Parenting Neurodivergent Children with Love and Understanding with Amy Kotha

In this episode of the Power in Motion podcast, we sit down with  Amy Kotha, a mother turned coach for parents of neurodivergent children. 

Amy shares her personal journey from a career in IT and real estate to becoming a dedicated advocate and coach for parents of neurodivergent kids, stemming from her experiences parenting two adopted, neurodivergent teenagers from Calcutta, India. 

She delves into the complexities and challenges of understanding and advocating for her children's unique needs, and how getting caught in the chaos and overwhelm led to health challenges of her own.  

Since that time, Amy has learned powerful tools centered around nervous system regulation and cognitive behavioural coaching that have allowed her to remain calm amidst the challenges and meet her children with compassion - transforming their entire family existence.

Amy has built her practice around these tools, supporting parents to have their own back so they can best support their kids. 

Tune in to gain insight into the importance of self-regulation, emotional intelligence, and creating a supportive community for parents navigating similar paths.

About Our Guest

Amy Kotha is a board-certified coach through the National Board of Health & Wellness Coaches. She works in private practice, with a focus on mothers of children struggling with neurodivergence, mental health disorders or trauma histories. Her mission is to educate and support these women in a shift to brain-based parenting with a focus on achieving confidence, connection and peace in their lives.

With her combination of a business, clinical, and trauma-informed psychology background, Amy brings unique perspective and experience to her coaching clients. As mom to two neurodivergent, internationally-adopted daughters, she has also gained the personal experience that she considers invaluable in her work.

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About the Host

Kim Hagle (she/her)  is a Body Image Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, and founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness. 

Through mindset and movement coaching she helps women develop a kinder relationship with their body so they can consistently fuel and move it in a way that supports their health without restricting food, doing tortuous exercise or constantly worrying about the number on the scale

New Here? Join our exclusive email community: “Embrace Your Radiance” is our weekly email series that helps women overcome feeling limited by their body. Each week you'll receive exclusive coaching tips to help you feel healthy, happy and confident no matter what the scale says.  

Want to learn how to support your body without obsessing over the scale?  Register for our FREE mini course. Learn simple, sustainable habits and mindset shifts so you can feel healthy, energetic and confident without rules, deprivation or willpower

Ready to take the next step?  Book a free consultation call to discuss how coaching can help you reach your goals.

Let’s stay in touch! Kim is on Instagram and Facebook @radiantvitalitywellness.  

Disclaimer.  The information contained in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.  Always consult a health care professional about your unique needs.

Transcript

MacBook Air Microphone-2: 0:47

Welcome back. Today's episode is one that's really near and dear to my heart. It's not a topic we talk about often here on the Power in Motion podcast, but I think it's one that a lot of you will enjoy. Today, we're sitting down with my friend and colleague, Amy Kotha, who is like me, a mother of differently wired children. And that's Amy's coaching specialty. She works with parents of neurodivergent children. In this episode, Amy's going to share her personal story, how she came to be doing this amazing work that she's doing by navigating the challenges that are inherent of raising a differently abled child. child. She actually has two of them. She'll share all about the complexities and challenges that are part of her story in learning how to understand and advocate for her children's unique needs. And actually how getting caught in the chaos and overwhelm of family life led to her own health challenges. And since that time, Amy has learned some really powerful tools centered around nervous system regulation and cognitive behavioral coaching, which is the same framework that I use in my coaching, just. The way that Amy has applied it to parenting is so unique and so cool. And how doing so has transformed her entire family existence and now how she's built her practice around those tools, supporting parents to have their own back. And in doing so, how that enables them to best support their kids. So let me tell you a little bit about Amy. Amy Kotha is a board certified coach through the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches. She works in private practice with a focus on mothers of children struggling with neurodivergence, mental health disorders, or trauma histories. Her mission is to educate and support these women in a shift to brain based parenting with a focus on achieving confidence, connection, and success. and peace in their lives. With her combination of a business, clinical, and trauma informed psychology background, Amy brings unique perspective and experience to her coaching clients. As a mom to two neurodivergent, internationally adopted daughters, she has also gained the personal experience that she considers invaluable in her work. And I agree, it definitely is invaluable, And I know that if you are also a parent of any child or especially a child that's differently wired, you are going to really resonate and get a lot of value out of this episode. So let's jump right in.

Kim: 3:22

Hey, Amy, how are you? Good. Welcome to the power in motion podcast. I'm excited to chat with you today. This is a topic we, we have not addressed ever on the podcast before talking about parenting and specifically parenting. Kids that are exceptionally abled. So I'm really excited to chat with you about that. Why don't you kick us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be doing this great work? Absolutely.

Amy: 3:49

And thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to chatting with you. Me too. So I am a mom to two neurodivergent teenagers. Both of them were adopted from Calcutta, India, and both of them came home as young kiddos. Like my older daughter was nine months when she came home and my younger daughter was 14. So they weren't infants, but pretty close. So they had kind of hard starts and that just, Continued. So I was actually the parenting of my kids that brought me into the career that I'm in with coaching of neurodivergent kids now, because I used to be my previous. pre parenting life. I was in IT and real estate. So it's been a really big jump and I knew absolutely nothing about physical health or mental health before my kids. And so what a shift that has been over the past 17 years. It's been crazy. So both of my kids have multiple diagnoses, both physical and mental. Like you hear doctors talk about how not to look for the zebras, right? Like look for the horse. Don't look for the zebra. Don't look for the rare thing. Well, my kids always had the rare thing. So always complex. And so over the years, you know, I would try to manage these and figure out what was going on. And again, I didn't have any background, so it was a ton of worry and anxiety and research and trying to figure out what was going on because my kids were, especially my older daughter such She has both a physical and a mental related disorder that are both very rare. So, no one knew how to help her. So, years and years, she was misdiagnosed and mismedicated and no one wanted to admit that. So, they all, this will sound very familiar, but all the health professionals diagnosed her as anxiety. So, even all of her physical health issues. It must be somatic. It must be anxiety because they, it was just, they just didn't know. So they would look at like, you know, the iceberg model where there's the tip of the iceberg is what you see, like the behaviors. And then you really need to look underneath to figure out what was going on. No one was looking underneath. They were just looking at the top. And, you know, I'm just, I'm a very research oriented person, and I love to research and I'm very good at it, and I just could not, I just couldn't go along with it, you know, I'm like, this isn't her story, this, this can't be who she is, she can't be this child who she is. Is going to go through her entire life drugged into almost a stupor to get rid of these complex behaviors that we just didn't understand. And, you know, she was unable to go to school and unable to function in daily life and things are just getting worse and worse. And you know, to the point of you know, she was so depressed that she just didn't even want to be here anymore. And. It was understandable because there was no joy in her life. So, you know, I just like, I, I can't, I can't just let that happen. I felt just truly felt like there was something more. Yeah. So finally, and I'm very privileged because I had the time and resources to actually look into that. So I went to grad school, I was like, I'm going to go do something in the medical field, and I'm going to research and I'm going to solve this, or at least find it. Even if I can't find a solution, I need to know what is happening. Like it just ate at me. So I was working really hard at that and I was taking care of the kids and my family was in chaos and everything was falling apart. And you know, when one child in your family is suffering with some type of special needs, you know, it affects the whole family. You have a special needs child, right? So you, you know, and I was trying to do all these things and hold everything together. And of course, with no support my husband didn't even understand and didn't see a lot of her behaviors because he traveled five days a week. So it was just a nightmare. And I, as a mom was just barreling towards burnout. And again, I didn't understand it. So what things just got bigger and bigger. And there was one day actually that I ended up In the ER, actually, I was at home and all of a sudden I felt like I was having a heart attack and I couldn't breathe and my chest hurt and I felt like I was dying and got carted away in an ambulance and went to the emergency department and all the tests came out fine and everybody said, okay, you know, it's anxiety. It was a panic attack. And it might have been, I was under a lot of stress, but that still didn't make me happy to hear that. So

Kim: 8:43

tired of that word anxiety by this point.

Amy: 8:46

Oh my God. I know. I'm like, okay, you're like my child. You know, I'm literally in the ambulance and the guy is like, not even very nice. You know, the EMT, he's like, this is just a panic attack. Calm down. Okay. Don't ever tell someone to calm down. It was so ridiculous. And that started two years, two full years before I was diagnosed with what was actually going on. And I had like maybe three more ER visits with the same symptoms because, you know, especially as a woman and how women have heart attacks and they look different and they feel different. I couldn't just not go. So, you know, I would go, everything was fine. And finally, one of the ER doctors said, you know, you really need to see a cardiologist and get a stress test. And so finally I did that and it was so horrible because my whole, all my, like my 24 7 by that point, I was in vertigo constantly. I was just always dizzy and tired and fatigued and couldn't think straight and focus and just something was seriously, seriously wrong. And at the same time, I still had to take care of my kids and all the chaos that was going on, right? But finally did the stress test and failed it completely and figured out that it wasn't actually a heart issue, but it was an autonomic nervous system disorder, dysautonomia, which it's kind of a form of POTS, if you've heard of POTS. I know with long COVID, a lot of people are getting POTS, so it's more understood nowadays than it was then how many years ago that was, but so at least I was finally diagnosed by a cardiologist and I finally had a plan of how to deal with it. And so that was great, but it took two years. And interestingly, that really pushed me to continue. My research on what was going on and try to figure out like I kind of had to step back from grad school and then went back in and I kept studying things having to do with nutrition in the brain and I kept wanting to do my research papers on things that affected mental health and things my kids had gone through and finally decided that I didn't want to come out of grad school and be a nutritionist and work with weight loss because that's all they pushed and I'm not a believer in that. So. That's somehow I found coaching during that time. You know, I thought the psychology piece is what I need. And my background didn't allow me to move into a school program in psychology because I didn't have all the classes. But coaching did. So I moved into coaching and there, you know, we've got the psychology of change and behavior change. And all of a sudden it was like, I had all these pieces to the puzzle. They weren't connected, but I had all these pieces. pieces and I felt like I was on the right track. And interestingly, that's when I found Stephanie, our coach, Stephanie Dozier. And she was able to help me put all those pieces together and to become a coach, coaching people with what I've learned through coaching and behavior change and the clinical piece that I learned and to help other parents. With what I've been through because once I started putting those things together for my family and my child and myself, I was able to get out of burnout. I was able to lower my stress level very low. I was able to help my child and communicate better with her in which allowed her chaos level to go down and she's improved greatly in my entire family life. Has become much more peaceful. We are not living in chaos. It's nothing like it was before. Yeah. And it was just, it was, it was so life changing that I am extremely passionate now to work with other families because there are so many that just don't know, you know, that were like I was in suffering and sick and having physical symptoms and illnesses. And just because they're in burnout and so stress trying to help. Their kids and their families, you know, and not getting the help that they need.

Kim: 12:56

Yeah. Yeah. So the tool of coaching and the things that you learned in becoming a coach, am I hearing you right? That it helped you realize that being able to regulate your own emotions and calm yourself and reframe your thoughts. Was that missing piece that you needed to like settle all this chaos down? Not that it solved all the problems, it didn't solve the problems by any means, but helped bring the levels of angst down.

Amy: 13:26

Exactly. Because I think as moms, and I mean I'm sure that you've experienced this too, I think the worst possible thing for a mom, and the most stressful, is not knowing how to help your child. And thinking that you need to fix them because we're conditioned all our lives, that that's our job. To fix our kids.

Kim: 13:45

Yeah. Yeah. Or conditioned to it. And I do believe it's partly instinctual. Like that mama bear instinct is like, I could feel it rising up in me. Even as you were telling your story, I was like, don't you tell her to calm down.

Amy: 14:00

I know exactly it is. And so it's like, yeah, you can't get past that. And I tell my clients all the time. I'm like, I totally understand what you're feeling is a hundred percent valid because this is. Evolution. This is survival. We are here to take care of our young and help them become adults. And when they're struggling and weak, it's not working, you know, for us to do that. Like, what, what do we do with that? No one's ever taught us what to do with that or that there might be other ways and that you can, you know, step back and take a pause. And instead of hustling and working harder and doing more, which is what, Okay. Everyone told us to do. Everyone told me to do it. In fact, oh, you'll love this. My daughter was in an inpatient program once because she was in such a hard place and they called like a big round table meeting and there were literally 10 doctors. And I think some neuropsychologists and myself and my husband and they, they sat there and told me you know, we've talked to her, we've analyzed all this information and we really feel like, It has to do with the mother what she was like, excuse me. And they said, she's not, we don't feel like she's getting enough time with you. And I was like, this girl is literally also to my side. That's a professional opinion. That was, that was a professional opinion, that there was an attachment disorder caused by me because I was not spending enough time with my child. Oh my gosh, I will just never, I just didn't even know what to say. I just pulled her out of it. I'm like, you're so wrong. Yeah. You

Kim: 15:49

know what I'm hearing, Amy, as you're recounting the story is there's a lot of themes, like I'm hearing a lot of confusion and feelings of isolation and overwhelm and jealousy amongst your other daughter and the burnout. But what's really coming through is like a fierce, fierce. Love and knowing that, you know, your child best. And trusting your intuition, although that's hard to do. When you don't have the answer, but knowing there's something else here. Like,

Amy: 16:20

yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're so, or at least I felt that I was so conditioned to believe also to put all of your faith in doctors and, you know, believe that if they told me something that was, that was it. Like I didn't have as much education. I should just be quiet. You know, that's, that's how they treated it. Like, you know, don't be that mom, right. Don't be that mom. Yeah. And it would literally make me feel ashamed or like almost humiliated to go back again, which I did. And thank God, like I never gave up, but I can see how many parents would because it was painful to keep looking for someone else and to keep going back and saying, I don't, this doesn't feel quite right to me and being cast off. And that doesn't just happen with the medical field, right? Like it's. Happens at school. Oh, yeah. With your family sometimes. Mm hmm.

Kim: 17:21

Mm hmm. And I'm sure along the way, there were lots of times where you doubted yourself. I mean, I'm a mom too, obviously, there's been lots of times where I have doubted myself. And like, I hear this from moms all the time, I think the most common theme that that I see is moms not trusting themselves or doubting their abilities, like wanting more than anything to be a good mom and do right by their kids, but then never feeling like what they're doing is enough or that they're doing a good job. Yeah. I mean, that's probably a big question, but what do you think is behind this pervasive self doubt we all feel?

Amy: 18:04

You know, it's, it's so hard. It's so hard to trust ourselves. And I just really think, we grow up that way. I know I did. I was never allowed to, express my emotions and trust that what I was feeling was okay. And which went down all the time. And even, when I was in it and I was working at big corporations and I was still treated that way as a woman in these big consulting groups with men. And, It was this very patriarchal, I think, piece that stifles us and makes us quiet and shuts down our voice. And it really just gets inside us and it makes us doubt ourselves when we really need not to do that. And it's so difficult to pull out of that. It was so hard for me to pull out of that. And I think, you know, just, Raising your confidence. And that was one of the things that drew me to Stephanie was just listening to someone else and finding community. It's that community piece that is so helpful because we don't need community and we all need connection. And we get so isolated sometimes like you were saying, when we're parents, especially special need parents, we isolate ourselves. We don't know, we don't feel like we can talk about things. It might be like stigmatized. We're not the perfect mom. You know, that's, that's a really hard thing to talk about, but something that I have found out over the years is the more I talk about it, everyone has a story, like everyone. And I find community everywhere I go when I talk about it. So it's taking that brave leap to be vulnerable. And. And to start talking.

Kim: 19:50

Yeah, I think isolation is a real struggle. I'm sure a lot of moms struggle with isolation, but I feel like it's worse as a special needs parent. Like, I just feel like there's a certain, Lack of understanding of what the experience is like raising a child that's differently abled, right? Like I don't think I knew how much I took for granted with my neurotypical children until I had a child with special needs and and I just find like when I share about some of the struggles of raising him like people just They're like, Oh, I had never really even thought of that. And they, they really don't have a lot to say because they just, they don't have that lived experience. Right. They're like, Oh, that must be really hard. I'm like, yeah, like it is. Right. It really is. You know, a simple example of my son is six and a half now he has Down syndrome and he's learning to talk. But he doesn't speak in full sentences. So, you know, he doesn't come home from school and tell me about his day, I don't know who his friends are. I don't know who he plays with at school. I don't know how his schoolwork is going unless somebody sends me a message, and the other kids, like all the parents in that age group are saying, Oh, did you hear about this and this that happened at school? No, like, I don't hear about these things, right?

Amy: 21:06

Exactly. Oh my gosh, I still, I still have that with my kids as teenagers in high school, like, I'm so glad that the school sends out these daily digests so I know what's at least happening at school in general, but that's a really hard thing, and it's, you know, You have to, you have to parent in a different way to drop this, it's a paradigm shift and it's so hard. It's like, you know, that whole piece of learning, like the cognitive behavioral coaching, right. Where we learn how our thoughts you know, how our beliefs shape our thoughts and our thoughts shape. Our emotions and our behaviors. And once we start looking at that and realizing you know, we, we have to make big changes and we have to stop judging ourselves because I think it's easy to, to judge ourselves when we're going through all of that. Like, what did I do wrong? Because other people judge us and. We don't want to be pulled down by that. So it takes, I think, a lot of very intentional thought to get to know yourself in order to gain the confidence and the self trust to pull yourself out of that and be okay with this parenting and be able to move forward. Coaching program center around like becoming a self again, getting to know yourself again, because we lose it. Like, I don't know how much we had it before, but then we lose it when we have these kids, especially kids who are, you know, differently wired or have different needs. And you're so expected to spend so much time trying to help them. And then you lose yourself, and then you're isolated, and all of these things are happening at the same time, and people don't understand, and then we just feel so alone, and

Kim: 23:00

stressed, and hopeless, and like, it's like a spiral, right? It is. Like, one thing leads to another, and you're just, you find yourself in a pit, or you can't. Right? So, and that mom judgment is real. Like, I think all moms experience that, we are so quick to judge each other, which I think is really problematic. We gotta do a better job of building each other up and, Exactly. Letting mom, trusting other moms that they know what they're doing. But in this journey of self discovery that you went through, what have you found most helpful to build up your resilience against the isolation, against the judgment and to build your confidence that you can trust yourself as a mom?

Amy: 23:40

Yeah, I think there were a few pieces to that. So awareness, was really important to me. So once I started to become aware and learn about, and I know I'm science minded, but you don't have to be a neuroscience scientist to get this, but I think knowledge is power, so Getting the knowledge and understanding how our nervous systems work and what is causing us to feel the way we feel a lot of the time. And as well it works for our kids too. And a lot of times, you know, when I teach people this, they're thinking about their kids, but it's for themselves as well. So you're becoming aware of What's going on and why you're feeling this way. And like, why do I feel this black cloud? What is going on? What am I thinking? And then challenging those thoughts. Like, why am I thinking that what, like I am making things so much harder on myself when I don't need to. And, you know, it's just setting your priorities. One thing I do with all my clients when I first meet with them, which was done with me My coaching certification was learning how to really get strong on what your values are.

Kim: 24:52

I love that.

Amy: 24:53

Yeah. So, and it's funny because most of my clients come in, they're like, That sounds a little woo woo, right? It's not. I'm the first one to say no, I am not a woo woo person at all. I'm very science oriented. But figuring out what your values really are and narrowing it down to like your top three values tells you so much about who you are. And then it opens, for me, it really opened up like, oh, okay, well, if this is my value, well, of course this is my value. Why I'm stressed out about this like a family is my top value and my family is in chaos Then I've got to do something about it. So that means I have to drop other things in my life, you know, and say no to things and find other resources and do whatever I can to support what my greatest values are and make sure that I'm in congruence with them. Otherwise, you know, it causes you so much pain when you're trying to do something that doesn't align. So I think that was really important to me and it really opened up. How to become aware of what is going on in my life. So living my life according to my values has been just pretty life changing, I think, to me.

Kim: 26:07

Yeah, I could see how that would get you out of that overwhelm, because I have found myself, like, getting clear on what I value then helps me evaluate, am I living according to my values or am I investing my time and energy and resources into stuff that doesn't matter? And if so, then that can go, right? It brings me back into like, okay, I'm going to focus on these top three things and everything else can just take a back seat.

Amy: 26:29

Exactly. Like, you know, money is not my top value. So I am not going to focus, all my time on, hustling to get money while everything is falling apart. And I'm being so stressed, that I'm not making six figures right now because you know what I mean? It helps you to really understand yourself better. And that is such like the beginning, just like the step through the door of figuring out other things about yourself too. And then. gaining confidence because then you can learn about like, okay, so if I'm living congruently to my values and, I'm feeling like this, what's causing it and it, you can make much better decisions.

Kim: 27:08

Yeah, and just, knock that stress level down about 20 notches, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then you have that capacity to make good decisions, right? Because when you're in fight or flight and overwhelmed, you can't make a good decision. Yeah.

Amy: 27:20

Yeah. Oh, gosh. 100%. Another thing I do with my clients after we do the values is like show them all the dimensions of their life and figure out, you know, where their satisfaction is in each dimension and then talk about like why that is. And then they're piecing together the values with what's really going on right now in their lives. And then they can see what they're doing and what the results are. And it really helps to kind of start to get things straight and get on a path to making a few changes really, really slowly, right? Like 1 percent is fine. But It's, it's really important to get clear because otherwise you do, you stay, you are like stuck in that amygdala, you know, in the back of your brain where you're just in fight or flight or freeze all the time and you can't think creatively and you can't problem solve and yeah, that's a, that's a really hard place to be. Mm-Hmm.

Kim: 28:16

And so what I'm hearing as you're sharing these tools that you use with your coaching clients, like none of it's about fixing the kid. I know right? So you, you work with people who are overwhelmed and stressed out. Like you were like, no idea what's going on with your kid, no idea how to support them. And you don't help them necessarily with that. So you bring it back and kinda like, is, am I hearing you right? Like shelf that and then help the parent learn to manage their own nervous system. regulate their emotions, get in touch with their values, their beliefs, and like start to think about their life and their situation and their child in a different way. Is that right?

Amy: 29:02

Yeah, that's exactly right. Because once they start to see their child in a different light, once, once we can bring that back, that stress level down a little bit so that their frontal lobe is functioning and they can think and problem solve and they can start regulating their body. And then, you know they understand their child. Then we can teach them more about how they can understand their child and the nervous system and like, you know, mirror neurons and energy. And if. You know, if they are dysregulated, their child is going to feed off of that, you know, I mean, if your child is dysregulated, you're very likely going to be dysregulated as well. So you need to know that, right? Like, you need to understand the, just the basics of how your nervous system works. So you understand when you start to feel that, like, if my child starts to melt down and immediately I'm like, You know, and my brain just starts going, Oh my gosh, like the future is over. And how is she going to go to college or, you know, get married and have a child and be a mother. And, you know, her, how could she? It's ridiculous. Like where your brain goes when you get triggered by something that is just small. And what I have found is like, you can't really control that first thought, but you can control the second thought. So my first thought, it's still like my heart rate will jump. My first thought will start and then I'll pause and take a breath. And then I'm like, okay, here we go again. You know, hello and make the love. Thank you. And I realized what's happening. And I'm like, okay, that's. That's, that's not where we are like we are right here and she is triggered by something and I'm just going to sit here and be with her and offer her safety and she calms down and then you know, it's, it's okay. And it's not like I have to get rid of all my emotions. It's not like I'm not going to have one because that's, we're still, we're moms, you know, we're parents, we're not going to get rid of that and we don't want to. So. But I'm not going to meet her on that level, you know, I'm not going to escalate it. I'm not going to, actually, I'm not going to fall into fear because that's what I used to do when I didn't understand what was going on. I would meet her fear with my fear and it would escalate and I would try to calm her down and control her. And it was just like being in that ambulance and having that guy tell me to just calm down. When I have never experienced this feeling in my life and thought I was dying. Yeah. Yeah. She feels like she's dying. And if I tell her to calm down, like that, that doesn't work. But if I shut up and get low and talk, you know, just be there with her and just be a calm presence and let her feed off of my calm energy and just breathe, then it, it works. Yeah, and it's, you know, it's It doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people, and it takes time. You really have to practice it, but it

Kim: 31:52

works. It does, and I can speak to that. Like this, Amy and I, though we, though we practice in entirely different niches, we coach from the same methodology. We both use this cognitive behavioral coaching framework. And as a parent, I know that as I've implemented this type of coaching in my own life, it It has changed how I parent, right, in it being able to recognize my emotions as those sensations rise up in my body and, and sit with those feelings instead of like getting overwhelmed and anxious about my feelings. I can, I can calm myself. And then I can meet my kids in a different way right like I will say I was a much more reactive parent with my older three kids. than I am now. And I'm so glad that I had Gage after I learned all this coaching stuff, because when he's having a so called behavior, which I'd like to talk about how I hate that word in just a second. I so agree with you on that. Then I can like, I don't have to get reactive to that, right? I can, I can witness the behavior. stay calm in myself, regulate my own nervous system, and like you say, get low, and, and then, and be a detective, right? Like, I know that every behavior is coming from an emotion and a thought in him. There's something that he's thinking or perceiving, maybe he's not even aware of his thoughts, not that he could tell me anyways, but there's something that's leading to that behavior, and then I can support that rather than just be like, why are you freaking, and I'm freaking out right? And yelling and Well, the stuff that I used to do. So it, it does work and it takes practice, but it starts with us.

Amy: 33:30

It does. It takes time. And I have, you know, most parents who come to me and it was myself in the past too, I think. It's, it's a human reaction. I think all of us go through this is you want a solution. You want to pull it like people kind of, they're like, just tell me what to do. I'm like, I so wish that I could just put it in a little box and put a nice ribbon on it and hand it to you. You could open it up and solve everything, but it's a process. Yeah. You know, it's not, you can't be solution and outcome focused because this is long game parenting. It is, there is not a solution. It is a process. And the more you do the process, the more it becomes like muscle memory and easier it becomes. And pretty soon, you know, our brains like they like patterns and repetition. And the more you do it. And at first, everybody's going to screw it up, right? Like,

Kim: 34:21

I

Amy: 34:21

never yelled at my child, but over time, you know, it's less and it's less and then they, and they learn. And it's so, so great when your kid schools you on something you do wrong.

Kim: 34:36

Teenagers are lovely. Oh, aren't they fun? Aren't they fun? They love to point out when you're doing things wrong, but you know, I don't take offense to that. I'm like, you know what? You're right. I do need to go and regulate and that's fine. And sometimes they'll be like, mom, do you need to eat? You're a little snappy.

Amy: 34:55

Oh my gosh. I know. And it's funny because it is. And just like you said with, you don't like the word behavior, neither do I. It's needs based, right? And so you're looking for what is the unmet need, because that's, what's going on. All behavior. comes down to a need. Like, their need is not getting met, so this is the resulting action. Like you said, be a detective and try to figure out what it is.

Kim: 35:20

And the same is true for us, right? When we are, when we are having a reaction, it's an unmet need in us, right? Like, I realized when I was doing all this, like, I have a, I had a strong need for control and order and You know, and then felt like if my kids didn't listen to me, that was a reflection on me as a mom. And like, I had all of these beliefs that really needed to be shed and upgraded. And in doing that, you know, then I was able to regulate better and not be so reactive, right. And meet my own needs instead of expecting my kids to be perfect so that I could be happy.

Amy: 35:50

Oh, 100%. And like one of the parts of my programs is talking about communication that really works with our neurodivergent kids, but it's any, it's any person. And it's just, it's needs based conversations. Like your child is a person, we need to not think of our kids as. In like the hierarchical sense, right? Or at least a lot of kids that doesn't work with them. And so if you think of just things are needs based and you talk to them in that manner, and it's respectful and it's caring and compassionate and empathetic, and you do that, you have to do the same for yourself too. But if you can kind of get into that mode of thinking about the need, it makes so Oh, it makes so much difference. And even just talking to them, I know with, with my kids, I mean, they're teenagers, but if I come at them and I talk about what they need, what do you need? I think you might need this. They're not going to yell at me or escalate. They're going to be like, Oh, you're like, okay. And they, they really do. You know, they, it works.

Kim: 36:56

Yeah, or just simply asking, and maybe they don't know, but asking the question, I think, even softens the whole issue, like, what do you need? How can I support you? Right? And maybe they don't have the answer, but at least they know you're on their side,

Amy: 37:09

yeah, yeah, exactly. I have a So my daughter who's got the really complex diagnoses. So she has something called the PDA subtype of autism. And PDA is, it, it has been described as the hardest disorder to parent because it is so, paradigm shifting in the way that you have to parent because they, these kids, it's PDA stands for pathological demand avoidance or pervasive drive for autonomy. But basically they have these extremely, extremely vulnerable nervous systems and they detect threat by demands. And they could be tiny demands. They could be demands from within their body. It can be Daily life demand can just send them into completely like like seeing, you know, the saber toothed tiger coming at them

Kim: 37:58

But it's

Amy: 37:58

just somebody asking them to brush their teeth I mean it is like it it's so hard in in order to parent it You can't even parent it like autism parenting. You have to parent with this very low demand type of parenting and just take away demands and Raise things in certain ways, but it's such a different type of parenting and it is so hard. You have to think about these things. Like every time I talk to her, I have to put us on a level playing field because people with PDA see any type of threat to their autonomy. If they think they're not on a level playing field, then that is a survival threat. Stressful. Yeah. Yeah, like it's just, they either shut down or they go into like fight or whatever. And so it's taught me a lot of pausing, talking very nicely. But you know, again, like it just works to talk to her about her needs. Just like you said, I'm like, you know, is there, I spent probably 50 times a day. I just ask her, is there anything that you need? Is there anything I can help you with?

Kim: 39:12

No, okay. I'm just going to be over here. It's, it's, it's kind of ironic. You talk about brushing their teeth yesterday morning, Gage was getting ready for school and I asked him to brush his teeth and we were kind of rushing to get to the bus and I handed him the toothbrush and I was like, brush your teeth.

39:30

And he's like, buzz off! For a kid who's six and doesn't talk much.

Kim: 39:35

Like, that was loud and clear.

Amy: 39:37

Wow, yeah, right?

Kim: 39:39

Like, do you need a little more time, honey?

Amy: 39:41

Oh, that's so funny. Oh, yes. Oh, that was cute. I love it. Aren't you kind of like, Good job.

Kim: 39:52

I'm like, wait, advocate for yourself. Like, that was actually kind of It wasn't so bad, right? Exactly. Oh. You just never know what you're gonna get, really. Yeah, you really don't. You really don't. It's fun. It is. I mean, there's a lot, there are challenges and there's so much joy. I think you could say too, from raising children that are a little different. And yeah, and there's, it's so refreshing to hear your perspective and there's a way that we can build our resilience to, to the stress that comes along with this type of parenting. So tell us a little bit about your coaching offers, the services that you provide and where our listeners might be able to follow up with you.

Amy: 40:36

Sure. So I have, I do group coaching as well as one on one and I actually have two groups. I have a level one and a level two and the level one group is called illuminate. And it's basically for the parents that when moms come to me, generally, they are in a state of chronic, chronic stress. Probably chaos going on in their lives. They might be all the way into burnout. And so illuminate is a shorter program. It's eight weeks. And in those eight short weeks, we are able to pull them out of that chronic stress or that burnout and give them some education as to, you know, what's going on so that they can kind of move through that and help through. start healing themselves. And then we also start with some basic education that helps with their parenting or their child and their families, while also pulling them out of the burnout. Like we talked about, you know, when all of those things are working, you're feeling better, your stress level is lowered. So we talk about basic nervous system information. We do, you know, communication how to communicate effectively and healthy boundaries, self care, self, those kinds of things. And we do spend some time on coaching real life situations that they are going through. So that eight weeks is a nice, like, get out of burnout and start parenting from, you know, instead of a place of fear and stress, from a place of love and connection. And then my second Group program is like a level two. And that one's called empower. And that one is a six month program. And that's where we are really diving deep. And we're getting to know each other on much more of an individual basis. They're getting a lot more individual support as well as within the group. And then that group dynamic is so fantastic. And six months of that. Is so healing and I think all of us, even me, like we've learned so much from each other through coaching for six months, as well as, you know, diving deep into whatever they're struggling with. So that's, that's a really, really cool program. And then of course, just the one on one, but super excited because I have just. Opened my registration for my level one Illuminate. And then that one kicks off on June 7th and my next empower group kicks off in August. So very excited. And people can find me and sign up for those on my website, which is amykcoach. com. And I'm also on social media so people can get to know me. Know me there and also get to my bio site where you can sign up for these things as well. And that's at Amy Kay coach on both Facebook and Instagram. And I think it's the same on LinkedIn as well, though. I think it has a number after it, but I think They'll find you. I'll put all

Kim: 43:28

the, I'll put all the links in the show notes so you can simply just click through and get to all of these places. Amy is there anything else that you wanna add before we sign off for the day? Any parting thoughts?

Amy: 43:41

You know, just the one thing that I always want parents, moms especially to understand is just the concept of you are not alone. Mm-Hmm. you are not alone. We always say, you know, there is no village. Where is our village? We need a village. We feel so alone and isolated and you really aren't alone. You just have to, you know, get, get a little brave, reach out, but there are a lot of us out here who are ready to support and just walk the path with

Kim: 44:10

you. I love that, and I love how you've built your programs to bring that village together and create that sense of community, because I think as a world in general, we don't have that like we used to, we don't have our villages, so I think it's important that we are intentional about creating that. Thank you so much for this conversation. This was really valuable and you've, you've given us some very tangible tips about how we can support ourselves so that we can support our children better. Thank you so much. so much.

Amy: 44:39

Thank you for having me. That was, it was great talking to you. I appreciate it.

Kim: 44:43

Oh, it's been a pleasure.