Episode 64
This week I sit down with Matt Gupwell, founder of Think Neurodiversity and co-host of ADHD Talks, to discuss finding your passions and thriving within neurodiversity.
Diagnosed with ADHD and autism later in life, Matt unveils how this revelation reshaped his understanding of success and spurred his passion to help to make this journey easier for others than it was for him. We talk about medication, the profound effect a diagnosis can have, and learning to re-centre yourself after a diagnosis. As two people with a mutual passion for sharing reliable SEND information and resources, we discuss navigating misinformation online and highlight the necessity for individuals to proactively seek evidence-based resources. We also critique the deficit-laden narratives surrounding ADHD on social media and encourage neurodivergents to embrace their innate talents. And finally, we discuss the beautiful gift of relearning and redefining success for ourselves, and how to help our children find their own versions.
This is an uplifting and open minded conversation and I can't wait for you to hear it.
Click here for Think Neurodiversity
Click here for Talk ADHD
www.sendparenting.com
Episode 64
This week I sit down with Matt Gupwell, founder of Think Neurodiversity and co-host of ADHD Talks, to discuss finding your passions and thriving within neurodiversity.
Diagnosed with ADHD and autism later in life, Matt unveils how this revelation reshaped his understanding of success and spurred his passion to help to make this journey easier for others than it was for him. We talk about medication, the profound effect a diagnosis can have, and learning to re-centre yourself after a diagnosis. As two people with a mutual passion for sharing reliable SEND information and resources, we discuss navigating misinformation online and highlight the necessity for individuals to proactively seek evidence-based resources. We also critique the deficit-laden narratives surrounding ADHD on social media and encourage neurodivergents to embrace their innate talents. And finally, we discuss the beautiful gift of relearning and redefining success for ourselves, and how to help our children find their own versions.
This is an uplifting and open minded conversation and I can't wait for you to hear it.
Click here for Think Neurodiversity
Click here for Talk ADHD
www.sendparenting.com
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to a fellow neurodiverse podcaster, matt Guepwell, whose hosts talk ADHD. He's also founder of Think Neurodiversity, which is focused on mentoring and raising awareness of ADHD and autism.
Speaker 1:In this episode, we will, among many things, be discussing neurodiversity and the importance of finding your passion and harnessing it in your life, and how important that is for an adult, but also for our children. Our ideas are flying all over the place. I think you'll enjoy this episode and it really brings back to home to me that finding your passion, helping your children to find their passion, is really what is key. Welcome, matt, it is a pleasure to have you on the Send Parenting podcast. It's great to have another neurodiverse podcaster who runs a podcast on the show. You run Talk ADHD and I run Send Parenting podcast and we're both neurodiverse. I think that will give us a very interesting discussion today. But I'm really interested actually in unpicking with you what we talked about before the show, which is exploring how tapping into your passion is so important for neurodiverse kids and neurodiverse adults. We're going to unpick that today and I think we need to start with you and your journey and how you have come to realizing the importance of passion in your life.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's try to put it history. I'm, like a lot of people, like yourself, I'm late diagnosed. So I didn't get an official diagnosis of ADHD until I was just a week off 36, then autism at 37, dyslexia at no, sorry, 46, 47, 48. No, not even 36, blimey. Yeah, 46 for ADHD, 47 for autism, 48 for dyslexia and then other after that. But my drive for trying to figure out my passion, I think, has probably always been there. I just didn't realize what it was. I ran for an interest. I ran a session with members from the WhatsApp community. I run alongside the podcast recently this weekend, all about finding passion, finding purpose. It really reminded me how particularly a late diagnosis can throw people through me. It can really make you question everything. So I don't think I really found my purpose until really honestly, very recently, not really knowing what it was?
Speaker 1:Did the diagnosis help you find that, or was that just a progression?
Speaker 2:of where you were going anyway.
Speaker 2:It was a progression that initially it made it worse. It made me question everything. My early career I talk about it. It's like 18 to 36 years old, 35 full-time salary jobs, sat 30 times quickly, other five. It's not exactly the career path that makes you think, oh, I know what I should be doing. It really it didn't help. Let's just say that.
Speaker 2:And then I spent 15 years, initially out of desperation and because I'd always done it on the side. But I spent 15 years following what I thought was my passion and I kind of tricked myself into thinking it was which was as an entertainer. I was a professional entertainer when I put down a country entertain 10 to 10,000s of people, it's great. But there was always a niggle that, because I didn't feel like I was achieving the same as other people in the similar sort of entertainment areas to me, I'd question is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Am I good enough? Am I right for this?
Speaker 2:It was something and actually I'm one of the rare people that now I look back, I think COVID was really good for me in some ways, terrible in others, but really good because it made me stop. It made me pivot this business to a completely online offering. And then that pivoted again, almost by twist of fate, to work with corporate clients. And all this came within months of ADHD and like a lot of people, late diagnosed who sort of start trying to piece themselves together. I was an evangelist about ADHD for months.
Speaker 2:I would talk about it at every given opportunity and then connect it to my son's autism. And then my youngest son was diagnosed as well. So I was this real. Oh, I've got a new diagnosis. I'm an expert, I know everything, knew nothing is the honest answer. What do I know after three months, after a year?
Speaker 1:Can I ask a question there. Matthew, Were you diagnosed before your? Children or after your children, because often parents get diagnosis based on their children. But the way you just put it together, it sounded like it might be the other way around.
Speaker 2:Six or one half a dozen. My sons, now 18 and 19. They were both diagnosed just aged four with autism, as burgers as it was. So we'd known for a long time they were autistic and that's where I started really working and learning about all of this with my wife. However, I was told in 2015 at a conference unofficially you have screamingly severe ADHD and seemingly don't know it. Please get checked Right and kind of went. I agree with that information did nothing with it for a while.
Speaker 2:So I was diagnosed ADHD before any of my sons and shortly after my diagnosis probably six months after my diagnosis we sat looking at my youngest son, who was really floundering, in lockdown, really struggling with a home sort of home school with home educated. So I said there was very different things, so this school at home didn't work. And I sat there and remember saying to my wife you know he's really similar to me, we've said this before, but he's like carbon copy and, lo and behold, that's when he received a diagnosis of combined subtype ADHD. And then, literally only two weeks ago, my oldest son received his diagnosis clinically of severely disabling combined subtype as well. So now there's the three of us and my wife comes next. You know a fairly short show and her diagnosis you see.
Speaker 1:So it's a spicy family.
Speaker 2:They were oh and how and how, and it extends way beyond us as well. You know, we now know that into parents and aunts and uncles and all sorts, but is not always the way. So, yeah, it was. They beat me to autism, I beat them to ADHD. I won that race. But you know, I still say you know, for all the talking, I knew nothing. I really knew. I knew what I'd see and what I was piecing together.
Speaker 2:And now I can look back, even only a couple of years ago, and go, oh, what was I saying, what was I thinking? Same as when I was talking about autism when my kids were young. You know the things I said then. I would never, ever say now, you know, but that's part of past, live our own self journey and advocacy, but it but through all of that, as I came towards the sort of second half of lockdown, I had begun to realize that entertainment wasn't it.
Speaker 2:I'd lost my passion for that kind of thing and I was comfortable with losing my passion for it for the first time and I just kept looking at my kids and thinking I do not want you to go out into the world and have 35 jobs and be sat 30 times and sit there and you let 40s question the life, the universe and everything that does not need to happen.
Speaker 2:It doesn't need to happen and the only way I could think of doing that was by sharing my story, by trying to educate people, trying to get good information out into the world. And so this germ of an idea of sort of thinking there are diversity as a business started, and then I just started talking more on LinkedIn, you know, started shaming into conversations and that led to people connecting with me and a couple of speaking engagements sort of followed on the back of that. And then it's can you come and talk to our business, can you do it with some training? And kind of haven't looked back since last year. It just exploded into this thing, which is getting ever bigger and ever busier, but it means that my passion now is still focused on my sons and my wife and me. Right, I want all our opportunities to be as fair, equal, equitable as they can be and if, by doing that, I help other people, happy days.
Speaker 1:And I mean I would imagine that your entertainment 15 years also helps you in terms of connecting and engaging people who don't understand about it, that you speak to and educate. You know it's not time lost. You haven't given up on one passion. You've incorporated it into another, into a more broader, more meaningful passion. You know your family and getting equal rights for your family and your neuro spiciness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know it's really interesting, you frame it like that. It took me a while to accept it, but as part of entertainment. The other big part of my job was I was a circus skills performer and instructor. I taught people and I often sort of say this, but it's true, I taught about 80,000 people to juggle three balls over 15 years. On my own that's a ridiculous number, but I counted them all because neuro-spicy taught people to ride unicycles, taught people to do all these strange things.
Speaker 2:And I remember going to a huge circus skills sort of conference and event a couple of years ago now, just pre-lockdown, and there was a young lady there with her girlfriend who she was new in a relationship with, and I knew this girl. She'd learned to unicycle, she was fantastic. And she looked at me square in the eyes with her no part of her said this is Matt, he can teach anyone anything, anything. I've never met anyone that can make the complicated as easy as he does, even if he can't do it himself. And I kind of went you mean juggling five balls? She went yes, I mean juggling five balls, still can't do it, but I can teach anyone and I kind of there was a bit of me that went ooh, ooh, that's a bit backhanded, but actually she's right.
Speaker 2:I know that, for whatever reason and being an entertainer has helped I have got an ability to look at all this information, take what could be confusing information and sort of distill it down to something that's just eminently understandable for people, so that when I sit and when I train the response often is I joke. When it goes quiet. As an entertainer, I panic if you're gone quiet and I have sort of little questions is everyone okay? And yesterday I was training for a huge charity and the response came back sort of unequivocally yeah, we're just processing all this information because there's so much to do. Now the lady that organized it said I am literally realizing how many things I need to think about. So forgive me if I'm just staring at you, I'm just taking it in, but if that's what I'm able to do, yeah, and I mean it's not an easy topic neurodiversity.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean and there aren't clear painted pictures or paint by numbers to understand it. So, again, a good skill to have when you're trying to explain it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think so, and there's so much differing information about it. Right, you must know this. We spoke about you and your family as well. There's so much conflicting information out there, and there's sometimes, particularly when people are at the start of their journey it's really confusing who's right, who's saying the right thing, who's got an opinion that's not right, especially when people like we were talking about no, big public figures like will.
Speaker 1:I am, you know, perpetuating kind of ignorance about how you get and how you become neurodiverse. You know it's a and people trust those sources you know. So it's challenging to negate this kind of social media world where myths get perpetuated.
Speaker 2:It is. And we're in that world where you know it's very easy to become a quote unquote influencer, even if you're not the likes of will I am. You know, there are numbers of personalities who've got big voices but who are still at the start of their journey and their understanding. And again, you know, there was a while there where I thought I have to correct everything that I know is wrong. And if I know it's wrong, I have to correct it because the information is wrong. Now I've taken a step back and gone. Do you know what?
Speaker 2:Okay, look, if somebody wants to see ex-influencer say something that's maybe not quite right but it helps someone start their journey, okay, that's not a bad thing. Essentially that's okay and both parties influence around. The person that's following them at some point will realize perhaps that's not quite right. Perhaps that was slightly not the right information. Same for will I am, will I am same. What he said last week and for those don't know, he was talking about kids being medicated for ADHD in schools and it was their medicated to help the teacher, which is just the most frankly lunacy kind of statement.
Speaker 1:Understanding it at all.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's not no right, and he has ADHD, right. But so the likes of him saying that he does need somebody who knows over the pond or wherever he used to say, actually hold on a minute, that isn't right. You can't just make sweeping statements like that with your position of influence.
Speaker 1:Especially because a lot of parents are hesitant to give children medication and it almost is like turning the key in the ignition in a car when you have an ADHD brain and enabling it to actually run smoothly and enabling the networks and the areas from a medical perspective how it works If you really have ADHD. If you don't, then it can be misused, but that's a very small percentage, it's actually not the majority, and then you're denying children the potential to actually be able to turn on that car and do well in school. It has nothing to do with the teachers.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely, and it's a lot about. I'm lucky I work with another clinician on the podcast, so he's an ADHD specialist, member of the ADHD World Federation, really well respected chat. So I get to learn from what he shares on the podcast. And one of the most, I guess, fundamental changes about medication whether it's for adults or children I've had recently is this thing of agency. Once we're titrated, once our dose is set, actually the when we take it, there's flexibility. There's flexibility in when do I need that dose, when do I not need that dose.
Speaker 2:And so we often talk about kids at school. Yes, we wanna get them through the day, but actually there's an argument to say also, when they get home and they've got homework to do, we need to know there's enough, if you like, enough of that. If it's slow release made, still in their system, they just let them get past homework and then go back to being their own medicated sort of natural default state, but understanding. That is the information we very often aren't given at assessment or at diagnosis. It's there's a pill, take it first thing in the morning, you know. And then we hear people talk about I'm having a crash every day at the same time. Well, of course you are Feel like you're having a crash, because now the meds have left your brain, now your brain is at full speed again and you've still got stuff to do, you know, but it's again.
Speaker 1:It's that agency word, but this is the education piece, and there's also the you know, the piece of you know, while your brain is being able to function in this different way, it is wiring and firing and it is learning how to. Actually the brain is such an amazing entity, you know. So actually you are, it's almost like you're going to the gym and you're training it. So then actually you're able to do things that you weren't able to do before because you've been given that break and that ability with the medication to achieve it. And then you're, you start being able to do it even without the medication.
Speaker 2:That's it. Yeah, and this is that great phrase. Pills and skills right, and I completely agree with you that the meds give our brain the opportunity to relearn, rewire and then the chance to do the same things without those meds. I don't take meds every day. I take them when I know I'm going to need them, when it's massively sort of intensive, when or maybe when I'm going to be emotionally challenged. That's when I'll take my meds, but I don't need them every day because I'm fortunate, like you say, I understand what's been rewired. But again, I don't think people get that information no, they don't.
Speaker 2:And this is why I see but this comes back to that question about the purpose and the passion right, you get people adults newly diagnosed and they have been fundamentally changed and their world has been turned upside down. Even for teenagers, right, your world has completely been altered because you've now been told ah, everything that you found tricky, everything that you struggled with, everything that was a challenge, there's four letters that define that. There's four letters that tell you why you know, if it's ADHD, for example, that's all very well and good, but there needs to be that aftercare, there needs to be that support afterwards, finding your tribe, whatever it is that goes breathe, stop. This is okay, this will pass, because I see people questioning themselves every day, questioning the career they've had for a while, because they've struggled. What should I?
Speaker 2:And it's this thing of how about you just take a step back, don't make any big decisions yet, and when you think you are now stable, when you think you are now, oh, I understand me plus ADHD and I understand that I'm not ADHD, you know, adhd is just a part of me Once you're there, then come back and start looking at your passion and start looking at your purpose and start looking at what next. But don't do it in the early stages of diagnosis or post diagnosis, because the chances are it's not going to be what you really should be doing.
Speaker 2:Your head's still spinning, and but literally, yeah, oh, listen, massively. Yeah, massively, massively. But it's very hard when you do feel like your world's been turned upside down, to not want to do that. You know it's a really interesting question. I remember asking Michael Anishin.
Speaker 2:It's a question that thousands of people ask will meds change me? Bear in mind my persona at that point. Was this entertainer, was this outgoing gregarious character? You know, I always had the smile on my face and I was telling myself will this change me? No, no, it won't change you. You'll just learn what Matt without ADHD is like. Actually, that wasn't quite accurate. It did change me. I am not the same person, not at all. Now I'm sort of somewhere in between the two. I think I'm finding that balance, but it does change you, and it's not the medication really that does that. It's the information of oh, that's why, that's what changes you, because you question everything that's happened in your life to that point and go is that why I relationship failed or job failed or whatever it may be? So saying it doesn't change people is, I think, not fair. It changes your perception of you and you need to allow yourself time to figure out that purpose.
Speaker 1:To take it on board and to go beyond almost it. You know what I mean To absorb it and then go beyond it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, without question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really for me when I mentor clients particularly, I love seeing the journey from that beginning sort of frenetic oh my life, what's been turned upside down phase to kind of self-acceptance and letting the dust settle and people going, ah, oh, okay, I kind of get this now and you know, I think I can do this now and that's always a really, really nice place to get to. But there is no timeline for that. I can't start working with a mentoring client who's nearly diagnosed and go, it's all right. In three months and four days you'll feel fine. How do I know? You know I just have to work with them and be there and support them and answer the questions and guide them through the ups and downs and just keep trying to point them in the direction of look for the information, look for the evidence, look for the wise in all these questions, and once you start knowing what you're looking for, you find the answers that bit easier and sometimes you might not like the answers you get, but they're as useful as the ones you do.
Speaker 1:And you know it's even more interesting when it's your child that's going through it. You know as well because and you've had both right but you know and how your child absorbs that on board too. You know before diagnosis. After diagnosis, I mean, I've had my daughter say to me mommy, I can't do the dishwasher because I have ADHD. You know what I mean. I'm like sorry, yes you are still doing the dishwasher, but they go. You know they go through their own kind of mini version of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, completely Completely. I mean, you know, our oldest is 19, diagnosed couple of three weeks ago, still in titration for meds, and we knew he had ADHD, you know, but with the diagnosis just hadn't been enabled, we hadn't got there, and yet he's still going through waves of whoa. I got stuff done to. I'm spending all day looking on YouTube. So we are now responsible for helping guide him. To say meds have a job. The job is to help you concentrate and focus. That doesn't mean they will only help you concentrate and focus on the things you are supposed to be doing or need to do. They will let you focus and concentrate on eight hours of YouTube as well, if that's what you choose to focus and concentrate on. You have to choose not to click.
Speaker 1:He's still a 19 year old boy.
Speaker 2:That's the thing is that he's still a 19 year old boy, right? Yeah? Yeah, this is the point, right? So it's this thing of there's the information, but you know, he's been emotional and happy and confused, and it's also it's not just the medication, right, it's also learning, as you say about it.
Speaker 1:It's about understanding coping strategies. It's about other support from coaches like yourself. You know. It's about a full package. It's not just a pill. I mean, I'm a doctor and I'm a firm unbeliever that a pill solves everything. You know. Yes, I was taught that in medical school. It's not what I, you know. There's nutrition, there's exercise. There's so much more that needs to be, you know, brought into your consciousness in terms of doing really well, and all the research supports that. And you put those two magic things together and then you have highly successful people with ADHD and autism and neurodiversities.
Speaker 2:And that's the point, right. So you, as a medical doctor, you know that's nice guidelines, right, I mean it's right there. For adults, nice guidelines, multimodal approach, pills and skills Right, perfect, all right. For kids it's skills and then maybe pills, I get it. I understand why we want to go the soft approach. If we can, we kids first. That makes perfect sense. Either way, there is no one fix and it's got to be personalized. You know you are not, and actually that's a really interesting point. The personalized because go back to the social media question, right, you and I are both in this world. We produce podcasts and they're very similar.
Speaker 2:You're looking for evidence and resources that support, right, it's not opinions, it's not. I think this right. If you say something, you've got your medical background. I'm also that kind of opinion of I say it if I can prove it. I say if there's evidence for it, not because I think that might be true or I read it on the internet, but there is so much conflicting information out there from so many different sources and when people are trying to figure it out, particularly kids, right, you know I'm gonna sound like the most 50 year old, 50 year old in the world, but the TikTok generation right? We only have to look at the reports that keep coming out about the actual efficacy and validity of information from people purporting to be knowledgeable about ADHD and autism on TikTok is minimal, you know. It's in single digit percentages of useful information. The rest of it is opinion or repurposed, and that's what's challenging, I think, is kids are going to be bombarded with. Well, this is ADHD or this is autism.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm a great fan, like you are, of pills and skills. I'm a great fan that, yes, while I have challenges, whilst I have deficits, I do, I understand that I also have abilities. That's where I find my purpose. I have things I can do well, so I understand. The clinical deficit model is useful for diagnosis, it's useful for assessment, it's useful to say this is where your impairment is right. I don't define myself by those impairments but unfortunately the message that's on social media aimed at younger people is it's deficit, deficit, deficit, deficit, deficit and worse. It's everyone else's responsibility to do something about that for you, hold on, that's a bit of an issue, it's not, you know. It's for us to understand what my deficits are and yet to ask for support where I need it, wherever that may be school, college, uni workplace, but again it's. I have to do something. I have to be active in my own support, what I say to my daughter is.
Speaker 1:I said, no one goes through life without anything, Whether that's neurodiversity, whether it's insomnia, whether it's depression, whether it's, you know, you just have a bad family structure. Fine, nobody goes through life without some crap hitting them in the back.
Speaker 2:And it's how you deal with that.
Speaker 1:And so you know great to know and know what to do. Oftentimes, people don't know what to do. Maybe they don't have a neurodiversity, but there's something else going wrong. Maybe they're sick. There's so many different things. No one, I don't know of anyone in the world that goes through life, you know, sailing through with. No, you know, life is all about these, these, these things that you've clipped. You fall off and then, you drag yourself back up out of them. Neurodiversity is just one of those things you know, and it's as you say.
Speaker 1:it's not an excuse, it's. You know, we tend to disable it, like even my daughter says I have a disability. I'm like you know what. I don't look at it as a disability, I look at it as an ability and we have to define it as a disability to get education on board with supporting you.
Speaker 1:We're really the thing. That's disabled really is the education system, and it needs to be just taken down and rebuilt. But instead we call the children disabled because they can't flourish in that environment. So I will I'll try and get off my soapbox about this, but I completely concur with you that it is. You know you don't want to then cripple a child by labeling them disabled, and that the whole world has to lay at their feet, for they're not. They're not accountable for anything, and that is as a parent with a child who's also, you know, got the alphabets behind her name.
Speaker 1:It's something really important that we need to instill in our children is you know what focus on the good stuff and navigate the bad stuff. You know what I mean. That's, that's all we can do in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, listen, please, please, remain on your soapbox, because I share that that soapbox with you completely. Yes, it's broken. Education is broken. Hence your podcast right is phenomenal. For that very reason, you're trying to challenge that and you're trying to raise that right. It's why we home educated for four years, because it was so broken that it, you know, by the age of eight and nine, our kids or nine and 10, our kids were broken, you know, mentally broken. They couldn't remain in a school. We took them out and rebuilt them, you know. And so, yeah, it is, and it doesn't suit kids who are different and, by the way, I always say this, just in case any of my friends or teachers listen it's not the teacher's fault.
Speaker 2:I don't blame the teachers, I don't blame the staff. I blame the way the system has become.
Speaker 1:It's the same with medicine, right? You don't blame the doctors either, or the nurses. There are two really broken systems who have a lot of similarities that have not moved with time or society. They are archaic and outdated. Yeah yeah, yeah, I take my hats off to teachers that can keep going back into that environment, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, and you only have to look at the numbers. Now. You know, I have a client of mine who is a junior school teacher. Teachers are class of somewhere between 27 and 30, and over half are known to have at least one neurodivergent condition that's known to have right, let alone the ones who probably have but don't know. And this comes back to this question about how many of us really are neurodivergent, right. So it's not small numbers now, and that's so difficult as a classroom teacher, it doesn't matter whether you've got one LSA or two or none. That's so difficult to teach this frankly archaic curriculum in a way that meets the needs of all those kids who function and fire differently. It's not possible. So, yes, it gets broken and yes, kids are the ones that suffer. And you look, I get shot down a lot for saying this, but my opinion now is school is a system to show schools how they're performing. It doesn't really do a lot for kids. Unless you're able to sell through school and pass all your exams and universities on the cards for you. It's not really doing much for kids, right? It's after that that the work starts. It's after that that the young people can start to go.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute. Who am I? What am I? What do I need to do that? And then it's interesting when we were home educated, I remember attending a workshop and a question was asked of all the kids there that I still ask now.
Speaker 2:I ask mentors and clients all the time when they're struggling with purpose, and I do it myself. Which was the leader said to the parents stop asking your children what they want to be when they grow up. You'll get fantastical answers right. Rather, ask them what problem or thing would they like to change? What impact would they like to have? And if she said, you'll be amazed how many children have got something in their head.
Speaker 2:And then the question is and what steps does it take you to do that? What's needed for you to do that? Reverse, engineer it and help them understand that, if they come all the way down that those steps, there's something they need to study and there's a career and there's a path, and that they may be a link in the chain that has that overall impact or they may be the person that has that impact. But it's a much more sensible question and actually I think it's one of the most ND friendly questions I've ever heard. You know, I ask it myself all the time when I say what am I? Why am I doing what I'm doing?
Speaker 2:I know what my answer is because of reverse engineer, the steps I take to get there are Are changing and building, and they move, and that's okay because I can read, redefine them. But starting from that, well, I know what I want to do, I know what the aim is. Now how do I, this person, do that? That's a different question. And and that may not be getting nine GCSEs, three levels and a degree.
Speaker 1:It may not be and I know we've talked about this before it's Education doesn't just happen in the classroom and so educating yourself on your passions for our children, oftentimes in the classroom with them cutting our cutting drama, cutting things, that they're cutting the exposure to kids about what they can and you know, and it's math and English and science which, I'm sorry, a lot of kids are not interested in. You know, some are, some are and you know it's, but the the, the scope has gotten much narrower. So there's kind of a responsibility as a parent To expose kids to what could be, you know, what are they Educating them on, what is out there to be interested in, to be passionate about, and to what you find your groove with. You know, not overdoing the after-school clubs but, you know, letting them lead you in terms of where their interests are and letting them explore.
Speaker 2:That is important you know it really is. My wife was the the one that Kind of came across this technique when we home educated our kids, and so Very early days we did what was radical home, home education or radical and schooling, which was there was nothing. For the first year there was just nothing, no structure, no, no, no. We were like we're not going there, this is just decompression time on on steroids.
Speaker 1:Right D-programming Control alt delete. Yeah, massively right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, right, and it took a lot of repeats, by the way, but what actually helped and it goes back to what you were saying was she came about this theory called scatter learning. Right now, scatter learning was completely home-based. It just meant that we would go to a local Oxfam bookshop every Saturday while our artists had a guitar lesson, and we would just buy a, a plethora of different books fat based, fiction based, didn't matter what with no idea of Whether they'd be interested or not, and the deal was those books would be everywhere in the house toilet, bedrooms, living room, kitchen. We didn't, though, say, oh, look at this, we just left. It Said nothing. It was amazing, in doing that, how much they picked up, how much they read, how much. They then went on the internet and looked up and followed up, and then you'd suddenly be at dinner having a conversation about things going oh, when did that happen? Where's that come from? Where did you learn that? Oh, it was in a book, was it Right? So the most singularly organic, child-friendly, low stress form of education I've ever come across. But it works, it just works, and that that's led, you know, to their passions.
Speaker 2:Now I've got my oldest is studying outdoor education at uni. We'd desires to go off and probably be a sailing instructor and a ski instructor and a climbing instructor because that's his passion, right? Our youngest? Hmm, we're we're on a pause again. He was in college, in a mainstream college, studying for animal care. It didn't work because guess what? The system the environment wasn't set up for a class of 25 Teenages between the ages of 17 and 21, all with Additional needs, and he just couldn't cope. He was shutting down, despite being incredibly passionate about animals. So he's now home educated again. We've given him about four months of just. We said there's no stress.
Speaker 2:But For his 18th birthday he went and had an experience as a zookeeper at a big cat sanctuary down in Kent, spent the morning feeding tigers, feeding lion's, mucking them out, and the keepers there were going. He's really good. He's really good at this and he knows his stuff and he knows what the scales are and he's understanding the feeding schedules and actually we've now found an online animal care course. That sort of pete his interest and said you know what? You can get the same qualification that you were trying to get at college, at home and Then decide what's next. He would be a phenomenal zookeeper in the background just looking after an animal, his passion, and It'd be, yeah right, just what we've been talking about. We're never gonna teach it. Yeah, yeah, school didn't teach him that. Yeah, that was in a in him. Now it's about us saying that isn't five GCSEs, three Ales and a degree. That's passion, and if that's what gets you out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 1:But you know, it's Fine, go. When you find your passion, then it's no longer work, it's it's it's you wake up and you and you want to do it. So it makes it makes a big difference in terms of Living to work versus working to live. So you live to work because it's your passion. Yeah, you live if it's something that you've been Forced into or career tracked into.
Speaker 1:And in a weird way, I spoke to another guest the other day who is saying you know when, when you have neurodiversity, it's almost a strange gift because that gets ripped out.
Speaker 1:You don't have to go and get that high-powered corporate job because you won't get the GCSEs and you won't get into the university and you can't become. You know, in the rat race where you you're spending more than you're making, even though you're making over six figures. That's gone. So guess what? You've got freedom now to actually find your passion and do something that makes you happy, where you're gonna have mental health and you're gonna be actually able to succeed in life. So I think you know that wraps us right back around again to what we started with, which was finding your passion in neurodiversity, and I think we you've done a great job where we both have done a great job in exploring this topic. I'd like to kind of Conclude with what three tips would you give to parents out there who may be neurodiverse themselves and to their children that they could take away From kind of our topic today and, you know, put in their back pockets?
Speaker 2:The first one is stop. Just just take a step back and stop. If you're worried, if you're panicking, if you're debating where the schools working, just just All of you. Stop for a while. Okay, stop and just breathe, reset. You know, you know of a system a bit and and and get to a place where you're a bit calmer so you can make some clearer decisions. That's, that will always be number one.
Speaker 2:Number two, I think, is something that you just said, and it comes back to this reverse engineering thing of what would actually get you out of bed in the morning, what would get you kid out of bed in the morning, what would make them want to wake up going. I'm really excited. Right, look to those things first, it doesn't matter how crazy, fantastical, impossible they seem. Start with those and then backtrack. Right, how might we get there?
Speaker 2:So, really is about that finding you get out of bed passion and after that, know that, by virtue of being neurodivergent no matter how much you think there's a deficit attached to it you already are amongst the single most resilient human beings on the planet your ability to get up and go again, your ability to, to Know you might not feel like you fit in, but still keep going. I Genuinely believe is unmatched and if you learn to accept every piece of information as evidence that leads you to your goal, eventually You'll get to a place that makes you happy, that gives you fulfillment and that is your passion. But recognize you're going to get there in a different way, on a different path to the one that you probably Thought or were told you should forget. Should it's the worst word in the world? I agree, it is awful world awful word. Rather, forget it. Get there in your way, in your time, and when you get there, celebrate and go see I did it or my kids did it.
Speaker 1:That's it. I think those are three good top tips to end with and to take away. Thank you for your time today, matt. It's been a pleasure having you on the show and I would recommend everyone listen to your podcast talk ADHD, and I'll have links to it in the in the bio.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you, it's been wonderful. Thank you for having me and you will be a guest on ours very soon.
Speaker 1:I'll take you up on that. Take care of that. Thank you for listening. Send parenting tribe. If you enjoy the send parenting podcast, please rate us on your preferred podcast platform and if you're not already following us on Instagram, please check us out. Our Instagram handle is send parenting podcast. I would love to hear from you and get your feedback on who you would like on the show or what topics you would like to hear next, wishing you and your family a week of finding your passion, you.