Episode 140: Shifting Focus from Behavior to Seeing the Whole Child with Shani Mandel
/As a podcast host, I get approached by experts in different fields. And one of the fields I get approached by a lot are board certified behavior analysts who practice a form of therapy called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). ABA is one of the very few forms of therapy that are "approved" for autistic folks and in listening to and learning from the autistic community, many have outlined the harm caused by ABA to themselves and their loved ones. And while the ABA field as a whole seems to be working to change their practices and stop the most harmful of them, it is still grounded in a behaviorist perspective that can be incredibly dehumanizing.
On the flipside, I also have desperate parents reaching out to me on a regular basis who are looking for guidance and ABA is the only option being recommended to them, and I simply don't know enough about ABA, and how it is changing to, to make a responsible recommendation. It's a really nuanced issue and I felt the need to discuss it with someone who knew ABA from the inside, who knew how to look beyond behaviors, and who if all possible identified as neurodiverse.
Well, I finally found the person to come on and talk about it with us, so here we go! For this week's episode, I am excited to introduce Shani Mandel. She is a certified provider of Collaborative and Proactive Solutions and has formal training in the RIE parenting method. She is a neurodivergent adult and a parent coach specializing in transforming parents’ relationships with their children. She is also a former Applied Behavioral Analyst.
Here's a summary of what we talked about:
Applied Behavior Analysis: What it is, what it isn't, and why it may not be right for your child
How to shift our focus from seeing the behavior to seeing the whole child
Collaborative Problem Solving
If you want to get more support for your kiddo, visit Shani's website yourconfidentchild.com. And, follow her on Instagram @your_confident_child.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we're gonna be talking about how our approaches to working with neurodivergent and challenging kids has changed over the past, you know 10 years and in particular.
So as a host of a podcast, I get approached by experts in a range of fields often. And one of the fields that I get approached by a lot are folks who are board-certified behavior analysts practice a form of therapy called ABA. And it's something that I have been reluctant to have a guest on in this area because in my experience with the autism community, particularly autistic adults and their reflections on their time in ABA, the community, in general, has had some pretty negative experiences with it. And so I've been reluctant. I very much want to prioritize autistic voices here in this podcast and I've been really struggling with this because I get asked a lot, but I finally found the person to come on and talk about it with you. So I'm excited for this conversation.
My guest this week is one of the community managers in my free Balance Parenting Facebook group. If you're not in there yet, the link to it is in the show notes, I'd love to have you come in. So our moderator is a certified collaborative and proactive solutions provider like I am. Collaborative and proactive solution is the model that was built by Dr. Ross Greene. You might be familiar with his book The Explosive child. This model is a beautiful collaborative approach to meeting a child where they are and supporting them in getting their very unique needs met so that there can be more harmony in a home.
So Shani, my guest, and I are both certified in CPS and Shani happens to be a former BCBA. And so she's going to share a little bit about why she left the field and moved into this more collaborative approach and I'm hoping that this conversation will be really helpful, particularly for families who are looking to get their kiddos, some support. Get their family, some support and are finding that most of the providers available are recommended to them have that BCBA, those letters behind their name. So that's my hope for this podcast episode.
Shani, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you. Why don't you just introduce yourself for a minute for those of you who aren't familiar with you yet, I hope you all will get familiar with her. She does amazing Facebook live so many great questions in our free Facebook group. So Shani, welcome to the show.
Shani: Hi! Thank you for that compliment.
Laura: Of course. Tell us about yourself.
Shani: I have a certified collaborative proactive solutions provider. That's something that I've been involved with for probably about two years now. And before that I spent about a decade in the ABA field. The last two years of which I was board certified, which would be the supervisory level, maybe a therapist.
Laura: Yeah, and for listeners, sorry, ABA, stands for Applied Behavioral Analysis. Yes?
Shani: Yeah. Exactly.
Laura: Okay. And so what is it that led you to see the need to leave that field?
Shani: You know, it wasn't an instant decision. It really was a very gradual process. I fell into the field at the age of 19. It was a summer job. I worked out a special ed school and I was put in the ABA classroom and was trained and I was like, oh, this seems so cool, we can actually control what kids do. It seems like such a wonderful thing. I guess, I kind of put it towards my young age at the time that I really just wasn't thinking about what's right or wrong, but this was what was told to me.
Laura: I think it's important to note too that at 19, the part of our brain and you know, we think of 19 is a complete adult, but 19-year-olds, the part of our brain that makes rational decisions, does a lot of good abstract thinking. That kind of, that last level is still growing, still got five more years to go of growth and development. So I just want to offer your beautiful brain some compassion. At that point.
Shani: That's a good point actually. Yeah. You know what? It was about maybe five years into the field. So that would match with what you just said, that I was starting to think and starting to have doubts. And so my first introduction to a different way of seeing parenting and education was the RIE method I found online somehow. And so part of me knew like this is amazing when I have kids, I want to do this. But the other part of me was just like, okay, but we're doing ABA at work. So that's what we're doing.
Laura: Fascinating. I'm a RIE parent too, right? Like right parenting, I fell in love with it as when my children were infants, when my young… oldest was an infant, interesting.
Shani: Yeah,
Laura: It doesn't track, does it? When you're treating infants with such deep respect and collaboration.
Shani: Yeah. It was a cognitive dissonance. It was yeah, this is… it's a very emotional topic. Like you'll see, I'm like pausing a lot. I'm feeling a lot of emotion about this journey. I would say that there's a lot of personal change that has happened for me, aside from professional change. Through finding a different way of trading children, I've discovered a different way of treating myself.
Laura: That doesn't happen very much these days. Yeah, I feel like I'm so sorry. No, I'm not, sorry, tears are beautiful. I'm not sorry. The world wants us to apologize for our tears and our sensitivity. I don't think we should. But gosh, you just so succinctly summed up my vocation in learning to treat children differently. We learned to treat ourselves differently. It's beautiful. Sorry.
Shani: It really is. Yeah. So, continuous journey. So yeah, I had that cognitive dissonance, right? And then there was a part of me too, that said that why can't they both be true ABA and this respectful approach and I want to clarify. So I'll go into a little bit of my viewpoint on ABA, because…
Laura: And maybe at some point maybe we should backtrack because maybe we don't… many of our listeners don't really know what ABA is, the approach. So maybe can I hold a placeholder for that? And you can tell us a little bit about what ABA is? And why maybe you didn't feel so respectful to you once you were learning more.
Shani: Yeah, I definitely want to do that. And I'll just put in for now that I don't hold the position that ABA, that science is harmful. I want to clarify that because, you know, if ABA people are listening to this. I understand the need for accuracy and the science is the science and really the issues I had with the field were completely with the applications and not with the science itself, because you can't… It's like gravity. You can't have an issue with gravity. It's what you do with the information.
Laura: Tell us more. I want to lean into that. What do you mean by that? What is the science? And then what is the, what are the problems with how it can be applied?
Shani: There are principles of behavior that are just true. And that's what ABA is based on. The principles of behavior. We learned, you know, in the courses that I took to become certified, we were taught that ABA is a natural science and not a social science. Meaning that they're seeing it as just a form of nature, right? Like gravity. And I don't doubt that that's true. I think that there is a part like I'm holding up like a circle viewers like a small little circle of behavior that we've managed to turn into a natural science that we've managed to analyze and break down into like measurable pieces. I think the issue comes from the fact that we were so confident that we've turned it into a natural science that we extend that into all realms of the motion and attachment and behavior change.
Laura: And the reality is that humans are much more complicated than that.
Shani: Right. And to me, because I've been in both worlds, I really see why there's such a divide between. I see why it's so hard for each, I don't know. Not that I think that autistic people need to hear, they decide, I don't want to say that. But I think a lot of what the struggle is with autistic adults really would like to ban ABA. And I totally understand that. And I, when I've seen ABA people on the receiving end of hearing that their argument is always but we're science. There's nothing to ban. We’re literally information that explains how the world works. So that's why the conversation never happens.
Laura: So you're saying that it becomes abusive in its application?
Shani: Yes.
Laura: Or problematic in its application?
Shani: Right. The most neutral term.
Laura: At the same time, you know, as I was preparing for this interview, I was thinking back to a time when my kids got guinea pigs. We were new pet owners for the first time and my oldest child desperately wants to learn everything about a topic that she can before she has to do something. And so she was reading a guinea pig care manual and there was… they were talking about how you can train a guinea pig, you know? To do tricks and stuff. But there was this pullout box that highlighted that you should never use punishment. You know? And punishment from a behavioral science perspective, punishment is a legitimate way of teaching animals. We use, that's how we learned, we learned it through B.F. Skinner's work, we learned it through Watson's work. We learned, you know, Pavlov's dogs that by applying a painful stimulus, animals will learn.
And it's interesting to me that my child immediately recognize this because she knows that I teach parenting without punishment. You know, that when we talk about that in our home, she comes home and tells stories about punishments her friends have received and very curious about why parents think that that would work. And she, she read that part and she said to me, she's like, why do parents think that they should do something to kids that these experts are saying we shouldn't even do two guinea pigs, you know, it was just, it's just like it is…
Shani: There's that dissonance there and so I don't think that them from the diagnosis piece that there's a certain that it's viewed as a medical thing they're trying to treat. So yeah, that's, that's a lot of the autistic adults complaint is view us as people not as diagnoses that need to be fixed. Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, they don't need fixing. And honestly, in one thing that I've learned in my work with collaborative and proactive solutions, is that most of the time there's nothing wrong with the child. That happening for most kids who are having a really challenging time is that there's a mismatch between environment and the child's needs.
And once the child's needs are more fully supported and seen and the environment is shifted, the kid is fine. They just, you know, aren't existing in a world that was built for them and we have been trained to want to make our children conform and fit into the box that we think they're supposed to fit into. And that's just not reality for a lot of folks and it's really not what's good for most people either. You know what I mean? I don't know, I feel like we got off track. But…
Shani: Yeah, there's so much to talk about. There's so many different things.
Laura: So in my mind and my picture of ABA. And I think like probably the folks who, people who have maybe seen ABA, like the portrayals in the media maybe are not the greatest but… My gosh, what was that tv shows that has ABA therapist in it? She was ABA therapist, oh what the show is about? Families. I’m not going to be able to remember it. I’m gonna… They will come back to me. There seem to be a lot of rewards sticker charts by figuring out what motivates the child and using that to get them to do what you want. That's kind of my impression of ABA. What is it really like?
Shani: Yeah that's a huge part of it. I like to break it down into… There's really two different reasons why I'm against ABA. And the first one is there are actual harmful practices that are still being done outside of those reward sticker.
Laura: Such as what?
Shani: So the harmful ones that I think that the field is trying to move away from partially they're aware but I mean it's just still so widespread and so those would be - escape extinction is one. Escape extinction. Should I describe this?
Laura: Yeah go.
Shani: Trigger warning.
Laura: Trigger warning. Yes. You know because we do have lots of folks who identify as autistic in our audience and who have autistic kids. So yeah.
Shani: Yeah so trigger warning definitely for people for you to identify that way. So escape extinction is what the adult has determined is that the child is doing their behavior in order to get the reinforcer of escape right? That's the reason they're doing it. So how do we respond to that?
Laura: Like I mean to like get out of doing something, is that what is that what that means in practical terms? Like you know if they are not doing their homework or something or you know…
Shani: Yeah, maybe a standing a lot of times will be just running away from the work desk, you know, or just not having escaped from demands being presented as often.When the therapist has to tend to their behaviors all of a sudden work stops being presented, right? So that's the theory. So following that theory, how do we fix this? Well, we don't let them get what they want, what they're looking for. We don't let them get escaped. But how can you do that in a non harmful way? I mean, it's just not possible. You'd have to pretty much either restraints. So it was never called restraint at that point, it was called a full physical prompt, we can you know, that's maybe a legal question of what restraint actually is. But there were full physical prompts to keep the child continuing with the task or verbal continuing with the verbal demands that if they were escaping from the verbal demands, that's one of the things that….
Laura: Shani, help me like square this with the science. So if we're saying that this is a behavior, you know, this is a natural science behavior. Square with this with the science, with the neuroscience science of the fight or flight system that escape is but…
Shani: Their flight system and our science was not at all discussed.
Laura: So there was never a thought if a child is running away from a work desk and hiding that their flight system might be activated?
Shani: There was no discussion of that. What do you think about behaviors? Again, it's that when I'm holding up that small little circle it's they're so focused on the piece of behavior that they understand that they understand enough to measure and change, that they're ignoring the rest of behavior. And that's where the fallacy lies. Thinking that you can take what is. It's almost like when you have some truth, it's almost more dangerous if you think you have all the truth.
Laura: Because it blinds you to the full picture.
Shani: Yes. And there is like you know what it does work if you prevent the child from escaping eventually they'll give up. So yeah, scientifically it works. And but what about the science of emotions and stress response and nervous system? All of that science is it just doesn't fit into the framework of that little circle that I talk about, the natural science understanding that they have. Now there is I think that is trying to be changed, and I think there are plenty that still do it and there are plenty that are understanding that we can't do this anymore. And that brings me to the second point of my disagreement with ABA. And that's just even if you eliminate those actively harmful practices, is reinforcement. What I call, I'm gonna use some ABA terminology which if any ABA people listening to appreciate this.
The concept of us controlling the child's reinforcers means that what we're doing is contriving reinforcement. So because people always say reinforcement happens anyway, we're just choosing what to reinforce and what not to reinforce. It's been a while since I have like, writing so many writings of like how to explain this in the scientific terms because that's really what we need, we need to… The science is there and we have to go with the science and show that the science is being misapplied. We don't have evidence that contriving reinforcement is healthy for a relationship. That's the big question.Is it therapeutic? And I think as social beings, we can sense that it’s not. But because it’s out science or natural science,they go by - is there data? And there's no data proving that it is damaging the relationship. So that's why they keep doing what they're doing.
Laura: I feel like my nervous system is experiencing some stress while discussing this topic. I don't know about you. Okay, can we just, I don't know if you like breaths, but I'm just gonna put my hand on my heart for just a second here and send some love and compassion out to all the kiddos and the folks who are grappling with this. I don't know about you but for me the lens change that I had to go through in learning about collaborative and proactive solutions and you know, as a parent reading the explosive child, you know from not from a clinician in but as a parent who needed the book. You know? The mindset shift, the lens change that I went through.
And the idea of, you know, Dr. Greene's tagline kids do well when they can. That tagline is at complete odds with any form of reinforcement or attempt to control behavior because in order to control behavior using rewards and punishments or reinforcement or whatever. We have to, there has to be some that is all predicated upon the idea that the child has volitional control over the challenging behavior that they're displaying. And it's at complete odds with the idea that children are not choosing to be challenging. That when children are displaying challenging behaviors is because they've got lagging skills and unsolved problems.
And for me, that perspective that mindset was such a huge relief as a parent, like understanding, you know, that the voice in my head telling me all these lies about my child. I was just completely misinformed, completely wrong, that my kid was struggling and in those moments when she was struggling, she needed de-escalation and compassion, and then we needed to work together proactively to figure things out. That mindset shift was a huge relief, continues to be a hard struggle too. But when I find it again after a difficult time when I settled back into, it just feels so it's like such a relief, there's nothing wrong with my kids. My kids not doing this on purpose. My kid is not fulfilling all of the greatest fears that parents have, you know, that they're never gonna get this. That they're doing this on purpose, that they're manipulating me all the things that parents, things like rolling through our heads. None of them are true. Anyway. Sorry.
Shani: Yeah, that's true.
Laura: So what was it like for you finding the collaborative and proactive solutions model when it seems like you're kind of your move away from ABA, was rather gradual. I'm kind of curious about when you started leaning and what your practice look as you leaned.
Shani: You know, I spent the, I would say, the second half of my time in the ABA field I really was trying to both grapple with - is there still a way I was and I am convinced that you can use the science in a compassionate way if you acknowledge that you're only have the science only refers to a small tiny part of of our understanding of the brain and I was trying to like see if that's what I mean, I became board certified even when I was already grappling because I thought then I'll have more say in what's happening in the programs we set up.
I actually, there is one behavior analyst who I would say is the furthest along in ABA Reform and I started following him. His name is Greg Hanley and he is really focused on meeting children's needs first and foremost, that's a big step up and I thought okay maybe this is the answer. The reason I ended up leaving was because after trying to get this newer version of ABA implemented, I realized that the people that I was supervising had such a hard time processing this new way of thinking that it just, it was not happening. The shift wasn't happening even when I was at the supervisor level, I mean..
Laura: Trying to swim upstream in a doubt like in a waterfall.
Shani: Yes, it was and I even had the support of my boss, both the CEO and the director above me, they were all like, you know, we don't necessarily agree with that, we need to change, but you're welcome to do whatever you want. But it just yeah, swimming upstream, it was too hard. So I took probably, it was probably a year off where I didn't, I just didn't work and I was privileged I was able to do that. And I just spent the time learning and reading autistic people's perspective and also seeing what else is out there. I think that I knew in my mind already what I would want to do in my practice, but finding Dr. Greene was like finding someone who wrote the script out for me. So it's just so helpful when, when helping parents because he has the script written and I don't have to like to explain it from my own heart which can be harder and…
Laura: He's got science too... Right? So he's got lots of research behind him.
Shani: Exactly. Yeah, he's done research.
Laura: Yeah. So what is it about the CPS model that you like so much?
Shani: I think that piece that I said that it's scripted and it makes it like there's a step-by-step process to get to where we're trying to go?
Laura: Where are you trying to go? with families and kids?
Shani: We're trying to change the relationship. That's really that's really what we're trying to do. I know that the model is about problem-solving but it's the relationship that really ends up changing and I'm sure you know that from your practice too.
Laura: Absolutely. that the model is about problem-solving, you know, in having these a lot of sessions with kids and families. That first meeting with the parents and the kids together where you're gonna perhaps try solving a problem together? That first meeting is all about rebuilding trust with the child. They've had so many behavioral plans in place. They've had so many top-down decisions made about their lives. They've had so many attempts, well-intentioned attempts by beautiful, wonderful families, wonderful parents to solve problems where they just didn't stick with the model long enough and then applied a top-down solution to the kid that they didn't the kid didn’t… that you know, that really didn't fully understand the problem or that the kid didn't fully agree to, you know?
So we do this a lot with kids. We do kind of, we really try hard to problem solve and then the kids not giving us much. And so then we just make a decision about what we're gonna try. And there's a lot of convincing that has to happen. I found, I don't know if you found with kids that this is going to be different, you know, and something that I talk about with my parents too, and with the kids is that my job here is to teach your parents how to do this because grownups aren't taught how to talk to kids. Grown-ups are taught how to really understand a kid's perspective.
Most grownups don't know how to ask questions in a way that will help them understand what you need and that's my job and it's my hope that you will at one point you'll never see me again. You know? That you, because your parents are the ones who will be able to really hear you and understand you and see you. That's what I love doing. I love like coming in and getting out. I really like getting out and never seeing people again and, you know, like thinking of them fondly sometimes. Like, wondering how they are and knowing that they've got this. I really like that.
Shani: Yeah, you had said to me, we were when we were talking at a different time. Something that really struck me. You had said that your work, you feel it's about helping the parent get in touch with their own inner wisdom. What a great concept. I've been holding that in me the whole time now as I do as I help my clients.
Laura: Yeah, I love that too. I mean and that feels so good and that's I think that that's what, you know really, that's what collaborative and proactive solutions is about is about quieting the noise, all the cultural messaging that we receive about how we're supposed to be as parents, the authority figures, the ones in charge, you know that you know, and what our kids are supposed to be compliant, obedient, good listeners, you know? Attentive on task and just quieting all that noise and really seeing our kids very, very clearly for who they really, truly are.
And I don't think, you know, and I think the other thing that I like very much about the collaborative and proactive solutions model is that, wow, the model itself is prescriptive, right? So there is a, there's a script that we follow, you know, that were trained in its you know, its manual eyes practically this and this is how they do research on it. They have to do it this way in order to do research. Right? So the folks listening, most of them love research talk and so we have to be.. before you know, I don't participate in any of the research studies.
But if they are doing research studies, they have to have fidelity to the model to know that it's that it's the model that's working right when they look at outcomes for kids and so that is there. But there's a huge, within the model there's a huge range of variation for how each plan B or problem-solving conversation looks like with parents and children, right? Or with teachers and children. There's so much room for the individual family in it. I really like that. Whereas I you know, my impression of modalities like ABA, is that if you have X, you apply Y. You know? And you apply Y until…
Shani: I would say that ABA practitioners do strive to be individualizing their treatment plans. Yeah. It's that they're individualizing it within the small world of behavior reinforcer or behavior remove reinforcer to change the behavior right? When you have such a narrow window of how you're looking at things, you're missing everything else. And I really, I want to say to that I don't harbor any bad thoughts towards ABA people. I mean I think that everyone is trying to find their way within this complicated world. And I know that when I first found ABA, it seemed really reassuring.
So, I've discovered I'm neurodivergent that's been part of my journey when I met the autistic community online. And I found it really reassuring at first and soothing to have this data based completely like all of our behavior just fits into these boxes. I think that, you know, there might be a lot of struggling nervous systems within the field that find it really reassuring and to know that okay we can fit everything into this box, everything's gonna be okay. Yeah, that might be why it's so hard to switch out of it because it has brought them a sense of like, you know, the world makes sense now. Get the world now. It's important to me.
Laura: Yeah, I think… I really like how you're talking about it in this one small piece and that order in that one small pieces there, you know? And right, like that sense of kind of relief and comfort comes to me when I see parents understand their kids concerns for the first time, you know? I was doing a CPS conversation with a girl who her parents, you know, I think have, we're really concerned in terms of think they were thinking about like oppositional defiant disorder, you know, all sorts of really big concerns, really big challenges. And the first one that we decided to focus on was filling up her own water bottle before bedtime. So filling up her water bottle that she would then have beside her on her bedside table. And as we were doing it, doing the problem solving, I was doing it with the girl, the parents just were sitting there with their jaws dropped.
They had no idea how hard it was for her to do this job. They had, you know, the water bottles up high on the shelves, the ice machine was broken. So she had to open up the refrigerator and practically climbed into the, into the freezer to get the ice, you know, because there was just so many obstacles in her way. And the… you know after hearing all of these obstacles, they, they just apologized to her, we had no idea how hard it was, you know? I don't know, it's just that sense of relief that is order to me like that is that's relieving to me this is those moments of like we had no idea what was getting in their way. You know? We had no idea what is preventing them, you know, and that's relieving. I find so much relief in that I don't know about you.
Shani: Yeah, me too, for sure. I think probably everyone's brain is different in terms of how much… this is slightly off-topic, but I just saw this fascinating study that different political, I'm not going political but that different political views have different types of brains and that like certain political views, those brains were more in need of order and structure and other types of brains, other types of political views. The brain was more in need of nuance and not being black and white and that to me explains a lot about like yeah, like I also find comfort in nuance and like I like the nuance of weight.
Parent is not really in charge of the child. We're actually like all human beings and all of our concern while they're in charge, but they're responsible for them. All of our concerns are equal. That's like you have to enjoy the mental gymnastics, I think to be drawn to this method, but I think even for the other types of brains that they really need that order and control, I think what we can show them as a practitioner is that you actually will, will achieve much more order and control once you can let go of that need for everything to be perfectly in ordering control.
Laura: Yeah, and even more powerful, you achieve influence, right? That I mean you because your child trusts you because your child thinks of you as on there, you're on their side that you want, you get them or at least, at the very least you want to get them, you want to understand them. Okay. So now I'm thinking about the parents who come to me and say my child was just diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and we were referred to, you know, X, Y and Z therapies and one of them is an ABA therapist.
So for those families who are just on the receiving end of a diagnosis or who perhaps already have their child in ABA. What do you want to say to them, what are the things that they should be looking out for, that they should be concerned about or that they should just be taking into consideration and holding lightly with curiosity, especially if this is the only, you know, so many of my the folks that I talk to are an isolated small communities where they have very little access to a broader range of resources. So if they're limited in what they can access, what do we do? I'm sorry. I feel like I just asked you like a five-part question.
Shani: All five parts are great questions. Yeah. Okay. Well, first thing I want to say is that autism diagnosis feels like, and I've seen this with parents when they get hit with that. I think it's the way that the doctor presents it maybe? But they feel like their life has just changed. And the first thing I want to remind parents is that your child is still the same person they were a day ago before the diagno… and you are not negligent if you don't do ABA. Okay? That's first of all, that's I think the probably the biggest
Laura: The parents get that message? That you're negligent if you don't do ABA?
Shani: ABA is considered the medically necessary treatment for autism and autism is like a bad disorder and you have to treat it, right? Yeah, this is huge. You're not negligent for not doing ABA. Yeah, big stuff. Really big stuff. I hear what you're saying like and in communities where there really are no other resources. I think that parents can look into… If they just need help because they're overwhelmed by the behaviors that are happening and they need like a babysitter type of person. I've seen some parents were, they want the ABA just for that purpose, you know like... Yeah.
So, right. So for those parents I ask, I recommend they look into respite because that is also funded and that's just babysitting basically. What other reasons? I think some parents are worried that they're not, their child is not going to gain the skills that they need to gain. Look, I have worked with parents who have decided to keep their kids in ABA. I think that if you're very carefully monitoring and doing the research on what to look out for, you might just have a therapist coming in and I don't know teaching a skill but not forcing compliance. If that's where you need to go, there's no judgment from me and I would just say research, research, research, and monitor, monitor, monitor. I think that…
Laura: There's a check-in with your child to like debrief with your child and see how, how it's going for them.
Shani: Yeah. I mean when I say mantra, I would say like sit with…
Laura: Right, I mean, but also get their perspective because what we watch and see might not tell us much about how it feels to the child, you know, to be experiencing it.
Shani: Right. That's a great point too. Yeah.
Laura: And then of course for those of us who are looking for support and wanting to do, you know, because worrying about the skills that they need to be successful, I have found in my own personal experience using this model, the collaborative and proactive solutions model myself, personally and professionally. And then of course lots of other folks who put this into practice that the skills that kids need to be successful are, are actively taught through experiential learning within the model. There's a lot of them. And so that's something else to just consider the need, you know, the ability to break a problem down into its parts, to think critically, and to take perspectives. You know, those are critical social skills and critical executive functioning skills and emotional skills that I don't think you can teach. I don't know that you can teach in a classroom-type setting. I think that those skills need to be practiced and used in order to get better at them and they're used very effectively. Yeah. Yeah.
Shani: But like in ABA, we definitely try and teach, we would try and teach those skills but it's in a contrived situation. And yeah, we want them to learn the skills in an authentic setting like oh I am regulating my emotions because someone else, someone else's boundaries are being crossed and not because I'm gonna get the cookie at the end of this program.
Laura: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And so for that there's folks like you and me who do collaborative and practice solutions, right? So we sit down with parents and help them. I'm not currently taking clients, but are you? Shani?
Shani: Yeah, I still do have spots. Okay, good. I still have 1 to 1 spots open. For anyone looking for support. Please reach out.
Laura: And do you so, you know, when I've worked with folks on collaborative and proactive solutions, it's been very kind of, that's what we're doing. Do you take clients who maybe are those folks who've just gotten this autism diagnosis and kind of need someone to hold them gently as they walk through the process and maybe do CPS at some point or are you pretty rigidly following the model in your work?
Shani: I can do that too. I'm pretty familiar with the nuances of that shift and that's definitely something I feel very prepared to help families with because I walked through the shift myself. Yeah, not too long ago.
Laura: Oh Shani, I so appreciate you sharing your experiences and perspectives and expertise listeners. If you're not already in my free Facebook community, the balanced parenting community, please come join us. Shani is a wealth of information. And if you have questions about the collaborative and proactive solutions model. She is your go-to person in there or you know, is seeking a 1 to1 consultation with her, why she's so good.
Shani: Thank you. Thank you for the chance to share this. This is really important stuff we're talking about today.
Laura: It is, I appreciate the way that you've held kind of all sides of it with a lot of compassion and grace. I think that it is, it's a conversation that I have been I think has been needed, like has been necessary and there's no one else I would have wanted to have it with so I think I really appreciate it, Shani.
Shani: Yeah, of course. My pleasure.
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