Latest / The Thriving School Podcast with Jenni Awesome / Neurodivergence in Children: Behavior, Sensory Needs & School Support with Dr. Tamar Shtrambrand
Transcript
- Jenni Awesome: So thank you for tuning in to the Jennifer Awesome podcast. What if some of the things we've spent our entire lives believing were wrong with us were never actually flaws at all? What if our behaviors, our struggles, our sensitivities, our inability to fit neatly into someone else's expectations were actually invitations to understand ourselves more deeply? Today's guest brings a uniquely holistic perspective to those questions. Dr. Tamar Strambrand is a licensed clinical psychologist who spent more than two decades as an occupational therapist before transitioning into psychology. Her career has included extensive work with children and adults with physical and developmental disabilities. Neurodivergent individuals, parents, teens, couples, and people navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, ADHD autism, and all major life transitions. So I'd like to welcome Dr. Tamar Strambrandt to the podcast. How are you doing today? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: I'm doing great. How are you? Jenni Awesome: Fantastic. So tell us a bit more about yourself. You have you it seemed like you have you have dealt with it all, you have covered it all, you you you know it all. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: I don't like to think I know it all because there's always so much to learn. when I was younger I my parents used to get very angry at at me and say, You think you know it all, you don't, and they were right. You know, so I try to think Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: of I've been through a lot, but I a lot of the things that I specialize in are because of their things that I myself have either personally experienced or I've known someone close to me that has personally experienced it with it and therefore it's something that I wanted to help others with as well. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, so I was actually talking to my husband last night and I used the phrase neurodivergent and I know that that word has been used more and more frequently lately. Do you have a good definition for what neurodivergent actually means? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: To me it's a mentality. I and I've noticed that this is a mentality that has become more prevalent ev ever since like I would say I was in my twenties. it means people who think, process and act differently than I would say the mainstream, whatever mainstream means. Jenni Awesome: Okay, so so I did summarize it pretty well. I I was saying that, you know, we're trying to we have this mold out there, this vision of this is the box, this is what we fit in, and so neurodivergence is not conforming to the mold, processing things in a different way. Your brain works different from the normal. And I know that we keep going away from the term normal because what is normal? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: in this world there ain't normal there just as isn't but there is majority. I would say that there is majority, you know, like if if you say that so an object that ninety nine percent of people say is blue and you say it's orange, you know, who who can we side with on that? Jenni Awesome: That that actually brings up an interesting concept. When my kids were little, I I was wondering if I had like this green object and told my kids that this color is red. I mean it's just the the language associated with the object, but they would grow up thinking that this is a different interpretation of, say, the color. So you spent more than twenty years as an occupational therapist before jumping into psychology. What originally drew you into these professions? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: So occupational therapy was not something at all that I ever wanted to do. when I was in school as a kid, I always wanted to be a doctor. I think I was probably most likely interested in it because I wanted to make my father proud. It Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: was like his dream and it didn't work for him. So when I got into college, I started taking the prerequisites and I wasn't doing so well on them. Then I took the MCAT, didn't do well on that. you know, and it was not looking good for me to get into medical school. So my mom, being the smart, wise person she is, said, I think you need to try something else to have a backup so that you can eventually, you know, make a living. Well, if you want to go back to medical school, fine, but at least for your four years of college you should have some kind of a profession where you're gonna be able to support yourself. So Originally we thought about physician assistant, but I was kind of late to apply in the to the program and I didn't have all the prerequisites. And I did have all the prerequisites for OT and PT. so back then you could get your bachelor's degree in four years and you could be an OT and you didn't need a doctorate like you need now and you can make a very nice living. So my mom encouraged me to apply and I applied to a bunch of programs and I got into two out of the three that I applied to and I ended up going to Stony Brook University and I finished the program in two years and with it with by the time I was twenty one I had a bachelor's degree, a license, and a good job that paid well. And I continued to pursue courses that were prerequisites for medical school and I actually actually ended up did getting in to a couple of schools But I was already married and I by then I had like it had just worn off. I was like, nah I'm glad that I didn't go to medical school. Not for me. Jenni Awesome: So what are some things that occupational therapy taught you about human beings that you don't think you could have learned from school alone? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: what psychology taught me, but an earlier version of what I'm learning from psychology, that, you know, we never know what's gonna happen to us in life. Nobody knows that they're Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: gonna c if they're gonna be born normal. nobody knows if something, God forbid, traumatic will happen into into our life that could cause a deformity or cause a brain injury. And there was one particular project that we did in my first class. It was introduction to occupational therapy, which I thought was Brilliant. we had to pick a disability out of a hat. And I picked a right lower ex the lower below elbow amputation from my right arm. And we were told for 24 hours to pretend that we had that disability in front of our families or whoever we were living with and to act as if It was normal and our families would be confused and our parents would and our families would be asking questions, but we were to try to do it for twenty-four hours. I did not last for twenty-four hours. I did my best, maybe half of that if I was lucky. but I did one I just put my arm my right arm into my shirt and pretended I couldn't have my right arm and my right arm is my dominant side. So I was trying Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: to do things with my left hand and I was really struggling with it. And everybody in my household was like, What the hell is going on with you? Are you insane? Why are you using your left arm and why is your right arm inside your sleeve? You know? And I did I I I kept it going for a few hours before finally I admitted to my family what the project was. And it taught me that like we don't understand that things could happen to any of us and what are we going to do and how are we going to adapt if we have to in in a time of adversity? It was a real eye opener. Jenni Awesome: Right. So th that is a crazy fantastic experience. I remember I had a teacher one time who he did something similar, but it was only for the class period. He was like, I want you to envision that you have lost one of your five senses and we got to pick what it was, and then we had to experience it and then write about it. It was a creative writing class. And I remember really thinking about okay, if If I could choose what I lost, I, you know, I ended up choosing vision because I wanted to still be able to hear music and play music and and be able to sing. But you're right, we don't have a choice in in how we're born or or what might happen to us. You're right. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. And we also don't understand how lucky we are when we have an ability until it's taken from us and hopefully it won't be taken from us. Jenni Awesome: Yes, that is very true. what are some things that an occupational therapist might notice about someone who is struggling that like say a child in a classroom that they're struggling that only someone looking at their behaviors might miss? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: You can tell that the child is having a hard time f hard time paying attention. Sometimes it can be a visual issue. There's maybe been many, Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: many times that I noticed that a child was put like towards the back of the class because they couldn't sit still and e sometimes they were a little disruptive or they were after asking a lot of questions. They were having a hard time keeping up, you know, writing notes or they weren't doing well with the with the schoolwork. They couldn't finish a a a worksheet on their own or they weren't doing well working with with the other kids on a group project. So you start to notice, is it a vision issue? Oftentimes it was a vision issue. You know? Then sometimes Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: when you know you notice that like the reason why they're s scooting around and having a hard time sitting in their chair and they're kind of like zoning out is maybe it's ADHD or maybe it's that they have a weak abdomen and they need to do abdominal exercises to strengthen their abdomen. sometimes it's a perceptual Jenni Awesome: Mm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: issue and the reason why they're having a hard time with the handwriting is because they have a vision issue or they're they're they're having a tactile processing issue where it's hard for them to like really feel the page. they're writing and their writing is maybe sloppy or maybe it's nice, but they're putting so much effort into writing because they have such little strength in their arm. Like so many things that teachers Jenni Awesome: So if you're Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: are just not trained to see when they're see w when when there's a child Jenni Awesome: so if you are a teacher and say you're noticing that they're having the hard time sitting or the writing, what steps could you take to maybe notice, hey, maybe they do need to strengthen their abdominal muscles or they need help, you know, getting more tactile practices? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: There's some easy things that can be done sometimes. It's just putting a kid on a bowl and having them sit on a bowl and rather than sit on a chair. Or you can put what's a dynamic cushion on underneath them so that like they're constantly moving around with the on the cushion but it's strengthening their abdomen. I've told parents to send their kids to gymnastics classes or to do exercises at home. If it's very, very disruptive to the class, we can't do it in the class. We have to take them out and do the exercises outside of class, refer them to PT, you know, and then also speak with the parents and make sure that the parents are doing exercises with them at home. Jenni Awesome: So you you mentioned my daughter had a wiggle seat for years. I actually use it now, 'cause she she used to carry it around with her and and I get to hold on to it myself at this point. Are there any resources or tools that you would strongly recommend that any classroom teacher have? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Parents do work with the kids outside of school, whether it be sending them to a gymnastics or karate class to helping them strengthen their core. They could do something as easy as getting a a stool or a chair that doesn't have a back so that the kid can work on their core when they're sitting and doing their homework. You know, maybe doing PT or OT privately, not at home. But one of the easiest things though for handwriting is to teach them cursive writing. I I had one case Jenni Awesome: Really? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: I had one case. This kid was autistic and he wasn't so verbal and but he was very smart but he really couldn't communicate and his handwriting was terrible and I I I just spent that whole year teaching him in curse and r curse of writing. You would not believe the the end of the year. He was he was taking notes, he was participating more in class, he was more self confident just because of something so simple as teaching them cursive writing, which is why I don't understand why they stopped teaching cursive writing to all children. Because when I grew up they did. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. I remember when I learned cursive writing and I have kind of a mix between, you know, cursive and and just regular print, but it did make it so much easier of I don't have to make every single letter perfect. It doesn't have to be spaced out. I can just kind of continue as I go along. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. And I really feel sad for kids nowadays that handwriting is becoming like the way of the dinosaurs. They're not encouraging handwriting so much. Everybody's working with the laptops. It's such a shame because handwriting is such an important part of development and it's such an intimate activity. We use it to write letters to each other. We use it to write down ideas and stories, you know, and your mood state, where you were at that particular point in time when you were writing is in your handwriting. It's like such an important motor skill that I kind of lament that like this generation is not really getting like our other generations did. Jenni Awesome: Well and and we we're better able to interact with what we're learning and we we better learn it when we're when we're tactile with it, when we can take these abstract thoughts and make it concrete. So by writing something, it you learn a lot more than say pushing a button through typing because Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. Jenni Awesome: my hand doesn't know the difference between pushing an R versus pushing an S versus a T, but my hand writing sure does. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Mm-hmm. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. So how did you transition from occupational therapists to going getting your PhD, going into psychology? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: So it was already after I was married, and I was pregnant. I was k expecting twins, that they're almost nineteen now. In fact, they're trying nineteen Jenni Awesome: No. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: in about a week. so I decided I didn't want to go to medical school. I had the letter in my hand that I was accepted. I had already paid a three thousand dollar deposit, which I was not gonna get back. But I told my husband, I was like, I really don't want to. I I I'm sorry to drive you crazy. I want to do something else other than OT. But going to medical school, it's it's just I just feel it in my bones, it's not for me. We're about to have twins, you know. So he recommended psychology. He thought Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: for me. And Waltz in university was new at that time as far as offering PhDs in psychology, but it kept showing up on our in our email for some reason. I don't even know how they got his email in mind, but he said, You should do this. And I was like, okay. And the rest is history. Jenni Awesome: So what what has psychology opened up for you? what what have you focused in on? What have you learned? What have you experienced through going into psychology? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: So I've only been licensed since 2013. but I started working as a psychologist in my internship in 2017. So I worked in a community mental health clinic for six years. It took me that long to finish my internship in postdoc because I was doing it part-time. and then I moved on to a psychiatric hospital for a couple of years. And while I was there, I also opened up a part-time telehealth practice. I did that, you know, in the evenings, on the weekends. Things weren't really working out so well at the hospital. I loved my unit. I loved the p the team that I worked with. I have so many friends that I still talk to from there. But unfortunately people on the high up were not popular. They were kind of mean and they had driven away a lot of other psychologists before me and I tried my very, very best to just ignore it and you know, just focus on the work, but it was just really, really bringing me down. They were nitpicking on every little thing. And then finally my husband said, It's enough, leave, get out of there and just do your own business. Grow it. And that's was very difficult for me. I did that in April of last year. And I could not have imagined how much my practice would grow between then and now and what I would learn about myself. Like, first of all, psychotherapy, I don't have to worry, I have plenty of work. You know, you you develop relationships with people, you develop relationships with patients. Word of math goes around, especially when you take insurance like I do. You know, I I have plenty of psychotherapy clients. And then I also wanted to dive into assessment because I really hadn't had a chance to do that in the hospital and I really hadn't had a chance to do it during my internship and my postdoc. So I purchased some equipment and I learned how to do autism assessments and I learned how to do cognitive assessments. And after a few months of doing it, I just started reaching out to other agencies like ABA agencies for example and into Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: the community posting things online, posting things on local forums, and my assessment practice has boomed you know, boomed. When when I say boom, I mean like I cannot keep up. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, I I can imagine because I know I had two kids that we tried to get assessments done for cognitive assessments and it took a long time to find someone in our area that was able to do this, and this was five or six years ago. so it's it's gotten slightly better in our area, but you're right, there is that that high demand for those cognitive assessments. So I'm I'm super thrilled to hear that that's an area that you're focusing on and and supporting our, you know, our communities with that. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: And autism assessments as well. My autism practice is even bigger than my cognitive practice, but i the demand is crazy but but but thank God I've become pretty adept at it because I've done so many of them now. Jenni Awesome: So do you wanna dive in a little bit on the autism assessments? Like if if a parent feels like, you know, something's just not quite right with their kiddo, or is is that something they could reach out to you for and and go through that process or what are the look fors? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yes, they can. The signs of autism vary. when they're very small, they're they're not learning how to speak and be and they're not able to express themselves. They may have very stereotype behaviors, walking on their toes, flapping their hands, staring intensely at people or objects, lining toys up, and then if someone comes and takes a toy off the line, they they have a meltdown. They have a lot of meltdowns because they can't communicate and it's very, very difficult to get them to calm down. they have a very, very difficult time relating to people. They're not interested in people. They they're just interested in playing by themselves and doing their own thing. That's when they're smaller. As they get older, if they've developed the ability to speak, do they have odd behaviors? For example, odd repetitive behaviors. I just spoke to a mother the other day and and the kid is just obsessed with hammering things all over the place, which you know could make the house kind of a mess. do they get stuck on ideas and are do they have a very hard time being able to consider another's perspective? do are they rigid? if there's no school, for example, because of because the There's a snowstorm, do they have a very, very hard time being able to occupy themselves, or are they just constantly fighting with their siblings or giving their parents a hard time? Can they consider other people's points of view? Do they have empathy? Do they show interest in in in doing things that other people like to do besides just doing what they like to do? So it all depends on age and it all depends on stage of development and level of functioning. Jenni Awesome: So is there, is there a specific age where where they might be better to reach out and say, Hey, you know, we want to do this cognitive assessment? Like I'm I'm assuming that like under a one year old it would be really hard to figure out, maybe someone in like the five year old or older range, but what is there an age? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: So for autism, they're they they do it as young as one to two years old now. Although Jenni Awesome: Okay. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: they do reevaluate them at later stages because they they don't really grow out of it. They might have still have like autism like behaviors, but you know, sometimes kids when they're one year old old they look like they're not functioning well and that they are severely autistic, and then you know, as they develop, they come quote unquote come out of it, you can do it as young as one and a half. I would say there's something called the whipsey. which is a wexler for preschool age children and I do own one of those so you can check cognitive functioning around that at that time. It's it's a again, children may not be able to show such great cognitive functioning when they're one to one and a half years old because they because they don't have much language at that age typically. it may Jenni Awesome: Right. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: it may change as they get older, but you can get an idea of where they're holding cognitively when they're that age. Jenni Awesome: So I was I had lunch with a friend from high school a couple of days ago and she recently found out that she has ADHD and she's in her forties. And she was sh sharing with me that she was surprised how many older women are being diagnosed with ADHD, autism, neurodivergence, because we we didn't have the level of testing or understanding Back then when we were kids, that we do now. Are you also noticing that trend? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Jenni Awesome: So if if you are an adult and you're hearing this and and this is really resonating with you too of man, I do some of these things, like should should I be tested? at at what point would an adult, say someone like me, decide, hey, I'm hearing, you know, I do this, I do that, and so maybe I maybe I should be assessed. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: You know something? It depends on how you're functioning. If you're functioning well, if you have a good income, you like your work, you know, you have friendships, you know, your life is fine the way it is. Why? Why bother? self-diagnosed myself with ADHD when I became a parent. I looked back at my Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: life when I was younger, and I was like, MG, it all makes sense. I was already studying psychology, when I was doing my studies it kind of affected me and and it helped me to realize certain things. But I I remember Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: when I was a kid, you know, I was smart, but I had to like sometimes read the chapter a few more times. I would lose my place. You know, s when when when I was sitting in class and taking notes, I absorbed information much better than when I had to read from the book. If I read from the book, I had to literally outline the chapter in detail in order to really be able to focus on it. And I just I I I felt I felt I had inattentive ADHD when I was in my thirties. I felt that it was a lifelong thing. And I went to my doctor and she tested me and she said, Yeah, you do, you're right. You know, she said, but at your age you're functioning okay. Yeah, you if you want to, you can take medication, you don't have to. You know, so sometimes it's when you when you go down that road, you may open a Pandora's box, you may be happy with the results, or maybe maybe happier not knowing. Really depends. If your life is going well, why open a Pandora's box? You know. Jenni Awesome: Ye my my husband went through a similar thing too and and I'm Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. Jenni Awesome: free to share this story. He went in probably about three years now and and went through a diagnosis and he was diagnosed with ADHD, but when he got his report back, the lady's like, You're doubly gifted and he's like, great, and she's like, No, you're really smart. And you also have an incredibly low processing speed. So he was on both ends of the the bell curve. And so it's really helped me and for him to understand that he is really smart, but it just takes even longer for him to process through that information. So that I know that I get to give him more wait time when I'm having a conversation with him, or I know that I get to share some stuff ahead of time so that he has enough time to process through it. So like you said, if you go down this rabbit hole, you know, you're gonna find what you're gonna find. And and once you open that door, you've opened the door. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. so another topic I wanted to talk about, it's it's been a huge topic. trauma. You know, trauma's become a everyday, a part of everyday vocabulary. I don't think I can go through a day without hearing the word trauma. and it's it's used very broadly. How do you define trauma? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: So trauma is any adverse event or series of events that happens in your life that stays with with you. You may maybe move on and you think that you're functioning and you're fine, but if you don't process it and if you don't deal with it and make meaning of it, it can come back at later times to haunt you. whether in your dreams, whether in triggers or reactions with other people, and it can really impair your quality of life. Which is why I really feel that doing trauma work is critical for for anybody who's ever experienced it. Jenni Awesome: So, can you give some examples of ways to process through trauma? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: So it used to be that you'd use old fashioned techniques like the gestalt therapy where you I I'm not a gestalt therapist, but like the empty chair technique where you would literally have an empty chair next to you and you would talk to the person who hurt you, you know, and and the the therapist would kind of guide you and help you to to work through whatever those dynamics were. it used to be much more cerebral and cognitive based. But Jenni Awesome: Mm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: our our current stream of thought in the mental health world is that It actually gets trapped in the body. This is where the word somatic comes in. Everybody's hearing the word hearing the word somatic breathing, somatic experiencing. All it means is that somehow we learn to cope by kind of f having pieces of ourselves from our past that dealt with traumatic issues get kind of frozen in different ways in our body. So there's different all kinds of different modalities to do to deal with that. the two that I like the most and that I'm mostly trained in are Internal family systems and brain supplying. there is others like EMDR and somatic experiencing. I'm not trained in those. But basically, what you do is you do some work where you locate a specific memory or or place in the body where you seem to be tense and holding something, and then depending on the modality you use, you open up. the memory or the experiencing through a series of questions and a series of techniques where that person can then re-experience in a safe way with you there what happened, why it's being held in the body over there, and you process and work through it so the person can release the energy. And then once they release the energy in that part of the body, they've improved in in integration of trauma. and through rewiring the entire nervous system. So each time you do a trauma therapy session, you're reducing anxiety, you're reducing depression, you're redu reducing being triggered in certain situations by kind of it you don't fix the trauma, you just process it and make meaning from it. And as the person does this more and more and more and their nervous system becomes wired, I guess in a more organized fashion, old triggers Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: don't trigger them anymore like they used to. Jenni Awesome: So do certain types of trauma or experiences get stored in specific parts of the body or is it different for every person? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: It's different for every person and it's not really the trauma that's getting stored in the body, it's just the energy that that that speci those specific memories kind of tend to release and and and affect the person negatively. Jenni Awesome: So are you also saying that, you know, the body will remember things that maybe our conscious mind may not? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yes, yeah. Dr. Vessel Bandork Vanderkook wrote a whole book about this. It's called The Body Keep Score and he was like the father of somatic component of of trauma in the trauma process. And I took a course that he that he gave about his book. I have not read the book 'cause it's like hundreds of pages long and I just don't have the time or attention span. But it's all about like doing exercises, heavy work you know, to try to release the tension that the trauma causes, depending on where it is in your body. Jenni Awesome: So what is one thing that people misunderstand about trauma? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: There's a lot of things they misunderstand about trauma, but I think the one thing that they understand misunderstand the most is that no two people will react to the same trauma the same way. And r trauma is based on a person's resilience. You know, different people have different levels of resilience depending on their genetic makeup, depending on their physical health, depending on the resources of they have in their life. That includes people, work, socioeconomic status, you know, intimate relationships. So people tend to compare. Well, you should be not reacting like you were, you know, six months ago to your trauma because, you know, you've been going through all this trauma work and you have a wife and you have a you have a lot of money and you live in a nice neighborhood and your pa you know, you have a better relationship with your parents. How can you judge them? You don't know. You don't know what they went through and you don't know anything about what's going on inside of them. Jenni Awesome: Right. So what I hear you saying is that we have an opportunity to recognize that my experience is not the same as your experience and that while we're saying that this is what we expect, that that may not be how it is because we're all different. We all experience things in a different, unique, individual way. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. We need to learn to res withhold and reserve judgment. Because we see pieces of what's going on in a person's life. And sometimes that person's life doesn't look like we think it should look and and we in our well meaning tell them we we're concerned about you. I want you to get support, I want you to get help. You don't know what's going on. You don't know a smidge of what's going on in their life and we and then when you start to judge and then you think you're doing a nice thing, you're gonna make them get triggered and get angry at you because maybe things aren't better than you think and and they are having more support than you think. And here you are, you know, seeing part of the picture and thinking you see the whole picture and inserting yourself into their life tr in out of the goodness of your heart, but what you're actually doing is triggering them and and making them feel like you're their project or they're your Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: project, you know. And I so I just like really am working on this myself. I still fall for it, but I really tell people all the time, do not judge and do not react when you a judgment comes up and try to insert that judgment into the person's life because you don't know what you're gonna trigger and you don't know how wrong you probably are. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. I I am in a similar journey about learning about stepping back from the judgment, especially with our world of social media, how you know people post on social media, but they don't typically post, hey, I had a really crappy day. Let me show you all the ways my day was horrible. No, we we show, hey, Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. Jenni Awesome: look how great this was, look how wonderful this was, or you see them reach out in a moment of utter desperation. of like a last resort, but we really don't show our true selves on social media. So it's it's hard to like you said, take those little snapshots and assume that we have the whole thing figured out or we're seeing the whole picture. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: And also what really drives me crazy about social media, it it social media has a place and it has a lot of very, very positive qualities to it and a and it also offers a lot of very very positive opportunities for people that wouldn't have otherwise had it. But what the problem is is that you s you flip through all these videos, for example, on Facebook or on Instagram. People's houses are huge, they look perfect, they have their children are dressed beautifully, they're all smiling at each other. They don't talk about the problems that are going on behind the scenes. Maybe the father and the mother hate each other, but they're smiling for the camera. Maybe they they have this gorgeous house, but they haven't been able to pay the mortgage in the last six months and and and they're they're going into foreclosure. maybe they have a lot of kids, you know, but no Nobody knows that the that the mother's universe is about to collapse from from all the pregnancies. Nobody knows. Like we just see a snippet of people's lives and then we start comparing Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: ourselves. Jenni Awesome: Yes, we do. I wanted to take a quick moment and jump into parenting. so you talk about the complexities of parenting in modern times and you've raised three children with their own developmental and behavioral challenges. What has parenting taught you that your professional education never could? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Parenting has taught me to grow up. You don't grow up until you Jenni Awesome: yeah. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: become a parent. Because it is a long journey. There's no vacations. You cannot duck out just because you want to, or if you you can if you want to, but somebody else will take on the responsibility. And then you are like the worst person on the face of the planet for doing that for your child in most circumstances, you know. And it it is the most selfless giving and the greatest opportunity for a person to become. the best version of themselves and it is a constant learning process. Jenni Awesome: yeah. I I would say that my first year of teaching, I was a middle school teacher and I had a parent ask me what what parenting advice I would give them for their 13 year old. And I was like shocked because I was pregnant with my first child at the time and I was like, you know, I'm not to that point yet where I know what it's really like to be a parent. So being asked, hey, what's your parenting advice when I hadn't actually experienced it, like it was kind of a a weird place to be in. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. I love it when people who have never had children before take coursework in in being in parenting and then they say that they're a parenting expert. Mm you you have some expertise from some courses that you took, but you can't really become a parent expert until you've gone through the struggle and daily grind and grit that real parenting is. Jenni Awesome: Right. So what advice do you have for parents of neurodivergent children? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: First of all, you're gonna have to be w able to tune out all the noise around you and stop expecting that your children are gonna fit in and and and that you're gonna be able to have a quote unquote normal social experience with other parents because it ain't happening. It ain't happening. Your your neurodivergent children, when you go to somebody else's house, they're not gonna necessarily be able to sit down at the table, eat like eat you know, with everybody else and and have conversations and behave appropriately. They're most likely gonna be like mine were at that when they were small, all over the place, damaging property, getting into fights with the other people's children. It's just not happening. It depending on the stage of the child's life and their ability. You're just gonna have to accept that, you know, your your life is not about you and what you want for yourself socially anymore. It's going to be about making sure that your child is safe. Your child is not put into an environment where they're going to fail because you put them in a placement in a in a place where they just can't, you know do what's expected of them because they just don't have the developmental ability yet at that stage. It's it's there's a lot of things that you are going to have to give up. And that's part of being a parent. It's owning up and giving up and it's not about you and it's not about your social life and it's not about how you look on Instagram and it's not about your parents approving of you. It's about you doing the best you can to be a present parent for your child, to be a kind parent, to be a knowledgeable parent, and to have really, really good support from people that have been through the process and are more experienced than you and who you can trust and turn to and cry to and and get really solid advice from. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. I I always tell parents like I've been a school administrator and I've had lots of angry parent conversations and you know, at some point they usually apologize and say, Hey, I'm so sorry for whatever and and I tell them don't ever apologize for advocating for your child. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. I had problems when my kids were smaller Jenni Awesome: Yeah. So what Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: where people did not appreciate my advo advocating for my child and if they didn't let me advocate, I just took my kids somewhere else. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. because you as a parent, you you truly know what's going to be best for your child. So if there's a parent out there and they're receiving information or advice from professionals that doesn't match what they're seeing in their child, what would you recommend to them? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: I would recommend that if you're working with a professional that thinks they know it all and thinks they have all the answers and they got it from books and you're trying their approach and it's not working and you're trying to tell them it's not working, I would suggest trying someone else. You know, like not every professional is gonna have the right answers for you. Jenni Awesome: That's true. so I wanna jump into talking about our teenagers in school settings. So schools are increasingly being asked to address mental health issues like behavior, trauma, academics, we have family challenges, social emotional development all at once. What role should schools realistically play in children's mental health? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: I think that schools need to do a better job of really working together with the parents at in the home. There there should be seminars that schools offer to parents to help them have their children succeed at school and there should be a lot more collaborating going on. I understand that like one teacher working with 25 students and they have like maybe three students that take up ninety percent of the resources, that's not gonna be realistic. But that's why there should be more help from the administration. The administration should really be following up with the parents and really working together with the parents and helping the teacher but because the tree teacher can't be doing everything alone. Also, many, many years ago I used to work in schools w settings when I was an OT and we were required to go to a meeting once when I was working in New Jersey about school climate. apparently schools were now required by law at that time to develop a school climate committee. And what the school climate committee is required to do is to answer any concerns that students or parents have about bullying, either by other students or by teachers, or any other problems in the school setting that were making the school environment unpleasant and difficult for the students to function in. And I once worked with a young girl who was really being bullied. And her parents were such meek, mild-mannered people, they didn't know what to do. And she the girl told me she had tried to go to the administration and the administration really wasn't hearing her. You know, they were just poo-pooing it. So I said, Go to the school climate person in your school. She's like, What's that? So I explained to her what the school climate is. And part of what the school climate personnel are supposed to do is they're supposed to also address bullying and and and they did. They addressed the bullying. They spoke with the other students who were bully bullying her. They they counseled them. They counseled her. They coordinated with the parents and they made adjustments to the to what was going on in the school. The teacher was made aware of what was going on from the student's point of view and and adjusted and made sure that she was paying attention to what was happening in the dynamics between this girl and the bullies. You know, it wasn't a perfect process, but at least my client got a chance to realize she had a voice and she could say something, and there were people Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: in the school by law who were required to listen and do something about it. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, I I experienced probably more time when I when I was an administrator focusing on the bullying that was happening inside the school than on, say, educational issues. And you spoke about that we need more connection with families, and that is a huge area that is missing in our school systems. And I recognize that a lot of parents may have had an adverse experience in the school system themselves. So they're less inclined to be involved with their kids' education. And you're right, it is on the schools, the school administrators to bridge that gap so that we can be sharing the same information, be talking the same language with the kids so that they can grow up in that safe environment where we're able to communicate. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. I actually went ahead and got certified in something called PTS coaching, to teacher training for ADHD. So it was developed by a woman named Cindy Goldrich, and I took the course over the winter time and I'm certified and I can give workshops and classes in in school s settings to teachers and to to and to school personnel to teach them how to manage the needs of children. with ADHD in the school because I think a lot of the children with ADHD do tend to struggle a lot with being bullied. And they also struggle as well with academics and and even dealing with teachers. So I I'm try I'm trying to offer that to the community. I'm trying to find ways to let the community know that I had this training and there and there are other people that have graduated from this program. And it's so nice to see that there's more programs coming out now. where professionals can get specialized training and offer it to school systems and offer it to parents and offer it to different organizations so that people can become more educated and aware of methods to help students with disabilities or students with challenges succeed in the school and feel like they're not alone and that they're being supported because there's more that can be Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: done. It's hard and I know that the teachers are already overwhelmed as it is, but it doesn't mean that it's impossible. just needs to get the knowledge and the information out there. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. And on top of that, there's some teachers out there who are neurodivergent, they have ADHD themselves, they've had, you know, traumatic experiences, being able to support them too as they are teaching these kids with the, you know, myriad of of issues that you get when you have a classroom of twenty-five to thirty kids. I mean, there's help for the kids, there's help for the teachers, there's help for the parents, there's help for the administrators. And you're right, we are at a place in time where we're able to recognize these needs out there and people are starting to fill those gaps and share that with others. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yeah. I mean we spend more time actually in school as kids than we do at home with our parents. So all it takes is one teacher who is mean and harms another ch a child because they just don't like that child or that child just like triggers them the w wrong way. And I had experiences like that with teachers that I'll never forget how they treated Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: me, you know, that can really, really do harm to a child and and and make that child feel small and and ruin that child's self-confidence and send them in a very, very bad direction when they when the child could have been doing very, very well. You know, so it's not just incumbent on parents to help their st their their children do well and have have positive mental health. We also need to make sure teachers are trained. Tree teachers have to know how to recognize things that trigger students to look for signs that there may be a child who's depressed or falling through the cracks and learn how to set aside their own baggage so that they don't harm the kid. Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So if you could change one thing in education that would have the greatest positive impact on the next generation, what would it be? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: wow, that's a big question. I think that I would give the same answer of the concept I just shared with you now. I think that teachers need to be trained more in understanding mental health of children and understanding child development. not just of a typical child, but like of children who have who are going through poverty or children who are struggling with living in a divorced home or or in an in an abusive situation, so that when they see signs in a child that a child is struggling emotionally or the child isn't having a hard time paying attention or the child is struggling with the other kids in the class, the other kids are constantly bullying, whatever the warning signs are, that they notice it because they have a trained eye and they can Jenni Awesome: Mm. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: address it. and nip it in the bud so the child gets the support that they need because I just from my own personal experience with having dealt with some difficult teachers in my life and also from my children struggling with some teachers and so many stories that I've heard of sh of children really, really struggling because school personnel just weren't trained and they didn't understand and they caught they caused damage because their own stuff came into the picture rather than worrying about what the child was going through, that there needs to be a lot more training and awareness among teachers and school personnel about how to protect children rather than react to them. Jenni Awesome: I agree with you a hundred percent. So if any of our listeners were interested in contacting you or finding you, do you have a website that they'd be able to find you at? Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Yes, I have a website and I have a social media page on Facebook. You can find me on my Facebook page at Dr. Tamar Strambrand PhD. and soon it will be an Instagram page too. it's growing. My my social media content is growing and my audience is growing. And and you can also find me my website at TESTherapy dot com. Jenni Awesome: Right. Well, Doctor Tamar, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today and for spending a little time with us. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Thank you for having me. Jenni Awesome: Yep, and we'll see you next time on the Jennifer Awesome podcast. Dr.Tamar Shtrambrand, PhD: Would love it.