Episode 4: Raising Neurodivergent Kids While Navigating Her Own Diagnosis: Katie's Story

Episode 4: Raising Neurodivergent Kids While Navigating Her Own Diagnosis: Katie's Story

In this episode of Beyond the Spectrum Podcast, Katie shares her journey as a neurodivergent parent with two neurodivergent children. Katie works as a dance teacher at her children's school and manages their therapy and educational needs. 

She has an 11-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter, both diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Katie received her own autism diagnosis in December 2021. 

She emphasizes the importance of being open about neurodivergence with her children and discusses the challenges of social isolation, friendship dynamics, and managing behavioral issues. 

Katie provides valuable insights on early intervention, the importance of having support systems, and maintaining an adaptable approach to parenting neurodivergent children.

We hope you get a lot out of listening and we would appreciate your feedback, so please reach out via comments, emailing us etc. We'd love to hear from you.

Clint

Autism & Beyond Australia

If you enjoyed listening and found this content valuable we'd appreciate it if you could provide a positive review and to share this with your network to potentially reach and help more parents and families 🙏

Transcript

Autism & Beyond (00:09.262)
G'day guys, welcome to Beyond the Spectrum Pod. In today's episode, I'll be talking to Katie. I've known Katie for quite a while. I've worked with her child, Cooper, as well as her daughter. done some sessions with Grace as well. So they've had quite a story and been through quite a lot. So have a listen. And again, if you've got any comments, queries, or feedback, please let us know. And if you would like to be a guest on our show, please email me at info at autismandbeyond.com.au.

Thank you.

What sort of work do you do or how do you spend your time? How do I spend my time? Kids, kids, kids, kids, kids. I'm actually lucky enough to be able to do some work really close to home and with the school that my children are in, I work as a dance teacher and my daughter is then able to do as much dance as she likes within

within their program. So, yeah, so that takes up very little of my time. don't, I haven't managed in the past to have a job job anymore. Bookkeeping is my background. A lot of it is school, therapy, kids, meetings, meetings, meetings. I've got two kiddies.

And so it's just the two children and myself. Their father doesn't live nearby. And all of us neurodivergent. Very different bots in the spectrum. So it's fun and games in this house. How old are they now? They must be getting on. Yeah. So I've got a son who is 11 and a daughter who's 10.

Autism & Beyond (02:35.15)
I was trying to think before how long have I known you guys for quite a while, like off and on for, I can't remember when we first started. gosh, that would have been 2018? 17 maybe? Yeah, okay, it's been a little while. Been at it for a bit, hey? Yeah, because they were quite tiny when they first met you. And compliant back then too.

They would listen to me. You got too familiar. See, that's the thing. You don't want to do that. So obviously diagnosed, you've got to diagnose this with all your meetings. Do they understand or have you spoken to them about it? Yeah, look, we're very neurodivergent positive. We know that it means we do have limitations, that things are more difficult, you know.

but that there is this other side of it that's wonderful. And I think it's worth celebrating all of it really. I, yeah, I just don't see the benefit in them not knowing. I mean, I didn't know, I'm only recently diagnosed as in December gone at, yeah, I'm a decent eight, you know, so I didn't know. 21. Yeah, thank you. was gonna say 25, 26 I'm happy with.

But yeah, so I've done basically my whole life until nearly now not knowing that I was neurodivergent and it has caused a lot of sadness for me, I think, from not knowing. Yeah. Do you think you would have lived life differently had you have known earlier? 100%. Yeah, definitely. I definitely would. Yeah.

because it is who you are. It involves every single part of your whole existence, your life, but it's all not understand it. That's like the whole missing, you can't understand yourself. Since my diagnosis, there's been all of these ifs and and whatnots. And so I'm really glad that

Autism & Beyond (05:02.294)
I have always just been open with them, you know, this is what it is, it's part of us, it's okay, it's good, this is what it means. I think you raise a good point around, I guess, the importance of sharing their diagnosis with them. And again, I think it's a case by case, can't, some will handle it better, but I think you touched on knowing that you understand

to a degree your full nature and more about yourself. You're not sort of left with these questions of like, why am I different or why don't people like me or why can't I do this? And I think that's a valid point to mention, I guess, for telling kids diagnosis. I've had families who on the both sides and I do see both sides of the equation, but I think

And again, it's probably an age thing as well. There's probably a certain age where it's like, Hey, now's a good time. know, if they're three or four, it's like, well, it was kind of the opposite way for us because it was just like, it's always been there. It's not, it's not something, by the way, I need to tell you, it's just always been there. I saw it in my son from a couple of days old, like things were different.

Well, not different for me, obviously, but because that's all I've ever known, but different from what I knew of others to be, know, and watching, you know, my siblings grow up and, you know, there was always something different. I don't know. I just knew what it was. I just knew. So for us, it was just the formality, the paperwork, really. Like, we knew

what it was, what we were going to be dealing with. Well, I did anyway. I mean, obviously I did not understand the full impact of it because I didn't have anything to follow on from. But I just, I don't know, I just knew and it was just always there. And I don't know, I never saw any reason to

Autism & Beyond (07:28.502)
need to hide the fact. yeah. you think it has created more challenges for you or do you think having been armed with that information there's been obviously there's always challenges along the way and finding things but do you think it's made it a little bit easier for you or harder to deal with some challenges along the way? No look like I always say you know knowledge is power.

And probably because I'm neurodivergent as well, like if somebody had a problem with myself because my children were diagnosed autistic, ADHD, or if they had a problem with my children suddenly because they have the label, like I don't want to deal with, like that's just...

ignorance and like I don't do stupid very well like I don't suffer it so like for me no look if someone's gonna be like that then I don't want them in my life anyway like yeah yeah that's like just a red flag as a human really really like it's a personality red flag no I don't need any of that yeah and a common thing I've heard sadly is

you know, the making of the friends and how hard is it? Have you, have either of your children gone through the not being invited to the birthday parties or, you know, I hear that. I'm just like, that's just. Yeah. Look, it's gone in reverse. My kids are in like a pretty close community and have been since, well, since you met, they were like,

basically toddlers, a little bit older than toddler. So, know, like kindy and it's been the same kids that have then gone through to the school that they're at and our school, we're really blessed to have a really fantastic school. We're very well looked after and it goes from prep all the way through to year 12, same campus. They never have to leave. so we

Autism & Beyond (09:55.872)
with them coming in as so young into these friendship groups, they sort of always just accepted, well, particularly my son, he's the very typical AST boy, Sheldon Cooper type thing. And actually he quite likes calling himself little Sheldon. He was kind of acceptable.

That's just him. know who he is. That's what he does. That's all fine because it's not weird to them because they've just always sort of been around it. When we did have extra children coming in in prep, you know, coming from other kindies, right at the start, there were a few things. Now I put myself in there as parent helper to sort of help with the transition and

Some kids were saying some things, you know, why does he do this? Why does he do that? And he went and hid underneath the desks. That's naughty. Like these kinds of things. My parents say, la la la. I'm just, so I actually got onto our Facebook page for the class, for, well, for the grade. And I just said, hey, I just want to introduce us to people who don't know us and.

my son does do these things that your kids are saying. This is why, you know, and from then he gained a whole bunch of friends. You know, it was like the parents did sit down and have the talk with the kids about, know, this is what it looks like and it's okay and it doesn't mean anything else. So, and it was great for years and years and years and very, actually very recently it's, it's, is when it's stopped. So we're not getting the invitations now for my daughter.

I think it's been long enough that she feels safe enough to drop the mask. But in doing that, everyone else has seen it as a sudden thing. That she's suddenly doing these things. No, it was always happening, just not in front of you guys. So that's unfortunately ended a lot of friendships for her and is obviously then not getting the invitations to the party.

Autism & Beyond (12:21.003)
My son, actually, it's been a good couple of years now. His difference in social emotional development is now really pronounced. Whereas before it was just, the other kids were not mature and that's where their behaviours were coming from. Whereas my kid is actually quite mature but has the autistic behaviours. And so now that they're maturing,

and he's still sort of or where they view him as having been. In the past, yeah. So yeah, that's hard. Yeah. What do you think, as a parent, has been your biggest challenge on this whole journey? And how have you overcome it?

Yeah, right. because I was about to, I'm like, If you have it, it's okay if you have it. Yeah. I probably only say that it's my biggest challenge because it's what I'm in at the moment and that's loneliness. And I think a lot of that has come hand in hand with my daughter losing her friends because most of my friends were parents of her friends. And so now there's just no reason for us to...

meet or be together, know, like it just those sorts of things falling away. That's at the moment what feels like the hardest. basically you're they're losing friends, but you're at the same time dwindling groups as well. Yeah. Yeah. And the week that makes weekends hard and that kind of business as well. I can't go somewhere that I want to go.

if my children aren't going to be welcome there. yeah, social isolation is the thing at the moment. But I mean, if you had have asked me a couple of years ago, I might have said something like therapists jumping providers, finding a therapist, wait lists, medication trials, big behaviors. We used to have

Autism & Beyond (14:46.187)
big, big problems with really massive behaviours. And I'm only one person and if one's melting down, the other one's feeding off that. it used to be like a war zone. So it's just, it's not that anything's more challenging than anything else because I feel like everything is challenging.

Just one to the next. It's just that which one are we in? And I don't know, how do you overcome them? You just find a way. I don't like to use the autism mums or autism parents sort of idle as a banner. However, I think we become really resourceful just because we need to. You just find a way.

you try lots of things. You ask on the Facebook group, then therapists, therapists, therapists. I think what you touched on about trying a lot of things and in my one-on-one sessions, I've seen that sort of, and we always try to bring on other team members and explaining that sort of

You can't go in with this structure of today we're doing X, Y and Z. We're trying to do this and every two seconds you might be like, don't like that, let's do this. Let's do this. And then eventually you'll find something that'll be like, that's interesting. And then you can expand from that. then 10 minutes later, I've had enough of that. And then it's like, let's do this. Let's do this. then immediately on the next one, you've got to be ready with that next one. know, mean, raising a child, you need a bag of tricks.

But I feel like raising a spectrum child, your bag of tricks has to be like a Mary Poppins type situation. You you just keep pulling them out. yeah, you cannot be, you cannot have rigid thinking because what works for one child, you know, like they say, if you've met one person on the spectrum, you've met one person on the spectrum. You know, this might be a wonderful fidget for.

Autism & Beyond (17:05.357)
One child and then the other kids just like I don't know no so yeah, the only exception I think is Minecraft or Roblox. yeah, sorry. Yeah, sorry That's the one constant is video games just full stop. Yeah The one you could go back to yeah, So that's that's my trick is like, they've been difficult. so what Roblox game do you play? And then it's just like

my God. Dirty trick, but it works. So whatever works. Yeah. I guess that feeds into my next question around tips and advice for other parents. I think you touched on that nicely in terms of having that bag of tricks. think. Yeah. And just an open mind about what you put in it. And I'm talking metaphorically because we've got those as well. We've got, you know, sensory boxes.

You know, I'm angry. These are the things that I like to help calm me down when I'm angry. So we go to that box, open the lid, start just whatever and pre-planning. We're going to go to XYZ a place. What could that look like? What might I have to have on ready to go for redirection? Being really open about what might work.

You know, maybe it's a spoon. It smells lean, you know, like it doesn't have an odor, you know, it feels cold. Not always the thing that you think it's going to be. In fact, it'll probably never be the thing that you think it's going to be. Yeah, and just roll with it. Basically, as a parent, you have to be like a Swiss Army knife, eh? You just have to be, if any possibility, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like my boy says, in universe of infinite possibilities. So I can so see him saying that. Yeah, right. Yeah. If you could, I guess, and again, we've sort of covered over it, give one piece of advice to parents who are new to this sort of, know, just their child's just had their diagnosis and

Autism & Beyond (19:29.985)
Yeah, okay. Whether it's around funding or plans or anything, what sort of, what would your go-to tip be like you need to do next? First of all, I think the first thing that you need to do is remember that your child is exactly the same child after you have a piece of paper that says this is your diagnosis. It's the same child. Nothing's changed. I would say

Yeah, early intervention.

Get yourself like an advocate, an advocate who's very knowledgeable and they will be able to steer you in the right direction because it gets complex. I have mine, my autism Yoda is what I call her. She's never leaving. She's not allowed. And if she is, we're going with it, know, sort of thing. Chained in your basement, is she?

No, I let her roam free, although she actually is at the moment. School with my son, doing therapy with him at the moment. Find your person that can be your go-to, that either you know that they've got the answer for you or that they can tell you where to get it from. I know that I have a lot less stress than so many other parents.

just because of that difference. I think that's amazing. And I love what you said about the piece of paper doesn't change who they are. know that had been told to me back when that happened, but I actually didn't fully understand it until I got my piece of paper. And then I was like, whoa, hang on.

Autism & Beyond (21:32.695)
Well, that means I'm this now. I'm like, no, actually like nothing has nothing changed. Picking boxes on a piece of paper, that doesn't change a human. Yeah. Great advice. Thank you. I guess just finalizing finishing up any other things, points, things that you want to mention or share. Don't be afraid of it. I think.

Yeah, don't be afraid. mean, if people aren't going to accept things, do you really want those people around you? There's a whole tribe out there of people who will. And you're not always going to be able to stay around those same types of people, but let it go. You're going sing for us? No, you don't want that. That's my daughter. Side quest missions is...

the ability to be able to connect families with other families. I guess my question, are you open to people connecting with you? It takes a village. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. want to, I'm like a friend matchmaker. I'm just like, you can be, are you registered? And it's funny, actually, I've said a couple of times, it is such a common thing. They don't have any friends. I've sort of said a couple of times like, Hey,

I'll be your best friend until you find your best friend. Yeah. And that best friend online, like, hey, until you get your best friend, yeah, I can be your best friend. Genuinely care about that and just giving kids somebody to talk to and... It's really important. It's really important. And yeah, and that's the thing. I think often our Spectrum-y kids are considered to be despondent.

but they actually genuinely do want a connection with people. What I have found though in that area is it's like we've all got little beacons and we tend to find each other out in the wild. Eventually, one day there will be that other kid that sits with their back towards your kid playing in the sand.

Autism & Beyond (23:54.089)
It'll happen, but you do, you have to put yourself out there and it's hard, but you have to do it. Yeah. Otherwise, like the lonely comes way sooner. I think getting from you, parents need that connection as well and need to nurture that because again, we all need that connection. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it can become like all encompassing at times. So, you know, being able to have someone that you can talk to who like gets it.

is a big deal. Well, thank you very much for your time. Thanks for sharing stories and I reckon a lot of people will get a lot of goodness out of what you've shared and your experience. Thank you for being on my podcast. Thanks for having me. Hopefully it does them good for somebody. Yeah. And yeah, if they want to connect with you, I can pass on your details and let you guys connect and make friends and get the kids friends and

You set the beacon up and yeah right and sit in the sand. Yeah like not playing with each other but actually playing with each other. That's my best friend but you don't talk and you don't do anything. And then the one word comes out roadblocks and then they turn to they turn and they hold hands and walk off into the sunset. Best friends. Best friends forever. And what was your best friend's name? I don't know.