Refrigerator Moms

[Kelley Jensen] (0:09 - 1:13)
So, Julianna, one of the things that always gets a lot of attention on social media is sibling relations, and there's a lot of discussion about siblings, and so I thought I'd read you some social media comments, not just about siblings, but about a couple of topics, but I'm going to start with siblings. You tell me you're not on the social media as much as I am, so you tell me if you... I have not heard these.

What you would say if you were going to make a comment, all right? Oh, God. So, every time I post about aggression towards siblings, people comment that they don't allow the child to be aggressive towards siblings or destroy property.

But how? My child chases us if we walk away, breaks doors if we separate ourselves. Restraining, my child makes the meltdowns worse.

How do you not allow it, and how do you set boundaries? This is a good question, because people will, in a fit of desperation, say, I don't know what to do with this kid. What do you do?

What do you do? And a lot of the comments are really not quite helpful, right? Oh, I don't allow it.

Well, that doesn't really answer the question.

[Julianna Scott] (1:13 - 1:21)
No. So, I don't think anyone's allowing their kid to, what, beat up their other kid?

[Kelley Jensen] (1:22 - 2:13)
I guess what she's asking is, what do you do? Because a lot of times, they're coming here for what do you do, and the advice is less than satisfactory. Again, that's social media for you.

But within there, you can find some decent advice. So, for every five pitiful advices or things that don't resonate at all, you'll find some good ones. In this case, a lot of people had where I found about the cuddle box.

So, some of the things that we talk about in our meltdowns paper are listed as good ideas, safe restraint. You got to be practiced in that, right? A cuddle box or a safe room for your child to go if they are prone to it.

A lot of success with weighted blankets. I never had success with weighted blankets, but I suppose is what you introduced that resonates.

[Julianna Scott] (2:13 - 2:52)
I've tried all of these things. So, my son, between like fourth grade and for a couple years there, maybe between like 9 and 11, was very physical. I've gone back and looked at some of those notes around that time.

Not for this, but ultimately my son did do EMDR, and there was a lot of guilt associated and trauma associated with that period of his life. And so, we did do EMDR to kind of help him deal with a lot of that anxiety from that residual guilt and trauma.

[Kelley Jensen] (2:52 - 2:57)
We are going to talk about EMDR and label therapies in another episode.

[Julianna Scott] (2:58 - 4:07)
But going through those notes, I thought I had kept my younger one totally safe, but then I was like, oh, he hit or he did this, and he definitely did that with us. So, we're definitely in that. We tried to minimize the impact as much as we could, obviously, but we did safe restraint.

And restraint was a really critical part of it. And getting that right and kind of getting that down was really important. Medication was a big part of that too.

During that time period, he wanted to paint his room pink because he loved the color pink. And I even thought I'm like, oh, secretly I'm like, oh, that's great because there's the whole thing about Siamese fighting fish and how it calms. It's like pink calms them.

And I'm like, oh, maybe that will, like if he's having a big meltdown in his room, it'll soothe them. That didn't work. Apparently, children are not Siamese fighting fish.

But I mean, I tried all of those things, and he broke things, and he did those things. But again, keeping everybody safe is by far the most important thing.

[Kelley Jensen] (4:07 - 4:19)
And a trial and error. So, to your point, nobody's allowing it. What they mean is they keep trying different things so they tick it down, tick it down, and then eventually there's a system that makes sense to the child.

[Julianna Scott] (4:20 - 4:56)
It's interesting that they say set boundaries because with autistic children, you can set the boundary. It's not the same as a neurotypical child throwing a tantrum and setting the boundaries like you don't hit when you're throwing a tantrum. When a child is in an autistic meltdown, and we talk about that in our paper about tantrums and meltdowns and panic attacks, they don't want to be doing that with their body either.

And in the post-mortem after those episodes, those meltdowns, there's a lot of guilt and a lot of bad feelings about that. They don't feel great about that.

[Kelley Jensen] (4:56 - 5:39)
And one thing I want to make clear that this commenter, I think, I hope she was alluding to, is that, do you just beat your kids? Because that does come up a lot that if you were stricter, that if you, by not allowing it, what are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that I should be hitting my kid?

No, no, that absolutely would escalate. Right, so escalate the situation. You hear me now, believe me later, if you are a parent that believes that these behaviors are because we don't do things the way that they did in the generations before us where those kids would have been beat for throwing in a meltdown that got physical, all that teaches them is to beat someone else.

[Julianna Scott] (5:39 - 5:42)
Right, that's an acceptable form of communication.

[Kelley Jensen] (5:42 - 5:54)
Yes, so no, stick with it, work the program, medication, safe restraint, a designated safe spot, weighted blanket, consistency.

[Julianna Scott] (5:54 - 6:27)
Right, and again, be a detective, find out what's causing those meltdowns. This episode of Refrigerator Moms is brought to you by Brain Performance Technologies. Brain Performance Technologies is a specialty mental health clinic that offers magnetic e-resonance therapy, or MERT, for autistic people aged three or older.

MERT is a transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol that utilizes an EEG diagnostic to deliver personalized magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain and build neural pathways effective in managing autistic symptoms.

[Kelley Jensen] (6:28 - 7:09)
So this one, it's quite sad, it comes up all the time. Again, watching the complex PTSD that the siblings now carry with them for the rest of their lives is heavy, that's all. Oh, that is sad.

100%. And yeah, it is. Yes, family estrangement is real.

And a lot of the comments on that post, parents were saying, I don't blame my other child if they cut and run as the second that they can. Ouch, right? So we have a paper about siblings written by our children, the siblings of...

[Julianna Scott] (7:10 - 7:13)
Well, yeah, we did the research, they backed us up. Yes.

[Kelley Jensen] (7:14 - 7:25)
They contributed a lot to it. But what they have to say is important. There are siblings support groups are quite popular now.

Have the conversation about this with your kids throughout their lives.

[Julianna Scott] (7:25 - 7:56)
And you don't need to just watch the complex PTSD. You can help the complex PTSD. So watching it is really painful.

But even if your child who's experiencing that PTSD is an adult, I mean, there's still ways to mitigate those symptoms of PTSD. And there's a lot of ways to... And you can start by having that conversation with them about that.

Best place to start. Yeah. Okay, so this one is funny.

[Kelley Jensen] (7:56 - 10:39)
And I thought it was funny because this is what I actually commented on. Oh, no. And my comment did not even get deleted.

It didn't get deleted. You didn't get blocked? I didn't get blocked.

Wow. I kind of let it rip, too. Okay.

What suggestions do you have when there are multiple siblings? Curious, mostly for safety, when I'm trying to diffuse an explosive episode and they are by themselves. And also, when he won't stop touching or hurting them, I found this great video which validated my experience.

Because that's what they do on social media. But she said the only way is to increase caregiving. Oh, okay.

And I can't find a way to do that without us going bankrupt. We initially had help, but their situation changed. Now they actually call me for help.

So no one else really seems to think it's that bad because they aren't the ones being punched, right? But when he explodes for hours and I'm by myself with our kids, I feel like I have failure. I shared this one with you because of my response.

Okay, let's hear it. She is speaking specifically about a social media influencer that I talk to all the time. And as you know, I feel like her schtick is just a little too simplistic.

You have summed up this woman's schtick perfectly. Tell parents that they are great and wonderful so we feel good. Then give basic advice, usually regurgitating, but maybe dressed up with a new vernacular, if you're lucky.

Get help. Gee, that's revolutionary. But she won't say, forget about technique.

Just get help accessible through you through a government program or health insurance. I'm talking about, you know, ABA, Which is what you have access to is what you can do. She tells this one story in which she convinces that she gives her son a piece of candy.

My famous don't hold story. Incentive meets reward, meets sticker chart. Not exactly revolutionary and very much a behavioral technique.

So my suggestion to this person was to ignore her and get the help she can afford to get. Right. However she can afford to get.

Right. And the response is, Kelly Jensen, it's how they all are because they are trying to sell a program. It's annoying.

Indeed it is. Especially when she's not selling anything new. Particularly useful and certainly one that's not covered by your insurance.

All while admonishing what is covered by your insurance. She has this whole lesson that's called diffuse with humor. So you pay.

Oh my god. For her to show you how to make your kid laugh. Oh my god.

Diffuse with humor. So if your kid says, you're a butt head, you're supposed to have a quick gridded response to you're a butt head.

[Julianna Scott] (10:39 - 10:40)
Oh, that's no.

[Kelley Jensen] (10:40 - 11:04)
Whether they're putting them in the corner and having a time out because they used a no pressure. Yeah, you're supposed to come up with a funny response to everything. She teaches you funny responses.

She gives you a little script of funny response. Although now I guess these days chat GPT can give you a quick for when your kid calls you a butt head. Parents have been diffusing with humor for many, many, many years.

[Julianna Scott] (11:05 - 11:18)
So I don't feel like diffused with humor. I mean, I'm sure I've tried diffuse with humor just naturally, but I think if I diffuse with humor, my kid would probably just come back with some other funny response and then we would go back and forth that way.

[Kelley Jensen] (11:19 - 11:28)
But you'd both be laughing. So I guess. It's not that it's not without merit.

It's just, is that new? Do you have to pay behind a paywall to diffuse with humor?

[Julianna Scott] (11:28 - 12:01)
No, but back to the other thing about help. You should never go bankrupt getting help. I don't want to let that one go.

It's just like always find the help that you can afford. And there's tons of different ways to find help if you belong to some sort of religious organization. Obviously family, friends.

If you've got schools in your area with child development programs, maybe people want to do something. There's a million different ways to find some help and it will take effort.

[Kelley Jensen] (12:01 - 12:51)
And not only effort, it will take you ignoring whether it's a certain style. Don't worry about the style. If it's help, it's help, right?

Right. And the notion that it will make things worse. How much worse are things going to get if you get to having hours-long amount down and you can't care for your other children?

Right. Probably not going to be worse. No.

It might even be a relief. So that's not good advice, right? Okay, some other ones.

Off the topic of siblings. This is an interesting one. And I knew you'd have a hot one for this.

I was suggested by an acquaintance of mine that autism can be treated with homeopathy. When I did some reading on my own, I couldn't find any evidence. Did anyone go over alternative medicine for your child?

I sometimes wonder if it were that easy, then why struggle so much? Please don't judge me. Just I'm asking for suggestions.

[Julianna Scott] (12:54 - 13:19)
Okay. Well, I'm not discouraging people from doing research on alternative therapies. And off-label.

We have a whole thing coming up about how everything is pretty much off-label. And again, my advice probably, or my comment on that is if you are researching it and you can't find any valid evidence that something works, it probably won't.

[Kelley Jensen] (13:21 - 13:57)
Yeah, is this someone that you trust? Is this someone that has kids? Is this someone...

The whole thing about autism and the triantific method that we allude to is that you can't do it all at once. No, and you shouldn't. You shouldn't because then it's hard to discern what is working.

So again, we are ideas people. Give me all your ideas. I'll put it in a file and I'll take a look at it.

If it resonates with me, I'm probably going to try it. And that's what you should do. But also, you got to grow a little bit of a thick skin for some of people with well-meaning, well-intended ideas, right?

[Julianna Scott] (13:58 - 14:05)
Yeah, and again, those people that are giving you the suggestions, they may have different resources than you do. Or they might be wackadoos.

[Kelley Jensen] (14:05 - 14:08)
And that's entirely possible.

[Julianna Scott] (14:08 - 14:26)
They could be wackadoos. I mean, their kids' symptoms could be different or they could be wackadoos. But yeah, I mean, do your research.

And again, your instinct is good. You were on there doing your research and you didn't find the evidence. That should end the search.

Yes, this one I thought was really funny.

[Kelley Jensen] (14:27 - 14:42)
Hey, anyone, I have a question. My 11-year-old was fully potty trained, but then I got him circumcised about 30 days ago. And ever since then, he's regressed.

And has this happened to anyone else? Because now he's peeing everywhere. He was fully potty trained and he was peeing everywhere.

[Julianna Scott] (14:42 - 14:45)
Okay, 11 years old and they got circumcised at 11?

[Kelley Jensen] (14:46 - 15:24)
Well, I point this out. For a few reasons. One, I can't stress how common that is because, you know, your child is not circumcised at birth.

And they're having issoothes like UTIs. Yeah, well, it's just a lot of UTIs. And so you go to clear the UTI and you get him circumcised and that's incredibly painful at 11 years old.

So I, but particularly when a child is nonverbal. So potty training is a whole nightmare for a lot of reasons for a lot of people. But I just thought that this was an interesting question to pose to social media and not a doctor.

[Julianna Scott] (15:25 - 15:30)
That was my first thing is like, this sounds like a medical stop first. Yeah.

[Kelley Jensen] (15:31 - 15:41)
Well, and it does bring an interesting point of how little guidance your doctor is going to give you an autistic child. Right. So you are just poor woman is trying to do the right thing.

Obviously days ago. Right.

[Julianna Scott] (15:42 - 15:43)
Did she, you know, she called the doctor.

[Kelley Jensen] (15:43 - 16:18)
Follow up. Yeah, the doctor's like, well, you know, I don't know what's wrong with the kid. I mean, you know, we often find ourselves in a silo with nowhere to turn.

So some of the, sorry, I'm putting it out there because it sounds a little bit weird, but it's a little bit more common than you might guess because what advice did she get? Some of the best advice is he's in a lot of pain and he's going to be in a lot of pain for a while. He doesn't know what's going on.

So put a diaper on him or put, you know, right? Scat mask down or whatever and give it time and pay attention to the way it's healing. Maybe see a specialist.

These things oddly come up a lot particularly for non-verbal.

[Julianna Scott] (16:18 - 16:19)
Yeah, that makes sense.

[Kelley Jensen] (16:20 - 17:11)
And, you know, it's unfortunate to have to do that. We recently started in-home ABA service for my son. He seems to be doing okay and his tech seems like a wonderful person.

I'm just struggling with what the expectations are and what I should be doing. Do I let them in the house? I feel like I just have a babysitter here.

Any advice on how to navigate in-home ABA? My son receives 20 hours a week, five days, five hours per day. So that is quite a bit of ABA, right?

Yeah, yeah. Are there any activities that should be helpful? Just basically, what is the etiquette of having a therapist in your home for that many hours?

And I thought this was a good question because there is sort of that, like, this new person in my house kind of a thing and they don't really seem to be doing much. And we sort of touch on that a little bit in our ABA.

[Julianna Scott] (17:12 - 17:28)
Well, I would talk to the ABA therapists and say, hey, what are you doing? You know, there should be programming and there should be regular meetings.

[Kelley Jensen] (17:28 - 17:34)
And also the etiquette of having them in your home. Do you offer them a snack? They should be taking regular breaks.

That shouldn't be on you.

[Julianna Scott] (17:34 - 17:59)
Yeah, especially if they're there for that amount of time. I don't know if there's an etiquette manual on this, but how else? I know I really appreciated them and I certainly offered them drinks or if they were there for a long time, I wouldn't feel like I needed to serve them a meal.

But if I was making cupcakes or making cookies or something, I mean, sure.

[Kelley Jensen] (18:00 - 18:44)
Yeah, well, I think Bo had a program that was about food. Yeah, we had an unfortunate period of throwing food. Yeah, which God bless the therapists they were quite helpful with.

And so I think we had a time where they would be doing a meal together to help prevent that, which was lovely. So in that instance, it sort of all went together with them eating together. But yeah, it's a lot of it.

Read their notes, ask questions and don't worry if the progress seems slow. Again, it's not like necessarily linear, right? They're trying to connect with your kids and find out what their currency is.

And a lot of times it does look like play.

[Julianna Scott] (18:45 - 19:17)
If you are thinking it looks like play, again, it's a team effort. Your ABA therapists are part of your team. So you're on that team too.

So you should have all the information. I mean, you kind of are the coach of the team. I mean, you're putting all the players together and doing all that.

So you should be communicating with them and they with you about what's the point of this? What are we targeting with this particular activity? So you can be doing the same thing when they're gone.

A hundred percent.

[Kelley Jensen] (19:18 - 19:31)
So this is a good question too. To follow up on that is, do people continue ABA through the summer? Do they take a break?

I feel like we need a break. That's a good question. Sometimes we took a break.

Sometimes we didn't. I agree. Sometimes the summers are hard.

[Julianna Scott] (19:32 - 19:34)
So sometimes the summers are hard and I'm like, oh, let me find something.

[Kelley Jensen] (19:35 - 19:57)
Yeah, I think what we did is rather than take a break during the summer, we took a break, I think at the end of the school year because he was just fried by the end of the school year and I just didn't want to put any more on him. So we just kind of veged out maybe from spring break on and then we picked it back up in the summer. Something like that.

But to the larger point is, take some breaks.

[Julianna Scott] (19:58 - 20:35)
Well, again, it's not a one size fits all situation because sometimes summers were when we were experimenting with medication. It was the time they weren't in school. So you could lean them off stuff, try different things.

And that's not always a great time to be putting them in some new camp or something like that. But often I would look for, it was a time where he did have time to go to kind of week long camps that were social skills based. And it's a lot of ABA.

So sometimes just look for different kinds of activities over the summer. But again, sometimes your kid needs a break. But then also sometimes you need a break.

[Kelley Jensen] (20:38 - 21:01)
So this was a good one. What are you doing for the 4th of July or really any holiday with kids who can't do crowds, they can't do loud noises, they can't be around your family. You know, everybody had my suggestions.

Don't go, don't go. Don't have a cookout. But you know, it's a little depressing or it's not fun for siblings.

And it's kind of one of those dividing conquers, unfortunately, right?

[Julianna Scott] (21:02 - 21:37)
I certainly wouldn't, if they had sensory issoothes, you wouldn't want to put them in a situation that would cause them that much distress until they were at a point where maybe you were testing the boundaries a little bit or maybe you go for a short period of time or maybe you reduce the number of families you're meeting or only celebrate with families that really get it. There's ways if you want to kind of do it all. Or maybe you try it and you just stay for a few minutes.

Well, sometimes what people are asking for all this can I get away with it?

[Kelley Jensen] (21:37 - 21:45)
Yeah, I really want to go. No, I really want or I really want to go. I really want to just, you know, if he needs it, power through the meltdown.

Right. I tried.

[Julianna Scott] (21:46 - 22:02)
I mean, you can, but it's probably going to be a meltdown. Yeah, but I mean, don't be surprised. Yes, if you go and it's not a fun experience that you had intended and you feel sorry for yourself when you had a pity party.

I think you got to get on the acceptance train. Yes, speed to acceptance. Speed to acceptance.

[Kelley Jensen] (22:03 - 22:20)
Like jump on that acceptance train. But it might not be there. You know, what you might do is you might hide a huge bowl of ice cream for yourself somewhere.

And I love a good ice cream pity party after a bad day. Sure. Call a friend.

All right. That is my social media.

[Julianna Scott] (22:21 - 22:53)
What would we do version? Oh man, glad I'm not on it. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Refrigerator Moms.

We have a free download that includes a full list of practical to do's we shared in this episode on our website. Our refrigerator paper, our version of the white paper includes additional what would we do's and background information on everything we talked about today. Find it on our website RefrigeratorMoms.com where you can also sign up for our newsletter. We'd also love to hear your questions. Send them in along with future podcast topics by connecting with us on your favorite social media.

[Kelley Jensen] (22:53 - 22:54)
Thanks for listening.

[Julianna Scott] (22:55 - 23:38)
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