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Helping Children Build the Skills for Success with Brenda Mann · Marci talks money (and life)

• Marci Grossman (00:00.962) Hello, I am MoneyMarci, welcome. Today is another one of those episodes where you might ask, where's the financial content? And Our goal as parents is to raise our children to be competent adults. Some children need a little more support and education to get there and reach their full potential. I am thrilled to welcome today's guest, Brenda Mann. Brenda started her career as a teacher who taught kindergarten. second grade and middle school, and then high school remedial math. She earned her mama bear doctorate, which is self-described, so don't look it up, after having her own children have unique needs, both of whom had ADHD and other related disorders. She dedicated several years to providing them with early intervention and support and left teaching, and through this process, learned firsthand how to navigate the complex systems of effective parenting, school supports and special education. This experience led her to become an advocate for families struggling to get appropriate services for their children and she trained in special ed law after hiring an advocate for her sons to get proper support at school. And I just want to mention here that both of her sons are gainfully employed and out of her house so she must know something. In 2013, Brenda founded Academic and Behavior Consultants specializing in supporting students with ADHD, anxiety, autism, depression, dyslexia, and other brain-based differences. Her coaching model emphasizes parent involvement and positive collaboration with schools to promote student success. She works weekly with families to build executive function skills, including organization, time management, focus, self-regulation, self-advocacy, and study strategies. I'm not sure what that noise was, so I'm going to back up a second. She works weekly with families to build executive function skills, including organization, time management, focus, self-regulation, self-advocacy, and study strategies. Marci Grossman (02:13.793) Brenda helps support children when the symptoms get in the way of success. for these kids. She trained in love and logic parenting. Jim Fay was her parenting role model and has led numerous parent workshops using this approach. She created and taught Empathy and Education, Effective Teachers for all Children, and she has trained public and private school educators and after school care providers in this method. She has been the parent administrator for over 20 years for her local CHADD organization, which is Children and Adults with ADHD, a nationally recognized, research-based group funded by federal grants and the CDC. Welcome, Brenda. Brenda (02:58.678) Thank you, Marci. It's great to be here. Marci Grossman (03:02.015) I am thrilled to have you. It's so important. mean, as parents, we want our kids successful. And sometimes when kids are having these challenges in school early on, it feels like success is going to be forever out of reach. So thank you for what you do. Brenda (03:21.48) thank you, thank you. You know, I always say, I wish I didn't know what I know because it wasn't an easy journey. And that's what I say to every parent who calls me. I mean, You can talk to your neighbors and you can talk to your cousins or your sisters who have kids that don't have these disorders and differences, and they'll say parenting is hard. And I'm warning every parent right now, it's going to be challenging. But the more you do now, the easier it will be later. And that's always my goal with the people who contact me. Marci Grossman (03:56.162) Well, I'm thrilled to have you right now because this is, We're recording in October, which is ADHD Awareness Month, and I do hope to get this published and online in October. But you do so much more than just ADHD. So how do you, because you don't, you're not a doctor, you don't define the challenges that kids are facing. You help them work with it based on what their individual challenges seem to be, whether it's diagnosis-based or not. Brenda (04:31.638) Yes, I mean the majority of the students who come to me have a diagnosis. Once in a while, they need to go back and be reevaluated either because the first evaluator might not have caught something or the child was too young to diagnose it. So it's interesting because I say to all my families, I'm not a psychologist, but these are behavioral disorders. Like if you walk into our local hospital, Henry Ford, and you're going for social work, or going to get evaluated by a psychologist or getting medication from a psychiatrist. You walk in and it's called the behavioral support center. It's always called behavioral. So you can kind of tell when a child's exhibiting certain behaviors, and I don't mean naughty. You know, I might mean it takes you forever to get dressed in the morning, right? Or you're constantly forgetting your books at school. It's not that you're naughty, it's a behavior. And those behaviors are often symptoms. of the disorders that I treat. So it's not that I can diagnose, but I can certainly say many families come to me with the ADHD because it seems to be the most easily diagnosed. People can go right to their pediatrician. Their pediatrician doesn't do any evaluation other than the basic, you know, T like a question and answer for the family, maybe the teachers. But even if you speak to most psychologists, and I don't want to get into this because I can't explain the exact details, But there truly is no way to truly evaluate ADHD. Psychologists will explain this much better than I will. But while they're looking for something that's causing the issue with these kids, they then can see other disorders, which are so, we call it a comorbidity. They're the most common things you'll find together. Like for me, ADHD and anxiety is the most common situation that I get when families call me. I kind of compare it to like asthma and allergies. It's like A lot of kids have asthma, a lot of kids have allergies, but a lot of kids have both. And so when a child has asthma, it's a lot. It's a lot for that child. It's a lot for the parents to control. Same thing for allergies. But when you put the two together, I always say when you have one disorder like ADHD or allergies, it's like constantly having storms coming in. But when you have two things together, Brenda (06:58.188) like ADHD and dyslexia or ADHD and depression or ADHD and anxiety, which is the most common that I work with. It's not storms once in a while. It's a constant storm. And sometimes it's like a tornado and it's heavy on the family. It's a lot. So making sure that families get the right diagnosis and the right supports calms the storm. It's still going to be. Marci Grossman (07:21.299) And right now what you are is You're that support and you don't cure anything. You don't heal anything. What you do is you teach the families and the students strategies to help them manage so that they can move forward and have them less get in the way of their of their success. Brenda (07:43.275) Exactly, exactly. It's just symptoms that we're dealing with, right? So the symptom is you don't know what your homework is. So the first thing I say to every family is, well, do they use a planner? And I will say 99, I always use this percentage, but it's true. 99.9999 % of parents who come to me say, we did a planner, it didn't work. And I always say to the parents, well, you know what? I always use this example. If you bake a cake and you leave out one ingredient, How's the cake going to taste? Forget the flour, forget the sugar, it's not going to be good. I said, that's what happens to all of you. You're trying, you're doing the best you know how, but you forgot one ingredient. So the planner didn't work. So one of the first things I do with every family, whether it's ADHD or if it's a child with anxiety or a child with dyslexia, I get kids with just one learning difference. The planner's number one. So it's things like that and How do you use a planner effectively? And it's much more than the planner. There's a series of systems that I take families through and I say to the parents, you have to be 100 % involved when I'm teaching these systems of organization and time management and self-advocacy. And what do you do when your anxiety is flaring up? You know, we teach that with the family and then the parents slowly pull out of the sessions, but they're hearing the way I model. I'm teaching parents, how do you model handling the issues your child's having? And so the parents are less involved as time goes on and depending on age. mean, parents who call me with kids, middle school through high school, it varies how much the parents involved. College kids typically, don't want their parents involved, but some parents are good to be kept on the sidelines. some, you know, Every family that I work with, when the parent isn't there, they get a message directly after the meeting saying everything that we went through and any issues that have come up. But, you know, it really, the biggest piece to the puzzle here isn't the child, it's the parent. Brenda (09:55.703) It's the parent finding the right supports. It's the parent making sure the school is giving the child the right supports. And unfortunately, that's why I became an advocate. Because when I was a teacher, I always say I taught at the Camelot of all schools. Like back in the day, I felt like I was with the kings and queens of education. There weren't better people than the people I worked with, except... for a few of the people who were supposed to help with kids who were having struggles. And they never helped me. And everybody took it as normal. Like this is just the way it is. And it didn't feel right to me. And I had this little boy, let's call him Cameron. I had a little boy named Cameron. And Cameron had already done, we used to have developmental kindergarten for kids who weren't developmentally ready for kindergarten, which is very common. A lot of kids aren't ready to start kindergarten when their same age peers do. And typically those are the kids who might have ADHD or anxiety or something like that. And so Cameron was in the developmental kindergarten and then I had him in kindergarten and he was struggling just like he did the year before. And I'm thinking, okay, well what happened in that year? And he was with an amazing teacher. So I had him, I tried to get him support, no one would help me. And then a year went by, Cameron was in first grade and my boss had asked me if I wanted to move up to second grade. And so I did and I got Cameron again. And those struggles were still there but they were bigger because now the expectations were larger. And this is one of the most frustrating things I hear from parents. How were they supposed to know what to do? The teacher saying there's problems, but the teacher didn't suggest anything. And this is why I got in trouble. Because I said to Cameron's parents, who I was very close to, I already had them for a year, you know, we're close to our parents in early childhood and you have a lot more contact. And I said, hey, you know, from all the things I'm seeing, Brenda (12:02.252) this sounds like ADHD and I had someone in my life at the time and I also had a cousin who had ADHD. Well, we didn't, I mean, my cousin's like in his fifties now. We didn't talk about it back then. And my aunt medicated him and it was a secret. It was something nobody wanted to share. If the child had allergies or diabetes, everyone would know, but it was like a secret. So I told the parents, maybe they should go speak to their doctor. And this is my favorite story, but I got in trouble for it. And I told the parents, go to your doctor and see. See what they say about ADHD or something. And they went, they figured it out. Dad realized, this is why I struggled my whole life. This is why I struggled. And dad went and got tested. He found out he had ADHD. And they went and thanked my principal for having this wonderful teacher. And my principal came back to me and said, Brenda, you're not a doctor. You can't tell these parents what you think is going on. You can say they might want to go speak to their doctor. Well, the fact is, almost every parent that I work with has already spoken to their pediatrician. I did, and they did nothing for me. And they did nothing for a lot of my families. So I got in trouble for doing it. I didn't get fired or anything, but we could be sued as teachers. The school district could be sued because we were speaking medical, and that's not our place. So it's very hard for a parent if they have no idea what it could be, they figure the teachers are going to tell you what to do. And thank goodness because of the pandemic, I always say there's silver linings in everything, because of the pandemic, kids with these disorders were coming out like crazy because good teachers and structure in the classroom kind of... alleviates a lot of that stuff that's already there that you'll see with these kids, but really great teachers do a great job. But that pandemic and putting kids online with something they've never done before, that was really hard. And so I think pediatricians were starting to handle these issues because there weren't enough psychologists who do evaluations, social workers who do the therapy and help with these issues, and psychiatrists to give the medication. There just weren't enough out there. Brenda (14:20.214) So I think things have changed because of the pandemic. And I know a lot of pediatricians who they are the go-to in their group. It's like, you think there's some kind of issue like ADHD or dyslexia or anxiety, you have to go see this pediatrician. Because your regular pediatrician probably is very unaware of most of these. Not that they're unaware of the disorder, but that's just not what they specialized in. Marci Grossman (14:48.119) Well, that makes sense. And, you know, I like the things you're saying about Cameron and it sounds like his parents were involved and they got him the support he needed. And I assume that helped him turn things around. But when a child doesn't get diagnosed, they're given this label as troublemaker and they don't work to achieve because they've got this label and they move forward and maybe they graduate high school and maybe they don't. And maybe that means that they're not gonna look at moving forward with their life. And that's why I was so excited to be able to bring you on here because I hate the thought that there are these people that could be out there having wonderful opportunities and wonderful lives. And if we're not supporting them when they're younger, then we're short circuiting all of that for them. We're stopping it. We're throwing a roadblock and saying, you need help, but... We just don't have time. We're gonna stick that label on you and let that define you. Brenda (15:51.459) Yes, yes. And it's the most horrific thing about being a teacher. Because when I did go back after having my kids, and now I knew. You know, because my kids don't just have ADHD. ADHD rarely comes alone. It's like, it used to be 60 % of people have ADHD and something else. I can't remember the statistics. By the way, I think I have dyslexia, because when my son was diagnosed with dyslexia, and I learned about it, because we didn't know about it back when I was teaching. We didn't even help kids who have dyslexia. That just kind of came around about 15 years ago that schools had to support kids with dyslexia. It shocked me because all the struggles that I had in school were probably due to that. Dyslexia is genetic. So a lot of times parents, the way that they'll even have an idea isn't because of the school, it's because they have their own concern about their learning. And those are the parents that are phenomenal to work with because they have empathy for this. I have parents who are more disorganized than all the kids that I work with put together. And they're the ones who yell and scream at their kids and they never follow through with the systems that I teach them because they have their own ADHD. So it's really hard. They probably do. Again, I can't diagnose, but if their child has it and they can't do anything I tell them to do and they don't return emails or text messages and they forget to pay and those are all symptoms of ADHD. And I know in your channel, that's what you want to talk about. You know how ADHD might affect money. And I say this all the time to my kids. Every time we do the systems, I say, this is the stuff you need to be an adult. It's just not homework that we're organizing. It's your life. It's when you've changed the oil in your car. It's when you make sure to fill the tank of gas. It's when you clean your filters in your heater. It's when, you know, how often do you have to cut the grass? When do you trim this? You know, it's organizing all those adult chores, but the biggest one that gets to them because they care about is money. So I'll say to them, you know, if you're not keeping track of your bank account or if you're not paying attention to your credit card and someone throws a $200 bill in there and you don't. Brenda (18:09.856) check your credit card bill and you don't keep organized with that, you're paying $200 that you didn't even spend. You needed to contact the visa company, but you weren't paying attention. So I try to get them to understand, because some of them don't want to go to college and I don't blame them. Number one, I don't blame them for lots of reasons, but number two, a lot of them see how hard school is. So they're afraid to say, I'm going to go invest in four years that I don't have to. Most of my kids do go to college. Most of my kids are very bright. It's just that organization, time management, self-advocacy, study skills that get in the way of them being successful. And parents who do not help them with those systems that they need. Marci Grossman (18:55.799) Well, and all those things you described, those all fall under executive function, right? Brenda (19:01.258) Exactly, exactly. Executive function, thank you, Marci. It's a new term. mean, we've known, actually the man who created that term just passed away. And he's like a guru in the ADHD world. And I posted something on my Facebook page about it. I kind of got a little teary because he made such a difference. Because people think ADHD is you're hyper or you're not focused. And there's so much more to it than that. And it's interesting because CHADD, the organization that you mentioned that I've been working with, I'm a volunteer, but I coordinate the parent side of it. We have two psychologists who coordinate the adult side. And there's CHADDs in every state, and there's multiple CHADDs in every state. But we we have a class called parent to parent. And they said, Brenda, you should go down and get trained in this. You know, we need someone to teach this to the other parents who come to our groups. And it was very extensive training. And, you know, I already had 10 years of experience in teaching and a master's degree. And I already had two little boys with ADHD and another adult in my life who had ADHD and was getting in lots of trouble at work, which is why I got involved in CHADD in the first place. I was involved with CHADD before I even had kids. So they sent me down and I got this intensive training and I didn't know any of this stuff from being a teacher but the one that really threw me the most was this term executive function. I mean executive function is pretty much everything you do all day long but breathe. You know like parents will say my kid goes to the bathroom and they forget to brush their teeth in the morning. They wash their face. They brush their hair, they forget to brush their teeth. Well, that's an executive function skill. That's remembering all the things that you need to do and managing them. know, kids forget to bring their books home so they can't do their homework. That's an executive function skill. Kids are late to the bus every day. That's an executive function skill, managing your time. So it's hard. I was shocked when they used that term, but then again, this was... Brenda (21:14.06) You know, this was almost 20 years ago that I was trained to teach this class. Now executive function, there isn't, I don't remember the last parent who called me who didn't mention executive function. Maybe there was one or two. And I have lots of parents calling me every month and they know that term. But the real world doesn't know the term, but the ADHD world knows the term, which is great. Marci Grossman (21:38.367) And executive function really just translates into adulting. Brenda (21:43.361) Yes, getting stuff done, getting it done on time, getting yourself started, know, predicting how much time it's going to take, making sure you have all the materials you need to do that task. It's everything you need to do. So that's a big weakness for a lot of children and adults with ADHD. I mean, I didn't mean to work with adults when I started this business, but I have adults calling me who are so stressed out and somehow they find me. because their executive function is completely off. It's not that of their peers. It's not that of an adult. Because ADHD is a developmental lag in the brain. And so we say that kids with ADHD are often three to five years immature, their peers. And one time I was talking to someone about a student and we were like, this kid is way more than five years immature, his peers, way more. So we can't expect these kids to do what their peers do, and that's what special education is about. That's what individualized education plans or programs are. IEPs is special education. It's what the federal government says we must have, just like we must have so many handicapped spots for people to park. Why would we make someone in a wheelchair or in a walker or with some physical condition. Why would we make them walk that far? There's no reason. They're going to get in the building. Everybody needs to get in the building. The rest of us don't need the handicapper. It's the same thing with kids with ADHD. They need those accommodations to help them. do the same thing their same age peers do. But in special education, not only do we accommodate them with things like, you know, giving them a seat that's not distracting or let them take tests in a room that's quiet. So when people are getting up and they're done with their test or someone's tapping their pencil, it's not distracting that child who can't focus anyway. Now you're adding that other stuff. So let that child go test in a quiet room. Those are accommodations. But IEPs actually teach. Brenda (23:50.147) those executive function skills. So that's what I do. You know, it's called executive function coaching. When I work with my families, it's executive function coaching. But those adults who contact me, they just, they've tried. They just, again, they've tried planners. They just can't figure it out themselves. You know, thank goodness for YouTube. There's a lot of stuff out there, but there's thousands of people to watch. You've got someone who's already falling apart in their life. They don't have time to go watch 20 different YouTube videos and find the right person. I mean, my kids do it all the time. They send me They send me memes. They send me reels. They're like, Brenda, check this person out. I'm like, I know. Isn't that great? This is what we've been talking about. But for adults, it's a shame. It's a shame that they have, that they've struggled for so long and they keep messing up and they can't figure it out. And so money's just such a... I mean, we all do it. We all pay our bills late once in a while. We all forget to pay a bill. You've got to be really organized to make sure you pay your bills on time and make sure you have enough money in the bank account so you don't get overdrawn. mean, There's so much about money that's connected to ADHD and success or lack of success. But we know people with ADHD can be the most successful people ever because when you can hyper focus on something and that's what ADHD is, it's not people have lots of definitions in their own head. ADHD is an issue with focus. When you're interested, you can hyper focus and be the most successful person on the planet. There are several people and we know the movie stars, right? Cause they're in our face. Like I always use Justin Timberlake as the perfect example. Justin Timberlake has ADHD, OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and anxiety. And back in the day, he's kind of quieted down, but anyone who's in their fifties or forties or thirties knows Knows about NSYNC, knows about Justin being on SNL, Saturday Night Live. Justin even had a clothing line. I mean, he had a solo career, he was in a boy band. He's one of the most successful people and he's got all three of those disorders. That ADHD, that hyper focus is what got him there. So it can be a really good thing, but you have to be organized. Marci Grossman (26:02.103) You have to learn the tools to manage it. So why would someone need a coach like you when you say they're getting that in their IEP at school? What's different? Why should parents be looking for something additional? Brenda (26:18.05) That's a great question. So in the world of special education, just like the world of medicine, right? Those are the specialists. When you go to your doctors, so if you have a health issue, you could go to one person and they might help you fix it and they're great and you're lucky. But you might go to an allergist who's not good and they might not figure it out for you, right? And so you have to keep going to different ones until you figure it out. That special ed teacher is the one you get all year long. If they're great, that's wonderful. But the problem is they're not training the parents. And the parents are the biggest part of how the child does. It's the parents supporting the child at home with those executive function areas. I mean, a lot of parents think yelling and punishment is going to do the trick. mean, yelling and punishment doesn't help kids with allergies. You don't say, stop scratching, stop sneezing. You would never say that to a kid with allergies. So for a child with ADHD, you need that support at home. And the other issue is, unfortunately, and it depends on what state you're in, and if we go back to my model of the, you know, the Camelot of elementary schools that I thought I worked at, we were not the Camelot of elementary schools. We had some special education teachers who were okay. We had some, I don't know what the heck they were doing with those kids when they took them. There should have been communication between that teacher and I their way. I don't know what they were doing. But along the years that I've been advocating and doing this executive function coaching with families, I see teachers that are amazing. But the problem is they're only there for an hour a day. It's really about the parent doing it at home too. And again, that's the best of the best special education teachers are doing that. You have to realize that within those classrooms, they've got 10 to 13 other kids, depending on your state, depending on your district's rules in the contract, you how many kids can be in the classroom. The teachers can only do so much. And I've had really good teachers work with kids and they can't get them to move, but... Brenda (28:23.596) because I'm one-on-one with them and I'm working with the parent, I can get them to move. And then the teacher and I will collaborate together. I mean, I have certain special education teachers' home phone numbers. We don't even waste our time with the school phone. They know they can call me, I can call them, and we work together. But that's rare. That's rare. So special education alone isn't enough. And like I said, you've got to have a good special education teacher. What I've found is that Most kids are put on a 504 plan, which is, part of the disability law. And that really kind of came out of other disorders, like physical disorders. Like, you know, if kids had, um, Tourette's or migraines or things like that, they'd be put on a 504 plan that just gave them accommodations and that costs no money to the district. But that 504 plan, It depends on who's in charge of it. At most schools, it's the school counselor. Well, the school counselor already has, you know, the entire junior grade with the alphabet A through K. Like, are they really going to have time to deal with your child's specific needs? I've even had vice principals be the person in charge. mean, and the majority of parents who call me, the first thing I say is, I will do executive function coaching with you, but I have to put my advocate hat on first. and make sure you're getting the right supports at school. And most of them come to me with a 504 plan that's never enough for the kids I work with. It is the rarest of rare ADHD kid that a 504 plan works because that's not teaching skills. IEPs teach skills. Marci Grossman (30:06.687) Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, no, that's interesting. And I assume that what you do, there are other people that do this, there are people in other states that do this. Brenda (30:21.268) yeah. you know, it's interesting. I think people are popping up all over the place doing this. A matter of fact, if I step back just a second, there's a lot of people out there doing, and I don't want to say any names, but they're all over the place and, you know, they become franchises. And again, for us people who are struggling with any disorder in our body, when the medical help when the typical situation isn't helping us, of course we look at alternatives. Of course we do. But what I found, at least in my own body physically, I've got to take what the research and the science says. But when it doesn't work, you go to the alternative. So there's a lot of people popping up there saying they're advocates, they're executive function coaches, and I don't know how they're trained. Anybody can say that, right? Like advocates, there's places you can go to pay to have them train you to be an advocate. There's places you can go to pay them, right? So, and there's people who just say, I'm a mad parent. I mean, we have an advocate in our state who's a mad parent. She has no, you know, she did get trained to advocate. but she was never a teacher. She knows the law. But you need to understand what goes on in the classroom and what would work for a teacher and what the school room flow looks like every day with all the kids you're working with. So, you know, there's people out there, but you gotta be really, you gotta really vet them. And I know it's hard for parents because this isn't like going to the allergist and saying, well, what do you do in your office? because we all may do things differently. You know, I have a lot of families who come to me and they said, well, we've tried this executive function coaching, but it didn't work before. And I'm like, well, we probably all are a little bit different with how we do it. Marci Grossman (32:08.491) Right, you have to find the one that fits for you, the personality, the other parts of it, so that the parents are comfortable and so the student is comfortable because they've got to be able to work and listen and feel like it's part of a team. You've to earn your team jersey. Brenda (32:25.132) You gotta earn your team jersey. And it's funny because I know some ex-teachers who are becoming, they call it an advocate or an executive function coach. And I'm like, I don't know how they really, at least in our state of Michigan, because we generally don't offer these supports without parents fighting, crying, screaming, bringing in advocate for help. I don't know how these teachers think they know what special ed should look like because it's not being delivered in our state. And I'm not saying everywhere. Once in a while I go to a school and I'm like, wow. I even have cried in meetings. I had tears in my eyes because I'm like, are you kidding me? This is all I could ask for. I just need to make a few tweaks. Right? But parents don't know what they should ask for and they don't know what will work to help their child. So it's like they're putting all that trust in that one person. And again, it's like going to your allergist. You're trusting them till it doesn't work. And then you say, well, maybe I should go see somebody else. But you know, I don't know how, What I always say is the best teachers for your child are the teachers who've raised their own kids with ADHD. They just get it. You know, like When I went back to work, so I had left teaching to stay home and get every bit of early intervention I could get for my kids. Because I saw that when I taught kindergarten, kids would come to me. with a folder, every child starts out with a folder, it's called a CA60 and usually it just has your vaccine, your family information, phone numbers, doesn't have a lot in it, maybe one or two or three pages, I don't know. Because these kids would come to me, these kids who had a lot of early intervention, the folders would be like two inches thick, three inches thick and the first time I ever get a child like that I'm like, whoa. And I said to my boss, I don't know if I'm ready to handle this, Carl. I said to him, I don't know. And I had his big sister, so mom wanted me for the son. And I'm like, well, I knew how to handle the big sister. She was a great kid. She was easy. She was an independent learner all day long. What does mom think I know? I didn't have a choice. So I took this child, and I was scared because I was still a new teacher. And that thick file made all the difference for him. All the struggles he had early on were really supported so strongly Brenda (34:41.154) that his differences from his same age peers weren't that severe. That was my goal for my sons. That's why I left teaching. I wanted them to get every bit of it. I was lucky to be able to do that. Every bit of early intervention. But you know, not all parents can do that. I mean, I couldn't have left my boys home with a babysitter. They were the children that people say, why would you ever put your child on a leash? I had two of the most hyperactive boys in the world. If I was in a store, one would take off and hide under the, you know, the rounders where the coats were. They'd have the coats around there and he'd be laughing under there thinking it's funny. Like my kids were that hyper and that impulsive. I couldn't, couldn't trust a babysitter with my kids. So every child is different and every family's needs are different. So you got to make sure you have the right fit. And if you hire an advocate or an executive function coach, you should always ask up front, what does this look like? Like you should have it spelled out. you know, advocating part, no advocate should be advocating for something that they don't feel is right for your child. It's not, and I say that to every parent who hires me, this isn't about you. This is about your child. And I say, so before we start talking, I don't know you. I don't know you from, I don't know you at all. And I don't know your school. So you're gonna tell me what your concerns are. You're gonna bring me all the data and then we're gonna go into the school and I'm gonna hear what the schools say. And the majority of parents who contact me almost, I've only had less than a handful of parents who were completely ridiculous in what they thought that still the school should be doing. Like the schools were doing a lot. The parents just were expecting too much. The majority of them, and I've had hundreds at this point, I love shredding day every seven years. I take, know, whatever, shred them all up, you know, if I haven't talked to someone. But, Brenda (36:37.12) Yeah, mean these parents, it's a hard decision because you're not going to have five neighbors that you can be like, who did your driveway? It's hard to find people who hired an advocate. Marci Grossman (36:44.77) Right. Marci Grossman (36:48.247) Well, and the other thing is that each kid is going to be different. you Your kids, you said both of them had had challenges. I'm assuming they had different challenges. Brenda (36:59.118) Completely Marci. They had completely different challenges and yes, completely different supports and it was so hard for me and that's why I became an advocate because when I watched the person who I hired and she was just a very angry mom, angry. She saw what happened to her son and she went and she got trained in the law and I'm like, well, I'm go get trained in the law. I'm gonna do this for parents like my kids because Marci Grossman (37:02.879) and they needed different supports. Brenda (37:27.382) Why should parents have to fight for this? But again, it's an expense and not all families can afford it. But through every state, like most states, like in Michigan, we have this thing called the Michigan Alliance for Families. It's a government funded program. It's run by trained parents of kids with special needs. So I just called one in a local city because I did not like what happened at our current meeting with the head of special ed. I never get this mad, but I got this mad at that meeting. So I called the person from the Michigan Alliance in our community. And I said, hey, here's what happened. Can we play around with this? Because I don't have a lot of advocates that I can throw around ideas and ask if they're seeing that same issue in that city. So it's good to have someone that you can talk to. But that person and I played back and forth phone tag for over two to three weeks. So it's hard for parents because it's a free service. Marci Grossman (38:22.751) Makes sense. So it's really important for parents to understand that when your child is struggling in school, know, often they say, okay, well, let's take them to one of these tutors, the math centers or the overall tutoring center. And there's differences between having academic challenges and having these, these, I don't know, what is, what is the right term to use for this? Brenda (38:48.202) Special need. You know, if it's a diagnosis, it's a special need. Just like, like I told you before we got on Marci, I got to get my Kleenex, I got sinus problems, right? I have a special need. I have to do things to control my sinuses that other people don't have to do. There we go. Right, right. Thank you. I wish I could grab one. But it's, and there's nothing wrong with having a special need. Nobody's Marci Grossman (38:49.708) Okay. Brenda (39:13.164) body or brain is perfect. That's what I say to all my kids. Nobody is perfect. There are kids all over your classroom who have the same issue you have and they just don't know it because they didn't have parents who took them in to get the help to figure it out. yeah, tutoring is a lot of my families have gone to tutors before they come to me and most tutors are trained in a subject. They don't understand the issues that get in the way with ADHD or dyslexia or anxiety. That's not what they're trained in. They're trained in teaching a child how to do math. So I think the tutoring centers have a place for sure for some of my kids, but most of my kids don't have like an academic disability unless it's dyslexia. And then you need a specifically trained tutor in approaches for dyslexia. For ADHD, Most of my kids don't have any math. The math issues are because they never learned their math facts. They never learned how to long divide because it's boring and nobody held them accountable to do it. So parents would just let it go and that's why I hated teaching middle school math. That's what I taught the most. I love math, but I hated teaching it because we just kept pushing kids forward. Well, the kids who didn't know those things, most kids kind of figure it out over time, do a couple problems in the classroom, do some homework. Kids with ADHD, they have something called low working memory very often. They don't remember all those steps or they don't remember those facts. They need to practice them more. I hired a special ed teacher from my school that I worked at. I said, can you come over here and get him to learn his math facts? There was no way my kid was leaving second or third grade without knowing his math facts. And what our schools do is they have to. They just pass them forward. Brenda (41:05.408) And my feeling is, you you can't do that. So math can be a big issue for kids with ADHD. And the other thing that's a really big issue is the writing process. know, Writing takes a lot of executive function skill and it gets overwhelming. And these kids, they just write. They don't take time to prepare their ideas. They don't take time to organize their thoughts. They just want to get it done. And so, yeah, just any. English tutor is not going to work for a kid like this if they're not breaking it down and chunking it into small steps. I'm sure there's some good ones out there, but most of them haven't worked for the kids that come to me or they wouldn't be coming to me. Marci Grossman (41:46.456) That makes sense. you know, it's important, you know, bring it back to this. This school success is going to have an impact on your long-term activities, excuse me, long-term opportunities for your child. So that's why it's important to make sure if your child is having some kind of challenges in school to determine what the challenges are and get them the right type of support. And that doesn't mean they have to go to college, whether it's trade school or a mentorship or whatever kind of thing that they end up working in the opportunities that are right for them. You want them to feel strong and comfortable in their own skin. You want them to be working at their best and highest level, whatever that may be for them, and get that right support to get them there. Brenda (42:36.724) Exactly, Marci. mean, you know, we are all seeing how the four-year college degree makes it hard for a lot of people to get jobs anyway after they've spent all that money and they have those student loans. So, I mean, I wish some of my kids would go into trades. And you know, here's a funny story about that. I had a student who came to me, he didn't have ADHD, he had dyslexia and depression, but the story is the same no matter who we talk about. And the schools really did him wrong. Their special education was a mess that they gave for him. I've never had... a special education administrator pay for my time with the family? I mean, we kept filing complaints with the state that they weren't giving this child what they needed. And this child, he never wanted to go to school again, and I get it, but he also had this passion for cars. And I'll call him Blake, I kept saying to Blake, you're gonna own your own business someday. You're gonna have all these organizational skills and you have these amazing people skills anyway. And visually, he'd always show me things visually that... like would explain something to me. And I'm like, this is going to be so good for your clients. You will be the best business owner. And so he went, he went to school for his trade and mom calls me seven months in and she goes, Blake's falling apart. And she Would you just sit down with him and figure it out. And we sit down and I said, Blake, what's up? What do you, what tell me what's up? And he goes, I don't know, Brenda. And I said, okay, let's start with the basics. What kind of planner are you using? And he goes, I'm not using the planner. So it's like even kids that don't have ADHD, if they don't have a way to organize themselves and anybody who's struggling, you know, it's kind of like if you have a physical ailment, you kind of are so focused on dealing with that, that you're not thinking about your other physical issues, right? Like I'm sick, I don't know what to do about this. It's getting in the way of me being healthy and happy. and you know, it's, it's the same for any disorder that the kids I work with is. It's got to start with the basics and. You know, one of the things, Marci, that any time you read anything about ADHD, they always say one of the biggest symptoms is not focus or attention or impulsivity. It's low self-esteem. And the biggest thing that I do in working with the kids I work with is we need to yank their self-esteem back out of the hole that they've dug because of years of adults not helping them, maybe parents yelling and punishing, maybe teachers. Brenda (44:55.584) making them feel badly for not turning in their work or not, you know, following directions and those are all part of the ADHD. you know, when you have an adult who goes into the world with low self-esteem, what does that do to them in the workplace? What does that do to them in relationships? What does that do to them if someone does business for them and they don't take care of the business they said, I'm going to take care of it? If you don't have confidence, you're not going to say to that tree trimmer, wait a minute. You didn't cut the trees you told me you were going to cut and I'm paying you all this money. Right? So it's like it affects you in every way if you don't get the help you need. And that's why sometimes therapy can be really helpful for people with ADHD because they've got to overcome that low self-esteem, that negative self-talk from all the past. Like the 65 year old woman who hired me, she's like, Brenda, you're younger than me. I'm like, I know, you... You never learn this. And every time we'd meet, she was feeling better about herself. And I just, we cried a few times together, because it made me crazy that she had to be 65 to figure out she was amazing. She had no idea. She was amazing. Marci Grossman (46:03.101) I'm glad to hear she was amazing but wait I want to go back to Blake so where's he at now I don't know how long ago this was. Brenda (46:09.584) I haven't talked to him since then. And normally I tell the kids to keep in touch with me, but I have not heard from him and I'm going to have to. I haven't seen his parents. It's been years. I mean, once in a while people do get back in touch or text me, but knowing his parents, he's on top of it because if he wasn't, they would have called me. So he's probably got some auto shops somewhere. I'm going to, you know what, Marci? I'm going to tell him I talked about him in a podcast today and then he forgot to use his planner and I'll find out. Marci Grossman (46:36.831) make sure you tell him what name you used for him. Brenda (46:40.034) Blake. Marci Grossman (46:41.357) Well, I know, you have to tell him that. Brenda (46:43.778) Yeah, that's right, so when he listens to the podcast, that's right. Marci Grossman (46:46.773) Right, you didn't use my name. No, no, no, you were Blake. Brenda (46:50.166) He was Blake. That's right. That's right. mean ADHD has so many gifts, but the struggles will tear your life apart if you don't figure out a way to make them better and they'll tear apart your self-esteem, which what's more important than having self-esteem? Marci Grossman (47:07.661) Right, right, absolutely. Before I wrap up, is there anything else that you want to mention that we haven't covered? Brenda (47:18.702) If I could put a plug in for CHADD, because if there are any adults out there, I want them to know that CHADD is a nationally, it's a national organization. We're research-based only. We are funded by the CDC. I mean, the government believes in CHADD because CHADD is all research-based. So it's CHADD.org, C-H-A-D-D.org. And there's free webinars, there's free lectures. You can come to ours in CHADD of Eastern Oakland County. And here, one of our lectures, there's no cost because we zoom everything. There might be in your state, there might be a cost. But I just think there's a lot of support out there. It's just knowing the first place to go. And CHADD is your best first step. There's too much information out there. And like I said, there's too many fly by night people out there saying they want to do things. I've watched people in and out in my community coming in and out and they just don't make it. And we don't want you wasting time because time is. worth everything. Marci Grossman (48:19.607) So Brenda, that's if you think you have ADHD or if you think your child does, checking out what CHADD has to say might be a good place to start. Brenda (48:29.77) It's an excellent place to start. Yeah, because we have parents going to the wrong. I will add one more thing. Remember I mentioned earlier, the psychiatrist, the psychologist, the social worker, you need to know the difference because some give medicine, some evaluate and some give support and some do both. And I've had parents wait three months to get in to get a doctor to give them medicine. And instead of waiting to see a psychiatrist, Marci Grossman (48:32.897) Okay. Brenda (48:57.922) They had got on the wait list for a psychologist. Psychologists don't give medicine. So be very clear on the specialists that will give you the support you need. Marci Grossman (49:07.991) Okay, Brenda, I appreciate so much you being my guest today and all the information that you've shared. This has been wonderful and educational and I hope my audience takes a lot out of it. Brenda (49:21.742) Thank you, Marci. I'm honored that you asked me and I'm always thrilled to share awareness because no family should struggle with this. There's so many ways to support you and help your child be successful. Marci Grossman (49:36.109) Thank you, thank you. To my listeners, I will be sharing a link to Brenda's information in the show notes. Please check her out. She shares a lot of interesting information and links and resources. And don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and stay tuned. I will see you next time. This has been MoneyMarci on Marci Talks, Money and Life. You got this, see ya.