Well, welcome.
Today I am very excited to have a special guest on Unlimited Parenting.
Carrie is the author of Finding Kind, a heartfelt and deeply personal account of her journey
as an autism mom.
In her book, Carrie shares her initial awakening to her son Brady's neurological differences.
The early years of adapting to life as a parent of a child with autism and the profound growth
that comes from learning to accept and appreciate your child for who they are.
Her story is one of love, resilience, and finding joy amidst challenges and uncertainty.
So Carrie, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited for our conversation.
Yes, me too.
I think my first question is, your book, it opens with a really powerful raw moment for
parents of children who are neurodiverse.
I think they can deeply relate to it.
Can you go back to that day and share why you chose to start your story there?
Yeah, you know, it was, it's actually kind of funny because I'm not sure I would have
remembered all the details of that day if I hadn't been trained by my son's therapist
to write down the events of things that would happen immediately after they happened so
that I could share it with them and they could kind of help me through what did I do right?
What did I do wrong?
You know, what could I have done differently?
Because when I started writing the book and really pulling things together, I pulled up
that note and it was something I had almost blocked out at that point because it was one
of the harder moments.
You know, there's always going to be moments where you just feel like you're out of control
in parenting a child whose brain is operating in a different way that you're used to.
As a neurotypical individual, I was not understanding what was going on in my son's brain.
So I went through those notes and it just struck me that I think every other parent
who has gone through really trying to train themselves to parent in a different manner
with a neurodiverse kid would understand.
So the way that my parents parented me, I tried that on my son for the first few years
and it really didn't work.
And that was a hard lesson to learn or a wall to reach over because I felt like my parents
were good parents and they did the right thing.
When I, you know, what I thought was misbehaved, they corrected me and I fell in line.
And that story was really a moment where I had to let go of the way that I had been parenting
in the past and try to trust the experts who had been trying to help us, the therapists
and the BCBAs and the folks who were telling me that my reaction to my son's overreactions
were just feeding him.
So they were giving him this negative attention that I never thought somebody would ever want
because I don't like any negative attention ever.
I only like positive attention.
And I didn't understand that when my son would kind of lose his emotional regulation that
my inability to keep myself calm and cool and reserved was just feeding him even more.
So the story was really one where I finally got to the point where I didn't know what
to do anymore and I had to separate myself from him.
And he was at such a young age and I didn't know whether he would hurt himself, whether
he would destroy things in the house, you know, whether there were, you know, there
was going to be permanent damage done by taking the advice of these therapists and just sitting
out, taking a timeout.
And as it turns out, you know, that was kind of the first time when I realized that when
I pulled myself away and I said, Brady, I can't come back to you until you can speak nicely
to me, until you can speak in a calm voice.
And eventually after what seemed like a really long time, it was probably only a couple of
minutes, he calmed down and we were able to kind of reunite.
And the light bulb went on for me like, okay, these folks know what they're talking about.
I've got to work on my own reactions to things so that I can better help my son in those
moments that are really hard for him to control.
I think a therapist said to me once, you know, that a dysregulated parent cannot regulate
a child.
100%.
And it didn't make sense until I really was in a very similar situation to what you just
described.
And I said, you know, if I've tried everything else, what is it going to hurt if I try this
one more thing?
It just feels, and I don't know, maybe you can relate to this.
It feels very antithetical, right?
Like I don't want to leave you.
I want to stay right next to you and try to support you through this.
But much like yourself, when I really took that step back, it really made a world of
difference.
It did.
And as I started to get better at it, I realized it was good for me too.
You know, it was me raising my heart rate even more and more and more.
It was raising his heart rate.
And it was just escalating things to the point where, you know, I would just crumble at the
end of the day when something like that happened.
And being able to really practice, and that was the key to it, you know, it wasn't that
I just got, I said, oh, okay, this works.
And I was able to just do it perfectly from that point forward.
That's not how it works.
You have to practice regulating your own reaction to things.
And that took a lot of time.
And I still, you know, I have a teenager now, so I still don't regulate my own emotions
as well as I should.
It's a constant battle.
But you know, just understanding that the discipline that my parents used in the 70s
and 80s worked on me great, but my kid is different and my kid's brain responds to things
differently.
And as a parent, as you're going through, you know, all of these experiences raising
a neurodiverse child, you have to be open to recognizing that your strategies have to
change too.
So.
Isn't that the truth?
Yeah.
So your book is called Finding Kind.
Where does that acronym come from?
Does it sort of stem from kind of some of those situations or?
Well, so the kind stands for kids with invisible neurological differences.
And I actually started writing this book in 2018.
The first part of it was kind of a compilation of all of these really hard stories, you know.
And when I got to a point where I stopped writing and I let my husband read it, he was,
he just said, Carrie, this just sounds like it's really hard to be Brady's mom.
Is that really what you want to have put out in the world?
And it absolutely was not.
And, but one of the things, common themes that I noticed in a lot of the type of community
and school situations, you know, Brady looks just like every other kid.
And so when he would not be able to regulate his emotions or when he would bolt out of
a play date or bolt out of a school party and try to escape.
And you know, when those kinds of things would happen, I felt like all the eyes were on me
saying what a horrible mother she must be, you know, because he doesn't, I mean, if,
if I could count the number of times people would say, well, he doesn't look autistic.
You know, that it was, it then became somehow a reflection on my parenting and not an understanding
that his brain was wired differently to respond to these things.
So the invisibility was what I was writing about at the time.
And honestly, you know, I came to a very strong faith through this whole process and I feel
like God put kind in my lap.
And he said, you know, this is going to be something that resonates with families of
not just kids with autism, but it really covers a multitude of different neurodiversities.
So my son also has ADHD, but dyslexia and sensory processing disorder and OCD, there
are so many similarities in the responses that come from those invisible neurological
differences that I felt like, you know, it really would touch a lot of families who are
dealing with a wide variety of neurodiversities that they're at home.
So, and in reading your book, invisibility is really a recurring theme in the story,
whether it's a blessing or a challenge, but how did you learn to balance embracing your
son's neurodiversity while also advocating for the grace and understanding that he deserved?
Well, it became easier when I became more open about it, to be honest.
So I spent the first two to three years of after Brady's diagnosis of really keeping
it quiet.
And that was out of fear.
We didn't know anything about autism when we figured out that was what was going on
with Brady.
And it scared me to death when we first came to that realization.
And I felt like everybody else around us, if they heard the word autism, what were they
going to do?
Were they going to keep their kid from wanting to play with my son?
Were they going to kick him out of school?
Were they going to not let him join a team?
You know, all of these fears really just weighed us down to the point where, you know, he had
an aide in preschool.
And when other parents would say, well, why does Brady have an aide in the classroom?
I would just say, oh, he has a few developmental delays we're just working through.
And so that whole time that we kept it quiet, I was in acting mode.
You know, I was putting on a performance for everybody.
I was saying, oh, everything's fine.
You know, and that didn't give them the opportunity to learn about what autism is or what ADHD
is and to learn that there's a reason behind the things that Brady struggles with, whether
it's socially with the other children or academically, you know, being able to follow an organized
plan or those kinds of things.
And when we finally came to terms with the fact that, you know, we were also in fix-it
mode for the first couple of years, like, oh, if we just work really hard, you know,
this won't even be a thing by the time he gets to kindergarten or first grade.
And we had to make peace with the fact that this is the way our son's brain is wired and
we have to learn how to try to help him as much as we can.
And hiding it from him and from the rest of the world isn't serving our purpose of trying
to make the world a more accepting place for him.
So, you know, and that really, it wasn't this epiphany necessarily that I had on my own.
It was we wound up transferring Brady to a school that was specifically for kids with
learning challenges.
So there were kids with autism and ADHD and dyslexia and OCD at this school.
And all of a sudden I was in this environment where the parents were just openly sharing
about everything that they were experiencing and talking about medications and talking
about doctor's appointments and therapies.
And it was like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders.
And so when we were able to transition outside of a school environment like that, we started
to become more and more comfortable with sharing exactly who Brady is and the things that he
struggles with.
You know, we're in an environment now where we're looking at high schools.
He's going to be in high school next year.
And so I'm being very honest with the people, with the organizations that we're applying
to about this is how autism presents itself in Brady.
But we're not hiding it from anybody.
We're not trying to make Brady pretend like he doesn't have autism.
And so that was another kind of a cool thing with him in writing the foreword for the book.
So you know, he wanted to be able to say, look, I have autism and ADHD, but I also have
all these other interests and I want to help you understand how to understand me because
to me, I'm normal and you're all the ones that are different.
And so, you know, with anything of an invisible nature, I think, you know, we are so blessed
with the things that Brady can do.
He was able to walk.
He's able to talk.
He's got all of these gifts and talents that are there.
And you know, we just have to help people in general and the people in his life understand
better what neurodiversity means and how they can be prepared for it.
Because it's less about changing our children for the world and more about making the world
more accepting and understanding of our children.
Right.
Exactly.
100%.
Throughout the book, you mentioned your faith playing a really significant role in your
journey.
Can I ask how, if it evolved alongside your parenting experiences or if your faith at
all changed throughout this journey?
It definitely was a long process.
It wasn't a lightning bolt that came down from the sky.
It would have been a lot easier, but taking a lot less time.
But, you know, I had grown up just kind of at an arm's length with faith.
You know, we went to church as a kid because I think that's what my parents thought good
parents did, you know, they went to church.
But it was never a personal relationship.
And really, you know, what changed with me, I had always felt like I was in control of
my life.
I was a planner both professionally and personally.
And I always wanted to be the one that was driving the success in my life.
And when we discovered that Brady, you know, had autism and ADHD, all of a sudden I wasn't
in control anymore.
And I fought that for a long time.
And so when I talk about that we didn't disclose Brady's autism for two or three years, that
was because I was still trying to control it and fix it and make it go away.
And frankly, I was making myself miserable.
I mean, I had this beautiful boy.
He is a super loving kid.
And he had all of these things that I was missing because I was so embroiled in this,
you know, frustration that my life plan and parenting plan hadn't come out the way that
I had wanted it to.
And I had to think I had to hit that point to say there's got to be some other way for
me to understand what we're going through.
And it was a very slow process.
It was a drip process.
And it was a lot of nudges that I got to first to go to church and then to go to a Bible
study.
And what I learned through that process was that there was absolute purpose in the way
that my son was made.
And there was purpose in the way I was made to be his mom.
And the gifts and talents and things that I am able to do well are helping me now to
make the world a better place for kind kids like my son.
And realizing that this was the plan all along.
I didn't wind up with a messed up plan.
I wound up on the right plan.
I just didn't know it was the right plan to begin with.
And so it was a very long road over several years of learning and studying and also seeing
it in my son.
You know, my son has a very strong faith too that started very early with him.
And that was mind boggling to me because I really didn't think that someone like my son
who saw things very black and white and needed to hold things and have tangible things in
his hands could really grasp something that was unseen and that was invisible.
So it was just, it still is.
It's a very big part of who I am and the reason that I think I've gotten to this point of
acceptance and not just acceptance, like I am so proud of who this kid is and what he
does.
And I am so excited about the avenue that has been placed in front of me with Kind Families
to get to meet people like you and organizations all over the place, all over the world really
who are focused with this same idea that we need to help the rest of the world understand
what neurodiversity is and how you can better work with them.
It's so underrated and amazing how many opportunities our kids have presented for us, all the people
we would have never met.
And you know, we frequently joke, you know, there wasn't this chapter in what to expect
when you're expecting.
And we're all kind of navigating this almost by the seat of our pants, taking it day by
day and we get these little bursts of, you know, epiphanies and joy when we find books
like yours that help us not only connect, but really someone else who understands the
world that we're trying to navigate through right now.
Right.
And honestly, when I started writing, it was because I couldn't find a book that spoke
to me about what it felt like to be an autism mom.
I found a lot of medical journals.
I found a lot of therapy journals.
I found, you know, a lot of like the things like what to do as an autism parent type of
things.
But what I really thrived in was the conversations that I would have with other parents who were
going through very similar parenting journeys.
And that's where I decided to take the finding kind from not just the hard stories that I
wrote in 2018.
And then I stopped because I didn't know where to take it.
But it wasn't the time at that point because I hadn't seen all the awesome things that
Brady could do yet.
I hadn't fully understood all of his gifts and talents.
I hadn't seen these achievements that I know should hopefully inspire other parents who
maybe are starting with their two-year-old or three-year-old.
And they have no idea what the future is going to hold, but there's lots of hope and inspiration.
And that's where, you know, I'm just so grateful.
You know, God kind of opened this road for me.
I was a financial services person for 30 years, and he gave me the opportunity to sell that
practice two years ago to focus on kind families.
And I think it was just the perfect timing to be able to, you know, look back on 13 years
of being Brady's mom and be able to not only relate with the hard stuff, but celebrate
the awesome stuff with families who are in the same boat.
Speaking of awesome stuff, there's an amazing story in your book that I just want to shout
out without giving too much away.
I think my favorite part was Brady's lip-sync contest.
It brings so much joy.
I want to know, how do you encourage him to embrace his natural talents?
And you talked about that a little bit, but what advice do you give to parents in nurturing
their children's passions?
Because that part of the book is really funny.
Well, I think you can tell, you know, where your kids' passions lie, because especially
with kids with autism, that is going to be their very extreme interest, right?
And Brady always, from the time he was a little kid, loved to be on stage.
He loved to grab a microphone.
I mean, he was in a talent show in first grade, just doing a little diddy on a keyboard.
And he finished one song, and the emcee came over to him to say thank you.
And Brady snatched the microphone out of his hand in front of 100 people and stood up and
decided he was going to do another.
My second song today will be...
Yeah, four.
So, you know, he'd been in drama and he'd been in theater.
And we just encouraged that with him because I really feel like he's a creative brain.
He's a writer.
He's a performer.
He has zero fear of being up on stage.
And that is a gift that not a lot of people have.
But the hard part as a parent is letting them try something that they could fail miserably
at, right?
So, you know, the old saying failure is not an option.
Oh, it is absolutely an option with a lot of the stuff that we, that our kids want to
do.
And as a parent, your initial reaction is I want to protect them from ever being hurt.
And so I will say that that lip sync contest, we were in this room full of teenagers and
it was so frightening to me that he would get up on that stage.
And I mean, there were some fantastic acts.
I mean, these kids had this thing choreographed and perfectly lip synced.
And my son was going to get up and rick roll everybody.
So, you know, if you don't know what rick rolling is, you can Google that.
But the response that the kids had was, I think, just seeing his confidence and his
exuberance and his passion for it and the fact that he got up there all by himself,
like all these other kids did these group things.
And I will just never forget it.
And one of the counselors came up to me afterwards and he was like, I think that's the bravest
thing I've ever seen anyone do.
And, you know, I agree.
And I think that that was just another lesson.
And there's several actually in the book about these things that Brady decided to try, which
and my first reaction was like, no, that could turn out badly, poorly.
And you know, you have to let go and let them have these achievements and failures.
You know, I do like to say, you know, I don't want anybody to think from the book that,
you know, everything got wrapped up in a nice little bow when he was 13 years old and that
he doesn't struggle with things anymore.
He does.
And he has those failures.
But he has these wins now that he can remember in the hard moments to say, OK, I got up on
stage in front of 500 teenagers and won a lip sync contest.
And you know, so this thing is hard and it might cause me some anxiety, but I can do
hard things.
And I think that's a good thing to let go.
We try to talk about that a lot with parents that and this is the story is such a gift
to me because it really encapsulates everything that we try to say when we tell we try to
tell parents, you know, when you don't know what to expect, you have to have high expectations
because our children will continuously surprise us because my first reaction to your story
would have been, oh, my gosh, I would have never let my kid do that because they could
have looked that in the face and said, you know what, let's give it a shot.
We're going to give it a try.
And the kids were amazing to him.
And I will never I mean, there's a picture in my mind that will never go away of him
standing on a stage holding the trophy in the air like he just, you know, won the boxing
championship of the world or something.
And you know, that will be that will always be with him.
And we have to allow our kids wins even if it's hard for us to watch the fails.
You know, so it's it's just something that we have to remind ourselves over and over
again if we don't give them the chance to win, they never will.
So true.
Yeah.
You you mentioned briefly earlier that you spent 30 years in the financial service industry.
And then, you know, you are here with this incredibly established career.
But you also mentioned that you walk away from that to start a kind family podcast.
How how did that come about?
How did that transition happen?
You know, it was just it was a long, slow tugging at my heart.
So I had always wanted to be in the financial services business.
I loved it.
I was a 401k consultant.
So I got to meet with a lot.
I got to do a lot of education, which I love to do with employees about how to save for
retirement.
But it started to become very corporate.
It started to become less about the employees and more about regulation and compliance and
all this stuff.
And so I thought that's what was really pulling me away.
But as again, as we started to see Brady grow and thrive, where I started to really feel
the most joy was when I was sitting across from another parent or when I was giving a
talk at my church mom's group, you know, about it and and seeing that I could just positively
impact and lift up some parents that were going through very similar things that I was
going through.
And then as you know, as my faith continued to grow, I was really trying hard to trust
in a path that that was very different from what I had set out to do.
And this, you know, the buyer being approached to sell my business was just my sign that
this was time, you know, that it was time for me to step away.
I'd done what I needed to do there.
And I couldn't put my full focus and attention into the kind community while I was still
doing a full time job on the side.
And that that stepping away and that that just kind of wall that I put up, I mean, I
let all my licenses go.
I was a CFP.
I let that license go.
And I literally just shut the door on it and walked away to focus on this 100 percent.
And it's just I know every day that it's the right thing.
It was the right thing to do because of the joy that I feel in doing it and the impact
that I see it have on Brady.
I mean, he sees me out there every day advocating for him and advocating for other families.
And he's he's right alongside of me watching that.
So I think it was it was the path that I needed to take.
And I can't wait to see where it goes.
I'm still kind of, you know, we're new and in this in this field.
But I'd love to get out and get another book out there that, you know, on some some further
topics on kind and on faith and those kinds of things, because the feedback has just been
really good.
And I think I'm where I need to be.
I love that you feel so so solid in that.
That's what makes me feel like.
Yes.
I have more people need to read this book.
How did you get to this space in your life?
What was this journey?
What can listeners expect from your podcast?
Are you interviewing other families?
And then also, where can we find it?
Sure.
So it's Apple and Spotify right now, the Kind Families podcast.
I have a lot of people like you actually, people who are in, you know, advocates in
the neurodiversity community.
I have therapists.
I have other parents.
I actually had Brady on.
That was one of my most popular episodes to talk about what it feels like to be a kind
kid.
I have had other authors on.
I was really fortunate.
I took a writer's workshop with a guy named Bob Goff, who writes bestsellers on kind of
faith adjacent type topics.
And he came on.
He was my writing coach.
So he came on the show and he's just a bundle of joy.
I mean, and I'm not saying that facetiously.
I mean, he has got joy exuding from him.
So you know, I have people that talk about dealing, you know, even therapists talking
about dealing with kind of being in an in-between state in your life.
And so every day I'm excited.
And you know, we finished up our first season and we've got our second season where we've
already got a bunch of recordings.
And I just keep meeting more and more people that are passionate about driving success
for neurodivergence, not only children, but adults.
So people in the workplace about, you know, including neurodivergence in the hiring process
and supervisory process and helping them be successful in their passions.
And then sometimes I'll just throw in one for fun.
That's tough because I like to have fun.
Absolutely.
I don't want to say too much without giving away all of the great parts of the book.
So definitely, this is definitely a read and I'm definitely going to go and listen to Brady's
podcast episode.
That is exciting.
Yeah.
But I think my last question is, I'm curious, and this is one of those almost like a crystal
ball moment, if you could go back and give yourself a piece of advice or give yourself
that crystal ball to say like, this is going to, you know, you're so upset about this right
now or you're worried, but it's all going to work itself out during those early years
with Brady.
What would you want to have known then?
Well, I think I would, there's a couple pieces of advice I got later on that I will regurgitate.
And one of them is that your child is the exact same kid the day before the diagnosis
as the day after.
Yeah.
And, you know, there is the piece of paper that you get in your hand does not change
that that child was given to you as a gift.
That child has his own gifts and talents and you have the gifts and talents to be his or
her parent.
And the second thing is it just never underestimate what your child can do.
I think the surprises that we've had along the way are what has helped change our viewpoint
on what Brady's future will look like.
And they started out very young, you know, like if you surprise like him finally being
able to, you know, go to a Sunday school class and make it through a Sunday school class
or, you know, there's a story in the book about him reading a creative writing story
that he wrote about me.
And it was something that I kind of wanted to have look like all the other moms stories.
But when Brady's came out and it was so creative and so different, I was like, I'm the proud
mom in the room.
I have all the other moms looking at me wishing that their kid wrote that about me.
And so I think it's that it's just remember that, you know, the diagnosis isn't who your
kid is.
They're the same kid and never underestimate what they can do and how they might surprise
you in the future.
So that's wonderful.
Well, Carrie, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you for the book.
It's called Spying the Kind.
It's a definite read and also check out the podcast.
Thanks again for your time here.
Thank you so much.
It was a great conversation.
Thank you so much, everyone out there for listening in and know that if you are in Idaho
or planning on moving to Idaho and have questions on systems or services for children with disabilities,
please consider reaching out to us on our website at I pull Idaho.
That's I P U L Idaho dot org.
Or by calling us at 208-342-5884.
Be sure to tune in next time.
Until then, this has been Unlimited Parenting.
Thanks for listening.
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