Helping Our Autistic Kids Thrive with Temple Grandin, PhD

Helping Our Autistic Kids Thrive with Temple Grandin, PhD
In this episode, Dr. Temple Grandin talks about the importance of ALL kinds of minds, including autistic ones. She talks about how we are "screening out" our valuable visual thinkers. We discuss many ways to help kids on the autism spectrum truly succeed.
Dr. Grandin did not talk until she was three and a half years old.  She was fortunate to get early speech therapy.  Her teachers also taught her how to wait and take turns when playing board games.  She was mainstreamed into a normal kindergarten at age five.  Oliver Sacks wrote in the forward of Thinking in Pictures that her first book Emergence: Labeled Autistic was “unprecedented because there had never before been an inside narrative of autism.”  Dr. Sacks profiled Dr. Grandin in his best selling book Anthropologist on Mars.
Dr. Grandin became a prominent author and speaker on both autism and animal behavior.  Today she is a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.  She also has a successful career consulting on both livestock handling equipment design and animal welfare.  She has been featured on NPR (National Public Radio) and a BBC Special – "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow". She has also appeared on National TV shows such as Larry King Live, 20/20, Sixty Minutes, Fox and Friends, and she has a 2010 TED talk.  Articles about Dr. Grandin have appeared in Time Magazine, New York Times, Discover Magazine, Forbes and USA Today. HBO made an Emmy Award winning movie about her life and she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
https://templegrandin.com/templehome.html
https://www.templegrandindocumentary.com/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1278469/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YMTV3fVHkg
Cover art by Charlotte Feldman
Please note that while I am a pediatrician, I am not your child's pediatrician. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. For any medical concerns or decisions, please reach out to your child’s health care professional.

Transcript

0:11

Welcome to Kids Matter. I'm Dr. Elisa Minkin. As a pediatrician, mom and grandma, I understand how challenging it can be to help our kids grow into their best selves. We are so much more powerful together. Here I will be sharing the knowledge and wisdom of a wide range of people who understand and care deeply about children. I'm hoping for your input as well because kids really do matter. They are our future. Welcome back to the Kids Matter podcast. I am really, really honored and really excited to be here today with Dr. Temple Grandin. Dr. Temple Grandin is a distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed for handling livestock are used by many companies around the world. She has also been instrumental in implementing animal welfare auditing programs that are used by McDonald's, Wendy's, Whole Foods, and other corporations. Temple has appeared on numerous TV shows such as 20/20 and Prime Time. Her books include Thinking in Pictures, Livestock Handling and Transport, and The Autistic Brain. Her books Animals in Translation and Visual Thinking have been on the New York Times bestseller list. Temple was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in September 2017, in 2022 was named a Colorado State University distinguished professor, and in 2023 was inducted into the Colorado Authors Hall of Fame. So wow, that is so impressive, and it's just a tiny piece of what you do. And as we spoke before, I have seven books either written by you, one of them is written by your mom, and I want to talk about a few of them today. I'm so excited. Thank you so much for being patient through our technical glitches. So I wanted to first talk about the book Different Kinds of Minds, and have you explain more about what this book is about, please. Well, that's actually the young readers version of this book here- Mm-hmm, Visual Thinking Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions. And a visual thinker like me, who thinks in pictures, is very different from a mathematical pattern thinker, and in both books I present research that shows that object visualization like me and mathematician mind are very different. And then of course you've got verbal thinkers. Now, the object visualizers like me are terrible at higher math, but we're really good with mechanical things, designing equipment art, working with animals, and photography. And I'm very concerned in our educational system we're screening out our object visualizers. I said putting so much more emphasis on abstract math. And I don't even know if I could graduate my school today. I can't do algebra and calculus. I can't remember it. And I worked with people that owned big metalworking shops that build equipment for me, and equipment I've designed has been, is in every single big beef plant. And I'm concerned you're screening us out, and you need us object visualizers. There's a lot of purely mechanical equipment that we don't make. You have to import it from Europe, a high-wage country. Because in Europe you can go tech or you can go to the university, and both are valued. And if you'd like to have your water system work, you're gonna need your object visual thinkers. It's a different kind of problem-solving. You see how to make something work. You also can see where something can go wrong. And, um, that's the reason why I wrote the book Visual Thinking. And we need to have another path for the math, 'cause I'm very concerned that in veterinary medicine and human medicine we're losing clinical skills. Mm-hmm. We're putting all of this emphasis onto the math. And clinical skills, things like using a stethoscope, that's visual thinking. That's sensory-based thinking. And the way a visual thinker would solve a diagnostic problem is they'd say, "Well, I saw a dog that looked like this and I'm almost positive the dog is this diagnosis. I do one test to confirm instead of doing five or six tests on a fishing expedition." And so my big area that I'm advocating now is for our visual thinkers. Let's change some of the math requirements. Maybe geometry could be an alternative. Or a lot of practical math. I have students that can do all this fancy higher math, but they can't do practical math like finding the percent difference between two different things That's a great explanation. And how else could we include the visual thinkers? Because you're right, I mean, we're leaving them out, and it's an incredible loss. Well, and I've worked with brilliant visual thinkers, uh, in industrial construction, and, uh, they, a lot of them were on the autism spectrum, and we need these people. There's two parts of, uh, of doing engineering. There is the visual thinking part, which is all mechanical devices, and then for something like a large food processing plant, you need to have the mathematical thinkers to do the refrigeration. That requires a lot more math. So you need to have both. So we're emphasizing the mathematical part at the, uh, but not putting emphasis on the visual part. And I looked at why the Starliner, um, thrusters failed. In fact, I looked up the valves, and they're things I have put together myself. And they were probably put together sloppily, and they, um, s- and the dirt or the sealant got in it and clogged up the thrusters. You see, you need the mathematician to tell a thruster when to thrust when you're reentering from space, but the visual thinker will make sure it will thrust when the mathematician tells it to thrust. You need to have both. Right, and when you say screen out, what do you exactly mean by that? What, how are we leaving them out? Well, I can't become a veterinarian because I couldn't do the prerequisites. If you require algebra and calculus for a two-year factory maintenance degree, you'll screen out your best factory maintenance people. That's what I mean by that. So what, what do you think would be a way to bring them back into the fold? Let's change some of these math requirements. Okay. So I'm not saying get out of math, but some visual... I never got a chance to try geometry because I never got through algebra. But how about geometry being an alternative or a practical math, a lot of practical math, and practical math aimed at the thing, at your degree, like, uh, dosing medicines, for example. That kind of practical math. Or if it's construction, filling concrete forms. Right, 'cause I'm also thinking about back in the day when I grew up there was vocational education, right? And by high school they would track you, and you could take a vocational education course, and you could get practical skills rather than be stuck in a purely college-bound academic program. Well, the thing is, they- they're putting the vocational skills back in the community colleges, but that's almost too late. I've done some consulting, I did some consulting with Bechtel. They are the world's largest construction company. They build big, complicated industrial projects. And I had a chance to tour one of the sites doing some really complicated work with, uh, building a tank and placing this panel on the roof with a crane. And the engineer will design the panel with the mathematics, but then a very skilled visual thinker places it and installs it, and they're very concerned about how they're gonna replace some of these very skilled craftspeople. And I said, "We gotta get little kids interested in building things." It starts there. Right. But we also need to change some of these, um, y- math requirements. You wanna go the full engineering degree, you do all the math. But there's also, you should have another way to go into what I call the, what I call the clever engineers. Mm-hmm. All these shop people I've worked with, none of them had engineering degrees, but you should see their patent portfolios. Amazing mechanical devices. Half of them are probably autistic. And I'm very worried we're screening these people out. It's, it's really terrible on so many levels. We're losing all the gifts, right? But we really need those skills, and I think in the age of AI, there's so much talk about losing jobs, but I think we're just pushing people down one path, and we don't necessarily need those people, right? Well, the thing is- We need the things you're talking about well, AI's gonna be very good at mathematics but I review quite a lot of journal articles and, um, the, oh, let's do fancy statistics, all this fancy statistics, but then you read the methods section and they don't tell me what they fed the animal. They don't tell me how they prepared a sample to do an ELISA test. Very, very important things. And let's look at AI. I've actually reviewed some AI papers. I don't understand the math, but I go after the training data. It's only as good as the training data. You can't write something like, "I'm gonna, we're gonna just, uh, collect, uh, behavior information on dairy cattle." You've gotta tell me exactly what, uh, behavior you're collecting. I mean, the eating, lying, standing, uh, drinking. Uh, and then did you do continuous observation? Did you scan sample it? How did you do it? Right. You can't- As a farmer you can't take the human element out of it, and I think these skills are more important than ever. So I think this is really timely, and I love the idea. Well, I'm very concerned- Yeah that, so a couple of my friends, they're my age, and they were having heart issues, and they went into the cardiac specialist and he the young one no longer uses a stethoscope. I think that's a problem. Yes. That is clinical skills. And the human aspect of medicine, you can't, you can't speed past that. You can't AI your way out of it, right? Well, the visual, you see, the, 'cause the clinical skills is the visual thinking. Okay, you hear a certain sound on a stethoscope, you know what- what's going on in the heart. You, and if you've done surgery, then you probably see it. And some of your very, very best clinicians, you're screening out. And I get asked, well, why didn't I become a veterinarian? I can't do the prere- prerequisites. I could do the veterinary school just fine. I'd have no problem at vet school. I'd have to work hard, I'd have no problem. The problem is the prerequisites in algebra and calculus. And I think the mathematicians are pushing that because they, they think that you need that for thinking, to think critically. That is not how I think. The best way to describe my memory, it's like a lot of little, uh, phone pictures, and then I can compare one phone picture to another phone picture. I'll use analogies. Like for example, I was, I like to read Aviation Week, and I was reading about a new jet engine made with an alloy that would make the metal really strong. Now, an alloy is a mixture of different metals, so I immediately s- saw some, and tasted some gluten-free brownies that my friend made out of red mill flour, flour. And the reason they're good is you don't just use a single source of starch. Mm. You use four different starch sources. It's an alloy of starches. Okay, now you see how an airplane engine could be related to gluten-free brownies. Okay, it makes sense now. I love that. They are, it is an alloy. I love that. Okay? Starches. Yes. And I love that, and I love how you're bringing in how being autistic can be such an incredible strength, and how we're, we're losing that. And I wanna talk a little bit about, I mean, first of all, we kind of were talking about using the person's strengths, whether or not they have- Yeah a label. But I wanna talk a little bit about what you've called label locking. Well, what I'm seeing with a lot of parents who got a smart autistic kid, they're pushing the academics, and they do everything for the kid. The kid's not learning shopping. I'm seeing kids graduating from college that never had a job, and then they don't make it in the workplace. They're not teaching enough life skills, and that's, that's an example of label locking. I ha- I talk to a lot of grandparents that discover they're autistic when the kids get diagnosed, and they all had decent jobs. Now, where the diagnosis was helpful was with, uh, their relationships. That's where the diagnosis actually was really helpful. But on the job front, it's holding them back and most of those grandparents had paper routes, and we need to make jobs to be substitutes for paper routes, such as walking the neighbor's dog. You know, right now I'm gonna have, probably have a kid from next door when I'm away pick my mail up. Mm-hmm. Okay, that's an example of a paper route substitute. I think we're so focused on getting our kids into Ivy League schools as the ultimate success. Well, I worked with brilliant people that, that that had metalworking shops, and a plant person would come and say, "I need a little hydraulic thingamajig that will do this," and they'd invent it in the shop. Absolutely. I wanna talk about diagnosis now, because a- as I told you before we started I sometimes will talk about you to parents who are leery of the autism diagnosis, that it's going to stigmatize their child. And we're thinking about this like, it can be strengths too. Like, we can talk- All right, let's, let's talk about age here. Okay. Because if you have a three-year-old that's diagnosed, l- then this, this would be me, you have speech delay. So there's obviously something wrong with that three-year-old, and that would be me, and I got into very good early intervention. Then you have the kid where there's no speech delay, where he might be eight years old and have no friends. So I think the parents can be less likely to resist the diagnosis when it's the eight-year-old- who has no friends compared to the three-year-old that had a definite speech delay. Right, and if it's called speech delay, they'll say, "Okay, we'll get speech therapy." But if they're autistic, um, I don't believe that's enough to just get speech therapy. Well, the thing is, they usually, for me, for example, there was other things besides speech delay. I was not social. Mm-hmm. I would just go off on corner and I would spin things and, and s- wind up the swing and spin around in it, and that's more than just having speech delay. Those would be symptoms of autism. The other thing I point out to parents, a lot of famous people are probably autistic, like Einstein, no speech till age three. Bill Gates, it's now official, he's on the spectrum. He has a book. These people have had good careers. Right. Well, that's why they call it a spectrum, right? And- Yeah I think one of the problems, though, is that it's a wide spectrum, and you're not necessarily gonna end up a Temple Grandin or a Bill Gates. No, you're not. Right. No, there's al- then you have the ones that do not speak, that never learn to speak. Some of those can learn to type. I think that needs to be encouraged. And then you have some where, I know one case, he's in his 20s, uh, and he's got an autism label, but he has a lot of other things wrong with him. Mm-hmm. Neurologically and with the, uh, other problems, ep- some epilepsy and other things. Right. You see, the problem is the diagnosis isn't precise like diagnosing tuberculosis or polio or something like that, where that's a precise diagnosis. You do a test, and you either have it or you don't. See, the other problem with autism on the, on the fully verbal end is when does geeks and nerds get, be labeled autistic? Right. It's just a true continuous trait. Right. I saw in one of your books you actually talked about the gifted kids on the one side of the room and the autistic kids on the other side of the room. Well, and then you go look at the book tables, and the books are totally different. But then you go to some of the seminars, they'll have a seminar on, on social b- social awkwardness, and I go, "This sounds like an autism seminar." But they've kind of been in their own silos. Yes. I just did, I actually just did an interview of someone, a twice exceptional, meaning both an autism or ADHD or similar diagnosis and being gifted. So I don't know how much of an overlap there is. I think there's a significant overlap. I think there is a very significant overlap. And, and how you tell the difference between a socially awkward gifted child who doesn't meet autism spectrum versus an autistic kid who's very bright, I don't know. Well, it's a kind of, probably the amount of social issues they have. But it's a continuum, so there's no like you said, there's no cutoff. There's no- It's not precise. The thing, I, I wanna see fully verbal kids that are smart come out with a good outcome. That's gonna be in living independently and having a job and not ending up in the basement playing video games. That's a failure. I'm seeing college graduates who end up playing video games in the basement, and I'm seeing this real recently. Yeah. Just heard about one just last week. Still hearing about it. Real, real recent. Because they never learned any, they never ev- did any job skills. They never did any jobs. And I think these kids that are in the pipeline now, they need paper route substitutes at age 11, like maybe you, uh, walk the neighbor's dog, somebody else's dog outside the family. And as soon as you're legal age, you get to real jobs. Now, I wanna just give a few hints here. Let's avoid chaotic multitasking jobs that I call chaos jobs. Crazy busy lunch counter at McDonald's. Hmm. Probably let's avoid that. There's lots of other jobs. The other thing is I have a real poor working memory, so if I have to clean the McDonald's ice cream machine, give me a checklist. Take apart steps one, two, three. Cleaning steps one, two, three. Write it down like a pilot's checklist. That would save a lot of jobs. There's a very... then the boss isn't gonna get mad, say, "Well, I showed you how to clean the ice cream machine three times. Are you stupid?" This is where if we'd written down those steps, that wouldn't have happened. So those are just two little hints for success. I've done these talks for so long that these same problems have come up over and over and over again. I love that because first it's get the right job for your kid, and right, if you know one person on the spectrum, you know one person on the spectrum. They're all unique individuals. And the other one is accommodate the job for the person, right? Like the checklist. Well, a checklist is something, this goes across a lot of the spectrum. Those two things. Uh, and the jo- and the jobs that, one job that failed for an 18-year-old girl was a chaos at a clothing store during Christmas time. Hmm. Mm-mm-mm. That did not work. And another one that did not work was a downtown delivery route in New York City. Hmm. That did not work. But maybe a delivery route that's less busy would work. That's why it's so important for, for people who help them get jobs to understand the autism spectrum and, and for the parents to understand their own kids Well, then I think we just need to be, um, you know, they always worry about the interviews. Half of all jobs are backdoor. Mm. You know, let's get the kid into them. When you get the kid into the right job, over and over again, I've had parents say, "He blossomed. She bloomed. She grew up. He became an adult." I have heard that over and over again when they find the right job it's incredibly important. But I wanna go back a little bit because I wanted to talk about the little kids and the diagnosis and just what you would tell, say, the parent of that two or three-year-old who's hesitant to get the diagnosis of autism. Well, what was done with me is they tested for epilepsy, which I did not have. That usually improves the prognosis. If you don't have epilepsy or you don't look at the brain scans and there's some, you know, you got half the brain's missing or some other really bad thing, um, that all improves the prognosis. Make sure they're not deaf. I'm seeing a lot of families now on two-year wait lists, three-year-olds on two-year wait lists. We've gotta start working with these little ones, and may we you know, put a program together in the church and call it church play for legal reasons. We're doing therapy, we just have to call it church play. Mm-hmm. 'Cause we gotta start working with them. You can't let them zone out on a phone for two years. And y- what I tell parents of the little, little kids, once you rule out the epilepsy is that you just don't know. Some of them could become very, you know, very highly skilled. Some of them may not. You just don't know, because they, I looked very severe at age three. Very severe. But they did do tests, and I did not have any signs of epilepsy, which is good. And, uh, I got a lot of early intervention and what was done in that, teaching me words. Slow down when you talk to these kids. When the grown-ups talked fast, it went right into gibberish. Slow down. My teacher would hold a cup up, then she'd say, "Cup," and then she'd say, "Cup-ah." And then turn-taking games. Lots of turn-taking games to learn how to wait and take your turn, teaching of inhibition. All kinds of little turn-taking games. And then skills, getting dressed, brushing your teeth combing your hair, eating with the utensils. Skills. And you should get progress, and the kids should like going to therapy. One hour of therapy a week is not sufficient, but you don't need 40 hours a week. Right. But the research is showing about 10 hours a week of one-to-one teaching with an effective teacher. That's what you need for your little ones. And I've found that some teachers have the knack and others don't. And I'll say to parents, "Are you getting progress?" Right. I don't care what the name of the therapy is. Speech, turn-taking, and skills. Are you getting progress? You haven't- Then you're doing the right thing. You haven't mentioned ABA, so I'm gonna ask about that. Well, they, there is some old-fashioned ABA that's really rigid I did not like. A lot of the ABA has changed, but- The old rigid stuff I don't like again, a lot of it gets down to that particular teacher. And it could be an ABA program or, or it could be called something else, because what I have observed, the good teachers do the same thing as long as, uh, they're, somebody doesn't stop them from doing the same thing. They know just how hard to push, and there's some ABA programs that are really good, and some of the real old-fashioned rigid stuff needs to stop. Also, once the kid gets a lot more skills, you can phase out a lot of the ABA stuff, and it's often not being phased out quickly enough. Right, and for people listening, ABA stands for applied behavioral analysis, and it's, it's, there's a lot of pushback on it now from people who are autistic and have had it and have had bad experiences. Well, and they've had bad experiences, and they were probably forced into sensory overload, so they have really good reasons for being against it. Then once you by the time I was in first grade or so, any ABA-like stuff was stopped You know, they, you just didn't need it, and we had the rule, temper tantrum at school or temper tantrum at home, no TV for one night. Sensory issues are real. And sometimes a sound can be better tolerated, like a vacuum cleaner, if the child turns it on and off. Mm. They control that noisy thing, and I've seen vacuum cleaners go from hate it, afraid of it, favorite toy. Wow. Yeah. Let the child turn the noisy thing on and off. And the other thing is, if you wear a headphone all the time, it will make the s- the sound sensitivity worse. Why? So what you wanna do is have it with you all the time, but try not to wear it. But it's, but you have it, so if the siren goes off, you can put it on. Why would it make it worse? If you've ever had wax in your ears- Ah and the doctor takes it out, you know how it sounds louder? Ah. That's because your brain is compensating for the wax plug. Oh, so you're, like, desensitized. Well, the brain is trying to compensate and hear with some of the sound being blocked. So what you're saying is if you wear them all the time, then when you take them off it'll be louder? It'll be worse? It will be louder, it'll be worse. Wow. It's, it, if you wear headphones all the time, it will d- it will definitely make it worse. But you can have them with you all the time. That's control. That's control. It's with you all the time, so if that, let's say at the airport and one of the most dreadful door alarms goes off, you put it on for that. I love that, and it's making me think of something that's been very popular in social media, pathological demand avoidance. And- We didn't have that in our, my generation didn't have that But, but what you're saying that's interesting is you're saying it's important to give control, and I think a piece of that is these kids feel out of control. The question is, how much control do you give them, and how low do you make the demands? I can remember when I was 15, I was afraid to go to my aunt's ranch, and Mother gave me a choice, not going wasn't one of them. I could stay for a week or I could stay all summer. That was the choice. And I got out there and loved it, and that's why I ended up in the cattle industry. If I hadn't gone on that trip, I wouldn't have been in the cattle industry. It's just that simple. So you give some choice. Staying in your room all day is not one of them Absolutely not. And speaking of staying- Absolutely not. We, we have got to fight recluses online because they, there's so many bad things they can get into online that I No, we've gotta get these kids much more connected to the real world and limit- Yes the device use to one hour a day. I was allowed one el- hour of television a day. We need to do the same thing with all the screens and everything. I, and I've been reading some interesting articles about taking phones away in schools. Mm-hmm. And what, in the beginning, yeah, the kids just can't stand it. They figure out how to defeat those bags they put them in with magnets- Mm-hmm they buy on Amazon. But then, they started, as high school kids, they started to discover they liked not having them. So now they threw away the bags and they just put them in shoe racks in the classroom on airplane mode. So they're there for an emergency, but they just stay in the shoe rack in airplane mode, and they're finding they, they like not having them. That's great. That is really great. Like, there is gonna be almost like a drug withdrawal for a few days. Right. We've got to get through that. And so they're there, and they can grab them if there's an emergency, but they just leave them there. They put them in airplane mode. That's, that's much easier to do than turning them off. That c- I think that sometimes can hurt the phone, especially an iPhone if you leave it- I, I love that. And, and I wanna thank you so much for all your time and all your patience. I just want one more thing from you, if it's okay, is I wanna just leave people with the idea that there's different definitions of success, and I wanna know what you think- Yeah success is. Let's just look at, I have a friend that's got a non-speaking, uh, kid in his 20s, and he's, he, it's very difficult to do, for people to do family outings. They had a big success. They did a three-hour trip to the zoo, and he tolerated it. Amazing. Okay. That, for him, for this non-speaking individual, was a great success. Okay. That's a definition of success for him. Just heard about this. Very, very pleased about that. I love it. I love it. But, uh, I'm always trying to find, let's def- definition of success. Okay, another individual, this was not autism, the big success was learning how to work the wheelchair controller. Right. Okay. But that's still, for that individual, that was a successful thing. And now they can do a family outing, take the whole family to the zoo, and the, uh, non-speaking, uh, guy in his 20s, he w- he di- I don't think, I'm not gonna say he enjoyed the zoo, but he tolerated it so the rest of the family could enjoy the zoo. Right. Right. That was a great success- Absolutely for that individual Yes. It really, really is, and it, it's, it can be hard for parents. I mean, like, you know, speaking as a parent myself of a young adult with, with significant autism it's hard. It's really, really hard, and my heart goes out to everybody going through this because it's easy to say this is the definition of success, but it's also a process. But it's also a problem because one of the parents always has to be home all the time. Right. He needs 24/7, uh, you know, uh, to be with people 24/7, and it's really hard for the parents that have some of these much more severe cases. You know, this is the thing, you see. But I wanna see, like, the fully speaking ones, I wanna see them out in a job that they love, 'cause when they find the right job, they just love it and they feel a sense of purpose. I've heard this over and over again. And we've got to fight against recluses in the bedroom, just going down rabbit holes online that I don't wanna discuss- Right 'cause they're too controversial, but really, really super bad rabbit holes. And we need to get them more connected to the doing things in the real world. Right. And I'm gonna also recommend your book, The Loving Push. Yes. Yes. The reason we did the book The Loving Push was too many parents, I mean, they do everything for their kid. I had one mom, when I suggested that her kid should go in a store and buy something, and you know what she said? "I can't let go." Uh-uh, uh-uh. I suggested that another kid, um, uh, buy something when the mom was pumping gas at a gas station. And, and the mom says, "I don't know if I have the guts to do that." I've gotten kids that are autistic that meet me in the airport to go in a little shop at the airport and buy something, and that was the first time they had bought something. One 12-year-old, I gave her a $5 bill. I said, "Go in that shop." And she bought a drink and brought me back the change. Now, the shop was right there. We were sitting in the gate room. You could see the store across the hall. It was right there. It was not at the other end of the airport. You know, you start out with little things. So you see, now when I talk about that, I'm seeing our airport with an electric train that goes between the terminals. I didn't suggest to the kid to do that. The store was right there next to the gate. And that's- And she carefully bought the drink, gave me the change, and it was the first time she'd ever shopped by herself at an airport. It's amazing. It's really amazing. You know, my daughter had, at one point, selective mutism, and she's able to do that now. So the fact that she's able to go from not being able to talk to someone she doesn't know, to also get up and go online and buy something and talk about the change, and that is huge. Well, and, and, but this, I'm seeing this problem with fully verbal teenagers, maybe doing really well in school. Never gone shopping. Mm-hmm. They're not learning how to save money. They're not learning, like, how to bank account. I got away... I, I got sent to a special boarding school, and they put me to work, um, cleaning a horse barn, taking care of horses. I also had a little tiny amount of money in an account- Mm-hmm that I could shop with, and had to learn how to spend that very carefully. It was a very small amount of money. And I'm realizing now the important skill that taught me. Yes. I think a takeaway can be understand the use of all kinds of minds, all kinds of strengths, make room for the visual thinkers and the mechanical people, and also life skills, and that gentle push You've got to teach life skills. And I've had, I've had teachers tell me that parents, um, you know, were complaining, well, they spend too much time teaching life skills. When I went away to the boarding school, every week we would get in the van, and we'd do our laundry in the coin op, and then we'd take our little tiny amounts of money we had in our account, and we'd buy some things. I'd buy skeins of yarn to knit decorations for horses. Wow. You know, just simple little things. And this stuff needs to be taught. And then the jobs. We need to start with the paper route substitutes. Maybe you help a senior next door, a church volunteer job, something where the boss is outside the home. Right. I love all this. This is so valuable. Thank you so, so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. Okay. Well, it's been really great talking to you, okay then. But it was so good to talk to you, and- Thank you so much I've only seen these kids be, you see this, it is a spectrum, but for, for this, uh, non-speaking guy in his 20s, being able to do this zoo trip- Right with the family- I love it was a big success for him I love it. I love it. And for my daughter also, every day that she calms down, you know, is able to calm down or talk to me or go to a therapist, there's so many different pieces. It's so hard, though. It took me so long to accept that she wasn't gonna be able to be- have your level of success or- No you know? But we have to look at her level of success, and for- Right somebody else, the level of success might be working a wheelchair controller. Right. But for that individual, that was a big accomplishment. Absolutely. And also, this idea that we have to stop fixating on numbers and test scores and academic, pure academics. Well, and they, they, we need to get kid hands-on things back into elementary school. I mean, I was doing woodworking in fifth grade, and I did um, embroidery in third grade. Let's get kids back doing hands-on things. Absolutely. And again, thank you again for doing this with me. All right. Thank you for having me.. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to Kids Matter. Raising Healthy, happy Children Takes a village, and I'm grateful you are part of ours. If today's conversation resonated with you, please share this episode with another parent, grandparent, teacher, or anyone who cares about kids. Together we can build a supportive community our children deserve. I'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or suggestions for future topics at Kids Matter podcast@gmail.com. With no explanation for your voice truly matters. Until next time, keep advocating for the children in your life because kids really do matter. They are our future. I'm Dr. Elisa Minkin and this has been Kids Matter. Please note that while I am a pediatrician, I am not your child's ped. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical. For any medical concerns or decisions. Reach out to your child's healthcare professional.