Embracing the Chaos: Kyle Jetsel's Autism Parenting Strategies

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantur. Welcome to Why Not Me the World.
Today's guest is Kyle Jetzel. He's a father of six children,
two which are autistic. He joins us today to tell
us how his autistic children changed his life and what
he does on a daily basis to give them the
best opportunities so they can succeed in life. Welcome Kyle, Hey, Tony,
how you doing this? Is Kyle Jetsel, the driven autism Dad. Hey,
I'm doing great and thanks for coming on. So earlier.
You was telling me that you and your wife had
your first two children and everything was kind of going
along as planned, and then along comes child number three
and things weren't working out quite the same because the
things that you did on your first two children wasn't
working the same. On the third child, and you started
questing yourself as parents, could you expand on that a
little bit?
Right? So, with my first two sons, my first two
typical sons, my wife and I were really unafraid to
study and really work at being good parents, and we
had talked about how we were going to do this together.
So we read a lot of books and we had
a pretty good plan. And even though my first two
sons were what she called feral, right, I think all
boys are kind of crazy, we were still doing real
well and we were kind of building the you know,
the dream family, the white picket fence, you know, kind
of what when we first get into those kind of things,
we had this dream of what our life will be sure,
and things were going well. I mean, we were happy,
our kids were good little boys. My wife and I
were enjoying the experience. And then when my third son
came along, everything changed dramatically. And it wasn't until he
was maybe two or three where we started to see
real dramatic differences. You know that he wasn't really talking,
he was having these tremendous outbursts. The things that we
had done with our first two sons were absolutely not
working with him, and so as we as he got
a little older, you know, he got to be about
sore sives, we decided to put him in a little
preschool to see if maybe some outside influence might help him.
And after a few months of his preschool, we had
one of the teachers come up to us and say,
have you ever thought about getting him diagnosed for autism?
And at that time, this was twenty years ago. He's
now twenty four years old. So at that time, autism
it wasn't like what it is now. Right, everybody realizes
it's a spectrum.
Absolutely, Autism is much more known now than it was
back then. So we're talking twenty years ago. What were
your thoughts when they brought it up to you that
your son might be autistic?
Yeah, we knew that wasn't our son. Eric. We said, oh, well,
that he's not autistic. I mean, we know what that is.
And the guy kind of educated us and said, no,
it's a spectrum. And so we ended up having him
diagnosed on the spectrum. And once they did, it was
almost a sigh of relief because my wife and I
looked at each other we thought, oh no, we weren't
horrible parents. You know, we weren't. We hadn't just lost
all ability to parent all of a sudden. It's just
he needed something different. And so initially it was a
relief and we looked at each other and thought, now
we can get him the help he needs, and then
we can get back to having our you know, typical
white picket fin's family. It didn't take long to realize
over the next few years, as we tried everything the
experts asked us to do. You know, there's therapies and
experts and you know, abas and occupational therapy and physical therapies,
and we had him doing all these things, but we
were still struggling like mightily at home, and we were
calling them at home Autism challenges is what we ended
up calling them. Because we would send him to these therapies,
and first of all, it wasn't easy to get him there.
It was a fight to get him to go see
any therapy, first of all, and he would have meltdowns
and kick ahead and mite and scream and even to
get him there. But once we got him there and
he was done, each you know, each day, it would
come home and it didn't seem to be helping the
challenges at home.
So basically, when you had them a therapy, it was helping.
But then you noticed the transition back home, it went
back to what it was.
You know, these these people, they're experts and therapists. They
do what they do, and they do it well. I mean,
I don't want anyone to think I'm saying what they
don't do is valuable, because they do. But it didn't
help us at home with meltdowns and self harm and
biting and kicking and you know, all the all the
things that we had been struggling with up to that point,
we were still struggling with. And the tension in our
home was absolutely overwhelming. It was we would wake up
every morning with kind of a pit in our stomach, wondering,
what's going to happen today?
Wow, that's really tough. So what was going through your
mind at that time?
These are going to row a brick through a piece
of glass. Is you gonna, you know, smash his head
through the wall? Is he? And we and we really
didn't know what to do. We were kind of at
our wits end as to how to manage it.
And that's really tough. So with all this going on,
did you find that it affected your marriage at all.
You know what it was. We had to go to
the lowest or rows. That's where we really came to
a good meeting point. For years we struggled with this, right,
I mean, the stress was she would call me at
work five or six times a day saying, you know,
he's busted out another window or he smashed another TV
or and I would get I would be driving home,
dreading coming home because I knew there was going to
be stress. And I'll never forget when it all kind
of came to a head is one Saturday morning, at
about six thirty in the morning, we were all the
whole house was awakened by him screaming like this blood
curdling scream, you know, the horror movie scream that you
hear sometimes it's so right. We're all waking. We're all
awakened with that. And I'll never forget. My two older
typical sons locked themselves in their room because they knew
that it was dangerous and scary, and they just they
would just lock themselves in their room and hide from it.
That's a scary thing for young kids. So with this meltdown,
how was it different than the others that he had had.
She had what we called the meltdown of all meltdowns,
and it was typically a meltdown would last anywhere from
you know, fifteen minutes to maybe an hour, and by
then we could get him calmed down and back to
the normal statement. This will lasted four hours. Wow. And
every time we would think we would get him calmed
down and ran back up and start smashing things and
the hitting things and just tearing the house up. And
my wife and I were kind of at our wits end.
And I remember, because we had it had because we
didn't know what to do as parents. I think she
had kind of her own little plan and I had
my own little plan, and they were kind of we
were kind of butting heads on what we should do. Right.
There was really no experts to say, here's how you
manage these things.
Yeah, that I'm sure is very tough. So how did
it work out?
By the time we finally got them calmed down after
about four hours, I mean, it was our house was
a shambles and it felt like, you know, an earthquake.
Kit At the same time, there was a flood, and
I remember, I think this happens to a lot of
parents who are raising kids on the spectrum is you know,
you look for somebody to blame. You want to blame
it on. You don't want it to just be blameless.
And so, you know, I think at that point my
wife and I kind of turned on each other when
we got into this real mean spirited argument because we
were just so stressed out. Right. She was stressed out,
I was stressed out. There was no answers. Nothing we
had tried was helping. The experts, the therapists, we had
spent thousands of thousands on all these things, and we
were still in the same spot. And so I remember this,
this argument just started to last too long, and I
thought to myself, I really need to walk away because
it's getting escalating beyond the point of nothing good is
going to happen at this point. It's just it's out
of control. I had my keys in my pocket and
I walked out on my front porch, and I thought,
I've got a couple of options here. I considered leaving,
and I thought I'm going to leave and never come back.
That thought crossed my mind.
That's a lot of emotion to go through. So needless
to say, you didn't leave so what changed to make
you say, you know, I'm going to see this through.
That exact moment, I remember having a thought of unlessen
my father had taught me. When I was about twelve
years old, I was playing in a baseball game and
I was playing shortstop and there was two outs and
all we needed was one out to win the game. Well,
a kid hit the ball to me, and I made
an error, and as so often happens, where an era happens,
the next couple of kids got hits and they ended
up winning, and we ended up losing, and it was
on my phault. And I remember after the game, I
was dejected. You know, at twelve years old, this is
your life, right, I mean, there's nothing bigger than this
in your life. And so I remember walking over my
dad and I said, you know what, Dad, I wish
they hadn't hit the ball to me, because then we
could have won. And my dad, in the kindest way possible,
kind of leaned down on my level and he said,
you know what, Kyle, that's not how we do things
in this life. You never want your success or failure
to be ever in anyone else's hands, he says, you
want to you want to take responsibility for your life.
Do you want to take responsibility? You want every ball,
every game hit to you, and you want to prepare
yourself so that that's how you feel. He says. We
never run from things that matter. We don't you ever
go down without the biggest fights you can give. And
I remember it crossed my mind in that exact moment,
and I said, this is my family.
What a great memory. And to have it pop up
at that particular point in time, your dad really gave
you some solid, solid advice. So after you thought about it, then,
what was your next steps? What was your thinking?
We can't continue to live like this. The stresses overwhelming.
My two oldest typical sons aren't happy. My wife and
I had a damaged relationship because of the stress we
were under.
How old were your kids at that time?
They were probably about I would say nine and seven maybe,
So they were really young at the time enough to
see what was happening.
Sure, kids that are seven and nine can understand a
lot more than we give them credit for.
Yeah, yeah, And so you know, at that moment, I thought, well,
you know what I can't give on I'm not going
to leave. I'm never going to leave because this is
important whiles we can't continue to live like this. So
I remember I did another thing my dad had taught me.
We were living out in the country, a little country
town called Red Oak, Texas at the time, and we
had a big job pecantry in our front yard and
I remember walking over under this pecondree. And this is
another thing my father had taught me. He said, when
you have when you don't know where else to go,
just pray.
Your father gave you some great advice.
I went on under that pecon try and I knelt
on my knees and I just prayed to God and
I said, hey, I'm not leaving, I'm not giving up,
but we cannot live like this. Help me know, tell
me what to do. And I remember pouring my heart
out for probably five minutes. But I've seen my trial hours, right,
you know you know how that is sure? And I
remember having this feeling tell me the problem is not
your and the problem is not your wife. The problem
is you. It just struck me really hard in that moment,
and I and I felt like it can't be me.
I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do right, it can't
be me. It's either the kids or the I mean,
it's the situation. It's my wife, she's not handling well,
it's the kids. And I was blaming on everybody else
and that that message just kept coming to me, and
I thought, you know what this is. This is good,
I guess because I can do something about me.
Sure, And it goes back to what your father was
telling you too.
In that moment, I remember, you know what, I'm not leaving.
We're not going to live like this anymore. If I
have to die trying, I'm never going to give a
trying to figure this out. And it's going to be
my mission and my goal to learn how to thrive.
I called it thriving in chaos. I'm want to learn
how to thrive in the chaous.
Well, that's a good way of looking at it, because
you have to definitely get a new mindset. For sure.
I want to somehow or other figure out a way
to lower the stress for my family, lower the stress
for my wife, and give all my kids the best
chance of happiness, including me.
Right, because the most important thing is your family.
In that moment, I got up and I walked back
in the house, and my wife was still mad, and
so I said, you know what, Shelley's your name. I'm
not going to leave and I'm going to figure this out.
And in that moment, I could tell she was still
mad because she said, well, good luck.
So after that you started with a plan. I'm sure.
So what was your plans and how did you implement them?
You know, I decided what I was going to do
is every Sunday night, I would get my nine and
seven year old sons. You know, we're going to have
a plan for this week, and I would say, we're
just our plan for this week is we're going to
be super patient.
Okay, that sounds good.
I would write patients on a piece of paper and
I would print it off and have it in every
room of the house and we would focus on one
thing a week, and I kind of engage my two
older sons in this.
I think that's a great idea to have that kind
of participation like that.
Over a period of time, we started creating strategies for
handling everything from you know, meltdowns to biding to self
harm to you know, when they would be defined. And
he was actually diagnosed from oppositional defiance disorder at one point,
and so it's almost as if we decided, okay, there's
no challenge, we can't faks if we have a plan.
Britain's challenge right. And so over a period of time,
my wife saw the change in me because instead of
there was a time when when my son would melt down,
the whole family would go into fight or flight because
it was so dramatic and overwhelming. And I decided I
was not going to go into fight or flight anymore.
I was going to go into an action plan and
a series of steps I was going to create.
So did the steps that you create? How do they
work for you?
Sometimes those steps work well, sometimes they didn't. But I
was willing to make adjustments to every strategy. And so
over a period of time, I started creating these strategies
so my son would have a meltdown and I would
handle it beautifully, and I would handle in the spirit
of love. And it was, you know, my patterns started
to change, and his patterns started to change. And over
a period of time, my wife said, what are you doing.
I see something going going on, and I see you
handling this so well, and it's lowering his the amount
of time he has meltdowns, and you're not freaking out,
and you're getting very calm and loving. And over a
period of time, I started to regain her faith in me.
Well that's good because you made some changes. And evidently
the rest of the family saw that and adapted to it.
And now she's seeing it.
She was seeing me working and trying to create, and
I basically took over. I said, hey, anytime there's a problem,
I got it, mab and I would just run to
it and just and over a period of time, I
started creating this curriculum. And eventually, you know, maybe about
a year later, she actually body and she saw an
experience where something horrible happened and I handled it so beautifully.
At the end, she was she pulled me aside and
she said, you know what, Kyle, you can't you can't
keep suppressing your angers. What she said, right, And I said,
I'm not angry. I have a series of steps I
follow and I try to do it in the spirit
of love, and it doesn't make me angry. I just
handle it. And she said, well, tell me what you're doing.
And then once I started sharing these strategies and she
started applying them, we really started to see success as
a family, and no matter what he did, even if
it was something new, he would have some sort of
an outburst or a difficult time, and we would create
a very specific strategy. We would create steps for that strategy,
and we would teach it to the whole family, and
we would try to apply it, and if it didn't
work physically, we would make adjustments. And eventually we had
created a curriculum that allowed us to really strive into
caust of raising our kids on the spectrum, and we
started to get back that you. And here's one of
the things that's interesting is we never I don't know
if we ever got back to white picket fence family.
Does that even exist? Maybe on TV, maybe in the movies.
But what you was doing was creating a real, live
dynamic to help your family towards a better life.
Right, the stress wasn't overwhelming anymore, and we started to
realize that the challenges, facing those challenges together in a
loving manner that creates the love and the happiness and
enjoying our home. It's not the lack of challenges, it's
to facing those challenges and doing it in a spirit
of love and kindness that creates, you know.
Connection, absolutely, And I'm just so happy that it's working
for you. So you have your first two children, then
you have your third child, he's autistic and gives you
some challenges. Then you have a fourth child and you
find that he's autistic as well. So what are some
of the similarities and differences between the two of them.
Yeah, it's interesting because my first the first one that
was diagnosed, was diagnosed severe on the severe autism end
of the spectrum, and so his his his cognitive functionality
is he has a very limited speech patterns cognitive functionality.
My fourth son, who was born is higher functioning. And
it's interesting because my more severe son is is an
introvert and an extreme introvert. He wants to be left alone.
My number four son is an extreme extrovert, and so
there was tremendous conflict between those two. Right, one is
an extravert, he wants to play all the time. The
other one just wants to be let alone. And that
creates a concept and so we're able to apply some
of the same strategies. But we also, luckily we had
also created a framework for creating strategies, and so as
we saw the differences in those two kids, every child
is unique, Every child is different. Every you know, every
kid on the autism spectrum is their own unique individual
and so you can't really use you can use a
framework for strategies, but you really have to customize these
things for each child. And so with our with our
number four son, we ended up, I mean, we ended
up in a lot of situations just going back to
the drawing board and saying, Okay, this kid responds differently.
He has different cognitive ability, he has different he's more,
he can he can talk better, he can communicate better,
he still has limitations.
So you have two autistic children unique to them themselves
that you created a strategy to help them. So can
you tell our listeners what that strategy is and how
it works and maybe how it can help them? Like
has helped you.
A framework for creating strategies, we call the cost framework.
It's a cost So if you tell our listeners exactly
how that cost system worked for you.
The C anytime we would come across a challenge, right,
our son would be doing something that was unacceptable in
the real world or a behavior issue. We would just
call that a challenge and we would write out the challenge.
That's the C and all the different things that's causing
in our family and the stressors and long term how
that's going to affect him and us, And so we
would we would kind of write out all these things
so that we can understand the why why don't we
want to help him overcome this challenge? Right? And then
the O is objective. We wanted to have a clear
goal for overcoming this challenge and it's a long term objective.
And so we would write out what we want to
learn from this as a family, or to teach him
as a child, or and we would write this out.
And it's really important to write this stuff out because
if you don't write it out, it's not you really
don't have a plan. The next the s in cost
is for strategy. We wanted to name the strategy so
that we could remember it when the situation arose, right,
and we came up with some silly names. We have
one a strategy called winning every Meltdown. We have a
strategy called good versus Evil. We have a strategy called
your Moving. We would name these strategies funny things because
we knew that would help us remember what the strategy
name was. And then the T in cost is tactics.
What are the steps you're going to follow to lead
us to our objective long term? Right, And we realized
it wasn't going to happen overnight. We realized, these kids
are going to you know, these our objective had to
be a long term objective and the steps that we took.
The cool part is when the when the event would happen,
When when we would face the challenge, we would say, okay,
what's the strategy name, We're of the steps and we
would apply those steps. And so by applying the steps,
we took ourselves out of an emotional state, you know,
instead of going into fight or flight, we went into
a productive mode and we could follow those steps every time. Now,
the cool part about the process is you can adjust
those those steps, right, So if it doesn't work right away,
sometimes you have to make adjustments. And this is true
with what typical kids do right.
Right. So it's my understanding that you use your steps
to help other parents that are having issues with some
of their children as well.
Absolutely. Yeah, And it's really fun because you know, we'll
come across families that have unique challenges, very unique challenges,
because every child is different, and we always just plug
into the strategy and talk with them. We talk about
the objectives a lot of times. You know, parents have
the wrong objectives. A parent is having a challenge with
the behaviors with the child and they want the behaviors
to stop. That's their objective. I think that's the wrong objective.
They're like what I said, Yeah, yeah, you're trying to
change his behavior. You have to decide long term how
you're going to manage that behavior so that they understand
it's better for them long term to stop the behavior.
Sometimes parents, you have to think about your objective long term.
For instance, you know, my son used to have a
lot of meltdowns, and that's just who he was. He
gets over stimulated, you know, things happen and he gets escalated.
Now for me to say I want him to stop
having meltdowns is the wrong objective. The right objective is
free to for me to manage myself in such a
way that he sees I get to model proper behavior
and escalating situations. What happens is when he has meltdowns,
and what that does for him is that helps him
to see It helps him calm down quicker, It helps
him regulate quicker. But if he's he's me escalating. When
he escalates, he's going to think that's what people do.
Absolutely. So you was telling me about a kind of
funny little situation that happened with your two youngest and
it was about how you applied the steps with them
because your oldest autistic son called them a moron.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great story because it illustrates
very clearly how this process works. So yeah, So when
my tweens were four or five years old, they came
downstairs one time crying, just with big, you know, crocodiles
hears in their eyes, and my wife was sitting on
the couch and I remember my twins ran over to her.
She said, what's going on, what's the matter, And they
were just so sad, and they said, Eric called us morons?
And Eric, is there more severe brother on the spectrum?
And initially I could see my wife's getting angry, right,
and it's natural for parents trust to be angry when kids,
our kids call each other names. And almost just quickly
as she started to get angry, I saw her reset
herself very quickly, and she said, you know what, this
is a challenge. Let's go grab our COSTU word sheet
and let's figure this out. And so she ran over
and she grabbed one. We have them, we have them
all over the house, and she said, what's the challenge
and what's the objective? And so she wrote it out,
and she wrote out the strategy, and you were out
the tactics. And she said to them, almost immediately before
she even started, she said, you know what, you all
are the cutest lie of morons I've ever seen. Right,
and she started laughing, and she reset their emotions too,
and they started laughing. So they're all laughing together, and
now they start creating this new strategy and they called it.
I don't remember what they called it. It could have been
the morons strategy, something silly, because it makes it you remember. Well,
and so my twins, you know, in fifteen minutes, they
go from crying to laughing and now they have a plan.
And remember they're four or five, you know, just young
bro guys. They all leave the room and my wife
is granted and they're grinning, and she takes what could be,
you know, a bad situation, and she turns it on
his head and creates happiness. Well, no less than a
week later, I remember, my wife, my twins come down
the stairs and they're just giggling. And usually that meant
that we're up to no good, because when you have twins,
they conspire together, they set each other up, they do
crazy stuff. And they were giggling and I said, why
are you guys giggling? And they started laughing and they said,
Eric called us morons and they were giggling.
Oh, that's just so great, What a great story. And
it just shows that your plan was really working.
It was so it was so beautiful to me because
my wife had taken If you think about when one
child calls another name, the other one fights back, and
they start arguing, bickering, and and then you as a
parent have to get involved and you say, can you
just never stop fighting? Can you just please not play
for ten minutes? Can I not get a break? And
the parent escalades right, and you get all this craziness,
and then there's tension in your home and your kids
are scared and you're scared. And she took that what
could have been that and turned it into beautiful lesson
for my twins.
Oh that's a great story. And not only that, it's
something that they can use and remember and carry on
for the rest of their lives.
Oh my twins to this day they're fifteen. When he
does something that's mean, they realize what's happening is he
just he's an introvert. He wants to be less alone.
He's had enough, and so they walk away and they grin,
and they usually come tell me and we have a
good laugh about it. You know, we go back to
and that's the kind of things in our family. Instead
of letting an escalation or a meltdown ruin our dat
in or destroy our family, we realize the way we
manage it really can change dramatically how our family sees
the world and experiences joy.
That's such a great way of looking at it. And
it's just very, very impressive what you've done with your
family after you've started your steps. So I think that's
a story that you wanted to tell us about your
youngest autistic son when he wanted to go out and
get his driver's license.
Yes, so Ricky is his name. He's when he turned
about I think nineteen, he came to me and he said,
I want to get my driver's license. He's mid range
and so it scared me to be on belief right,
he has some cognitive disabilities. But I don't ever want
to be the limiting factor in his life. And I
don't think his parents. You know, sometimes I think we
are the limiting factor because we're afraid, and so we
don't we say, oh, he can't do that, or I
don't want him to because we're afraid. Right, And so
I said, well, you know, Ricky, let's do this. Let's
let's make a plan. And step one is for me.
I knew the hardest part for him. He's a very
responsible young man, he's a good kid. But the hardest
part for him would be the written test. And so
I said, here's what we're going to do. And I
pulled my cost workshoot out right, and I said, the
challenge is getting your driver's license. Be objective and the
strategy and the tactics. And we were at the tactics.
Step one is for you to study the guide and
then go take the written test. First ones take the
written test and passes that. Then we can put him
into a driver's course where someone else could drive around
with him with the break because he couldn't be me.
I mean, I wasn't gonna because I would be freaked out.
I can definitely understand your feelings on that.
It would just drive me crazy. And I don't want
to be the one to limit him, and so somebody
else has to either tell him yes or no. He said, okay.
So he started studying the guide, and you know, he
would I would quiz him. And we went in and
started taking the test and he failed it the first time,
and I think he failed it pretty bad.
Well that's too bad, but I'm sure that wasn't the
last of it.
He came to me and he was pretty upset, you know,
and I said, hey, you know what, let's keep trying.
We'll go back next week. You can, you can do
it every third or fourth day, and we'll just keep
doing it and keep doing it. And we kept going
back and kept going back and kept failing. After the
fourth and fifth time, you could see the pain. I said,
it's okay, because once you pass all this is going
to be a memory. It's going to be part of
your journey. So, and here's the really cool part, Ricky.
You can't fail if you never give up.
Absolutely correct.
And he said that's true and I said, yeah, so
it's only it's only a stepping stone.
That's one hundred percent correct. So did he take it again?
We took it one more time, so we got to
six and he failed it again, and he decided that
point he was going to take some time off.
So how much time off did he take before he decided,
you know, I'm going to try this again and see
if I can't get my license.
Maybe another six months passes or so, and he comes
to me and he says, I'm ready to start again. Dad,
let's start again. Oh that's great, And so we go
back up there, and by then they know us, you know,
they know us at the BMV, and they're they're really
rooting for him. So they're like, maybe you can take
the written test on a piece of paper and we'll
grade it. And they had some different ways we could
do it, because they know, you know, it's sometimes computers
are hard for some kids. And well, we ended up
going back and back and we continue to work at it.
Well the thirteenth time, So was this unlucky thirteen or
lucky thirteen?
I remember. We we go there and he and again,
you know we're committed, right, Well, you can't fail it,
never give up, that's one true. And I remember he
took the test and he entered it to the lady
and she was grading it and he and I were
sitting there and she says, okay, I've got the test.
And usually Ricky would go up there by herself and
she says, Dad, I need you to come up here
this time too, And I didn't know what was going
to go on. You know, she had the biggest green
you've ever seen, and she said, you passed.
That is such a great story.
And he just exploded enjoy. He was so and I
exploded enjoy in it. For me, it was it was
a tearful moment knowing he had put it to work.
And it was interesting because I looked at the lady
behind the counter and she had she had tissue and
tears running down her face and she said, she said,
this is the first remains, you know, And it was
so exciting, and I remember just being so proud of him,
and him being so proud of himself and realizing that,
you know, there are some things are tough for us
in life, right, but you know, allowing him to continue
and just go back and go back, and I think
that was really a tipping point for him in his
life because he said, you know what, there's nothing I
can't do if I just continue to work in and
every failure is a step towards success. And now Ricky
has a job. He drives himself back and forth to
work every day. He's doing tremendously well.
And that's so great to hear. Now, I understand that
you've got quite a following yourself on Facebook, and of
course you help and create a community there so that
everybody can interact and help each other. So give us
a little bit of information about that, if you would.
Yeah, it's called We have a Facebook page called Solving
at Home Autism Challenges. On that page we share tips
and techniques and strategies. You know, I have hundreds of
different strategies I've developed with different parents and myself that
you know, if there's not a strategy that works for you,
there's probably a good framework to start with. And the
idea is is really is we can't what we can't
have or what I can't have? My mission is I
can't have. I just it hurts my heart to see
parents who are just surviving because of the stress and
turmoil they're living under, right, because it's not healthy for
the parents, it's really not healthy for their kids. It's
hard to experience a lot of joy when you're in
survival mode constantly. So my goal is to really help
these parents realize you can get out of survival mode
and start to really strive even on those difficult moments.
That's so true. I really think that it's a great
philosophy and a great thing that you're doing that's helping
these other parents like you.
Are the most powerful thing, and I think the greatest
blessing I've ever received is to realize that when you
manage those really hard moments very very well and you
do it in a spirit of love, your kids feel
that love even when they're out of whack or melting
down horribly or coming at you with this. If you
can be in a loving state, a you know, patient
and kind state, your kids steal your luck. And it's
not enough to tell these kids we rouse them. They
have to We really got to work on warring stress
and let them feel our love, because kids don't. Kids don't.
They don't hear you as much as they feel you.
And if you start there, then then those kids can
really you can start to model how to behave in
the right manner, and that's really powerful for these kids.
It sure is. I have to say I've really enjoyed
our conversation a day. We could have talked from so
much longer. You have so many stories that are both
impactful and inspirational, So thanks again for coming on.
You're welcome. So I'm really grateful you've invited me, and
like I said, I just want to help.
Well, it's very apparent that you're helping a lot of people.
I'm sure they appreciate it just as much as I
appreciate you coming on and telling us all about it.
So thanks again, Thanks for taking the time out of
your busy schedule listen to our show today. We hope
that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing
it to you. If you know anyone that would like
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