What do you believe about your autistic or ADHD child?

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Fall is my favorite time of year. Mostly because I like cold weather mixed with sunshine, and fall is when that combination is just right. Living in Texas, I have minimal exposure to the magnificence that is the leaves changing colors, but nights with my windows open, driving with my windows down, and chilly morning walks really set the tone for me.

There’s something else about fall that I’ve learned to appreciate. And that’s the concept of death.

I know, definitely not what you expected! But hear me out.

Do you know why leaves change color and fall in autumn? Do you know the science behind this annual occurrence?

Leaves are a tree’s way of taking in as much sunshine as possible during the spring and summer. More sunlight equals more growth. During these months, trees send a constant supply of water to their leaves. It’s a pretty symbiotic relationship. Leaves get water, trees get sunlight. Both benefit, both grow.

Until the weather starts to change. Once it gets cold enough for the ground to freeze, trees struggle to get water. If they continue to give water to their leaves, they will die. So they stop. The leaves are turning beautiful colors because they are dying. And then they fall to the ground. The tree is able to conserve its resources and live another year.

While we are running around playing in leaf piles and taking fall pictures, we are actually living amidst death.

Fall is intended to be a time of death for all creatures. We often see spring as a season of life, but we prefer to avoid thinking about the opposite end of that cycle.

I’m learning to embrace the figurative concept of death in the fall. During the month of October, I’m working to kill old habits and routines that no longer serve me.

At the beginning of the month, I moved into a new home. As someone who really likes change and novelty, I move quite a bit. This new home is very spacious and quiet, and I have absolutely loved being here the last few weeks. It’s in an area of the city that I’ve never lived in before. It’s pretty far from my usual running and biking trails. And that’s why I decided to move here. To get out of old habits and routines and create new ones.

Also, I’ve been on a liquid diet all month. The last few months I’ve been pretty careless with what I’ve been eating, and I can see and feel the consequences. So this month I’ve cut out carbs and I’m only consuming meal replacement shakes. I’ve lost the weight I set out to lose, and I feel so much better, physically and mentally. The biggest improvement has been my sleep.

Speaking of sleep, another change I’ve made is my sleep schedule. Because I work in the evenings at Starfish, I tend to go to bed late. It takes my brain a bit to wind down. Also, I don’t have to get up in the mornings to go to work, so my sleep schedule is typically a few hours later than everyone else’s.

This month, cleaning out carbs has meant I naturally wake up around 7:30 every day. Previously I would have rolled over and gone back to sleep, but now I wake up ready to get up. I’m still working on going to bed at a reasonable time, but this month has been much better than any other month. I don’t feel tired. I don’t feel lethargic. Just ready for the day.

I’ve also stopped or changed other habits and routines in my life this month. Habits around how I spend my down time. I’m a triathlete, but I haven’t gone swimming, biking, or running at all this month. After 4 races this year, I chose to stop focusing so much on activities that I felt like were allowing me to remove myself from focusing on other things. I have been doing an hour walk or an hour of yoga each day this month, but nothing like the 20 hours a week of training that I typically do most of the year.

Another way I’ve played with figurative death this month has to do with ideas and beliefs that no longer resonate with me. The most tangible example of this in my life is my tattoos.

I have a lot of tattoos. I got 3 tattoos as soon as I was old enough to do so. I got 2 more five years later when I went through the most challenging time in my life. I added more earlier this year. One represents the one value that is at the center of how I try to live my life. The other commemorates the Ironman I completed in April. Something I never thought I was capable of doing.

I’ve had two of my old tattoos removed in the past because they no longer held meaning for me. You can’t be who you were at 18 forever. At least you shouldn’t, anyways.

I’ve been thinking a lot about some of my tattoos that are now 15 or 20 years old. While I still appreciate the reason behind them, they no longer represent who I am. Again, I think that’s a good thing.

So this past weekend, I got more tattoos.

One of the old tattoos would have been really difficult to cover up with a new one due to its size, shape and location, so I added something to it instead. I added the neurodiversity butterfly. It represents not only me, but my mission in life. When I’m 60 I know I won’t be the same person I am now, but neurodiversity will always be part of who I am and what I do. To be able to turn a 20-year-old tattoo I no longer cared about into something incredibly meaningful was an emotional experience. Bad pain physically, but good pain emotionally.

I also came up with an idea to cover up the two tattoos I got 15 years ago on my leg and feet. They represent me coming out of the darkness I was in at the time. But they no longer speak to me. So I got a large tattoo that covers all of them. It represents the most important person in my life. It’s beautiful and colorful and bold, just like she was. No matter who I am in 20 years, she will always be my guiding light, reminding me to be beautiful and colorful and bold. I realized I’m covering the memories of challenge with memories of love.

So that’s the summary of my October. Of my efforts at letting habits, routines, and beliefs die along with the leaves.

I want to invite you to join me on this death. This cleanse. This shedding of the things that keep us down and hold us back. This letting go of who we used to be.

I’m not going to force my shakes on you or drag you to the tattoo parlor.

I am going to ask you to confront what is the most impactful factor in our lives: our thoughts.

I’m going to challenge us to analyze our thoughts and beliefs. And see if there are some that need to go the way of the leaves this fall. All the beliefs I’m going to challenge have to do with our kids with social learning challenges.

1. Our kids just need to be around other kids like them in order to make friends.

I have families ask why their child can’t just come to game time at Starfish. What outings we have coming up that their kid can join. Can we connect them with other Starfish kids so they can hang out together instead of joining our program?

If our kids just needed to be around other kids like them, they would have made friends in all the other programs and therapies and groups they’ve been in. That’s like me thinking all I need to do to find my future partner is to go hang out at the gym where all the dudes are. (PS. I go to the gym 3 times a week and have yet to meet my future partner.)

Our kids are not suffering from a lack of opportunity. They are struggling with a lack of skills, practice, and coaching. All the play dates and special needs clubs in the world will not help them make friends if they are not gaining the skills and practice necessary to make that happen.

2. My kid is just shy.

I don’t believe in the concept of ‘shy’.

Some people are introverted, like me. I’m very far over on the introvert scale, yet I have no problem speaking in a room full of people. Being introverted doesn’t mean being shy.

I believe ‘shy’ is code for social anxiety. Our kids who have a reputation for being shy are the same kids who are worried about what other people will think about what they say and do. They think they are going to say something silly, so they don’t say anything. They don’t want kids to laugh at them or be mean to them, so they fade into the background. They don’t ask for help because they think it makes them look dumb. Just like all these beliefs our kids have aren’t true, neither is the belief that your kid is ‘just shy’.

Kids who don’t engage with other kids won’t grow out if it. They become the teenager who doesn’t have friends. The adult who doesn’t know how to ask for help. The employee who doesn’t speak up for themselves. We need to change the way we think about ‘shy’ kids, and we need to change the way they think about themselves and the social world. We need to recognize that they need help, not pity.

3. My kid needs to be around other kids on his/her level.

For the first several years I ran Starfish Social Club, this is what I did. I placed kids in groups based on their age and their social ability. The groups were pretty easy to run because each one had a dynamic. There were groups for kids who were socially anxious. Let’s call them squares since I think of them as building a box around themselves. Those were pretty quiet groups! There were groups for kids who were super kind and just needed to learn how to be more socially successful. Let’s call them circles as they are all about love and inclusion. Those groups were fun and low key. There were groups for kids who had reputations for being annoying or stuck. Let’s call them triangles as they aren’t a square peg OR a round hole! Those groups were lively and engaging, but sometimes fell into chaos.

After we came back from lockdown, I started letting parents choose their child’s schedule instead of assigning kids to groups. This meant that we had all different kids in each group. I thought it would be difficult. I thought it would be chaotic. And you know what? It was awesome!

Here’s what I realized: The kids who have a reputation for being annoying (triangles) NEED to get helpful feedback from other kids. When they are all in a group together, it turns into a tornado. No one is interjecting to give them feedback. Guess who gives helpful feedback? Kids who are super kind and are learning about the social world (ie circles). And the kids who are socially anxious (ie squares) and like for others to follow the rules!

The circle kids NEED opportunities to stand up for themselves. When they are all in a group together, they have no need to self-advocate. But when they are with triangles, they need to be able to say they want to go first. Or that what was said bothered them. The squares are great at noticing things, so they help our circles identify things that might work better than what they are doing.

The kids who are squares NEED to see successful social interactions. They need to see that the stuff we talk about is real and works! They get to see this with the circle kids. They get to see them try what we talk about, and how it goes! This gives them the courage to try for themselves. They also need to be able to self-advocate, which they have the opportunity to do in the presence of the triangle kids.

We also have kids with different ages, cognitive abilities and language skills in the same game time. Why?

Awareness. Several years ago, one of my most socially adept kids got really annoyed at one of my circle kids who had lower cognitive skills. After talking about it and realizing they BOTH were autistic, he told me that he’d spent his whole life being taught how to get along with ‘normal’ kids, but no one had ever taught him how to get along with kids like him. Wow.

We don’t have to be friends with everyone. We don’t have to like everyone. But how much sense does it make for us to want other kids to like our kids, but not expect our kids to do the same?

And if I were to draw a cognitive line, where would that line be? What if I drew a behavioral line instead? What if I only accepted kids who weren’t mean to others? At Starfish Social Club, ALL kids with social learning challenges have a place as long as they are able to function in the group setting. They all get value from the other types of kids, and they all give value to the other types of kids. We all belong.

4. Giving kids feedback about their behavior/reputation is mean.

One of the reasons people aren’t always a fan of what we do at Starfish is because we give our students social feedback. And we teach them to give it to each other as well. Every once in a while, a parent gets upset about this and interprets it as me or another student being mean to their child. There have been parents who have pulled their child from the program because they didn’t like the feedback they received.

Most of our kids have gone their whole little lives without receiving social feedback. Other kids tell them they’re annoying, but never tell them WHY. Or other kids allow them to do socially inappropriate things and just write it off. Or other kids think they have to placate our kids to avoid big reactions. Or other kids think it’s mean to give feedback to autistic kids.

When our kids aren’t used to getting social feedback, they think other people are being mean to them when they come to Starfish. I’ve heard kids say they are being bullied because someone asked them to please stop interrupting. The triangle kids are most at risk for this because feedback is hardest for this group. The most frustrating thing that happens at Starfish has nothing to do with the kids. It’s when parents pull their kids out because they are upset about getting feedback from others. This shows me that this child does not get social feedback anywhere else in their day, especially at home. It also shows me that they have no awareness or ability to change their reputation, so they will continue being known as the annoying kid, which breaks my heart.

The number of triangle kids in our program who have worked through the painful feedback phase and are now some of the most popular kids at Starfish serves as my inspiration to keep reaching each child I can. What we do works as long as we stick it out.

5. Parents don’t have much influence or effect on their child’s ability to make friends.

Parents actually have the ability to have a significant impact on their child’s reputation and social skills. Not by scheduling play dates or cramming social stories down their kids’ throats or pushing them to just go say hi. None of these actually help our kids make friends.

It’s in what we say and how we say it. That’s it.

I don’t have magic fairy dust at Starfish. I’m not hypnotizing the kids. There are no artificial rewards or punishments. No time out, no sticker charts, no apologizing, no treasure chests.

I put all my energy into what I say and how I say it to each kid.

Our circle kids require a different approach than our square kids, who require a different approach than our triangle kids. It’s really that simple. Not easy by any means, but simple. And learnable.

If you are ready to help your child do more than be around other kids like them, for them to get helpful feedback, for them to feel less socially anxious, you can join our waiting list for our live classes each week at www.StarfishSocialClub.org/SC3-Academy.

Thanks for joining me today. Time to get back to my no carb shakes and long walks in this coo