[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]
Hello, this is Jason, and I am happy to have you here with me on the Autism and Neurodiversity podcast. Today I’m going to be talking to you, and it’s the new year, 2023 starting this week, so it’s always a good time to reassess, figure out if we’re heading in the right direction, reevaluate the balance and the course that we’re on, and to even recorrect or course correct our change.
And one of the areas that I think would be really helpful to look at today is the balance between how much ownership the mentee in our lives has and how much ownership we are exerting as a part of that relationship.
So the equation of us plus them equals their outcome. So there’s a whole bunch of sophisticated intertwined pieces of that puzzle. I’d like to go through just a few of them. They’re all things that we’ve talked about before, and I’m going to go back and probably just summarize the way it looks to give you a big picture.
And I’m not sure if I’ve ever done that really before. So ownership is critical. And yet when our children are born, they have almost no ownership in what they do. They do know what they want. If they’re hungry, they know they want to eat.
If they’re sad, they know they want to cry. If they’re happy, they know they want to giggle. If they want something, to know that they want it. And they don’t always know what they need. And yet, in the very basic beginning, usually what they want is what they need. I need warmth because I’m cold. I need to be held because I’m lonely. In the beginning, the power differential between babies and adults is completely held with the mentor in the life of the child or the baby.
And the older they get, the more that power differential shifts from power over the child to give them what they need and what they want. It’s meant to shift to a balance of how much can they take ownership for themselves. And the more they can do, the more I want them to do and letting them be uncomfortable so that they want something badly enough that they’re willing to work for it and learn how to walk, crawl, beat, tie their shoe, read a book, whatever it is.
That’s what we do as parents is we do that dance, that balance, which is an art more than a science. And yet the principles are pretty clear and laid out that if someone isn’t uncomfortable, then they won’t do anything differently.
And so needing discomfort is critical for change and to develop new neuropathways. And if someone’s there are two areas for that. One is I’m so uncomfortable in the situation I’m in that I’m going to have to move, or I’m so uncomfortable without that new thing that I want badly enough that I’m so uncomfortable without it that I’m going to make it happen.
And so I’m going to get up and learn how to walk or I’m going to get up and walk because I don’t like the feel of this grass. Either way, it’s discomfort. The older they get, the more they rely on themselves, the less they rely on us. And the principle there is shifting from a relationship of power to a relationship of influence, which we’ve discussed over and over on this podcast. And building a relationship where they want your influence. And to do that they require feeling safe and trustworthy and like they can do it, that they’re confident that you’re going to save them.
If they’re about to crash, they will be there to help them, but not necessarily give them what they want, but you always give them what they need and that means you’re not always going to be their best friend. And yet they know they can always rely on you and trust you.
And so shifting the ownership from us as those who have gone before to them is a part of their development. And that’s what good parents do. That’s what good supervisors at a job do, that’s what good teachers do with their students, is they give them what they need to stretch and reach and to grow.
For most of us working with neurodivergent brains, it’s really critical to understand if someone isn’t reaching milestones of maturity, developmental expectations, functionality, adulting responsibility, resilience. Oftentimes we have to create an environment that makes them uncomfortable. And none of this is new. We’ve talked about it and I just want to give it an overview. So we don’t allow them just to have all the internet they want because that might give them too much control over something that will lead them down a path where they don’t want to function. We might not give them all the money that they want.
So we might have boundaries about what’s healthy, not necessarily what’s nice or what they want. We might decide that they need money. We might decide that they need a cell phone, even if they haven’t earned it, because it’s for their safety or for my sanity that I can get a hold of my child. We might decide that we don’t trust them to drive because they will use that privilege to hurt themselves. And so we keep that boundary. It’s not that we can make them do anything, it’s that we agree to do or not do what’s best for them as someone that has influence in their life.
Now, once they become adults, we only have the ability to influence them based on what they want to give us. And often they are also very much financially dependent on us to help them. And if all we have left is they need us to provide financially and they have destroyed our relationship with them, they have destroyed our ability to influence them for good, for whatever reason, if we have no more relationship of influence, we first look at ourselves, is that my doing?
And second, if we’ve done everything we can to invite and entice them to want a relationship with us and they still won’t, the only thing left is to create an environment where they’re uncomfortable enough to want to change. So given that there’s always this dance and this need to reevaluate and reassess, who has the ownership in this situation.
For example, recently I talked with a parent who was trying to decide on whether or not they allowed their child to live at home or move out and do their own thing. And the child wanted to stay at home forever comfortably stuck and forever comfortably miserable. And the parents wanted them to have ownership, but they did not want to leave the home. And it was right in time, in everyone’s assessment, including a therapist, including myself, including the parents, that it was time for this young adult who was fully capable to move out and have to spread their wings and fly. And so we reassessed.
And in some ways the parents chose to take away the ownership of that young adult by setting a boundary and saying, you can’t live here anymore, knowing that it would be worth it to have that hit on their relationship, that the young adult would be angry, hurt, upset. Or maybe they were just lazy and they needed a kick in the butt. It doesn’t really matter which motive it is, if they’re capable, but they’re afraid or lazy. Either way, they need somebody in the environment or the environment itself to change so that they can’t remain comfortably stuck and comfortably miserable.
And then exactly the opposite situation happens all the time as well. They want out. They won’t stay at home. They say they’re 18 and now they’re an adult and they’re going to do it on their own. And we know that they are going to crash and burn if they leave the structure of the home. And not everyone has the opportunity to pay for a supported school like Techie for Life. And even if they did, maybe they wouldn’t go to a program where they get that support and that structure.
And so helping them to do what they need sometimes requires us to have boundaries and create the environment. But that’s not nearly as good and effective as helping them have ownership. And so the sooner we can shift ownership to we want you to want to be away from home and we want you to be healthy and stable and functional so that you can survive away from home. Whichever one they’re pushing for, we want them to have that ownership, and they may not be ready for it.
So as you reassess the ownership, sometimes they’re doing things because they have to. My mom and dad won’t pay for me to get an apartment, so I have to stay home. That’s going to be a really negative situation until you can switch it around. And it has to be temporary or it will be destructive.
If they shut down rebel temper tantrums become violent or depressed to the point where it’s even more destructive because they were more disabled than you thought or more unhealthy than they thought, emotionally or mental health wise. Sometimes it just snowballs out of control, making them stay home because they can’t be out on their own, saying, look, you can stay here, but we’re not going to pay for you to move out. They might call you on that and really sabotage it. And they have that right. They have that ability to shoot themselves in the foot.
And sometimes that’s a part of the disability to ruin what’s best for them from what we understand and what we know. And the same is true the other direction. You can’t stay here anymore. You can be mad at us, and we think you’ll be happier in two to three months from now, but not yet. And we’ll make sure that it’s not a crash. We’ll make sure that it’s not destructive to you. Just scary and hard, and that’s the determining factor there is.
We don’t want them to have a school of hard knocks that actually hurts them to a point of destruction where they can’t get up and grow their muscles. If it just breaks the muscles down because all you do is lift way over your weight, then your muscles can’t ever rebuild. They’re just being broken and corn. So that’s not what we want. We want to have them build out of their comfort zone, but not overwhelmed.
So sometimes we have a conversation with our mentee and say, you know what? This whole thing, it’s not real. This environment we’ve created where we have externally artificially influenced the way you want to live and your choices. We felt like it was necessary, just like we do with parents for any child.
And now that you’re older, I think it’s time to reassess what do you want? And if you can find a realistic path forward, even if I don’t agree with it, and even if you’re going to struggle, I’m okay with it. Even if I know you’re going to crash and I can’t stop you, I might be okay letting you move forward and having the ownership, because that’s how we learn.
I don’t think we ever learn when people force us to do things long term. We might learn temporarily how to do them. For example, if your job is taking out the trash every day, you as a parent have to force the child. If the mentee or your child is their job to take out the trash every day or pick up the dog poop, whatever it is, if you have to force them to do it for long, it’s just going to become more and more poisonous and destructive.
And if you don’t keep the relationship and make it a positive thing, it’s going to become more destructive than helpful. And so while they’re doing the trash, they might be mad at you temporarily, but when it’s done, you swoop in with a lot of positive reinforcement and a lot of gratitude and a lot of praise for doing it.
And then as soon as they do something with ownership, they take out the trash without being asked or reminded or threatened. If you don’t do it, you’re going to be in trouble. Then eventually they get into a habit of doing it and then they don’t mind it. And then they’re not miserable and bitter now. They’re doing it because they choose to, even if they say, well, I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to.
But at the same time, they’re not bitter and angry and resentful because they know deep down that you do a lot for them. And even if they don’t recognize that, they feel good with accomplishing something. And they have evidence that they are enough- evidences that they’re doing something well.
So that’s why it needs to be temporary. Forcing someone behaviorally works sometimes temporarily, if you know it’s going to get them into that mindset. So sometimes it’s important to throw out the whole thing and say, look, we have been supporting you to live in our home and we’ll pay for your car and your insurance if you are in school. This point, we feel like we’re just forcing you. Maybe it’s time you decided what you really want. And if you don’t want to go to school, it’s time for you to get a job and move out and support yourself financially. If that’s the lifestyle and the level of quality of life that you want, I am okay with that.
I don’t have to agree with it. I wouldn’t be okay with that for me. I, as your parent and or mentor, need to respect your life quality wishes. Because the entire spectrum of what quality of life means is huge. And the reality is compared to quality of life 100 years ago, there’s no comparison between now and 1900, even in the 1920s. So they’re going to be way better off than anyone in history.
Even if they live a very low quality lifestyle, they will hardly ever be hungry or starve to death for sure. They will rarely die because they couldn’t get medical medical intervention. They might have poor medical intervention. They might not utilize it well, but anyone can go to the ER and get medical help no matter what. That’s not a perfect system. I know, and I’m not trying to get into politics.
I just mean that our quality of life needs to not be expected to be their quality of life. And for all I know their quality of life will be greater than ours or in certain areas they’ll want more lean or eating healthier. Maybe just choosing their ability to have their own schedule will allow them to take the next step and adult developmentally.
So as this New year starts, I just want you to remember how hard it is for all of us when we start feeling trapped because of imperatives and have to and ought to and shoulds. And we all start to feel suffocated until we stop consciously and say to ourselves, I don’t have to do that. I want to do that. I don’t have to go back to college. What do I want? And when it’s time for them to make that decision and you’re pretty certain that they’ll make the right one we can pull back on the pressure of the environment and our intervention and let them take over some more ownership and eventually that shifts completely to their doing it because they want to.
Now that’s piece by piece, for example, the college example if they really want to go to college they chose it. But then as soon as it comes time for the first assignment to be done or for the first test coming up and they need to study, hopefully you have helped them as their mentor set up some fail proof. Expectations so that as soon as it gets hard because they don’t see the future or the past really well, they’ll just say, yeah, well, I did want to go to school, but now that I have to study for a test, I guess I don’t. Well, it’s our job to help them through those developmental immaturities no matter what age they are.
And so we did it when they were 5,10,15. My wife did it for me when I was 23 and 25 in my college programs. So that’s what we do when we love someone is we don’t just let them choose every choice and we allow them to choose the big choices as much as possible if they’re sustainable.
Let’s go to another extreme. If we are a part of the equation for why they do something and that taints it for them if they are willing to shoot themselves in the foot or not do something that we know that they would actually really appreciate and love to do but because we’re a part of it, it ain’t it. We have to step back, we have to pull back and not be part of the ownership and we have to remove ourselves from the equation.
That balance that art between having a relationship of influence where they want us to and creating an environment where we are proactively investing in the environment to help them be uncomfortable so that they choose to want to.
And then the third alternative of removing ourselves completely and letting them sink or swim. Those are all valuable and optional options. They’re all good choices depending on the situation and every one of them is based in love. None of them are obstructive love. They call it tough love because it’s hard to watch someone and love them enough to make their own choices and it’s also sometimes easier to just say, well, they’re going to make their own choices, I’m going to let them crash and burn.
And that’s not love either at some time laziness or being overwhelmed and our job is to become better mentors sometimes no matter what we do, always, no matter what we do, ultimately they’re going to make their own choices and at some point we’re not going to have a say in the choice that they make.
Well, we raised them to make their own choices. We didn’t raise them necessarily to make our choices the way we would want. We raised them to be their own person and we don’t have to support them financially or even relationally in directions that are completely destructive.
I would have a really hard time continually being around someone that I loved if they were constantly shooting themselves in the foot, willingly knowingly, wantonly, causing themselves destruction. I would hope that I would be so healthy that I would love them no matter what and how I love them with based on what they needed, not what made me comfortable or not, not what gave them more money, energy or resources to continue to shoot themselves in the foot. So and such hard things and it’s such good stuff. It means we’re alive if we’re dealing with these things, it means we love, it means we care, it means we’re trying to find that balance.
To start off the year, take a look again at how much am I overstepping my bounds and taking ownership and things that they could take ownership of on their own. What’s the value of getting them to do something successful if it hasn’t switched over to them owning it? And if they’re not owning something and it just keeps causing disconnect and contention between them and me, then I need to let that go. Sometimes they’re just not going to have good hygiene until they have good hygiene and they’re just not going to be ready and it might be wise to pull back on that goal and focus on something else until they learn to have ownership for it. So hard stuff. Good stuff.
I really appreciate when I see parents struggling with that balance, that push and pull because there is no easy solution and it’s gut wrenching and couples often fight about where that line is drawn. Do they need a big hug? Do they need a kick in the butt? I don’t know. But it’s one of them or it’s neither of them. Sometimes they need us to back off and that’s the best thing for them.
Developmentally, I don’t have any solutions to these things. Development is never swift, easy, and comfortable. That’s what addictive drugs offer. That’s what anything that is short term effective offers. And if they’re not long term effective, then they’re not effective. They’re just a distraction or even an addiction or obsession, which is why we don’t let them stay on their computers or whatever it is that they do to avoid hard things.
It’s okay for them to have hard things. It’s okay for them to have ownership. And sometimes it’s our job to make sure that we’re doing what we can to maximize success in every situation. So good luck with that. And I hope this overview of all these principles and how they interact was understandable and helpful, and we’ll talk to you another time. Thanks for joining me.
[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.
