Transcript: ProActive Parenting
 

Jan: Hi, welcome to the Us and Kids Podcast. I am your host, Jan Talen. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. And as you know, this Us and Kids podcast is about how to keep on being married forever, while you parent together, and it's not an easy task. So I encourage you to subscribe to Us and Kids in your favorite podcasting app.

I'm glad you're here so that you are working to make your marriage and your home life fulfilling. And so very, very good. And today I am so excited. I have invited my daughter Christi into the studio with me, and she has accepted. I'm excited because she is the mom of wonderful kids. Of course, they're my awesome grandkids.

But also she has had to make some really interesting, process and parenting decisions.  I thought her process would be helpful for you to know about. So Christi, would you introduce yourself a little bit and just tell us a little bit about the segment of your parenting journey that you're going to share with us?

Christi: Alright. Hi. Let's see, I've got three kiddos. They're nine, seven and five. And the segment of my parenting journey that we're talking about today involves my son who's now seven.
We had a little developmental situation with him when he was about three years old, going on four.
He would hit when he was frustrated, which is kind of normal when you're two, but once you start turning three and four, that usually tends to fade out, especially with some parenting moves.
He would also walk by a glass of water and just knock it over for no reason. And then he would keep walking, like nothing ever happened.
He loves to climb and jump off of stuff. He refused to wear jeans because they were too scratchy. Lights were often not bright enough. I didn't really put the behavior and the scratchy jean piece together for a little while. 

Jan: So I am hearing that back when he was two, you would sort of just let the terrible twos move through as they looked fairly normal.

And that when he turned three, some things he was doing you thought should be  transitioning to more words and less action or something like that but they weren’t.  For example: Normal clothes would feel good on a kid. They'd be glad to have new jeans. And instead he was not happy to have new jeans or new clothes. Some of what I remember is his love for soft things and that it was all about the feel of the clothes on his skin.

And so if I went shopping for a sweatshirt or a fleece or a pair of shorts, I had to feel how soft they would be up against my cheek, because it was that responsive in his body to it. Am I hearing that right? 

Christi: Yeah. Yeah. That was exactly it. Things that felt normal to me were either too scratchy or very soft to him.

And then there was the behavior piece and I didn't really put those two together. And I see a counselor for myself and was talking to her about this kiddo. And he was still hitting and throwing and kicking things when he was frustrated or upset. And I was at the end of my rope. I had no clue what to do with him.

And she said that a lot of the kiddos she saw were helped by OT (pediatric Occupational Therapy) because their needs were more about how the kiddo’s body and senses were interpreting incoming data - such as pressure or feel of clothes, taste and texture of food, physical touch. And all of a sudden all the pieces started to fit together because we had the clothing piece and the highly sensitive to different fields and the behavior piece and the lights piece.

And all of a sudden everything started fitting together. So we decided after I went home and talked to my husband about it that we needed to do whatever we could. So he was fully on board with that. So we started kind of figuring out what was next. 

Jan: How did that go?  Often, in my line of work, that I wouldn't have turned to an OT for behavioral struggles. I would have thought much more of turning to family counseling or play therapy or something like that. So how did your therapist know to differentiate the two and how did you all of a sudden realize that OT made way more sense than any other therapeutic approach?

Christi: Well, through working with my therapist, we had already tried a bunch of different home supports, like emotional support for him with behavior charts and talking through your feelings and a lot of that kind of stuff. And, we just didn't see any changes. I don't really know how she knew about occupational therapy and sensory processing.

She knew, and I'm grateful that she did. And it also made sense for me that it was more body physical and less mental, emotional because of the other pieces that were already in place with the jeans being too scratchy and the underwear feeling like they were too tight, even though they were loose and being able to tell the difference between two pieces of fabric that look exactly the same, but to him felt different. Though all of those pieces together made a lot more sense to me that it was sensory and not just he's a naughty kid. 

Jan: And that's an important thing to be able to distinguish. Is this kid naughty again? Who, why is this kid so naughty versus his body is over- feeling something. Now I can have and keep my compassion and my cool.  I might still be exhausted, but I can keep my compassion about it because it doesn't feel necessarily like it's your fault or that you're a bad parent. 

Christi: Yeah, I've kind of run the course of what to do as a parent. And so it was time to seek other help and again, with the body stuff just made a lot of sense.  And soha tt helped me understand a lot more where he was coming.from too. Especially once we started working with the occupational therapist, 

Jan: How do you get a referral to an occupational therapist? Did you just look one up and go, or did you have to talk to your pediatrician or did it depend on your insurance policies and things? How did you choose?

Christi: My counselor had recommendations for a couple of different practices in the area that specialized in pediatrics and do a lot with sensory processing because occupational therapists often do things like gross motor skills or feeding issues or things like that. So there are a couple of practices in our area that specialize with sensory processing.

So I called one and we went in for an evaluation and it came out very strongly that there were sensory processing needs.
And so I brought that to my pediatrician who said that sensory processing wasn't a real thing and that we should have social work services and that she was not in any way, shape or form going to write a referral.

So for the first couple of months I worked with our occupational therapist to have me in the sessions, along with my son. And it was much more of a learning for me for things that I could do at home in order to keep our costs down, because at that point we were paying out of pocket.
And in the meantime, I searched out a new pediatrician who would be willing to write the referral for what was very obvious a support that my son needed. So we had to do a little bit of advocacy work on his behalf and on our financial behalf as well. And we found one who was wonderful and completely understood where we were coming from and wrote the referral. And then after that insurance covered it and we were able to do the OT sessions a little more frequently

Jan: That takes a lot of energy when you're already so tired to  say, oh, now I have to switch pediatricians in order to get these costs covered. But I hope that what you can hear from Christi is that she could see a light down the tunnel that said, this is the right way to go. And then she stayed creative and a bit determined.

She does have a little tenacity in her. I'll give her that! Determination is often a part of what we need when we're parenting and we can see that something has to be done significantly differently, but we need a different place for support.

Remember to go ahead and search those out and advocate for what is wise and best-even if it's challenging. Christi's not a yeller or a screamer from what I know most of the time. But I think in her brain, what she's saying is that she had stomped her foot and said, “Oh no, we are figuring out a OT, no matter what happens, we are going to figure this out.” Is that the determination I heard in your gut?

Christi: Yeah. I basically told the Pediatrician that we would not be coming back and was searching out something else because she refused to give the support. That was very obvious. My son needed OT and I could see that just from how quickly he responded to occupational therapy and the changes we saw in him. So I didn't yell at her, but I did very nicely tell her goodbye.

Jan: And sometimes moving on is an important idea. 

So tell me about how you introduced this idea to Jack and to how he interacted with the idea with going and with going again and again. He's still just about three, right? So how did you explain this to him?

Christi: Yep. Three and a half-ish, three going on four.

We went to see the occupational therapist. Because it's pediatric based, it was all play. So he thought it was super fun and he loved it. And the OT was also amazing at giving me tools on how to talk to him about it and how to talk about how our brains work, and to talk about things like your upstairs brain and your downstairs brain and how you have big feelings.

And sometimes those big feelings blow off all the ways that we can make wise choices. And so we started using a lot of the language at home that she had taught me through our sessions, as well as the exercises and the different  tools that we use to kind of help regulate his body and his feelings, but he loved it.

And I think that when we started integrating a lot of that into home life, too, he felt more in control of his actions and wanted more of that. He felt sort of like “Whew!” with his body settling down as we did some of the things that she suggested. And so he was open and willing to continue to do some of these things together because he felt the benefits of it and they were fun.

Jan: So you've mentioned some tools. I'm guessing that some of my friends out there are thinking OT and a kid and that makes sense if the kiddo  have been injured, but what is this? So can you give an idea of what tools you're using?

Christi: You know, we started off very simple again because we were paying out of pocket for some of our sessions.

And so we tried to just keep it as inexpensive as possible. What I learned is that we know that we have the five senses, but your body actually has seven senses. And so in addition to the five that we know, there's also the sense of where your body is in space. And there's the sense of how much pressure is on your joints and muscles.

And, for him, one of the big things for him is that he under processed or under-recognized the pressure that he had on his joints and muscles. And so we did a lot of things to give him heavy pressure. So we would smashed him with pillows, obviously, not over his face, but his body, we would smush with pillows.

We would lay a blanket on the floor and wrap him up really tight in a blanket burrito. We would have him carry heavy things or push heavy things around the house. We would have him hop like a frog or jump like a kangaroo as he got a little bit bigger, we moved up into things like wheelbarrow walks or other types of jumps or pushing on the wall as hard as you can.

Those were a lot of the tools that he needed because he needed to have that extra pressure on his joints and muscles. 

Jan: Did you also add a weighted blanket or had you done that earlier and was that helpful? 

Christi: Yep. Yeah, we added that. We didn't want to spend a lot of money on stuff that we weren't sure what was going to work or not.

But when we really saw how his whole body and brain really calmed through the extra pressure that he was getting, we did add a way to blanket that was appropriate for his weight. And that really helped overnight. Without the blanket he would wake up in the morning, he would be really cranky and dysregulated because he wasn't getting the sensory input overnight that he needed. So when we added the weighted blanket, that helped kind of just regulate him through the night and then he woke up a much more calm kid. 

Jan: Okay. One of the things I remembered from hanging out with Jack, often once or twice a week, was that he often liked a full body hug.

I still remember how he would run up to me and give me a full body leap and hug.  I better be planted because he is going to land on me. And if I could pick him up and just let his whole body land on me and swing him around a couple of times and rub his back as I put him down, he would come up with the biggest grin.

I think on the one hand, you know, kiddos like that - who love to run, and leap into your arms for a huge hug. On the other hand, I think there was an extra bonus for him just in terms of the amount of pressure that he could get from my strength in my hug and that little short back rub.
So I just wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what we are talking about when we're talking about tools. For you, Christi, it was far more activity tools, and you added language tools as he grew older.
Are there some key words there or phrases that you say that you found useful? 

Christi: Yeah. A lot of times we just talk about big feelings. And again, this came from our occupational therapist and her referral to a book  called The Whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel. And that has a lot of good information in it that our OT shared with us.

And part of it talks about your upstairs brain and your downstairs brain. Like I mentioned earlier, we would talk about what is your big feeling right now?
Are you feeling sad or scared?
And what's a wise choice.
What can you do with that big feeling or are you blowing your lid?
Did that big feeling, just blow away all of the wise choices that you could have made.

And so the language piece has really come into what's your big feeling, and what's a wise choice with that big feeling. If you need to kick something, you can't kick a person, but could you kick the couch? Would that be okay?

And as he has gotten older, we've talked about, okay, what big feelings are you having? And starting to integrate the idea that we can have more than one big feeling, and then how can our body respond to those big feelings and what are some wise choices to do with his body? We talk about what he can do with his body because that's how he communicates is through body action. You know, what can we do with those big feelings? So that's where the language piece has come in.

Jan: Somewhere in here I remember you talked about the touch of a butterfly or a baseball bat because he wouldn't realize how powerful his physical interaction was either in setting something down or in touching someone, or in taking something from someone. He wouldn't realize the amount of pressure and strength that he was using. It's that pressure stuff that he didn't understand what message he was sending. .So tell me a little bit about how Jack is doing? How could you tell when he was healing or growing and improving? 

Christi: It was pretty quick after we started OT because we were only seeing the occupational therapist once a month.

What I did is I arranged our daily schedule to incorporate some of those OT tools or activities throughout the day. So after breakfast, we would do an animal walk and then after lunch, we would do a Jack burrito. And I very quickly, even within the first couple of days, saw that when we did those regularly, he no longer threw things across the room.

He didn't hit when he was frustrated. If he was really frustrated or he was really mad, he would sit and cry. But there was no throwing or kicking or hitting.
And that to me was a very quick sign of what we're doing is working because it's giving him what he needs. It's filling his body with the input that it needs in order to stay regulated and make those good choices.

Jan: What kind of ongoing care is there now? Does this just go away? What happens? Is this always a thing? Is he always going to roll up like a burrito?

Christi: He says he's too big to do a burrito anymore, which is kind of sad because it was so cute but there are two parts to his ongoing growth.
So yes, there's ongoing care as his body grows. The sensory piece gets a little bit smaller because the sensory input matches the size of his body a little bit more than it did when he was little. And at the same time, it never completely goes away. So there's always strategies and tools that he will need to use in order to keep himself regulated.

So right now it's kind of a mix between me saying, “Hey, we need to do this activity now. And me saying, Hey, what do you want to do? Or what does your body need?”  And starting to release that a little bit to him, to be able to let him recognize how he's feeling and what his body needs in order to stay calm. So there will be ongoing care.

We haven't seen our OT in probably six months and just continue to do a lot of the home things that we know work. 

Jan: What do your other kids think of this? You said you had three kids, so do they just sit back and watch or do they do it with him? What does that look like in the home space?

Christi: When we first started incorporating our OT time into our home routines, the other kids just jumped in and did it with Jack. So if he did a burrito, they did a burrito. If he did kangaroo jumps, they did animal walks. And so now they will all say, oh yeah, we need to do OT today. And for them, body movement is one of the tools that helps them stay calm and stay focused, have attention. And helps them make wise choices. And that's just kind of the way that they see life now. 

Jan: So that was a pretty easy blend. This didn't make anybody stand out. This just easily moved into, this is what we do. It became sort of a fun space for the kids. That's really a sweet space for that to happen.

Christi: I think so.

Jan: Do you have some suggestions that you might give to other families, the moms and dads that are struggling.. maybe they're not on the same page about what their kiddo needs? Do we just need to be sterner  - accusing one parent of being too nice, or too stern.
When a parent hasn't got that, we need more backup and support, what do you say to them? 

Christi: Partly I would say, go with your gut. You know, my pediatrician that I thought I trusted said no, and my gut told me otherwise. And so we just tried it. I think that's the thing too, if occupational therapy and tools for sensory processing hadn't changed his behavior, then we would have gone to do play therapy or social work or something like that.

But we tried it and I would encourage parents who are kind of in that space, struggling with what to do with these behaviors to take a look at what other factors are involved. You know, for my son, we noticed that there were other sensory pieces there too, with the clothing and the lights and the fabrics.

So what other factors are involved and then try something and try it for a little while and see what the response is. I wish we had a manual that said:  if A then B, but we don't. So we had to just try things out and see how they go. 

Jan: I think that's such a good sentence, Christi, is that “try it”. If your gut says something, then give it a try for three to five times and see once what you get going.  If what you're doing is not working, and both of you are at odds about something, getting somebody else's feedback and input about it might really help take the pressure off on both of you.
And I think for you and your husband, that when you saw that Jack’s growth was helped by the OT process, that the pressure and worry of, “We're bad parents” could sorta fall to the side because now you had a different way to focus your parental energy and your parental worries.

Christi:  Right. 

Jan: And so I just love those two words. Try it. We should say it to our kids often. Just try it, try it three times. Try it once. But we have to remember to say that to each other as well is give it a try.
Christi, is there anything else that you would like to add that maybe you wish you had known, or that you would like to just say to other parents in families who are going through a questioning space like what you went through? It's bigger than what we know. .

Christi: I think just going back to the Try It piece. You can talk to your pediatrician, you can talk to a child therapist, you can talk to friends who have older kids that have gone through something similar. Everybody's gonna have their own opinions.

So really it comes down to gathering those opinions and then trusting your gut and knowing your kid. And if you hit a roadblock and you know that this is the right thing to continue to advocate for it. Parenting isn't always easy. And so we do the best we can with the knowledge we have, and then we see how our kiddos do and we continue to love them through it and love each other.

Jan: Well said.  I think for sure, Christi, that you can hear the round of applause for you sharing your story with us and your wisdom.
And to our moms and our dads out there - We want to encourage you to stay  together, work at parenting together. It is an hour by hour, minute by minute space of teamwork. Often when we have little ones around, it’s also tiring work, but it's also worth the work.

And so I want to thank you today for joining Christi and I in this conversation. I also want to remind you that we'll put together a printable and you'll be able to download it and use it.
We are cheering for you.
Thank you again for listening and we'll catch up with you again in a couple of weeks.