Episode 103: Helping Kids with ADHD with Arti Kumar-Jain
/How are you all doing? I hope the first month of 2022 went well for all of you!
Not too long ago, I released an episode about ADHD and how we can help children who are diagnosed with it. And I know that one episode is not enough to give you all the resources that you need. There is still so much more to learn and apply in our day-to-day routine, especially for those with kids who have it.
And that is why I'm bringing in Arti Kumar-Jain for this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast. She is a parent-child family coach who focuses on providing support through deep empathy, care, and a space.
She will be teaching us:
How to manage our feelings with the ADHD diagnosis
How a child with ADHD wants to be viewed
Tips and strategies to make it easier to establish structure and routine around a child with ADHD (check my blog MORNING ROUTINE CHART for a sample visual routine calendar)
If you are in my BalancingU Membership, you also have access to training with Arti on Childhood Anxiety if you're looking to learn more from her.
And be sure to download my Rhythms Routines & Rituals Workbook to bring more connection, ease, and joy into your life.
To get more support and resources, follow Arti on social media and visit her website.
Instagram: @loveandlight4kidz
Facebook: Love & Light 4 Kidz LLC
Website: www.loveandlight4kidzllc.com
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic overwhelm. 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. Welcome back to an episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. And in this week's episode, we are going to be talking about kids with ADHD And how we as their parents can support them and to have this conversation I'm bringing in my friend and colleague who is the Founding Director of Love and Light for kids, Arti Kumar-Jain. Thank you so much for being here with me. Welcome to the podcast.
Arti: Hi Laura, thanks for having me.
Laura: So tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do.
Arti: Sure. So I am the Founding Director of Loving Life for Kids, which is a business that was started back two years ago to really help in the parent-child family module. But as it's building, I'm adding on a lot of newness to it, which is yoga and mindfulness is a big push right now in our organization. Also trying to make books accessible so I just became an independent consultant with Osborne and books and more so that we can really start helping to get literacy going in different areas.
Laura: Okay, cool. And I know you do a lot of educating uh kind of practitioners on different topics, like you've come into my Balance Parenting Community and given a talk on anxiety, but lots of your work is talking to actual practitioners and how we can support parents whose kids maybe have a new diagnosis, you know, anxiety or OCD Or ADHD and how then you can, the practitioners can help parents support their kids.
So now you get to speak to parents in this context. I'm so excited to have you help us out with this because a lot of, you know, the diagnosis rates for ADHD are going up. They are much higher now in the, during the pandemic. Even the rates of diagnosis have gone up for kiddos.
I want to support parents who are facing this diagnosis with their kiddos. Let's start us out talking about kind of how ADHD can manifest, how it can impact kids and families, and kind of some of the first things parents should do when they are suspecting or figuring out or finding out that their kids maybe have some ADHD going on for them.
Arti: So Laura, I always talk a lot about journaling in different areas, but especially with symptoms of any kind, I encourage parents to keep a journal if they have more than one child. Like almost like a… I don't call, like a medical journal almost, but one that they have all their pediatrician's appointments. They jot down notes they want to discuss with their pediatrician and just ways of writing down the time of day and some of the symptoms that they're seeing.
Those of us who have kind of also done some type of diet or nutrition program know that you're supposed to monitor what you're eating and how much and what time. It's the same thing with behavior. You can have different behaviors at different times and to really figure out like, so for instance, apparent who is seeing something; a seven-day log and they can just see are things happening around the same time.
When are they happening–morning, afternoon, or evening? Because those are going to be things that they're going to take into a mental health provider. Their mental health provider is going to ask one of these happenings during their intake and what ends up happening during an intake is there so many questions and then a parent can feel very overwhelmed.
You may not remember on the site, but if they take this journal and some of their questions, you really feel empowered. And the clinician also really values someone who has taken the time to sit down and reflect on their child's behavior in that lens. It also helps to create a really good systematic program to have. So I really encourage a for the parent to be documenting what they're seeing.
And Laura, the reason why I say in a journal is because then it's all in one place. It's also important to flip back and see what's happening because you know, we talk a lot in the field about antecedent behavior, which is like what happened right before that? Did Johnny have a fight with his sister or was it like Johnny had an explosion because he's hungry, right? Like you can look at all that data for a clinician that's trying to help.
And also back to the relationship with a pediatrician, you really want your pediatrician to be on board and understand. So if you have a well check coming up or even just to do a consult on the phone, you know, you can always call into the nurse’s line and start discussing and they document all of this stuff that's happening and that can go on the chart and the pediatrician can review.
So I highly recommend parents to start using that modality too, where they have things documented so that when they go in for the checkup or they're ready to have someone see them, then they have all this data collection like you were saying.
Very, very important because that is going to be a huge part of how that diagnosis is actually given is to figure out how long has this been happening, right? We typically need six months of behavior to usually classify it being as a disorder that is affecting impairment of functioning.
Laura: Okay. Yeah. And so this is something that I think like it's just good to take just a little pause to talk about here. So I have my Ph.D. in a therapy field, I know how to diagnose things like ADHD and anxiety in kids. And my feelings around diagnoses, lots of parents are nervous for their kids to be a label that they're going to carry with them their whole lives.
And so I just wanted to just give a little framing for how I think about diagnoses. Diagnoses are just helpful information that can give your child access to the services and support that they need and that's really how I feel about diagnoses. That they're not something bad, something that's going to hinder your kid. They're going to give your kids access to support, help them get the support that they need either in school or from you or and get you the support that you need to. How do you feel about diagnoses?
Arti: I mean, to be honest with, I can only imagine because when I used to work in a day treatment program, a lot of our kids did have ADHD, and even on the paperwork, it's hard to see as a clinician, right? But I can't imagine as a parent what it must feel like. But what I want to say to you as a parent is, it does help your whole community come together to provide care.
Because when ADHD diagnosis, right, or a label versus the way that a child who's on the spectrum, right? They're going to have ways of us intervening be different versus a child who actually has oppositional defiant disorder, right? Like, and those are just three classifications many more.
What I'm trying to say is that the interventions are different. I actually give the analogy of we don't treat diabetes. A child who has juvenile diabetes and a child who has basically obesity, let's say, or let's say there's another chronic condition that they have. You don't treat them the same way. The interventions aren't the same, right?
Laura: So, like obesity versus maybe sickle cell disease. Like those two things would be treated completely differently, right? And so a diagnosis can help us understand more about what's going on and meet a child where they are.
Arti: And more in all honesty in 2021, just to let the audience know–clinicians, the community, mental health community, and people at large don't look at mental diagnosis of the brain in the same way. Brain health is becoming the most sought after, looked at, these disorders because they are.
There's something happening neurobiologically in each one of these disorders, right? That the scans show it. Something is impairing functioning for our children and our adults and so this particular time period doesn't have as much shame blame that might have been 10 years ago of the stigma that we do have faced with ADHD.
Laura: This is a great time to be a parent in this way. And it's a beautiful opportunity to teach our children about the loving care that our bodies and brains deserve. Like this is a beautiful opportunity to be like, you've got a brain, you've got a body. We take care of our brains and our bodies. Like we take care of our souls, we take care of our spirits, we take care of our emotional health. This is just part of being human, you know.
And it's a beautiful opportunity to teach a kid young because many of these things and I think probably many parents who are listening right now, who kind of have some thoughts like perhaps I have some ADHD going on, wouldn't it have been so great or like in terms of like anxiety as an example.
I was an anxious kid. No one in my world knew I was anxious. No one thought to think about it. I didn't think about it and I didn't realize it until I was in college that I really had symptoms of anxiety most of my life. Wouldn't have been so great if as a child, someone had seen it and said like, you know, there are things we can do for this, this anxiety is going to be your lifelong friend that's gonna walk alongside you in the same with ADHD.
These things are part of us, they’re there, there are differences in how the brain works and there are things we can do to support and make life easier and more fulfilling and use the special powers that these things give us to our benefit.
Arti: Once there is diagnosis, then I highly always tell the parents to always go ahead and tell their child that they have been diagnosed with this because this is part of their lives, right? I think a lot of times we’re so afraid of telling our children the truth, but then explaining what it looks and what it feels like and how the support is going to happen.
And the mental health clinicians going to do it to write their relationship with that child, but the parent themselves the minute that they say, okay, this is what we're working with and now we know right now. We know what might be causing these meltdowns and these crashes to happen.
For a child to feel like, gosh, because our internal dialogue for that child is, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do anything right? Because they're also the ones who are getting in trouble, right? For not sitting still, fidgeting, doing things in school. So they're getting penalized in all of their domains.
They're also the ones even on a sports team that is getting penalized for oftentimes wandering and not listening to the coach. Then they're getting penalized in their home setting, then they're getting penalized and compared even in the home setting to a different sibling.
So, if you notice there's a lot of negative attention that has occurred for this child all the years up until that diagnosis, ends up happening is there's a sigh of relief to almost no, that, oh, my gosh, I actually. There's a reason that something's happening in my life for me and this diagnosis then for a child and a family can really provide that support that we're talking about.
Laura: Arti, when you said that, I felt my shoulders relax and I think it's not kids and the parents. I can imagine might just have just a sigh like, I'm not a bad kid I just have this going on or, and the parents too. Like I am not a completely ineffective, bad mom. Like it's just I got this going on and now I can learn the new tools that I need to, to support them, right?
Arti: So I had a parent last week. To me, she was sobbing on the phone big different diagnosis. But the fact is, she said for all of these years, I knew something was wrong and I kept telling him, but I wasn't heard and all these years that we've lost from my child has lost and I have lost. And my heart was like, and then Laura, you know where I went? This is happening across this country where we have so many families and so many children that are missing out because these parents inevitably know.
They feel it in their body, they feel it everywhere and that's one message I do want to tell you all as parents listening in–trust the gut. Because that parent gut and especially moms, like there's something that happens in the woman, they're doing that research, you know, like.
Laura: Or even moms where the baby didn't grow in your womb. There's still the gut.
Arti: Moms have the gut, foster moms have the gut because guess what? It's all relational. So yeah, fathers too. Dads know too.
Laura: Absolutely. So I think empowering you to trust your intuition, you know your kid and then advocating for your child too. You know, I think that so often parents are afraid to go into spaces like into a doctor's office or into a school setting where they feel like they're in a one-down position where they are in a position where the other person has more education and more power, but I just want to tell all the parents out there listening, you are the expert in your child. You know what's going on and you have powerful.
This is one of the things that you were talking about journaling, keeping a data journal that will help you feel more empowered, but you know your kid and you can stand up for them and advocate for them
Arti: And lower back to this journal idea, there's something about going in when you are nervous but going into a meeting with a pool or with a doctor, I'm telling you, I have done it myself when I'm feeling really nervous in a setting and I'm the patient or the. I'm telling you, going in with them and what they literally take you more seriously. I have seen it with my own two eyes so that empowerment tool for you, for parents I think is really helpful and it will reduce your own anxiety going in to feel like you're, you know, how to approach the situation.
Laura: Absolutely. Okay, so I want to kind of start, you know, we were talking for a second about kind of, what a child has been thinking. So I wanted to ask you so much of my work is getting into the headspace of a child, thinking about things from the perspective of the child. So I'm curious about, you know, a kid who's maybe just found out that they have ADHD or has been struggling for a long time. How do they want to be viewed? Like how do they want to be treated and viewed as they work through the struggles that are part of having ADHD?
Arti: Great question. I think it goes back to, we were talking about, how they have been so negatively viewed for so long. I think it's the acknowledgment of, every child wants to feel special and they haven't gotten a chance to feel special, right? So it's like the feeling of finally feeling, to be good because they don't feel good. They haven't been made to feel good.
Laura: It just breaks my heart.
Arti: We've talked a lot about behaviors and things that happen but a child who has ADHD gets doubly punished and penalized because they have these moments, right? They have these moments of feeling really almost like understood for a bit when their behavior’s like this. And then when they have some type of like reaction, they literally lose it to throw things. Then they're being penalized.
So it's like for them that child is always a pendulum, right? there. It's never just smooth sailing and very different. That's why we're not bringing up ADD today because these are two very much different ways of diagnosis and so with ADHD it's like a constant when you think of just like an, like literally.
That's where speaking of their love language is hugely important. And what I mean about love languages, like a lot of parents have a hard time. And the children to actually really go back to the basics of even giving that, those gentle like squeezes and hugs. And so I have found, even if you notice, even with your own children, when they have had some type of meltdown, even when they don't want that hug, when you just go behind, just say, I just want to give you a hug to support you and I hope that's okay with you. And even sometimes you will get a gentle acknowledgment by body language. You can literally feel a difference, right?
Laura: You know, you were saying just there. You were, you all can't see us, but Arti was using her hands up and down like making hand-like sound wave motions, you know. And I was thinking about like for all kids have things like that, where they feel the glow of our approval and then the darkness of our disappointment like that happens.
And so wouldn't it be quite lovely if all kids had this just this constant of our love reflected to them that no matter what you do, my love does not go up or down. So I think oftentimes parents think about this from a place of, you know, I want my kids to know that nothing they could do could ever make me love them any less, but they also need to know that nothing you could ever do would make me love you more.
My love is completely unrelated in every way to what you do. I love who you are, you know–so you get an A on your test, great! I'm happy for you, you seem so proud, but I don't love you anymore. You fail your test, uh bad, that must really be hard. I don't love you any less–that our love is constant. There is no wave to our love and it is a straight, solid dependable line. I think that all kids need that.
Arti: Absolutely. You said that all kids need it, especially, imagine what's happening, back to the constant in the ADHD brain, a child who has been, it's like constant, right? Like the right and the left are constantly going and it's actually an amazing thing when you look inside of an ADHD brain like it is amazing, but it's a lot of work.
What's happening is everything's firing all at the same time. So for you, Laura, to bring up the example of just constant love and this domain is really important. And you know, I often tell parents it's a struggle, but even at the end of the night, you can literally tell them at the end of the night and have that conversation with the courageous conversation of saying, you know, I may not have approached you really well when you have that meltdown or oh my God I would have my own feel.
Just be honest and relate after you've had some decompressed time. Use the power of the nighttime or whatever it is for you, but use your time after you've reflected–to have that honest, courageous conversation with your child and a child with ADHD like any child just wants to hear reflective parenting happening because they want to know that it's not always them in the wrong or you know.
Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. So I think this is all very beautiful but let's get really practical. What are some tips and strategies that can make it easier for families who are dealing with an ADHD diagnosis to establish some structure and routines that will help serve their child? So when we think about treating ADHD, there's this kind of classic, we're going to use medication to treat it.
And what I know what research is showing us more and more with most mental health diagnoses is that medication can play a lovely role of, you know, bringing stability but that, you know, other interventions, other supportive therapies really or what kind of take things to the next level.
So regardless of whether a parent has chosen to use medication to kind of even things out or help support their child, what are some things that parents can be doing at home at school to support their kiddos in their diagnosis and their symptoms.
Arti: Let's start with just getting ready for school. Many parents have already probably heard this, but I think we forget at any age, we need to have a visual schedule. And what I mean by visual is one that is designed by the child and the parent. Because oftentimes what ends up happening is we create these things and it's so fabulous and it's using Pinterest and whatnot, but the child's like, they were never included.
Laura: Yeah. So everybody listening, I do have a blog post with a video of my free program you can use to make one of these with your kids and when I made one for my daughter, she just sat beside me at the computer. She helped me pick out all the little icons. We broke down all of her getting ready routine and put it all on there and then printed it out for her. Yes, But so I do, I'll put that in the show notes. Everybody can go and watch that on how to make those routine charts in easy and free and fun way with your kids.
Arti: Laura, that's awesome because it is coming down to making sure that it is done together collaboratively. Otherwise, it turns into, remember this whole thing about this is a diagnosis that the child has gotten, but it is affecting the whole family but you really want to empower your child on how do they present within what's best. So back to creating co-collaboration of everything is really key.
Laura: It's their life. They're going to need these strategies and so we can't just be like, oh, here's a tool for your toolbox and not teach them how to use it. Do we want them to go to college and not be able to manage their class schedule because they've never learned how to sit down and make a plan? No, of course not.
Arti: And Laura, they do this a lot in classrooms but their child is not, they are someone who has the diagnosis of ADHD but it's still mainstream, which is, meaning they're spending a majority of the time still in the regular classroom. I would still tell the parents, go ahead and when you go school shopping, like get those colored highlighters because it's really important. A child who has ADHD, remember they almost, there's so many benefits too because they're right and left brain like I was telling before. It's actually working
Laura: I love talking about these benefits of these diagnoses. There’s benefits for sure.
Arti: There are benefits. It's almost like they have an extrasensory, like they are able to perceive their world like no other, right? Because they're able to take in and it is overwhelming. They're able to take everything. All of their five senses are so heightened. Their five senses are so powerful, but then again, how do we help to bring it in?
So simple example, but colored highlighters. And then because what happens is I had a lot of kids in my, in the classroom that were diagnosed with ADHD but they couldn't process, like break down things because everything was in black ink, right? Or like a pencil. So we literally would create boxes around subjects, right? It even taught me how to be a better teacher because, on our actual agenda grid, I learned how to use colors better.
That's the thing parents, you will learn to be a better parent. I'm telling you hundred percent, you learn to be a better parent when you have a child who has been diagnosed because you’d look at the world through their lens a little more and what you actually will start doing for yourself. Because as I've said, parents become better planners too at times when they start to map out their own days.
Letting them choose what's going to help them. Like we always have found that binders are helpful and even in kindergarten first grade for a child if they're diagnosed because the binder has everything in there. Okay, because otherwise have 20 different notebooks. Like it's just, it's too much to lose.
Laura: Like it's easy, too much to lose to keep track of.
Arti: Too much to lose, too much to sort, remember they're going rapid fire and then looking for things is like causing so much time and they're like you lost them, right? So you want to click with everything. You want to be quick and organized and efficient and actually again a great way to live, right efficiency.
Laura: I think something else too that I know that in the families that I've worked with that are working through an ADHD diagnosis is that even things that seem very simple to us as parents are often very very complex to every child but even more so for a child with ADHD.
So the simple task of brushing your teeth, for example, we think it's just one step–brush your teeth. It is not one step. There's lots of steps in brushing your teeth. And so for a child who's really struggling to get these basic self-care tasks done, sometimes they need to be broken down into very clear and manageable steps–I go into the bathroom. I put toothpaste on my toothbrush. I brush the top teeth. I brush the bottom teeth. I spit. I rinse my toothbrush and I wash out the sink and I put my toothbrush away.
You know, every little step because otherwise like, you know, parents walk in after a child who, you know, a young child or a child with ADHD, she brushes their teeth. There's toothpaste everywhere. There's you know, the toothbrush is on the, you know, in a puddle on the counter like it's, and that's not because they're a bad kid or because they're disorganized, it's just because there's lots of steps. Brushing your teeth is complicated.
Arti: Laura, it's true. Every task has lots of different steps–putting on clothes, buttoning your jeans–and that breakdown of the visual. Because here's the thing, I've noticed that parents after the age of seven or eight feel like the visuals don't need to have. We all do it, we just think that they know automaticity but the fact is for a child with ADHD or any of anyone we actually do need a lot of visuals.
Eighty to ninety percent, remember auditory and visual are huge fields for us, but visual actually is a strong strong suit to help a child to go and just process visually. Even if they can get in the habit you can even tell your child to read it out loud so that we know what is their primary modality.
Remember we have kinesthetic auditory-visual processing all over five, which is their strongest and then once we figure that out, that is the modality that the information is going to be processed for them.
Laura: We can even have things like, you know if we know that they're visual chore or visual kind of task list. If they're auditory, we can set Alexa to know and give it to, you know, put Alexa in the bathroom while brushing teeth. I think that you know like I don't know why I'm stuck on brushing teeth, but it's a very common struggle that I hear about a lot with from parents but for some kids brushing teeth is not stimulating enough. The bathroom isn't a stimulating enough environment, it's not enjoyable and pleasurable to be in there and so, of course, they avoid it, you know. So for many kids, they need a lot of stimulation in order to be able to focus too.
Arti: I'm glad you brought that up about music and Alexa. Even that you said Alexa giving reminders, a big focus now in the ADHD movement is talking about all of these different modalities and music is huge. And so playing, like, using music and you've heard people use music to do homework or whatnot but like it's really important.
The music is actually a real great piece to use with a child who's been diagnosed and then different types of music at different portions. And again, you could create a playlist with your child is what I always say to do because then you get to pick your music up and then if you're picking like something like really heavy hard-hitting music during work time and you can talk about what's really going to be good for your brain and then having a conversation around that.
Laura: And you can teach your kids to check-in too. So okay, so we're listening to the song, you really like the song, where do you feel it? What does it make your body want to do? Like you know what gets moving in your body, you know what, how does this music make you feel and which playlist should this go on? You know, this music is really making your body want to move, maybe this needs to be in our movement break playlist, you know.
And that's process of checking in, figuring out is this supportive of me? How can you support me to meet certain goals versus how would this detract from other goals that I have that checking in, that again is a lifelong process, a skill. We want our kids equipped to be able to do. All right.
Arti: Yes, the schematics. Another quick tip is: they say typically a 5 to 3 ratio, which means five minutes on task, let's say for doing homework and then taking a three-minute break. When I do tell parents that recommendation, I say try it for a week, but then you really have to gauge your child too. They're just giving an example of the 5, 5 on task, like doing our homework and 3 break, but then prepare ahead of time.
What do you want your, does the child want their break to look like because then right, if we're over-stimulating a behavior, doing an over stimulate activity to bring them back. All conversations you can have around it, but I have found that some kids need 10-3, right? Or it just depends. What they have found that 5-3 in the very beginning is a great number to use.
Laura: Yeah, I love this idea too that it's not set in stone and it's your individual child and it's collaborative. And I think sometimes too we need to listen to our kids and not, you know, sometimes it's hard for us to take off our adult lens of what we think learning or engagement or focus should look like and accept what it actually looks like for our kids.
I do a lot of sessions with parents and children where I'm helping the parents learn how to use problem-solving skills with their kids, collaborative problem-solving. Sometimes during those sessions, the parents are so set on your… come your child, you need to sit in front of the camera or the video screen, you need to sit here, we're going to sit here, we're going to it's going to look this certain way this what our idea of what focuses and we've all experienced this in school too.
Like I don't know if you remember this, but growing up, you know, like a good listener, you know, put your listening body on, you know, sitting up straight, feet on the floor. Like I've had some of my best problem-solving conversations with kids who are hanging upside down or the laying upside down on the back of the couch or are jumping on a trampoline. Those have been my best ones. They're so well regulated and such good problem solver.
Arti: And that's so true, Laura, and people can talk about their most creative if you look and that's the other thing I want to bring up. You can do the research with your child to show, like all of these masterminds that we consider masterminds, a lot of them had ADHD or symptoms of it because they basically had what are called overactive, calm, overactive, awesome brains.
Because what's happening is, you're coming up with phenomenal ideas like your example, it's absolutely true. And actually, as an adult, go back and look to when you have the most, best creative points, where are they happening? You know, are they happening in the middle of the night? I mean right, like are you literally sitting at your desk and you have the magical idea of how you're, of what you're going to present at your meeting. Like
Laura: Normally my mind comes when I'm sleeping. Like I wake up and like
Arti: Yes. If you talk to most parents and most adults and kids who we, that's a whole different discussion about reflective sleep for ADHD, what their sleep looks like because they have some really, they can actually sometimes vividly dream in a whole different way too.
Laura: Oh my gosh, ADHD sounds really cool. I really like the way that you think about it. You're, you all can't see her but her face just kind of lights up when she talks about how cool it is.
Arti: Because I have seen kids who have it when you approach it the right way and it's like any child. When every child gets a chance to be approached the right way by their family, by their community, by all the systems and also for those who have siblings. For the sibling to understand what's happening, can completely change the relationship between siblings too.
Laura: Yeah, I love that. You know, we're kind of wrapping up here, but are there last tips or advice for parents with more than one kid with siblings?
Arti: This is very hard for all of us to remember and I say us because when you do have more than one, the natural inclination is to compare. You have to literally turn, you literally have to have conversations with yourself about comparison shopping. It’s not a Walmart versus Target discussion. These are children. And if you get into that mindset, you have to literally develop a phrase, like stop talk to yourself. We talk to ourselves all the time. Come up with a dialogue and find out why are you comparing. Is it because your own anxiety is so high right now? Because you're really having a hard time dealing with your child? Okay, step back. Reflect.
With siblings, I used to love bibliotherapy There's some books out there for relationships and helping children in the sibling relationship, but I just say authentically just need to be really authentic with your own feelings and then the child, that the sibling also for them to have time with you to process their feelings because it's hugely important for them to have a space, those are going through a lot of themselves.
Laura: I so agree. I think having an environment of equity in your home too, as opposed to fairness. Lots of kids want things to be fair but when you have a kid who has some differences, things won't be fair. And so, you know, that is a situation that plays out a little bit in our house. My oldest has some differences from sensory needs and just needs a different approach at times.
And in our house, the culture is, everybody gets what they need and people need different things at different times. And so, you know, right now, this kiddo needs this and right, you know, some other time, this other kiddo might need this and it's not about comparison, but it's about recognizing the individual needs of each child and meeting each child where they are and each kid gets what I need.
Thank you so much for helping me with this conversation. I really, really appreciate it so much. Where can everybody go and find you and learn more?
Arti: Sure. So www.loveandlight4kidzlc.com
Laura: Yeah, I'll have that in the show notes to the link for that.
Arti: Yeah. And just remember at the end of the day, I always say if you lie at your, if you can lie down at the end of the day and know that you tried your best, it's a good day.
And if you have the time where you really are like, what could I have done differently? Then just reflect on that and try again, that's all.
Laura: Oh, I love that. Yes. A last little note of compassion and you know what, like even if it was a really hard day and you made lots of mistakes, you still likely were doing your very best in those moments with what you had at that time.
And so like no matter what, just like your love for your child is this constant line, this constant immovable line, so should your compassion for yourself. Your compassion for yourself should not be dependent on what you do, but dependent simply on your humanity. Love that. Thank you for that reminder.
Arti: We needed it to have a conversation about all of this forever. But just you just take a bit by bit, step by step and just love on your child. That's it.
Laura: Well, thank you so much for being with us today. We so appreciate it.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
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Alright, that's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!