Episode 6: Life Skills — Teaching Independence One Step at a Time

How do you teach life skills to a child with complex needs — and where do you even begin?

In this episode, Julie Cadman sits down with co-founder and life skills expert Dana Cadman to answer the questions every special needs parent is asking: Is my child where they need to be? And how do I help them get there?

Dana introduces the EAT framework (Esteem, Autonomy, and Time) — a practical lens for understanding why life skills matter beyond the task itself. From building self-esteem to giving parents much-needed breathing room, every skill learned creates a ripple effect for the whole family.

Topics covered in this episode:

• The EAT framework and why it changes how you think about life skills
• Why self-advocacy and communication are the foundation of everything
• Teaching hygiene with the OAR method (Organization, Awareness, Resistance)
• Safety instruction broken into three steps: identify, prevent, treat
• How to create a realistic learning plan with the right professionals
• Why milestone charts are a guide — not a verdict
• Celebrating progress, no matter how small

Dana also shares a powerful real-life story about a sixth grader who packed his own lunch — and why it reframes everything we think we know about developmental "delays."

Resources mentioned:

• Pathway to Hope Resource Guide for Special Needs on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1966395094
• Hope Recovery Map: https://specialneedsfs.com/recovery-map

Progress may be slow — but every step forward matters. And no matter where you are in the journey, there is help, there is support, and there is hope.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to the Hope Talks Podcast: Conversations for Special Needs Families. This is a space where we talk about challenges that families have, and we provide information and resources to help you get hope not only now but also into the future. I'm your host, Julie Cadman, co-founder of Healing Complex Kids and co-author of the Pathway to Hope Resource Guide for Special Needs. Today I have an extra special guest with us, my husband, Dana Cadman, also co-founder of Healing Complex Kids and co-author of the Pathway to Hope Resource Guide for Special Needs, and the author on the LifeSkill chapter. He's going to be talking with us today about life skills. That big question that parents always need to know: is my child where they need to be? And how do I teach life skills? So welcome, Dana. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

So let's start with the foundational question. Why are life skills important?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Well, everybody needs to eat their life skills. That's how I remember.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Eat their life skills. Okay, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

EAT stands for esteem, autonomy, and time. So esteem or self-esteem is important for the emotional and mental development of every child, neurotypical or neurodivergent. But for neurodivergent children, it's even more critical because oftentimes they, if they're self-aware, they have a stigma or uh poor perception of themselves because they know that they're behind developmentally. So self-esteem is very important for them. And that's why learning life skills can be so empowering for them. Because as they learn a life skill, it helps build a foundation for future life skills. It gives them that sense of achievement also. So it's very important to celebrate uh each of those life skills as you as you master them.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

And I've So eat esteem was the first one.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

And autonomy.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

So autonomy, what that means is that as a child learns a life skill, they become more autonomous. They're more able to take care of themselves, which leads into T for time because every minute a child can spend doing something for themselves, that's a minute that you don't have to spend time doing that task for them. And that gives the parent just, you know, that much more breathing room. It's time for maybe some respite or, you know, some much needed self-care. And I know you've got a podcast about that. Um, or just you know, time to just uh spend with other family members, or you know, do something fun with the child. It's not learning a life skill.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

So, how do disabilities affect teaching a child life skills?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Well, it can affect it a couple ways. Number one, it's probably going to require more patience on your part, uh, you know, just knowing that you might have to break a task down into smaller steps or uh do more demonstrations. Some children can't abstract instructions, so just explaining it to them isn't gonna be sufficient. You're gonna have to show them and walk them through it. You know, that classic teaching principle of I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna teach you, I'm gonna teach you, and then I want you to show me what I taught you. You know, go through that process.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

And you're probably gonna do it a thousand times.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Well, in some cases, yes, some cases no. So it just goes to breaking down tasks into smaller steps, maybe being a little bit more patient. Uh yeah, and you know, there are plenty of resources you can look at, like the CDC, or there's others that tell you how your child should be developing. They need to walk at this age, talk at this age, ride a bike at this age, whatever. But I would just like to emphasize that every child is different, you know, neurotypical or neurodivergent. And I have a fun story I want to share. Okay. Um so I was talking with another special needs father, which was great because I don't get to talk to many of them. Uh, but uh this one shared a very interesting story about a field trip that he and his son were on. Okay, now his son is uh in middle school, sixth grade, and he volunteered to be a chaperone on the trip. And at lunchtime, uh the father and son sat down with some other boys. And what was interesting, they got talking, and very quickly the father realized that his son, a sixth grader, was the only one in the group who had made his own lunch. Everyone else had either somebody had made it for them or had provided them with assistance. Digging a little deeper, he found out that two of the boys, now again, these are not six-year-olds or sixth graders, did not know how to make a sandwich. No. Yeah, exactly. And this is a father who had struggled with teaching his son how to tie his shoes. So you tell me, okay, so maybe the child didn't learn to tie their shoes until fourth grade or whatever it was, but you've got two peers who can't even make a sandwich. They don't know where to start. So who's developmentally behind there? So that's why I say, you know, these scales of where your child should be are great for maybe doing a check to see if you need to engage an occupational therapist or other professional. But if your child is behind, uh, don't don't worry about that. Find a plan, move forward, and maybe, you know, provide them with you know some accommodation so they can learn the skill.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Don't assume they're always going to be behind. Like you said, it's learning doesn't happen like in a straight trajectory. Sometimes it's scissored and sometimes they're better.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yeah, exactly. You know, go play to their strengths, find out what they're good at, work, leverage those as much as you can at things they're struggling with, occupational therapists, neurologists, you know, you know, other professional that can help you with, you know, providing accommodations and finding a different way to teach them the skill.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

So now let's talk about how do you create a learning plan to help your child with their life skills.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Okay. So to develop a learning plan, it's where you want to work with those professionals, again, occupational therapist, neurologist, someone from the school, if your child's enrolled in a school somewhere, uh, to find out what their strengths and weaknesses are so you know what you need to teach around. In terms of developing a learning plan, you want to set uh goals that are appropriate for the child. And so that means that you will make sure that the child is is, you don't want to, I don't like using the word struggle, but you want to make sure that the child is challenged appropriately when learning a skill. You don't want to set the bar too high, but also don't set it too low. And we've seen that happen in in school systems where the bar is set way too low, the child easily overcomes and gets a false sense of uh of achievement, and also they're not building the foundation they need for learning other skills.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Well, we've seen where we were maybe going to outside the school and they had learned the skill, and the school was saying, Well, here you should do this. And we're like, Well, wait a minute, they're already doing this. Yeah. So that's where a parent can really be proactive, whether it's with school or doctor or whatever, to say, well, this is what I know my child's capabilities are as you're trying to figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, and you know your child better than anyone else. So you you probably have a good idea of where their ability should be. But if you're you're having any doubts, or you know, it's like you know, sometimes you need to get a second or third or even a fourth opinion. Because if you say, you know, my child should be able to do this, and you've got three experts saying, no, your child is right here. Well, maybe you need to lower your expectations. And again, same thing. Uh if you know, if experts are saying here, but you think it's here, then it's like, well, okay, I guess, you know, maybe we need to work a little bit harder.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Well, and something else that we always looked at is presuming competence. Presuming they can do it until maybe faced with no, maybe there's dexterity issues or they can't do something, but presume competence and just keep working and, like you said, patience. Huge. So, what life skills are the most critical? In what order should you be teaching them?

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Okay. So if you do the research, um, you will find experts who say there are 10 life skills or five life skills or six life skills, or however many there are. Um, I in the chapter that I wrote for the Pathway to Hope book, I settled on seven life skills that parents should focus on. And what was cool in doing this research, the one life skill everybody agreed on was uh advocacy and or self-advocacy and communication is most important. And I know you've got a we just said so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

So so self-advocacy and communication, what's the difference? Tell tell me.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Well, so uh communication, just the ability to share information back and forth. So that that's the basic uh definition of communication.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Communicate their wants and needs, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Well, and that be now that leans into self-advocacy is the, you know, what are the what do I want to communicate about my desires, my wants, or my perceptions.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

So one of the things that I keep hearing about self-advocacy is they need to understand their why. Why do they want something? Why are they advocating? So I think that's really important to explain as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah, and that goes back to my earlier statement about the eat, the esteem, the autonomy, and time. Uh so we want to teach uh children that they want to learn these life skills so they can do them on their own, because they're probably frustrated with mom and dad stepping in to do these things for them, you know, all the time. And, you know, as much as you can explain to the child that learning this skill is a stepping stone to learning other things that will help you achieve whatever goal it is you want, whether that goal is riding a bike, being able to go camping or play basketball, or uh, you know, if they're older, you know, a job that they want to get into.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

So or some kids maybe they want to drive, but there's a lot of steps in between. So starting them really young, I think, is huge.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Exactly. So we already talked about communication and self-advocacy being foundational to learning all of the other life skills. There's six other life skills. We don't have time to go through all six of them in this podcast, but uh, you know, two of the others that are foundational are hygiene and safety. Uh, because once you learn communication, hygiene, and safety, the child is now set up to be autonomous and successful within the home.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So, how do you teach a child hygiene and do it in a respectful way?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Well, we grab our OR. Oh. Our OR. Our OR. O-A-R. I've got a lot of acronyms for this. Eat or so, great. So you're learning them already. So, or we talk about organization, awareness, and resistance. So, organization that deals with how the child can they follow a schedule, basically. Can they follow a checklist or a task list? Um, the awareness, are they aware of their own hygiene? Are they aware that you know maybe their hair is rather messy or do they have an odor about them? So they can't correct these things if they're not aware.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Or they haven't washed their hair in weeks, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, and then resistance that deals with maybe the child is reacting to something in the environment. You know, they're they're not doing the hygiene because the something is upsetting their senses, and we need to work through each one of these.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

So if something's upsetting their senses, I know you've got some examples because we've talked through that. What are what are a couple of those?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Well, okay, if your child is resistant to hygiene, if they don't like to wash their face or their hair or brush their teeth or whatever, find out why it is that they're resistant to it. Um you know, for maybe they're uh set off by the smell of a shampoo. As an adult, there are soaps I won't use because they are way too perfumey. And so if you have a child who has sensory integration disorder or sensory processing delays, um, it could be the aroma of the shampoo or soap. Uh, maybe you thought you'd be helpful by buying your child an electric toothbrush. If they're sensitive to noise, an electric toothbrush is not going to work for them. So if your child's resistant to hygiene, let's dig into it and find out what specifically about the hygiene routine is bothering them. And then you know you can work on a mitigation plan for that.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

So let's talk about safety. How do you teach safety?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Okay, safety, unfortunately, I don't have a great acronym for that, but that comes down to uh three three, it is three things. Um, we need to be uh identify what are the dangers, uh, what how do we prevent the danger from happening, and then treatment, what do we do if the danger occurs? And also, I would like to emphasize to parents don't try to take on all of safety in one go. Again, this needs to be broken down. Don't try to teach your child about crosswalks and traffic and safety rules before they've learned how to navigate the stairs in the home. So let's focus on the home first. So, what you want to do is look at your home objectively and figure out what are the most likely ways that a child could injure themselves and then what is the severity of that injury. For instance, if you have a home with stairs, you know, maybe do a basement or a second floor or both, that is something that could cause great harm, and they probably go up and down the stairs several times a day. So that would be like a first one. You want to talk about that before talking about getting your hair or clothing caught in the blender because they're probably not using the blender in the kitchen, you know, as much as they are going up and down the stairs. So you start with that kind of assessment.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

So I want to back us up just a little bit. It can be really confusing when you're trying to figure out where your child should be in terms of life skills. And I know there's a lot of lists out there, there's a lot of information that says, oh, at this age they should do this, at this age, this. Do you prescribe to, I guess, the method of, oh, by 10 you do this, by 12 you do this, by whatever? What's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Uh it goes back to my earlier comment that those checklists are great for doing a self-check. You know, is my child, you know, meeting a milestone? And, you know, if if they're missing it by a few weeks or months, maybe that's not great cause for concern. But once you notice a delay, then that's where you engage those professionals and get a assessment to figure out, you know, is your child truly behind? And if they're not fine, and if they are behind, then you know, what do you do to accommodate them or help them work through that?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

What steps do you put in place to get them where they need to be?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

And if you can, okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

So let's go back to safety. We haven't talked about, we've talked about identifying, but not prevention or treatment.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Right. So once you've identified, you know, on your own, uh, where the child could hurt themselves, then you want to work with them and show them, you know, explain to them the harm that could cause they could cause to themselves or to other people and how to prevent these things. For example, the stairs are a great example. Let's not run up and down the stairs, because if you do, you can trip and you can fall and injure yourself. Let's not carry anything that will block our view of the steps that could cause us to miss the step. Don't play at the top of the stairs. So once you've identified whatever the danger is, then you just need to work with the child. And again, you know your child better than anybody. So you'll know how much time you need to spend on it. And you know, if you can, you try to demonstrate what could happen now with stairs, but it's going to be challenging. But you know, uh, knives, that's another one. Uh, you know, you don't want to play with knives because you can cut yourself. That's where you can take a knife and just demonstrate how easy it is to use a knife to cut an apple or a carrot or you know, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

So I want to go back to stairs because you're gonna be laughing, because in our family we joke, um mom can't talk on the phone and do two things at once. Don't talk on the phone and went down the stairs because I did that and I sprained my ankle.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Right. So now, if your child has a phone, that'd be a good time to maybe revisit that whole scenario. You know, because that that is something that happens with safety way too often, is that we don't think about it or explain it until something happens. You know, we talk about, well, you shouldn't have been doing this. Well, let's try to think through those things and talk about them before they happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

So well, I know you and I are really good at like after something happens, what did we learn from this?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

And you know, use those moments when they occur. Uh, but again, as much as you can, just try to think through those things ahead of time. And and I do want to emphasize break these down, deal with them one at a time. Don't do a whole afternoon safety lecture with your children. It's gonna, it's way too much to absorb. You know, deal with one issue at a time. When they get it, move on to the next one. Don't do a peanut butter spread of everything at once. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Okay. So we haven't talked about treatment for injuries. Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Okay, so if your child does end up hurting themselves for some reason, uh, especially for a child who's neurodivergent, this can set them into a huge fight or flight response, uh flight particularly. And we want to make sure that they have the the ability to treat themselves so that you know they can calm down more quickly. So, in the example of if they were to cut themselves, show them how to put a bandage on. You know, if you cut yourself, if you start bleeding, this is what you do. And practice putting on a bandage, you know, or if you burn yourself, run it under cold water. You know, show them how to don't show them how to burn themselves, but show them, you know, how to you know, put your hands on. Yeah, grab an ice pack out of the freezer or just turn on the cold water faucet and do that. So those simple kind of things.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

So when it comes to danger, we really want to be able to teach them to prevent it, teach them what to do if they get injured, teach them what to do. Okay, here's here's how you would treat, just simple things. But what about our children who are non-speaking and who are really struggling? I mean, what what do you do there?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Well, again, you have to gauge all of this training uh of this life skill of safety uh to the child. If they are nonverbal or very cognitively impaired, their ability to absorb this information is going to be very difficult. So again, you're working on what are the most common ways, most likely way they are to injure themselves. And then uh, you know, how do you prevent that? How do you make sure that you don't injure yourself? It might be as basic as don't pick up something unless you ask first. You might have to get you know that that basic with the safety instruction.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Well, and families may need to get to the point where all the knives are out of reach so that you don't have to worry about that because a child may pick it up and cut themselves.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Well, and that that's you know, basic parenting, whether a child's neurodivergent or neurotypical. You know, you put the plugs in the electrical sockets, you put the knives up high, you use plastic instead of glass, you know, all those common tips.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

So, how do parents know if their expectations are age appropriate, making sure they're not too high or too low?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Well, if a child is struggling for a particularly long period of time, or if they're just melting down as they try to, you know, accomplish a particular life skill, you know, being more frustrated than what you would expect, that's where you want to get those professional assessments and maybe determine if you're if you know this life skill is appropriate for your child at this time.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Going back to professional assessments and going back to like me, you know, as families, we spend so much money trying to get our children to be as independent or to be as healthy as possible. When we look at free supports, where would you go for that?

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Free supports, well, your school system, if your child's enrolled in a school, that's a great place to start. And they can often recommend other resources as well. Uh plus when you just do a regular visit with uh, you know, if you've got a pediatrician you're going to, or a neurologist, or whoever it is that you're seeing, you know, ask them for recommendations as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

For community resources. And also, even if you're homeschooling, you are also eligible for certain supports. You can still contact the school and get help there too.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Well, and as you've taught so many people, you can ask other moms because moms know stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yes, yes, we do. So, how can parents keep moving forward with life skills training, especially when they're in a situation where the progress just seems like it's super slow?

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Well, it's very important for parents to understand, again, their child, every child is different, their child is different from every other child. So don't compare your child to other children or two milestone charts, you know, where they're at. The end goal here is to get across the finish line. And it's not really important, you know, how long it takes. Yes, it's frustrating and in wearing and tiring uh when things take longer than they should. But the ultimate goal here is to make sure that your child learns a skill so it establishes the foundation so they can learn the other skills and get across that finish line. And then celebrate, you know, if it particularly the big ones, riding a bike, tying a shoe, whatever it is, uh if there's a particular ice cream they like, or you know, pizza night, or you know, whatever. Celebrate these milestones when you hit them.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Family movie night?

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Family movie night. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a big grand gesture, just maybe it's a hug and just you know, you did really well.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

I'm really proud of you.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Are you proud of yourself, right? Dina, this has been so good, really good information. Thank you so much for sharing about life skills. And I know we've talked about putting together a life skills guide that will have some of the information though. Even though we keep saying every child is different, it's still helpful to know here's where they should be so that you can figure out what do I do? Who do I go? So if families would like to have that, we do have the life skill guide. So just put life skill guide in the comments and we'll get that to you. So thank you again.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

For parents listening, I hope you take away not just the information, but also the encouragement that you are not alone in this. To take the next step, grab your copy of Pathway to Hope Resource Guide for Special Needs on Amazon. It's a roadmap filled with strategies, tools, and encouragement to help your family thrive. And for a personalized roadmap, check out the Hope Recovery map on our Healing Complex Kids resource page. It guides families step by step with tailored tools and resources. And don't forget to follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, where we share more tips, stories, and updates to support you every step of the way. If you found today's episode helpful, please share it with another family who could use some hope. Together we can make sure no family feels alone in teaching this important information. Thank you so much for joining us today. Remember, progress may be slow, but every step forward matters. And no matter where you are in the journey, there is help, there is support, and there is hope.