The Autism Mom Coach: Regulate, Then Advocate

 

Transcript

ANNOUNCER:  This is Curious Incident, a podcast for special needs families, and your window into the world of special education. Special needs parenting can be challenging, and we want to make it easier by providing you with the resources you need to help your child. Step deep into the world of learning differently with your host, special education attorney Adam Dayan. 

ADAM:  I am happy to present our next guest on the Curious Incident podcast, Lisa Candera. Lisa is a single mom to a young adult with severe autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, a practicing attorney and a life coach for autism moms. She founded the autism mom coach as the answer to the question she asked herself during her son’s most volatile years of acute aggression, school crises, and hospitalizations. How do I stay steady and grounded when my child is constantly melting down? The answer became the foundation of her coaching program where she teaches autism moms to regulate first so they can respond with steadiness and lead with confidence. Lisa hosts the autism mom podcast as a regular contributor to the autism parenting magazine and presenter on parental self care, emotional regulation, and meltdown de-escalation strategies for autism services and resources Connecticut. Lisa, welcome. 

LISA:  Thank you. So happy to be here. 

ADAM:  It’s great to have you here. You’ve been working as a life coach for autism parents for the past five years. To ground listeners, can you explain what autism parent coaching involves and just as importantly, what it does not involve? 

LISA:  Sure. So I’ll start with what it’s not. It’s not therapy. So I am not a licensed therapist. I am not diving deep into family trauma, past histories, that kind of thing. Coaching with me as an autism mom is meeting somebody who understands your experience is going to validate it for you. It’s going to help you normalize it, but then is going to give you the tools and strategies that you need to make some course corrections to make your life easier and to support your child in a more effective way. 

ADAM:  And I know you’ve talked about helping parents bring more ease and intention to their life. How do you do that? 

LISA:  Well, we start with where they are right now. And so when my moms come to me and they tell me that they’re overwhelmed, I want to get a better understanding of what that means. And for so many of them, it means they are always on. If they’re not doing something directly for their child, they’re thinking about it or spinning or catastrophizing about it. And another thing that I see that many of them don’t do is they don’t ask for the help or accept what they would consider imperfect help. And so no one’s going to do it the way I do it is something I hear. And while that’s true, that is something that holds so many of us back from getting some relief. 

ADAM:  How do you address that piece? 

LISA:  Point it out is where we start and really just saying to mom, like, listen, the reason you’re overwhelmed, the reason you’re snapping at your child, the reason you’re trigger happy is because you are getting no relief. That is the result. And so just as we are always trying to focus with our children on their regulation, I’m teaching the parents, you’re dysregulated. And this is how it’s showing up. So we need to do the work for you that you want to help your child with. 

ADAM:  That’s so important to be able to recognize that you’re in that state. 

LISA:  Yeah. And I’ll never forget being in an office with a therapist at the time and just rambling on about this, is that and the other? And she said to me, you’re really dysregulated. I’m like, what? What are you talking about? What do you mean? How do you know? And she started to tick off how she could tell. And I was like, oh, well, this is just my normal. Actually, this is just me getting things done. And so just that recognition of what was happening for myself was really a great starting point. 

ADAM:  Do you want to say what those signs were? 

LISA:  I was talking very rapidly, which I tend to do, but I was talking rapidly, more rapidly than usual. I was sort of shifting from thing to thing. I was introducing topics and each of them had no resolution. And well, this won’t work because and this won’t work because of this. Anything that was suggested, I was just putting my hand up and telling her why in my life this wouldn’t be possible. That was some of the signs. Another sign is I was cursing. You know, I was dropping the F bomb here and there, which also I could a lie. I tend to do, you know, but it wasn’t for comic relief or just to make a point. It was just out of frustration and anger and just being dysregulated. 

ADAM:  You built your coaching practice alongside a legal career during which you intentionally avoided special education law because it felt too close to home. How did your legal experience influence the way you structure your coaching frameworks and support parents? 

LISA:  For most is that I have a framework. We’re not just sort of shooting in the dark. I am a very, I think in a very structured formulaic way because I’m an attorney. You know, I love a flow chart. I love a three bullet points to prove a thesis. So that’s just how my brain works. And so when I was thinking about how to stay regulated during a meltdown, I understood, for example, that the work doesn’t happen when the meltdown is happening. It’s a before, during and after process. That is just the way I like to think the way I like to structure things so that I’m exploring all areas where we can make an influence. And as it turns out, most of our influence as autism parents, as humans, is before the thing happens. But what happens for us is that most of that energy is focused on prevention. And so when the prevention doesn’t work, there’s tons of frustration and you’re meeting your child’s frustration now with your own frustration and maybe even feelings of failure because the meltdown is happening. And so what I really like to address with my parents is, yeah, we’re going to do what we can to prevent this, but meltdowns are part of our lives. And so just dropping into that acceptance when they do and then having a very concrete plan of what you will do and what you won’t do, making those decisions ahead of time while you’re regulated so you can execute them when tensions are high. 

ADAM:  We’re going to talk more about acceptance in a few minutes. Before we get there, do you want to say a few more words about how you help parents strategize using this approach? 

LISA:  Look, if your child mounts down every day after they get home from school, then if they do, it’s not a surprise. Now a lot of us come to like, I have no idea. This is something I can’t control. And just know, we know that this happens and we actually have a couple of theories about why it happens. And so being able to focus on that, and when you’re able to do that, you’re not following your child from room to room, trying to figure out what’s going on. You’re not lecturing them about things. You’re not adding more chaos to their overwhelm. Just being able to break these things down into very small pieces because we all would love just this huge transformation that happened overnight. But what I have learned and what I teach my clients is that this is like a dance. We’re all in a dance in our relationships with the people that we live with. And your child does X and you do. Why? And this is the pattern that you’ve built your job here instead of doing why. Let’s try Z instead. And let’s see how the dance changes. And so I’m just asking them to implement these really tiny changes. And most of the things that I am having them implement is doing nothing or doing less, which feels really counterintuitive when you are in a regulated state. 

ADAM:  That’s great. Thank you for elaborating on that. 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to the curious incident podcast and letting other special needs parents know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast@dayanlawfirm.com. 

ADAM:  So let’s get back to that concept of acceptance in white collar, legal work. Outcomes can feel clearer in parenting a child with autism. The uncertainty is constant. What mindset shift helped you move from trying to find the right answer to helping families build the right system that can adapt over time? 

LISA:  It really comes down to radical acceptance. But within that acceptance is a radical understanding. And for me, when it comes to autism, I view this as our children have a condition that is complex and it is not very well understood and it’s even less resourced. So there are general parameters and ideas and recommendations that you will get for your child, but there’s no one size fits all. And that doesn’t really even begin to capture the individualality of how autism impacts a particular child. There are so many other variables that go into that. Comorbidities play a big role. So when you add in things like ADHD, OCD, anxiety, medical issues, it’s such a complex picture. And so there are very general recommendations out there and parents have the idea of if I do all of those things, then my child will, let’s say, be less impacted by their autism diagnosis and then they do all the things. And that’s not the case. There’s a lot of self blame and self doubt. And so back to the radical acceptance is we don’t really understand completely what’s happening. And we’re always trying to learn and figure out more. And you are the best person as the person who’s with your child all the time. The person who interacts with all of their team members to know what’s right for your child in a particular moment. And so just again, coming to the acceptance that uncertainty is what we have because our children have a diagnosis that is uncertain of itself. 

ADAM:  And those are two very complex ideas. First, understanding what’s happening with your child, right? Because no two people with autism are the same, as you said. And secondly, accepting what is your child’s reality. Where does that term or concept of radical acceptance come from? 

LISA:  Radical acceptance is a term that I learned from Tara Brock. She is a Buddhist. She is a coach, I believe. She is a mindfulness person. She’s just an amazing resource for any of you who want to learn more about what radical acceptance is. She has a podcast that I listened to a lot when we were in some of our darkest moments because it’s really hard to get to a place where you’ve done so much. And your child is still struggling and you’re going to professionals around the country and they’re like, I don’t know. Let’s try this. Let’s try that. And just getting to the idea that this is part of the process. All of these tries and fails are how we’re going to figure out and get my child to the place he needs to be or to at least a better place. And so I tried to start to do things with myself like, okay, let’s say it’s going to take 52 tries and I’m only at 22. I just got to keep going as opposed to living and dying by every try and fail. And this happened in a context that you’re very familiar with, I’m sure, is out of those district placements. We would get an out of district placement and I was putting all my hopes and this one will work. And then when it didn’t, knowing that we were starting all over again was devastating the first time, but after that first time and at the second time, it’s like, okay, I know this process. I know the next steps, accepting that this is where we are right now. I don’t love it, but I know how to get through it. 

ADAM:  And it’s a very hard thing when you expect things to go a certain way and then they don’t and it just feels like it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. And I think the reframing that you’re suggesting where it’s more about it’s part of the journey and we got to try a lot of things and maybe this one is going to move us forward. If so, great, maybe this one is going to take us backwards, but if so, we’ll pivot and just learning and going. Yeah. So you mentioned comorbidities and I want to get back to that. And you talked about some of the specific ones that commonly show up for individuals with autism in your coaching experience. How do those layers complicate planning, decision making and family dynamics? 

LISA:  The impact is profound. And let’s just say, for instance, I was going to take you into, you know, my life a little bit. I have a child diagnosed with autism and I was an autism, you know, parent doing all the things that you’re supposed to do for your autism kid for, you know, years and years. And we are working really hard, but I’ve gotten a hang of this autism thing. Let’s just say. And then my son hit his teen years and the anxiety and the OCD knocked autism like right out of the front seat and they took the front seat. And now I have dealing with two diagnoses that everything I would do for my autistic child don’t work. And act back. It’s like the opposite. And so for instance, we were urged when my son’s behaviors and aggression really started to escalate. ABA, ABA is the gold standard and okay, fine. We actually did ABA when my son was younger and it was very helpful. But I knew that ABA for my son with OCD was not going to help, but we had to do it in the respect that we were talking about all the things that you do that fail. I have found, at least in my experience, that there seems to be an order of operations in order to get to the next step of services that we had to say or exhaust. Yes, we tried this and it didn’t work in order to get to the next thing. And so we had the ABA specialist in our home doing, you know, what they do. And my son with OCD, he reacted so poorly to it. It devastated him really because there were sort of these like really rigid concrete things that they were, you know, instructing him in. But his OCD was spinning on this just right OCD. Where did he do it perfectly? They said should is the should a half to? And it really got into this complicated area where the ABA people actually said to me, this is not what we do. This is OCD. 

ADAM:  I think this is a great example. And it’s so important to be attuned to all of the things that are happening with the child because as you’ve described, you could be doing one thing that typically works for people with this condition. But if there’s a complicating factor for this child, then it may not work at all. 

LISA:  Absolutely. Like I used to say, I miss autism. Autism, I had gotten a hang of, I understood when OCD entered the picture and the anxiety and I see this in so many of my families, it’s illogical. It doesn’t make sense. And our brains want to tell our child why they shouldn’t be upset about this, why they should just be able to let it go. And we are doing the exact opposite of what’s helpful. Or we get into that big reassurance mode where we’re constantly reassuring them because they’re coming to us for that. And we don’t really know what else to do. And so all of that that I was doing was not helpful. But if you’re a parent of a child with autism, OCD, anxiety, whatever it is, and you find yourself in these situations where you are doing the reassuring, where you are trying to out-raze in it, don’t blame yourself. We need to survive and get through a day. And if it was the decision between reassuring an OCD and giving into it versus safety, I’m picking safety every single time. I really like to talk to my parents about that so that they understand that there are some things that they are doing that I don’t want to say are making it worse, but that aren’t helpful and trying to scale back. But also making sure that they have the right support to do that for themselves and their family because it is a really big task to confront something as complicated as OCD in a child with autism where they’re rigid and they are, you know, the transitions are difficult and they’re black and white. And then you add that OCD and it just makes it more complex. 

ADAM:  Right. And just a reminder to parents and listeners not to beat yourselves up. These are things that even experts don’t fully understand. So parents are typically laypeople. They’re not expected to be experts on every aspect of the technical and scientific. 

LISA:  Absolutely. And I will say because we were fortunate to be in the Bradley partial outpatient hospitalization for OCD. It’s one of the few in the country and it was the only one that would take my son with his autism because a lot of the places that deal with OCD, like Rogers and McLean, they one, either wouldn’t take a child with a comorbidity, which I mean, who has OCD and nothing else, right? And then two, they weren’t going to take a child who had a history of aggression or behaviors. Bradley was the only place that would take us and they were remarkable. They were just so amazing in taking on my son because as soon as he came in and they evaluated him, they said, our usual protocol of exposure response is not going to be helpful for your child because they don’t need to be exposed to a trigger. The trigger is internal and it is organic and it’s always present. And doing exposure responses would just escalate him. So instead we’re going to change our approach and they use the act acceptance commitment therapy approach for him. But in all of these conversations, they were really being honest. They were consulting with their autism hospital that they also have attached to Bradley, other experts to try to come up with something to really help my son. But the transparency of we don’t really know, but we’re going to try and doctors of that caliber saying to you, we don’t know. It felt so good to me in the sense of, oh, this isn’t my fault. I wasn’t supposed to figure this out. We’re just not in that place where we know at this point, right? And so I really do try to share that with as many parents as I can. You can beat yourself up and I understand it, but just also know this. We’re not there yet in terms of what we understand about the brain and the interaction of all of these things, even less than our understanding, are the resources to help you and support you, unfortunately, which, I mean, it’s kind of full circle as to why I do what I do. I, you know, I felt so alone in being in that place where I was trying to explain my child to different people and different professionals and nobody really understood. And they couldn’t like, you know, people were like, well, this is just this or, well, it’s just that. It’s like, no, it’s all of it. 

ADAM:  That’s really great. Thank you for sharing that. We’re the boundaries of your role. For example, how do you support parents around high P meetings without replacing legal or educational professionals? 

LISA:  The boundaries of my role will be anything that requires any legal advice or any sort of, you know, medical advice for your child. I’m not going to give that. I will give experiences. I will share with people my own experiences if it’s warranted. So let me just be really specific. I will have parents come to me at a place where they just feel really overwhelmed. These are parents who, you know, work really hard. They never met a problem that hard work and an Excel spreadsheet couldn’t fix, couldn’t manage. And they’ve done all these things and they’re not seeing the results the way they think that they should. And there’s a, just a lot of frustration that they’re having and they’re wondering, do I just need more therapy for my kid or maybe there’s something for me or they’re looking for something for themselves. You know, maybe they’re actually looking for a therapist, but every time they go to a therapist, they spend most of the time explaining autism, right? These are great places for people where they’re like, I want the help. I could use the help and they’re open to the help. And that’s a great place where coaching comes in because you’re already functioning really well, maybe probably over functioning and you still see for everything I’m doing, I’m still a mess and things aren’t progressing the way I think that they should. And so that’s a great place to talk to somebody who’s been there and who is focused on helping parents in this moment. The limits. So I have parents will come to me because they got their first phone call from school that their child melted down and like cleared the room or destroyed the OT room. And they’re just beyond, right? They’re just can’t believe this is happening to them. And so I will sit there and say, okay, here’s what you need to do. Call an emergency IEP meeting. You’re going to want to put that in writing. And that’s really the end of it. I’m going to say things like if you can get yourself an advocate, if you can, make sure you have that advocate who plays in your backyard, so to speak, because this is all very local. And so I can give tips about and strategies more about how to present yourself in this position because a lot of my parents are like, why are they calling me? I’m not the expert. I’m like, no, no, no, you are the expert. And I really tried to reframe how they see that table that you were at the head of this table. And these are your temporary advisors, right? Because you are the thread through all of it. And so really just being able to help mom build her confidence, not so she can go in their guns and blazing because there is a huge piece of this that is teamwork 100%. But what I see with a lot of my moms is they’re afraid of rocking the boat or being the squeaky wheel or someone like me. I came from a Catholic school background. There was no extra help. And so although I want all these resources for my son, I’ve had to coach myself in order to be comfortable with that discomfort of asking for more. And so I had to get over that for myself. And so these are the types of things that I help parents with in a situation where expertise from somebody else like you would be helpful. 

ADAM:  In my office, we speak with lots of parents who don’t want to rock the boat. And I think it’s important to emphasize that this is something they’re entitled to. They’re children have a legal right to an appropriate education. And they’re just asking for what their children deserve. 

SPEAKER_03:  Yep. Yeah. 

ADAM:  We may have touched on this already, but I wanted to see if there’s anything you’d like to add. I know many families come to you in moments of acute stress. An apparent is overwhelmed or dysregulated. What are the first coaching levers you focus on to stabilize the situation? 

LISA:  First, just listening. There’s actually a lot of power in just being able to tell your story to somebody who’s receiving it. Not like, what are you kidding? And a lot of it is, you know, it’s really silent. It’s just all of those facial expressions when someone’s telling me and I’m like, yep, been there, you know, and just them knowing like, oh, this person doesn’t think I’m crazy. They’ve heard this before. They’ve experienced this before just that alone without people jumping in to be like, well, did you try this? Did you try that? So I think that is one of the first, I would say, you know, levers is just holding space for them to share their experience. And then second, normalizing it. It feels crazy to you and you probably know nobody else who is going through this. But I can tell you, you are not alone. I talk to moms all the time who are going through exactly this. So although it is crazy in the sort of neurotypical world of all of your friends, whose kids are doing after school sports or travel or whatever it is, this is quote, unquote, quite normal for our families. 

ADAM:  I know that feeling of doing everything in your power to accomplish a goal. And you’re speaking with somebody about it and you get those questions. What did you try this? What did you do that? And it’s kind of, I don’t know if paralyzing is the right word. It’s certainly discouraging. It doesn’t account for everything that you’ve done up to that point. 

LISA:  100%. 

ADAM:  It really impedes you from moving. 

LISA:  It shuts you down. It shuts you down. Absolutely. 

ADAM:  And every day is critical when you have a child with autism or a different developmental disorder, they can regress quickly. And if they’re not getting the right help, it can be disastrous for them. Yeah. Lisa, you often reference a 10,000 foot view. How do you help parents apply that perspective in a concrete, repeatable way before an IEP meeting, difficult school call or an ongoing crisis at home. 

LISA:  The 10,000 foot view is that this is part of what autism parenting is. And it’s just a really level of acceptance because there is resistance to this shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t have to explain this again. I shouldn’t have to go to these meetings. They should be doing the thing that they should be doing and they’re not doing it. All of that resistance really does. It drains you. It’s not draining them. It’s draining you. And so the 10,000 foot view is this is part of the process. And I’ll just give you an example. At one point with my son’s medications, there was just a lot of different things going on. So I was at different drugstores at different times of the month, different blood work had to be done. And we’re talking like maybe a 10 hour a month, the kind of project between calling and I got to myself, I’m like, Oh, this, this is a 10 hour job. This isn’t a one hour job. It’s not a 30 minute job. This is a 10 hour job. And so like that 10,000 foot view of this is what it is just to sort of like release that resistance. And not just some parent knows this, all of the paperwork that we fill out. This is just part of it. And so like that 10,000 foot view to me of just remembering what I am dealing with. So there’s less resistance in the moment. 

ADAM:  I think it goes back to expectations, which we were discussing before. If you’re expecting a certain result and it doesn’t go that way, you’re going to feel disappointed and frustrated. If you’re thinking it’s going to take you 30 minutes or an hour and it’s taking you 10, you’re going to be really stressed out that it’s taking so long. But if you’re speaking with someone who’s been there and gets it and they can help you reframe that so that you understand what it’s really going to take, that’s liberating. 

LISA:  For sure. The calling back the emails, the being uncomfortable during a meeting. This is just all part of the gig. 

ANNOUNCER:  If you like what you are hearing, please let us know by subscribing to the curious incident podcast and letting other special needs parents know about it too. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, or would like to suggest ideas for a future episode, we’d love to hear it. So email your feedback to podcast@dayanlawfirm.com. 

ADAM:  Over the five years you’ve been coaching, what has surprised you most about what parents actually need versus what they think they need? 

LISA:  Sure. It’s the same thing that surprised me about myself. And I came to coaching. I was spending lots of time and lots of money on buying resources and engaging therapists and other professionals to help my son. So he would be better because in my view, once he’s better, I’ll be fine. And what really needed to happen is I needed to get ahold of my own self and my own regulation. And that is what really changed the game for me and for him. And I see it with my parents, just the small things of not dying on every hill, having expectations for, you know, your, my children should be respectful and they should not curse and they come home and they’re f-bombing and slamming the door. Just being able to drop that. If you were able to do that, if you were able to make the change of just like letting that go, I’m not saying not to have any boundaries or things like that. But we really do get to pick the hills we want to die on. And if you know your child is coming home after a day at school and they’ve been masking, it’s not the time to ask them about their day and follow up about whatever it is that you want. It’s letting it go. Like, can you let it go? And so again, like what I said for so much of my own work and with my clients, I’m really teaching us to do less, which is counterintuitive to how we operate so many of us. 

ADAM:  It’s so hard to look in the mirror and see that on your own. We all have blind spots. 

LISA:  Oh, well, so I have an advantage because my son is like a walking, talking report card of me. And so just last night we had an issue with the hotel room and checking in and I was getting upset. I’m like, Oh my goodness, he’s going to get upset and I’m not telling him what’s going on. And he’s sensing that I’m upset. And so it all resolved and we’re walking away. And he said, Mom, when your voice gets like that, I get upset. And I said, yeah, but I was trying not to let you know what was happening because I didn’t want you to get upset. He says to me, well, that didn’t work. It would have just been easier if you told me the truth. I can handle it. And I was like, you’re right. This is a me thing, not a you thing. And so yeah, that’s the advantage to living with a teenager. They just, they know everything. Our kids, they don’t sugarcoat it. They’ll just he’ll just tell me. He’s like, yeah, that was that was bad. That’s a great anecdote. 

ADAM:  Yeah. Is part of your role also to connect the parents you’re coaching with resources? 

LISA:  I tried to do that as much as I can. And so whenever it’s appropriate, so a lot of times if a parent is having a school issue, I’m encouraging them to talk to their pediatrician, talk to the other parents that they know to look in their local Facebook community, finding, you know, resources in their area. Another place where I try to counsel parents about resources is not waiting too long to raise your hand for resources. Now I’m not talking about speech therapy and ABA. I’m talking about if your child is aggressive, if behaviors are getting unmanageable at home, the longer you contain that on your own, the harder it actually is to get their resources, which is what I found because once you eventually do say call 911, you’re not on a line of other people. And in order to get like to say the next level, they want to know if you did X, Y and Z. And so I really do encourage my parents. Don’t wait. I know that there is a lot of shame that you feel and, you know, it’s gotten to this point, but what you’re really doing, again, this is the lawyer is more strategic. You are documenting this in a more formal way that will support you and getting your child what they need. 

ADAM:  Absolutely. Looking ahead, what do you hope more parents understand earlier in their journey that could meaningfully change their experience over time? 

LISA:  That they are truly the experts on their child. And it really is up to them to make the best decisions for their kid in consultation with whomever, you know, they bring into the fold, but that their child is very unique and they are the best people attuned to that and able to navigate through that. And so it really comes down to more of a self trust, but that’s a big role to fill. And because we fill it and we fill it for quite a long time is understanding, as their greatest resource, it’s really important for us to take care of ourselves in a way that enables us to be that support that we want to be for our children. 

ADAM:  Sure. We haven’t really talked about aging and hormones and how that plays a role. Do you want to say anything about that? 

LISA:  It just mixes everything up, essentially, and not every family with a child with autism has this experience. But I can say with my sister who’s also autistic, when she hit her teenage years, all the medication that had been working fine, stopped working. And it was very apparent because she had seizures. And so she, you know, she went from no seizures to having seizures again, because again, the medication needed to be redone. And that was a very obvious visible sign that it was not working anymore. And the same thing with our kids, the emotions that come in, the anger and aggression, that command that just, you know, I think that’s, you know, that teenage angst, it is amplified in our children, just like all of their other senses are. And so this is a time where you’re going to feel like you’re back at square one. And I remember at some point feeling like I am just throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to see what sticks. And then I just reminded myself, I’m like, Oh, just like when he got the diagnosis, I know how to do this, right? Just that reminder. And so I say to parents, like that diagnosis time, that’s like the bootcamp for the rest of this journey. It really does impact medications. It impacts their ability to regulate. So you’ll be like, Oh, well, they didn’t do this before. And now they’re doing it now. It’s like, yeah, now they’re doing it now. And so this is what we need to focus on. That was hard for me because I was in disbelief. I was like, no, no, you don’t understand. This was, this kid was so easy. You told him to do a chore. He did a chore and he never addressed to anyone. And now it looks so much different. And it doesn’t last forever, but it is intense while it’s happening. And so again, really raising your hand for those resources as soon as possible. Because unfortunately, it wasn’t until things were pretty dire that we got the attention that we needed because that’s sort of the world that we live in, unfortunately. And so create what I call your medical resume as early as possible, like have all the documentation, have the people who were consulted, the programs that were tried, just so that you can access what you need faster. 

ADAM:  Before we wrap up, is there anything more you’d like to add? 

LISA:  I just wanted to circle back to talking about acceptance. And just to be really clear, acceptance isn’t about being okay with something or liking it. It’s really just the work of being in the reality of what is happening now. And so instead of pushing it away, instead of reciting all the ways and reasons it shouldn’t be happening, it’s really just on, okay, this is what’s happening right now and what is the next right step. And so I like to really emphasize that to my parents because acceptance seems like a really passive thing. Like, oh, I just accepted. And no, acceptance is a very active thing. And it’s something that happens every single day as our children evolve. 

ADAM:  So important. Where can listeners learn more about your work? 

LISA:  Sure. I am the autism mom coach wherever you are on social media. So on Instagram, on Facebook, I’m at the autism mom coach. I have a podcast, the autism mom coach. I have a website that is under construction, the autism mom coach. And my email is Lisa@theautismmomcoach.com.  

ADAM:  Amazing. Thank you. Lisa, this was a wonderful conversation. It’s inspiring the way you’re taking your experience with your son and using it to help autism parents out there who need support and guidance. Thank you so much for being here. And I know this is going to be helpful to many listeners. 

LISA:  Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. Yeah. Same here. 

ADAM:  Thank you. 

ANNOUNCER:  This podcast may constitute attorney advertising. For our results, do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any guests featured or resources mentioned on this podcast are for information purposes and are not endorsed by the Law Offices of Adam Dayan PLC.