Change Your Brain Every Day - Autism + Parenting: Helpful Caregiving Tips

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

The experience of parenting a child with a disability such as autism or cerebral palsy is vastly different than the usual parenting experience. There’s often grief, guilt, and shame, and even feelings of underperforming or letting your child down. In the second episode of a series on caregiving, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen give you tips to change your way of thinking to enable you to help guide and care for your child in a more productive way.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back.

We are in caregiver week, day two. I have a great podcast review. Super short. Just the right length of time. Great guests. Practical, helpful, and actionable. Great podcast. In our last one, we said fewer words. That was great.

From Bill Edmonds from the United States. Bill, thanks for listening. We are so grateful. We're talking about caregivers and caregiver week. In this one, I want to talk about kids. Yeah. And, you know, being a child psychiatrist, I've seen autistic kids and ADD kids and kids

with mental retardation and kids with aggression and learning disabilities. And I know how hard it is on their moms and dads. It's really hard. And part of what makes it so hard, and I know this with our granddaughter, Emmy, who was born with a genetic micro deletion syndrome, who had seizures and developmental delay. And as much as we love her and we do, the first thing parents have to deal with is a sense of mourning.

So the grief. It's a sense of loss of what they thought the experience would be like. Prom dresses and weddings and or whatever it is that you had in mind. of what they thought the experience would be like. Prom dresses and weddings or whatever it is that you had in mind. Sports. Right. We saw a fun movie this week called Instant Family with Mark Wahlberg. And it's where these two sort of bored adults decided they would become on board.

Take on older kids. sort of bored adults decided they would become on board and fostered three kids in the same family. All of a sudden they were not bored, but they sort of hated the children and hated themselves because it wasn't what they thought. Right. And they had to learn a new normal. That was what I got out of it. It was, they had to learn a new normal and they had to learn a new normal. That was what I got out of it. It was they had to learn a new normal and they had to learn how to optimize not just their skills, but their children's. So I appreciate it. And so for caregivers, know that grief is part of what you're dealing with. So one thing that I've noticed, I worked for a year with kids with cerebral palsy. And so that's a community where you get a lot of that, right? You see a lot of that.

And so, and we certainly, like you said, we've certainly seen a lot of that. But what I remember is in addition to the grief, there is just a tremendous amount of guilt over feeling grief. So what I, what I saw was that so many parents almost hated themselves because they had a different expectation. And it's like, why can't I just expect, why can't I just be happy with, with what I have and why am I grieving this and made them feel selfish? Um, and that's not helpful either. Um, and so they would feel this like push pull because they did feel these feelings, but they hated themselves for feeling them. That's what I saw. So what would you say about that? I would say it's normal. It's common. And they need to do the work with that and so so i'm a terrible i'm a terrible mom because um i'm grieving what i

felt feel like i should have or could have had with this and at every age you grieve right right so you grieve at kindergarten you grieve like i know i should be grateful stop you grieve i know i should just be grateful i know i should just love this child Body training that doesn't stop. You grieve. I know I should just be grateful. I know I should just love this child for how they are, but I can't help but feeling sad, and I'm a bad mom because of that. Okay. I'm a bad mom. Is that true?

Well, not always. I mean, obviously, I take care of my child. Okay. Can you absolutely know that it's true? You're a bad mom. No, I do my best to care for my child, but I still feel bad. And how does that make you feel? When you believe the thought, I'm a bad mom. Guilty, sad, stuck in my grief.

Like I'm not enjoying the moment with this child and helping them and really appreciating the milestones and the progress that they're making. Because I'm focusing on what they should be doing. So you feel sad. Yeah. You self-loathe. And I can't appreciate them for what they're doing because I'm focused on what they should be doing. What I wish they were doing. And with those feelings, how do you treat the child or your spouse? So, and without even realizing it, probably I either withdraw emotionally.

I am not present. I am just not in a loving mood when my spouse comes home. I don't feel like having sex because I feel bad about myself. I'm tired. More irritable. More irritable, yeah. I'm sad. More likely to have a couple of glasses of wine.

Yeah, I'm just sad. More likely to go to the doctor and say I'm depressed and end up on medication because you believe the thoughts that go through your head, who would you be or how would you feel if you didn't have the thought, I'm a bad mom? I would feel more present. I would feel more free. I would have probably have more energy. I would feel more appreciative. And the way I think that that would translate into treating others, if you add that part again, is I think I would be able to be more aware of the strengths of that child instead of focusing on what I think I'm missing out on. So the milestones and the little things and the progress that they do make,

and maybe even help them optimize that more. So let's take the original thought, I'm a bad mom, and flip it to the opposite. So I'm not a bad mom. And then to yourself and then to others. So the opposite. I'm not a bad mom. Is that true?

Yes, it's true. Give me an example. I spend my entire day caring for this child and for my entire family, actually. I feed, I bathe, I love, I do doctor's appointments. I make sure that this child is completely cared for. Wow. So let's turn it around to yourself. And this is sort of a hard concept for some people, but over the podcast, we've gone through these four questions and turn around a fair number,

but this is so powerful. So when you take the original thought and you turn it around to the opposite, and then you apply it to yourself and then the other person. And so to yourself could be. I'm not being a good parent to myself. I'm a bad mom to myself. So I'm not. Is that true? That's wow.

So I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not sleeping. I'm drinking more. I'm angry. I'm irritable. I'm not protecting my marriage. I'm just bitter. And in grief week, we actually talked about how when parents go through grief, there's a very high incidence of divorce in large part because of minds that become unmanageable, infested, we always say with ants, with automatic negative thoughts. And how would we turn it around to the child? You know, for an example, the child triggers me. Oh, okay. You trigger me.

But then you need to do the work on that thought all over again. Which could be. Because that is not taking responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings. I trigger the child. Right. And I trigger myself. So you need to do that. So that is.

So if we just do another example quickly, so too often, the caregiver will attack themselves. I'm a bad mother, or they'll attack the child. And they'll say you trigger me and, or you make me act this way. And it's well, is that true? Some people would say yes. It's absolutely true. And some of my intractable patients will go, yes.

I'm like, well, how does that make you feel? Out of control. It makes me feel out of control. Right. And who would you be or how would you feel if you didn't have that thought? More in control of myself. And then the turnaround becomes you trigger me. The opposite is you didn't trigger me.

I trigger me. Well, no, that's to yourself. So just the opposite. You don't trigger me. And it's like, okay, well, in what situations are that true? And then they'll find all the ways their relationship is more positive. When you flip it to yourself, it's I trigger me. And then I allow you to trigger me.

No, it's I trigger you. Oh, that's a good one too. Because so often the caregivers, because it's so lopsided, if you will, that they never acknowledge their part in the difficult behavior. But isn't that true of almost all situations? Well, often. Almost always in couples, I start with, how do you make the other person crazy? How do you make them mad? And they go, I don't. And I'm like, no, I want you to think about it.

I said, you are a powerful person. How do you make them crazy? And then they'll go into all the reasons why. Just to say, this is, you're a powerful person and you can today make things better, or you can today make things worse. You want to feel powerful. And the problem with not taking responsibility and saying someone else is triggering you is you then can't change it, especially if it's a child, right? You're supposed to be the parent. So if you take

responsibility, you have a lot more power. So when we come back, we're going to talk about teenagers and young adults. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.