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Description
What if embracing your neurodiversity could help you uncover a profound sense of belovedness? In this conversation on "Journey With Care", host Wendi Park dives into an enlightening dialogue with Marcia Hamm, who shares her journey of navigating ADHD as both a teacher and a mother. Marcia recounts her transformative shift from shame to freedom as she realizes her unique gifts and God's unconditional love. We tackle misconceptions about ADHD, strategies for supportive environments, and the vital importance of community and faith. Listen to discover how embracing neurodiversity can reshape personal and communal growth, providing a solid foundation of knowing and being loved.
Time Stamps
[04:53] Expectations for children's behavior in Christian community.
[07:10]Realizing God's love changed perspective and actions.
[09:42] Realizing ADHD as a gift, embracing creativity.
[15:43] Initial kindergarten worries turned into pleasant surprise.
[17:03] Anxious at school, symptoms pour out at home.
[19:57] Realizing classroom shortcomings in supporting ADHD students.
[22:20] Families balance activities for hyperactive kids.
[27:19] Struggling with daily Bible reading and discipline.
[28:54] Church should accommodate neurodiversity in parenting.
[34:31] Nature calms impulsivity, God's love in nature.
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Editing and production by Johan Heinrichs: arkpodcasts.ca
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Transcripts
What does loving your neighbor actually look like? This
Speaker:is Journey with Care, where curious Canadians get inspired to
Speaker:love others well through real life stories and honest
Speaker:conversations.
Speaker:We are in our series differently wired together in community,
Speaker:and I'm so excited to continue this series. We've been having a blast
Speaker:listening to so many different guests, and we have more to come. And with me
Speaker:in studio, I have Marcia Hamm. But before I introduce you
Speaker:to her, I want to just encourage our listeners that we do have another
Speaker:podcast line. I wanna remind you to, subscribe to
Speaker:Journey with Prayer where we bring things, content from our
Speaker:Friday episodes from the head to the heart. So Mondays, I I
Speaker:hope you're following with us these short meditative prayers and how we can put these
Speaker:things into action, how we can process the content that we're listening to. So I
Speaker:encourage you to journey with prayer. Well, today, we
Speaker:have Marcy Ham with us here in the studio in our Shasta. Nice
Speaker:summer day, and, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. I'm
Speaker:excited to be here. Yeah. It's so good. You are back. For those that have
Speaker:been following along, you'll wanna listen to, Marcia's
Speaker:story on flavors of care, the creative,
Speaker:Enneagram 4, and we had a lot of fun in that one. And I was
Speaker:just excited to call you back in for this series, specifically
Speaker:on neurodiversities. I know you and I were sitting around a fire. We had that
Speaker:ice cream party Mhmm. Podcast meetup, and we started talking and
Speaker:dreaming. What about having this series? And you were part of that conversation,
Speaker:and here you are again this summer, and it's good to have you
Speaker:back. Yeah. I'm excited to explore a little bit of this angle of
Speaker:flavors with care, really. To me, it feels kind of an extension of that. It
Speaker:really is. Yeah. We're we're looking at all the different exceptionalities
Speaker:that are right around us. We have neurodiversities,
Speaker:and there's mental illnesses or diagnoses
Speaker:and conditions that maybe doesn't fit well
Speaker:within the neuro typical expectations and social norms,
Speaker:and you come with a very unique perspective. Can you tell us a little bit
Speaker:about yourself and your family dynamics that tweaked your
Speaker:interest when we talked about this topic? Yes. This has been on my mind
Speaker:for a while because, as a teacher, I was exposed to
Speaker:neurodiversities early in my career. I had students that I was
Speaker:making adaptations for and learning more about how their brains worked.
Speaker:And I cared really deeply for those specific students, and I kinda got interested
Speaker:in that area. But then as I moved into motherhood, we started to
Speaker:notice some exceptionalities in our oldest. And that's been quite
Speaker:a I was gonna say a long journey. It's been as long as her life,
Speaker:basically. But just some exceptionalities there, some differences, and
Speaker:we didn't know how to find support for the ways that it made life challenging.
Speaker:As we explored how to get her support and how to parent her
Speaker:well, I started to recognize things within myself that were maybe
Speaker:neurodiversities, and we've also are now seeing it in our youngest child as well
Speaker:that there's some differences about how his brain works as well. So this
Speaker:has been a huge learning journey for our family, but it's made me very
Speaker:passionate about it because now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it. Right. And
Speaker:so as a teacher too, it has transformed how I teach and approach my students.
Speaker:So what were the those early signs? You were saying something is different, my
Speaker:parenting experience, I'm needing to write a new
Speaker:manual. The parenting by the book isn't working. What what were
Speaker:some of those things that made you go, or or did you take it personally,
Speaker:like, I don't have my act together? It was a 100% I took it personally.
Speaker:Oh. I like, I don't have my act together? It was a 100% I took
Speaker:it personally. Oh. I my daughter was around age 2, 3.
Speaker:She was, you know, having tantrums or finding things difficult and finding a
Speaker:hard time regulating her emotions. And all these other parents seem to
Speaker:be able to manage when these things happen with their kids. And I was like,
Speaker:what am I doing wrong that I have, like, already screwed up parenting
Speaker:within 2 or 3 years. Right? And so I I took on a lot of
Speaker:shame about my parenting at that point. And, unfortunately, that
Speaker:meant then I actually parented her less well. Because
Speaker:every time she was struggling, I took it personally because it was like, now
Speaker:I'm a failure because she is struggling instead of being able to acknowledge
Speaker:her difficulties and say, oh, you're having a hard time. Let me help you. That's
Speaker:the pivot we've had to make over our journey, but it was not like that
Speaker:at the beginning. Yeah. No. I and I can identify with that as well
Speaker:in my own parenting journey and trying to
Speaker:discover how am I gonna raise this human
Speaker:Mhmm. And why can't I keep them calm? Yes.
Speaker:Calm. Feels very elusive. And and there's this
Speaker:illusion that calm and nice and smiling and put
Speaker:together means good Christian. Yes. Right?
Speaker:Yes. Can we dig into that a little bit? What Jesus said, let the
Speaker:little children come and don't hinder them. Mhmm. What are we meaning here
Speaker:with our kiddos? Yeah. With ours, that has been a
Speaker:big challenge for for myself and my husband, in the church and
Speaker:in our even just our Christian community. We kind of assume
Speaker:that kids who can hold it together, who can manage their emotions,
Speaker:who can navigate surprising circumstances, and kinda be
Speaker:flexible and pivot and be resilient, I feel like we've
Speaker:almost kind of conflated that with good character
Speaker:in the church. And that if your child presents well, if they greet you
Speaker:politely when someone greets them, if they answer someone politely
Speaker:when someone speaks to them, if they're able to make eye contact, all of those
Speaker:pieces feel like, oh, this is such a good kid. And and adults will say,
Speaker:oh, I love that kid. They're so easy to talk to. Or, you know, they're
Speaker:such a great kid. And I have done that as a teacher. I've They always
Speaker:get the character awards too. They do. They get the character awards. They get this,
Speaker:academic awards. Right? They get all these. They get noticed for hard work,
Speaker:and sometimes it's really difficult as a parent of neurodivergent children
Speaker:because your children are working so hard every day to
Speaker:manage stuff that other kids don't have to manage, but people still
Speaker:assume that they're not even as good character as the baseline of the other
Speaker:students or kids. Yeah. And so I've
Speaker:really had to learn for myself to detangle
Speaker:what the fruit of the spirit looks like from what emotional regulation
Speaker:looks like. And those pieces, like, what is my brain needing to learn a
Speaker:new coping mechanism or my child's brain? And what is
Speaker:me needing to, like, be in tune with the Holy Spirit and respond to the
Speaker:Holy Spirit's leading. Tell me more about that. What what does that look like?
Speaker:Well, for me, particularly, it was kind of a journey from
Speaker:shame into freedom. And when I started learning about my daughter's
Speaker:brain and how she was different, suddenly a lot of things kinda started to slot
Speaker:into place. I was like, oh, this actually speaks to why I have a lot
Speaker:of shame in my life. Mhmm. And so a lot of my
Speaker:life and a lot of my kind of sin management or behavior management for
Speaker:myself was related to, like, everyone else can get this
Speaker:together. Everyone else doesn't get angry at the drop of a hat. Everyone else knows
Speaker:how to say sorry and offer forgiveness or to acknowledge
Speaker:someone else's perspective even without getting upset. And so I'm
Speaker:just failing. I'm failing. I'm failing. I'm failing. God must be so ashamed of me.
Speaker:When god looks at me, he's he's ashamed, and he's like, come on. Get it
Speaker:together. Get it together. Everyone else around you is getting it together. And so for
Speaker:me, the pivot moment was when I realized that god loved me exactly as I
Speaker:am, which sounds very base, like, very basic.
Speaker:Mhmm. But when I actually started to believe that at my very worst, when I
Speaker:could not manage anything and I felt like I could not hold anything together, that's
Speaker:when I was loved. And once I was able to see that,
Speaker:then that is what enabled me to be able to say
Speaker:sorry when I did explode or to be able to
Speaker:offer forgiveness when someone else hurt me. It enabled me to be able
Speaker:to say, oh, maybe I'm wrong. Like, are you seeing this a different way than
Speaker:me? And, ultimately, that then allowed me to be able to look at my child
Speaker:and not not see a child who is misbehaving and
Speaker:displaying to the world that I'm a terrible parent, but to actually see that my
Speaker:child was having a hard time. And then I could, in freedom,
Speaker:care for her. And then I can also hear from the Holy Spirit that,
Speaker:like, maybe you actually should give up this little thing that
Speaker:you're holding on to or this like, you're actually right in this situation. Right? Because
Speaker:a lot of times, especially with ADHD, kids have massive emotions because they
Speaker:struggle with the emotional regulation piece. Right. And so they might yell
Speaker:things at you that aren't really true or aren't really how the situation went, but
Speaker:that's how they're expressing this pain inside of them. And so
Speaker:you want to defend yourself and say, I didn't say that. I didn't do that.
Speaker:But sometimes it's like, holy spirit is like, it's okay. Like, you actually you're okay.
Speaker:You're loved. Yeah. Like, you're okay. You don't have to defend that you didn't say
Speaker:that to your kid. You have to notice that your kid's having a hard time
Speaker:and offer your help. Yeah. And for me, that has been immensely
Speaker:freeing and totally transformed how I parent. Well, and if you look it through the
Speaker:New Testament too, there's so many instances where Jesus looked beyond the
Speaker:behavior, beyond the social norms, beyond what a society said
Speaker:was right and wrong in the rule book of, like, social
Speaker:norms. He looked beyond that, and he looked at the heart,
Speaker:their belovedness. They are made in the image of God. And Yeah. And I think
Speaker:that is something, yeah, so simplistic, so baseline, and yet
Speaker:we often miss it, our own belovedness. When we are beloved,
Speaker:we can actually be responding a different way than out of a
Speaker:shameful, oh, I have to act a certain way. Yeah. That's
Speaker:exactly it. What are some glimmers of hope, some treasures along
Speaker:the way as you discovered her ADHD and as you were discovering
Speaker:your own that actually gave you sort of a lifeline, that gave you
Speaker:hope and and maybe words to what you were experiencing and saying, hey. I'm
Speaker:not broken. I'm just neurodiverse. Mhmm. I'm just operating out of
Speaker:a different system here. What were some of those pieces
Speaker:that gave you relief along the way? Yeah. I think some one of the
Speaker:first things actually for me, and this was before I really even realized I had
Speaker:ADHD, but it just had to do with some of the gifts, I think, that
Speaker:come from ADHD, which is like a the ability to see things that other people
Speaker:don't see, this kind of creative energy. And I
Speaker:remember intentionally not bringing up ideas in my marriage about how our
Speaker:family could grow and work together because I thought, well and this was kind of
Speaker:also in my view of women and men at this time. But, like, oh, well,
Speaker:my husband should be, like, leaving my home, and so he should be coming up
Speaker:with these ideas. And as we learn more about each other and I learn more
Speaker:about my brain, I was like, no. Actually, this is a gift that I see
Speaker:things other people don't see, and I can think of how to arrange things in
Speaker:a way that someone else wouldn't think of. And if I don't offer that,
Speaker:then we're all missing out. Mhmm. And so, again, that was part of my freedom
Speaker:journey too that once I realized that my brain was different and it wasn't a
Speaker:shameful thing, I was able to use my gifts far
Speaker:more often. And I was able to even enjoy using them because
Speaker:in the past, I would think, like, oh, if I think I'm good at this,
Speaker:then I should I should probably, like, not tell people I'm good at this because
Speaker:I'm a good Mennonite. But, you know, you don't wanna be prideful. Right?
Speaker:So you wanna avoid Oh, she's so goody. Yeah. But, really, what it meant like,
Speaker:now I feel like, oh, I am good at this. Like, my brain is different.
Speaker:I can I can name what's different, and then I can honor what is good
Speaker:about it and also still see what I can improve on? Yeah.
Speaker:So creativity is definitely one of your strong suits. You're a creative
Speaker:writer. You're you're just creative in all things and and how you think what
Speaker:other expressions do you see that maybe aren't as natural
Speaker:for a lot of people? I think a lot of
Speaker:my brain works well for teaching actually in a in a classroom
Speaker:setting because ADHD brains tend to get like, we have a
Speaker:it's not really attention deficit. It's more like we can pay attention to a lot
Speaker:of things at one time, and that's what's can be overwhelming, and that's what can
Speaker:make emotional regulation difficult. But the beauty of that is that in a school
Speaker:system, there's already a structure Mhmm. But there's freedom within the
Speaker:structure, and that works well for me. And so in the classroom, I
Speaker:feel like I have opportunities to just try different ways of teaching and different ways
Speaker:of learning and different activities. And I have a lot of freedom to just think
Speaker:of new ways to teach lessons that aren't, you know, read the textbook, answer the
Speaker:questions. And I actually I see a lot of teachers who have probably have ADHD
Speaker:or maybe I'm just hypersensitive to it now, but I'm like, no. I wonder. So
Speaker:variety and and switching from a multiple of things of
Speaker:interest energizes you. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely. Alright. So when we're talking ADHD,
Speaker:what I understood growing up and not knowing a lot, not
Speaker:being exposed to a lot, I had this kind of image
Speaker:of this kid that just couldn't sit still, bouncing off the walls,
Speaker:oh, and they must have ADHD. But since then,
Speaker:I've learned and walked with people that it's so much different.
Speaker:It can be part of that. We might be able to see that in kids,
Speaker:but let's talk a little bit of what ADHD actually is. Let's
Speaker:demystify that a little bit. And then I wanna talk about what it's
Speaker:like for girls because that's a whole another game there. Yes. It is. And
Speaker:and I feel like we talk so what are the 3 types of ADHD
Speaker:that people could be diagnosed with? We're not gonna get clinical here. We're not trying
Speaker:to diagnose a disclaimer here. But from your understanding, what are the 3
Speaker:types of ADHD we're talking about? Yeah. So the hyperactive is kind of the what
Speaker:people assume to be ADHD. It's what people make jokes about. Right? Like, oh, I'm
Speaker:so ADHD or, oh, squirrel. Right? But there's also
Speaker:inattentive, and those tend to present much much more quietly. You don't see
Speaker:it externally. And then there's the combined type. So that where there's
Speaker:hyperactivity and inattentive. And it's usually
Speaker:it's I would say it's often both because but inattentive
Speaker:can get missed a lot in kids, especially because in the classroom, inattentive
Speaker:ADHD students don't have as much, disruption. They don't
Speaker:cause as much disruption because they might just be missing things without knowing that they're
Speaker:missing things, but they're not hyperactive on top of that. Another part of the hyperactivity
Speaker:that might be missed sometimes is actually some a child can or a person can
Speaker:have a hyperactive diagnosis, but the hyperactivity is actually not external. It's
Speaker:internal Okay. And it's racing thoughts. And so this is why there's a lot of
Speaker:overlap with anxiety as well. Yeah. I've heard it described to
Speaker:me as a race car brain with bicycle brakes. Mhmm. And it
Speaker:it's not necessarily external, but racing thoughts and busy mind
Speaker:Yes. And and easily distractible in in that way. And
Speaker:so I would imagine with a race car brain and bicycle
Speaker:brakes, it would be difficult in some functions for some
Speaker:people with executive function as well when there are certain
Speaker:tasks needing to be accomplished in organizing those things
Speaker:in a methodical way. That could be a challenge. Everything feels
Speaker:like what might be to someone else, oh, I'm gonna brush my teeth. That's one
Speaker:task. For an ADHD brain, that can feel like 5 steps,
Speaker:5 tasks. Because to break down, you have to say, oh, I need time. I
Speaker:need to think about brushing my teeth. I need to go to the bathroom. I
Speaker:need to get the toothbrush out. I need to, like, put the toothpaste on, and
Speaker:I need to actually be willing to feel the feeling, the sensory feeling of a
Speaker:toothbrush in my mouth. And so there's all these steps that can be really
Speaker:difficult for an ADHD brain to kinda start, whereas if someone else's, like, just
Speaker:do the thing. ADHD brain can get really bogged down on the steps. Sometimes they
Speaker:may not even know what the steps are, and then you feel overwhelmed. And then
Speaker:you might have the hyperactivity in your mind, but you aren't able to really
Speaker:anchor any of the things that are floating around in your head. They're just floating,
Speaker:and then you don't know where to start or how to do something, and you
Speaker:can kind of get into this frozen state. Well, let's talk about ADHD in
Speaker:girls because sometimes that can also be overlooked. Boys are more
Speaker:typically found out for autism or or ADHD and
Speaker:a lot of neurodiversities because even a lot of the studies that have been
Speaker:done have been typifying boys Yep.
Speaker:And girls can be missed. Can you tell us a little bit more about your
Speaker:experience in that field? Yes. Now my daughter has a couple
Speaker:different diagnoses. ADHD isn't the only one, but it was the first one that
Speaker:we had kind of articulated for us. And when she was
Speaker:younger, she was very explosive. She found it difficult. Like, we did use a
Speaker:lot of visuals to help her break down steps and things like that. We struggle
Speaker:a lot with aggression, actually. So she would when she was frustrated, she would hit
Speaker:or hurt. So we were worried about her going to kindergarten because we thought, how
Speaker:is this gonna work? We don't know if we can do it. We explored all
Speaker:the different kind of schooling options. We landed on the public school in our area,
Speaker:and we sent her to kindergarten, and we heard nothing from the teachers for the
Speaker:1st 2 months. And then we had our, you know, midterm parent teacher meeting,
Speaker:and the teacher's like, oh, she's just so sweet and lovely. We just love
Speaker:having her in class. And my husband and I think our jaws actually dropped.
Speaker:And and we looked at her and we said, like, you're serious? And she says,
Speaker:yes. And I was like, okay. Is she hit she hasn't hit anybody. No.
Speaker:She has not thrown anything. No. And we were
Speaker:just, like, flabbergasted. So, again, like, at this point in our journey, this was
Speaker:like, oh, we must be horrible parents because at home, we see this behavior. But
Speaker:at school, she clearly knows what the right thing is to do. She knows how
Speaker:to control her behavior. What are we doing wrong? So then we hear, you know,
Speaker:people say, well, you know, kids feel safe at home, and so that's when they
Speaker:explode and they let it all down. We're like, okay. But that's a normal kid
Speaker:thing to do. So is this in the realm of normal? Right? And so
Speaker:from k to 4, the teachers never saw the concerns we had. We continued
Speaker:having challenges at home, and our daughter actually expressed challenges that she was having at
Speaker:school, but the teachers kept saying, nope. She's lovely. Like like, a
Speaker:joy to have in class, always quiet, always obedient, always listening,
Speaker:and that just was not our experience in the home. And,
Speaker:what we learned through our journey now with her is that her anxiety about
Speaker:missing things because she knew she missed things. She knew she was missing social cues.
Speaker:She knew she if she left the room, she would miss instructions, and so she
Speaker:wouldn't actually even leave to use the bathroom because she felt this,
Speaker:like, deep fear that if she left, she would miss out and not know what
Speaker:was going on. And so the anxiety provided
Speaker:kind of the capacity to follow the rules and to get things done in the
Speaker:classroom and to mask all these ADHD symptoms. But then when she was
Speaker:home, then she wasn't anxious anymore because home was her safe place, and then
Speaker:all the symptoms just poured out of her. And so this we're
Speaker:seeing it again with our youngest. Right? I had some serious concerns this last week.
Speaker:He was having a lot of trouble regulating his emotions again. So I had a
Speaker:conversation with his teacher, and she says, you know, we just don't see that at
Speaker:school. Like, we don't see any signs of ADHD at school. And I that's
Speaker:I think too his anxiety is masking and kind of covering some of this.
Speaker:And so with girls, frequently, because they're more inattentive and less
Speaker:hyperactive, the masking is even more. My daughter's also hyperactive, but it's very common
Speaker:in girls to just be inattentive and kinda be in a daydreamy state. Mhmm. And
Speaker:so they don't get their things done, but they're smart. They're intelligent. So
Speaker:teachers think, well, you know, if she just focuses a little more, like, she just
Speaker:needs reminders to be on task, but, really, that's actually, like, a skill that
Speaker:needs to be worked on specifically for their brain. Right. So, behaviorally, they
Speaker:can mask and get by. They're socialized. Yeah. But at
Speaker:home, they're trying to make sense of it. And I wonder maybe you can
Speaker:speak to it from your own upbringing and experience, but what does that do
Speaker:to your understanding of self if you have to be somebody else in
Speaker:front of everybody at church or at school in you're
Speaker:following the social cues, but inside, you come home and you're
Speaker:just Yeah. You're melting down. Yeah. You always feel like you're having a hard time.
Speaker:You always feel overwhelmed. And I think for my daughter, I've definitely seen
Speaker:that it feels like she has a hard time trusting that someone actually
Speaker:loves her for who she is, and that if she's not perfect, then she's
Speaker:not loved, which we have worked so hard because of all the learning that I've
Speaker:done. I'm like, I don't want her to get that message at all because I
Speaker:had to work so hard to unlearn that. But because they can see, they
Speaker:can pick up on the social norms around them and adjust their behavior, but then
Speaker:when they get home, they cannot manage it. And that sense of failure there's a
Speaker:an ongoing sense of failure with kids with ADHD because they're always
Speaker:trying their hardest, and it's never quite doing what everyone else around expects out of
Speaker:them. And do you think they grow out of it as they get in a
Speaker:to be an adult with ADHD, or does it come with them into
Speaker:adulthood hood that I'm not enough, I am less than, I'm
Speaker:failure? Yeah. Unless they do really hard intentional work
Speaker:with parents, with therapists, with friendships
Speaker:even. It's very difficult to unlearn that default belief about
Speaker:yourself. Because I think ADHD kids get something like, I don't know, they
Speaker:hear no 70 times a day or something like that because they are always doing
Speaker:things that they know they shouldn't, but they do anyway, and then the negative
Speaker:feedback. Well, it's that impulsivity. Right? Yeah. Because sometimes,
Speaker:the people can do things more impulsively and then think about it
Speaker:later. Yeah. Exactly. And I see this in my classes all the time,
Speaker:and I even have to battle it. So knowing all of this and having this
Speaker:deep kind of well of experience and knowledge about how an ADHD brain works and
Speaker:how that affects their self worth, I still catch myself sometimes
Speaker:being like, oh, that kid, he just doesn't wanna learn. You know? And then I'm
Speaker:realizing, no. I don't think my classroom is actually equipped to help him
Speaker:learn, and I am maybe am failing as a teacher. And I know I
Speaker:work in a system that or the school system is not a perfect system. Classrooms
Speaker:and aren't always set up for the best learning environment for every kid. But as
Speaker:a teacher, what can I do to make it accessible for this
Speaker:child to want to learn because it is so difficult for them? They're working so
Speaker:much harder to pay attention in the classroom than the average kid is. Yeah.
Speaker:And I don't believe people innately are trying to
Speaker:be terrible people. Yep. There's coping mechanisms. There's
Speaker:things we just do what we gotta do to get by. Yeah.
Speaker:Right? Yeah. And they know they know what is good and right and
Speaker:what benefits their relationships, but the impulsivity and the executive function piece really is a
Speaker:hindrance to them being able to do what they know is right.
Speaker:Yeah. No. That's so good. What are some ways that have
Speaker:been
Speaker:to
Speaker:to you and your children? What are some of those things that and, obviously, it'll
Speaker:be different for different people, but what has been helpful for you? Well,
Speaker:my my children would say a pet would be the most helpful, but we have
Speaker:not quite gone there yet. We are babysitting some cats right now to try it
Speaker:out, but, they really love that the calming
Speaker:presence of an animal. But also, what's been most helpful, honestly, is as
Speaker:parents, us acknowledging that it's not they're not being bad.
Speaker:They're having a hard time. Mhmm. So we can come alongside. So when they're overwhelmed,
Speaker:I say, like, I'm here to help. And that posture, as a parent, rather
Speaker:than I'm here to tell you how you've done it wrong or I'm here to
Speaker:correct your behavior, I'm here to make you a good person, know I'm here to
Speaker:help you. That posture has been really helpful for us. That's good. But in addition
Speaker:to just some of the the physical outlet pieces, to be able to
Speaker:make sure that we have physical stimulation, that there's weighted blankets, that
Speaker:there's weights, like, heavy work, that they're, like, climbing monkey bars,
Speaker:and we're active as a family is really important as well for helping us
Speaker:regulate. And another thing that we find helpful for
Speaker:us is just the actual, like, slowing down of
Speaker:our schedule. Mhmm. A lot of families go, go, go because if you
Speaker:have a hyperactive kid, sometimes you need a schedule. But if you have a
Speaker:a kid with a brain difference like this, you want they can't be bored,
Speaker:but they also can't just be busy all the time. And so you have
Speaker:kind of navigate this tension between you want them to have tasks that
Speaker:they feel accomplished in and that they do well in and that they feel successful
Speaker:at, but not to kinda push them beyond their window of tolerance and to make
Speaker:time for downtime. So we intentionally plan, like, if we're going doing something big on
Speaker:a weekend, we're not gonna do something big on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Right? So
Speaker:we have to build in these rhythms. Yeah. These are really good
Speaker:because these are all accessible resources. We have playgrounds. There
Speaker:are weighted blankets. There are pets. You know? And Yeah. And I know that's been
Speaker:very helpful in our home. These are things that we can do that
Speaker:actually make a big difference. And and I've heard of some families have
Speaker:gone medication route and others that haven't needed to. They've they
Speaker:found other therapeutic routes and a combination thereof.
Speaker:What has been your way of navigating the idea of
Speaker:medication and those things? Yeah. That was a big thing. That was very difficult, and
Speaker:it still remains kind of a difficult thing for various support people in her
Speaker:life. We have tried a couple different medications, for
Speaker:ADHD. That that medication did not work well for us. Right now,
Speaker:there's we're using some medication for anxiety, and that is actually working
Speaker:better. It can make the ADHD worse in a way because the anxiety was helping
Speaker:her mask all of the symptoms. And so then once you take away the
Speaker:anxiety, then now you have to learn the skills of actually working with how your
Speaker:brain is. But there's more joy there is what we found
Speaker:because there's the the joy piece is is present. But for some, I know that
Speaker:the medication has brought the joy. And so for me, I really
Speaker:I always wanna enter that conversation about, medication and
Speaker:supports with grace. Right. Because it's very tempting. If you
Speaker:don't have any experience with someone who's neurodivergent, It's very tempting to be
Speaker:like, well, medication we wanna avoid a medication at all costs. We wanna make sure,
Speaker:like, you know, we can pray, we can trust Jesus. Right? There's all these kind
Speaker:of spiritualisms you can try to, like, layer on top of it and then just
Speaker:say, like, God will heal them or, you know and really, it's a matter of,
Speaker:like, using the tools that God's given us. Right. And he's given us a variety.
Speaker:It's a whole toolbox. And if we wanna honor the image of God in
Speaker:somebody, we don't make hard and fast rules like never take medication
Speaker:or always take medication. Right? We honor the image of god in that person and
Speaker:what's gonna work best for their flourishing. And curiosity.
Speaker:Right? It's different for everybody. Right? And and there's a different
Speaker:pathway and different therapeutic approaches that are supportive.
Speaker:Mhmm. But I I have a personal question to ask you off of that.
Speaker:I've heard of people wanting to pray away neurodiversities.
Speaker:Interesting. And yet I see the beauty, the diversity,
Speaker:the the exceptionality within the brains of people
Speaker:that are differently wired. Yeah. And not to put things on a pedestal,
Speaker:better or worse than, but there's such exceptionalities of creativity
Speaker:and intelligence and different creative ways of approaching things.
Speaker:I'm gonna be point blank. Yeah. Do you wanna be healed from that?
Speaker:No. No. But I do know I do know. I have I have
Speaker:students who have articulated that to me that they would like there to be a
Speaker:a pure. They would like to be healed of it. They feel they don't see
Speaker:the beauty in it. And so it does take a lot of work Right.
Speaker:To trust god's plan in that because
Speaker:they have experienced so much negativity around it that they don't see the beauty in
Speaker:it. But I would never want to pray that away in somebody or
Speaker:hope that that gets healed. Because I think I think the more
Speaker:that we can listen to one another and learn from one another, the more,
Speaker:people with different brains can actually excel, and we aren't gonna be trapped in this
Speaker:world that just expects everyone to be one way or think one way or look
Speaker:one way. It's actually gonna benefit the entire community of god if we can
Speaker:embrace these diversities. And I think that, to me I always think
Speaker:too, like, the image of god is not just, like, in the one person. The
Speaker:image of god is actually in our community because I personally I am made in
Speaker:the image of god, but my brain and the way I see the world
Speaker:isn't that that's that would be very limiting if God only thought like
Speaker:Marcia. Right. Right? So but but to have your brain and my brain
Speaker:and Johan's brain. Right? Like, and all these different brains that altogether we collectively
Speaker:reflect god's goodness. Absolutely. And so I I think we want
Speaker:to honor him. Not a deficiency that I don't have it altogether. You don't have
Speaker:it altogether. No. We're made in the image of God, and collectively,
Speaker:we can bear God's witness. Yeah. And we're well, we need each other then to
Speaker:point people to who how good he is. So it's exciting, and it feels way
Speaker:less lonely. It feels way less scary because I
Speaker:don't have to have all the pieces. Well, we could talk about a whole bunch
Speaker:of things. But before we close, I do need to dive into one topic. I
Speaker:know you have a lot of experience in church ministry personally and
Speaker:as a couple, as a family. What's your experience
Speaker:been for yourself navigating your faith in
Speaker:community, in church community with neurodiversities?
Speaker:The first thing that comes to mind is the kind of
Speaker:shame, of like, oh, this person always reads their whole bible in
Speaker:a year. Am I like, should I really be in charge of this ministry if
Speaker:I don't have a daily bible reading habit? Right? Like and I've
Speaker:learned to also this actually kinda more more recent part of my journey is that,
Speaker:like, I'm in connection with the holy spirit, and I'm meditating on scripture a lot
Speaker:now, but I actually don't sit and have a a habit because habits are
Speaker:very difficult for ADHD brains. But I'm enjoying my
Speaker:participation in scripture now instead of seeing scripture as a, oh, I failed to read
Speaker:today and I failed. Right? And it it gets become a joy to
Speaker:meditate on scripture when when the holy spirit brings it brings it to mind. So
Speaker:that was something I had to learn when as a leader, I felt like, an
Speaker:imposter in leadership. Because here I am leading people in ministry,
Speaker:and I don't have these habits that everyone says a good Christian should have or
Speaker:these spiritual disciplines. And so the spiritual disciplines part always
Speaker:terrified me because discipline is not something that I come by naturally. Naturally. However,
Speaker:when I, again, when I when I could trust that I was loved, it totally
Speaker:changed that because that's not spiritual disciplines for me. It's
Speaker:it's a spiritual response to a father who loves me. Right. Right? And
Speaker:so it's a responsiveness thing. It's not a enforce it
Speaker:thing. One other area of ministry that I always think about when I think about
Speaker:neurodiversity as well is, like, the parenting aspect. We we talk a lot
Speaker:of churches will emphasize a lot of family support and family ministries
Speaker:and all these pieces, and very few in my experience are actually
Speaker:supporting the families that need the most support. They're supporting kind of the middle
Speaker:ground families, kind of the average, the you know? And
Speaker:those parents still need support. Don't get me wrong. We wouldn't even make the group.
Speaker:If I went to the group and told them what life is like in my
Speaker:house, nobody around the table would know what to do with it. They would they
Speaker:would they would kinda just their eyes would go buggy. They might judge my character
Speaker:and then my ability to be a parent and my ability to be in ministry.
Speaker:And and I would I'm we're left more alone. A lot of parents of neurodivergent
Speaker:kids feel very, very alone in the church because yeah, it's always safe to
Speaker:share what life is actually like when your brain operates differently. So
Speaker:my hope and dream is that we can eventually
Speaker:see a church that wants to, like, notice,
Speaker:name, and honor these diversities and to provide specific
Speaker:CarePortal or even just to consider and listen to each other
Speaker:so that when we when we build a parent curriculum, that we're not just thinking
Speaker:about kind of the average typical child, but that we are considering, okay. If we're
Speaker:gonna build this parent curriculum for our church, let's make sure we talk to a
Speaker:family of a kid whose disabilities are physical and, like, makes are they having
Speaker:trouble accessing specific spaces? Or let's talk to a family where their brain
Speaker:the child's brain is different, and so they are developmentally different. Let's make sure that
Speaker:those voices are included in the planning because that'll then be represented when
Speaker:we equip each other as the believers. Right? And that's not to complicate the curriculum.
Speaker:It's actually to enhance it, to make it more accessible. I
Speaker:I've heard some people say, well, in in our kids' ministry, we don't
Speaker:have those kind of kids. I'm like, well, then why? Yeah. Right? Because we
Speaker:wanna make it accessible. So listening to those families who are
Speaker:navigating it is a gift. Yeah. And what are some of the things that you've
Speaker:experienced as a family that has worked well in your church experience and your
Speaker:faith journey? Well, what's worked really well is having a a home group, like a
Speaker:small group of families that is close to us. Because for our children, big public
Speaker:spaces can be very difficult and very overwhelming. Mhmm. And so having
Speaker:people come to our home regularly and being in our lives,
Speaker:the parents gathering and praying together and the kids, you know, worshiping with us and
Speaker:then playing on their own and those pieces those adults felt very safe for
Speaker:my children. My children felt like they could talk to them. It was just,
Speaker:the real picture of the community of God, not just, you know, a service on
Speaker:a Sunday morning. And so I think the small group and 1 on 1 family
Speaker:connections are really vital for a church family. You can't just go to a service
Speaker:and say I'm part of this church, but you need to be spending time, lived
Speaker:life with people around you because then they also can see
Speaker:the complexity. Right? They're the ones who then can pray, and I can say, hey.
Speaker:I this is what happened in our home. And they're not shocked. Their eyes don't
Speaker:widen because, you know, you're not just doing a one off parenting group with them.
Speaker:You're actually doing everyday life with them, and they've seen the different things that have
Speaker:happened. And then they are there's compassion and grace there because they know.
Speaker:Mhmm. And I think a a key piece to to circle back to what
Speaker:you started with to to know that people are loved,
Speaker:not by behavior or the complexities that they're trying to navigate in
Speaker:a neurotypical world. It's complicated. We have weird rules, kinda like
Speaker:learning English. It's weird. Right? Like, Why do we say the things we do
Speaker:and and why do we word things? English is complicated, but so is the
Speaker:neurotypical world to navigate. But for people, for
Speaker:children to grow up knowing and for adults to have to relearn
Speaker:if they've only discovered their neurodiversities in a later life, because let's
Speaker:face it so many. And we've had some people on the podcast
Speaker:later on in life that found out their neurodiversities to
Speaker:understand their belovedness that they are not broken. They are made in the image of
Speaker:God. Yep. And they are beloved. And what a
Speaker:different projection. It doesn't necessarily take away the complexities,
Speaker:but it gives a solid foundation. Yeah. And it makes you part of a beautiful
Speaker:story Yeah. Instead of just It reframes it. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker:So, Marcy, are is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners?
Speaker:Yeah. There's a part of ADHD that a lot of it has to do with
Speaker:emotions, which we didn't actually know prior to our daughter's diagnosis.
Speaker:And this piece of the rejection ADHD
Speaker:often comes with what's called rejection sensitivity, and so they
Speaker:feel they feel very deeply. And I think this plays into how we talked about
Speaker:self worth as well. Right? That there's when they feel that's perceived that
Speaker:someone has rejected them or that they have failed, they feel it sometimes
Speaker:physically in their bodies, and it can feel it's very
Speaker:overwhelming, and it can be very difficult to come back from. And one
Speaker:of the things that has been really helpful for me is learning
Speaker:to name and to honor emotions without letting them rule your life,
Speaker:and I think that's an area where I have hope that the church
Speaker:can grow Mhmm. Because I really feel a lot of
Speaker:times we wanna say, well, you know, it's faith, not feelings. Right? We gotta just
Speaker:trust God, know he's good, but I have all these feelings. And so for,
Speaker:specifically, people with ADHD, how do you have faith when you have these
Speaker:feelings that feel so viscerally real? Like you feel hurt
Speaker:by this person, and maybe you found out they didn't intend to hurt you, maybe
Speaker:you found out, like, there was never their intent, but you can feel it physically
Speaker:in your body Mhmm. It's very difficult to honor
Speaker:that and then also recognize what the truth actually is. And I think it
Speaker:can be tempting when we overspiritualize things to just say, well, you know the truth.
Speaker:You know the truth. Right? And but to actually say, no. I can honor it.
Speaker:I can name this and say it makes sense that I feel this way because
Speaker:of how my brain operates. Mhmm. It makes sense, and I
Speaker:know it's true that this person did not mean to hurt me. Right? So there's
Speaker:there's a tendency, I think, in Christian circles to, like, emphasize the truth and proclaim
Speaker:the truth and name it. Right? But we have to first be able to name
Speaker:that it makes sense what our body is going through because of our neurodiversity
Speaker:and put that together with the truth because that's when we can actually access the
Speaker:truth. Yeah. So, so good. And before we
Speaker:close, I am curious, where have you felt
Speaker:most connected with God,
Speaker:most seen, most beloved? What what are some of those ways that
Speaker:you and I know that's just your unique experience, but Mhmm. How have you
Speaker:felt most seen and loved by God? I think
Speaker:nature is a big part for me because there's a lot of physical sensations that
Speaker:are calming in nature that help with emotional regulation and some of the impulsivity
Speaker:that comes with ADHD. That would be my default and where I where I most
Speaker:consistently feel seen and loved by God is by the beauty of nature and the
Speaker:beauty of the story that I'm part of. But I think the most powerful
Speaker:time that I've ever felt it was when I saw myself
Speaker:screaming at my 3 year old daughter because she could not restrain her
Speaker:impulses. And here I was yelling at her impulsively
Speaker:because I could not restrain my impulses. And at my very worst, as
Speaker:I was praying about it later, the holy spirit gave me this picture that he
Speaker:came Jesus came and stood right beside me and put his arm around me as
Speaker:I was screaming. And as I was doing that, when my
Speaker:holy spirit was showing me that, I then looked at my daughter and I was
Speaker:like, yes. But what about her? Now she suffered this trauma of me
Speaker:failing as a parent. And Jesus said, no, no, I'm with her too. And
Speaker:so he was there protecting her and surrounding her and loving her. And so
Speaker:that to me has been the most powerful experience of the holy spirit showing
Speaker:me that I'm loved, then that she's loved, and that that's where we start.
Speaker:Thank you for joining another conversation on Journey with Care,
Speaker:where we inspire curious Canadians on their path of faith
Speaker:and living life with purpose in community. Journey with Care is an
Speaker:initiative of Care Impact, a Canadian charity dedicated to
Speaker:connecting and equipping the whole church to journey well in community.
Speaker:You can visit their website at careimpact. Ca or visit journeywithcare.
Speaker:Ca to get more information on weekly episodes, Journey with Prayer,
Speaker:and details about our upcoming events and meetups. You can also
Speaker:leave us a message, share your thoughts, and connect with like minded individuals who are
Speaker:on their own journeys of faith and purpose. Thank you for
Speaker:journey in a good way. And always remember to stay explore ways to journey in
Speaker:a good way. And always remember to stay curious.
