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Transcript:

Welcome to the Exploring Neurodiversity Podcast for adults who support Neurodivergent children. Whether you’re an allied health professional, medical professional, education professional or a parent of a Neurodivergent child, you are welcome here.

This podcast is recorded on the Aboriginal lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people. I acknowledge the traditional owners elders past and present, and I extend my acknowledgement to any Aboriginal first nations people listening in.

I’m Adina from Play. Learn. Chat. I’m an autistic ADHDer, a speech therapist, professional educator speaker, and I also support Neurodivergent Business owners in my other business, neurodivergent Business Coaching and Consulting.

I’m obsessed with creating a world when Neurodivergent people are understood, embraced, supported, and celebrated. A world where we Neurodivergent people can understand ourselves and thrive in a life aligned with our individual strengths, wants and needs.

On the Exploring Neurodiversity Podcast, you’ll get my perspectives and conversations with my Neurodivergent friends. All about how adults can best support Neurodivergent children in our lives.

I bring a Neurodiversity Affirming approach and indeed a human affirming approach to the support that we all provide for Neurodivergent kids in our lives.

Let’s dive in.

Today we are unpacking. This question is in your diversity affirming approach to behavior support, a permissive approach. And there’s a lot to unpack there. So I have no idea when we’re going to go forward. I’ve got lots of ideas to share, and I do a lot more sharing of these ideas and concepts in my webinar, a farming approach to understanding and supporting behavior.

This is something that’s available whenever you are. It’s a one hour long webinar and we go deep into a lot of the nuances that I touch on and get it a little bit into the nitty gritty here in the podcast. But if you are an allied health professional, and you came to learn more about what an affirming approach to understanding and supporting behavior looks like you can get 20% off as a fabulous podcast listener.

Use the code POD20. And you don’t even have to remember that that is in the show notes and there’s a link that will take you straight to the webinar. So you can learn more, see if it’s right for you.

. And you get a shiny certificate at the end, too. As one hour professional development, if that is something that is helpful for you. I know for a lot of professionals, it is.

So this topic has been noodling around in my head for a little while.

so This question is in your diversity affirming approach to behavior support, a permissive approach has come up in a few different ways. I’ve heard people say, and I’ve seen. In kind of spaces in Facebook groups and so on people saying. You can’t use in your diversity offending approach when you’re supporting or changing a child’s behaviors. Because kids need to learn that they can’t have everything they want. Wow.

There’s something to say. It’s true. I agree with that. And what I want to make very, very clear is that I near a diversity affirming approach doesn’t mean that you give a Neurodivergent child. Everything that they want. It doesn’t mean that they instantly get exactly what they want and hope and think that they want.

I think we should first dive into this term. Permissive, what does permissive mean? When it comes to how we support kids, how we bring up our kids, how we teach kids. . And how we set boundaries for kids.

I think the phrase inherently comes as a negative, that a permissive approach means you’re doing something wrong.

You’re letting the kid run free. There’s no.

Boundaries, no rules.

But it’s definitely worth examining this word and this concept. As well as its own little based.

What if we imagine for a moment that a permissive approach is actually not a bad thing. I love to keep this idea in mind that when you look at a kid and you think I need them to stop what they’re doing, I need them to change what they’re doing. Or they’ve asked for something and I instantly want to say no. Before we jumped to a no. I want us to have a default.

Yes. So whether you’re a parent, a teacher, a therapist, Whoever you are in your divergent kids’ lives. I hope that we can start to check ourselves. And before we instantly jumped to saying no and putting up a boundary and setting a rule. Perhaps we can say yes. And I’m not suggesting that you always should say yes.

But I’d love for us grownups in the world.

As we interact with kids to leap towards a yes. First, can we possibly make it a yes. Can we even make it a partial? Yes. And if there’s a very good reason why we can’t make it a yes. Okay. Then it’s a no, then it’s a boundary.

I think I first wrote about this on social media, probably about four years ago when my daughter who’s five now was a little toddler and she was running up to a puddle to go and jump in the puddle.

In chews that were pretty sure they were not gumboots. They were not sensible puddle jumping shoes.

My immediate inclination was to go with a note was to pull her away from the puddle. I was first thinking, I should say no, and stop this thing. It seems impractical and messy. And then I paused, I checked myself. And I thought, what if I make this a yes. What would it look like if I make it a yes. What if yes, is the default.

Yes. Go jump in the puddle. Yes. Go follow your heart. Yes. Go get a bit messy. What would that look like? Okay. They might be a little bit of mess, but we’re actually close to home and we’re heading home so we can go and change shoes. It’s not too cold. Her feet are not going to freeze off. This is not Everest and there won’t be frostbite. Okay.

My anxious brain goes pretty extreme. So I was able to reason with myself and step away from this instant. No, this fun killing. No. And allow the situation to be led by my child’s dreams and desires to go and jump in that puddle. And do you know what happened? Nothing bad. I have a good things. She had fun. I had fun watching her.

And I was taught a lesson that day that really, really sticks out to me today. I’m proud of myself for having caught my knee-jerk reaction of saying a no, but instead I went, okay. Why is it a no, what if it’s a yes. Can it be yes. Great. I don’t have any particular good reason for a no, let’s go with, yes.

So I think this key concept comes through when it applies to any child.

Of course. But when we think about what is exactly a near a diversity affirming approach to behavior, if it’s not all about only saying yes,

This is where I think people get mixed up.

So let’s clarify a bit, what exactly is in your diversity affirming approach to supporting behavior?

And a farming approach focuses on understanding the deep roots behind a behavior, whether it’s a good behavior or one that we may deem a challenging behavior.

We’re looking to the deep reasons behind what a child does and how they act and how they respond.

Very often, those deep reasons are complex.

And it’s not about looking at the immediate surface triggers. The thing that happened just before something else.

And you’re a diversity affirming approach understands that.

To supporting behavior first seeks first means that we have to deeply understand what it is that makes the child think act.

And do what they do.

There’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of detective work. We don’t always get it right.

But with this intention to have positive regard for the children that we’re supporting.

And say that any behavior that they do has deep reasons behind it.

Very human reasons.

And you’re a diversity affirming approach to supporting behavior.

Understands that a child is doing the best that they can in that moment.

With the capacity, they have the tools, they have the skills they have with the environment that they’re in.

This approach, scrubs the word naughty from our vocabulary.

Naughty makes it seem like everything. The child may do is a choice, a conscious choice on their part.

And there are some situations where a child may consciously choose their behavior, but in many, many cases, most of the time. When a child does something that we don’t like, we’ll call it a challenging behavior for the sake of conversation here.

The reasons behind that moment happening. A complicated, layered. Long-term often. And. Many of them are outside of the child.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s transport ourselves to a childcare setting. We’re in, you’re a divergent child ripped up another child’s artwork.

A fully permissive approach might just say, oh, well, okay. That happened. And the child’s Neurodivergent, there’s nothing to be done there. I don’t agree with that. I think there is a cause to have a boundary, which is, don’t rip up other people’s artworks. But that’s not where we land.

We need to go deeper. We need to go backwards and look at what are the deep reasons behind why that action happened.

So in this instance, it might have been that the child was frustrated about something else. They might’ve been in deep sensory dysregulation, a childcare setting. There’s a lot going on.

There’s a lot of busy-ness, there’s a lot of noise. There’s a lot of unexpected things.

They might be uncomfortable tactile sensations. Like perhaps that child is wearing socks that really are irritating their feet and making them feel really frustrated and they have a tag on their new shirt. That’s a little bit itchy. And that has been grating at them all day.

They’ve felt that very, very viscerally all day long. And that has put them on edge.

Maybe there was a misunderstanding or a lack of understanding about personal boundaries, because this is a young child and they are still learning.

In this case, let’s go with the scenario where it was a misunderstanding where the child had thought it was their own artwork. And they became frustrated that their artwork was not coming out the way that they had intended to.

They grabbed the closest piece of paper, thinking it was their own artwork intending to destroy their own artwork because they were feeling frustrated that their vision . Hadn’t aligned with the reality of what was on the paper and they ripped it up. They didn’t realize it was the child’s artwork.

So in a more traditional behaviorist approach to this, we would just look at the behavior and perhaps the trigger that happened right before it, but we may also misunderstand the trigger. The child may get punished, put in the corner. Sent somewhere to go and think about their actions. Without understanding without empathy, without compassion.

What would that do to a child?

It may leave them feeling shame. Confusion. Reluctance to engage in art in the future.

Instead of that. And you’re a diversity of hemming approach. Is a compassionate and empathic way of supporting the child.

Children do need to learn what is okay and what is not okay. Every child, whether then you’re a divergent or not .

the key word here is learn. So it’s a process and we’re not expecting kids to just get it. The way to teach children is not through shaming them.

Not through excluding them.

And not through punishing them. The way to teach kids is to explain. And to show them and demonstrate what is okay and what is not okay.

Of course, it depends on the child’s communication level, but very often that kind of discussion about boundaries and what is okay. What’s not okay. Might happen later out of that immediate circumstance.

In the middle of feeling frustrated about their artwork and also realizing that they’ve torn up the wrong paper and that they’d have upset somebody else in that process.

That is probably not the time to have a discussion with the child about what is okay. And what’s not okay when it comes to other people’s property.

That might be a conversation to have later on when the child’s feeling more regulated and more able to communicate.

That’s an empathic teaching moment where you’re seeking to help the child understand.

But it was okay for them to have their feeling. It was okay for them to feel frustrated.

It was okay for them to feel annoyed that their artwork didn’t match the picture that they had in their mind. And that you understand, they made a mistake. And that they grabbed the wrong person’s outwork and you might support them and teach them some other ways that they can respond in future or Otherwise They can get support in future.

If they do feel that similar frustration with artworks.

And the exact strategies that you suggest are going to be incredibly individualized. But we can’t just stop at teaching the child, what they can do next time. That’s a good strategy. It’s a good approach. But it’s missing a key piece. Which is once you understand some of the deeper reasons behind.

The behavior and you may also be guessing at some of them you might be having your best guess.

Your role as a wise adult in this situation is to change the environment around them as much as possible. And that includes changing the people around the child, including yourself. To be as supportive as possible. So that, that scenario doesn’t even come up in the future. The amount of dysregulation or frustration doesn’t come up in the future.

Maybe the child needs a little bit more space when they’re doing the artwork.

So they’re not exactly next to another child.

Maybe they like doing their art alongside a grownup who can support them.

And do it collaboratively with them.

Maybe it’s about helping reduce all the sensory challenges that exist in that environment for the child. Not just as a one-off, but as an ongoing and make that a more comfortable, more supportive environment all the time.

This is a long process. It’s an ongoing process. It’s not a bandaid fix. But it’s a much deeper, more empathic process. This is what a near a diversity affirming approach to supporting behavior looks like.

You see the child as a whole human, doing their best with the skills that they have.

You try to understand barriers and challenges and remove them wherever possible.

And you help the child meet their expectations on themselves as much as they can.

So when it comes to setting boundaries, it is really important that you consider, there are reasons to say no. While I started the episode by saying, make sure we’re saying yes, as much as possible. Some of the reasons that I really appropriate to set a boundary is where it comes to a non-negotiable like not hurting people, not hurting themselves. And that includes emotional and physical. respecting other people’s property, respecting their own property.

They can be around non-negotiable health things like taking medications. Hygiene and self care, but for all of these,, even if it’s a non-negotiable, you’re still trying to support the child to participate

automate that non-negotiable expectation in a way that is most supportive for them.

I’d love to hear your reflections on this. As you’ve listened through all of the considerations that I have around and your diversity affirming approach to behavior support, which is both.

A lot of this is pulling apart our own beliefs, how we might’ve been brought up, how we might’ve been taught to teach.

So taking the time to reflect on your own beliefs about how children should act and where grownups should be able to say yes, as of nos.

Reflecting on the power differentials between you and the children in your world.

And get curious about what it’s like to actually hand over more power to children, not all the power. But more powerful children to dictate what they can and want to, and what’s okay for them to do in the world.

Get really conscious about your boundaries. Where are your nose and why do you have a no.

And perhaps can it be a yes before? It’s a no.

To help you on this journey. I have a cheat sheet, which is a PDF. Which outlined some of the key factors that indicate whether behavior support approach is neuro-diversity affirming or is not neuro-diversity affirming.

I hope that you can use this document to think through your own practices. But also if you’re looking at a program or a resource Or a particular way of supporting behavior. And you’re wondering is this neuro-diversity affirming. My cheat sheet can help you Think through the different components of it to land on a decision, maybe there’s parts of that program or resource that are useful and neuro-diversity affirming maybe those pots to leave out. Well, maybe it will help you decide to step away from something that is not near a diversity affirming at all.

So the link to that free cheat sheet is in the show notes.

And remember you can get 20% off my offending approach to understanding and supporting behavior webinars for allied health professionals.

By using the code POD20

Thank you so much for sharing this space and time with me. Thank you for being open to learning and unlearning and to listening to the perspectives and experiences of Neurodivergent folks.

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend, share a screenshot on Instagram, pop a five star rating and a review in your favorite app. And join me on Instagram and Facebook.

I’m @play.Learn.chat. Have a spectacular day!