MOMENT | What to do if your child is different with Elaine Halligan

0:03Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's Motherkind moment. with me, your host Zoe Blaski, your place for calm, connection and maybe even a change in perspective before the crazy week ahead. This week's moment is about difference. It's from May 2019. It's with Elaine Halligan, who is the founder of The Parent Practice and she's been a parenting specialist since 2006. Elaine's story is incredible. Her little boy Sam was expelled from school three times by the time he was just seven. So Elaine quit her job in the city and retained in positive parenting. And she now has helped thousands upon thousands of parents totally transform their parenting journey.

0:51It is an incredible clip. And I know for me, you know, when I think about difference, I actually think most children are a little bit different. So I hope that you find this clip really reassuring, really positive and inspiring. I know I did. Here it is. Once you do have a diagnosis, it's super important then to start working with your child to recognize their strengths. So just because Sam's dyslexic, yeah, that is not a hindrance. It's absolutely not a hindrance. It can be for our traditional educational system because sam is a square peg that traditionally in our education system we are trying to shove into a round hole that is never going to work but dyslexia actually is a superpower i know this because i've read the book but i'll ask you the question did he finish his education what happened so you said he got expelled three times by the time he was seven what happened next we need to finish this two years and what were you doing you're at home with him uh no we went to a behavioral timeout center and I retrained as a behavioral specialist, gave up my career in the city and started to retrain, trying to understand that this little boy wasn't being a problem.

2:04He was having a problem and our job was to try and help him with that problem. So similar to an iceberg, if you just focus on that tip of the iceberg, the behavior, you'll never deep dive into the water. Do you believe in problem children? I believe in neurodiverse children who have behavior that's different from typical learners. So Sam presented to others as a problem. Yeah. So I don't believe that there are naughty or problem children. I think all children are just unique. And what we need to do as adults, whether we're parents or teachers, is understand much more about behavior. There is always a reason for behavior.

2:43And Sam's behavior was born out of emotions. And those emotions were huge anxiety because he was being placed in an environment it's like you and I Zoe going to work and it being in Chinese yeah can you imagine the amount of stress and anxiety caused so Sam wasn't being a problem he was just having a enormous problem and once we understand that then we're empathetic and we can understand that people present differently in society across the board there is a place for introverts there's a place for extroverts. There's a place for Asperger's adults that everyone has a role to play. And it's about us as parents helping our children unlock their strengths and not overcome weaknesses.