Ep. 83 Mastering the Seven-Stage Path: Reducing Stress & Anxiety and Boosting Strategies for Families Navigating a Child's Physical, Mental, Learning, or Social Challenges.

Ep. 83 Mastering the Seven-Stage Path: Reducing Anxiety and Boosting Strategies for Families Navigating a Child's Physical, Mental, Learning, or Social Challenges
What happens when your child’s development takes an unexpected turn, and you suddenly realize their path is different from what you imagined?

 Raising a child with physical, mental, learning, or social challenges can be emotionally overwhelming for any parent. This episode dives into the seven stages that parents experience, providing you with a roadmap to move from anxiety to understanding, while empowering you to better support your child.

 In this episode you will:

 1.Gain a deep understanding of the seven emotional and practical stages parents face when navigating a child’s differences.

 2. Learn actionable strategies to reduce fear, embrace reality, and take confident steps toward finding the right support.

 3. Discover how to stay emotionally resilient while guiding your child through life’s unique challenges.

 Listen now to explore the seven-stage path and gain valuable tools to help your child thrive while easing your own anxiety.

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About the Host: 

MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, is a seasoned clinician, educator, and host of the podcast Creating Midlife Calm, recognized by Maria Shriver as a “Listen of the Week.” Over the past 40 years, MJ has led more than 50,000 therapy sessions and developed the Inner Challenge mental wellness program and the Inner Challenge Master Class, practical tools for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience taught for more than 30 years in junior high schools and at the University of Notre Dame for freshman football players. Through her podcast, teaching, and coaching, MJ helps people build calmer lives, stronger relationships, and healthier communities.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support. 

Transcript

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MJ Murray Vachon LCSW 0:00

I think when we apply the word different to one of our children, It can be terrifying. Welcome to creating Midlife Calm, a podcast dedicated to empowering midlife minds to overcome anxiety, stop feeling like crap and become more present with your family, all while achieving greater success at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensed clinical social worker with over 48, 000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching mental wellness. Welcome to the podcast. By the end of this episode, you will have learned the seven stages that parents go through when helping their child navigate physical, mental, learning, or social differences. You will also understand the common emotions associated with each stage and discover actions that can help you successfully move through this stage so that you can help this child that you love so much. I'm so excited to debut my new podcast, Creating Midlife Calm. The stress and anxiety of this life stage can be overwhelming, draining our energy and making it hard for us to enjoy what should be the best years of our life. This podcast is your guide to easing midlife anxiety and discovering a deeper sense of calm. A few weeks ago, the internet was buzzing about Gus Walz, the son of vice president nominee, Tim and his wife, Gwen. Perhaps you have seen the many takes of Gus during the Democratic Convention. He was overflowing with emotion and pride towards his father. What makes Gus unique isn't just the usual social media storm after such an event, but rather the interview his parents did with People magazine, stating that their brilliant son is who he is because of his differences. This got me to thinking that a podcast talking about what parents go through as they navigate a child who has differences might be of use to many of you out there listening. I'm going to be honest, I don't really think I can find a word that isn't triggering. For some people, different is triggering. For others, the word neurodivergent is triggering. For others, handicapped is triggering. So for our conversation today, I'm going to start with the word difference and move to the word challenge or challenges. Early on, I think we tend to think Ooh, something about how my child is doing this or something about how my child is seems different, but once we get farther down the path and we have more clarity as to what is going on in our child and what our child needs, we often begin to think in the term of challenge or challenges. I think when we apply the word different to one of our children, It can be terrifying.

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What I want to do on today's podcast is move the terror that one can feel when there's an inkling inside of us that we think, ooh, my child might be a little different. Developmentally, is this child on track? Why isn't this child talking? Why isn't this child walking? Why is this child not interested in other children? these kinds of thoughts can feel so scary to a parent. This is something that I have had to work with personally and professionally. I've experienced it in my family. And one of the things that I guarantee you is if you stand at the beginning of this path, a path that in honesty, you have not chosen to be on, and commit yourself to learning about it so you can eventually get to the place where your terror moves to a deep understanding, compassion, and embracing of what life is asking of you and your child, you will be amazed at how it transforms who you are as a person, and how you're able to support and help your child navigate this path that is their unique journey in life. But that is the ending. So how do we start? Because one thing I know for sure, because I have been to a ton of baby showers is few of us expect this. Have you ever been to a baby shower where someone gets a book on nonverbal learning disabilities, or a cookbook on how to feed a child with ADHD? I doubt it. We begin where we all begin, as parents who have hopes and dreams for our children, and parents who are surprised when those hopes and dreams are threatened by something that we never could have expected: a difference. Let me begin to share with you the seven stage path that I have experienced with many of my clients, my loved ones, and some of my friends. This path is not linear. In actuality, it's winding and sometimes it's a spiral. It starts, it stops, sometimes you feel lost, and sometimes you feel like you're surrounded by clarity and understanding. We go through these different stages again and again throughout our child's lifetime. For some people, this path begins at birth. For others, it's when their child is two. Sometimes it's when a child goes to kindergarten and sometimes even in high school. There's no actual start date for this path. This path often starts with a little gut feeling that something about my child doesn't feel in the normal range. And because the range of normal is pretty big, this initial realization, I call it, can come as a surprise. Sometimes this is shared by one of the parents, maybe a teacher, perhaps a grandparent. is at this time that the parent begins to realize that they are at a fork in the road. Do we lean into the path where we seek to understand the child's difference or do we lean into the path of minimalization and denial? This stage, which I call the fork in the road, the emotions are often fear, a little shock and lots of confusion. The initial reactions often are looking at what a child does right. I know my child isn't doing this, but look at all these other things that my child is doing. Understanding that child development is not an exact science. Children do develop with different abilities and different skills within a normal range of time. And most parents say, let's give this concern a little time. This is not unusual. And this can be fine in this initial stage, the fork in the road, where parents often have some resistance to trying to understand the difference. Sometimes there's even anger. Sometimes there's blame at whoever was the messenger that asks the parent to consider that their child might need some help in a particular area. This is normal, not always easy, especially if you're the teacher or the grandparent or the loved one, asking the parents to consider that their child might be struggling in a particular area. But somebody has to be the person to say, I love this child, If someone says that to you as a parent, or if you have to say that to someone, and it's not met with open arms see that as normal. It takes a while for parents to move from their fear, their terror, their concerns, and then to move into action. What do I do if I have some parents in my office and they're leaning into denial or minimalization? I ask them to do something really simple. I ask them to sit with the fear, to sit with the terror, and just befriend it. This internal fear of what if my child is not on the normal path. is not an easy thing to sit with. Actually, I've had clients say to me, MJ, I could only sit with it for about a minute. A minute is great. One of the things I can say is that it's okay as a parent to take a little bit of time to acclimate to the possibility that this difference might be something you need to look into. Even for those parents that I have worked with who clearly said, Oh, This makes sense because someone else in my family has this, or the other parent has this problem. I ask them to do the same. I ask them just to sit for a couple times a week and hold the fear, and then when they come back the next week, I ask them to talk to me about what they're afraid of. And what's so interesting is the answers are always consistent. Most parents, when sitting with the fear that maybe their child's development is not unfolding in a normal way, go to the worst possible outcome. What if my two year old, whose speech is delayed, never talks? What if my junior high student, who isn't able to read, can't go to college? That's just how the human brain works. There's absolutely nothing wrong with our initial reaction of catastrophizing. The problem is, if we don't get some guidance on how to move from catastrophizing into a more neutral place, We're going to be too afraid to face the reality and begin the process of trying to find appropriate assessments for our child so we can begin to understand at a deeper level what is going on. When our brain catastrophizes, if we can have the discipline to gently hold all of those thoughts that are ruminating as the worst possible outcomes and just breathe through them, our brain will do its job. Our fears will lessen and a voice will come into our mind that says, Wait. Lots of kids struggle with reading, learn how to read successfully and go to college. Yes, we need to tend that fear so we can befriend it. And in befriending it, we move to the second stage that I call facing the reality. Using the metaphor that we're on a path and that the path begins in a dark place. Facing the reality is actually picking up a flashlight and turning it on. As parents, we begin to explore what this difference means. We begin to ask doctors. We begin to ask other knowledgeable people who might help us to get an assessment. The one place I would recommend you limit going to is Dr. Google. What I have experienced personally and professionally is when we turn to Dr. Google, we end up with such a wide field of terror that we actually get lost in being able to schedule the appointment, find the right professionals, and seek the appropriate assessment. So what's a parent to do? Because all of this takes time, and this is the second part of facing reality, being on the dark and narrow path where we don't understand where we're going, and the one thing anxiety does not like, is waiting. Anxiety likes certainty, and this stage, facing the reality, asks us to be patient, asks us to hold the uncertainty. In this stage, we find professionals. Many people start with their family doctor, their pediatrician, and they find the professionals who can do the appropriate assessment. What often happens in this stage is that the fear moves to sadness. Once you talk to a professional and they concur, yes, your instincts, are actually true, this opens the door to grief. The problem at this stage is we don't really know completely what we're grieving. But we have a better idea, and this, of course, makes us sad. Sometimes the catastrophic thinking returns, and this is not an easy emotional state for any of us. One of the things I encourage people to do is to to write down their fears. Because the power of things that we ruminate on in our mind is lessened the minute we write it down and it is outside of us. At this stage, find a friend, a trusted confidant, go to a therapist, ask someone to listen to you, not to fix you. This is a long journey and there's really no fix. What one does if you have a child who has differences is you are on the road and it's unfolding in ways that you can't even anticipate. Some that are difficult. Many that are hopeful and joyful that allow everyone in the family to grow and to learn so much that we would not have had access to without this special child. So we're looking for a traveling companion. Sometimes, it can be the other parent, but we also have to assess that very accurately because each parent has to go through their own process. One of the beautiful things that I see happen in my office is when we're allowed to be extreme, have our fears, our catastrophic thinkings, our brain will move back to the middle. In this second stage where we've chosen to face the reality, we have a small flashlight in our hand and the path is still narrow and dark. We're doing our inner work, trying to calm our fears and not let them grow into catastrophic thinking. And this lays the foundation for this next stage where we're now gathering information, getting assessments and seeking the appropriate interventions. Anyone who's been on this path knows that this third stage is not always easy. Trying to find the professionals, trying to wait out the wait lists can be very difficult. My biggest piece of advice to you is just get appointments, even if they're six months out. One of the things I always recommend is that when the wait lists are long, call every Monday and see if there's been any cancellations. I have had many of my clients find earlier appointments when they have done this. During this stage after the assessment has been completed, you'll be gathering information and support as to what actually needs to be done to help your child. That's where the little flashlight actually turns in to a bigger flashlight and you begin to see the road ahead with a bit more clarity. In this stage, You begin to do the work to better understand your child's condition from your child's point of view. The first two stages, a lot of what the parents work is understanding their child's condition from their point of view. It's really normal for parents in the grief work to deal with the sadness that this is going to cost a lot of money. This is going to cost a lot of time. This is not what I thought parenting would be. This is really important pre work that all families need to do in order to come to this third stage where gathering information, getting the assessment, and figuring out the interventions in order to be able to put a plan into action to treat whatever your child's difference is. One of the beautiful things I see when parents step into this path is many evolve in beautiful ways. Let me give you an example of a mom I worked with whose child had ADHD. In this family, the husband also had ADHD, so it really wasn't realistic for the dad to be the primary support for this child with ADHD. This mom, high functioning, Incredibly organized, from my point of view, was a dream parent for this particular child because it was very easy for her to set up systems, to hold him accountable, and to have structure. The problem was it wasn't natural for her to have fun with this. So what she really learned was to lean into her strengths of organization and follow through, but to access this whole other part of herself. of how does she organize? How does she have follow through with a spirit of fun and love and openness? So her son didn't feel like he'd enrolled in the army. At the end of this process, she said to me, I feel like I did when I was a little kid, I've accessed this joyful part of me and this process that at first I saw as so difficult has really connected my son and I. This third stage, one of gathering information, assessment and support, helps the light become brighter and parents get the resources and create a structure that begins to engage with their child's differences more constructively. This leads to the next stage, which I call the rest stop. The reason it's a rest stop is we've moved from the initial fears, to the decision to move ahead and learn about the difference and getting the correct assessment has been done. Now for the first time, the family has a better idea of what they are dealing with. It's at this time that I asked the family to take a little bit of time out to let their emotional and structural processes within the family catch up to the diagnosis and to what is being asked of the diagnosis. Let me share with you one of my favorite stories of a family that I worked with who brought their son to therapy because he was depressed. It soon became apparent to me that the one thing that was really depressing this kid was he could not read. The parents, both college professors, were more than eager to have him read. I referred him to a woman I had incredible confidence in, and she soon found out that this young man had dyslexia. In this stage, the rest stop, after the treatment plan has been created, I sat with the parents and I said to them, Now we know it's dyslexia. Now you have the information you need to go forward. I want you just to take a pause. I want you to stop and I want you to catch up with where are you at emotionally. The dad said this to me when we first began this, all I could think about was me, how much time is this going to take? How much money is this going to cost? Will he be able to go to college? This can be embarrassing. After all, I'm a college professor. But now that I've allowed myself to have those feelings, I've moved through much of the sadness just by sitting with it. Breathing through it, not being ashamed of basic human reactions to hard things. For six and a half years, my son has gone to school with dyslexia. That is really hard. He has a fortitude and a perseverance that I never had at his age. I look at him now with such respect, and now I have a fire in my belly. I want to be someone who helps him figure this out. Yes, the Rest Stop is to help people update where they're at emotionally. And it's not just the parents who have to process their emotions, it's also the child. And this is not always easy, because children do not have adult understanding. You might be dealing with a 2 year old, a 5 year old, or a 16 year old, where many of their emotions around this will be frustration and anger. Not always, but often. Often, what we as parents have to do is we have to be the ones to open our arms wide and allow our children to share their frustration. Remember, most children will move through their emotions in about 90 seconds. As long as we can have open arms and we can be with them instead tamping down on their emotions by giving them some logical reason why they don't need to be frustrated. If you want more information on this, check out my earlier podcasts, 46 and 47 on emotional regulation. The father had grown a lot and was in a much more peaceful place when it came to helping his son, but the son did not have a lot of peace. Remember, this is a 7th grade boy who has just learned he has dyslexia. I needed to do a number of sessions with him, where he could find words for his frustration and his anger at his parents. To put it succinctly, he said to me, how could smart people be so dumb? He is in 7th grade and his dyslexia had not been diagnosed at an earlier time, which in his head would have made his life so much easier. Part of what I did was help him find words for his anger and help him sit with his parents and share his anger, which in session turned into sadness, where he cried openly with his parents and then shared his concerns and his worries of how was he going to go back and learn to read again with this particular diagnosis? What was really helpful for this young man in the session is that the parents updated him on what they had learned. And for the first time, they were all on the path together, having taken a rest stop to update one another on all that they knew, emotionally, and intellectually. it was intense initially, but at the end of the session, they were at a new stage of being a team with one another. The Rest Stop doesn't ask families just to update emotionally. I also ask families to update structurally. What do I mean by this? These interventions often cost time and money and families really need this rest stop to say, now how do we restructure our lives so we're not living on the edge? My experience is many families forget to do this part. They just add on the responsibilities of, treating the difference instead of looking at the whole picture and say, we're stepping into these new responsibilities. What are some things that we need to let go of? There's no right or wrong way to do this, but let me share with you a few things that families I've worked with have done that have made a difference. Sometimes finances are a real stretch in order to get appropriate help I've worked with families that have not contributed to to college funds for a period of time and use that money. I've had families not go on vacation or lessen the types of vacations that they take. The point I'm trying to make is there's no right way, but it is essential that you look at the whole picture of your family's finances and figure out how to meet the needs necessary and where to take the funds from instead of adding and going into debt. Also, Time. How do families figure out the time piece, whether it's running to doctor's appointments, to therapy appointments, or to tutoring appointments. I've had families get really clever. Sometimes schools actually have the resources for this. Families often rely on grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, in order to lessen the demands. I usually say to families, let's learn from the example of when a family has a child with an illness. So many people step in to help. People are often really willing to help, we just need families to ask for assistance, because sometimes when a child has a difference, what really makes things better in the long run is intensive intervention early on. And that often can't be something that the nuclear family can just do by themselves. At the same time, the parents have to help the siblings understand what is going on. That can be a piece that is often forgotten. I usually encourage the family to bring the siblings in and I meet with them and the parents separately and then we do a family session together. Though I've had lots of families just do this around the kitchen table, it's an update that what we say is we are a family that meets our children's needs heads on. If you need new cleats for soccer, we'll figure it out. If you've broken your arm, we'll get you to a doctor. If you have dyslexia, we're going to treat it. Whatever is a need in the family, we will always treat. Can't promise that we get to everybody's wants, but we will always get to everybody's needs. And this is your sibling's turn to get their need met. I want you to have comfort, I want you to have certainty that when it's your turn to get a need met, we will face it head on. The rest stop families update their emotions and they restructure their time and their finances. And they really help everybody in the family be on board and in the same place. What happens next is the fifth stage, embracing the path. Because of all the previous work, there's a shift in perspective. Because of the assessment, there's a clarity in what everyone needs to work on. The path begins to widen. The flashlights are replaced with streetlights, and the parents can see the strengths and uniquenesses in their child's differences. They recognize, ah, this is the path that we're on. Though unexpected, this path has beauty and value. I remember reading an essay by a teen who was applying for National Honor Society. She had severe learning disabilities and she had to have a lot of help order to do school well. Obviously, if she was nominated for National Honor Society, she had been successful. Her essay talked about that these learning differences made her more compassionate, more kind, and gave her courage to reach out. to other kids who are different. That's the shift in perspective that we see in this fifth stage along the path. The path is embraced. The emotions are more accepting. There's a sense of pride and opening up the heart, not just to oneself, but towards others who struggle. This is where some parents choose to step into advocacy, or at least they'd love to step into advocacy, but their lives might not have the time. They begin to celebrate differences. Embrace their child's journey and support it wholeheartedly. They find groups and other organizations that are doing the same. And many children as they get into junior high and high school, look for groups that they can also. be part of. I have had quite a few clients who are diabetic. They felt the pain and the struggle of being diabetic and how different that made them feel to their peers. One of the amazing experiences that many of them had that shifted this feeling of other was going to a camp with other diabetics and sharing what it feels like to not be able to go out after a football game and eat whatever you want, not be able to go to a bar in college and get drunk. One of my clients said to me, It's funny how I used to hate being diabetic, but going to this camp opened the door for me to meet a lot of wonderful people and now I know I want to be a nurse who works with diabetes. This path is not linear. Sometimes it moves forward, sometimes it moves backwards, and sometimes it's actually a spiral where you once again have to figure out what your child will need for the next stage of their journey. But at this stage, embracing the path, the parents and the children are walking together. Again, I don't mean this in a way that isn't age and stage appropriate. The way that Teenage parents walk through this path, it's going to be very different than grade school parent and child. What I mean is that at least everyone understands how the difference impacts the child's life and the resources and the support are given as needed. Let me share with you one of my favorite stories. I had a young man who was a client who desperately wanted to study German in high school. His parents had come from Germany and this was something he always wanted to do. But once he got into the class, he realized his learning disability made German unbearable, almost impossible for him. He was so sad and he really struggled. He wondered, should he just stay and get a C or D? Or should he accept that his particular learning disability was going to close some doors for him? He went back and forth, and I have to hand it to the school, and I have to hand it to his parents. This is what happened. His school guidance counselor said to his parents, If you would, step back and let your child and I move through this for the next month. The guidance counselor said to him, take a month in German and at the end of the month, if you feel like you shouldn't be in this class, you can drop it because you have enough credits to graduate. He spent a month in the class and he went back and forth. Each week in therapy, he would give me an update. And then at week four, he came to this realization. He could stay in the class, do the homework, and probably get a C, but he wouldn't be able to retain the information. Week after week, whatever he learned, he would forget. So he went to his guidance counselor and he said, It's best if I drop this class. Together, they looked at the curriculum, and he went to a large public high school that had a woodworking class, and she said, Why don't you go to woodworking? He started woodworking, and guess what he learned? He wasn't very good at German, but he was really good with a hammer and nail. Because his parents stepped out of the way, he had this incredible experience in this, Sixth stage of walking together, but this time he wasn't walking with his parents, he was walking with a school guidance counselor who really gave him the patience to explore and to understand on his own terms that he could not do this. One of the things that I thought was so interesting about this is that the fear of grades never entered in. Because the guidance counselor said, give it a try, he made the decision that it wasn't about getting a C that was a problem, it was that he'd be doing all this work and it wasn't sticking in his brain. What a beautiful outcome that he was going to leave a class with an object he made. The final stage that I want to share with you, stage 7, is what I call The Open Horizon, where we see the future with hope. The path has been well trodden. The path is understood. It is not necessarily easy, but there's an acceptance, and there's a knowledge of what is needed in order to continue to move forward at a pace that works for the child. There's also, The acceptance that just like children who don't have this particular difference, there'll be obstacles, opportunities, and surprises that none of us can anticipate. At this stage, the open horizon, is a future of hope. People have come to terms with letting go of what they thought their child might do, be it sports, be it school, be it music, be it a social butterfly. Parents have let go of that, and have really understood that each child, has their own unique life. And each is beautiful, especially when we let go of what we wanted and step in to what is.

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Thanks for listening. In this episode, I've given you the seven stages that are common for parents and children to move through while navigating physical, mental, learning, or social differences. I also discussed the common emotions that we feel and the importance of working through them so we can have the courage and the energy to move into the actions that help you and your child face these challenges head on. Thanks for listening, and here are my Inner Challenge insights. Insight number one. The path of difference often reveals emotions we didn't even know existed within us. We are wired to love and protect our children, and at times, this journey will confront us with injustice and ignorance that can be oh so painful. When people know better, They often do better. Be the person who leans into helping people know better. Insight number two. Check out the link that will take you to a concise outline of the seven stages described in this episode, along with their common emotions and helpful actions. Pinpoint where you are, celebrate how far you've come, and prepare for where you need to go next. Insight number three. Sometimes this path can feel lonely. And it may be hard to get your child or other loved ones on board. I'll be back on Thursday with a 10 minute episode discussing this difficult yet common inner challenge. Won't you join me? This is your inner challenge.