Speaker 1: Tonight on One News, Dunedin's damage revealed.
Speaker 2: One News at six presenter Melissa Stokes has been a
Speaker 2: beloved fixture on our screens for over twenty years.
Speaker 1: Benanto can't a good evening. Dunedin is now in recovery mode.
Speaker 2: She's brought us the big stories and the breaking news,
Speaker 2: and she does it all with grace.
Speaker 1: Nine homes of red sticker boil.
Speaker 2: Water, even delivering the tough and terrifying news. Melissa's bibers.
Speaker 2: Don't worry, guys, we got this.
Speaker 1: I have more on that later, but first, but.
Speaker 2: Behind the scenes, things aren't always composed. Melissa's oldest son, Hugo,
Speaker 2: has ADHD and there is never a dill moment.
Speaker 1: Hugo is the wild ride to be a parent of.
Speaker 1: He starts every morning like a energizer bunny, where he
Speaker 1: jumps out of bed and yells in our very small house.
Speaker 3: Good morning New Zealand, Gelda.
Speaker 2: I'm Sonia Gray and this is no such thing as normal.
Speaker 2: Series two. I'm diving into the complex and fascinating world
Speaker 2: of neurodiversity. I'm not an expert, but my daughter is
Speaker 2: neurodivergent and a few years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD.
Speaker 2: In this series, you'll hear from experts and from many
Speaker 2: wonderful people who experience the world in the unique way.
Speaker 2: We're looking at neurodiversity from the inside. This is the
Speaker 2: second of a two part look at parenting, and parenting
Speaker 2: could be an entire series because it's a lot. The
Speaker 2: constant appointments, the dreaded phone calls from the school, the
Speaker 2: deep dive into alternative treatments, the panic when the only
Speaker 2: brand of cheese your kid will eat is discontent. Knew
Speaker 2: all of this, and then someone offers a helpful piece
Speaker 2: of advice, like is it wise to give her sugar?
Speaker 2: If a child's neurodifference isn't obvious, then it's often seen
Speaker 2: as a choice. So if there are behavioral issues, the
Speaker 2: autism or ADHD becomes the naughty kid and the bad parent.
Speaker 2: Why is it still okay to shame and blame parents?
Speaker 1: Hugo has always just been full noise when people kept
Speaker 1: telling us, Oh, he's the most talkative kid we've ever had,
Speaker 1: or he's the most observant kid we've ever had, and
Speaker 1: at first he kind of feel like, oh, well, that's
Speaker 1: got to be a good thing, isn't it? And then
Speaker 1: gradually we realized it's not not a good thing, but
Speaker 1: there are things he needed help with so that his
Speaker 1: world wasn't so big all the time?
Speaker 2: Does Melissa Stokes and I have a semi regular Saturday
Speaker 2: evening date and TV and Z's make up. Whilst she's
Speaker 2: getting made up to bring the latest news to the nation,
Speaker 2: I'm getting made up to bring the latest Lotto numbers
Speaker 2: to the nation. And over the noise of the blow dryers,
Speaker 2: there is a lot of chat for Melissa and I.
Speaker 2: The conversation often turns to our children there because we
Speaker 2: both have kids who experienced the world in a very
Speaker 2: different way. So what happened to make you guys go Okay,
Speaker 2: maybe this is more than just a really active, boisterous cude.
Speaker 2: Maybe we need some sort of intervention.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact point, because, as you know,
Speaker 1: you do feel like you traverse so many kind of
Speaker 1: ups and downs. But he must have been in about
Speaker 1: year three. His focus, I think in the classroom was
Speaker 1: everywhere instead of being on the page in front of him,
Speaker 1: So they were starting to identify things. You know, he
Speaker 1: wasn't really finishing work. He was showing all the right
Speaker 1: attitude but he just kind of couldn't didn't have the
Speaker 1: focused again, there.
Speaker 2: Was sort of there was chaos, Yeah, because I think
Speaker 2: the thing about a classroom is you kind of need
Speaker 2: to be able to focus on that one thing the
Speaker 2: teacher wants you to focus on at that time. Yes,
Speaker 2: And as an ADHD, I know that you just don't
Speaker 2: have control over what you want to focus on it,
Speaker 2: especially as a kid.
Speaker 1: And we didn't realize that either. Obviously his focus was
Speaker 1: so wide it was causing problems in his head as well.
Speaker 1: And then it got to the point where the teachers
Speaker 1: came to us and says, we actually think he's near
Speaker 1: a breakdown, and so kind of to say that about
Speaker 1: a six or seven year old kid that we really
Speaker 1: think he is on the edge was really confronting. I
Speaker 1: think his world had just got too big. His anxiety
Speaker 1: got really bad about going to school and it had
Speaker 1: turned into a really safe and happy place to a
Speaker 1: place he didn't want to go to. And that's when
Speaker 1: really we had to take action because it obviously you
Speaker 1: don't want that and that was really upsetting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how were you at that time?
Speaker 1: Ah? It was awful, you know, to cut it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it was awful at the time. Yeah, but it always is,
Speaker 1: as you know, like how I always talk to you
Speaker 1: about it because you think, ah, we've written this out,
Speaker 1: but then there's always the next thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the hard thing is that when you've had a
Speaker 2: period of kind of stability for a while, yeah, then
Speaker 2: you go down again. It's almost worse. How did you
Speaker 2: find navigating the system help?
Speaker 1: For us, it was non existent in terms of public
Speaker 1: help because even though we had you know, I think
Speaker 1: a doctor and somebody else write a letter saying that
Speaker 1: this kid was at breaking point, you know, it's six there,
Speaker 1: we still didn't reach your threshold. So you know, gosh,
Speaker 1: we're very fortunate that we can do it on our own.
Speaker 1: And we found who I think you've actually had on
Speaker 1: the podcast before, Lucy the Ot. We loved Lucy and
Speaker 1: Lucy and she would come to.
Speaker 2: Lovely Lucy as an occupational therapist who shared her expert
Speaker 2: advice in series one of this podcast. It can be
Speaker 2: luck finding good people, and Melissa was lucky. That was
Speaker 2: six years ago. A pediatrician had suggested Hugo have therapy
Speaker 2: sessions with Lucy for six months, see how it went,
Speaker 2: and maybe then come back to see her, and.
Speaker 1: So he went and worked with Lucy and on the
Speaker 1: second session she said, I shouldn't really be you know,
Speaker 1: this is not my job, but I think you'd benefit
Speaker 1: from medication, and so for a person to see him.
Speaker 1: After two sessions and we were meant to be there
Speaker 1: for six months, she was like, I think you should
Speaker 1: go back to our pediatrician. And we went back and
Speaker 1: that's when that started. She kind of was, you know,
Speaker 1: very clear he has ady EHG and he's probably got
Speaker 1: other things as well, but she's like, we don't really
Speaker 1: need to spend the money on that diagnosis. We know
Speaker 1: that and we just work with it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you take the kid that's in front of you
Speaker 2: and go what do they need?
Speaker 1: But Hugo is so different to any other kid I
Speaker 1: know with ADHD. I just think they're all so different
Speaker 1: that there isn't kind of one program or one expert
Speaker 1: that I could go to for all the answers.
Speaker 2: Was it suggested to you that you do parenting courses?
Speaker 1: We were repeatedly told to go to parenting courses for
Speaker 1: his behavior or for us to learn how to manage
Speaker 1: his behavior. But I just could tell that they were
Speaker 1: never going to be right for us. Yeah, maybe I
Speaker 1: was wrong, but I just think I could tell the
Speaker 1: gut feeling was it wasn't going to help.
Speaker 2: Gut advice is good advice. Often it's the best advice
Speaker 2: when it comes to parenting because you are an expert
Speaker 2: in your kid. But some of the systems in place
Speaker 2: try and tell you repeatedly that you are not.
Speaker 5: I must submit that I would occasionally break to go
Speaker 5: have a glass of wine and approach it the next
Speaker 5: day because some of them did bring me to tears.
Speaker 2: That's educational psychologist Willow Sainsbury talking in last week's episode
Speaker 2: about her research on the experience of parents in this system.
Speaker 2: At the end of the study, she asked three questions,
Speaker 2: what was helpful, what was unhelpful? And what would you
Speaker 2: like to change about the diagnostic process? And the results
Speaker 2: were pages and pages of writing. The main theme of
Speaker 2: her final paper became.
Speaker 5: The battle Yeah, just so many a sense of adversarial conflict,
Speaker 5: the war zone.
Speaker 2: Nice little yeah.
Speaker 5: But for me as a practitioner, one of the things
Speaker 5: that enabled me to reflect was the discussion around parenting courses.
Speaker 5: And I think this really struck me because when I
Speaker 5: was working I would often recommend parents to go on
Speaker 5: parenting courses, and you're going to take this opportunity to
Speaker 5: apologize to any parents out there who I recommended going
Speaker 5: on a parenting course, because I think parents, in what
Speaker 5: they voiced about what was unhelpful is that when they
Speaker 5: begin the diagnostic process for their child, they are carrying
Speaker 5: so much guilt. Have they done everything they can as
Speaker 5: a parent? What more can they do? They are told
Speaker 5: it's not their fault, and then immediately it's recommended that
Speaker 5: they go on a parenting course. And I think parents explain.
Speaker 3: To me.
Speaker 5: Just how that messaging was received. And I really didn't
Speaker 5: have that perspective before that study, and very sage philosophical
Speaker 5: parents writing, you know, we understand why a parenting course
Speaker 5: is useful, but the timing of it, particularly before diagnosis,
Speaker 5: before their child's been assessed, feels like it is a
Speaker 5: gatekeeper for help for their children. So I just gained
Speaker 5: a whole new perspective. And I think then that they
Speaker 5: often went on to explain that the parenting courses also
Speaker 5: weren't helpful for neurodivergent children, and that they were also
Speaker 5: not taken into account the parent's own skill sets. So,
Speaker 5: for example, one parent said I'm an early childhood educator
Speaker 5: and you sent me on a parenting course, and it's
Speaker 5: definitely changed the way I think of as a clinician.
Speaker 5: Even though a parenting course is evidence based, think about
Speaker 5: the timing, think about the way it's interpreted, and how
Speaker 5: we could perhaps do that differently and work more collaboratively
Speaker 5: with parents around what that might look like.
Speaker 2: I think if it's presented as part of a complete
Speaker 2: protocol or complete plan, that would be easier. The problem
Speaker 2: is kind of layer because you're right, you're already feeling
Speaker 2: like a failure as a parent because your child is
Speaker 2: very obviously not coping, And then it's kind of implied
Speaker 2: that they agree with that, yes, because you need more
Speaker 2: skills as a parent. Plus, in my case and in
Speaker 2: many parents' cases, you're exhausted. So the idea of having
Speaker 2: to go somewhere every Tuesday night from seven thirty to
Speaker 2: nine thirty for eight weeks, how how will I find
Speaker 2: the space to do that? Yeah, there are some great
Speaker 2: parenting courses out there which especially tailored to parents of
Speaker 2: neurodivergent kids. Will put some links to those in the
Speaker 2: show notes. The battle is constant for all parents, But
Speaker 2: if you're in a minority group, the system makes it
Speaker 2: even tougher. Research has shown that certain biases still exist
Speaker 2: and the barriers to getting diagnosis and support are very real.
Speaker 2: It's risky for Mali Farno to seek diagnosis and support
Speaker 2: for their kids. Willow Sainsbury's research highlighted the despair all
Speaker 2: parents feel in the system, but as an educational psychologist,
Speaker 2: she's experienced the risk factor that is very real for
Speaker 2: minority groups.
Speaker 5: So families sharing with me a lack of trust in
Speaker 5: the system. And actually, I think it's an incredible privilege
Speaker 5: to get to that stage where actually families can say
Speaker 5: that this system can be dangerous for us. It's also
Speaker 5: layers of trauma of families having a sense of distrust
Speaker 5: in terms of other sometimes direct experiences. And unfortunately, the
Speaker 5: system is set up in such a way that quite
Speaker 5: a few parents, I would venture to say, feel like
Speaker 5: the system is a battle, that it's dangerous, that they're
Speaker 5: constantly worried about labels being put on their children that
Speaker 5: aren't right, and also labels on their family that aren't right.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, isn't it, Because we have to present all
Speaker 2: the deficits when we are describing our child However, we
Speaker 2: have to present zero deficits when we are describing our farno,
Speaker 2: and I guess it would be easier to go, oh,
Speaker 2: it's that for anybody, because the whole neurodiversity is so
Speaker 2: difficult to quantify, I guess, and if you can just go, wow,
Speaker 2: there was a messy divorce and that's why his behavior
Speaker 2: is bad. But that's what worries me is that we
Speaker 2: don't for some kids, we miss them because there is
Speaker 2: something else going on, the be other things going on
Speaker 2: with the faro.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know exactly what you are describing.
Speaker 2: Thank you, because I felt like I explained that really badly.
Speaker 5: No, not at all. I think that what ends up happening.
Speaker 5: And I'm going to give you the perspective from a clinician,
Speaker 5: from an ed psyche perspective, you are also worried about
Speaker 5: missing things. Are categories of neurodevelopmental conditions are far from perfect,
Speaker 5: and actually working out exactly what is happening is really difficult. Now,
Speaker 5: I would argue that it's a lot easier if you're
Speaker 5: working in collaboration with the parents with a faro the
Speaker 5: kid in front of you, and understanding from their perspective
Speaker 5: what's happening. I think that parents often feel that they
Speaker 5: need to play the game, that they need to present
Speaker 5: the deficits of their child, jump through the hoops of
Speaker 5: parenting courses. They understood how the system worked, but nonetheless,
Speaker 5: couldn't it be done in a different way. If they've
Speaker 5: got to the stage where they're saying, my child and
Speaker 5: I need help, and then they should be viewed as
Speaker 5: the parents that are thinking about it and have self
Speaker 5: selected to be supported and that are good parents because
Speaker 5: they're worried about these things. So then to be made
Speaker 5: to feel like they have to battle, they have to fight,
Speaker 5: they have to prove things, it's just not a good
Speaker 5: place to be in.
Speaker 2: It's ironic that parents that have to jump through the
Speaker 2: hoops are the ones working really really hard to get
Speaker 2: ahead of the game, to put out fires before they're
Speaker 2: even lit. Melissa Stokes is a dedicated parent to both
Speaker 2: her boys, but it's never ending.
Speaker 1: I'm always on it, like I always feel on it,
Speaker 1: because you always on another thing. There's just been a
Speaker 1: shortage of the ACTG medication in the country. I rang
Speaker 1: twenty seven pharmacies to try and get our one, and
Speaker 1: I just think, like, because why wouldn't I.
Speaker 2: I think you you will remember me in my desperate stage,
Speaker 2: which lasted was up and down, but lasted years, and
Speaker 2: I just thought I have got to try everything, do everything.
Speaker 2: I cannot look back in ten years time and go
Speaker 2: why didn't I get that diagnosis? And she kind of
Speaker 2: fits the bill for all of them. But you know,
Speaker 2: we sit there with all these letters finder name, and
Speaker 2: they don't none of them describe her really.
Speaker 1: But what I have learned, and I think what you've learned,
Speaker 1: is that we can only be their advocates because a
Speaker 1: lot of kids aren't lucky enough to have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think about that a lot.
Speaker 1: I really didn't think i'd get upset. I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: didn't think i'd cry. I think, you God, it's just kids,
Speaker 1: isn't it. You know, because I do look at a
Speaker 1: lot of kids, or I hear of a lot of kids,
Speaker 1: and you know, the similar ages who are only now
Speaker 1: kind of getting diagnosed, and I think, Wow, you know,
Speaker 1: how lucky were we that we identified or it was
Speaker 1: identified so early, because we don't really have we're now
Speaker 1: on this path. We've got all the experts, we've got.
Speaker 2: A few of the tools, and you've learned how to
Speaker 2: advocate for him as well. Yeah, you know, we know
Speaker 2: how to write an email in a way that will
Speaker 2: achieve the best results, and you know, all these little things.
Speaker 2: There is an element of playing the game.
Speaker 1: It's like when sometimes women go to the doctors and
Speaker 1: they feel like they're not hurt. I feel like, with
Speaker 1: you just got to keep fronting up. If you don't
Speaker 1: even answer, you have to go again. They're not going
Speaker 1: to answer that email, go in person, you know, ring
Speaker 1: up on the phone. And yeah, and I mean that's
Speaker 1: obviously in my nature because of what my job is
Speaker 1: is that I'm not going to not get an answer.
Speaker 1: I will just keep fronting up. And that's been probably
Speaker 1: a blessing for us. Yeah, it's exhausting, though it is
Speaker 1: quite exhausting.
Speaker 2: Melissa and I both have kids who, when they were younger,
Speaker 2: were very easily dysregulated and had frequent meltdowns. Meltdowns are
Speaker 2: not bad behavior and they're not bad parenting, but other
Speaker 2: people don't necessarily see it that way.
Speaker 1: Everybody is not the same. Which even though I think
Speaker 1: we say that like it's the obvious, but it's not.
Speaker 1: And I think as a parent, most definitely you don't
Speaker 1: often take that on board because there are so much
Speaker 1: judgment of parenting. I think people that haven't had kids,
Speaker 1: that you know, might have these moments where it's kind
Speaker 1: of out of their control. A lot of the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I just worry, like, oh, what they think
Speaker 1: about how we're parenting, whereas they don't understand that this
Speaker 1: is just kind of our reality. It's not our parenting.
Speaker 1: I can do a whole lot of things that you've
Speaker 1: done with your kids, but it just will not work
Speaker 1: with mine. Maybe don't be afraid to let people go,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't want to, but I think
Speaker 1: sometimes you've got to keep other people almost out of
Speaker 1: your business. Yeah yeah, good intention, people that are trying
Speaker 1: to tell you what's wrong with your child or how
Speaker 1: you could parent them better. I think sometimes you just
Speaker 1: got to politely say this isn't your business, or you
Speaker 1: just don't understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you do. And that's hard. It's because often
Speaker 2: the situation is so intense that noise is it can
Speaker 2: almost tip you over the edge.
Speaker 1: Just those moments where if you're invited somewhere or you're
Speaker 1: going somewhere, I have a lot of anxiety over his
Speaker 1: behavior or how he'll fit into the group, or you know,
Speaker 1: will you be okay? Can I go for two hours
Speaker 1: you know and sit there? Which is all Probably that's
Speaker 1: all my anxiety though, because we go and he's generally fine.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make out he's some kind of terror,
Speaker 1: but you know, that's anxiety that I hold really kind
Speaker 1: of deep, I guess from the really early days. But
Speaker 1: I find that very hard to let go of now
Speaker 1: that he's actually grown up and he has changed. He's
Speaker 1: got a brain that works in such a kind of
Speaker 1: exciting and curious way. But when it's not great, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, oh, how did this happen? And it's back
Speaker 1: to that, I guess, expectation and reality and the thing.
Speaker 1: You think, oh, we're tracking along, we're tracking along, there's
Speaker 1: nothing to worry about. It's nothing to worry about, and
Speaker 1: then when something happens, you just think like shit, or
Speaker 1: why didn't I deal with this before? Or why didn't
Speaker 1: I see this coming, or why didn't I have that
Speaker 1: in place to do with it at the time. Everything
Speaker 1: with us, I think, kind of circles around to you go.
Speaker 1: You know that he's good. Kind of the rest of
Speaker 1: the family takes along really well. If you guys having
Speaker 1: a moment, you know, Dave and I will start a
Speaker 1: bit of you know, at each other because we still
Speaker 1: really haven't worked out the best way to parent him,
Speaker 1: and because I think that evolves all the time.
Speaker 2: Do you think that part of that is because there's
Speaker 2: this conditioning that this is the best way to parent.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a certain thing that you set boundaries
Speaker 2: and you give you know, all the things that we
Speaker 2: know and the ideas that you have before you're a parent,
Speaker 2: and society pressures from society that are kind of even
Speaker 2: if you don't necessarily want to follow them, you sort
Speaker 2: of can't help yourself. Like there's all these conflicting kind
Speaker 2: of of course.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you have kids, as you say,
Speaker 1: your expectation versus reality can be so different. And then
Speaker 1: you throw in that kind of ADHD on your diversity diagnosis,
Speaker 1: and it is completely different.
Speaker 2: It is a completely different way of parenting. And I'm
Speaker 2: like you, it's very hard to find what the right
Speaker 2: way is. The right way is always changing because it's
Speaker 2: almost like they need to feel safe, but they need
Speaker 2: to be stretched, and that's different every time. And it's
Speaker 2: just a a psychologist described it to me as a
Speaker 2: PhD in parenting. Yeah, without doing the undergred, you're just
Speaker 2: thrown in.
Speaker 1: But again that we're in a really great place at
Speaker 1: the minute. For most of our time. Now, Hugo is
Speaker 1: exceptional at school. He has a great time. Are our
Speaker 1: morning's absolute shit? Yes? Can Hugo organize anything? No? His
Speaker 1: last focus in the morning is wanting to get himself
Speaker 1: ready for school. He's got a hundred other things that
Speaker 1: he'd prefer to be doing. And then there's this wild
Speaker 1: panic as he leaves the house, yelling. But that's how
Speaker 1: our morning looks, you know. And we and it was
Speaker 1: actually you who said you just have to accept it
Speaker 1: that we don't look like other families in the morning.
Speaker 2: That is so funny. I didn't know I'd already said that, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I was just going to say the thing is yeah.
Speaker 2: But that's why it's so wonderful that you're talking, because
Speaker 2: it helps other people go, oh, because you have this
Speaker 2: picture that in every other household around the country, other
Speaker 2: kids are just you know, getting dressed without being asked
Speaker 2: and did it, you know, because nobody talks about it
Speaker 2: when that's not the case.
Speaker 1: Hugo is such a sunny, bright you know person.
Speaker 2: Is he a happy kid.
Speaker 1: He's an extremely happy kid. You know, his smile like
Speaker 1: breaks my heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just even listening to you talk, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: so excited about he's.
Speaker 1: Gonna be mainly excited. Yeah, Hugo's a kind of kid
Speaker 1: that would come in here, he'd look around, he'd take
Speaker 1: it in, he'd go away. He might not come back
Speaker 1: here for three months, but he would say, huh, you've
Speaker 1: moved the pop plant.
Speaker 2: How many people even see the pot plant? That ability
Speaker 2: to take it all in is a wonderful quality and
Speaker 2: we need to celebrate it. And kids like Hugo.
Speaker 4: We were in deep shit. We were in really deep shit.
Speaker 4: I've never really cried in my life. I'm not a
Speaker 4: cry Then you sort of face the hardest thing you've
Speaker 4: ever faced in your life. Oh my goodness, I've cried
Speaker 4: enough to it for a lifetime.
Speaker 2: In last week's episode, Newstalk zb's Francesca Radkins spoke so
Speaker 2: bravely about her daughter's crisis, which eventually led to an
Speaker 2: ADHD diagnosis. That have since come out the other side,
Speaker 2: and Francesca has some advice and some hope for those
Speaker 2: in a similar position.
Speaker 4: You know, two years ago, I didn't know where we'd
Speaker 4: be at, and I can quite honestly say we're in
Speaker 4: a completely different place and my child is amazing and
Speaker 4: incredible and doing so well. That is not to say
Speaker 4: it is still not tough. Life is still really tough
Speaker 4: for her, and it is a it is a roller coaster,
Speaker 4: and it's still ups and downs, and we're still discovering
Speaker 4: lots of things. I think what I'd really like to
Speaker 4: say to appearance, especially if those whose children do hit
Speaker 4: that wall have a breakdown of some sort. For two years,
Speaker 4: for year nine and ten, my daughter was a serious truant.
Speaker 4: I think we got a forty seven percent attendance one year,
Speaker 4: at lower attendance the second year. And I felt this
Speaker 4: sort of societal pressure and expectation I'd put on myself
Speaker 4: that I needed my kid to be at school. They
Speaker 4: have to be at school. The education is the most
Speaker 4: important thing in the world.
Speaker 1: She's going to fall behind.
Speaker 4: This is a realnesshoe and the law, and it's the law, right,
Speaker 4: So there's all this pressure on you as a parent.
Speaker 4: And I felt embarrassed and guilty, and I was worried.
Speaker 4: Tell you what, that's all gone now. We were very
Speaker 4: fortunate to be to school. That understood that our daughter
Speaker 4: couldn't come to school. It's not that she didn't want
Speaker 4: to come to school. They understood the gravity of what
Speaker 4: we were dealing with an ADHD diagnosis, serious anxiety and
Speaker 4: heavy melancholy, as we like to call it in our house.
Speaker 4: We then, you know, progressed. Things got better. The next year,
Speaker 4: things got worse again. My daughter felt like she didn't
Speaker 4: have all the pieces of the puzzle. So we did
Speaker 4: more diagnostic work and there were more sensitivities that discovered,
Speaker 4: and that really started to kind of put the puzzle
Speaker 4: together and allow us to go, Okay, now we're really
Speaker 4: understanding how this brain is working and everything we're dealing
Speaker 4: with that you need. But you know, I discovered this
Speaker 4: thing called graded exposure. So obviously the biggest concern if
Speaker 4: your child isn't going to school is it's going to
Speaker 4: be impossible to get them back to school. You want
Speaker 4: them to be exposed to the thing that creates the
Speaker 4: anxiety and the panic attacks and the fear and things
Speaker 4: so that they can keep going. But actually it was
Speaker 4: absolutely fine to stop and go, okay, what about you
Speaker 4: go two mornings a week? Just do two classes. Then
Speaker 4: the next week, hey, why don't you go three mornings
Speaker 4: a week, And actually, to my daughter's credit, she did
Speaker 4: that for a term, and then by the time she
Speaker 4: got to the third term she said, I'm going back
Speaker 4: full time. I'm ready to go. And she was good
Speaker 4: to go. You know, she's in the right environment for
Speaker 4: her and is able to learn and do everything she
Speaker 4: wants and it did not matter that she missed essentially a.
Speaker 1: Year of school.
Speaker 2: I feel exactly the same way.
Speaker 4: Do not panic as a parent about the education. One
Speaker 4: of the wonderful things that I have learned from my
Speaker 4: daughter is how you get from A to B can
Speaker 4: be so broad.
Speaker 2: As a researcher, Willow Sainsbury's used to being the one
Speaker 2: to ask the questions, so at the end of our interview,
Speaker 2: she grabbed the mic from me.
Speaker 5: I'm going to put this question back to you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: what is the one thing in the last year that
Speaker 5: you have felt really optimistic about in this space?
Speaker 2: Can I only pick one thing?
Speaker 5: No, you can pick three.
Speaker 2: I thank you you're such a teacher. I didn't I
Speaker 2: meant that in a beautiful way. I term the passion
Speaker 2: of so many people the I'm going to put this
Speaker 2: into one passion, kindness, the number of people that really
Speaker 2: genuinely want to make the world a better place for
Speaker 2: those who think and experience things differently and are suffering,
Speaker 2: they want to ease suffering. It just touches my heart.
Speaker 2: And this project is so difficult, you know. I always
Speaker 2: take on these difficult projects. But then I talk to
Speaker 2: someone like you or young autistic girl I talked to
Speaker 2: yesterday who just like it. Yeah, it's I think I
Speaker 2: feel a little bit sorry for people that haven't encountered
Speaker 2: neurodiversity or neurodivergence in this way because they miss out
Speaker 2: on the beautiful, complex, different way of thinking. It's I
Speaker 2: really you can see the ADHD in me coming out.
Speaker 1: A No, I love it.
Speaker 5: You've really nailed those last two. So I've.
Speaker 2: Next time on no such thing as normal? What is dyspraxia?
Speaker 5: So riding the bike was a big one.
Speaker 2: My great nad taught me how to ride a bike twice.
Speaker 5: I learned it, forgot it because I didn't do it enough.
Speaker 3: Then he retaught me how to learn it.
Speaker 2: If you like this podcast, please rate and review it.
Speaker 2: It helps people find it. No such Thing as Normal
Speaker 2: is produced and presented by me Sonia Gray. The editor
Speaker 2: is Jamie Lee Smith, When O'Connor and Mitchell Hawks are
Speaker 2: executive producers. Production assistant is the ex War and you
Speaker 2: can find us on Instagram at No Such Thing as
Speaker 2: Normal Podcast. The series is brought to you by the
Speaker 2: New Zealand Herald and Team Uniform and it's made with
Speaker 2: a support of New Zealand on air. New episodes of
Speaker 2: No Such Thing As Normal are available wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts.