[00:03] Jason: Welcome to the Autism and Neurodiversity podcast.
[00:06] Debbie: We’re here to bring you helpful information from leading experts and give you effective tools and support. I’m Jason Grygla, a licensed counselor and founder of Techie for Life, a specialized mentoring program for neurodiverse young adults.
[00:19] Jason: And I’m Debbie Grygla, a certified life coach. And maybe most importantly, we’re also parents to our own atypical Young Adults.
[00:30] Jason: I’m going to be talking today on this episode of Autism and Neurodiversity with Jason and Debbie, and I want to talk a little bit about a story that’s unfolded over the last probably seven or eight weeks.
And I’m going to talk about a trio of students from our school TechieForLife. I’m going to use different names for the parents who are listening to this. If you recognize that this is your child, I hope you don’t mind, but I think a lot of parents can learn from the story, and nobody will be able to recognize it from what I say.
But I’d like to talk about the first student named David who came to us, and he has been socially rejected, insecure. He’s highly social as a person, and he loves to be with people and be the life of the party and jump in the middle. And he’s not good at it. He’s not socially savvy. He’s awkward. And because he’s really impulsive and doesn’t think through his decisions in a way that feels very narcissistic or all about him, he’s been pushed out of a couple of different schools or programs and lost a lot of friends.
So when he came to us, he had a lot of anger towards that and a chip on his shoulder, and he tried way too hard, which made him very quickly be rejected by the group here at our school. And we work really hard to make sure all of our students feel safe and connected, so we’re working on that.
When another student came, Parker, and Parker was even more socially awkward than David, and Parker was an easy target for David to take out. His anger and his frustrations on. Here was another student that people were kind of embarrassed to be around because he was clearly autistic in a way that was socially awkward and embarrassing. Too many.
And so David found him as a whipping boy or whipping post and started pretty much bullying him. He just decided he didn’t like him, and Parker didn’t know why he didn’t like him. And Parker was insecure, and he would be very shamed and embarrassed by things that he did. He was really hard on himself.
And both David and Parker had really good hearts. Both were very good kids, soft, tender kids with a lot of emotion and therefore hurt and therefore anger and acting out to some extent and would first lash out at others, mostly as parents, even aggressively and physically.
And then he would kick himself and hate himself and beat himself up to the point where he would emotionally lose control and just start breaking things because he just didn’t know how to manage all of his deep feelings because he has a really big heart.
And then Lewis enters the equation. Lewis is socially savvy. He knows how to communicate. He’s a leader in the group because he can be funny and witty. He has his own intellectual and developmental disabilities that he’s working on, including a lot of anxiety. And he has a tendency to take things that aren’t his because it gives him a sense of control. And he rationalizes that I deserve getting the things that I want and that I need. So he steals things.
And Louis was picking on Parker with Davis and some of the rest of the group because Parker was embarrassing to go out in public and be seen. And we worked with the other students, explained to them that Parker is doing the best that he can. We’re going to help him feel safe and accepted so that he can relax, because when he’s insecure and not relaxed, he acts out even worse. David was doing the same thing.
The more insecure he was, the more he would be impulsive and act out and stick his foot in his mouth, almost proving to himself that I’m going to get them to reject me before I can be rejected by them.
And it came down to me telling David and Parker that if they get into any physical altercations and they’re both 18 and 19, they’re adults, but that I would kick both of them out.
One of our goals at TechieForLife is to never kick out somebody from our school for being autistic or developmentally disabled. So with Parker, when he would get emotionally overwhelmed, he would start to get a little physical and violent. And he never did it with the students, but he did it with a few of my mentors and myself where he felt safe, similar to his parents, so we didn’t have to kick him out.
But we do have a rule against violence at our school because nobody likes the feeling of somebody being completely in their lower brain fight or flight mode and acting out. And David and Parker and Lewis were all acting out of their lower brain when they behaved in ways that were ineffective and impulsive and destructive. So it got pretty bad.
And then it got so bad for Louis one day that he stole some things from Parker. And Parker was an easy target. He already rationalized that Parker was beneath him, he was annoying. He puts me through a lot of pain socially, so I’m going to take his stuff.
And I know that sounds childish, but it’s a little more sophisticated than that. For the purposes of this example, I’m just going to keep it simple, at that level.
But Lewis got caught and owned up to it and was responsible about what he had done. He agreed about what the right things to do were, including apologizing to Louis. But at the same time, because he took some of Lewis’s stuff, he put loose through a lot of pain and suffering and caused him harm. And saying sorry wasn’t enough.
So we helped Louis next to his rational upper brain, where he was able to have empathy and compassion. And we asked him if he wouldn’t be the leader, to move the culture away from having Parker be the whipping boy and picking on Parker as the easiest target in the group for those who really were angry and didn’t know what else to do with their anger.
So Lewis jumped in and he started sticking up for Parker. And at the same time, David got in trouble, taking it too far with Parker. And we really came down on him hard, but that didn’t really work. So at about the same time, about a week later actually, after we’d really come down on him hard from a consequence behavioral approach, I pulled David in and I said, David, I really need your help. And by this time with David, we had been working so hard to meet his needs and to fill his cup. And the same with Parker and the same with Lewis. We were trying to meet their most basic needs of acceptance and control in their lives, choices, evidence that they’re enough forgiveness quickly for mistakes, instead of focusing on punishments or lots of consequences to try to force them to change.
And so David was ready at this time to hear me when I said, I really need your help. If you can stop bullying Parker, he’s going to settle down and not be physical and violent. And I’m really asking for your help. I can’t make you I don’t want you to leave our school. That is not the solution. And I don’t want him to leave.
You’re the only solution here. I need your help. And that really connected with him, but only after twelve weeks of really trying to fill his cup and invest in meeting his basic needs for acceptance and belonging and that he was okay.
And by this time there was enough in his tank, we had invested enough and filled his tank enough that he could hear that feedback. And I think that’s really important, which is why it’s important to remember that we need a lot of positives for every negative interaction.
We need a lot of, for lack of a better term, deposits into their emotional bank account, so that when we need to take withdrawals, they’re willing to relate and connect and do it okay. Partly because of you, partly because I’ve been a good guy and I have a good heart, and partly because I don’t need to bully him anymore because I’m feeling better about myself.
So David had a change and Lewis had a change and it all came together that because of the crisis that each one had gone through.
Parker learned how to have boundaries and stick up for himself instead of being a doormat and letting David pick on him, which was really important, actually. Had David not been a bully, parker would have continued to believe that if somebody didn’t like him, it was the end of the world.
But in this case, Parker knew he hadn’t done anything wrong and he learned to start sticking up for himself. And that was perfect. That was the only way for him to choose to do that was to have a really bad situation.
And David learned to get in his upper brain because his needs were met and he was out of his lower brain so that he could have empathy and compassion, which is who he is. That’s the natural him. But life had kicked his butt and he was traumatized and neglected and even abused and peaced himself. So he was doing the same to someone else.
And then lastly, because Lewis had this negative coping mechanism that put him in a really bad situation where he was in trouble, he humbled and he softened. Because of our approach. All three of them were able to partner with us. Not react. Not butt heads. Not rebel. Not double down anymore and be malleable and be flexible and have empathy. Which are really not things you often see in developmental disability situations. Or people who are in fight or flight because they’re hurting or whatever the situation is that makes it so that those aren’t typical qualities.
If it hadn’t been for the really crappy situation and how we handled it from our upper brains and the developmental approach that we took to meet their basic needs first and partner with them and see problems and mistakes as opportunities.
I think we would still be fighting and contentious and I think they would be digging in their heels and feeling even more despair and hopeless and like nothing is ever going to change because their entire life they have felt hopeless helpless and like they had to be in fight or flight mode. If nobody else is going to stick up for me, I’m going to have to stick up for myself. And I don’t know what else to do except for fighting, run away.
So I share that with you so that you can understand how important relationships are, feeding off of each other with mistakes and positives, to not avoid the hard things, to see hard situations and conflicts and problems as opportunities.
And when we approach them with the right principles, mentoring, partnering, being in our upper brain and using all the best mentoring and parenting principles, it works. It may not work exactly, but it does work. And it’s always better.
Even if they don’t change right away, we are always at peace and in a good place to maximize success and minimize damage in these hard situations that we are never going to stop having. There’s always going to be another conflict, but they don’t have to turn into destructive intentions. Survival mode fight or flight. Lower brain thanks for joining me.
I hope that was helpful. We’ll talk to you another time. Good luck.
[13:07] Debbie: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Autism and Neurodiversity with Jason and Debbie. If you want to learn more about our work, come visit us at jasondebbie.com.
