Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlin Childress.

And today on the podcast, I've invited Sarah Hartley to

join me for a conversation about raising neurodivergent

kids. I really appreciate what Sarah is doing in

the world. She has written a series of books called

Purposefully Me that are meant to help kids

navigate big feelings and and learn more about

different ways that people show up with autism, with

adhd, how bullying affects kids, how

school drills can affect you, just kind of topics that might be hard

to talk about with kids. She's written stories

that put those conversations into a

narrative form so that you can read those with your kids and talk about

these difficult conversations. And Sarah has also

created a parenting method called Align that is

very similar to the Connection tool that you have

learned about on my podcast. And in this conversation

with Sarah, we walk through her parenting method

and walk through the steps of Align, which is

a tool that you can use that will help you

handle those very difficult moments with your kids when things

start to seem out of bounds or out of control, or they start complaining

or there's a lot of overwhelm going on. What you can say

and do to help reset the

situation and bring your kids back online in a

way that isn't just like, stop it. Don't do that anymore. Enough.

Right? And we go through an example where she

practices this philosophy with her own kids. And

I think you're really going to love learning about Align.

I also really enjoy this conversation because Sarah and I

have both experience raising neurodivergent kids and

the challenges that come with that. And we

sort of talk war stories a little bit and talk

strategy about how we've learned to cope with our kids

being neurodivergent and how to

kind of get ourselves through those hard moments. So

please enjoy this conversation with Sarah Hartley. I think you're

gonna love her and you're gonna love learning about her work in the world

and just how much we are like little

like minded spirits together doing this parenting work. So

please enjoy this conversation.

Hi, Sarah. Hi. How are you? Good. I'm Darlin.

Nice to meet you, Darlin. Nice to meet you too. I'm so happy to have

you on the Become a Calm Mama podcast. So I am happy to

be here. Yeah. Good, good. So I'm really happy to

have you on here. When your team reached out to talk about your

books, the whole series purposefully, me,

I, you know, dug in to figure out, like, who you were and everything

like that. And I just Thought you were so perfect for my audience because

our goals in parent education really align

in, you know, emotional intelligence and helping

moms and dads feel more calm and

capable when they're raising their kids. And so I just was like, oh

great. This is perfect for, for my podcast

listeners and I wanted to introduce them to you and your work. So

welcome. Oh, well, thank you again for having me. I've

listened to many of your podcast episodes and it sounds

like we are very similar and talking about the

same things. And so I love that alignment. So

many that I've been on. It's a different

maybe perspective that they're bringing in. And I think that you and I are

speaking the same language. Yeah, yeah, I know. And sometimes it's like,

oh well, is that even useful to have the same thing? But I actually think

it is really helpful. I want to talk about your align method

and introduce that to my audience. Anything that I can offer

to a moment to help them feel more confident as a

parent. I'm like, yes. So I'm really glad to have you.

So I wanted to talk first about you, like where your story, your

background, especially you

identify as a neurodivergent mom. So I wanted to talk about what that means

for you and then raising your kids and what you know,

however much you feel comfortable with and then getting into the parenting stuff and the

book and the book series and all of that. So tell

us about you, Sarah. How did you become involved

in parent education and what's your story?

Thank you for asking me that question. It can be a

detailed one, but something that I didn't realize I would ever

be on the path to do. And it really wasn't until

I had my oldest son. And around

one and a half to two years old we started noticing

some behavioral issues or just some aggressive behavior. But we had

also noticed that he was surpassing every milestone. And

so it was this interesting element of noticing that

he was cognitively ahead of the game, but social

emotionally, behind which that gap between the two things really

can cause for some explosive emotional behavior

with your almost two year old. Yeah, actually I'm going to poke in

every once in a while because I have a similar story with my oldest.

And maybe you can relate to this is

I would read the parenting books and so say I'm reading about 18

month old and I would be like, well, he doesn't

do any of this, but he does some of the nine month old behaviors

and some of the three year old behaviors. He never was

quite right on target with what I was reading

in all the little developmental stages and what to expect and

all of that. But yes, sometimes really far ahead in

verbal processing, communicate whatever it was for him. And then other times, socially,

emotionally, self regulation was so far behind. And I was like,

I don't know what to make of it. So how did you feel when you

were like, wait, is he. What's going on here? Yes,

it was an eye opening moment. I was speaking with one of my

really good friends who's actually an OT in the school system, and she works

with mostly with neurodivergent kids, whether they have autism or

adhd. And she said, have you ever thought that maybe your son is

gifted? And I said, oh, you know, I haven't really

thought about that. And it, I don't really know

exactly fully what that means as it almost took me

to the movie where it seems like more on an autism spectrum

of having being gifted. And she said, you know, you might

want to look at some sensory processing stuff as well as

adhd. And so that was at the point where we went down that

path. We started through child find. We took the full sensory

processing disorder assessment because there were times where we thought potentially

he had it. But it wasn't really until I had my second child

where all of those symptoms really exacerbated

and all of a sudden things that, you know, once in a while it was

the tag is too itchy or sounds are too loud to really

noticing that he was actually avoiding certain

vestibular activities like swinging or riding a bike, and then

also really pushing for the proprioceptive

input. So he was crashing on the ground, you know, or

just making big movements and things that we were trying to figure out what

exactly is going on. And so from there we, we went

through some testing with him, found out that he is highly gifted,

he has sensory processing disorder, and at that time was mild

adhd. They even tested him for OCD

and the Defiance disorder and autism. But

he fit more into the sensory ADHD kind

of gifted bucket, which really makes him twice exceptional. And so it was

at that point that while I had had a late

diagnosis of ADHD at 25 years old, I was just

given that medication and said, go on your way. And no

strategies were ever implemented. I never spoke with anyone about it. And

so it really was eye opening for me. And I think that many mothers

can feel this resonates with them when they say that you will

do anything and everything for your child and you might neglect your own health as

well. And so it wasn't until it was my son that was going through this,

that I said, I have to figure out what this is. I have to figure

out, you know, how to parent. I had read all the books. I, you know,

there were many. I took positive parenting courses. I did all of those

things, but it still wasn't working. And because his intellect was so high, he

was outsmarting every strategy that we tried. So it was really time

for him to start seeing an OT to work on the

sensory piece, and then a play therapist for some of that emotional regulation

as well. Yeah. Wow. Did

you feel like. I know for me and for

some of the moms that work, like, what am I doing wrong? Like,

you know, you have this kid who's a little bit explosive, maybe outside

of typical, you know, you're talking to other moms and they're like,

at first, this is how it was for me. Like, I would have a conversation

with another mom and we would be like, yeah, yeah, that's my kid, too. That

my kid. And then I'd say one more thing and they'd be like,

but we haven't had no. Mmm. Like, they had this

funny face and these kind of like, you know, whoa.

And I found myself a little bit like, am I doing something wrong

or something wrong with my kid? And I don't know that,

like, a deeper sense of fear, of, like, something's wrong here or

I'm not doing it right. Did you have that? Absolutely. All the

time. I think it brought me a tremendous amount of anxiety, the

guilt and the shame, especially if we were in a public

place and maybe that meltdown was occurring or

every day going to pick him up from preschool and

having that moment of, oh, I hope we don't get an incident report today.

You know, and just knowing that there is this element of fear every

single day that we might come, you know, walk into something

even bigger. Fortunately, there was another little

boy who they were best friends, but they also butted heads. And

the parents were awesome long, like, ended up having

a connection to them with. One of our other friends had gone to high school

with the dad, and so great people still are friends with them today.

And so that mom had already gone through some of the child find problems process.

And at that point, we had not quite hit the pandemic yet. And so

we were able to even go on some play dates with that young

child, with the therapist there so they could watch the two

of them interact. And they're the exact same kid. You know, they both have adhd.

It was. They're both hyperactive. They both had the aggressive behavior. It was,

you know, one day my son comes home with a giant bike mark on his

cheek right before picture day. And then, you know, her, I guess my son had

thrown something at her. Her child had a black eye. So, you know, we were

very thin, thankful that it tended to be the two of them

that were usually mixed up in all of it.

And so we were very empathetic of one another when that happened. But if it

ended up being someone else who, you know, they had a neurotypical child

and their child is, you know, maybe a sweet little girl, and something happened, you

know, then your heart just breaks even further of, what, what am I

doing wrong? And how do I help my child to just be calm in the

classroom because they weren't getting their needs met. I mean, I

watched my child. He was best friends with the teacher. That was where he

would get his social interaction, because he would. They could talk on the

same level at 2 and 3 years old. And he'd become frustrated

with the other children if, you know, they didn't immediately understand what he was trying

to do. Yeah, it's very hard

when you have preschoolers and that

feeling of, what is the, you know, the teacher going to say to

me today? And what are the other parents thinking? And, of course,

we all do think, like, that's parenting, right? Like there's some kind

of parenting issue. And as much

as I wish we didn't think that, people do think that,

and the teachers think that and the other parents think that, and.

But when you're raising a neurodivergent kid or a kid who has, you know,

a lot of trouble with emotional regulation, maybe that's

trauma or, you know, medical condition. It could be different things.

It's like, you kind of want to be like, I'm doing all of it. I

promise. I'm super mom over here. I'm trying so hard. And

it's like, I think if there could be a takeaway,

maybe give some benefit of the doubt to a mom who has

a kid who maybe is the naughty one in the class or the

one who keeps getting in trouble or whatever it is,

that she's probably doing her best. And maybe there's more going

on with that child than, you know, or understand.

I just wish people would have given me that. Oh, yes,

a little ounce of empathy and patience can go a long way. And

I never realized how much I was actually doing until we

decided to try to see if our son could go

to early access to kindergarten because he was very tall.

So, you know, while he's having these behaviors, he's a head taller than the rest

of the children. He only missed the cutoff by 10 days. And so we

started, started through the gifted and talented program and during that process,

having to write down all of the things that were reasons why he was gifted

and what we had done to support him. And so it was nice to have

this ton of, whether it was OT or, you

know, early intervention or play therapy, all the books, the

courses, and you don't realize, you feel like you're not doing enough until

that's on paper. And then you have a moment of, okay, maybe I am,

but it doesn't help all of the guilt. And so for me,

I've had many of those aha moments in the shower of just

almost total meltdown and breakdown of like, what is my purpose? Why

am I here? You know, why is all of this happening? And

that was actually for me what sparked writing my first children book.

Children's book was really in that low moment and I had to find

the tools that actually work for me because I've read the books and some of

them didn't necessarily resonate with me or maybe were too technical

until I read Dr. Becky Kennedy good inside. That

one was the first one where I felt like this is the holy grail of

all children's books because it was just speaking to how they're all

good people on the inside. They just don't know how to

regulate their emotions and they don't have that emotional intelligence

yet. So we have to be the ones to show them how to

regulate their own bodies. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes people

would say to me, like, you know, what intervention do you do?

Did made the most difference because my son is highly gifted with

adhd and then my other son has pretty severe sensory

processing and, and an eating disorder. So between the two,

you know, I just was constantly trying to figure out strategies that

would work. And all of my parenting methodology and belief system and everything

is born out of, you know, parenting these kids. But,

well, and my education and whatever, all the stuff. But

when I think about all the interventions, the one that made the biggest

difference is recognizing feelings, driving

behavior, recognizing that this is

emotional dysregulation. It's not because they're sociopathic

or self centered or, you know, like I

remember being so scared that my son was like going to grow up and be,

you know, a mass murderer or something. I just didn't understand. Yeah, I

had the same moment in thought that was literally like with all the school

shootings Would that ever be my child? How do

I put everything in place to make sure that it's not right? Right?

And really, all of the strategies and things that we've done, the

interventions we've done, all have made a huge impact

on our son, who is now 21 and grown and in

college and doing great. But it really was

when I stopped and

realized that this was a kid having

a hard time, right? That whole, like, they're not giving you a hard

time, they're having a hard time thought. And this was in,

you know, 2006, 7. This

was long before there was Instagram or

anybody talking about emotional dysregulation. I remember using the

words dysregulation, and it's not. Doesn't even come up in

spell check. Always wants to fix the spelling of it.

And amygdala and stress response and nervous systems

and all of that. That's now kind of parent education really is

centered around that. It wasn't at the time. And I was like,

my brain just kind of exploded in understanding,

whoa, he really needs me to come alongside of him and

not just time out and take away and scream

or whatever I was doing and

slow it all down and connect. And that's

like what your work is and what my work is. And

it is the best strategy that we can, that we have at our disposal, and

it's always available. What are your thoughts on that?

Absolutely. It's. It's interesting because I never knew

that I had my own triggers. And the hardest part about

parenting a neurodiverse child is being neurodiverse

yourself. And most of my life, I felt like

I was pretty even keel, you know, had I was never really.

I wouldn't get super upset about things. You know, maybe as a child for

sure, but, you know, as an adult, not very often.

You know, everything was kind of grateful for everything. Everything was

good. And, you know, I always, that time had more time to work out and,

you know, or be on a sports team where I was, you know, getting out

all of that energy that I needed to. And so it wasn't until I started

parenting that I noticed, you know, now I'm yelling. Now

I'm really frustrated. Now I'm thinking it's a reflection of my

own parenting. And I have that shame and guilt and all

of that compounding with a deeply feeling child who

feels the world, the weight of the world, all of your

emotions. I'm the same way. I can walk into a room and in a couple

of seconds know if this is a good person or a bad person or just

based. Or maybe I don't want to be here based on that energy. And

both of my children are that way as well. And so if they're feeling

my tension and my stress, that's not going to help anyone. And so I

need to make sure that I'm regulating myself. It's the same

scenario as putting on your oxygen mask on an airplane

first before you help someone else. You have to regulate your own

emotions and find out what works for you before you can help your child

and be, as you said, alongside of them for the ride and realize

it's not personal. They're not try. They're not trying to

disrespect you. And I feel like that is a word that's often misused

when it comes to children who are neurodiverse or having big feelings.

They're not trying to disrespect you. They just don't know how to handle

it. All of the sensory input, all of the emotions that are

happening, and if we teach them correctly of how to

mirror our own emotional regulation, then they're going

to turn out to be just like your son, 21 and thriving.

Yes. You know, obviously, to become a calm

mama is all about this, right? This kind of deeper sense of

internal regulation and noticing when we're dysregulated,

you know, doing strategies that help us, like, whether that's

exercise or, you know, having a nice cup of tea before the kids

get up or talking to a friend. Like, we have all these outlets, and we

need to, you know, activate those. Those things

in our lives that help us stay calm and feel calm deep, deep inside.

And then, of course, the mindset around behavior, when we really deeply understand

that a child's misbehavior is really a form of

communication or a way of coping. And it can

make us actually calmer when we believe that and we feel that way.

But when I talk about. I'll say to a mom, you know, that

our kids borrow our nervous system, they get really

overwhelmed. Like, well, that's a lot of responsibility. And I'm not always calm.

And it's like, even if you are dysregulated as a mom

and you work through your own, you know,

getting back to calm. Like my strategy, the pause break that people

listening will know, and then we'll talk about your strategies. It's like,

even while you're regulating yourself, then your children's barring that as

well. So it's so powerful

just to learn the skills for yourself. Your kids are Going to learn them

by experiencing them alongside of you, and then you helping

your kids when you're seeing that they're off track, like, what do they need

to do to reset and recalm their own body and

nervous system? So it's like sometimes moms will

get overwhelmed with the idea that if

you're dysregulated, you're going to dysregulate your kids. And it's like, well, okay, that

could be upsetting. But at the same time, when you learn to do it,

then your kids learn to do it, and that's really

hopeful. Yeah. And those moms are

probably really burn out and need a break. I do, too, even though I do

practice the calming piece. But it is. It opens up

some wounds of the past for sure, when you're really trying to work on

yourself and you have to find what's going to help

calm yourself, because we're constantly in this state

of flight, fight, freeze, you know,

fawn, all of that. And when you're always in that

heightened state, you're just at that tipping point of

explosion, you know, every time. And any. The littlest thing that, you

know, on a calmer day, or maybe it was early in the morning, you haven't,

you know, had as much time to have those little things happen

throughout the day that, you know, deplete your. Your emotional

system. So if you think of it like a glass of water, you know, and

it's depleted and you're not filling that cup back up, you can

react very extremely and harshly to something that

maybe several hours before you wouldn't have had that problem,

you know, and it wouldn't. It would have been much easier or for women so

much. As many women are being diagnosed with ADHD and perimenopause

or menopause, it's. It's not because ADHD wasn't always there, you

know, it was most likely underlying, but it. It's now been

exacerbated with the symptoms that come along with your cycle. And

I think we can all notice if you're tracking it, there are certain times throughout

the month of where there is going to be that heightened response in

reaction. And those are the times you have to give yourself more grace. And that's

the biggest piece of it. Because we all mess up. We're all. None of us

are perfect. And when we do, we just. We have to follow that connection

over trying to make sure that we're right. You know, we have to be able

to connect with our children and make sure that they feel seen

yeah. Sometimes I think of it as, like, not parenting.

Like, some. Like, sometimes we're parenting and sometimes we're relating

and. And it's like, there's days when you

realize, I'm not gonna be able to reteach this new

boundary, like, that they aren't putting their shoes in the shoe bin, like,

or whatever. And you're just finding yourself yelling about that or, like, we've talked

about this. I've told you, you need to bring your jacket into the

right. All this stuff. And it's like, some days

you just go put the shoes in the shoe bin. Some days you just roll

off the jacket and you just put a pin and decide to deal with it

on another day. And I think of those as, like, I'm

not going to parent today. And I give myself

permission to. Sometimes I think

I've talked about this, like, fix it, fuck it cycle where I'll get into this,

like, fix it energy where I'm, like, you know, really needing

to. I'm like, have a lot of adrenaline or I'm angry

or I'm frustrated with something and I want to, like, solve all the problems in

my family. And then I'm afraid. Afraid, though, if I just let

it go that I'll be like it and I won't get into the. I won't

come back circle back and learning. No,

if this shoe thing is bothering me, I can

put a pin in it, table it, not talk about it today. And make a

note in my mind, okay, obviously this routine isn't taught well,

or this way that they're speaking to me right now is something I want to

work on, but not today. It's like, permission

to not handle everything

on those days when, like, you're saying your cycle is. You know, you're

not. You don't have as much bandwidth as you normally would, or you

don't have as much emotional regulation that you normally would. I also think of it

in the mornings, like, no parenting should happen in the mornings

because nobody is open for that. It's just time to

get everyone out the door and, yeah, work on

the routines and the behavior and the sassy and

whatever is bothering you, like later or another

week, another day. You have plenty of time. And

some of it, I wonder if, you know, it's how we were raised and how

we were parented, that we're somehow supposed to remember all of these

things. And, you know, like you said, putting your jacket in the right place or

the shoes in the right place or remembering your water bottle from school or

practice or wherever it is. And then the more that I dig into

understanding ADHD and understanding more neurodiversity, it's

like that is actually something with working memory where they

literally have out of sight, out of mind and trouble

remembering those specific details. And so, you know, again, back to

the disrespect thing. They're not trying to be, but we have to be

able to provide those systems to put in place for them as

reminders or, you know, I think about now, I used to have

a memory that was very photographic and I could remember every single thing at

work. And then I had children. I think they took all of my memory and

intelligence and all of that along with it. But with

that, you know, now I have to live by my Outlook calendar. If it's not

on my calendar, it's not happening. And so when we think about what

could they have, if it's a checklist or some sort of

strategy or system that they have in place where, you know, their

backpack is right by the door as they go out, or their whatever

they're taking to basketball or black football or soccer

or whatever it might be is sitting there, you know, waiting for them.

That's going to help them instead of this moment of, oh, we've got

to go quickly, which I do a lot, and I will hyper focus on

something, and it's very hard for me to stop and move and then transition into

the next thing. You know, go pick them up. Now I've got to put a

different hat on. No longer working or my mom's hat on. And then

it happened the other day. We got to flag football practice on Friday night.

My husband's out of town. I had both kids get there

and I didn't think about the cleats,

didn't think about bringing. I brought the mouth guard. He had all of this. He

had every single component that he needed. And I thought he was wearing

shoes. Then we get out of the car and I say, oh, my gosh, do

you have your flip flops on? He said, well, you told me not to wear

my nice shoes up to practice because I just got

them so. Or up to the game. And thankfully their practice is

an hour before the game, so we ran really quick to the store. He needed

new tennis shoes anyways. And I, because he is. Has a much larger

foot than every other child on the team. And so I had to quickly. But

that was my fault. You know, it was a quick transition

and my husband wasn't there to kind of recount the things that we have

to make sure that we get. And just I went in the. The

game was 45 minutes from our house. There was no way I was able to

turn around, come home, get another pair of shoes or we would have missed it.

So, you know, we mess up too and we have to show them that we

make those mistakes and that it's okay to make those mistakes. You

know, we just try, try harder next time. And it's not even trying harder because

that's harder for them to do, but maybe have some sort of checklist that both

of us have. These are the items we need to put in your bag for

flag football. And then let's check them off before we go out the

door. Right. And in those moments, not dumping all

that stress and overwhelm on our kids, it's really

tricky. And of course when we do that, just forgiving ourselves and making

repair and yeah having

a lot of self forgiveness, like well, looks like I have to buy new shoes.

I don't know, let's just pivot, solve the problem and deal with

why we got how we got here and how we avoid this.

Just dealing with that later. Just kind of putting that

problem solving like long term problem solving onto the side

and just doing like short term. I always just think,

how much can I deliver

emotionally regulated people to wherever's next. If

that's my goal, to have the most emotionally

regulated human I can at the flag football game or

at school or wherever at dinner, even in my own house

with that's my mindset usually then I have

enough bandwidth left to talk about,

nope, remember, no toys at the table, try again. Or

taking a minute to being like, do we have everything?

Because I'm more focused on everyone's being calm,

then I have more brain power. Not always obviously

run late, blah blah, blah, forget something.

But in general, when we're able to just kind of focus on

that emotional like how's everybody doing? And slowing it down,

there are less mistakes made oftentimes. Do you find that

true? Oh, absolutely. And it's two of

if I can allow myself that time in between

picking them up. And I think in my mind I had basketball was the night

before, so I had basketball shoes in my mind, you know, I wasn't thinking about

cleats. And I had moved them somewhere else. You know, so it's. We have to

give ourselves that moment too. And a year ago I probably

would have blown up and said why didn't you have those? But now

that I'm really fully ingrained in actually using the

aligned parenting method that I've developed and making sure that I

can abide by the things and practice what I am preaching.

We really made light of it. And I'll tell you, he was pumped. He's like,

I've been asking for new tennis shoes and of course my. And

thankfully they both have birthdays this week. One's tomorrow and one's

on Friday. And so they said, of course my little one's like, well, that

means I get tennis shoes too, right? I'm like, oh, do we have time for

this? No, but whatever. You're missing practice at this point, so I don't really.

It's fine. And they both were super pumped to get a new pair of shoes.

So we turned. What would you know was a little bit of them fighting at

the beginning, you know, home from school and just having kind of that

Friday afternoon, you know, energy to,

you know, making a big mistake, but then turning it into something fun. They were

both so excited after, afterwards, and we ended the night really

on a great note. Sometimes those sports can be

frustrating for him. He did end up on a younger team this year because he

doesn't meet that cutoff. And a friend just said, hey, they've already closed

registration, but do you want to come join? And we said yes and didn't really

know what we were getting into. So there's some. My son's almost nine. There's some

six year olds on the team. And so he's, he's left some games frustrated

and, you know, just they're not up to the same playing level and,

you know, they're trying to be equal on playing time. And I said, this isn't

like your competitive basketball league. This is just supposed to be fun. Let's have fun.

And this time he walked away actually really

happy. I made sure they ate beforehand, which is a big thing. Are they hangry?

So that actually changed the entire night for us. And

the one mistake turned into a great evening. Yeah. And it can for

sure. We can pivot from these moments and just kind of find, like,

how do I make this okay? And

I always think of choosing peace and harmony over

stress and perfection. And it's like, how can I make this the

most peaceful or the most harmonious or the most, you

know, calm experience, even though it's

not been great. Right? Like, even though we have now to

pivot and make this big, you know, buying shoes, all of a sudden you're like,

where's dsw? Or whatever you're trying to figure out, you know, at the time.

Yeah. So your boys are how old now? They're about this week.

They'll be six and nine. Six and nine? Yeah. So they're

like right in those elementary school years and you're in that

stage where you're driving everywhere and everyone's got sports and birthday

parties and school stuff going on and. Right. All of

that. All of it, apparently kindergarten, my youngest is kindergarten, my

oldest is fourth. And I guess everybody invites the whole class. And there are

a lot of birthdays in September and October. So my little one has had

multiple birthdays every weekend, I think since school started. So, so it's.

And before, you know, he wasn't. He had maybe soccer or one

thing he was doing and now his is starting to ramp up, which is adding

another layer of complexion to our already

crazy schedules. Yeah, I know. It's just a, it's. Someone

has been describing it as like the family years and now that I'm out

of those years, I recognize. Yeah.

This. The time you're in is like you're building your family, you

have your family, you're doing all these family focused things. You know,

it's. It's a season that's very, very intense.

And in that especially. You talked about being ADHD

yourself. It's like, when I think about adhd, I often think about

how it's difficult to create a template of order. Like,

so if there's something chaotic or out, out

of order or how to do the same sequential things that

need to happen, like go to flag football, creating that

sense of order can be very taxing. So for a

kid, it's almost impossible for a

kid with ADHD to think through the things unless they're

being really coached and guided. But then you add this other level

for yourself where it's a lot of work for you

also to think through how. What needs to

happen and the timing of it all and how much time. Like my son,

he underestimates how long something will take

and overestimates his capacity.

I resonate with that. Yes. And he can

get things done faster than a typical

neurotypical person because he can hyper focus. And, you know,

I love the ADHD brain. I don't have one and I find

it. I can. I found it hard to raise a kid with

ADHD because of the.

You're like, hello. You know, just there was this

funny Instagram video of some little

cartoon learning, like cooking something and there was an ADHD person.

And like while they're pretending to cook the pasta or whatever, they're

making a band, you know, pretending they're singing, they've turned the

spaghetti into guitar. They're all of a sudden over there making a

snack while they're making food. It's just so chaotic. And I was like, this is

exactly what it's like to have my son around me.

But I'm wondering for you if there's any moms listening who are also

neurodivergent. What are things that you do to help you,

you know, like organize like I used

to the Outlook calendar, but just even thinking through all of the different

things that need to happen before a birthday party on a Saturday, and it's that

it I like. Wow, it must be challenging. So

tell us how it is for you. It is challenging. I think of

it when you have all of the tabs open on your computer and you're thinking

of, you know, all the different websites that you might have or different,

you have Excel files and PowerPoints. All of that is what's happening in

my brain at all times. You know, there are just multiple tabs that are open.

And like you said, unless it's something very early urgent, I can

very easily adapt and respond to something that's super urgent

and hyper focus and like you said, produce very good work in a short amount

of time. So the idle time is almost what I struggle with more of. When

we have these back to back things, it's like, okay, one thing, next thing. And

you know, it kind of goes in that order of operation. All the dopamine is

firing and you're doing great. You're uptaking it. Yeah. Yes. And then

when there's maybe a little downtime or if there are way too many

things going on, it's hard to figure out where do I even start. And

so for me, going on a walk is one of the number one things that

I do. Especially in the morning. I take our dog for a walk every morning.

There's an element of where your eyes are kind of scanning the

pavement back and forth that's very similar to EMDR

therapy. And so that in and of itself, whether I'm usually listening

to a parenting podcast or self help

podcast, or even doing a meditation where

I'm doing the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding technique, it's a walking

meditation. But there are some days, like you said, where I

don't have the capacity to listen and take all of that

in. And so it might be that I'm listening to music very loudly.

And there are other days that I just can't listen to music and I need

that calm softerness to really help Overall,

emotionally regulate me so that walk, I'll come back. And

then it seems like after that happens, now I have the

capacity to determine, okay, which one of these really is the most important.

Because I have a hard time taking breaks. I think just taking breaks to

eat or have water or go to the bathroom. Those are just simple things that

a neurotypical person might be like, yes, I take a long lunch or I take

this. For me, I need to focus and kind of.

I have that mentality of just banging it all out at once. You know, I

kind of relate it to whenever. If we were to go skiing, thinking about,

I only want to ski in the morning, there's people who will break for lunch.

And I feel like when that happens now I'm prone to injury in the

afternoon. I would rather just go for three or four hours, be done,

and, you know, power through it all. And then now I can go relax. If

I start, try to relax in between, I'm going to get sidetracked. I'm not, you

know, somehow I'm going to be off my game when I come back. And that

happens with work as well. And so I'll find myself like, okay, you have to

got to go take 10 minutes to go downstairs, grab something

to eat, or I'll even leave snacks at my desk at home just to make

sure that I'm trying to eat something in between meetings.

So making sure that I have fuel and food and

water and simple things. And then also

just this. The calming method that I go through is

more of marrying the ability to

have metacognition and becoming aware of what's happening in your

surroundings and really switching from that just, okay, things are happening around me

to I am understanding how I'm feeling in this moment

with grounding techniques and the element of nurture

to pull all of those things together. So I'm happy to walk through

that. Align method with you, if that works. Yeah, please do.

I'll walk through the letters and then I'll go through an example. So the A

is for awareness. The L is for

listen and label. I identify the G

is for grounding, and N is for nurture. And so the way that I've used

this before, I can give you an example of where we were at

a Savannah Bananas baseball game. They're kind of a phenomenon right now in

baseball, where they're selling out major league stadiums. So they have it

where you can come to the stadium and it's like four hours

before the actual game starts. You can meet the players, have the ball signed

Similar to the Harlem Globetrotters in that sense. And so we were

there. It was very hot. It was in August in Denver,

Colorado. So we had a really hot day that day. We were waiting in line.

We were probably in line for about an hour, hour or so. And my oldest

starts saying, you know, this is boring. I don't want to be here. I

don't like this. And, you know, you. You get these. Start to get frustrated yourself,

thinking, oh, you know, we. It was so hard to get these tickets. We spent

all this money, you know. You know, you should just suck it up like that.

Yeah. Be grateful. And then you have this moment. And I said,

okay, align. I need to align with him.

Become aware of my own feelings. Is my chest tight, my

palms sweating? You know, is my heart racing? Now

look at the surroundings and listen to what's happening and listen to your child.

It's hot out here. It is. There are all of these

factors coming in. I'm feeling really overwhelmed. I'm

labeling that emotion. He must also be feeling really overwhelmed, you

know. Now we are identifying what are those triggers. It is

how hot it is. We've been standing in line. It's extremely crowded.

There are so many people around. There's a ton of sensory smells coming into

play. You've got the food in the stadium. You've got the. Just trash on

the street. So you're this mixture of heat and awful smell. And

all of those things are just a sensory overload that. I

said, oh, wow. Okay. I'm also feeling this way, so I can see why he's

feeling that way. And so I just. I whispered to him in that moment,

I said, hey, buddy, I'm feeling really overwhelmed.

My. My hands are sweating. I'm sweating all over. My heart's

beating fast. I'm. I think you're feeling really

overwhelmed, too, because of all the crowd, the sounds, the smells. I said,

why don't we just do a quick little grounding exercise? Let's drink a sip of

water. That's going to reset your central nervous system. Now name three. Three

things that are purple. We're in the Rocky stadium, so there's plenty of purple around.

And then I said, I feel you, buddy. Like, this is a lot. It's a

lot for me, too. So I really had that compassion and empathy for him,

and I said, you know, do you want to go inside? It looks like the

line's moving. Or do you really want to go home? We have your ball. We

can get your ball signed. He said, no, let's go. So in the

matter at that moment, it only took. It took less than 60 seconds to do.

But it's really that element of becoming aware, becoming a detective,

identifying those triggers and then moving into

what is an actionable step that truly will calm your body. And so

finding the element of grounding that really works for you or works for

your child. Simple as sipping water. Or, you know, Maybe it's

the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, if you have a longer time frame. A friend

of mine used this at a concert with her son, and they were supposed to

be sit down, and they did I spy and he sat in her lap. So

they had that connection piece. But she really empathized

because she was getting frustrated as well. And it allows for them

to see that they're not alone in those really intense

feelings that are happening. And then if it's, you know, you can do this on

your own as well, it might not. It might be that either you're doing it

so your child can mirror you, you're doing it with them, or if you're just

doing it by yourself, the nurture piece comes into play to give yourself

grace. Whisper to yourself, I am a good mom. I

can be calm, like, this is okay, and I am going to get through this.

So you basically give yourself a pep talk. You give them a pep talk, and

then you can go on your way. But it takes that moment to come back

before you can actually move forward. Yeah. So

good. What a beautiful example and what a

great tool to really, you know, be able to walk

yourself through. So it's awareness. Listen.

Listen and label and then identify.

So the labeling is kind of labeling. What could be having

identifies more out loud then. So think about the

listening and labeling. You're noticing that your child's probably experiencing the same

thing. I'm feeling overwhelmed. The identify is.

It's the heat in the crowd that is causing this. Or it might be that.

Identify the trigger. Yeah, identify the trigger. So it might be that your child is

transitioning from school. Yeah, sometimes what I noticed, when they are

really using a mean tone or sassy or whatever

it is that day, something else happened at school, and

maybe that really triggered them and. Or maybe some friend that was mean

or said something, you know, or maybe it was a lot of homework or maybe

they were embarrassed by something. So I usually try to dig deeper.

Nine times out of 10, there is a reason of why, and especially

for these neurodiverse kids, a lot of times it's sensory overload of

some sort or a transition. So if you can get Curious.

It's very difficult to hold that empathy and be angry at the same

time. Yeah, it's not possible. Yeah, it's not possible. You

have to go through that. You're either in critical or you're

not. You know, you're either judging the behavior, emotion as valid or

not, or you're neutral or going to

curiosity. So

I think of awareness and, like, for people who listen to

our. Our my podcast, it's like, if they want a connection

for, you don't need to worry about this. But it's really like the connection tool.

So people who are listening can kind of connect what we're talking about to what

they've already maybe learned in the last, you know, on this podcast.

But awareness is so fascinating because

it really requires us to get out of our head around

whether or not, like, our kids being a jerk. Right. Because you,

like, we were joking about how our first instinct is, like, we drove you here,

we bought these tickets. We're not even getting anything from this. This is

you, like, how many critical thoughts we can

have. And I think of it like a line is

really around compassion and regulation. Right. Like, kind of

deep understanding of why someone's behaving the way they're behaving and then

helping them through that. And it can be very

challenging to practice that when you are

immediately feeling angry that your kid is complaining

or that they're fighting with their brother again. Or it's

like, what are your tips to help someone

who's like, I can't get to a line because

I become aware, but I can't get out of my own anger.

Oh, that's a. That's a difficult one. So it's the hardest

problem. Yeah. Why don't I just throw you the most challenging question? Yeah, no, it's.

But it's. It's so true. And I think for me, the more that I'm

practicing it, the more that I'm becoming more

proactive versus reactive. But we're all going to be

reactive. And so going through the method after the

fact and saying, in that moment, what could I have done instead?

I could have, you know, I could have identified that

my chest was feeling really tight. And that's a trigger for me.

That's typically for me, what happens or I'll start sweating. So you kind

of start to learn your own trigger points along the

way and what, how that shows up in your body. And so

going back through, okay, in this scenario, I did lose it, but I could have

gone through if I would have, you know, in hindsight let's walk through what that

would have looked like then, now that you're calm, because maybe

it has taken a little while. Like you said, you. The repair is such an

important part, but if you're not ready for it, you're not ready for it. But

if you have that moment to even do the align method, that can actually.

You become more aware of the situation. You're not angry

anymore. You've grounded yourself, and now you're able to

do that repair and that nurture piece. And so going back through

it is one that will just help you practice in

general or at the end, you know, really giving

yourself just that grace piece and

repairing. So if it might take a line to get you to the

repair or if you have other techniques to. To get you to the repair, it's

so much more important, I think, than anything else. We're all going to make mistakes.

As much as I'm talking about this and doing it, I mean,

I probably yelled at them three to four times in the last two days.

It still happens. We're human beings. And so you just have to

allow yourself to reset and apologize

without the. But apologize. Really own those mistakes

and you'll watch when it. A beautiful thing. Several

weeks ago, we're coming home from flag football. I had mentioned how my son does

get very upset after. So he was spiraling. He

was very frustrated with us. And I said, buddy, like, I. I know

that you're mad, but I. You can't be mean. Like, we're. We're here with you,

you know, I know that you're upset about this game. I totally get it. And

then he kind of kept going. And then in a few minutes later, he had

a moment of pause and he said, I'm sorry. I'm just really frustrated

about this game. I'm not mad at anyone. And we were. My husband and I

looked at each other like, what? This is a first. This happened. So

he's finally hearing that apology that's coming

from us where we're saying, hey, I'm really sorry.

I didn't have. I didn't eat earlier. Or I was

upset because of a work phone call. It had nothing to do with you, and

that's why I reacted, you know, Or I'm just really overwhelmed because I have

so much stuff going on. Now that we're apologizing that much, I'm

watching him apologize in the same way. And it's a beautiful

thing to see that he's mirroring our behavior. Right. And

taking responsibility for the emotional outburst

or Taking responsibility for whatever

behavior, you know, they exhibited at the time. And like,

kind of like, oh, that was on me. It's so easy, especially

for kids who are

neurodivergent, particularly because they constantly feel

misunderstood. And it's like, then they want

to defend or blame others for their

behavior and for that humility

that you're exhibiting. And then your kids are able to say, oh,

no, this was on me. I'm just not able to be

calm right now. And I'm taking it out on you. So huge. I love it.

Which several years ago it would have been, you know, if he tripped, mom, why'd

you make me trip? You know, And I'm like, I wasn't even standing there. You

know, there's the. That you slowly watch them to start to take

that accountability for their own emotions and their own actions.

And I think we often think it's developmental, which it is, but it is also

parenting changes. So, like when we do shift in our

family, like you said, really kind of doubling down on your own

methodology and going, okay, yes, I am going to practice

the line, you know, as much as I can. Like, you know, really getting.

I know with my philosophies and concepts and tools,

the deeper they get inside of me, then the more effective

they are. And then I can really. I'm like, oh, no, this actually really does

work. It's really funny when I'm dysregulated and my husband would be

like, do you need. I know a parenting coach? Did you? You know,

he's just being funny. Well, tell me about your books too,

because I wanted to talk about purposely me, because I wasn't sure.

Are they for like children to read and are they

theme based? Like, tell us about the book series that you created.

Yes. So there are 14 books within the series.

It is a classroom of children, so you will see recurring characters

throughout the books. Each one is tackling a hard

topic. So they are illustrated, they are for children. It's a

fourth grade classroom. I hoping that it

will really be elementary school kids because I think kindergarten and

up to fourth, you know, they, they will aspire to be the older kids. You

know, they're going to learn from them as well. And I have found that there

is a pivotal point in third grade where a lot of the hormones come out.

There's a lot of conflict and they're kind of reflecting

on a previous conflict that maybe they had. But the books are

centered around hard topics like bullying,

adhd, autism, dyslexia. There's

one on executive functioning. There's ones around school

drills. So they are touching on topics that are

difficult to have conversations with children about

or even for those who might be neurotypical to maybe understand their friend

a little bit more. And so in the back there is a glossary of

terms that goes along with it as well as discussion questions. My hope is

to also get these into schools so that parents and

teachers alike will have that opportunity to have some of those difficult

conversations. But as I've had many therapists and

OTs and teachers and principals even read this series,

they are finding themselves in some of the books and saying,

oh, I see myself in this one and I see my son or daughter in

another book. And so it might be an eye opening moment as I

have met many parents who didn't realize they had

ADHD or even autism or other neurodiversities

until their child went through it. And then they started going through their

children's exam and putting everything down on paper and saying, oh

wow, that's me. So I think it's eye opening for parents. And then

I think of those who might. There's even one on down syndrome. I have

a friend that had a baby with down syndrome and so it's centered around her

story. And as hopefully there's so much joy in children

with down syndrome and so there might be more

adults that are autistic or have ADHD and they don't

have that attention span to dive into a self help book that they

find these, you know, really impactful in that way. So, you know, the idea is

elementary school children, but I think that it can appeal to an older audience

as well, really, depending on what the topic is. But the

hope is that a child feels a little bit less alone in their own brain.

I've channeled my own inner child and experiences through these books.

It's been extremely cathartic to write. I've channeled

experiences of both of my children and they keep giving me more and

more ideas to take it even further. And

the central theme is what is my purpose? Why am I here? Is it to

do this or that? And then that's answered by the end as well. Well,

so I think there's a lot of questions that are in

children's minds. You know, they're constantly thinking and a lot of negative thought

patterns that happen, especially with those who are neurodiverse. And so this

will allow for them to say I'm not alone and bring along

affirmations at the same time, like I am brave or I am

resilient. That will really help them through those types of

conflicts. Oh, so beautiful. So where can people get the

books? So the first actually will be launched, I think, November

1st, and then we'll be doing one a month after that for the

next year. If you go to my website, it's

saralewishartley.com and that's Sarah without an H.

And follow me on Instagram at Sarah Lewish Hartley.

I will release all of the book updates. There are a lot of

calming strategies and my aligned parenting

method. You can actually download that for free at my website.

Okay, great. Yeah. So people can hop on your website and get

that, connect with you on Instagram. And thank

you for your work and what you're doing to help

parents. And really, my mission is to heal the next

generation in advance. And I think about

kids who get wounded in childhood

because they're neurodivergent and

misunderstood, and then they carry those wounds with

them throughout their life. And the more education we

all have and the more parents can

parent their children in a way that doesn't create those wounds. I just

get so excited to think about a generation of kids who doesn't

have to recover from their childhood, what that could look like for them.

I think so many of us have spent so much time recovering

from our childhood, and what would it look like if we didn't?

Yeah. I think you and I have the same philosophy

and hope for the next generation. That's exactly what I hope for them

as well. Yeah. So these books are important. And

yeah. Thank you. Thanks for being on the podcast. Thank you so much for having

me. It's been a pleasure.