and Dr. Becky and all those people and love play growing. Like, I'm a devotee of you guys.
• 26:41
  Speaker B: I think it's also reminding ourselves that coming to parenthood, we bring our own set of baggage.
• 26:48
  Speaker A: Right.
• 26:48
  Speaker B: And we're human beings, and we really are just doing the best we can with the cards we have. And some days those cards are going to be like poker. We hit it.
• 27:01
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:02
  Speaker B: And some days it's going to be like we are on the struggle bus and we're just trying to get through. And it is, it's like the dialectical of the end, but. And it's okay that we live in this dialectical of some days we hit it and some days we don't. And accepting that we've done the best we can.
• 27:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. The most generous response, like someone, I think, I don't know, I guess it was Brene Brown I read or heard recently saying, what's the most generous response I can give to myself for how I showed up today? Right. Like, it's not going to be pretty every day, but what's the most generous I can be to myself? Yeah, I didn't get as much sleep last night. Like, one of them, one of them was sick. We fell off the bandwagon when it came to potty training with the, with my nine and a half year old. It's okay. It's okay, you know, because I definitely tried my best.
• 27:49
  Speaker C: Think about what a beautiful model that is for your typically developing child, too.
• 27:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:53
  Speaker C: I think give them permission. Some days you're going to hit it out of the park, and some days you're not.
• 27:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 28:00
  Speaker C: And both are.
• 28:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much. I, I the work that you're doing again, if you ever need sunshine and rainbows blowing up your tush, come here. Because I am in such belief about what you guys do for children, but it's, it's for the parents that come to your practice as well, because we get to, we get to watch how you mastered, you know, the, the act of creative therapy and art and play into all this. Because I'll be honest, I had not thought about art as therapy. In a really long time and just recently bought a watercolor set. And I was like, you know what? Start doing this again. And so you're. What you're giving back is not just to the children that come into your practice in your lives, but also to the parents, too. So thank you so much for what you do and to finding those little inches along the way.
• 28:49
  Speaker B: As always, thank you, Sarah.
• 28:53
  Speaker C: Thank you so much.
• 28:53
  Speaker A: You're so welcome. And we will see you next time. Hear you next time. Listen next time on the Instance podcast. Thanks, y'all.