038 - Seeing Your Child Behind the Behavior - With Tonya Wollum

Parenting the Intensity · Mar 19, 2024

Transcript

SPEAKER_01

00:00:00

welcome to the podcast today we're talking about something that we addressed a few times over the previous episodes but that we're going more in depth in today it's seeing our child behind the behavior because it's so easy to just see the behavior and not see the child behind and I know because you're here that you do want to do that but it's not always easy and so our guest is addressing that with so much understanding and space for the parents to be imperfect. It's a very wonderful conversation. And if you haven't yet, I suggest you go listen to the podcast from Kerry Bennett about executive functioning. It's episode 29, because if you don't know what executive functioning is, you might be a bit lost in that conversation. But it's not absolutely necessary either.

SPEAKER_01

00:00:54

So, um, to talk to us about that, we have Tonya Wallum. She's a passionate disability advocate and host of the Water Prairie Chronicles podcast with first and experience as a parent of children with disabilities. Tonya understands the challenge faced by family and is dedicated to empowering parents to effectively advocate for their special needs children. She draws from her life experience to provide valuable insights and strategies to support families who are navigating life with a disability. And she suggests two very interesting ways to do that, including getting a mentor from, for parents and for kids, someone that is just a few years ahead of us with some similar challenges so that we can have someone to bounce ideas with and she also is developing and she is she developed sorry box and she's still developing so it's boxed for active kids sensory kids and it's coming from her experience with from another field and so it's very very interesting and that discussion was a lot of fun as I was with Tonya so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did let's get to it

SPEAKER_01

00:02:19

Welcome to Parenting the Intensity, where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice that doesn't work with our emotionally intense kids anyway, and let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together we'll find solutions and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are, deep down, you know what they need. But you need a little encouragement to keep going on harder days, and permission to do things differently, and help you fully trust that you already are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging kid. Do you read all the things, listen to all the things, take all the courses and you know a lot of things about parenting but you struggle to actually apply them in your real life ? Then When in luck, I just started the Parenting the Intensity community, which is a monthly group support for parents of emotionally intense kids. And the goal is exactly that, to take all the information you learn from the podcast and from all the other sources and adapt them so that it works for your child and your family, your reality. Because things can work, but not always the same way for everybody. So the same thing might need to be adapted to work for you.

SPEAKER_01

00:03:52

And sometimes it's hard to sort through everything to choose the right things so that you can really enjoy your life and your kids not always being afraid of the next outburst. You can join by clicking on the link in the show notes or on the website. So welcome Tonya over on the podcast. So I'm really glad to have you here today.

SPEAKER_00

00:04:21

Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me. I've been looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_01

00:04:24

Yeah, me too. It's so fun to talk to you all the time. So can you start by introducing yourself to the community and tell us why you do what you do?

SPEAKER_00

00:04:35

Sure. So my name is Tonya Wallum. I am a mom and a wife. Those are probably my most important roles that I have. And I'm the host of the Water Prairie Chronicles.

SPEAKER_00

00:04:47

It's a podcast for special needs parents. And just kind of a little background on why I do that. Both of my children, they're both in college right now, but when they were growing up, they both had different types of disabilities. My daughter's visually impaired and my son has some silent disabilities. And as a young parent, it was really hard for my husband and I both to figure out

SPEAKER_00

00:05:07

what questions to ask, how to get them the help that they needed, and navigating the school system and trying to figure out what was there to help them and what did we need to do as parents to try to get them to the next level so that they could eventually be independent adults. And so because of that kind of wandering around trying to find our way and stumbling on the path that seemed to work for them, I started the podcast just to try to help other parents who were younger than I am and starting that journey. And so that's kind of where I am today. Great. So yeah,

SPEAKER_01

00:05:41

love that. It can be a really isolating path when you start on the special need parent path. So it's always great to connect with other special need parents. I love that. You have a podcast on that topic too, which I know, but

SPEAKER_00

00:06:01

I've been on. You had been one of my one of my favorite guests, so definitely

SPEAKER_01

00:06:07

one of my favorite hosts. Yeah, thank

SPEAKER_00

00:06:11

you. Thank

SPEAKER_01

00:06:11

you.

SPEAKER_01

00:06:14

So the topic that we will talk about today, I think it's something that we all want to do, but it's so hard. So seeing our kids behind the troubling behaviors, like we know, I I've mentioned that in every episode, that we, we need to see the child like, and the behavior is just a need that is not met. But sometimes it's still so, let's be honest, annoying, and hard and challenging the behavior like, how tiring we

SPEAKER_00

00:06:52

get

SPEAKER_01

00:06:52

exhausted. Definitely. So how can we still see the child for who they are behind those behaviors or, yeah, despite or with, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

00:07:03

Yeah. And, and I, you and I were talking earlier and you've, you've had a guest on that's talked about executive functioning skills. And I think so listeners, if you haven't listened to that, go back and check that one because, because it was great information, but, and it'll help you

SPEAKER_00

00:07:18

understand kind of what we're talking about here too. A lot of times our kids who are really intense kids and, and may have ADHD and have different diagnoses or maybe they don't. Maybe they just have just really intense personalities. A lot of times they're missing some of those executive functioning skills or they're delayed. They're coming but they're behind their peers. And so that causes frustration for the child which then can cause behaviors that may not be what we think. I know one of the biggest surprises that I had when I first started learning about executive functioning skills is that, and you probably know this, your listeners may as well,

SPEAKER_00

00:07:57

but typically a child, given their chronological age, their executive functioning age, may be three years younger than that. And so I think back to my son who struggled with this more. When he was seven, eight, nine, 10, he looked like he was a lot older and he had this vocabulary and he would talk like he was older, but people would expect him to be 10, 11, 12 And then emotionally, he's, you know, six, seven, eight and, and it didn't fit and, and they didn't understand. So they would get impatient with them and they would, you and even

SPEAKER_01

00:08:34

we as parents, we would like, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

00:08:38

Some days they look so grown up, like they look so much older than they are. And then they act like two year old and I'm like, what's,

SPEAKER_00

00:08:46

it's like,

SPEAKER_01

00:08:47

where'd this come from? But I think that three -year gap and it's important to remember that it's not necessarily linear like some executive functions can be not advanced for the age but others are behind like a lot behind and it's often related to like emotions and so if you have a 10 -year -old he might be acting like a seven -year -old or even a little younger than that and needing much more. I think that's something to think in, that the tree

SPEAKER_00

00:09:20

you're resting. And it might be that that 10 -year -old is making 12 -year -old decisions and they're showing all this maturity, but then in a second, all of a sudden they're crying or they're having a tantrum and it doesn't make any sense. And it's because they've developed these skills. maybe they're a twice -exceptional kid and they have this high IQ and they have all this potential, but the executive functioning skill for understanding their emotions hasn't developed yet and everything else is advanced. And so it seems like this disconnect. And think through, I'm sure you've talked to other parents as well, thinking through for my son, how many times he was sent to be disciplined at school for things that really he just wasn't ready for yet. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't that he was trying to be bad, he was trying to be good most of the time and it just was misunderstood. The behavior wasn't matching up with what they thought. And I don't know if you've ever done it. I'm sure I said it at times and Christopher, if you're listening, I apologize now, but to act your age, have you ever, have you ever caught yourself saying that?

SPEAKER_01

00:10:29

I don't know, but I've heard that so many times. I'm sure that's so often like, yeah, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

00:10:38

And they are, we just don't recognize. But I think it would have helped me if I had known there was that gap with development. You know, you kind of know it as a parent because you see them, you see their heart,

SPEAKER_00

00:10:50

you know they're trying, but then we get frustrated and we get tired and we can only take so many tantrums in a day before we're exhausted. And then we need to have a tantrum. And so then we lash out at our child or we send them to time out or to their room. Yes, because it's easy

SPEAKER_01

00:11:11

to have a tantrum to a children other than much better than

SPEAKER_00

00:11:15

our own. We may not be on the floor screaming, but we have our adult form.

SPEAKER_01

00:11:21

Yes, yes, yes, definitely. And losing patience with our partners can be another way to lash out, too.

SPEAKER_00

00:11:28

Yes. It's always

SPEAKER_01

00:11:28

closer to us that get the worst, right?

SPEAKER_00

00:11:31

Right, right. Or the child, and maybe the child who's doing everything overly, you know, trying to compensate to keep peace in the family, and now we're yelling at them, and they didn't even do anything. They're just caught in the crossfire of what's happening.

SPEAKER_01

00:11:44

Yeah, I think that would be an entire episode. Like, yeah, the other child. They were the forgotten ones sometimes, yeah, the world can change, but yeah, this is, yeah. And so I think that three year gap is very important to keep in mind. And of course, it's not exactly that for each child.

SPEAKER_00

00:12:07

No, no, it'd be different from child to child.

SPEAKER_01

00:12:09

It can be up to three years on some of their development. And I think sometimes we just running that through, like wondering if something makes no sense, asking ourself, could it be one of the executive function that is three years behind

SPEAKER_01

00:12:24

that might explain what's happening now?

SPEAKER_00

00:12:27

A lot of times I like to think through, like when you're thinking about executive functioning skills, it sounds like this formal thing. Like, you know, is it this, this or this? And I don't think logically it's always exactly that. And so I like to kind of think through like some of the ways that those behaviors may show up. And so, you know, it might be that they get bored easily and they can't tolerate being bored. And so sometimes that'll cause behaviors that aren't desirable to come out or they seem like they don't get along with other students. And that that could only just be because an executive functioning skill is missing or is being delayed here And and so and those are the things that we get frustrated with sometimes and it's it's you know It isn't just something on paper that you see it's those those actions that we see that are kind of hard to recognize in the moment for what they are and You know, maybe maybe they went to a neighbor's house to play and now the mom's saying, you well, Johnny's not sharing, or Johnny's not doing this or that. And if we as parents, if we can recognize that, okay, yeah, Johnny's having a hard time today, one, we need to bring Johnny home and put him in a safe place because he doesn't need to get that type of friction

SPEAKER_00

00:13:46

happening at another house. But I remember too, back in elementary school and middle school, excuse me, feeling like I couldn't explain to my neighbors why I wasn't going to punish my son because it was just a misunderstanding and it wasn't intentional willfulness that was happening. It wasn't that he was trying to get his own way. It wasn't any of that. And it just wasn't working. And even sometimes feeling like family members or neighbors thought that I was coddling him too much and babying him too

SPEAKER_01

00:14:29

much. Yeah, that's a big one. And I think it's, and like, it's, it's often very hard because guess what? We tried other, other things and it's not working. So now we're trying something else that might sound weird to you because it's working like the regular way is working for you, but it's not working for my kids.

SPEAKER_00

00:14:50

Right. And for their child, if we gave them that extra time and let them kind of de -stress with us, because a lot of times as moms, especially, we're that child's security blanket. We're their safe place where they know that they can come and they may be thrashing at us. You just need to vent all those emotions and then relax

SPEAKER_00

00:15:09

and they're okay because they're safe enough to do that with us. To someone else looking in, they're thinking that we're just encouraging it because we're, you know, we're hugging them and we're letting them. We're

SPEAKER_01

00:15:21

them.

SPEAKER_00

00:15:21

We're enabling them, yes. I A that. And their child in that same situation may be taking advantage of it. Yeah. Moms and dads, you know your child. You know that they're not just trying to pull one over on you. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

00:15:36

They actually need it because you see the emotion, you see the pain, you know how they're feeling. And you can feel it. As you're hugging those little bodies, you can feel all just coming through the

SPEAKER_01

00:15:47

stress and all the tension. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But I think that judgment makes us so often it's hard to see the child behind just ourself. But then when other people are judging, it makes it even harder because we're doubting that we are seeing the right thing from our children. Like we are taking in all of those judgment, all of those vision of our children from others. And we're like, I know that's not it, but then do I? And then we're doubting and we're not seeing.

SPEAKER_00

00:16:21

And you still

SPEAKER_01

00:16:21

question yourself.

SPEAKER_00

00:16:23

Are helping them or you're hurting them?

SPEAKER_01

00:16:25

Exactly, and then you see your child from those point of views and it makes it harder to see the child behind a behavior even more. So I think that's a big one too. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00

00:16:36

We had one year in middle school where my son was home learning. It wasn't homeschooling, but it was an online school, so he was able to access it from home. Most of that year, I was able to adjust when we did different lessons. We didn't know it at the time, but he was in the early stages of narcolepsy, so sleep issues were already in there, but we didn't know why. We would do math sometimes at midnight or at 1 o 'clock in the morning. And he was awake, I was awake, we were able to get it to work. But that was probably my favorite year because we were able to, at nine o 'clock at night, we'd have dinner, then we'd go for a walk around the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00

00:17:19

Everybody's going to bed and we were out, he had a skateboard sometimes while I'm walking, but I enjoyed seeing him just be himself. We didn't have to worry about circadian rhythms and everything else and having to force him get up to go to school the next morning. It was, he was able to learn on his own time. And I think the other thing that he learned that year was confidence in himself because he wasn't being berated all the time by teachers. He wasn't being compared to other students. He could be himself and he learned that he actually was smart. He really could do things and he wasn't just always feeling like he just was never measuring up. But he did go back to the school the next year, but But for one year, I had that

SPEAKER_01

00:18:04

with them. And it's a great way too, to like know what I need as a child. Like I know that way my needs are met and I function better. So it's, it might be hard to advocate for school at three in the morning, but at

SPEAKER_00

00:18:19

least you know why you're

SPEAKER_01

00:18:20

not performing.

SPEAKER_00

00:18:23

And

SPEAKER_00

00:18:24

most students don't have narcolepsy, so they're not having to. No,

SPEAKER_01

00:18:28

that's kind of a rare situation for sure. it's not something that is very common.

SPEAKER_00

00:18:33

We didn't know at the time either. It just, it worked and we, we went with it because it was less arguments at that time of night. We could, could work on it together.

SPEAKER_01

00:18:42

Yeah. But I think it's not just narcolepsia like other, for other reasons can, can have, like, we are expected to have a very fixed schedule and kids can, should be in bed at that time and waking up at that time. But lots of kids for many reasons don't have that schedule, but we're forcing everybody in the same schedule, which makes it hard for a lot of kids,

SPEAKER_00

00:19:03

right?

SPEAKER_01

00:19:03

So I think it's, it's, it's true for other kids. And I, that like, drive us to the other thing that I want to talk to you about, which is like, when you have the kids that is different, and we are different parents, because we have different kids, right? Often, it's very hard, because it's lonely, as we were saying in the beginning. And I know that you were talking about having adults that have the same diagnosis as your children so that they can see examples of what it is. Right. So, like, how does that even work?

SPEAKER_00

00:19:42

Well, what got me thinking on this, well, a couple of things. Daughter has a physical disability, it's very different from what my son has faced. but you still feel isolated. So I think we can make that connection there. When she was in elementary school, realizing that she needed peers that she could connect with. And she was always the only child in her school that had a visual impairment. So there was never another blind or low vision child that we could ever introduce her to. And most of her teachers never had taught another student. So she was kind of isolated by herself there. and I started looking for organizations in our community anywhere that I could go. If I could find an adult that had low vision, I would talk to them. And

SPEAKER_00

00:20:27

literally, I just started talking to anyone that I could find to find out what they knew or what they could do. And when she was, we moved to North, we're in North Carolina now. When we moved here, she was eight, I think. She was in second grade, so seven or eight. And we found an organization that was just starting to meet within that first year. And there was a little girl with the exact same eye condition who had just won this beauty pageant and she had her tiara on and her sash and she came to one of the meetings. And so she spent the day with Emily. And then a few weeks later she caught her and the moms and I, we met at the mall and the girls walked around the mall. And so this older girl who was maybe 12 at the time showed my daughter what it was like to have low vision and to be confident in who you are and to, um, and she, she to find out where a store was at the mall. And so they've, they went and they asked for help and they, and so even though Emily wasn't old enough to do that by herself yet, it was a lesson that she learned from another girl that had that same condition, the, the, the older girl is now an attorney in Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_00

00:21:40

I think, you know, she went on to do great things, but, um, but we didn't stay in touch. Her mom and I stayed in touch as far as what our girls are doing, but that was it. So it didn't have to be a close friendship, but it gave my daughter an example of what was there, but it also gave me as a mom an example of what I could expect of my daughter. And so I think looking at things like that are helpful. On the podcast, I interviewed a woman who has two sons who are deaf, and she has a deaf mentor. And this is what got me thinking more of this even. So I did it naturally, but I didn't have a mentor there. I just had that one connection there. And later I was able to find more as Emily got older. But mom, when her children are very young, she intentionally went into the deaf community and found someone who would work with her as a mentor. And she contacted a national organization. So I think if you're trying to a definite diagnosis, go to those national organizations or organizations and just ask, how can I find a mentor who has this diagnosis or someone who has an older child who has this diagnosis?

SPEAKER_00

00:22:52

Or if you don't have a diagnosis, just kind of even through Instagram or something, you could put out a post and just say, who's out there? There's got to be someone who's posting about the same topic. And, and just, you know, it takes a little bit of initiative, but the value of what you get from that is, you know, you, you can pick their brain, you can ask them the dumb question. They'll probably be glad to share with you what they've learned, what's worked for them, what's not worked for them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

00:23:22

Yeah. All those things that you don't know who to ask basically, because yeah, you feel that nobody will want to answer or know the answer or yeah.

SPEAKER_00

00:23:31

So I think that's very

SPEAKER_01

00:23:32

interesting. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00

00:23:33

definitely, and I call them dumb questions because it'd be it'd be offensive to ask someone that you met on the street questions But if they're your mentor if they if they've already agreed to have that connection with you Even if you're across the world if you can email the questions back and forth, they could at least tell you, you Yes, you're you know, I have a child that's five years older This is what we did at that age and and it's going to get better or this is what we did to help to help fix that problem or what we did for Johnny to make friends. I don't know who Johnny is, but keep talking about Johnny.

SPEAKER_01

00:24:11

It's

SPEAKER_00

00:24:12

the fictitious example. If your son is Johnny, I'm sorry, I'm not talking about Johnny.

SPEAKER_01

00:24:19

It could be any name. It's just, yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

00:24:22

But yeah, I love the idea. And it can both be for the child and for the parents to know what to look for. And I think it's interesting, because sometimes we might tend to baby like we talk about like, supporting them, and it might look like babying them in some ways. But also sometimes we do tend to do it maybe a little bit more too much in some aspects. And it's great to know that they could do more and help push down because I think that's a balance that's hard to reach like the where do I push, am I pushing them too much or not enough? And like when we're like walking on a child so that we don't have a big meltdown, sometimes we don't want to push, but then am I just not like,

SPEAKER_01

00:25:08

so I think it's always a difficult balance to strike with those kids.

SPEAKER_00

00:25:12

They need to do more and we're holding the back too long. Yes, yes. You know, we're going to eventually get to that point where we're keeping them back and they're ready to just fly and we need to know it's okay to let them go and to let them fall a little bit. And we're still there to pick them up, but think we need to let them try.

SPEAKER_00

00:25:31

I remember with Christopher, not my daughter as much, but with my son, there were stages where as parents, we knew we had to pull back the reins because the world was getting too big for him. And we saw more meltdowns, just problems. And it always came down to like his world was too big. He had too many choices And so we would give him just a few choices and kind of start easing up again Each time we'd ease up again He'd grow a little bit more and then we'd hit a limit we come back in again And this was like from 8 or to maybe 8 or 9 that we were seeing that okay And and his peers weren't going through that they had kind of left that by the time they were four But for him it just he just needed a little more protection But then he wanted to go out again, you know, he was ready, ready to try more. And now... that three

SPEAKER_01

00:26:23

years gap that you're going

SPEAKER_00

00:26:24

back a bit.

SPEAKER_00

00:26:25

Yeah. Like I said, had I known then, it would have made more sense. It didn't really make sense to me. But I did, someone had told me somewhere along the way that sometimes choices are too much for some kids. And that was some of the best words that I could have heard because I heard them to begin with. I didn't just ignore it. But whenever I saw this in him, it was like, well, let's try it. And so, and we even took him down to the point where breakfast was, do want to eat or not? That's your choice. And then it would become, do you want toast or cereal? And that would be, just a couple of little choices until we could see how far you could take it, you know, because before it would be, you know, he'd come in and he had the whole kitchen to choose from. It was just too much. And it's a bad example, but it kind of gives you the idea. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

00:27:09

Yes. And I think that's interesting because often we're told with kids that are not necessarily compliant with big air quotes that we should give them choices so that will help but that's not always the case as

SPEAKER_00

00:27:22

always

SPEAKER_01

00:27:22

it's not because it was supposed to work that it will work with our kids and some kids when you give choices you're it's too much like i can tell you that one of my child this summer at some point she asked me to go out of this tour because i was she was having choices and it was too many choices for her.

SPEAKER_00

00:27:39

She was getting overwhelmed

SPEAKER_01

00:27:40

by the choices. And was something she really wanted, but she could not choose. It was like stuffed animals or something. Yeah. So too many choices. Sometimes it's just too much. Even if it's something you really want when they have too many choices, it's too much. So I love that idea of reducing the choices when you like, maybe that might be one of the things that triggering behaviors in our children. So always love those out -of -the -box ideas that are different because it's often what, and sometimes it's like that idea that someone else tried and you're like, that makes sense for me. I'm going to try that. And then it works magic. Like it's not going to

SPEAKER_00

00:28:18

solve everything. Yeah. It

SPEAKER_01

00:28:20

didn't hurt anything. No, exactly. You try, it's not working. We'll try something else. And it's a lot of trial and error. So, and I love that little glimpse. I think I should like collect them all and put them in a you document and go through all those ideas because everybody has those little glimpses of great ideas and I love them. I'd

SPEAKER_00

00:28:41

be curious to hear what your listeners have found that works for them if they've gone through that before.

SPEAKER_01

00:28:47

Yes, I would love to know. I always like I welcome listeners to share those ideas and to come over. I'm always like I would love to have some listeners over on the podcast sharing those like

SPEAKER_00

00:29:00

magic

SPEAKER_01

00:29:01

solution. I would love that. But yeah, and I think like we talked a bit about one of those solution, interesting solution that you find, you're making them available to the public. So I really love that. Like you talk about the subscription box for reading, but reading in a very different way. So just let's talk a bit about that because I really love

SPEAKER_00

00:29:23

that.

SPEAKER_01

00:29:23

SPEAKER_00

00:29:25

been working on this for a little bit and it's something that I did with my kids when were young and it's putting together what's called a story box. And typically it's used for visually impaired children who can't see books when they're looking at the pictures. And so when my daughter was very young we made these boxes for her. And a story box goes along with the story books. You have the book itself that the parent would read and inside the box, or our case there are actual pouches that the objects are in, there are about 10 objects that go along with the illustrations that would be inside the book. For example, if the book, there's one that I'm working on now, in English, it's Good

SPEAKER_00

00:30:05

Night Moon. In French, what would it be called?

SPEAKER_01

00:30:09

What it was, we looked at it, it was Bonsoir Lune in French.

SPEAKER_00

00:30:14

It's a book that a lot of families have, so you may know the story, but there are different objects in there. You have a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush. And so in the box you would have a comb and then there's a little bowl and then there's a little old lady whispering hush and the lady's a bunny rabbit, so there's a stuffed bunny rabbit inside the box. So as you're reading the story, you're handing your child the object. And so if you have a child who's a little movement -oriented, we'll call them, and they may not want to sit still and look at the pictures, they're holding onto an object. So here's a 3D object that they can act out what's happening. And in this particular story, you have the cow jumping over the moon. So they could be holding onto the stuffed cow and making it jump over the moon as you're listening to it. And what happens is, now particular book is for toddlers and preschoolers, so it's younger.

SPEAKER_00

00:31:04

And there'll be other boxes that'll come out for older students too. And on those, we'll have the objects that go along with the story, but we'll also be putting in some extra notes on how they can be used for literacy. so that as your child is going from reading books to writing stories, they could use these objects to help write stories themselves. And would begin with telling stories. So they could take the objects and make up their own story to go with them and tell you what that story is.

SPEAKER_00

00:31:35

And then as they get older, they'd be able to use that to kind of help them organize the story itself by having those objects there. So it's not just a book for a young child who can't see a picture. It also goes beyond that. And what I what I like about this, you go from the stages of early literacy to more advanced. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01

00:31:57

different stages for sure.

SPEAKER_00

00:31:58

Exactly. But then you also have that active child who needs motion involved. They're still learning because they can play with this toy while they're listening to the story. And as books get longer, you know, you still have 10 objects, but they can have those and they can kind of have them act out what you're reading so that they're, they're putting it all together. Yeah. And I love that story boxes.

SPEAKER_01

00:32:20

Yeah. And I love that it started with something that was very specific for kids with visual impairments, but then you saw the usefulness and other like other situation with kids with different needs. And I think that's something we, we sometimes forget that like all the different needs, they are in boxes and we look at them in very specific ways and

SPEAKER_01

00:32:46

opening that and sharing the information from one special needs to another can be very helpful for sure.

SPEAKER_00

00:32:53

But our case, my daughter is the oldest, so I had made them when she was a toddler and into the preschool years, but what we noticed was my son enjoyed these stories just as much because it was fun holding onto the objects. See, even if he wanted to sit in my lap, he still wanted to play with the toys. I

SPEAKER_01

00:33:08

see any child not loving that.

SPEAKER_00

00:33:11

That's it. When we also have our sensory kids who, you know, they would get to squeeze the stuffed animal. They could tap the bowl while they're listening. You know, there's different things happening with it too. They can comb their hair with the comb that's inside the box.

SPEAKER_01

00:33:26

Yeah, yeah. It's engaging in movement and sensory and visual. if they can, if like, it's engaging them in so many different ways that just, and for kids that have more trouble with everything that is like abstract, then it makes it very more concrete. So I think it can fit for so many different kids needs. So I really love

SPEAKER_01

00:33:49

that, that idea. So let's keep us posted on when you release those. Oh,

SPEAKER_00

00:33:56

I will. I will. We're the first, the first one will be the, the, the good night moon and that's coming out end of October, early November. So it'll be, be there for the holidays. I'm hoping that we'll have several others on pre -order by then too. So we can, it should be,

SPEAKER_01

00:34:10

yeah, now we're beginning of October when we record, but by the time we release that might be available. So we'll put the link

SPEAKER_00

00:34:17

in the show notes. I will send you updates as I have more information on them for you. Thank you. Love

SPEAKER_01

00:34:24

And is there and like where can people find you other than the boxes? Where can they find

SPEAKER_00

00:34:31

you? You have

SPEAKER_01

00:34:32

a podcast? We'll link to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00

00:34:35

Yes, we have the podcast, the Water Prairie Chronicles. You can search for that. It'll if you just type that in, it'll it'll come up wherever you're searching. But but my website is water prairie dot com. And and I have a link tree that has all of my links, and Linktree slash Water Prairie, and so you can find me at any of those locations. We're on all social media, so those links are there, and pretty much if you put in Water Prairie anywhere, I think you'll find us some way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_01

00:35:06

Anyway, the link will be in the show notes and on the blog page, so they'll find you easily that way.

SPEAKER_01

00:35:12

Thank you. Is there anything else you would like to share before we end?

SPEAKER_00

00:35:17

I did want to share that So we've been talking about executive functioning skills and the delays and all and I did have an episode Earlier this year number 71 where we met an executive functioning coach in New York City well, he's in Queens, New York, but but he works with ADHD and executive functioning students and He's worked all around the world But if you wanted to hear more, you have the episode that you just released as well on the topic. But that would be another resource for if you wanted to hear more about executive functioning skills and how they affect students specifically.

SPEAKER_01

00:35:52

Yes. Yeah, because I think it's a big topic for sure, the way it affects the students in school because it's often hard for parents to understand and hard for educators to understand. I

SPEAKER_00

00:36:05

was going to I don't think our teachers are as educated in recognizing what it is as they could be, but there's so much that our teachers have to take on that I don't think it's intentional.

SPEAKER_00

00:36:15

I think it's just that they may not pick up on it and it's up to us to kind of help them.

SPEAKER_01

00:36:19

And it's so different, like for every child that even if they knew the theory out that applies to each children is very difficult to, to, yeah, even if we have just one, it's hard for hours. When

SPEAKER_00

00:36:35

you have a class full, it's

SPEAKER_01

00:36:36

definitely a struggle. Great. So we'll link all those in the show notes. So you so much, Tania, for sharing with the listeners. And it was very great to chat with you again,

SPEAKER_00

00:36:50

as always. Thank Can I say something to your listeners? Yeah, sure. Go on. I know your podcast is still kind of early on this. You're doing a great job with what you're doing. But listeners, if you're enjoying this and want to support what she's doing, I think one of the best things you can do is to go and leave her a review on Apple podcast, I think is the only place where you can leave reviews right now. But if you leave one there, it will help hers come up higher whenever people are searching for topics that are related to what she's doing. So I would encourage all of you to go and do that if you can. Thank so much

SPEAKER_01

00:37:24

for saying that.

SPEAKER_00

00:37:24

It's true

SPEAKER_01

00:37:25

that it's it's way. And it's great to know that someone's listening.

SPEAKER_00

00:37:31

Yes, yes, it is. It is very helpful, as a host, to know that. Yes, we know,

SPEAKER_01

00:37:35

we see the numbers, but it's numbers. It's great to have more feedback than that on the podcast

SPEAKER_00

00:37:40

that we're doing. They're real people.

SPEAKER_00

00:37:42

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

00:37:43

It's always fun. So thank you very much. It was nice to have you on.

SPEAKER_00

00:37:47

Thank you. I always enjoy talking with you. This has been fun.

SPEAKER_01

00:37:57

I'm so glad you joined me today and took that time out of your intense life to focus on finding a new way to parent that works for you and your kids. To get the episodes as soon as they drop, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and please leave everything in review so other parents can find it too. Also check out all the free resources on my website at familymoments .ca so you can take action on what's the most important for you right now. And take a deep breath, keep going, we're all in this together.