The Gift of Failure: Encouraging Independence in Our Kids with Disabilities

Episode Summary:
In this episode, I sit down with K. Crystal Griffith to discuss the importance of giving our children the opportunity to grow, learn, and develop independence—especially when raising kids with disabilities. We dive into the fears many parents face, the importance of allowing our kids to fail as a stepping stone to success, and how to navigate the delicate balance of supporting them without overstepping. Crystal shares her personal experiences, valuable resources, and words of encouragement for parents walking this journey.

Key Takeaways:

• The Power of Hope: As parents, we need hope, and so do our children. Believing in their abilities and potential is crucial for their growth.
• Letting Them Learn: It’s natural to want to protect our kids from failure, but allowing them to stumble helps them build resilience and confidence.
• The Gift of Failure: Inspired by the book The Gift of Failure, we discuss why failure isn’t something to fear but a necessary part of the learning process.
• Encouraging Independence: Finding the balance between guidance and letting them make their own choices is key to fostering self-advocacy.
• Parental Growth: Our children often absorb more than we realize—even when they push back against our coaching or advice.
• Finding Joy in the Journey: Parenting a child with disabilities comes with unique challenges, but it also brings moments of joy and deep connection that many parents don’t experience.

Guest Information:
Crystal Griffith is a passionate advocate for parents raising children with disabilities. She provides community, support, and resources through her work with Medical Mom Warriors. 

Connect with Crystal: https://linktr.ee/kcrystalgriffith.com

Resources Mentioned:

• The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey
• Crystal’s membership community for parents seeking advocacy and support

Final Words of Encouragement:
Crystal reminds us to hold onto hope, embrace the unexpected moments, and find joy even in difficult situations.

Free Gift from Crystal - A printable Acrostic is available that corresponds to her Chapter Seasonal Purpose in the Women of Purpose Book.

https://linktr.ee/kcrystalgriffith.com

Live with Intention and Embrace the Journey!

Connect with me:

Valerie's Links: https://bit.ly/3RL0da2

Music Acknowledgement: Audio Coffee - Denys Kyshchuk

Editor: Scott Arbeau

Link for book: The S.H.I.N.E. Principle: The special needs mom's path to strength, hope and happiness by Valerie Arbeau

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CW18ZXGX (Canada)

https://a.co/d/03hFdZI4 (United States)

Learn more about your host at:
https://coachingwithvalerieanne.com/

Transcript

We have such a huge, huge population of those on the spectrum, level one, mild level two, and I do phrase it that way on purpose, that could live in a home together independently in their own space, sharing a bathroom, sharing some common areas and just needing some type of oversight resident advisor style college. And I think they could be a lot more independent than what we see at the moment. 

Welcome everyone. So glad you are here. I'd like to introduce you to our guest for today, K. Crystal Griffith. She is a Jesus loving, sweet tea drinking, resonance woman empowering medical mom warriors with health, healing, and hope, advocating for them and the medically complex kiddos to thrive. Crystal walks with her clients through deployments, life threatening allergies, autoimmune diseases, cancer, brain injuries, concussion, marriage difficulties, abuse, PTSD, reactive attachment disorders, generational traumas, spectrum disorders, and all things that go bump in the night. These and many more have influenced Crystal’s life directly as well.

Crystal is a certified heart healing practitioner, business coach, and medical advocate supporting medical mamas to advance their reach through personal experiences.

Crystal, her beautifully creative, humorous, horse loving 19-year-old daughter, and her superhero service dog make their home in the Rockies, at least for the moment. With them, there's always an adventure waiting just around the bend.

So welcome Crystal!

Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm looking forward to this.

Yes, you are so very welcome. And so am I. All right, Crystal, I start off my podcast episodes with the same question. What is one unique thing about you?

I think the biggest thing lately is about travel. So I have actually been to I think it's 45 of the 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. And not a whole lot of people can say that. We've also been to, I think we're in the triple digits of national parks as well. And so it's always an exciting adventure. We like to travel by car we load up, the dog has his own suitcases. The child has her 14 suitcases and I'm over here with a backpack going I'm just going to drive. Like, stop when we get there.

Love it. Love it. Tell us a little about your special needs mom journey.

So mine started actually well before I got pregnant. I actually had a TBI from a car accident and they told me if I ever got pregnant, I would probably stroke out and die. It's a great wakeup call at 22. And so then from there, I just kind of left it in the Lord's hands and said, well, Lord, we had this conversation in the sixth grade that I just wanted to be a grandma. You could bypass motherhood. Like, I'm not quite sure how it's going to work now that I'm a little older and I understand this process, but okay, I'm just going to leave it in your hands. So when I did get married and it took almost 10 years and basically two failed adoptions, as many things as you can think of. We were just shy of IVF and I was prayed for in a class that my ex and I were running at the time. And a week later, I went to go see the actual gentleman who created the first test tube baby ever. He was older than dirt, literally. And he goes, “Hey, I want to do one more test. I've looked at all your scans. I see that your tubes are completely blocked, but, let's just run this one test”. And he goes, “No, you're good. Go home, have babies”. Six months later, I was pregnant after 10 years.

At nine months on the outside, she decided to go anaphylactic to egg. And so that then became what we now know as medically complex special needs in a variety of ways. She now has, I think we're up to 24 diagnoses. She's 19. And there are several rare ones attached to her. She's my little walking unicorn. She always liked them. We understand it. One of those diagnosis would also call her a zebra. Good thing she likes animals. We call her many animal names. 

Wow. Wow. That sounds like it's been quite the journey, Crystal. Oh, my goodness. Even before this child was conceived, there was stuff going on. And I'm just I'm just trying to imagine because I have to have had gynecological stuff and people putting their hands where I'd rather they didn't. And yes, so I can certainly appreciate the medical side of things. My issue was not quite the same as yours. I had fibroids and I thought I only had the one fibroid. Turns out I had six fibroids. And the biggest one was on the interior wall of my uterus, which meant once they removed it, that I was not to go through labor. So my children were to be C sections.

My C - section was at 2.28 on the 19th. The next morning at about 7 a.m…was that Almost 30 hours? They finally go, “Oh, you haven't been out of the bed yet”.

Oh, gosh.

So the nurse, God bless her. I just have to say that in the kindest way, pulls me out of the bed and you can feel this line of stitches rip interiorly. 

Oh, oh.

And the fire that then took over my stomach did not go well for me. 

Oh!

They couldn’t do anything. They're like, well, it'll heal eventually. So when we went to the pediatric doctor, within four days, my sister was in town with me and we walk in and he's like “Who's the mom?”. I'm like, yeah, that'd be me. The drugged lady. I don't even know my name. “OK, bad C-section”. I'm like, let's just not have that conversation right now. Talk to me next week when I'm out of this moment.

Great. Oh, my goodness. Welcome to motherhood. Oh, dear me. It sounds like it was quite the entrance into the world and yes, the after effects of the drugs and things. Mm hmm. It doesn't sound like it was fun for you, but I'm glad you’re through it, Crystal. You have survived. You have kept your child alive and you managed to get through the Rockies and tour here, there and everywhere and 45 states out of 50.

All right, Crystal, your daughter's 19. My youngest is 19. My oldest is 22. So we're kind of in the same sort of era here of raising our children as they mature and start exhibiting traits of independence. Can you share what you would like the future for your daughter to hold regarding living arrangements?

You know, that's such a great question because before I can answer that, I want to address expectations, you know, or many of your audience, they might not be at the place that they realize how much is different for us as medically complex moms. And those expectations that we have of raising your child and they perform and dance or sports those expectations. And then the expectations of even being invited to birthday parties and expectations of having close knit friends. And I always bought houses with the intention that I was going to be the neighborhood house and the pool table and the foosball and the pool and those expectations. Right. And so then as they get older, life just looks so much different because you realize they're different and they interact differently. And so that independence when you think they're shipping off to college, right? So my sister has two boys that stair step my daughter. Her oldest is now a firefighter. So he didn't go off to college, right? He went to the fire academy. And then my kiddo came along and she’s super smart. She has what's called “twice gifted”. So she has this Mensa IQ so she can talk to you like on the college level more. And then she, of course, has her hormonal 19-year-old age. We just won't even touch that dream. And then we have the whole emotional state and she is probably five years behind on that. So, 16, 17 is kind of the high end of that emotional state for her. Because she was super smart, I knew I had to get her into some college. So, she actually graduated with her associates four days before she got her high school diploma, which is amazing.

So she had a college degree. That was ultimately part of my goal and shift in helping her obtain her independence as much as we could get going down that track. Right?

What I realized out of partially COVID because she had a number of very chaotic unexpected health crises happen. Some related to COVID others not related at all. And I realized, you know, my expectations of what that independence to college looks like is changing very, very rapidly. So, she's an online college student, has been pretty much the whole time, even for her associates. She did go to a few in person classes, and I would drive her because one of her health conditions is called Penn seizures, non-epileptic seizures, and so she can't drive, get her driver's license. And, so, I would take her to the college, I would sit in the car, or I'd go to their library, do my work, my coaching, my strategy sessions, and then we come back home. And so, at the point that she achieved those things, she could see for herself, she could get there. Mind you, she went to 4.0. She was young, again, that emotional young impulsivity. And then I don't think COVID did any of our students any support or help with school education homework, right? So, she didn't really understand how to study for things. And that was hard as a person who's taught at the college level for 30 years myself. I'm like, well, I can do this, this and this? And of course, now mom's telling her how to do things. So now we have instant dissension. God bless them. You know, moms know nothing until we're about 35, I guess, or they're 35, I should say. So realizing that she probably wouldn't be independent as much as I had hoped or thought caused me to begin to think how do I support her in that independence. And that's why I'm so glad you and I connected just to share ideas and strategies and thoughts because we have such a huge, huge population of those on the spectrum, level one, mild level two, and I do phrase it that way on purpose, that could live in a home together independently in their own space, sharing a bathroom, sharing some common areas and just needing some type of oversight resident advisor style college. And I think they could be a lot more independent than what we see at the moment.

So that's kind of one of my goals is heading that direction. We call it co-living. And the more and more medical necessity that she has, (sigh) those expectations again, have to change and shift a little more to realize we're similar to what you have probably shared with your audience, where you have a medical staff available to them 24/7, you know, what does that look like? Just the other night, 2am, she came to me and she had hives everywhere and we still don’t know why. So, those things to be able, so we're testing some theories around that. I have moved from the Rockies to the East Coast close to my folks. I want her to know them and I want them to really get to know her. And so I'm going to be speaking more in person doing some touring, which allows them the opportunity to come in a support for her and her to also identify how do I handle some of these things independently? What's my backup plans? What's a 911 call? What's not? What happens if I can't get out of the bed? And how do I address that? And who do I call? You know, walking through all those processes. That's a lot of information for them their brain. They're overwhellment.

Yeah.

So, it’s different expectations. You know, some people will tell you the best expectation that you can have is none. And I don’t find that to be helpful. Like the reality is we're human beings. And we do have some expectations. We do need to be open to adjustments. And, you know, your audience and, you know, my clients, my followers, we, you know, we're, you know, we're going to be open to adjustments. And so, you know, those in the special needs, medically complex realm, realize those have to be on the fly sometimes, right? And going with the flow, that used to be my old mantra of just “going with the flow”. Like whatever that flow today looks like. I'm along for the ride. Give me an inner tube. Give me a good Coke. Give me some good music. Let's go down the river, right? So, I think that's the long-winded answer to your question, but I think we covered a number of things in there.

Yeah. Just backing up for a second. You're sort of explaining to us what you had wanted to see for your daughter, Katie. And then having to shift that. And I think sometimes that's where we can get hung up because we have in our head, you know, if we've decided to think about what the future might look like for our children, then you kind of, you know, make that plan. And sometimes it's very difficult to shift because now it's like, Oh, okay. So things are not what I thought they were. When you brought in the fact that there's a little more medical complexity to Kate right now. So we may need to look and see how that's going to shift. Just curious, what does Kate think about all this? What are her hopes?

She definitely does not want to live with mom for the rest of her life. You know, 

I was just wondering.

Like, who does? In reality, right? You know, it used to be when they were little dancing on dad's toes, you know, Oh, you're, I'm going to marry daddy. And I'm like, okay, here he is. Have at her!!! 

But, you know, we have a very different relationship. It's very Gilmore Girls style. The reality is, I have to keep her laughing in a humorous mode so she doesn't lose her mind at times.

And that's, that's a full-time job. There are days where this week alone, she's like, Mom, I just need to sleep. I've been up all night, or my oxygen cord got wrapped around me or, you know, whatever that looks like. And, so again, making plans on the fly, expectation shift and change. You know, we were going to go this weekend to something I knew she wanted to go to, which was see some horses on a new horse farm, look at volunteering there. They were having an event. Well, we woke up to 40 and very rainy and she had a hard night and okay, we're not going. You know, and, and when you make friends and you have a circle of friends, them understanding if she calls and said, “Hey, I can't do something with you.” And then being full of grace and mercy around us and not taking it personally. That's really hard for what I would call “normals”, not “spoonies”, right? Spoonies get it. Spoonies are like, you know, in case your audience doesn't know what a normal versus a spoonie is, a spoonie is somebody who has to count their spoons. Everybody has a certain number of spoons for energy for their task for the day. And it's called the spoon theory. And so if you've already used up half your spoons, just waking up, we already have issues. Right? And so spoonies understand that and they're like, Hey, totally got it. I'll make the call next time. You know, totally not taking it personally. But those who have all of their spoons in the morning and they're up and they're feeding their kids and they're getting their kids to wherever they need to go. And they've got a full day plan and they're working on the business and you know, and they don't have all those derailments of taking care of somebody who doesn't have a full deck of spoonies. And they don't really understand some of those things. 

So that brings other challenges, I think, for moms of medically complex kiddos. And part of those spoonie things for her is the reality of how much can I actually do on my own.

Right.

And as much as she would like to be in her own house, technically she would like a farm with like 12 horses and 89 dogs and I'm like, who's feeding them? Like, is there a money tree I don't know about? Have you hit the lottery because I drive you everywhere and we haven't gotten to get lottery tickets. Right? And you know, and then having these conversations with that capacity of saying, okay, your life looks radically different. You're not going to be able to hold a nine to five job. I couldn't hold one after my car accident. Like I got that totally. So now you have to be like being by default an entrepreneur because you don't have any other choice. You still got to make money. You still got to make bills. So what does that look like? So she and I talk a lot about different businesses because I've been in that space for 30 plus years. And she's got amazing ideas. And then, okay, how do you follow through on those? Because our kiddos on the spectrum have that, you know, prefrontal cortex issue of executive processing. 

Yes. Right.

So, you know, kiddo, you could just sketch the design because you sketch, or you could buy this machine that will make the t-shirts. All right. Because then we as moms, we want them to succeed. We want them to be as independent as possible. Right? So we're willing to go into debt. That's the reality of that conversation. We are willing to go into debt. Anything to keep our kid alive. Case in point, me. And then we will find we are researchers. Holy moly. We deserve our doctorate in research.

Crystal, so, what does advocacy look like for you?

I think the biggest thing is being able to speak up. And oftentimes we think when we're in a room with those who do have doctor, official medical doctor in front of their name, right? We have to defer to them and they went to med school, right? So they must have all the answers. Well, the reality of that conversation is they don't. They've met your kid for five minutes or less, if less than that and, they are going by a textbook, which is for normal people, which I do not have any normal people in my household. So, you know, I remember we took her in, she had a pretty severe gut reaction to something and it was pretty severe. We actually did not know at the time. It was probably a cyst rupturing. So, we're taking her in and we're talking to the doctor. And this is one of those times that I don't think I acted on my advocacy as well. And I want to share the story on purpose because the doctor came in and he looked at her gut and he looked at, they did a CT. They're like, there's nothing wrong with her. I'm like, we do not have 10 level pain and screaming bloody murder on the floor unless there's an issue. And he says to me, he goes, “You know, I have a two year old at home“ and he's like, “so when she's complaining of a tummy ache, just bring her a new toy and suddenly that tummy ache goes away”. 

Oh.

And I looked at him and I said, you think a level 10 pain is going to go away if I just distract my child? He goes, “Well, yeah”. And about that time I looked at my kid and she just tears are streaming. She's hearing this. And he's saying it right in front of her. He didn't pull me into the hallway or nothing. And okay. And we had been there for nine hours at that point. It was like craziness. And they'll look at us and like, there is literally nothing we can do. This is not life or death. And she's not bleeding out. And I pushed back and I actually had a doctor come back and go, “OK, let me see what I can do”. And he came back. He said, we're going to admit you”. I said, “I think that's the best answer in this scenario because you're asking me to take home my kid with a level 10 pain. She's throwing up. And you want me to handle that at home with a heating pad and a bucket? No, No.”

Yeah.

And so we got admitted.

So, I think the biggest thing that we as moms have to learn very, very quickly is we do have to speak up. And you don't have to be rude about it. There's nothing that I said that was disrespectful to them. It was stating, OK, so here are the options I'm coming from. If you have a different one, let me know. But right now, these are the two options I see. Going home is not the option. And we can do that.

Yeah. Just having the confidence, and I think we get sort of fearful because we still, I think, have that mentality that we put the medical professionals up there on a bit of a pedestal. And we feel that we don't have the same type of knowledge or the same type of education to be able to have a back and forth with them. And then often, depending on your doctors, they can kind of come down top-heavy on you and make you feel like you're so small. And so, yes, one of the things that I love to tell people as well, my clients and anybody else that I'm talking to, is write down your questions. Don't be afraid to ask them. Because-- and then the other thing as well that I always encourage people to do, make them talk to you in language you understand.

Absolutely.

 So, Crystal, how do you see you will need to advocate for the future you want for Kate?

That’s a great question. Because as you know, some of our children think they're a lot more independent than they actually are. So, they have to buy in to understanding that their ailments, diagnosis, are not their identity. That's a huge issue. Because if they can separate themselves away from that identity piece, right, who I am is not what I have going on in my life, right? They are very two different things. Then I think there's a better opportunity and prospect for them to be even more independent. My kiddo's not quite there yet. We do a lot of work around that. But she's not there. In many ways, she sees her identity completely wrapped up in 24 diagnoses. And the reality is, who wouldn't? I mean, it's 24 of them, right? That's craziness. I think in some of the things that she's had where she's lost her hearing, and so she had already started American Sign Language. And so, that was a good thing. So, she wanted to be an interpreter, which is great, you know, so we're going down that track. And then she hits a massive speed bump at a university that says, oh, you can't be in the sign language program if you are hearing impaired. Which derails everything, which is absolutely not true. But now my kiddo, who once there's a no, there's a grudge there, right? And so, then she shifts and changes, pivots, the 2020 word, right? She pivots into communication because there's still an ASL component and all these cool things. And so I think that independence is going to come. I think there's going to be a lot of structure of support, coaching. You know, when I went through my divorce, the judge took it as I was handholding too much. I was a helicopter parent. 

Oh. 

And we didn't have her autism diagnosis at the time. So, it was really hard to explain. No, you don't understand. She's sitting right in front of me doing her homework and I have to ask her 17 times if she's actually doing her homework. Because she's off in La La Land in red, right? So, this is not just I look out their parenting like there's something different about my kid than a normal kid. And we just didn't know it. And so, wanting that advocacy and even teaching her how to advocate. 

Yes. 

That's been huge, right? Like today she had her own conversation with the Medicaid guy because we've moved states. You have to set up everything again. And I was proud of her. I'm like, look at you go, girl. I didn't need to be on the call. She's like, you're going to be on the social security call, aren't you? Yes, I will be on the social security call. But we're making small inlays which is good. 

Yes. Well, I hope that you celebrated the heck out of that with her.

I think it's hope, you know, and we as moms need that hope and they need that hope and they need the assurance they can do it.

Well, and I think, Crystal, the biggest thing is for us as parents and maybe more so moms, we have to give them the opportunity. Because so very often we just want to do for them because we want to either save them embarrassment or save them shame or save them pain, whatever the case may be. So, we tend to, I know I was the same, and it took me having Melody Anne live in her own forever home to develop her own independence for me to be able to back off and just allow her to flourish. And so, with my younger child who still lives with us, it's a struggle. I struggle. But I've had to learn to back off. And if they make a mistake, that's how they learn. Failure is the road to success. When none of us ever get out the gate and succeed. It's going to be a process of learning one step into the next step, one foot in front of the other. And yes, we will fall down. But it's the beauty in being able to pick ourselves up, learn from it, take that experience, and then move forward to the next thing. So, I think that's one of the things that I just want to encourage our audience. If you're not already doing, please give your child the room to fall down, to, and I don't mean that literally, but to fail. But be there to scaffold and help build them back up again and let them help them to understand that it's okay to fail. There's nothing wrong with failing. I think that's the thing, right? When I was growing up, failure was, "Oh, no, you don't want to fail at nothing." But we can teach our children, and even our children with disabilities, that it's okay to fail because that's a stepping stone to success.

Absolutely. In fact, one of the books that they gave out in my kiddo's classical elementary school was The Gift of Failure. It was a book. So, I would encourage your audience to read out because even though it's dealing with it from an academic level, don't go in and expect an A when they did an F work, right? But I think that concept of that gift of failure for allowing them to fail and learn from it is so important because that's what's going to shape those neurons and dendrites in their head to then pick themselves up. And we come along as support mechanisms in there to say, "Okay, so what could we have done differently here? Let me hear your ideas." And then let them share those ideas. And then you go, "Okay, so do you want to hear a couple other things that I think maybe could have helped?" And allowing them the opportunity to say yes or no to that because we as moms, we have so much unsolicited advice. 

Oh, yeah.

And they might not be in a place to receive it. So, to make sure that so we ask those questions and, you know, now when they're five or six, get in there and change your clothes, right? You know, kind of thing. A little different. But as they're aging and maturing, we want to partner more with them, right? When they get to 13, 14, 15, 16, we're partnering with them so they can begin to make those better choices. And for yours and my kiddos, those were pivotal years during COVID Central, right? So that looks so different than what I would tell you a normal situation would look like where they're in school and they're continuing that school process with their friends and things. Like, so many things just changed in 2020 that I think we had to adjust many of our expectations even more so because of that.

Yeah, yeah. All right, Crystal, you have a wealth of information to share with parents on this journey of parenting a child with disabilities. What are some of the resources that you've utilized that you'd like to pass on to others?

I think really the biggest resource is looking for the ways that we can support our kids without pushing any agenda on them. Some of that comes in the form of health. I have become very holistic because she's allergic to pretty much everything. Finding ways to keep her alive and utilizing holistic tools and resources has become a huge part of our life.

She's now at the age that I can't force supplements on her. You know, she has to buy into that. So I think from that perspective, I told her I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to save myself the five or $600 a month, you know, on all of these supplements that have been keeping you alive, and you tell me which ones you'd like me to rebuy. I'm willing to do that piece, right?  So, she's down to, you know, maybe four or five. So, that makes my heart sad because I know she needs all the other ones, but again, that independence, trying to teach them how to advocate for themselves. What do you need? Are you going to take them? I can't tell you how many times I found vitamins hidden away in shoes and socks and the places this child could squirrel away her vitamins. 

Yeah. Yes, you know, I hear you. I hear you. And I believe that as we are maturing this age group, and particularly when they have an executive functioning debility that, just finding that sweet spot where they feel like they're independent, but are willing to sort of, you know, take a little, a little advice here and there or a suggestion. I won't say advice, a suggestion here and there. And I don't know, Crystal, if you found the same, but being a coach, my child will say to me, I don't want to be coached. Don't coach me. Don't coach me. So, I have to be really creative in how I make those suggestions and bring out conversation to kind of understand where they're at. But I believe that, as you said earlier, all our children want to have some level of independence, because as you said earlier too, they want to fit in. They want to do what the regular kids are doing. And so I think it's important to sort of, you know, take the time to listen to our children. And you and I are both talkers. So sometimes it's difficult to hush up the mouth long enough so that our children have the opportunity to say what's on their heart. But I, for myself, with my, our first one, is off and launched. Our youngest is not there yet. We had hoped by creating the space that we have for them, which is an independent space, that that would kind of kickstart them into, okay, getting a little more buy-in, as you say, is so important. And even though they were, and they did buy-in, though their executive functioning, they just weren't ready to take that leap. And so for us, it's been a journey. And I'm still on that journey of just trying to understand, encourage, create that structure of scaffolding to give them the confidence, number one, and to be able to get that independence. And so my hope is within the next six to 12 months, that we'll be able to transition for them.

You know, a lot of your audience is probably going, "Is that gonna be my journey?" as they hear you and I talk. It could look similar. It could look radically different.  They could, what I would call, snap out of it. And they're so independent and ready to go. I mean, I know somebody who's level 1 autistic, who became a lawyer and passed the bar in Florida.  Like could be that. I mean, that's amazing! And we celebrate all of them at every level that we have them. Right? 

Yeah. 

I think sometimes we're so used to the expectation of, okay, they'll graduate, they'll go to college, they're out of the house, they'll get married, they'll have a kid. We're so used to that thinking, which is the world's thinking, right? That we miss the unique opportunity and privilege to have a little more time with our kids. 

Yeah. 

A little more time to pour in. And they so listen to us. And as you're, as you're just, don't coach me, right? My poor kiddo, her dad is a psychologist. And then I'm the coach and the educator. So like, she's getting it from all sides. And so she'll just look at me like you're doing it again. I'm like, okay, not intentionally. So I have had to learn. It's just like you have. How do I reframe? How do I reward? But it's so cool because she will come and tell me these whole conversations that she's having with these two particular people who are struggling with a variety of things right now. I'll hear the advice that she told them. And I'm like, it got in. 

I hear you. I hear you. 

It might not be coming back to me, but it got in and it's going out. So I'll take it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Crystal, it has been a pleasure. I just want to know where do our audience go to find out more about you?

I would love to be in connection with them. The best way to do that is go to linktree. So that's LINKTREE forward slash my name, K Crystal Griffith dot com. And then that's just the letter K and then CRYSTAL GRIFFITH dot com. You'll have all of the social media stuff on there. You'll see the book that I'm in, and then all of the ways that I have spoken with people like yourself in those links, so they can check those out. And then they'll also see the membership that I have available, which is really, coordinating community for moms and a few dads here or there who need that support and advocacy.

Okay, cool. All right. So before we conclude our conversation, I'd love to hear some words of encouragement from you to other parents out there who are raising kids with disabilities.

The biggest thing I want to say is to hold on to hope because the road is long, the nights can be very dark. And those expectations weigh heavily on us. And there's grief and there's loss involved in those. But ultimately, there's hope. Because those are temporal. They are going to come and go. And you're going to have these moments of joy, absolute delight and joy with your child that many parents actually don't get. Because we're looking for them. We're going to be very specific to notice them. We're going to see the miracles in the moments. And I just feel so thankful that I get those opportunities. And how many times I've gotten a laugh while we're sitting in another ER room, or when we had food delivered to the ER, and we're able to get cookies for everybody on staff that day, because we've been there for the fourth time in three days. You know, it's those moments that we can look back, and our memories may look different than what a typical situation would be. Nobody wants to have cookies in the ER, but we can make fun with it. We've even created the ER bingo now, you know, so there are things that are going to come out of your experience you weren't expecting. Like for you, forever home, for me, Medical Mom Warriors. For someone else, Medical Motherhood. Right. And we're able to share and connect in community with you guys as moms, and understand where you've been. Because we've been there too. Every single day. And so I'm just thankful to be able to share this time with you guys. And I look forward to connecting with you guys.

All right. Well, Crystal, thank you so much for coming and being a guest today. Really appreciated your insights and what you shared. And thank you for all that you do. And all the best with your Medical Mom Warriors. Thanks again. 

You take care.

So, audience, I want you to remember Live with Intention - Embrace the Journey.