Not By Chance Podcast

Assumed Intent - Shari Murray

• Dr. Tim Thayne, Shari Murray • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Dr. Tim Thayne interviews Shari Murray. They discuss assuming someone's intent and specifically assuming it when there is anxiety or other mental health issues involved. You will find that believing someone has good intent has much more utility than assuming the worst.

Talmage Thayne:

Hey, welcome to the not by chance Podcast. I'm Talmage. Tim, Thayne son and podcast manager. Today, Dr. Thayne is going to be interviewing Sherry Murray, one of Homeward Bound coaches. And this was recorded during the 2019, Homeward Bound advance, they're going to be talking about automatic assumed intent. And I think that's something we could all learn a little bit more about, because we all do it. He's going to be introducing Sherry a little bit later. So we're just going to jump into this.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

This is Tim, Thayne, and we're going places. And today, we're going to explore some information from one of our great coaches here at homeward bound. Her name is Sherry Murray. She has been with us for how many years now, seven and a half, seven and a half years. And she's got a great background, she's got in her in her background, a bachelor's and two master's degrees, marriage and family therapy, social work, and also a lot of a lot of certifications around parent coaching. She used to live in Michigan, she transplanted to Las Vegas. And she, you took with you, I'm trying to remember the animals, you took two golden

Shari Murray:

retrievers, and three cats in an RV, all across the country.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

So that must have been fun loads. And it may have even applied a little bit to our subject today a little bit. So today, Sherry and I are going to talk a little bit about something that I think every parent actually deals with quite frequently. But you're going to put a little twist on it, you're going to talk about this subject that we're going to reveal here in a second, as it relates to children with ASD or anxiety. And and that topic is I think the way I would say it, when you sent this idea to me, I thought, wow, I do that all the time. And it's basically, as a parent, it's really natural and easy to ascribe negative intent to some of our children's behavior when there's something much more fundamental. And at the core of that, do you want to talk to us about talent? Tell our audience what what you mean by by that? So two things,

Shari Murray:

I think really thinking about predictability or is it control and for kids on the spectrum. And in kids with anxiety in particular, we often see kind of a consistent pattern of behavior. And a common term around that is rigidity, right? There's this rigid adherence to routines, they want to do things kind of the one right way and stick with that difficulty with changing with transition. Really just kind of resisting input from others. And those are the kinds of behaviors that we see these these kids kind of fall into this, which looks like compulsive, repetitive, kind of self absorbed, even in some senses, and often looked at as oppositional kind of behaviors.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

So from the, from the perspective of a parent, you're seeing some of these behaviors. What do parents think, usually? Or what do they what do they feel? And then what do they oftentimes say to themselves about their kid?

Shari Murray:

I think parents really get stuck in, in that mindset, that it's all about control. That right? My kids really selfish, he just wants everything his own way. They don't want to listen to anything I say. Or write they just get often this idea of they get stuck. And they don't want to know anything better. That it's really a sense that that they're doing this on purpose,

Dr. Tim Thayne:

that they're making my life miserable. Yeah,

Shari Murray:

right, that you're doing this to just be oppositional that there's kind of nothing else behind it.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

Why do you think it is the fact that so many of us kind of ascribe the negative intent so quick? Why do we do that?

Shari Murray:

I think it's just an easy assumption to make because it looks so that does it looks oppositional. Right. I'm not interested in what you have to say mom and dad to this right. I'm going to do it this way. And it can it can just come across really selfish and I think parents when we don't understand what's what's going on in the background, or what's going on underneath. It's just really easy. I think it's just easier. Just feel like what that must be what it is.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

Yeah, if they swear at you as a pain, yeah. You think oh, that's meant to hurt. Yeah. Right. Or if they do something else, that would be the case. And how would a parent know the difference between you know, the regular kind of oppositional behavior that does happen, right. There are some kids that maybe that truly is that their intent that versus trying aim to have some predictability in their life.

Shari Murray:

I think once you know if your your kids on the spectrum or has that anxiety piece, we really think about what that really means. Both those diagnoses are really kind of fundamentally about information processing problems. kids on the spectrum, we know have difficulties kind of processing information that's coming from multiple different sources, or just coming too quick. We know that kids with autism have weaker connections in their brain, between our brain between their brain centers, that information just can't get through there as quickly. And slow processing is going to lead to a lot of misinformation. And then those kids are going to be reacting and making decisions based on kind of spotty information, and they're doing the best they can. And it often then just looks out of sync, like it's not matching anything else.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

You know, it came to mind Sharise, you're talking about the slow processing, I had this image of, of a freeway, maybe it's because we have a lot of construction here in Utah right now. And they've shut down multiple lanes, and they're down to one lane, where normally you might have three lanes. And it made me kind of visually see how you have this flood of stuff coming, but only a little bit is actually processing. Is that similar to what you're talking about? Is that a metaphor that that you can you can say yeah, that fits with what? Yeah,

Shari Murray:

absolutely right. And think about that, right? When those three lanes go down to one, right? That's it's slow, it's kind of messy, it can be kind of chaotic. And and that's kind of how kids on the spectrum of anxiety kind of experience the world. It's just chaotic. It doesn't make sense, right? Because they're missing so many pieces of it. And then that triggers the nervous system response. And we already know kids on the spectrum have a more fragile and disorganized manner nervous system. And it just creates a lot of uncertainty.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

That is well said, I think that helped me helps me understand children on the spectrum better than I have in the past in terms that the brain functioning, how that's working. Can you give us kind of a specific example of how this might play out in a specific, maybe a family you worked with, that had this and kind of the both sides of the coin? You know, over here, what's going on inside the parents and thinking, what's the behavior? What's going on inside processing was with the team? Can you kind of roll that out for us so that we can visualize this? Sure.

Shari Murray:

I worked with a family where a young man was on the spectrum and why was there working with the family? This young man had a exam coming up, and he was going to sit down and make flashcards. And so he's sitting down, and he's writing and writing and writing. And his parents kind of looked over his shoulder and recognize that he was essentially writing everything on the flashcard right? It wasn't just little snippets of stuff, but he was writing paragraphs and the note card was just full of detail. And mom was like, well, that's not the way you do a flashcard. Well, that's the way I'm gonna do the flashcards. But that's not the way you do flashcards. And then it just became this battle. And right, this young man had come up with his one right way to do flashcards. Prior to that he had had another exam. He wrote flashcards out that way, he did really well on the test

Dr. Tim Thayne:

is this because what is he needs for his brain or system, just the rigidity kind of coming in? I this is how I want to do it.

Shari Murray:

I think for him, he had learned one way, right? And kids, right when you're rigid thinker. Well, I already have one way. I don't need another way. And mom saw it as well, gosh, you're just wasting time. And then mom kind of mom was very well educated. And you know, she had gone through medical school. And she's like, you know, don't you think that I know how to do a flashcard and then it just became this battle of I know more than you do. And, and right and it just right. The problem is when you have a rigid child, and they're countering a rigid parent. There's a good traffic jam right there. So this young man just got that stuck in that process and and mom just couldn't sit back and recognize that he needed to do flashcards that way, because that's the way that made sense to him. His refusal to listen to her had nothing to do with her, but that's not what she thought Right, she thought it was he just doesn't think I know what I'm doing. Right? He thinks he's smarter than me. And he's being stubborn. And he's being stubborn. Right? And he was just, I did it this way, before I did really well, this works. And if I don't do it that way, I don't know what the outcomes gonna be the uncertainty piece came in for him. And uncertainty is anxiety. And it's, it's fear, it's really, really scary when you're on the spectrum and things are uncertain.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

You know, the thought came to me almost a question in my mind, what if I'm a parent? And I, I ascribe this to anxiety or whatever, but it's really oppositional behavior. Is there any? There's any problem with that? Is that okay to go ahead and make my first assumption that it's more around the anxiety and trying to create predictability versus getting it right. And they really been oppositional Is there any any problem with making the wrong assumption here,

Shari Murray:

I think you're always going to be safe and making the assumption that your kids intention is to just find some predictability. Because their intention, right, it's just, I need to make sense of my world. And this is the way I know how to do that. And I think when we approach our kids with that assumption that their intention is pure, right? We as parents are going to interact with our kids in a much healthier and more productive way. And right, if if mom had maybe just talked to him in that situation about the flashcards and her own rigidity, kind of come down a notch, right, I think we would have way different outcome. You know, sure,

Dr. Tim Thayne:

I love this concept. Really, I love it. Because you think about some of the parenting principles, we teach it homeward bound. And one of them is the first one, about the relationship being a priority. And establishing that. So if you think about the two options, you know, if I have to choose to believe my, my teen or my child is trying to control or be oppositional versus trying to just create predictability in this life, boy, that one, the second one is going to help me connect better than I could ever be with the first one. So we're kind of using this principle, the principles are kind of a general, and you're talking about a very specific example of having that relationship be the priority, upfront around this really specific issue that we run into as, as families and parents, was there any tips or any ideas that you could give us parents, you know, when we get maybe stuck in that cycle,

Shari Murray:

absolutely. kind of narrowed it down to kind of five basic things. And I think that first thing is really just acknowledging you have to validate that this is about creating predictability, and security, it's not about defiance, it's not about selfishness, right, this is a scared kid, just trying to make sense of their world. And if you can start there, I think the rest of these pieces fall into place. And that second thing I think is really critical, is even if we acknowledge the anxiety piece, to not get caught up in the convincing our kid that it's not something to be anxious about, you know, we try to sell them on the idea that it's not a big thing to worry about, or, you know, just really recognizing whether you understand what that anxiety is all about. It's real for them. And you have to respect that. The third thing is just patience, compassion, and really accommodating when it's possible. If you can create some routines, you know, allow some space for your kid to do things his way. You know, again, so much better direction that you're going to be headed in relationship, again, is, is going to be established. When we see that overwhelm happening in kids, we just have to slow it down. Remove the confusion, prepare in advance, you know, just give them space. parents tend to write when we feel they're being resistant, that we want to poke them more. And really, that's just the time for parents to back off. Like I said before, problems most often happen when that rigid kid meets the rigid parent. Parents have to be flexible. Rigid. Kids need flexible parents.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

I like that slow down. Yeah. Because it is the opposite of what you want to do as a parent. Like everything gets more rapid and urgent. And it's got to happen now and it's got to be this way. And if we find ourselves going down that path, you're saying, we just do the opposite, that we're probably going to get a much better outcome. Yeah. that,

Shari Murray:

just slow it down, right. And that's where we get to be creative and flexible as parents, right? We know about, you know, having clear boundaries and consequences. And all those things are really important for kids on the spectrum, because again, that creates a lot of predictability for him. But right, there's a lot of times it will be. And I'll give an example with my own son, who's on the spectrum. He kind of panics in the car, if I need to stop and get gas, and I don't tell him ahead of time. If I just whip into the gas station, that's 15 minutes of what are we doing? What are we doing? Right? And I could spend a whole lot of time convincing him. Just gas station, why are you worried about this? Right, but it's not going to work? Right? I just know that I need to be flexible with this. And if I recognize the fuel lights on, hey, buddy, we're going to sapping a gas. Okay. Can I help you we put on the gas station, and it's all fine. Right? I could have spent a lot of time fighting him about that. But that was the time for me to be flexible. I It's okay. Right. It's not a big deal for me to give a five second warning that I'm pulling into the gas station. And I think that's what parents really need to think what are these little pieces that I can be okay, with

Dr. Tim Thayne:

kind of anticipate a little bit of what might be a triggering experience for them? That's, that's great. Awesome. Well, I know, for me, even though you're talking specifically about kids with anxiety and on the spectrum, I can see that I could actually use that as a general principle with my family. And I guess the other thing I just threw out there being that you are Homeward Bound coach and working with families. Another thing I think that could be an intervention in those cases, is that if you have someone, one of the things we do at Homeward Bound is, we have a thing called direct access. And if I'm triggered as a parent, maybe the first thing I do is I'm triggered, I'm gonna put it on pause, maybe get a little coaching from my coach, a little support, they'll help me refrain. And I'll come back at this in a different way, in a much more aware of way that's going to make this better.

Shari Murray:

Yeah, I think kind of like stepping out of it is a really nice way to slow it down.

Dr. Tim Thayne:

Awesome. Yeah, that slows it down. Exactly. Well, Sherry, this has been awesome. Thank you for joining us today for this podcast. And we'll have to get you back on again. Tell me when your next next big topic you want to share, and we'll do it. Great. Awesome. Thanks.