Beyond Expectations: Parenting Autism

Supporting a Child with Autism at Home: What We Did That Worked | Ep. 7

• Michelle Chabolla • Episode 7

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0:00 | 32:11

In Episode 7 of Beyond Expectations: Parenting Autism, Michelle Chabolla and Sean Dobson share how Michelle created a structured learning environment at home to support Greg’s development, both before he started school and alongside his formal education.

Michelle explains why she chose not to fully homeschool, but instead built a home-based classroom to reinforce learning, communication, and life skills in a more personalized way. She shares how this approach helped meet Greg’s unique needs and provided consistency beyond the traditional school setting.

Together, they discuss the balance between school and home support, the importance of structure and routine, and how intentional time at home can make a meaningful impact for children with autism.

If you are a parent looking for ways to support your child with autism outside of school, this episode offers practical insight, encouragement, and a different perspective on creating a supportive learning environment at home.

This episode is proudly supported by Gregory’s Special Creations. If you are looking for thoughtful and unique gifts while supporting Greg's growing small business, visit: http://www.gregorysgifts.com

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the podcast Beyond Expectations, Parenting Autism. Follow Michelle Chabot's journey of raising a child with autism. The challenges, victories, and rewards. If you're a parent, caregiver, or simply someone seeking to understand autism on a personal level, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, here we are. Episode Beyond Expectations. I really kind of wanted to recap a little bit. I think I got ahead of myself on a couple of the, or definitely the first two episodes. Um, I want to talk about where Gregory's at right now. He's 31 years old. He works um at home at his own business as a scroll saw artist. He's amazing. He's very good. Gregoryskist.com for all of you that are curious. And um, and I also want to reiterate this is just my own life experiences. I have no formal training. I nothing. This is just 31 years of living with Gregory, and I want to share my experiences. And that's that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_04

What we call on-the-job training. Definitely big time.

SPEAKER_00

So we've talked about the diagnosis, we've talked about all of the different therapies that I tried and some that I still do with Gregory. And now I want to talk about that time after you get the diagnosis, it can be sometimes a wait before you can actually get an official diagnosis and start getting services. And so that did happen to me. I was on a wait list even back then. I was on probably 90 days. And when you're talking about a three-year-old, 90 days is a long time. They can learn a lot in 90 days. So the very first thing I did was um, I well, I always wanted to be a school teacher, so here I was. Here was my moment. I I had a basement in Colorado, so I turned it into a classroom. And there are pictures somewhere of this classroom, but they're hard pictures, they're not digital.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, exactly. And not on a phone somewhere.

SPEAKER_00

I would really have to dig for them, but I'm sure I could find them. But we literally just went the teacher supply and just started from scratch. We even got the little table with the little chairs, and I think I just wanted to make it where when he did enter the real world, right? When he did go to school or preschool or kindergarten, that it wouldn't be a foreign place for him, right? Oh, interesting. He'd walk in and he'd see where he'd hang his coat. And I mean, I had it completely exactly like the letters on the wall, everything. Everything just looked like a little classroom. And I think the most important thing for him, and I think it is with a lot of autistic kids, is organization. And I have a little bit of OCD myself, so if that worked out great, right? I just containers with labels, everything was labeled.

SPEAKER_04

Interesting. How remind me how old was Gregory when you built the classroom?

SPEAKER_00

This was three. He was three.

SPEAKER_04

He was three. What age what age does kindergarten start these days?

SPEAKER_00

Kindergarten is five. Five, okay. Five. So preschool and all that is before. And he loved it. He loved it. Michael loved it. We played school every single day. But the the main thing with it was was with no um words or no, you know, being nonverbal, I wanted him to recognize and try to say the things in the house. So if there was a table, it said table. There was a chair, it said chair, all through the house. TV had TV on it. And although he wasn't saying any of them for a very long time, he never read phonetically, he read by memory. So I think that helped a lot, right? Because I mean, think of our language, it's awful, right?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, oh, so as an F.

SPEAKER_00

He's never read phonetically his whole life ever. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04

At any point, did he sort of take a label to communicate with?

SPEAKER_00

Like if I'm I want to watch, we did. We use picture cards a lot. Yes, yes. Oh, interesting. Yes, and that went right along with it, right? Like if we told him to go get a chair, then he would, you know, match up the word or the picture to the chair. But yes, definitely. And they do that with all kids, right? The picture cards, yes, definitely. Interesting. So that was a great thing to do, and you can do that at home and it's free, and just start having fun and playing school every single day because every day.

SPEAKER_04

Do you remember how long a session was? Was it 30 minutes? Was it an hour?

SPEAKER_00

No, Gregory had a long attention span. You know, he he they're all different too, right? He literally watched full-length movies as an infant. Oh, interesting. Yeah, Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_03

So attention span wasn't an issue, focus was an issue.

SPEAKER_00

Right. He if he can tune into something, he really, he really did very well stay in on fast. But I just think the organization is just a huge thing that when we talked about last episode of the environment and how crazy your environment can be, the more organized it is because life is chaotic, right? You got kids and dogs and doorbell ringing and people coming and going every day, all day. And the more you can keep that organized, the more that child feels not so chaotic. And with Gregory, a lot of his meltdowns came with chaos, not knowing the next move and not knowing what's going on. I think that's what really triggered his a lot of his meltdowns. And so I think I think to avoid that, stay organized, just stay totally organized. And um and that way also when they do start school, it's not this foreign environment. Remember, that's the main thing, too, is new environments, new routines. You know, routine is such a part of his everyday life. Just a few minutes ago, I called him in the shop and I said, I'm gonna get on the podcast with Uncle Sean. Do you want to stop at four? He usually stops at 4:30. Yes, but let me finish what I'm doing first, and he'll stay till 4:30.

SPEAKER_04

He likes his schedule. And he was that way. Was he that way at three and four years old? He really reacted positive to a very set this is what time breakfast is, this is what time lunch is, this is what time we take a bath, what time we go to bed, this is what time we go to school. Everything, everything. How did you like do that, or did it just sort of like you found that that was what was calming?

SPEAKER_00

I think I found that what was calming. I mean, I think it's working parents, you you're on a routine, right? I mean, that's the best way to shuffle your house, right? Because your house is just total chaos. So we were always on a schedule, it was a different type of schedule, but I just uh with him, I think the unknown is very uh causes a lot of anxiety. And I'm really, really good now. I'm better to give him a heads up. You saw that when you traveled with him, yeah. Yeah, you're the worst about things at the last minute, and I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_04

Well, that's why I don't like to make plans because I don't want to change them, but I know they're gonna change, right?

SPEAKER_00

But if I can say, and I even taught him it was so funny. I said, now we're traveling with Uncle Sean for a week, and he does make a lot of changes. He goes, Okay, I'll be ready. And he did good, but we did make a lot of changes, didn't we?

SPEAKER_03

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

We how about coming home? Yeah, I mean, exactly lots of our flights and stuff, and so that uh I just said just hang on, just hang on, Sean's gonna change something, trust me. But um, and that and that's just with everything. I mean, play dates, um, and I mean the whole world doesn't have to be organized, but just give him a heads up. Give him a heads up.

SPEAKER_04

Well, like Saturday would it be like, okay, we're gonna sleep late, and whatever happens today will happen, or was every day like planned Saturday, Sunday, every day?

SPEAKER_00

It used to be all weekends and everything, but now he's really funny because he does sleep late on Saturdays, and and I think he has a certain time, you know, it's like 9:45 or whatever it is, or he's awake, but uh I yeah, I I think he'll always be a routine kind of guy and a schedule. Certain programs come on at certain times, and he's gotta be you know ready for that program.

SPEAKER_04

Do you remember in um in Rain Man? Do you remember that Wheel of Fortune was super important to him? And whatever they were doing that day, they had to be set down before Wheel of Fortune started.

SPEAKER_00

Is it is that is that like what his favorite game show is interesting. You know what I love about Wheel of Fortune for him, and I think it'd be great if I would have caught on to it earlier. It teaches you how to spell, it teaches you subjects, it it really does teach you a lot of things. Yeah, he loves guess, he loves guessing it makes Michael crazy when he visits. He's like, We gotta watch Wheel of Fortune.

SPEAKER_04

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00

That's what only if you're gonna be in this house. So, yes, I think routine is very, very, very important. And then I, you know, always keep in mind, and we still experience this. We have progress, progress, progress every day, right? He'll do something new, or he'll learn something, or I'll learn something about him. And then there'll be, you know, several weeks go by, and I'll think, my goodness, you know, how come we we haven't really gone anywhere? You know, we haven't gone.

SPEAKER_04

When he was three or four or five, did you have like, okay, the next milestone is speaking, or the next milestone is doing this by themselves? Or it was it, were you that organized to have like like almost like a syllabus of this is the goals for life skills for whatever?

SPEAKER_00

You know, we had goals at the school. I didn't have goals at home. I don't, I don't think so. I did. I just think I just breathed every day. You know, we we definitely had things we worked on every day, every single day we had something we worked on, whether it was writing or reading, or you know, we had those type of things, and and we wanted progress every day, and not every day you had progress. But obviously at school, every IEP meeting there's goals, and they try to meet those goals. What is the IEP standpoint? That's the individual education plan where they get the services. Okay, and they'll they'll have certain goals. They want him doing his numbers by here, they want him you know be able to read a chapter book by this age, and you got those, you got all of that. But I think every day at home, the best best thing is to just make it a game, everything's a game, and play games, dominoes for counting, who'd have thought, right? Right, the greatest tool in the world to learn math, greatest, and the whole family can play, yeah. Right, yeah, he loves that. So lots of games, lots of playing, lots of organization at home, and um keeping that.

SPEAKER_04

Then talk about when it started.

SPEAKER_00

Uh yes, he does. He does thousand piece puzzles in about three days, and that's only in the afternoon. That's not 24 hours a day. That's after he works, that's the way he relaxes, is he does a puzzle. And he doesn't look at the picture and he doesn't build the frame.

SPEAKER_04

So he just a thousand puzzle pieces.

SPEAKER_00

He doesn't look grabs a handful, so he doesn't even have to have a big space, he grabs a handful of pieces and puts them on the table and works it that way, and never looks at the picture. It's it's the most mind-boggling thing you've ever seen.

SPEAKER_04

So, when did he start favoring puzzles?

SPEAKER_00

Well, he's always loved puzzles, probably right. Oh gosh, probably high school. They had a program, a circle of friends where they worked together and he started showing an interest of puzzles. Yeah. And it just took off. We have thousands of puzzles glued and hung up in his shop everywhere, they're everywhere. I use them for art, they're everywhere because he wants to keep them together. He doesn't want to put it back in the box.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So once it's done, which that is a hard thing to do once you work on a puzzle to put it.

SPEAKER_04

Well, and to not be like, I was always taught you started with the corners and then you Right.

SPEAKER_00

I always looked at the picture to figure out what I was doing. Yeah. And that doesn't bother him. He just and then if you sit down to work it with him, he just either leaves or just watches you.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, he doesn't want to do it. It's a team sport.

SPEAKER_00

And then no, it's not. And then when you don't find a piece forever, he'll go, Are you finished?

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

I guess. Okay, thank you. You can go now.

SPEAKER_04

You can move along now.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, Kim and Cher. Kim and Valerie wanting to work with him every time, and it never it never works. That's interesting. But so it's not, it's not a team sport, it's uh it's a solo. But yeah, and that's go ahead.

SPEAKER_04

Is alone time something important for Gregory?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04

Is that part of the daily routine, even as an adult?

SPEAKER_00

Like, yep, get away, wind down.

SPEAKER_02

So after work, he's got a couple hours after work.

SPEAKER_00

He either throws the ball for the dog for really long periods of time out on the property, or um, and then he goes home and to his own house now, right? And uh chills out, and he'll call me and say, Are we having dinner at your house or my house?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, very nice.

SPEAKER_00

That's so fun to have and then when what time, and then I have a show coming on at X amount of time, and so that's your and that's the cuter routine, routine.

SPEAKER_04

Still on that schedule.

SPEAKER_00

He's really gotten better, and this has only happened since he's moved out. Um, that he doesn't put me on such a time restriction with dinner and everything. It's okay. I can watch it, you know, later or whatever.

SPEAKER_04

He'll he will do that to to have dinner with he okay to record a show and come back and watch it off schedule, or or is it really that we gotta be strict?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, he will. We don't have D VR anymore, but thank goodness uh everything's on again, right? Or you can go back to it. So that works, that works good. But yeah, he's very excited tonight. It's November 19th and 2025, and there's an award show big into award shows, like the music awards, uh the Emmys, the Oscar, the Tonies, all of that. He loves award shows. Yeah, he does, which is but um anyway. So the next thing I wanted to touch on was how important your support system is. And this this is all going on early because if you're waiting to get in for a diagnosis, you can tackle your house, right? And go ahead and start organizing the toys and playing organize games with them and teaching them words and things and objects, and then when you do get that diagnosis, I believe more than anything, I think your families and friends are the biggest important thing going. I mean, I think you need that support. I didn't have Facebook, I didn't have Instagram, I didn't have, I had a mother walk up to me. It was so funny at one of the shows, and she goes, I've just got to say something. I follow you on Instagram and Facebook, and I think it's amazing what Gregory's doing, and you didn't even have Facebook to help you out.

SPEAKER_04

Not even back then.

SPEAKER_00

I said she goes, I just don't know what I would do, would you know, do without my support group on Facebook?

SPEAKER_02

And I don't know, there was no Facebook.

SPEAKER_00

So but I I do, I think it's very, very important. It wouldn't might have been easier, right?

SPEAKER_04

Find a group of friends and and figure out, you know, a group of of um just your friends just because when you're tired and frustrated you got someone to talk to, or do or did they take an active role in development and training and that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00

I think just that support, like just being there, period, and then understanding, right? Because it was new to all of my friends. Yeah. Um, they were they'd never been around the autistic child. So them learning Gregory, and then me seeing that chemistry between their kids and Gregory, right? And their cousins when they were around them. And just everybody learning everybody is just such an important thing. But I I just think that my family totally understood while I quit my job while I up and moved to Colorado, because that's just what needed to be done.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. That's my park. It's an interesting topic because that's just not going to be possible for so many moms these days.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Right. Because life is so expensive and everything.

SPEAKER_00

Very, very, very big decision to make. I uh and and maybe at this point in time, if he was diagnosed now, I would not have done that. Maybe I would have had more resources, I would have had more options. I don't know. I just know at that time that was what I needed to do, and so that's what I did.

SPEAKER_04

Interesting. Yeah, that's something we should probably spend some time getting up to speed on for now because and think about what if you weren't able to dedicate this much time person to person with them, like you know, what would you do, or what's you know, what is available.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And and now I believe there's therapies that come to the home. Um, I did have a sitter, you know, in the very beginning. I had a lady that came every day. And then I just I think it was just the reaching out and trying to find the services that we didn't have in our area. And I and maybe at that time there were services in other states that I didn't know about. I I'm not real sure. I just know in my area where I lived, there was not. There were there were not those services. And so I had to step up and and uh figure it out and just right.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Yeah, I mean no, it's it's a it's a huge, it's a huge thing. It's a big change of life.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was it was huge. It was hard to leave my leaving my my family. I left you and mom and dad and Sharon was driver distance. I mean, I literally packed up, sold the house in one day, and they wanted to rent it, you know, while it was closing. And so I was like, oh, like an idiot. Sure, no problem. I was like, wait a minute, where are we gonna go?

SPEAKER_04

What was that change like for Greg Rita? I mean, that's a lot of change for someone that we just talked about who strives on who thrives, I'm sorry, on on routine.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it was it was a lot for him. Actually, my two-year-old took it harder than my three and a half year old then. Yeah, so that that goes to tell you we all deal with change different, right? Right. Michael Michael was just beside himself about all his toys going on the moving truck. Gregory, I think as long as Gregory had me, I was that lifeline. Yeah, wherever mom was, it was okay. It was all right. And I think at that point at three and a half, I think it was early enough to move that everything was new, right? Because school was gonna be new, everything was gonna be new. And and I'm I definitely, and still to this day is his lifeline. I mean, if if mom does it, if mom says it's okay to go there, then it's okay to go there.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

You know, obviously I tell him in advance, but yes, but at that point he was a baby, you know, he wasn't talking.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, like I said, remind me what he we we were talked about in the first episode that he said his first word after he had his first um sacrament. And how old was he then?

SPEAKER_00

He was five and a half when he said his first words, and then he was seven and a half before he really started putting sentences together, speak what they say speaking, which means responding to you, right?

SPEAKER_04

So from a parent's perspective, how many hours a day went into that? It's it's it's this is I guess I guess I'm what I'm thinking from this and kind of reliving it with you hearing that from your perspective is that I mean this is a this is a career, right? This is five years of daily work.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_04

Right. So so two so two, three years, you know, two plus years into it before you got a before we found speech. And that's two years of routine at school and training and And uh and the difficult things. So we've kind of we've kind of as we've talked about this, we've we've tended to stay pretty positive. Like what but what about the difficult days? Like what about the days? What were days that just went sideways and and how did you deal with it?

SPEAKER_00

A lot of days went sideways. I think with with Gregory, um the very first hardest struggle was the bathroom issue. And I think because he got so sick. And I know you remember that.

SPEAKER_04

Withholding, basically.

SPEAKER_00

It's withholding.

SPEAKER_04

And you got sick from it because I guess it is toxic to your system.

SPEAKER_00

It's just toxic. It's just toxic to you. And the doctors had no idea, no idea what to do. Um put him on a laxative for the rest of his life. I mean, there was just crazy, crazy things they wanted me to do.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And that would that was their biggest hurdle. And I think going to Fresno and getting that craniosacral therapy and that sensory integration dysfunction we talked about, which is called the Will Wilbarger method, um changed my life.

SPEAKER_04

So I remember talking about the about the what the head massage. I can't say sacro creating. Oh, the other thing is the brush.

SPEAKER_00

The brushing and the deep compression is what changed his life. That's what really got him on the right road for the potty training and everything.

SPEAKER_04

That was this wasn't just potty training, like potty training is learning like to hold it long enough to go find a right. No, this was like this is like it's okay to go to the back.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if you remember you remember Mexico.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm getting so sick. So I I really believe that that was probably my biggest struggle period with him. And then after that, we we got through that, it just seemed things just started happening. And my main thing was just to to keep him in an environment where he didn't have a meltdown, which is really, really hard. Right. It happens, right? It happens, it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_04

Um as we talked about, right? The the the idea is if you can have a schedule and have a controlled environment and limit, you know, surprises and limit sounds and lights, all the things you would do to sort of calm a nervous system are the good things, but those same things almost prohibit a lot of the development that you're after, right? So you have this rub of like a person needs to go outside and they need to have surprises, they need to there's gonna, and there's gonna work if they're gonna go to a restaurant and see what's going on, there's gonna be loud noises and crying babies.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_04

So, like, so remind me, like, what was the how the how do you thread that needle like how how do you walk the line of like we're gonna go? But a lot of that's gonna be anxiety creating.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, to this day, I don't wait for a table at a restaurant.

SPEAKER_04

Is that right?

SPEAKER_00

No, it was not a choice with him. And today it's still, I mean, you you see it. I'm like, how long's the wait? If it's longer than 10 minutes, we're out of here. It's not gonna work, it's not gonna work. It's not in a very closed environment. If if we're out and about and the restaurant's outside and we can all be hanging outside, and he can do his stretching, we call it, where he walks around. Sure, you're gonna put him into a confined environment and sit at a bar and wait for a table, right? That's not gonna that's not gonna work for you.

SPEAKER_04

Too many inputs, too much anxiety creation.

SPEAKER_00

Too much going on, right? Right, right, too much going on. So I think as a parent, I learned all that early, early, early on, and we just did not do that. We just didn't put him in those situations. Now, was that right or wrong? I don't know. I mean, like we were talking about before, it's like you remove him from all these environments to protect him and then have the process it when it happens.

SPEAKER_04

You need these experiences, interactions to develop, but a lot of them are uh anxiety creating.

SPEAKER_00

He's better. You saw we had to wait for tables and on our trip. And what did he say? Yeah, 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. I would say today that you like the the accommodations that you that you make for Gregory today are very minor, very, very minor. Um, I would say that my lack of patience and me being spoiled is probably a bigger issue than it. So I know it is but what 10 years exactly, but to but at 10 years old or 12 years old, right? Right, it's that so I guess you always just had to have a very specific plan and I guess an escape plan.

SPEAKER_00

If the overall is always an escape plan, where can we go to get get out and get move? And we would, you know, we would tag team with him when he was younger, right?

SPEAKER_04

This is just acceptance that this is a this is the person's characteristics, this is their personality, this is their nervous system, and it's not their fault because you could also see see people getting super upset. It's like, what do you mean the kid can't wait for a table? Like you know, and and and and was that a problem for you and the family at some point, like well, you know, at some point we're gonna have to like tough love it and we we've told no, we've told many people no that we can't do different things.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, that's another thing when it comes to acceptance.

SPEAKER_04

Um my siblings that's what I'm trying to get to is I could see a couple. I'm just making this up, but I could see a couple that where one of them says, like, what are you doing? You know, make them uncomfortable. That that's how you get that's how you learn. So so with an autism, with an autism diagnosis, is there a big risk that that kind of tough love thing of like let's let's overcome this by confrontation of it, is it just a no-go, or does any of that work?

SPEAKER_00

You know, it probably it might work for another child that maybe the sensory, I mean, you know, they're all different, right? You're gonna have all these different levels of sensory.

SPEAKER_04

Did you ever try it? Where it's just like we're just gonna force the issue and see if it see how long you last, yeah. Or just like with the with another kid that doesn't eat their broccoli or doesn't want to do their homework or something, eventually you gotta bring down the hammer. It's like we're gonna do that, you got to. And but with an autistic child, is that just forget about it?

SPEAKER_00

It's not off the table. It's just I didn't do it as much when he was young. I do it more now. I mean, I challenge him more now as far as what he should be doing or what he shouldn't be doing, right? And but I can talk to him and reason with him a little bit more. Well, a lot more, a lot more now. I think a non-verbal child to force them to sit in a restaurant for any period of time with all that going on. Maybe that's what the headphones I've had before now.

SPEAKER_04

I'm sorry. That that strikes me as a super important message. Is this what you what you call a while ago is acceptance and tolerance, and then maybe resetting of the expectations so that everybody knows, okay, we're gonna we're gonna give this person way more leeway, and we're gonna like help by like controlling the environment and allowing escape plans, right? And by basically changing expectations. But that that might be hard for that might be hard for some families to agree on.

SPEAKER_00

It definitely is a lot. I mean, not everybody's gonna agree on it. Thank goodness my husband and I were on the same page 100% on that, and that's what I said. We would tag team. We didn't always say no, but if we were at a restaurant for an event, say, just for example, you go to a birthday party, right? And there's 20 people or a wedding, whatever, and you got all this going on, you're gonna let him be himself because you're in an environment with all your friends and family, right? But in a restaurant, if he ends up getting over stimulated and starting to have a meltdown, you have to know, you have to know your child, you have to remove him from that environment. And you might be able to bring him back, right? Just go outside, get it out, and then maybe bring him back in and say, you know, it's gonna be a little bit longer. But I will tell you, our life was completely changed because of it. I mean, there are things that we could do and things that we couldn't. I mean, Jane and Dave, my best friend and her husband and kids would come over and we spent a lot of time at my house because it was more comfortable, and they were so amazing about it. They totally got it. I mean, we would go to their house, but it was a different visit, right? It was just different. It wasn't as long and it wasn't as comfortable for us because we're watching him and you know, making sure everything's good. So 90% of the time they came to our house. And then when it was time to go, he would take Jane's hand and take her to the door.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, he would decide when it was time to go.

SPEAKER_00

Jane say, I guess we're leaving. I said, I think you are and see.

SPEAKER_04

But it takes those friends, and it's everyone has to be so understanding.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh, they it never offended them. It never, but they literally and all my friends, Christy, all of them would come to my house. They just knew that was the safer, more comfortable place for Gregory to be.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

It's like everybody come to my house. And so we had a lot of parties at my house, which was great because he still got that interaction with friends and family and and everything, but he was in his comfort zone, I guess you should say.

SPEAKER_04

But I think that's a big thing, is that everyone has to kind of get on board to say, you know, like we're all gonna make these accommodations and change our expectations because this person is in a situation that they can't control.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And not, you know, it's not an outcast, it's just they're just different. Just different. But uh, yep. That's fantastic. Anyway, I think we blew through that 30 minutes and I didn't even get to go.

SPEAKER_04

There's so much to learn, it goes so fast.

SPEAKER_00

There is so, so much to learn. So much to learn. But until next time. All right, until next time. All right, bye.