When navigating the complex journey of neurodiversity, parents and professionals frequently hit roadblocks where interventions stop working and exhaustion sets in. In Part II of a special role-reversal episode of the Autism: A New Perspective podcast, Dr. Sheely interviewed host Kat Lee about how to push through these emotional barriers, protect the family unit, and maintain a personal identity beyond the diagnosis.
The “Dog With a Bone” Mentality
When a specific strategy fails, it is easy to become discouraged. Kat’s husband affectionately refers to her as a “dog with a bone”; someone who simply will not let go when searching for a solution.
When working with her own son or with other families, Kat emphasizes the importance of continually evaluating whether you are asking the right questions and targeting the right goals. If a hypothesis fails, it does not mean there isn’t an answer; it simply means the right question hasn’t been asked yet. While this relentless process is emotionally draining and can leave both parents and professionals wanting to give up, Kat encourages them to hang on, noting that she has seen amazing gains come from persistence.
Navigating Exhaustion and Video Feedback
Parental exhaustion often peaks as children reach ages 11, 12, 13, and 14, as life dynamics begin to shift. For Kat, learning to adjust her own interaction style provided the fuel she needed.
Through the RDI® program, Kat watched video recordings of herself and realized that she was so focused on the work that she was not checking in with her son as much as he was checking in with her. This video feedback is not designed to judge a parent’s personality, but rather to highlight interaction habits and reveal “little big things” that can be changed to make a massive difference in the guiding relationship.
Protecting the Whole Family
A major concern for parents of neurodivergent children is ensuring that other children in the home do not feel neglected. Dr. Sheely recalled seeing Kat’s daughter participating in assignments alongside her brother, such as jumping into the pool together and referencing one another.
Kat noted that she and her husband were highly concerned about giving their daughter equal parental time. They deliberately designed their lives so that at least one parent was always at her events, and they prioritized family activities like hiking. RDI® is focused on the entire family unit to ensure that no child gets left behind amidst the overwhelming nature of a diagnosis.
More Than an “Autism Mom”
Dr. Sheely tells new parents that she does not want them to become just an “autism mom” or an “autism dad”. When caregivers focus solely on a diagnosis – whether it is autism, dementia, or another challenge – their world narrows significantly.
Kat embraces her diverse roles as an interviewer, consultant, mom, and wife. Because human beings inherently strive for growth, it is vital to keep your life broad and multi-faceted, rather than letting one caregiving role entirely define your existence.
Ruling RDI® In
For parents and professionals looking to explore this family-centered framework, Kat and Claudia Andreessen have developed a concise, independent study overview of autism and parenting. Available on the RDI® Connect public homepage, the video course allows users to learn the foundational components of the program on their own time.
Kat’s parting advice to parents is simple: she does not ask families to rule other therapies out, but rather to consider ruling RDI® in. For professionals, such as teachers, OTs, and speech therapists, RDI® provides the essential framework needed to help parents truly guide their children and bring the whole family together.
Learn More and Get Connected
Want to learn more about the RDI® approach and how it supports meaningful relationships and long-term development? Click here to discover more about RDI® and connect with a certified consultant who can walk with you on your journey.
Full Transcript
Kat Lee: Welcome back to Autism, A New Perspective, the podcast show where we help you understand what is going on in the mind of your child, and we always encourage you that growth for your child is possible. I’m Kat Lee, and in this week’s podcast, part two of Dr. Sheely’s interview with me, we talk about the importance for parents and professionals to ask the right questions. Let’s listen in.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: Katherine, one of the things that stands out for me is that you were always asking the right questions from the people who are working with you about how to better serve your family and your son, and you still have that same capacity. When you’re working with the family, if something doesn’t go the way expected, and we do set up hypotheses, if I scaffold in this way, I can expect to see this, it doesn’t always go the way we expect, and yet I still see that you go back to that questioning. And I’d like for you to talk a little bit about that, because I think it’s one of the important aspects of your work.
Kat Lee: Well, I think whether it was for my son or for families I work with or for friends of mine who have children who have vulnerabilities, it’s not stopping, is the way I would put it. The questions are important. Making sure you’re asking the right question is important.
That’s something that I have to review in my mind a lot. Am I asking the right question? Am I thinking about the right goals?
So those are things we will revisit as parents, as consultants, as professionals to get where we want to be. But my husband and I, and particularly my husband, identifies me as a dog with a bone. And we know that analogy is you’re trying to get the bone out of the dog’s mouth and they won’t let go.
And I think it can be that way to a fault, but being that way can help you keep asking the questions. Just because the answer I had is not working doesn’t mean there’s not an answer. It doesn’t mean this is just the way it is.
It just means we haven’t asked the right question or we haven’t come up with the right answer. But either way, just that continual process. But I want to say that it can be very tiring as a parent.
And actually, there can be a lot of emotions with that. So I do understand when people just feel exhausted. They want to give up the bone.
They want to say, OK, I guess this just can’t happen. And I understand professionally when people feel that way. And professionals do feel that way.
That may surprise some people, but they may try different hypotheses in whatever field they’re in and it’s just not getting there. But I encourage them to hang on because I have seen amazing things happen. Sometimes those gains don’t take that long.
And sometimes I’ve seen things for people take a long time, but they come. But again, it’s, you know, from a parental point of view, it’s emotionally draining. So I get that, but I still encourage it.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: I get that too. And I know what it feels like to think, I really don’t know what to do. So let me go back and think about this again.
And that ability to go back and think about it and to try to discover maybe an obstacle or something that was overlooked, or just to even think about development and ask yourself, did I come into this at the wrong point? And that is, it’s really important that we do that. And I think that if we can continue to do that, we’ll see the growth that we want.
I have seen you do that. I’ve seen you do that over and over again. One of the questions I ask is, your son was 11 when you kind of shifted.
And I run into parents at 11 who are exhausted, couldn’t pick up. How did you manage that? Because I’m sure you were tired too, maybe not.
You do have a lot of energy.
Kat Lee: I think parents are beginning to be exhausted when their children are getting into 11, 12, 13, 14. It’s the beginning of more tiredness in some sense, because as we know, it just shifts what’s going on in their lives with all children. But I think that one of the things that really struck me about RDI was I was doing homeschooling with him, and he was going to school part time.
And I was very excited, amazed that the big part of the program that impacted me at first was how I was guiding him. And some habits I had or some ways of interacting I had with him that I was unaware of. And it wasn’t so much I didn’t have a relationship with him, of course I did, so we were careful about that, but it was how I was interacting with him.
I make the joke, but it’s true, so it’s not really a joke that I was not checking in with him as much as he was checking in with me. And when I was watching that for that on video, I started realizing that I was so focused on the work. So one of the important parts that can energize you, that can give you fuel, is to realize that you’re not being judged as a person on how you’ve interacted with your child.
It’s helping you know what your vulnerabilities may be as well. Again, not judging you, but how you can just really change a few things, not about your personality, not about who you are, not about anything about you as a guide, but about how you’re interacting. And it makes a huge difference.
It’s what we talk about, those little big things that can make such a big difference.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: I was thinking about one of the things that we say when people go through training, whether they’re going through training as parents or as consultants, and that is we don’t want the children in the family to get the feeling that the child with the problem got all of the attention. And in watching you with your son and your daughter, I remember assignments where your daughter was doing the same thing yourself, jumping in the pool together. I have this visual image of the two of them referencing each other and jumping in the pool together.
And was that always the case? Were you always thinking about her that I have to make sure she doesn’t feel neglected or that my son got all of the attention?
Kat Lee: I was just as concerned about her as I was about him, right from the beginning, because I didn’t want her to get left behind. Not left behind, like we would take care of her, but from a time point of view, from a parental time, spending time. And we were both really concerned about that, I would say, at a very high level.
So we would just design our lives around how can at least one of us make sure we’re going to her events, spending time with her, spending time as a family, even if we just ran up the road an hour and a half and went hiking together. Just doing those things, because what you don’t want to lose is your family life. Because if you’re at a point where your family are older and you feel like these things have happened, it’s one of the things I love about RDI, because that’s so focused on the family.
So that’s a great information for your consultant. But we were really concerned about that, and we should have been, because that can happen. And again, it’s no judgment on anybody if it does happen, because things can get very overwhelming.
But yeah, and you just don’t want one child. Some people that I know have just one child. Some have five children, six children, and it’s just multiplied.
You don’t want anybody to get left behind.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: Eve, one of the phrases that comes to mind that we actually use a lot, I use it especially when I’m meeting a parent for the first time, and I’ll say, I don’t want you to become an autism mom or an autism dad. And I think that could be hard, particularly if you’re operating with a lot of anxiety or fear. You are an expert in autism.
Your work is amazing, and it’s great, but I wouldn’t call you an autism mom.
Kat Lee: I’m pausing because I’m not sure what to call me.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: I would just, I would call you, I’d call you an interviewer, I would call you a consultant, I would call you a mom and a wife.
Kat Lee: I think that’s the life people want to live, ideally. We have so many roles in life, and different parts of our life, and different people in our life that see different parts of our life. And when any part of that gets so huge, and we see this in caregivers so much, whether it’s autism or it’s dementia or whatever it is, that one part of their life is, not just defining them, because things do happen to people, and we need to take care of them, but they become, their lives go like this.
And we want lives to be going like this for everybody. And I think that’s what we’re talking about. We don’t want lives to be here.
Why? Because as human beings, growth is what we hope for. We know obstacles come to people in their lives all over the world, things I don’t experience and don’t even know.
So we know that. And there’s times when it’s safer to be here. We know that too.
But where we can, when we can, we want to see that growth. And so one of the things I try to help my parents identify is if this is what’s happening. And this can happen over and over, as we know.
We can do this, and then we can do this. But as long as we’re mindful about that, I think that’s what’s key.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: You wear many hats in RDI. You do the interviews, you’re involved in the training. But most recently, you and Claudia Andreessen have put together kind of a short overview of autism and parenting.
And I’d like for you to talk a little bit about that and tell people where they can access that independent study that you’ve put together.
Kat Lee: Well, yes. We wanted people who were interested in RDI, didn’t know about it, or only knew a little about it, to be able and get a nice, concise video that they could watch anytime, not have to be there at a certain time in a certain place, and learn about basic things, where it came from, why it was started. I think that’s such a foundation.
I always say to my parents, you really need to know this, because this is the foundation for all the work, is Dr. Gutstein’s heart and your heart. And so that’s where we start, and we go through that, and then we start explaining all the different components of the program. And we started that so people would know.
I always tell parents, whether they’re friends of mine or people interested, that I’m not asking you to get rid of other things that you do, or that you think you need to do for your child. I’m not asking you to rule any of those things out. But I am asking you to think about ruling RDI in, and this is a good way to find out if it’s right for you and if it’s right time for you and your family, both of those things.
So that’s why we created it, and every section in it was really, really carefully thought through. There’s so much to RDI that the course could have been like five times as long, but we wanted to make it concise enough to hit the high points of what RDI is. So and that can be accessed on RDI Connect public site.
It’s just right there, right on the home page.
Dr. Rachelle Sheely: You know, I was, yeah, and I hope people will take a look at that. I think it’s wonderful, and I’ve been involved with that with you and Claudia from the beginning as you were thinking about it and how you wanted to do it. But I was thinking about something when you said, you don’t have to give up who you are.
And you were thinking, you’re talking about parents and children at the time, but I’m also struck by how you didn’t give up your interests and who you are. And I just think it’s wonderful in our lives how they come together and all of a sudden, these little pieces that seem so remote, maybe insignificant or part of another life, we find ourselves using them. And I look at you, and I’m just so impressed with who you are and what you’ve done and all those various facets of your life.
And I just wonder, 20 words or less, just joking, parting advice for a parent or professional who might be thinking about RDI, what would your advice be?
Kat Lee: Oh, if you’re looking for a way to impact families that you know, that you feel like you really want to help parents, know how to guide their children, how to bring the family together. So many professionals that I talk to see that parents need help, but they don’t know what to do for them, whether they be a great teacher, a speech therapist, or therapist, OT, we have so many people who are consultants, and they don’t know what to do to help them on that level. They know how to do what they do, but they don’t know how to help the parents.
This program is designed for the parents and the children and the families, but also for you, to give you a framework in which you can help families. And I highly, if that’s your heart, I highly encourage it. And thanks for joining us for Autism, A New Perspective, the podcast show where we help you understand what is going on in the mind of your child.
And we encourage you that growth for your child is possible. I’m Kat Lee, see you next time.
0 Comments