In this week's blog post, guest author and RDI Program Certified Consultant, Dema Stout, MA talks about working with Montana and his family. The inspiring video included in this post is Montana's story as told from his own perspective. 

The video which accompanies this blog was put together by Montana and Rana Burr for a workshop I did recently in San Antonio. They had previously planned to be there to answer questions, but found they would be out of town on the promised day…so, to make up for having to break their “promise” they put together this video for me to show. It turned out so great that we thought others would like to see it. 

Here is a bit of background info:

As a relatively new Certified Consultant in 2008, I was excited to receive a call from a veteran* RDI mom whose family had recently relocated to San Antonio. (*Parents who have been working with the RDI Program for a while are often called veteran parents.) She told me that she had been working with a great Consultant, Michelle Broeckelmann, in a distance relationship but thought that since there was a Certified Consultant in San Antonio perhaps we should meet. We wanted to see if it would be a good idea to transfer so they could have some in person sessions. Plus, there is some funding here, and it appeared her family would qualify! 

Michelle told me this family is a joy. What an understatement. The first time I actually met Rana, the mom, she came to our monthly Parent Support meeting, and the other parents were naturally enthralled as she talked about her son, Montana, and the progress they had made over the past three years. 

Happily, we decided that we were a good fit. During the next few months we completed an RDA and developed a rhythm of working together. We meet sometimes in person, but more often over Skype….and both Rana and Montana attend the meetings. They are so consistent about doing their videos on assigned objectives and you can tell from the video clip they put together that they are totally receptive to receiving feedback. 

In fact, this is one really outstanding quality about working together…Rana is very thoughtful about the videos they do and her analysis is usually right on but often, there is more I’m able to suggest to her. The three of us then discuss my feedback and decide together how to apply it and when to move on to another objective. Which objective to choose is a group decision as well. Montana usually has a good feel for what he needs more work on, but even if he disagrees, he is willing to go along with mom’s plan to frame something and maybe take it a bit further in daily life. 

Montana is working on his Eagle Scout badge and he and Rana are also working on home internet marketing endeavors. I can hardly wait to see what this team will come up with next. Thanks to both of them for showing the progress their family has made through RDI.

Dema Stout, MA
Certified RDI Consultant

Synergy Solutions
San Antonio, TX 78239
Phone: 210.748.2481
Email:  dema@synergycoach.com