Unbabbled
Unbabbled
Dr. Michelle Beard: Speaking to Children About Their Diagnosis | Season 5, Episode 7
In this episode we tackle a frequently asked question: “Should I tell my child about their diagnosis? And if so, how?”. When a child receives a diagnosis such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD, or a Language or Learning Disorder it can be difficult for parents to know how to discuss this with their child. According to our guest, Dr. Michelle Beard, there is no “one size fits all” answer. However, there are many factors parents and caregivers can take into consideration when thinking about how and when to discuss a diagnosis with their child. Throughout this episode Dr. Beard dives into these factors and gives tips on how to approach these tough conversations. While the episode does not provide a definitive answer, Dr. Beard does provide hope and guidance in making your own informed decision.
Dr. Michelle Beard, Ph.D, is a Licensed Specialist in School Psychology. She earned her M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas, with a specialization in Counseling Psychology. She completed her doctoral internship in the Houston Independent School District, where she provided counseling and conducted assessments of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders, learning disabilities, ADHD, and other psychological and behavior disorders. Dr. Beard has been in private practice in Houston, Texas since 2006 where she specializes in treating children, adolescents, and adults with anxiety disorders. She divides her practice between treating people who suffer from anxiety-related issues and assessing children, adolescents, and adults for ADHD, learning disabilities, and other psychological concerns. She is passionate about assisting parents and students in better understanding the ways in which they learn and can achieve success.
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Hello and welcome to UN Babbled, a podcast that navigates the world of special education, communication, delays and learning differences. We are your host, Stephanie Landis and Meredith Crum, and we're certified speech language pathologist who school in Houston, helping children find their voices and connect with the world around them. Hey, this is Stephanie jumping in really quickly to tell you about our sponsors soccer shots. Houston, the Parish School has been lucky enough to have a group of students participate in soccer shots right here on our campus for the past couple of years. And it has been an amazing way for our students to be a part of a team. Soccer shots began programming in Houston in 2009 with a goal of positively impacting children's lives and supporting their learning of their favorite game soccer. Their program was formed under the guidance of childhood professional soccer players, and experienced and licensed soccer coaches. They use a developmentally appropriate curriculum that meets children where they are, and the coaches place an emphasis on character development and skill building. The coaches use words like respect, confidence, and determination in their weekly classes. To learn more about soccer shots, visit their website@www.soccer shots.com/houston. Again, that's www soccer shots.com/houston. In this episode, we tackle a frequently asked question, should I tell my child about their diagnosis? And if so, how? When a child receives a diagnosis such as dyslexia, autism, adhd, or language, or learning disorder, it can be difficult for parents to know how to discuss this with their child. According to our guests, Dr. Michelle Beard, there is unfortunately no one size fits all answer. However, there are many factors parents and caregivers can thinking about how and when to discuss a diagnosis with their child. Dr. Beard is a licensed specialist in school psychology with a private practice in Houston, Texas, where she specializes in treating children, adolescents and adults with anxiety disorders and learning disabilities and other psychological concerns. She's passionate about assisting parents and students in better understanding the ways in which they learn and can achieve success. Throughout this episode, Dr. Beard dives into the many factors that go into discussing a diagnosis with your child and gives tips on how to approach these tough conversations. She approaches this conversation with years of experience as a professional and a parent. While Dr. Beard does not provide a definitive answer, she does provide hope and guidance in making your own informed decision. Today our guest is Dr. Michelle Beard. Thank you for coming and chatting with us today. Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. This is a topic, talking with your children about their diagnosis is something that has been on my mind for a long time, so I have lots of questions and I'm very excited to talk to you, <laugh>. I know this is something that also comes up often when we are counseling families here at the Parish school, and it's come up in my own personal life, so I am really excited to get into it. Oh, well, I will do my best to shed my own insights and wisdom. And I think, you know, regardless of what people tell you, um, as a parent, you know, you have to make the best, you have to take all of the information and make the best decision and what feels right for you and your family. Um, and so I'm here to be one voice of, of wisdom, and I think you take that and, and you shake it and, and sort through it and sifted and see what fits for you. But also I think as a parent, my myself included, um, it's a journey and it's a process. And so there are also times that you're maybe not ready. Um, and, and allowing yourself the freedom and the grace to get to that place because if you're not ready, how can you have conversations with when you're not there? You're. So before we jump too far into it, can you give us a little bit about what, um, what your background is? What do you do on a daily basis, <laugh>? Um, well, in addition to being a parent, I have two daughters, uh, who are nine and 12 in the third and sixth grades. Um, and my older daughter has some speech language learning challenges that, uh, she did not speak at two, so she had lots of early speech and language interventions. So I am familiar with, um, learning disabilities, scrap, those kinds of things, uh, from a personal standpoint as well as from a professional standpoint. But in addition to that, I'm trained as a licensed psychologist. I did my master's and my doctorate at UT Austin. I did a lot of training with college students and young adults, but then I began to take a number of classes in my doctorate in school psychology because that was kind of the main way to focus on child intervention. And so that's where my journey with children and adolescents began. And I've been in practice not quite 20 years here in Houston, a work with lots of students from preschool ages. Um, the predominantly kindergarten I see some preschool students, uh, through college age and graduate school students. That's not to say that I don't have some adults that come in for assessment on occasion. Um, I, and I wear two hats. I treat both anxiety disorders, uh, o c d, generalized anxiety, panic, those sorts of things. Again, predominantly in children through young adults. Um, and then the probably 70% of my practice is doing assessments and evaluations. So I talk with lots of parents and families about H D and other sorts of diagnoses that come out of these types of evaluations. Speaking about assessments, when a family starts to have concerns about their child, what is your general recommendation about moving forward with assessments? Do you recommend different types of assessments for different aged children? Could you kind of talk a little bit about the different types of evaluations one. Could out? So I think it really depends on the age of the child. Uh, in my personal case with my daughter who wasn't speaking at two, at one, I was calling my speech and language pathologist friends and saying, okay, she doesn't have very many words. I'm very concerned she was. And I chose to go to Texas Children's to the, to the speech and language, uh, learning center to do the evaluation because my daughter was, you know, going to be, it was right at her second birthday, and they would start taking her at two to do a comprehensive evaluation. So I feel like for very young kids who are not speaking or who have issues on this, potentially on the spectrum, you know, those are times to get early intervention at neurodevelopmental Institutes at a speech and language pathologist's office. You know, we can do a lot of early interventions for those speech and language issues early on and get, and occupational therapy and physical therapies as well. I mean, early childhood interventions starts when kids are, you know, in infancy who have difficulties with hitting those developmental milestones. So I think all of those things of assessments are very important. And then you have a subset of psychologists who will sorts of issues, um, in young preschool children. And then you get a wider range of child psychologists who do evaluations, you know, in pre-K four kindergarten and certainly from kindergarten through through 12th grade and school aged. And so when you typically get to kindergarten and school aged, you're gonna have more of a psycho, what we would consider a psychoeducational evaluation, or some people would call it a neuropsych evaluation, especially if you're looking more at memory and, um, some decision making sorts of skills. So, and by ages we can get additional information. So with a lot of young kids, pre-K four, kindergarten, we're gonna do a lot of language kind of pre-academic skills and then assessing their behavior. Though there's a much wider range for what behavior is acceptable at four and five, um, and you know, and every professional is very different, right? I mean, there's some professionals that I think evaluate almost all like very young children and they feel very comfortable with, um, labeling someone who is four or five, even four, you know, three or four with h adhd. And I certainly feel like there are some cases where your child is rolling on the floor and blurting out in class and is unable to benefit from their educational experience where clearly a diagnosis of adhd, it is warranted. I mean, their behavior is sort of so outside of the, what we would call expected range. Um, but I'm also, as an evaluator, everyone has their biases and I try to be honest about mine, um, I am what I would call a conservative labeler. Um, you know, so if, if a child that comes to see me meets diagnostic criteria, I'm definitely gonna, you know, give them a diagnosis that I feel like is appropriate. But if I feel like they're features of something, then I definitely wanna address that in the report. I wanna recommend that parents get that, get intervention for that as though I was giving a full diagnosis. But I'm also not keen to give a full diagnosis if I don't feel like all of the criteria are there. And we can always add a label as time goes on. Uh, but I try to be very clear with parents if I'm going to take that sort of approach, especially with very young children, that we would, um, be monitoring that and all be on the same page, that I'm very concerned we're moving in the direction of whatever the diagnosis is, and we want to begin the early intervention. Um, so we have speech and language evaluations that happen for very young kids through certainly older. You can continue to have speech and language evaluations as children age. Um, but I would say that they are one of our fresh first line defenses, um, for kids who are not meeting milestones, occupational therapy, physical therapy evaluation when kids are young. And then you move more into the psychoeducational evaluations. And then you have psychological evaluations which are, uh, more appropriate for kids who are having severe anxiety depression. And, and typically we get more into psychological without issues as kids age, like in teenage years and, and adult years, uh, typically when kids are school-aged, um, even teenagers to a certain extent, unless they're straight A students and we don't have any concerns about their learning. You know, having struggles at school, even if they don't appear on the surface, can cause a great deal of psychological distress. I mean, at every, I think conference I've ever been to about learning disabilities, they always have breakout sessions about what we would call secondary symptoms, psychological symptoms, which is anxiety and depression related to having a learning disability, especially if it was undiagnosed and you didn't know what was wrong, um, with you, and then you start to feel very nervous and less then because you don't understand why you can't read. You brought up a really great point. Sometimes kids their journey through gaining a diagnosis and understanding their diagnosis and talking to their child about it is going to look much different than if, say you get diagnosed at like nine <laugh>. Yeah. And now you're older and you're able to have different conversations thinking on that, what age do you typically recommend starting to have a conversation with a child about whether it's just differences that they might be noticing or having or a direct diagnosis? I'm not a one size fits all, uh, evaluator. And so I don't have a hard and fast rule for age. I think it depends on a couple of things. Number one, it depends on the maturity level of the child. What are your children going to do with that information and, and how can they explain it? And then the words that you use need to be words that you're okay for them to use out in the public sphere with other people. Striking a balance, because the other piece of it is, I often start in terms of diagnostic conversations their children. It even starts with why are they coming to my office, right? So for some kids who don't think they have any sort of issues and parents are just trying to be, um, ahead of the curve, or the school has made a recommendation, um, but the child, um, is not really aware of their struggles at that point in, then we talk about that I'm this special lady who understands how kids brains work. And my goal is to help their parents figure out how they learn the best that they can, um, and things that their brain does really well, and things that are maybe a little bit harder for their brain. And I focus more, especially with younger kids on this, is information to help your parents and teachers help you be the best that you can be. And then when we go through the results of the evaluation, I often start with, what does your child know? You know, is your child crying at homework time? Is your child frustrated? Does your child not like to read? Does your child think math is like the worst thing on the planet? Um, and so I like to take the children's language where they are, what they're expressing, and open the conversation up there. So when parents talk to me about how do I tell my kids that they have a reading problem, um, you know, I I tell parents, it's up to you if you want to use the term dyslexia or not right now, depending upon the age. Now if the child is 16, you need to talk about the, you know, they have dyslexia, but if the child is seven, um, I like to start with reading is hard for you. Okay? You've been going to see Miss Cindy, and Miss Cindy is the person who helps you with reading. And so Dr. Beard has basically validated that reading is hard for you, you know, and so we are gonna be making some changes. We're gonna be talking to Miss Cindy, we're gonna be doing all the things that we can be doing to try to help you, because reading is hard. And the other thing is to help kids know that they're not alone, right? So it's part of normalizing their behavior. And so, you know, to me, the purpose of a label is to guide treatment. The purpose of a label is not to be shamed and blamed for that label and, and diagnosis. And so we want it to be something that fosters a sense of hope for students. And I think that's one of the primary rationales for like, why do we talk to kids about diagnoses? We talk to kids about diagnoses so that they can feel empowered and instead of feeling deficient, because a lot of students who come and, and parents quite frankly, for that matter too, I mean, sometimes they're like, you're the last stop. We've done all of these things and they're frustrated and we're frustrated and we don't know how to move forward from here. A and so my goal is to, to stay back to them, okay, your child has dyslexia. And the great news is dyslexia is highly treatable. Um, it's treatable even when you're an adult, but it's highly treatable when you are in kindergarten through third grade. I mean, it's the best time to intervene. And, and even when I get kids who are in middle school and high school, and I've even identified dyslexic students in college, you know that it's never too late, right? So, so we also know that early intervention is key, but I also like to stress to people that it's never too late to know that you have a diagnosis and to start the journey of trying to have that be less of a source of frustration in your life. Um, and so you, you start the journey with kids in part to help them understand that they're not stupid. Um, you know, learning disabilities in their origin is a disconnect between the power that your brain has to learn and to grow and to thrive, and your particular learning in a certain area. So it does, it, it's really the antithesis of being stupid. And a lot of people have wonderful gifts and strengths that are associated, um, with other parts of their brain. Um, it's just that reading or a certain area is managing their behavior. If they have, you know, attention problems or something like that, hyperactivity, um, are are challenging for them. And so it's learning how to maximize their strengths, how to let the things that they do really well shine and minimize the negative impact of some of these other learning issues. But also recognizing that we have a lot of, you know, highly, uh, specialized in interventions that help kids to grow and to make progress. It's be beautiful to get to watch it on the other end as well. As I see parents talk about like their journeys through schools, whether that be a journey with a dyslexia therapist or a journey in a place like parish that, you know, the growth that they get to see in their children. And so, you know, part of evaluations isn't, oh my goodness, my child have X, Y, Z, which is the grieving process, quite honestly for a, a lot of parents. And, and I think you have to allow yourself as a parent to, to grieve. I went through that myself with my, with my daughter, even though I've been working with kids who have learning disabilities before, you know, well before she was born. Um, but recognizing that life is harder. But in the same sense, you know, you want to look at the strengths. I want to be the person that also conveys hope to parents that your child is going to be able to persevere. And actually, sadly, in the world that we live in, where people seems like have fewer and fewer coping skills to deal with life when it gets hard. Um, and life has been hard for a number of people, uh, in unbelievable ways for the last number of years. But even prior to c Covid and, and such, um, generations that are coming up across the board, many people are commenting that it's very hard for young adults to cope. And, um, I think part of that's the world that we live in today, but also I, I don't feel like they have the same perseverance. Um, and, and kind of, we talk a lot about grit, but I, but I see a lot less grit honestly in, um, young adults today. Um, they're overwhelmed by depression and anxiety and other sorts of issues. And so my kids actually with learning disability, they hate to say I worry less about them. Um, but they've had to learn these coping skills for how to persevere when life is hard from a very young age. And I actually think, um, to, to a certain extent, you feel badly saying this, but, um, but I think it serves them well, quite honestly, in terms of psychological and mental health in the long run because they have learned how to get to the other side of a difficult situation and how to grow and to, to become better through that as opposed to just having that happen when you're older and the rest of life going pretty well and then not knowing how to, to get, to get to the other side of that challenger crisis. And so, um, you know, I always want to for parents to see the positives as well. And one of the positives of having a learning disability and having to struggle is that, um, you do have a lot more tenacity than some of your peers. Yeah. One of the things that you mentioned in that I really like the still giving hope part is that you talked about it just areas that of strength and areas that it seems like are hard for you. And you talked about, you know, very technical science, neurological things at perish. We often just, you know, bring it down and we're like, your brain makes this hard for you. We all have things that our brains make hard for us. Like I normalize it in my lessons. I'm like, here are all the things that my brain makes very hard for me. Spelling, <laugh>, I'm like totally honest. Brain makes spelling hard for me. Here are all the things that our brains make easy for us, kind of normalizing it. I think at Parish we have the gift that it is completely normal at parish, that we all have something here that our brains make hard and easy for us. Um, for children who either might be transitioning out in a public school, do you still recommend using that type of language and kind of pointing out like, yeah, everybody in your class probably has something that's easy and hard for them, like language around that? I do. I mean, I routinely use that with all of my patients. Um, even in therapy when I talk to people who have anxiety disorders, um, you know, that that's just part of life. I mean, that's how we were created as human beings. Um, nobody's perfect. And so the more I think that you can embrace the fact that that is a normal human experience and that we don't have to be defined by our weaknesses or let them dictate, um, who we are or what we become, I mean, and accepting that that's just part of life. It's, you know, if you have, I think a classic example of, you know, if you have diabetes in terms of mental health stigma, right? I mean, everybody has something they have to manage, right? Um, some people have to manage weight, some people have to manage diet, some people have to manage, um, you know, their stress levels. Some people have to manage their reading and their learning. Um, and I love your example, and I tried to do this with my own kids of sharing what are the things that are hard and how do we cope with them? So, uh, you know, as a psychologist, I'm big on self-care. So my kids would tell you, they may maybe even this little box for Christmas that had a smile, and I was like, what is this on the, the box? And my daughter, it was all about things that I am, and she said, because you're almost always happy. I was like, well, that's really nice,<laugh>, I try. Um, but you know, I also like run pretty much every day. I'm a big runner and I take a bath, you know, and so, and I share that and I share that in therapy. And some people may say Dr. <inaudible>, like, that's too personal. Like, why do you talk about your own coping skills? But, but I think that's really important because how am I able to be a person who smiles and greets you at the door? Well, that doesn't just magically happen because I have different, I mean, to a certain extent you could argue, I, I'm not prone to depression, and so I don't have some neurochemical challenges, you know, that some people have from a scientific sort of perspective. But the, the reality is to also try to invest in things that help me to maintain good coping skills. And we have to model, not only do we model, um, normalizing our own behavior for kids, but then we also model how we cope with that, right? So sometimes y you were sharing, Stephanie, that you are, your brain doesn't do spelling very well, so how do you cope with that, right? So when you get frustrated and you can't spell things, that's why you're so thankful that you have computers or spell check or Siri, that <laugh> you can speak into and we'll sell it for you. And, and, and so again, we model for our kids, not only do we have challenges and that that's normal, but we model for them different coping strategies and we open up dialogue for people to share coping strategies because quite honestly, the best way when you can figure some things out for yourself, which is wonderful, um, but if you don't have to skin your knee or, you know, bang your ankle quite as many times because you can learn from the experiences of other people, well, you know, I'm all for that then, you know, but if we don't talk about it, then we don't know. And so I, I think it's beautiful that you're able to share that in your discussions. But definitely it's still the language that I use in talking with public school kids or, um, kids who are transitioning out, um, because everybody, you know, has strengths and weaknesses, and you can translate it to sports, you can translate it to academics, you can translate it to social skills, all the same sorts of things that pretty much everybody on the planet is dealing with. And that goes back to what you were saying earlier about giving them also a sense of community. If you're not alone, you're not the only one whose brain works differently. Um, and not even just specifically to what your diagnosis and what your brain makes difficult for you, but just a community as a whole population of people, we all have things that are easy and hard for us. So it really does kind of take a little bit of that pressure and stigma off like, okay, I'm not the only one, I'm not the only one struggling here. Right? And I think that that's the challenge. Um, you know, and especially even with social media today as kids get older that everything looks perfect, you know, and, and we have these conversations with people and we only give them our best self and we can't be real. And as my father would say, just shoot straight with people, you know, just like tell it like it is. And, and, and that's true as adults, and that's true as children, right? And so it's finding the safe places in life where you can be real and you can share your struggles. And, and it's helping children also to develop inside about where those places are, right? Um, because the, again, it's not one size fits all. Like every place in the world isn't safe to talk about your struggles and um, and where your brain excels and where things are difficult for your brain. Absolutely. Perish is a loving, wonderful, nurturing community. And so pretty much across the school you can talk about those sorts of things. And so as children transition out, I think it's important to say you can continue to have those conversations, but let's think about where those conversations can is best for you and best for others. Um, and, and how do you set those kids up to be successful to continue to use that language in places where they will feel safe and nurtured and protected to have those conversations. And for me, I think that's, I recently, we went through and my daughter just got diagnosed with like a D H D anxiety and I was going into it thinking, great, like now that we have a a name for it and we can be like, yeah, this is just how your brain works differently. Like it will take the huge relief off of her from having all of these meltdowns of like, why am I so different? And I'm way oversharing <laugh>, but I think that a lot of people probably might be able to relate, hopefully. And I was like, oh, like this will help. And then she got it and she was like, oh yeah, this makes my brain hard and nobody else's brain makes things hard for her. And I was like, oh, you know what? I don't think we talked about our whole family like this. And I was like, oh, hold on. Like, let's talk about your uncle. Let's talk about my your cousin. Let's talk about your other cousin. And she was just like, oh, wait, what <laugh>. But like we never, we've never talked about it, but it was just so interesting that like as she just found out more and more people around her, it shifted. And with that we were also able to point out all of the positives about the people that we know, like my brother and nephew are incredibly creative and they have a superpower of being able to like hone in and use that hyperfocus <laugh> to really help them. And then later she was talking to her grandpa about it and she was like, but I have a superpower <laugh>, it helps me cuz I also have a superpower. And I was like, oh, maybe some of this is like slowly seeping in and will probably not as fast as I would like <laugh>, but it, it was a, it was very powerful for us as a family to slowly make those connections and not just label it and leave it but then like go beyond and and build a community around it. Cuz she's definitely not the only one. And when she was like, I've gotta be the only one in school, I wanted to be like, oh honey, you were probably not, it is just a HIPAA violation for us to tell you everyone else in class <laugh>. I'll ask kids, you know, can you think about other people in your class that have seem to have a hard time reading? Or can you think about other people who also go to see Ms. Cindy, you're reading person <laugh>. Um, or can you think about other people who seem to have trouble sitting in class, um, you know, sitting still, or that they constantly are blurting out of the teacher and can't raise their hand and you know what I mean? So, so again, that helps to see, um, and these are things that a lot of kids are not necessarily paying attention to. They're just focusing on, you know, like, oh my goodness, I'm the only person who goes to see Miss Miss Cindy, or I, you know, they're so self-conscious about, for some kids they're self-conscious about, you know, that process that they sort of miss all of these other environmental cues. But again, it's, it is building that community and having those conversations. And I do feel like adults and cousins and family members are great safer places to start those conversations because they have more grace and understanding. I also think from a standpoint of it doesn't have to be one-to-one, it doesn't have to be apples to apples. It doesn't have to be ADHD to adhd, it doesn't have to be dyslexia to dyslexia. Her, the other people in our family who have reading problems, um, you know, my own, um, family with my daughter who has the speech and language issues but has me as a mom and school was never hard for me. And then my younger daughter, her role is, she can't get less than 95 because she's like super bright and school is so easy for her, but she also had the kidney condition. And so, you know, we talk about everybody has things and they're not apples to apples, right? So, you know, for my older daughter, school is really hard, but for my younger daughter, she has, she's had health problems for years. Um, and so in that ebbs and flows, like sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse. Um, but we all have think it goes back to we all have things that we have to manage. We all have things that are easy for us to think that are harder for us. And so I don't want parents to feel limited in their conversations that it has to be school is like, let's think about what's hard for your brain in terms of like school and learning as opposed to what's just hard from a, from an emotional ki coping sort of standpoint, what do you have to deal with in life? Um, and that opens it up, I think, to a much wider range of issues and how we cope with them, which is part of the normalizing process as well. If we all have stuff that we're trying to, to manage and deal with. Yeah, I love. That. I know technology can be part of the reason that we everybody has struggles, but also in our situation, technology has been this helpful tool in that, um, sometimes we just like to ask Alexa what famous people have a D H D or what famous people have learning differences or any of the things that, um, we might be talking about as a family. So sometimes that even can expand your community outside of actually people, you know, and then you can see these sports figures or these a, um, these actors and, you know, look how successful they have been in their chosen path. And you can be just as a successful in yours. And the other way that we, you know, we talk about things in our family is when my kids come home from school, I have little kids littler, um, second grade in kindergarten, but when they come home and talk about kids who are having a hard day or um, who had, who got in trouble or anything like that, we always just really try to normalize it. Well, it was really hard. His brain, his brain was making it hard for him to do that activity today or that's something that's hard for him. Um, he must be trying to tell his, the teacher that it was hard for him. So just really trying to normalize that even the behavior that they're seeing, um, is related to something that is, is not, it's not easy for their brain, it's not that they're just trying to act out and trying to get in trouble. Have compassion and understanding for the underpinnings really of the behavior of other kids. Um, and recognizing that it's, it's not, I don't say their fault, but, you know, um, but they're trying as best as they can and some days are easier for them than others. Yeah. And then modeling our own, you know, I mean, I can't, I, there are many things that my brain makes hard for me and, um, my kids know they're very aware. The, the kiddos that I've worked with at school also would know in my groups. And then whenever I do those things, whenever I misspell a word, cuz spelling is awesome, hard for me, I think it's our age group, Stephanie. Um, but when I misspell something I'm like, oh, look at that. There it is. Like, and then, but then modeling that resilience and grit, we can move on, we can move forward and we can make it better. Yeah, I think we've spoken a lot about the older kids. What do you do with some of the younger kids when they are like 2, 3, 4, and we've seen many, 2, 3, 4 year olds who have a lot to say and maybe physically they just can't get it out or their language isn't up there and they're showing us with their behavior that they're noticing things and they're having a hard time. It, do you have any words to kind of frame it for younger kids or do you use the same thing like, oh, it seems like your brain is making, or your mouth makes it really hard for the words to come out? I think that, you know, for younger kids, especially with language issues, there are times when that creates a lot of frustration for them, you know? And so I think it's teaching them that frustration is okay, but how to manage that, right? So like what are, it goes back to coping tools as much of, so I think there's an explanation of, um, wow, it seems like it's really hard for you. Um, you know, you can talk about your brain, but I mean at, at two and three and four, I think you're just really gonna focus more directly on the behavior and less you less on any sort of neuroscience. Um, wow, it seems like that's really hard or you seem really frustrated, what can we do about that? And for my own daughter, and I had had taught this to other children, but the beauty of stomping, um, so I taught her at I think 12 months between 12 and 18 months old, just how to stomp. And when she looked like she was getting frustrated because she couldn't express what she was feeling, I was like, just stomp around, you know, and, and it's okay to get that out. And of course I laughed because she doesn't do it anymore now that she's in middle school. But, and she would never do it out in public. It was only something that she was able to do here at home. But, you know, I think even when she was like third or fourth grade and she was, you know, five feet tall, she would put her whole body into it.<laugh> when she would get frustrated, she would still use that behavior to fall. But it was something that she had just learned over time. It was a way to get out the frustration. And I think for, for young kids, that's the part of letting them know. And that's part of the normalizing it's okay to be frustrated and what can you do about that? You know, you, like, you can stop around, you can um, you know, squeeze your squishy ball, you can do things and then, oh, I feel better. Right? I was able to release that and to move on and, and you know, distraction is also a really positive tool for, for young children. So redirecting their behavior to something where they feel less frustrated and stressful and more competent, right? Um, because, so we are not necessarily having long conversations with two and three and four year olds, but we're trying to shape their behavior of when you get frustrated, you can kind of release the air from the balloon in certain ways, but then, you know, they don't need to do that for 30 minutes. They can do that for 30 seconds and then we're going to redirect them to something where they feel more competent and competent to again build that level of, of resilience and self-confidence for them, um, in other behaviors because it's trying to foster what are the strengths that you have, um, and then, you know, deal with and, and cope with some of the challenges. But we're not using language as much to do that with two and three and four year olds. It's more behaviors. Yeah. But that's an empathy. I mean, I think that's true as a parent, you know, if you just see, well, my child is frustrated and they, they shouldn't be having this anger outburst and so<laugh>, you know, uh, then, then, then it becomes a punitive sort of cycle, right? As opposed to trying to have understanding of what's really going on with your child and why they're frustrated and then teaching them to work through that as opposed to it just becoming a, and that's not to say that I never used, you know, like my daughter's head, I joked every room has a corner. Like you can find a corner, you if you have a challenge that you just need to calm down. Um, so it's, it's not that I, not in favor of discipline when it's required, but, but I also don't wanna discipline children when it's, uh, a language and frustration issue. We wanna teach them coping skills for how to manage that. It seems like building coping is a large theme around it. Do you think that a benefit of having a direct conversation with a child about their diagnosis is one of the first steps or can lead to building those coping skills? Would that be like a benefit of having a direct conversation? Absolutely. You know, because then it, it goes into this is something that you're not the only person on the planet that has, this is something that is, that has treatments that are available. Just like if you had diabetes, you know, we would go and get you insulin and get you, you know, um, blood sugar checks and things like that and you know, so this is something that we can, can do, um, to help you. There are special reading, you know, people or speech and language pathologists and you know, sort of explaining what that will look like to kids. And, and I think whether you say you have dyslexia or reading is hard for you kind of based on where your child is, it opens up a conversation and explains why, like why do I have to go see this lady? Um, you know, and what's the point? And I used to play soccer every day, but now I can only play soccer two days a week. And, and, and so I think if you don't unders explain anything, then it becomes a source of frustration and the child feels like they're being punished as opposed to recognizing, um, why it is that they're going and being part of some of these activities. And, and I do think it helps from a coping standpoint because then you know what you're dealing with, right? I mean, you know, that it's something that, that has some hope that, like you said, I, I love the example and I'd actually wrote that down in some of my notes for looking at famous people and noticing that they're still successful and, you know, so again, it's it's that this doesn't define you nor does this limit your ability to be successful in the future. And so having those conversations opens up dialogue about that, which helped you to build that resilience and to build some of the coping. Yeah, I think that's really great because whether you feel comfortable sharing the actual diagnosis name with your child or not, you can still talk about what's hard and how to cope and there's still a way to communicate and make them feel not alone and, and make them feel hope, like you said at the beginning, which I feel like is one of the biggest parts of this is all these things we're doing about talking about community and stuff as a way to build hope that it might be hard, but it's gonna be okay. And you, there's ways to, to get through this and back to the grit and resilience. Um, I think that is such an important takeaway from me from this conversation because we were, I was actually talking with a friend yesterday and she was saying, um, one of her children is getting more therapeutic services is, and one's in a special school and one's in a typical school. And she was like, I'm actually starting to get more worried about my child who's attending the typical school because the frustration level is so high and nobody is there to directly teach how to work through and cope where her child who's attending a special school, that's what they're doing. They're actually teaching those skills. So, um, all of those who have kids at at public schools maybe need to be sitting a little bit more time, uh, coming home and, and talking about coping in resilience. And I hear that from a lot of families, just from a resource standpoint, parent time and energy, financial ti you know, dollars of when you have a child that has some sort of, I don't wanna say more significant physical, it could be a physical issue, it could be an emotional issue, it could be a learning issue that a lot of times parents are spending a, a disproportionate amount of time trying to help that child. You know, they're getting them to therapies and they're getting them to the special, you know, to the different school and they're, you know, sitting down with them to do homework. And so sometimes the kids that seem like they have it all together and don't need any help start to be the ones that have concerns themselves. And so I think just as a parent, there are only so many hours in the day, but you know, for those other kids, what are even small things you could do once a week, once a month to check in on those other children that you know are in your house that seem like all as well and fine. Um, but just to build in some protective mechanisms, you know, I mean, all children, you know, need our time and attention, but, you know, being extra aware of that. But, but I mean, you know, life, life is challenging and some public schools have like they have open classrooms. Um, which I don't have attention problems, but I think that would drive me insane. Um, where I have like 120 kids in my, and then we'd have a plus shape, like partial walls in between us, and then I can hear three other teachers plus my teacher. I don't know, I mean, I'm pretty good at dis you know, like toning out, tuning out distractions. But that, that seems like that would be, my brain would be very, that would be very, very hard for my brain and I would be so tired at the end of the day trying to tune out what was appropriate for me to be listening to and what I needed to retain and what I did not. Um, so we, we gotta have some extra compassion for our kids who seem like they're on a, a different track that maybe need less prevention, but, um, recognizing that life is hard for them too. Thinking that, I think it surprises a lot of parents that our kids pick up on more than we think that they do. And that we might, and I've had conversations with parents here at work and they've been like, no, we haven't said anything to our child yet. We don't think that they notice anything. Like they don't notice anything st especially since they're here at Parish, it's all very normalized. And I'm like, well, I've been having a little bit of conversations with part of our curriculum, but um, your kids, yeah, they, they notice even at a younger age, they'll look around and they notice things more than we think and then start to internalize it. And I think it surprises adults how astute younger kids can be. A Absolutely. And I saw that in my own family and you know, and I certainly didn't have conversations with my daughter when she was two and three and four and five about the fact that she, you know, was going to all this speech therapy. Um, I just said, you're gonna go see mommy's friend and she's gonna help you with talking. Um, and so she went to see lots of mommy's friends for a very long time and uh, and you know, but it was very interesting because developmentally her sister, they're three years apart and my daughter has a wonderful, my older daughter has a wonderful long-term memory. when is, you know, Juliet, her younger sister going to go and see Miss Anna, uh, the was the Texas children's person we saw for years, um, for therapy. And I was like, well, you know, everybody goes to see different people and your sister, you know, has, we all have kind of different paths in life. So when Juliet was three, I mean Olivia was only five or you know, six, you know, from a very early age, you know, I started getting questions of, you know, like, when is my little sister going to be doing these things? And because again, that was the only norm that my older daughter had, right? And so she was noticing, you know, why, why am I going and sisters isn't going at the same time that I went? And, and there were many questions about that, um, for different people that were seen and visited and you know, and I tried to focus on, again, we all have different things that we need and um, and so your sister has a different kind of path and she'll go see different people and you have your people and this is, you know, helping you, um, and trying to, to redirect it. But I think kids are very observant. I mean even, you know, you can be shocked at can kids that are even four and five and six will what, what they notice. We've talked about benefits of having direct conversations with their kids. Are there any drawbacks? So to me, the, you know, when I have conversations with parents, the, the biggest concern that I have as a psychologist because my, one of my mottos is I wanna set kids up to be successful. And I think at a school like Parish for example, I could tell kids what their diagnoses are and they could go and blurt them out on the playground and everybody would be nice to them, at least. I, I think for the most part. But, but the reality is most places are not like that. And so whether it be at the park on the weekends or at your school, I wanna set kids up to be successful. And so I want to, two things. Number one is I don't want them to feel like they're defined by their learning differences or diagnoses because the, it's just a challenge that they have. Um, but it isn't who they are. And so I think that that distinction is really, really important. Um, you know, it's, it hasn't been unusual for me over the years to have some kids who walk in my office and say, hi, Dr. Beard, I'm so-and-so I have, and they blurt all their diagnoses and I'm kinda, I mean, I'm kinda shocked, ok. Cause that that wouldn't be the way that I would seek to define them even as a professional who's treating them like that. That's, those aren't the box, those are the boxes that help me to figure out the right treatments to try to use with them. But that's not what I, they walk into the room that that's not what I think about them. And you know, so I think it's very important to think of that goes back to the maturity of the child and really coaching the child about what they're going to do from a social perspective. So to me, the only drawbacks are, which is a plus and a minus of, you know, you, it's very normalizing to feel like you're not the only person and that there, there are treatments and that you can have hope by having a diagnosis and knowing what that is. But in the same sense, if your child is going through like a lot of depression or things like that, it may be very hard for them to hear what a diagnosis is. Like let's say they have a learning disability on top of their depression, um, they may just focus on the fact that there's now, you know, vi viably something wrong with them. And um, and that's just gonna make life harder, you know? And, and so, so I think it's where is your child emotionally? Where is your child, um, from a maturity standpoint? So are they in a place where this is not going to be a defining thing that you think that they're in a place that having a, a label helps them to understand and to feel actually better about themselves. And a lot of people are relieved, quite honestly, the kids and adults, um, to know that they're not the only one and there's something they can actually do to try to make this better. It's not like this unsolvable un unhelpful situation. Um, but then the other piece that probably concerns me the most is about the social aspect, right? So is your child in the maturity in, in, in a place of maturity and in an envi surrounded by people and environments that they can manage that information in a way that's helpful for them? Because I want the diagnosis to be something that gives them hope, that gives them a sense that they can be successful in the future, that gives them some real data about, you know, in their mind it's not just like your parent is telling you it's all gonna be okay, but like, people have written books about this and people study this and like, there's really going to be good help and, and you're going to learn how to read or you're going to learn how to, um, be able to, you know, sit, sit in your, you'll eventually be able to sit still in your, your sit in your chair for a period of time and then to have strategies to help you. And so I feel like those are the, the pieces of hope, but if your child is in a place where they're not able socially to manage that, that's to me the biggest risk. Um, and so it's having a number of conversations with your who to tell and when to tell. Um, mostly same age peers. I don't really, like I said, I don't really, in the conversation, I don't really worry about so much adults or with older kids or cousins or family members, but it's like the kids on the playground cuz I don't want those kids, you know, to make fun of them. And we would like to think that having a diagnosis would mean people would be more understanding and compassionate about the fact that reading is hard for you. But the reality is now those kids just know that you, that there really is something I don't wanna say, but deficient about you. Um, and then they're gonna use that when they're mad or trying to give you a hard time. Uh, well look, you're the person who's dyslectic. Um, and so you know, you want, you don't want your child to have given those mean, you know, the kids who are, are having their own issues regulating their, their social skills. You know, you don't wanna give them sort of ammunition to, to be hurtful to your children. Have you noticed over the time of you practicing that socially or even with young kids, that it is becoming any more acceptable to talk about or have diagnoses that maybe kids are, I don't know, maybe kids will forever be kids of trying to put each other down to make themselves feel better, but do you feel like maybe it's becoming a little more acceptable to have a diagnosis? I definitely feel like it's becoming more acceptable, um, certainly by the middle and high school level. Now, of course, the middle and high school is level. You have everybody would love to have extra time and, um, you know, accommodations and, and such to lower the stress. You know, we have such stressful school environments now kind of across the board. And so, I mean, in some schools it's actually like coveted <laugh> some sort of diagnosis and extra time. So, um, I definitely feel like the stigma of mental health is, um, and, and learning disabilities are diminishing certainly by the high school and college levels. And I feel like, you know, just the amount of, I, I remember when a number of high schools and middle schools around the city didn't even have learning centers, you know, and now pretty much every high school in town has a learning center. Um, you know, uh, certainly public schools have always had those, you know, from the sense of 5 0 4 and, and special education accommodations. But, you know, private schools, it used to be that those were few and far between. Um, and you had some, you had the schools like Parish and Joy and Briarwood, you know, that, that those were the focus, um, of helping kids who have learning challenges. But then you have a couple of, like St. Pius for example, had the learning center and you had some places that had like real designated learning centers or the, the WINGS program at St. Francis, but then you didn't have a lot of schools that had a, an office just for learning, you know, assistance and, and learning disabilities. And now it's, it's very hard to find a school that doesn't have someone who's helping to manage that. Um, so I definitely feel like the culture is changing and colleges do a beautiful job of actually trying to manage students with learning disabilities and offering them so much support and assistance. So I do feel like the tide is shifting. I, I think the place where I get the most concerned about talking to people about their diagnoses, um, and being sure that they're mature enough to handle are really my elementary school kids. Um, you know, I think my mid my middle, a lot of my middle school kids, you know, they, they're savvy enough to know and if you tell them, you know, like they, they don't want to float above the radar anyway. Um, but, but it's just those elementary school kids. And so that's where I think as parents, you have to think about, um, what's the environment like? Who are your kids surrounded by? Who are the people that they can talk to and sort of steering them of, you know, who, let's think about who you could have these conversations with. And as a parent too, sometimes, you know, right? Like, you know, the other kids who have different, you know, that would be able to identify things that are hard for their brain and things that are easier for their brain. And those are the, the safer kids that your child can have the conversations with that are same age peers. And then obviously having more of those conversations with older kids and and adults. This has been fantastic. We don't wanna take up too much more of your time. Our last question that we ask every guest is, if you had one piece of advice to give our listeners, and it can be related to this or totally unrelated, like eat broccoli. Um, what would your piece of advice be? So, my piece of advice would be one of the things that my father always used to tell me when I was a child and, and he's still alive and around, um, is it's okay if you make mistakes as long as you learn something. So my advice for parents and my advice for kids, and the way that I try to parent my own kids is I want us to be able, I wanna be the person that you can have conversations with. That doesn't mean you won't get in trouble if you make really bad choices, but, um, but I, I want our home to be a place that you want to be in. I want our home to be a place that we can acknowledge that we all make mistakes. And I told my kids like, you, you made me made a mistake, but guess what? Mom makes mistakes too, and it won't be my last and it's not gonna be your last. And we're gonna find a way to get through it. And so, um, you know, as we've talked about hope and resilience, um, having conversations with your kids about difficult things, whether it be about diagnoses or other things, is hard. Um, and recognizing it's not a perfect science. It's not one conversation. Um, and you're gonna learn and grow through the process and give yourself grace to learn and grow yourself as a parent. Give yourself, um, grace to learn and grow as you're learning more about how to do this and, uh, and talk. Have difficult conversations with your kids and give your kids grace, um, because we all are learning and, and try to see even what we might consider mistakes more as growth opportunities and ways to, to just continue in our journey together. At my house, we quote Ms. Frizzle, uh, make mistakes and take chances.<Laugh>, I listen to that. Thank you so much. We really appreciate this. Paul, it's been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for listening to the Un Bled Podcast. For more information on today's episode, please see our episode description. For more information on the parish school, visit parish school.org. And if you're not already, don't forget to subscribe to the Un Babbled Podcast on your app of choice. And if you like what you're hearing, be sure to leave a rating and review. A special thank you to Stig Daniels, Andy Williams, Leslie Holly and Molly Weisselberg for all their hard work behind the scenes. Thanks again for listening.