Creating Supportive Spaces for Neurodivergent individuals with Amanda Trisdale

Listeners could gain insights into creating supportive spaces for neurodivergent individuals and feel encouraged to foster inclusivity and understanding within their own communities!

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Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:02.744)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of parenting adult children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I will be your host today. We have a special guest. and that is Amanda Trisdale. Hey, Amanda. Hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah. why don't you introduce yourself to the listening audience? my name is Amanda Trisdale. I'm CEO of a nonprofit. My 13 year old daughter has founded called Autistic Wings Dance Company here in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

It is a dance studio for people on the autism spectrum from three to 99.

And, she founded it cause she was getting kind of bullied by the traditional dance studios. And she decided to just kind of take her ball and go home. Well, there you go.

So I'm looking at your profile. So you can discuss the difficulties and breakthroughs in raising a neurodivergent child who now leads change in a specialized community. So.

Go ahead and go ahead and talk about that. So it is fun. Obviously raising a neurodivergent child. I think my husband and I have it slightly easier as we're both neurodivergent ourselves. So raising one, it's like, you're normal to us. but I've noticed a lot of the parents we're working with are very concerned that they're not raising their kids right. they're listening not to their guts, but to their,

James Moffitt (01:45.346)
the therapist and the teachers and everyone telling them how their kid can't, their kid won't, and not seeing what their kid can do. It works a lot better if you have faith in your child than if you continue to not have faith in your child. Leda was nonverbal. She was diagnosed at three with complete nonverbal as in no receptive, no expressive, which is always a fun child to start raising.

she did not start speaking until she was six. Now I would love to find the shut up button. and she's my cohost on a podcast. she is very, very clear on what her mind is. Okay. I tell parents she was nonverbal, they look at me and go, there is no way that child was nonverbal. And I'm like, well, we weren't taking no as an answer. Right. How old is she? She is 13 now. And like I said, she is.

founder, she is actually not just like founder on paper, but she goes to the meetings with us this week. We've outgrown our dance studio. So she has been going to look at properties, which is very fun. Going to look at commercial properties when you're 13. Oh, I bet. I bet she's in all the board meetings when we're working with, uh, our business partners. She's in the meetings right there beside me. We're currently going through.

R 990 for it. And she's like, I hate the IRS. I'm like, join the adult club. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Of all the things that are going on politically, I kind of hope that the, the powers to be, uh, to figure out how to abolish the IRS. That would be wonderful. Or at least make it a lot easier to do all the paperwork, especially for like nonprofits. Oh, I understand that. That's for sure. So

I had a gentleman on the other day that is his autistic and he has autistic children and he was speaking about the, when you say neurodivergent or autistic, I think special needs, right? And is that, is that a bad term or a wrong term to use? think my friend, Milch that let's see if I can talk today. Yeah. My ADHD, my tongue is getting ahead of my brain at the moment.

James Moffitt (04:11.59)
Michelle Chory at wisdom for complex kids has put out the idea of complex kids instead of special needs and I think her reasoning behind it is probably my favorite out of all of it because when you say special needs like that was one of the problems Lita had in traditional dance studios was they automatically looked at her and said you can't I've done advocacy work with IEPs for other families for 20 years now well before I had Lita and the number of

teachers that just shut down when you say special needs and go, I'm not going to support your special needs. But if you tweak the language slightly, they're like, it's just a different need. Right. My wife's a special ed teacher and she is a resource teacher this year. She'd been teaching for 25 years. I guess she's been doing special ed for about 15. And so she has to do those wonderful IEPs all the time. Has all those meetings. So she's a

very in tune with all of that. I have a love hate relationship with the IEPs like I think we all do. Oh yeah, absolutely. So, so in 2015 we started a parenting support group for, or a private parenting support group on Facebook. And in 2015 we had two teenagers that were giving us a run for our money and I was doing everything I could to stay out of prison.

And I was successful in that, thank goodness. But I told my wife, said, her name is Katie. And I said, Katie, do you think maybe we ought to start a private support group and see if there's anybody else that's dealing with these issues? And she was like, sure, why not? And so we went from having 10 members to 1.3 thousand members today. So so there's obviously a huge need for parent support of of adult children, you know, and I'm talking, you know,

Not just adult children, but you know, 12 to 40 is kind of the age range. It's a very wide spectrum or age range, I should say. So I can't help but believe that there's some parents listening to this podcast episode that have neurodivergent children or, or, what did you call critical needs? complex needs. I'm sorry. it may, it's a new idea being thrown around.

James Moffitt (06:36.36)
Okay, I got you. So, so I want I want you to to talk about the challenges and the the

Yeah, the challenges, the everyday stuff that you are faced with and kind of how you handle it. It gets hard, especially if you don't have a great support group around you of people who understand what you're going through. The neurotypical world wants to tell you how your kids are supposed to be. You're looking at kids going out and doing

from or being captain of the football team and your child may not be the captain of the football team and you're comparing your child to other people's accomplishments. And then on top of it, there's still the meltdowns. I still meltdown at 43 years old with my autism. The younger the adults, the more meltdowns you're gonna get. And people don't understand the meltdowns and you're judging yourself as a parent.

And the hardest thing is to stop judging yourself. Right. So when you say meltdowns, what does you mean that you, you have a overreaction or. I will overreact when I get overstimulated. I'm lucky. My husband has been known to just go, go in another room and calm down. but there's a lot of times it's like, it's overwhelming. I just want to sit down.

find a corner and crash. I got you. I got you. So, so stressors. So stressors. Yeah. Stressors will cause you to, to, uh, um, have issues, lose control, things like that. I think, which is easier for me with our 13 year old, because I've been through it. I know what I'm doing and I can just go, yeah, sometimes I get an

James Moffitt (08:42.35)
start believing in the judgment, but other times it's like, parents, she'll be, your kid will be fine. It's okay. You just need to understand they deregulated. They need to get back to regulated and you need to quit judging yourself because it's nothing you've done that caused it. Right. Right. Well, no matter what the rest of society says, right. I think, I think parents in general, when they're, when they're, whether the kids

whether the children are neurodivergent or not, when children go astray, however that might be, I think sometimes we're quick to judge ourselves and go, they're exhibiting this behavior or they're making these bad decisions. And where did I go wrong? What have I done to cause this? And we judge ourselves and beat ourselves up over something that, know, it's a part of being

a young adult or a child is learning, making mistakes and learning. So I'm pushing those boundaries to see where those boundaries give and whether they break. Right. Right. Boundaries is a recurring topic in our podcast episode. You want to talk about boundaries a little bit? Lita's been pretty good. We did gentle parenting with her, which I think worked best for her. I think each kid needs their own parenting style.

Right. And for her trying to explain once she got the language, I mean, we weren't punishing her when she didn't have the language. We were just trying to work with her to understand. And then when she got the language, it was much more, let's explain to you what's going on. And for her, thankfully she is not pushed the boundaries in a way that I'm not like, well, okay, I get why you're pushing that boundary.

When it comes to, she is a mini activist at 13. When it comes to her saying, these are my rights. I'm like, fine. You can push that boundary all you want and let me know how that works. Right. Well, I Good. know my sisters and I all pushed the boundaries and, uh, I think drove our parents absolutely insane. And, um, a lot of times it was, we just didn't know the boundary existed.

James Moffitt (11:05.836)
I got you. Well, I think, I think part of being a teenager is, learning how to, you're coming into your own, you've got these raging hormones and you're establishing who you are as a person. You're, you're, you know, transitioning from being a teenager into a young adult. And, you know, at some point kids look at us and go, all right, well, you've set these boundaries and you've said I should do thus and so, or I shouldn't do thus and so.

So now I'm going to challenge you because just because you say it doesn't mean it's valid to me. So they, they questioned the validity of what you you're saying. And, and sometimes we, as parents get in trouble because we, we slip into this, don't do as I do, do as I say. Right. So, so I, I may establish a rule, you know, don't don't

take drugs and don't drink. But then after I could get off of work at five o'clock or six o'clock or whenever it is, and I come home, first thing I do is go to the refrigerator, you know, and pop a top on a Miller light or something, you know, and I'm sitting there drinking in front of the child and you told the child, you're not supposed to drink, but you're drinking, right? So all of a sudden there's a conflict. Mine was, I would ask the elders in church, cause I was having, you know, as a teenager does explain

the religious stuff to me and that was a boundary you weren't supposed to pass because you weren't supposed to do that like just in the middle of the church halls.

James Moffitt (12:38.304)
And there is a time and place. I just didn't realize I was a teenager. I didn't realize that there needed to be times and places for discussions. So you were questioning what they were teaching. Yeah. You know, the usual questioning of the faith you have when you're a teenager, like how did this work? And, it was the nineties and there were a lot of, you know, new scientific advances that

Nowadays, if you've said I was questioning this in a church, they'd look at you and go, wow, I didn't even know, you know, plague tectonics was a weird thing in the eighties and nineties.

James Moffitt (13:16.642)
Yeah, and, and,

You know, I've been a Christ follower for 40 plus years now, and I didn't become a Christian until I was in my 20s, because my parents were not believers. And my mother was what was called a non-practicing Catholic. She was raised in the Catholic Church as a child. And I remember times like when my dad had to go to Vietnam in the army, you know, she would go to a Catholic

chapel that was open 24 hours a day and she would light candles and do you know, she'd pray and light the candles and all this kind of stuff and so she she still practiced some of the Catholic Religion Practices whatever you want to call it and and so and she she taught us kids that If you she she had got a piece of paper and drew a Y on it and she was like, this is the road of life

And on the left side of this Y, if you're a good boy and you do the right things, then you're going to go to heaven. And if you do the wrong things and you're not a good boy, then you're going to go to hell. And I was like, and then she set us down and gave us this big ginormous Catholic family Bible and made me read it from cover to cover. Every time I got in trouble, I had to read the Bible, you know? And I was like, you know, so even to this day, despite my faith and despite

things I've learned about the Bible and theology and all of that stuff. I still have questions, you know, I think we all do. I think we all do. I think the deal was, you know, my dad was a ruling elder, so his daughter asking questions where other people could see was not. And my mom was, you know, fairly high up with the children's education portion of the church. Gotcha. And it doesn't look good when the ruling elder and one of the leaders in the children's education are

James Moffitt (15:15.552)
eldest daughter is sitting there asking questions.

But how else are you supposed to learn?

I don't know. Well, maybe, maybe it wasn't the question you asked. Maybe it was how you asked it. And maybe, maybe, maybe you were, maybe you were challenging, maybe you didn't understand what they were teaching and you were challenging what they were teaching. Right. It's like, yeah, that's, that's hogwash or you probably never said anything like that, but maybe that's how they received it. Right.

I think they started really receiving it about the time I was like, I think I'm becoming deist. And then they were like, you're not allowed to talk at all.

Great. And I'm like, but you know, because between the church and being an autistic girl in the 80s and 90s is totally different than it is today. Thankfully, I was going to Christian therapists who were like, well, God needs you to mask and not be autistic.

James Moffitt (16:19.705)
Wow. So that sounds wrong. It did to me. And, know, at 12, 13, 14, I'm like, well, if he made me this way, why do I need to change who I am to make you guys all feel better? Right. Exactly. I think you and my wife would have probably a much better conversation about all of this, but because she's way more of a, she's more of a subject matter expert than I am.

but, and I just, I just lost my train of thought. What was I thinking? I don't know. but I mean, that was how I was pushing boundaries and there really was a place in time. And looking back, I was picking like in the middle of the church hall to ask my questions after the sermon, not the place in time. Right. Right. And so, so there are some nuances, when it comes to behavior and

the place and time you were, you were not in tune with that. and so, so that's, that's a, that's something that, that you had to, work, work through, right? You had to, you had to process it differently and figure that out. And I think from not just me, but from 20 years of working with, families with kids that are, complex.

I think that's where a lot of it starts off at is the small pushing of the boundaries. And sometimes parents can get a little frustrated at that point. And then it turns into the large pushing of the boundaries. Right.

Well, I think that's, I think that's natural for all kids, know, whether, whether you're, you know, we're dealing with autism or something else, you know, I think, I think that's just natural for kids to do that. so let me ask a couple of these questions, I guess, what led you and Lita to establish Autistic Wings Dance Company? So Lita is an amazing tap dancer, but she is mostly self taught.

James Moffitt (18:31.502)
by watching everyone else at dance studios. Because of her autism, I was very upfront with her dance teachers. And when she's autistic, she has an eye tracking issue. She's severely dyslexic. So what I wouldn't know is they were putting her in the corner going, here, you can be in class, but you can't participate in class. But when she was eight, she, during COVID, because everything good happened during COVID in her life, unbelievably enough.

Right as we went, I know, as we went into lockdown, she actually connected at eight years old with the great Chloe Arnold, who is one of the biggest names in tap and is probably one of the top 10 tap choreographers of all times. And Chloe just took her under her wings. And so Lita was living two lives. She was living a life in the studio where she was too dumb, too stupid. And teachers were telling her, well, you're only got the brain of a three year old because you're autistic.

And then she would turn around and she'd be jet setting to New York or to Hollywood or DC or to anywhere to do shows and video shoots with professionals that her teachers would have given their right arms to be in the studio with. Right. And it came to blows one night when one of her teachers got in her face because Lita was struggling reading. She has such severe dyslexia at 13. She's still having problems, but she was 12.

the teacher got in her face and when you are too dumb, your mint Chloe Arnold will never love you. She will never work with you. You can't even go to class with her. And Lita's like, I'm done with this. We're creating a studio for people like me where we can be safe and we can be ourselves. And we don't have to be someone else in just in order to have fun dancing.

Well, that's crazy. I think as a parent, I would have went off on that teacher. I figured she had to deal with my child and that was probably enough. Yeah, there you go.

James Moffitt (20:38.882)
How has being a military spouse influenced your parenting journey? it has, what is the puppy deciding right now is the time he wants to bark. No, that's fine. Okay. Let me see the pose. Show us the puppy. big is he? Can you come here? He's like, no, I'm just going to bark at the head of the top of the stairs. He's a pit staffy mix that we picked up cause, he's a COVID puppy and

His previous owners didn't know anything about dogs. were going into lockdown. So they got themselves a pity, staffy mix as their first stop, a puppy, pity, staffy mix. I don't even think I've even seen one or know what that is. Yeah. Okay. Are you, will you come here? Are you just going to come here? Hold on a moment. Come here. He's like, no, I want to play mommy. I'm here.

He's like, you're not on the couch. Here, they say hi real quick. I'll put you right back down. He's like, no, you're kicking me up wrong.

Can you say, my goodness, that's a big dog puppy. Oh, he is. yeah. Okay. Don't worry. I'll put you down. He's a, that was too scary. I barely saw him, but that's okay. I had a guest. I had a guest on the other day that she had a dog that was at her feet. That was just barking like crazy. And, uh, you know, we, we, we got through it, but that was like, Oh, you have a barking dog.

I don't know what spooked him, but something spooked him. He's puppy, but he spooks easily. I got you. Okay. He's on the anxiety meds for a reason. So being a military spouse, how did that influence your parenting journey? So one of the things that you really probably need with an autistic child is a very tight support group that can help you with everything. With us moving every few years, we did not have that.

James Moffitt (22:47.99)
Right. We were, you know, always making new friend groups. I was always having to explain to someone else once again that she's autistic. That's why she's acting the way she is on a call. Can you grab him and take him upstairs?

Both. Yeah. Jack. Grab take.

Go take him down. Sorry about this. He's usually much better behaved. Yeah, that's okay. He tends to take him now and spit it later, okay?

James Moffitt (23:37.196)
Hold on, hold on just a minute.

James Moffitt (23:43.18)
Being a military spouse, you have to be your own support group in a lot of ways when it comes to special needs, you have to become very, very good at understanding what rights your child has under TRICARE, what rights they have under the military. You have to be better than your spouse at understanding how the military works. And it, I think in a lot of ways makes you

have to be that advocate that your child needs. You also wind up having to know you're not going to have the same therapist for 10 years straight like some of the civilian kids will have. You're not going to have the same case manager for their entire lives. You're switching states all the time. You have to also become an expert in speech and language pathologies, what the best practices are, what the best practices for occupational therapy are.

And I think it changes who you are as a parent because you have to be the parent and the therapist. You have to be the parent and the expert who's telling the number of doctors we have met that I've had to explain what autism is, is outrageously annoying. I can only imagine. You would assume by now it, and we've had, we moved out to Montgomery. So my husband could, do, officer training school.

as an instructor, as a, he went through as a student previously, but it was like, okay, we're to be here three years. We put her into the military health clinic and the doctor was like, I've never seen an autistic patient before. my God. And I'm having to sit there going, here's what you have to do, honey. Cause I mean, we've been in 20 years. So she looked so young to me. I'm like, can you even drink? and she's like, what's.

Was she a primary care physician? She was the primary care physician. She was a pediatrician on base. And she's like, I've never seen autism. She was a captain. So really young. my. And she's like, what services do you need? What? And I was like, let me explain to you exactly what services we need. How many times a week she needs it.

James Moffitt (26:09.952)
when we originally went to go get our speech in Montgomery, they kicked it back to the clinic and went, no, she doesn't qualify for speech because she is too behind to qualify for speech, which is one of those weird things you get. Wow. And I had to go in and explain to the doctor, here's how you send it through and go yell at the provider and go, you're doing this.

she didn't know what specialists we needed and she's not the first we were at, white sands missile range where she had an amazing general prac. but white sands is so small. doesn't have pediatricians. So it was just a normal general prac who is used to dealing with army and soldiers and soldiers are a little different than a six year old autistic kid. Yeah, I bet. And it was quite the shock to the,

medical professional, huh? Yeah. She was like, I think I should know what to do. And she had to call over to Fort Bliss and their behavioral sciences going, have you ever seen autistic autism before? And I'm like, I'm pretty sure you have with these soldiers. They just didn't know it and weren't diagnosed yet. Right. I got you. But it does, I mean, it changes the parent child relationship I've noticed because you have to be both parent advocate.

and medical provider in a lot of ways.

I'm sure that's pretty challenging. Cause I bet there's probably times you don't want to do that. Sometimes you just want to be the parent, right? Sometimes I would like to just be the parent. Even with the dance studio, I, envy the parents sometimes who get to come and just be parent as I'm sitting there doing all the paperwork for the dance studio too. Right.

James Moffitt (28:06.072)
So what challenges do you face as CEO of a unique nonprofit? We already know the IRS is the three letters that you, you hate. I mean, their charity desk is pretty nice. As long as you're behaving, it's just the 990 takes hours to fill out. mean, we're in February. Yeah. The IRS 990 is the form that the nonprofits fill out and we have to list every dollar that went out and every dollar that came in.

Yeah, I worked for a nonprofit and I think our attorneys fill that stuff out. Yeah. The other thing is trying to strangely enough why this is needed because people are like, oh, don't we have like adaptive dance where they can just go and have fun and they don't have to like learn dance? And it's like, well, but that's not really what we're doing. We're teaching

We do have some classes like that, but we're mostly teaching traditional dance classes with an autistic twist to it. the other one that would shock people is we're having to explain that autism is not childhood Parkinson's disease. Okay. I don't know how that got started. I know there's an NIH paper floating around that kind of wants to conflate the two, but it was by someone who didn't actually look at Parkinson's patients or autism patients.

What is NIH? The National Institute of Health. okay. I got you. I spend way too much time reading the actual academic papers. We've been, the autism community has like jumped on board, but trying to explain it to the non-autism community, they're like, are you sure these kids have the ability to dance?

Are you sure these kids, they'll look at Lita and go, well, she can dance, so she must not be autistic. And it's like, that's not how that works. And it get the other one that breaks my heart is the number of parents who are like, I've been told my child's not worth putting in this effort for.

James Moffitt (30:20.376)
So I'm going to ask an ignorant question because I don't know. is, there any correlation between, uh, autism, neurodivergence and special Olympics? There is, um, there's been a lot of autistic Olympians who got their start in special Olympics. Um, special Olympics does not do stuff like dance, even though it is very athletic.

We are in a break dancing studio that's opened their doors to us. But even with break dancing, they're not, they focus mostly on the like real sports as what, like what they like to call them. The real sports. Yeah. But you see a lot of the Olympians actually have come through special Olympics. Really?

Michael Phelps, I think got kicked out of the special Olympics because he was just whooping up on everyone. I got you. But he was a special Olympian for, want to say 12 or 13 years. Huh. What did he do? What was his? Swimming. Swimming. Okay. I could see where they're like, have you thought about going over to that other Olympics?

Like, could you leave us alone and go over there? I can't off the top of my head, like, remember who, but there's about a quarter of the track and field stars have come through the special Olympics as well. Really? I know they've got a lot of wrestling, a lot of the weightlifting. my dad works with USA shooting and, they have not gained any athletes that way, but a lot.

Of the other sports have gained their athletes through special Olympics. Oh, I guess that's a good thing, right? It's an amazing thing. It kind of shows. mean, it's special Olympics definitely has a place in the world. It is very important to the community. Lita just doesn't do that sort of stuff, but it also helps people in the community to see these kids come up through special Olympics to train through special Olympics and then go beat the rest of the world. Right.

James Moffitt (32:38.655)
Absolutely.

So how do you address bullying and dance studios for neurodivergent dancers? think the big thing is you got to start with the adults. Cause most of Lita's bullying was kids parent hurting what the adults were saying. like I said, Lita is severely dyslexic. She has an eye tracking issue. Reading is not coming easy to her. We tried all sorts of methods and the number of adults who were like, well, you're just being lazy.

If you would just try harder, your dyslexia wouldn't keep you from reading. And then the kids started picking up on that. She being autistic, her voice dropped lower or later than her peers. The amount of adults who were like, well, this proves you're a baby because your voice is too high pitched. And then the kids picked up and started saying the same things because they didn't know it was wrong. Right. With.

She cannot do turns the same way because you turn using traditional eye tracking. Her eyes don't track that way. It makes her very dizzy. It gives her migraines turning that way. The number of teachers who are like, well, you're just broken. You're worthless. You're useless. Kids pick up on what the adults are saying. The adults need to start watching what they're saying and not going, wow, why didn't my studio start bullying a kid? I can tell you where it came from.

Yeah, there needs to be a little more compassionate empathy from the adults. And the funny thing is every adult who ever told her that thought they were being compassionate, thought they had empathy and they will swear to this day that they loved her and they tried to show her that.

James Moffitt (34:23.468)
Yeah, words have a lot of power. Some people don't realize that.

That's it's horrible. And she is trying to change that with a studio where there's a space where kids don't have to face the bullying. She's trying to make autistic wings kind of like the special Olympics for dance. Yeah.

Well, I'm very, I'm very thankful that that you and your daughter are able to do that together. And I, I hope and pray that I'm sure with your support, obviously that she's going to go a long way and that's great. So, so what would you, like, if I give you a five minute elevator speech, what would you tell parents listening to this podcast with regards to

parenting a neurodivergent complex kid.

Stop comparing them to everyone else. Each child is different. Each child is unique. Each child is special just the way they are. It's a hard journey. Don't make it harder on yourself by comparing them to every other child in your life. You're doing just fine.

James Moffitt (35:44.248)
Okay. Well, Amanda, thank you for being here. I've appreciated you being on the podcast episode. And I know that other parents that are that are traveling the road that you're on will appreciate everything that you've said. And I want to tell the listening audience, thank you for the privilege of your time. You can listen to this podcast episode on Apple podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Public Radio, and

the Spotify podcast, you can, you can watch the video and on the about page, if you click on the link for the website, you can go and you can get my contact information. You can see all of the released, all the, schedule of released episodes that are coming out and click on reviews and you can listen to an episode that you like, please leave a review. So Amanda, thank you for being here and for sharing your, your insights.

And thank you so much for having me on. Yeah. Good luck to you. Thank you. All right.