Shownotes
Chaya and Mike chat with Craig Maier, a dedicated ADHD Coach at Spark Launch, who shares his story of alienation and bullying while growing up neurodivergent in a small town. Craig details how these negative experiences aid in nurturing his son's own neurodivergence, provides some jaw-dropping insights into the differences between the U.S. and German education systems, and how we can better support students on the spectrum.
We Also Cover:
- Incorporating Interests to Boost Learning Engagement
- Breaking Educational Conformity
- Asynchronous Approaches for a Neurodivergent Child's Development
- Social Interaction Woes and Anxieties
- The Institutionalized Gaps in Neurodiversity Awareness
Quotes:
- "If we can find what interests you, what you’re really passionate about, then we can start to direct effort toward that."
- "I think that my interests were completely normal, but given where I was in the community that I grew up with, it was like coming from another planet."
- "If someone had taken the time to talk with me at 15, 16 and really talk with me, I think that would have really changed my life."
About Craig Maier:
A former university professor with a doctorate in interpersonal, organizational, and ethical communication, Craig is a coach certified by the International Coaching Federation and a Parent Consultant for ADHD certified by the Institute for Integrative Learning Therapy and Advanced Education in Germany, and also holds certifications in coaching neurodivergent learners and trauma-informed and body-oriented coaching.
He has transformed his experiences and cultivated knowledge into a powerful coaching approach, one which emphasizes and recognizes the individual, first and foremost.
Connect with Craig:
As always, thanks for lending us your ears and keep igniting that spark!
Stay Connected:
- Website: https://sparklaunchpodcast.com/
- ADHD Coaching & Workshops: https://www.sparklaunch.org/
- Chaya on Instagram
- Mike on Instagram
- Want To Be a Guest? https://sparklaunchpodcast.com/booking
Transcripts
You've landed at SparkLaunch, the guide star for embracing what
Speaker:it means to be neurodiverse. I'm Mike Cornell, joined by CEO
Speaker:of SparkLaunch, Chaya Mallavaram Here we navigate mental health
Speaker:triumphs and tribulations from all across the spectrum, charting
Speaker:a course through the shared experiences that unite us and discovering
Speaker:how to embody the unique strengths within neurodivergent and
Speaker:neurotypical alike. Igniting your spark and launching it into
Speaker:a better tomorrow.
Speaker:Hello there. I'm Mike. I'm Chaya. And today we
Speaker:have a very special guest, Craig Maier And Craig
Speaker:is a coach at Spark launch. And he believes in
Speaker:the philosophy of spark launch, that we all have unique
Speaker:strengths and gifts within us. And once we tap into
Speaker:those gifts and strengths and start living in those gifts and
Speaker:strengths and also learn skills that we don't
Speaker:have to support those gifts and skills, we will be not
Speaker:just living, we will be thriving. And also, Craig
Speaker:has a very interesting background. He is a former
Speaker:university professor and also a fellow neurodivergent
Speaker:individual himself. And he also is parent of
Speaker:a neurodivergent child. Welcome, Craig.
Speaker:It's great to be here. Thank you. So, Craig, tell us about
Speaker:your background. We can dive into whatever part you
Speaker:want to share. I'm very curious about your childhood as
Speaker:a neurodivergent child, not knowing what the terminology
Speaker:or the characteristics. How was your experience?
Speaker:Yeah, thank you. That's a big question.
Speaker:I think maybe what we could do is tell you about a little
Speaker:bit where I'm from. I am from a small town
Speaker:up in the middle of nowhere, up above, north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Speaker:So I'm from western Pennsylvania, United States.
Speaker:And, yeah, I grew up there. I moved to
Speaker:Pittsburgh, and now I'm living in Germany.
Speaker:And I think we might be talking a little about that later on.
Speaker:But it's really interesting thinking about what it means
Speaker:to be neurodivergent because that's not something that people
Speaker:talked about when I was young. Right.
Speaker:And that's something that only people are really.
Speaker:They're only really talking about now.
Speaker:And I grew up in the seventies and eighties, and
Speaker:I always knew that something was a little
Speaker:bit different about me. I didn't know what that was.
Speaker:That feeling of just being, you know, an alien.
Speaker:You know, I think that's feeling like an aliena, basically, where
Speaker:I was. And maybe I could also talk a little
Speaker:about my specific type of neurodivergence.
Speaker:So I, although I'm doing a lot of work in the
Speaker:ADHD area right now, I'm more on
Speaker:the side of being gifted with autistic traits.
Speaker:So what that meant for me growing up.
Speaker:Well, again, I was just a little bit
Speaker:different than everyone else, I think.
Speaker:And I grew up in a family where there was a lot of
Speaker:difference. So I think that my father definitely had those
Speaker:traits. My grandmother on my mother's side definitely has those
Speaker:traits. My sister and her kids have those traits.
Speaker:And so it's something that I guess was
Speaker:normal at home but not so much in
Speaker:my community. I think that growing up and
Speaker:being where I was, it was. First of all, I
Speaker:was. I did very, very well in school.
Speaker:I was very. Because there was. There's things about the school
Speaker:that really interested me. I was very interested in math.
Speaker:I was very interested in history. You know, I had very deep dividing
Speaker:passions, but I was really. I was very
Speaker:different. I talk about, you know, asynchronous development.
Speaker:I was a lot farther ahead than my peers.
Speaker:And that really. That really took a toll
Speaker:on me in terms of bullying, not only from the
Speaker:kids in my class, but also even from adults.
Speaker:It was a very challenging space because of the area
Speaker:that I was in. People really didn't know exactly
Speaker:what to do with me, and I didn't know what to do with
Speaker:myself, and I internalized quite a bit of that.
Speaker:So you said, aliena, so how did you feel?
Speaker:You were different from the rest of the crowd?
Speaker:Wow, that's. I think that it's really hard to
Speaker:articulate that because this was something that I just
Speaker:basically knew. I knew instinctively that I
Speaker:was maybe too much for a lot of the people
Speaker:around me in terms of my interests, my intensity level.
Speaker:You know, I knew that at the same time, I
Speaker:think that I was really. I was very used to
Speaker:very early on keeping my own company.
Speaker:So I was very good at playing by myself.
Speaker:Right. Creating my own sorts of narratives, very complex games
Speaker:that I would play with myself. And so because I knew
Speaker:maybe instinctively, that there wasn't a lot around me, you
Speaker:know, that the just being able to talk with my peers
Speaker:was also very challenging. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:You somehow felt you were not understood.
Speaker:Right. And one of the reasons that I think we learned
Speaker:to be really good at keeping our own company, internal
Speaker:company, I did that a lot as well. My
Speaker:entire middle school, I spent time by myself.
Speaker:I didn't have a single friend, and I played with younger children,
Speaker:and that was comfortable. Now, if I think back, maybe
Speaker:because they were not judgy, they were innocent, they're pure.
Speaker:Whereas the girls. It was an all girls school, they were
Speaker:in groups, and it was a new school, so I totally get what
Speaker:you said. And did it bother you being alone?
Speaker:You know, I think on one level I think it
Speaker:did. I think that I did feel quite lonely.
Speaker:But I also feel that sometimes the being with
Speaker:other people and this might get into some of the autistic traits.
Speaker:Right. Being with other people was also very stressful.
Speaker:It wasn't that I was frightened of being with other people.
Speaker:It was just. There was just so much to process and to
Speaker:be with other people that I was kind of comfortable being
Speaker:by myself. I mean, and I think perhaps because
Speaker:of the environment I was in that, you know, nobody
Speaker:really noticed that that seemed that was normal to everyone around
Speaker:me, that I would be, you know, even going into high
Speaker:school, you know, not having met many people who
Speaker:I would find friends, you know, I would consider friends.
Speaker:I mean, I had people I hung out with people I might have,
Speaker:you know, because I was very involved in music and so forth.
Speaker:So I had that sort of social relationships.
Speaker:But in terms of really connecting with other people
Speaker:and feeling safe with other people, I really didn't have that,
Speaker:you know, and, yeah, but for me, that felt normal and I
Speaker:felt okay. But it also. I think that opens
Speaker:up a lot of challenges later on because if you're used to
Speaker:taking your own counsel, if you're used to tv, your own company,
Speaker:you know, you deprive yourself of not only just social
Speaker:connection, but also in terms of information about what
Speaker:you can do as a human being, as a grown up human
Speaker:being, the information and those types of social
Speaker:connections that could help launch you into successful
Speaker:adulthood. I really didn't have that.
Speaker:Those were resources that I didn't have that I probably should
Speaker:have. Looking back, I really needed to have been
Speaker:in a position to develop those. And I wasn't able to do that
Speaker:until much later. To the external world, you looked
Speaker:like a lonely child. But internally, there was a whole
Speaker:different world. The universe. Yes, I think that that's
Speaker:true. And actually, I might not have looked like a lonely
Speaker:child to the people around me because I did very
Speaker:well in school. I was. I did very well in band.
Speaker:I had a lot of, you know, social connections.
Speaker:I think that. But at the same time, I think that even
Speaker:in my. My later years in high school, I do think
Speaker:that there maybe that sense of loneliness really began to come
Speaker:home to me. Right. I remember feeling, you know, maybe
Speaker:15, 1617 years old, very kind of, you know,
Speaker:I wasn't depressed, but I was definitely blue.
Speaker:Right. There was something that I knew wasn't
Speaker:quite right and a loneliness that I.
Speaker:That was there. And so I, you know, and.
Speaker:But I think that because of just, you know,
Speaker:I think because of the fact that I was doing well in school,
Speaker:that I seemed to have a lot of connections with other people
Speaker:that flew under the radar, and no one really asked me
Speaker:about it. And which is, I, again, I think one of
Speaker:the things that maybe that draws me to coaching or
Speaker:one of the reasons why I'm really interested in coaching is that
Speaker:I really feel that if someone had taken the
Speaker:time to talk with me at 1516 and really
Speaker:talk with me, I think that that would have really changed
Speaker:my life. Yeah. You needed someone to listen to you, to
Speaker:the real you. Yeah. Because in terms of
Speaker:trying to figure out. Because, again, one of the things that
Speaker:was a challenge going through high school was that, I
Speaker:mean, my interests, looking back at my interests
Speaker:now, I think these interests were completely normal, but given
Speaker:where I was in the community that I grew up with,
Speaker:again, it was like coming from another planet.
Speaker:So I was really passionate about history, for instance.
Speaker:But in my community, to say that I was interested
Speaker:in history, to say that I was interested in music, that was,
Speaker:oh, my gosh, that's. Oh, you're throwing your life
Speaker:away, child. Right. You've got to grow up and major in accounting
Speaker:and do the responsible thing. Right.
Speaker:As opposed to having someone say, well, you know, that's really
Speaker:interesting. Let's work with that. Right.
Speaker:What might you be able to do with that?
Speaker:Just honoring your interest, because I think for the
Speaker:adults, and this happens a lot in our community as
Speaker:well, and the fear sets in of the adult,
Speaker:of some image of their child that in
Speaker:the future, they would be lonely, they would be poor, they
Speaker:would be in a place where they can find jobs and
Speaker:things like that, which is a normal human behavior.
Speaker:I, as a parent, also did that. And so.
Speaker:And then as a result of that, somehow your interests are
Speaker:not honored. The child's interest. Exactly.
Speaker:And just getting back to what you were saying at the very beginning,
Speaker:you know, there's so much power within those interests.
Speaker:Right. How do we begin to work with them instead of.
Speaker:Instead of saying no to that. Right.
Speaker:And majoring in history and music. Oh, my gosh,
Speaker:there's so many things you can do with that.
Speaker:I mean, knowing that now. Right. There's so many things that
Speaker:you can do with that if you have the resources, if you
Speaker:have a plan. Right. That is so important.
Speaker:And actually, the funny thing is that, well, actually, two things.
Speaker:When I was a freshman in high school, as part of the
Speaker:particular gifted program I was in, we had
Speaker:to write an extra paper, and I was really frustrated
Speaker:with that because I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm already overworked
Speaker:to begin with. Why are you asking me to write an extra paper?
Speaker:So I decided to write the longest
Speaker:paper in the history of the universe.
Speaker:So what I did is my passion at that point
Speaker:was ancient history. So I decided to write a
Speaker:complete history of the ancient world from the neolithic age
Speaker:to the fall of the roman empire, and ended up being 62 pages,
Speaker:single spaced. And I gave it to them, and I
Speaker:said, here, take that. And they never assigned that.
Speaker:They never made that assignment to anyone else ever again.
Speaker:So I think I proved my point. Yeah. So, I
Speaker:ended that for other people. But I. But what's fascinating is,
Speaker:because my interest was ancient history, and I started out as
Speaker:a physics major in college because that's what I think was
Speaker:expected of me. And I ended up transferring because I
Speaker:was thinking about going into music school, but that didn't work
Speaker:out. So I ended up going into. I ended up
Speaker:getting a degree in classics. Right.
Speaker:That was my education. So I'm ending up doing it.
Speaker:But the problem is that because of the way that I, you
Speaker:know, I end up doing that and going through that process, I managed
Speaker:to do what I wanted to do, but I also didn't have the mentoring
Speaker:and the context to, again, the resources to do
Speaker:that well. And it's so. So, again, majoring in classics.
Speaker:I mean, it's a really cool thing to study, but you have to
Speaker:be able to have a plan for that. What.
Speaker:You know, okay, where does this go? How can you
Speaker:begin to connect that with other things, other types of experiences
Speaker:and so forth? But. And again, too, I think that
Speaker:because of, again, many of my autistic traits, I
Speaker:was really secluded in myself. I wasn't reaching out
Speaker:for other people. To other people. You know, I was really
Speaker:hyper focused on the coursework, and then when I.
Speaker:By the time I graduated, that was challenging for me.
Speaker:So, what were the autistic traits that you felt?
Speaker:The ones that really come up for me is, I
Speaker:think, the capacity of hyper focus. I think that there is
Speaker:the really deep commitment to special interests.
Speaker:I don't like to call them special interests.
Speaker:That's what they talk about in the literature.
Speaker:I like to call it just interests, because if I say it's
Speaker:a special interest, it's like. It seems very condescending.
Speaker:These are my interests, and they're incredibly deep, and I need
Speaker:to be with them and commune with them.
Speaker:A need for structure, a feeling of a real need
Speaker:to, again, interpersonal interactions, I mean, they're
Speaker:nothing. They were challenging enough for me and confusing
Speaker:enough. That also was a real, that
Speaker:was a real difficulty for me. Right.
Speaker:Again, making friends, connecting with other people, being with
Speaker:other people. And that in terms of building a social network,
Speaker:building a job network, all that was quite challenging.
Speaker:So I think there might be some others.
Speaker:In terms of touch sensitivity, other types of those things come
Speaker:up. But those are the four really big ones that come
Speaker:up for me. The structure, the real seclusion, the difficulties
Speaker:with connecting, the interests, those things were
Speaker:the ones that really came up for me.
Speaker:Again, that's really helpful if you want
Speaker:to become an academic, right. Which is really what I, that's
Speaker:what I wanted to settle on because I can drill down.
Speaker:I mean, you know, when you write an academic paper, the first
Speaker:job is that you have to do is, you know, read everything
Speaker:that's been written on that particular topic.
Speaker:And then I would say, okay, that's fine.
Speaker:Where do I start? Right, top left corner.
Speaker:We go right. 1000 pages later, I'm done.
Speaker:That's easy for me. Right. But moving outside of that,
Speaker:right. It's, it's, you know, again, it can be quite
Speaker:challenging and quite scary. Intimidating.
Speaker:Yeah, I was. I'm just curious. I know for me, a
Speaker:lot of, like, the social issues that I've dealt with, very similar.
Speaker:And for me, with those, I also hate the term
Speaker:special interest. Uh, with those interests, I am able to focus
Speaker:and kind of structure things around those specific topics.
Speaker:You know, what I'm into, what I like to do, but I'm unable
Speaker:to structure properly creating a social structure or
Speaker:interacting with friends and things like that.
Speaker:And it's because I'm attempting to put the same level
Speaker:of rulemaking and construction around social interaction,
Speaker:and it becomes very overwhelming to me.
Speaker:And where, arguably, many neurotypicals don't feel the need
Speaker:to construct around social interaction, where I think,
Speaker:I don't know if it the same for you, but running into that problem
Speaker:where it just, it becomes this job, essentially.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, I agree. There's that. There's that.
Speaker:It feels it is a job, right. And it is.
Speaker:It can be really, really challenging to figure that out.
Speaker:Actually, the one thing that's interesting is I end up getting
Speaker:my doctoral work, actually end up being in
Speaker:interpersonal communication, interpersonal organizational communication,
Speaker:you know, in large part because I was advised that
Speaker:that was hard for me. And so I was studying something that
Speaker:was, you know, so by studying it by making
Speaker:it into a special interest. Making it into an interest.
Speaker:Sorry. I was able to learn quite
Speaker:a bit, and so now I can navigate those encounters a lot
Speaker:better. Right. Maybe because, you know, I've kind of
Speaker:read myself into it, but I agree. I find unstructured, unstructured
Speaker:networking to be. Oh, my gosh, that is, you
Speaker:know, I really have to. I mean, I can do
Speaker:it. And maybe if it is something where a networking event
Speaker:could actually work, I know everyone there is to network, and
Speaker:so I can come up with the topics and I can kind of navigate that
Speaker:well. But, yeah, I mean, if it veers
Speaker:off that it can be challenging. I mean, I,
Speaker:and the same thing, too, is I do find it.
Speaker:I do find an ease when I talk with other
Speaker:people who are under a diversion. Right.
Speaker:There's, there's, there's an, there's an ease and a, and a
Speaker:rapport that is almost immediate to me, you know, because
Speaker:I think we somehow, we resonate fairly easily on similar frequencies,
Speaker:you know? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So I have
Speaker:a question. Both of you said job. It sounds like a job.
Speaker:Social networking. So my question is, is there a
Speaker:desire inside of you to be social that you
Speaker:have to do it, that you want to do it, and then somewhere
Speaker:it feels like a job, or is it, is there, are you
Speaker:being forced? Is there, like, a force?
Speaker:For me, it's a kind of a combination of, like, a yearning
Speaker:and, and the expectation. So occasionally, and occasionally they
Speaker:cross, but sometimes there's just an expectation that I have
Speaker:to go do this thing and I want to show that I
Speaker:can do this thing, but I, you know, it's like I'm
Speaker:being pushed to the other side of the room by an invisible force,
Speaker:and I'm trying to, like, stay at the corner, and other times
Speaker:it's me sitting in the corner yearning to go over there, but
Speaker:I just, I don't even know how to approach it.
Speaker:You know? It's like trying to walk into a lion's den and hoping
Speaker:you fit you. You know, nobody notices you or something.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot there.
Speaker:Again, that yearning is there, but there's also just
Speaker:that uncertainty because I don't know, sometimes I don't
Speaker:know how it's going to turn out. Right.
Speaker:And because there are enough moments where
Speaker:things can go south quickly enough in very unexpected ways
Speaker:that I go, oh, my. It's better for me
Speaker:not to. It's better for me not to engage.
Speaker:Right. So that I feel that. Right. You know, one of
Speaker:the things that I find helpful is what I
Speaker:have found helpful in the past is being in spaces where
Speaker:I could find or hope to find people who I believe more like
Speaker:me. So academia, for instance, one of the
Speaker:reasons why I think I was really interested in academia
Speaker:was that I felt that there would be
Speaker:greater chance of people who were like me there.
Speaker:I think, actually Tony Atwood said that in his book on
Speaker:Asperger, he said that academia is academia and
Speaker:stem fields.
Speaker:People congregate. People with that type of neurodivergence
Speaker:often congregate in those spaces because it gets rewarded
Speaker:there. Right. And maybe if there was some, you
Speaker:know, the hope was perhaps that I would be
Speaker:able to find and connect with other people.
Speaker:But the challenge, of course, is that, you know, you might
Speaker:end up in a, that those beliefs, those expectations
Speaker:often or may not always come true. Right.
Speaker:The academia may not be the place where you
Speaker:can feel safe because there are lots of things about academia
Speaker:that are not safe. And if you, again, if you get overwhelmed
Speaker:easily, if you're highly sensitive, right.
Speaker:It could be, it can be just as, just as challenging
Speaker:as anywhere else. Yeah. Thank you for explaining.
Speaker:And it's so unique and different for everyone.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. Well it's the fear of like the
Speaker:post interaction rumination, right. If it doesn't click
Speaker:in the exact scripted way, it is kind of in
Speaker:your mind or your expectation that youre going to ruminate afterwards
Speaker:on it and its going to bother you, and then its the anxiety and
Speaker:the fear of that may be happening that then keeps
Speaker:you from even trying. I know. Thats what I run
Speaker:into time and time again. I want to go over there,
Speaker:I want to interact, I want to network.
Speaker:If something goes a millimeter to the left,
Speaker:then this is what I'm going to be thinking about for the
Speaker:next two weeks and it's going to bother me and.
Speaker:Yeah, and it's about learning how, for me, it's
Speaker:about learning how to put that aside.
Speaker:Yes. Right. And say, okay, yeah.
Speaker:And I think it's one of the problems too, is there's
Speaker:the challenge of overthinking. Right.
Speaker:You really overthink this stuff. And, yeah.
Speaker:Because in reality, the person you're talking to might not
Speaker:have noticed. They might not have noticed that at all.
Speaker:I mean, actually, the interesting thing was it's very similar
Speaker:to one of the things we would talk about in public
Speaker:speaking where people feel the need to talk really,
Speaker:really fast. If people are anxious giving a presentation, one
Speaker:of the things that they do is to talk really fast and be really
Speaker:frightened of making pauses because even the dead
Speaker:air that comes. But when you look at that from the
Speaker:audience side of it, the audience doesn't notice that
Speaker:you might have taken that little extra pause because it feels
Speaker:longer to you because you're in it. And actually, the other
Speaker:thing that I always tell folks who are anxious about
Speaker:public speaking is to remind themselves that your audience wants
Speaker:you to do well. Right. And that's something that I think
Speaker:about, too, in my interpersonal communication as well.
Speaker:It's the person I'm talking to actually wants to have
Speaker:a good conversation, too. They want me to do well.
Speaker:They're not nitpicking me to death. I think we have this
Speaker:need to be perfect that plays to it as
Speaker:well. And yeah, it's the overthinking, the perfectionism.
Speaker:But if you look at all of that somewhere that was fed to
Speaker:us that you have to speak a certain way,
Speaker:you have to be a certain way or be ourselves, in our minds,
Speaker:thought that that is perfect. Maybe it looked good on
Speaker:somebody. And so we think that we want to
Speaker:be that, that we admire. And in that process,
Speaker:we don't honor ourselves, and that plays out.
Speaker:So for me, all my life, my journey is to go
Speaker:in words, believe in myself, speak from my heart.
Speaker:But it's a constant talking. It's a constant speech to
Speaker:myself. Believe in yourself, love yourself, you're perfect
Speaker:the way you are. Yeah. And because that perfectionism is
Speaker:really that. It's trying to, to keep yourself from making
Speaker:a mistake. It's trying to protect you in the
Speaker:worst way possible. It's just eating you up.
Speaker:And so that need to really break through
Speaker:that, as you're saying, it's like it comes from very
Speaker:early experiences of knowing implicitly that you're
Speaker:not fitting in. You're not like everyone else.
Speaker:And so it must be your fault. Right?
Speaker:That's. That's the thing, yeah. You know, I mean, actually, one
Speaker:of the things I was reading is, you know, like when we
Speaker:are very young, our brain waves, like, up to, like,
Speaker:between ages like two and six, I think our brain waves
Speaker:are like, are the same waves as if we were hypnotized.
Speaker:Right? So what's happening is that when we're, when we're
Speaker:like three, four, five years old, we're walking around the
Speaker:world just accepting the world as it comes to
Speaker:us, because that's the only world we got, right.
Speaker:And we're making fundamental decisions and fundamental assumptions
Speaker:about ourselves and our capabilities before we have the
Speaker:ability to think critically about the world around us.
Speaker:We just suck it all in. So if you are growing up and
Speaker:as a four year old, you know, you're a little off, you know,
Speaker:the world is not, is not like you are not like everyone
Speaker:else and because, but you know that, you know,
Speaker:it's either I'm wrong or the world is wrong, and it's too scary
Speaker:to believe that the world is wrong. So guess what?
Speaker:It's me, right? I've got, I've got to shape up.
Speaker:I've got to fit in. I'm the problem.
Speaker:Right. You know, and that's where the perfectionism, at
Speaker:least that's where it can come from, right.
Speaker:Because it's me. It's up to me. I've got to figure out
Speaker:how I'm going to fit in. And that's just exhausting.
Speaker:It is exhausting. And we think that's where our skill learning
Speaker:is, to be perfect like somebody else.
Speaker:Public speaking was one of the biggest challenges,
Speaker:but then, now I hear that is the biggest fear in the
Speaker:world today. Yeah. Yeah. And, but it comes
Speaker:from, for me, if I look back, it was asking me to
Speaker:speak when I didn't want to speak, when I was not
Speaker:interested in the topic. I had to use
Speaker:my memory to speak. The rote memorization.
Speaker:I was traumatized by rote memorization back.
Speaker:Yeah. I could never remember and say things, and
Speaker:so all of that added to my fear. And I knew
Speaker:I could not speak in front of a mic, which today I'm
Speaker:speaking. Yeah. So it was crazy. And
Speaker:so it's all the rules. It's the rules of, you should be
Speaker:like that. You should speak like this.
Speaker:You should be succinct. You should not go off tangent.
Speaker:And the rules like that because we are like sponges,
Speaker:right? We're sensitive. The neurodivergent population are super
Speaker:sensitive. So I think anybody, what anybody says will go
Speaker:deep inside and will stick. And maybe someone told
Speaker:me that when I was a child. I'm sure I was told
Speaker:a lot of things as a child. And as you said, we were all
Speaker:sponges taking and taking in, no filters.
Speaker:And then we believe that's us. All those negative comments,
Speaker:those rules. It's funny as you're talking.
Speaker:Well, one of the things that I did, one of the,
Speaker:I think the greatest decisions that I made as a teacher,
Speaker:as a professor was to flip my classroom.
Speaker:And what that means is I deliberately had my
Speaker:students speak first, right? So what I
Speaker:always did was I created contexts where if
Speaker:I had to present anything, like, just, I would, oh, my
Speaker:gosh, no, because I know, again, I go
Speaker:off on tangents. I say whatever comes into my head,
Speaker:which may or may not be. I mean, it's all fine,
Speaker:but it's all, again, it can be difficult for people to
Speaker:connect and so forth. But if I flip it around
Speaker:and have people talk to me and then I respond
Speaker:to what they were saying, that made everything go so much better.
Speaker:And so I was talking as little. So
Speaker:my goal was to talk as little as possible.
Speaker:And then every single semester in my teaching evaluations, somebody
Speaker:would always say, I wish you would talk less.
Speaker:So I'm like, okay. Well, yeah, but, yeah, it's like, for
Speaker:me, I. I have the same thing. I don't really
Speaker:have the public speaking anxiety, but I do have this
Speaker:real concern that I'm going to go off topic.
Speaker:And so as a professor, I consciously avoided giving presentations
Speaker:in any sort of form. No slide decks, nothing like that.
Speaker:I really find that. I find that really uncomfortable.
Speaker:Right. So giving a TED talk, that's not what I do, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. Going off topic. I know.
Speaker:I don't know where we wanted to talk about a lot of
Speaker:things. We wanted to talk about the german educational system.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, yeah. So I explained what.
Speaker:Yeah, let's, let's. What do we want to.
Speaker:Well, first of all, what do you want to know?
Speaker:That's. There we go. I'm flipping it around on YouTube.
Speaker:I mean, because there are lots of different things that we can
Speaker:talk about there. Just curious, especially from neurodivergent
Speaker:mind, what are, the, first of all, what's
Speaker:the big difference from the us system to the german system?
Speaker:And why is it more challenging out there for
Speaker:a neurodivergent child compared to here?
Speaker:What are the challenges? Yeah, so I can talk
Speaker:because I can talk about my son, because my
Speaker:son is neurodivergent somewhere, probably.
Speaker:We definitely see him as having adhd.
Speaker:Perhaps also, we just don't know where he lands right
Speaker:now, but it's clear that he's neurodivergent.
Speaker:We knew that before we moved to Germany, but then the shifting
Speaker:to, or we suspected it before we moved to Germany.
Speaker:But the shift to this context where the support system
Speaker:of being in the states wasn't there for him anymore, where everyone
Speaker:was speaking another language, it was much more stressful
Speaker:for him. And so the traits really asserted themselves.
Speaker:And so things that I found helpful about the
Speaker:german system, one thing that I thought was really helpful
Speaker:about the german system, Washington, is that in school here,
Speaker:first of all, it starts at later ages.
Speaker:So where we in his school, he
Speaker:did kindergarten in the United States, and we re enrolled
Speaker:him in the equivalent of american kindergarten, which is first
Speaker:grade. So German first grade is the same thing
Speaker:as an american kindergarten, and german kindergarten is the same
Speaker:as american preschool. So they have different terms for the same
Speaker:thing. But he. Similar sort of. He
Speaker:was in the first year of school. His peers, six and a
Speaker:half and seven in the United States.
Speaker:You're starting at maybe five, five and a half, six.
Speaker:Right. So they're already a year older.
Speaker:They come in not knowing how to read.
Speaker:It's actually advised not to teach your child to read.
Speaker:And the goal of German first grade is to know
Speaker:your Alphabet. Read simple words, count to 20, and add
Speaker:and subtract, which were the things that my son was
Speaker:expected to do before he started kindergarten in the
Speaker:United States. Right. So there's. You're starting later,
Speaker:you're starting in a lot less competitive, a
Speaker:lot less pressure environment. And the school day is
Speaker:maybe 3 hours long, three to 4 hours long.
Speaker:So it is substantially shorter. And what we noticed
Speaker:right off the bat was the amount of stress that
Speaker:he was experiencing early on was a lot
Speaker:less. When he would go to american schools full day
Speaker:kindergarten. It was, you know, it was six and
Speaker:a half hours a day. And he would, you know, it's like the coke
Speaker:bottle, right? You shake the coke bottle and then you take it.
Speaker:You know, you take off the cap and it goes all over the place.
Speaker:That was. That was him every day after school.
Speaker:Now it's different when he, you know,
Speaker:he comes home a lot more regulated. He still is
Speaker:bouncing, you know, bouncing around and doing all these things.
Speaker:A lot of energy that is pent up. That's not nearly
Speaker:as much. There's some. Those are the
Speaker:things that I really like about the german system.
Speaker:What's challenging here is the. And again, I
Speaker:want to just preface everything that I say that I am not an expert
Speaker:on the german education system. Right.
Speaker:I don't have a PhD in it. I haven't written.
Speaker:I haven't. I've not published any articles.
Speaker:So it's, you know, this is just n of one.
Speaker:Right. This is. This is my own experience.
Speaker:And talking with the people, talking with the parents, seeing
Speaker:what's going on here. But the level of awareness
Speaker:of neurodiversity in general is really extremely
Speaker:low. The level of awareness of ADHD is
Speaker:extremely low when we talked about, because
Speaker:as the school year has progressed, my son.
Speaker:Those ADHD traits have come out. We've talked with.
Speaker:This was several months ago, a month or two ago, we talked with
Speaker:this teacher and she said, we said that
Speaker:we think we might have ADHD. We're getting evaluated and so forth.
Speaker:And she said the next day, she said, oh, that's really
Speaker:interesting. I went home and I watched a video on YouTube about
Speaker:it. And that was really what she knows about neurodiversity.
Speaker:Literally, she's my age. She's been teaching
Speaker:for 30 years. And so the exposure to ADHD
Speaker:is really low here. The awareness of it, I think
Speaker:there are lots of. And it's also quite difficult to
Speaker:get diagnosed here. And the way they go
Speaker:about it is, it seems to be quite different.
Speaker:The number of clinicians available to diagnose you is
Speaker:really low. We were in the city of about 250,000, 250,000 people.
Speaker:I think there might be three clinicians who do.
Speaker:Who do evaluations for neurodiversity, and the question is
Speaker:the level of confidence and awareness of those people.
Speaker:The other thing that's important is that the clinical framework
Speaker:for diagnosing ADHD here is very different than
Speaker:it is in the United States. The United States uses the
Speaker:DSM five. Here they use what's called the ICD
Speaker:ten. So the ADHD has a different name.
Speaker:I think it's called hyperkinetic disorder here.
Speaker:And the criteria are slightly different in a way
Speaker:that centers, I really feel it centers the
Speaker:diagnostic process not on the experience of the individual, but
Speaker:on the expertise of the clinician. So when you.
Speaker:I was actually looking at it earlier today, and one of the
Speaker:things they say is, you know, in the DSM five, they say
Speaker:symptoms of ADHD have to occur in two or more
Speaker:settings. Right? Whereas the. The. Here, the criterion
Speaker:is the full syndrome has to manifest
Speaker:in more than two settings and be witnessed by
Speaker:the clinician. So if a tree falls into a forest,
Speaker:in the forest, and there is no clinician there to see it, it
Speaker:doesn't fall. Right. And so that can lead into a
Speaker:lot of really challenging situations.
Speaker:I was in an ADHD support group, and there was a woman
Speaker:there, and she said that she wanted to have her
Speaker:son evaluated for ADHD and autism. And she managed
Speaker:to get someone, a clinician, to see her son, and he
Speaker:did the evaluation, and the response was, well, yes,
Speaker:it's definitely that he has ADHD, that he does not have
Speaker:autism. And the woman said, well, you know, have you
Speaker:considered this, this and this? And so she was giving all
Speaker:the evidence that she had collected, and he stopped there and
Speaker:he said, no, he does not have an autism.
Speaker:End of story, case closed, right? Again, really a different
Speaker:experience. I know of another person who was older and
Speaker:he, I think, had to go to three clinicians because the first
Speaker:two told him that, well, because you
Speaker:graduated from high school and college, it's impossible that
Speaker:you have ADHD. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, you
Speaker:know, that's the. Yeah, yeah. You talked about
Speaker:awareness that that's not fully present here also
Speaker:in the US. And also what people think of ADHD or
Speaker:autism is very different than the actual reality of it
Speaker:and not, and so even the fact that people look
Speaker:at it as a disorder, as disability. It is a
Speaker:disability when you're trying to be someone, you're not trying
Speaker:to fit into a system which is not honoring the talents
Speaker:and gifts that neurodivergent people have possess.
Speaker:And so it is a disability in that sense, but there's
Speaker:nothing wrong with the person because.
Speaker:Yeah, so that awareness is not there here at
Speaker:that high level, that, wait a second, this child has
Speaker:something to offer to this world. Let's try to figure out
Speaker:what is it that they have and why are they even throwing those
Speaker:tantrums or why are they being fidgety or why are they
Speaker:running around the class? Why are they talking in class?
Speaker:What's going on? Well, let's try to figure things
Speaker:out instead of just calling it a disorder or disability.
Speaker:So that awareness is not here, they're here or
Speaker:anywhere. So that's why we're creating this show and
Speaker:talk about that. And I know we are pressed for
Speaker:time. I would want to get deeper into the german system
Speaker:someday, maybe another day, and how it's actually what
Speaker:harm that it could cause a child. Especially, I remember
Speaker:we talked about at a previous time about at some point putting
Speaker:the child away to a different system based on certain
Speaker:criteria, things like that. And the impact that could
Speaker:have on a child when they grow up. Yes, because again,
Speaker:that's the reason why those physicians did not
Speaker:believe that it was possible to have ADHD and graduate high school
Speaker:and college is because children who have, who are
Speaker:neurodivergent in a way that might inhibit them academically
Speaker:are simply not referred to college preparatory coursework.
Speaker:And that happens at like age nine or ten.
Speaker:That's unbelievable. Yeah, because that's such a young
Speaker:age. And that, again, does not define their intelligence.
Speaker:No, it's based on the current educational system and
Speaker:reproducing, doing repetitive works because they could still
Speaker:be great at math, but the delivery mechanism.
Speaker:Exactly. And the perfectionism. I mean, that's.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, it's difficult, right.
Speaker:It's not. This curriculum is very narrow.
Speaker:What my son is doing, it's very narrow, and it's not designed
Speaker:for people who are neurodivergent, particularly people who have,
Speaker:you know, who might have adhd, dysgraphia, dyscalculia.
Speaker:You know, those differences. Right. It can be
Speaker:really hard for you. I mean, it's just the whole thing of, like,
Speaker:you know, homework where you have to make an f 30 times,
Speaker:and if you don't get it right, the teacher asks you to redo it.
Speaker:Right. That. Know, that level. I mean, it just.
Speaker:Oh, my gosh. I just can't imagine what that would be like.
Speaker:Wow. That's going against the natural instinct of not
Speaker:being perfect. Yeah. That's how I grew up.
Speaker:I went to a convent school. And that's exactly repeating.
Speaker:Being neat, perfect. Those f's should be perfect.
Speaker:Right? Yeah. It's the pressure of getting it right the first
Speaker:time. Always the worst. Yeah. And that pays
Speaker:off as into our adulthood as well. It does.
Speaker:But again, I think the thing that's so important is to be recognizing
Speaker:that as parents, to be able to give kids
Speaker:the resources that they need. Right.
Speaker:And so it's. Yeah. How can we find a way?
Speaker:Because that's what we end up doing a lot, is thinking
Speaker:about how. What's the best system? How can we find
Speaker:a way to get our kid the resources that he needs
Speaker:to succeed? How can we acknowledge his gifts?
Speaker:You know, it's. Yeah. And it's okay if those f's are not
Speaker:perfect. Yeah,
Speaker:I do. Right. I find that infuriated.
Speaker:Yeah. Just out of curiosity, what are some very, like,
Speaker:at home things people can do to kind of support their
Speaker:child's learning and development? Whenever we're kind of dealing
Speaker:with an education system that is a runaway train and if
Speaker:your kid doesn't manage to catch it, you know, they're
Speaker:left behind? I. Well, first of all, I'm still trying
Speaker:to figure that out because my kid's only six, so it's, you know,
Speaker:we're at the very beginning of this and maybe try would have
Speaker:some ideas as well. But I really feel that.
Speaker:I think that maybe the first step, the one
Speaker:that I'm. The one thing that I'm trying to do is
Speaker:really trying to acknowledge and notice my
Speaker:kid in all of this. Right. And so what is really
Speaker:lighting him up? What really interests him?
Speaker:How can I. And also, how can I if
Speaker:that doesn't align with his academic performance right now,
Speaker:how can I just let go of that? Right.
Speaker:You know, as someone who is really good at school, and my wife
Speaker:was also really good at school. It's really challenging when
Speaker:you have a kid who is not wired in that way,
Speaker:but is a kid who loves being read
Speaker:to, you know, just the most, you know, like,
Speaker:really, really complex things, you know, if you were.
Speaker:So reading is a challenge for him because of the language
Speaker:and because of maybe some other, you know, attention
Speaker:and those types of things. That's a challenge there.
Speaker:But being read to, he can be read to for hours, you
Speaker:know, complex things, you know, and he can process
Speaker:things that are, you know, like, that are,
Speaker:you know, communicated to him orally.
Speaker:Right. So he has a really good memory of, you
Speaker:know, facts and, you know, historical facts and his really deep
Speaker:interests in, you know, in ancient history and those
Speaker:types of things, you know? And I think for us, it's
Speaker:about maybe the thing is noticing, you know, noticing
Speaker:his gifts, noticing his struggles, accepting those things and
Speaker:then really trying to figure out what interests him.
Speaker:Right. What are the things that really, really interest you,
Speaker:you know, and connecting with those things?
Speaker:That's what I'm trying to do. Yeah. And it's okay that he doesn't
Speaker:learn in the traditional way, but figure out ways he's
Speaker:actually learning. We are often punished for the methodologies
Speaker:and not the end result, because what really matters
Speaker:is how he shows up in the world. Right.
Speaker:And how he gets the information in his system.
Speaker:It's not about the way he does it, but, yeah,
Speaker:he's going to soak in if he's into it, if he's interested in
Speaker:it, and if it's presented. Presented in a way that he
Speaker:will consume it. Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:And he loves art. I mean, art. He just doesn't like
Speaker:art class. Right. Because art class, you're telling him what
Speaker:to do. If you gave him a sheet of paper and paints, he
Speaker:would, you know, he would create anything.
Speaker:You know, he would just. He would just go, right.
Speaker:Yeah, but he loves. He loves art. Yeah.
Speaker:That should. I personally didn't go to an
Speaker:art class because I always felt that the teacher would
Speaker:tell me what to do, and I never wanted to be told.
Speaker:What to do, which is. Yeah, that's like, that's my boy.
Speaker:Yes. Right there. So that is. And I
Speaker:think definitely creativity, you should be given guidance
Speaker:as to what material and just kind of a high level
Speaker:to create. You need a lot of freedom.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, and, yeah, he really. I mean, because
Speaker:I think the art. I think music is really important for him.
Speaker:Skateboarding. Yeah. Those types of things really important
Speaker:to him. You know, these are really, you know, and so
Speaker:it's for us, it's connecting to those interests, connecting him
Speaker:to those interests and then using that energy to begin
Speaker:to help him with the things that he might be struggling
Speaker:with. Yeah. And you, can you start by really celebrating how
Speaker:he intakes instead of like, I've always intaken
Speaker:information or learned in a very specific way, were usually centered
Speaker:on very specific things and constantly having to know.
Speaker:Youre not supposed to learn that way.
Speaker:Youre supposed to learn this way. Youre supposed to do it over
Speaker:here and do it this way. And it would shame me into like,
Speaker:well, im not supposed to do it the way that I
Speaker:want to. Im arriving at the same destination was doing
Speaker:it a different way. But when you, and then we over praise
Speaker:the, oh, you're doing it the same way everybody else is.
Speaker:Yay, you're doing good. It's like, but why aren't you praising
Speaker:the way I want to do it? If it's the same things happening,
Speaker:if you really celebrate that, celebrate the neurodivergence in
Speaker:that way, then it just excites the child to want
Speaker:to continue to go down that path and experience these things
Speaker:in that way because they know this is something I can do.
Speaker:Mm hmm. Exactly. Yeah. So when it comes to
Speaker:your coaching, I was just wanting to know how do you
Speaker:approach goal setting within the. Session or within
Speaker:just life? A little bit of both, I guess.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, I think because so what I
Speaker:do is I approach, well, first of all, if
Speaker:somebody comes in with a goal, I think that's really great.
Speaker:Right. It's like, but sometimes, depending on how
Speaker:you're wired, it might be difficult to come up with a specific
Speaker:goal. Right. So I find that the beginning
Speaker:of the end of the conversation is much more important than the
Speaker:beginning of the conversation. So we just kind of
Speaker:like, go and we start, you know, check in and we
Speaker:just, we follow about
Speaker:what's been going on. And then often a goal emerges or
Speaker:maybe a goal let, I don't know, like a little goal, and
Speaker:then we kind of begin to work with that and inquire about that.
Speaker:But then what I find is at the end of
Speaker:the session where I'm asking, okay, well, what is
Speaker:this? How has this conversation been helping you?
Speaker:That's where they can begin to pull things together and then
Speaker:we can begin to,
Speaker:I find that to be the most important part of the session
Speaker:for me personally. As for the sort of life goal
Speaker:thing, what I'm finding really important, particularly for folks
Speaker:who are neurodivergent is really focusing in on interest
Speaker:what is really interesting you, what is fascinating
Speaker:you right now. And, you know, and that to
Speaker:me, that's the key. If we can find. It's the same thing
Speaker:with my kid. Right. If we can find what interests you, what
Speaker:you're really passionate about, then we can start to direct effort
Speaker:toward that. Because once you have that, it's really, it
Speaker:makes things so much easier. For instance, even, you know, something
Speaker:like, if you have challenges focusing in meetings, for instance,
Speaker:you know, one of the things that we talk about is, well,
Speaker:what might interest you in this meeting?
Speaker:And the answer is, well, nothing will interest me in this meeting.
Speaker:Well, then that's why this meeting is important
Speaker:but not interesting. So, yes, we just accept it.
Speaker:Let's accept it. Right, exactly. Let's just accept that.
Speaker:But there might be something about, okay, well, let's step
Speaker:back and say, okay, well, what might interest you about this
Speaker:meeting? And sometimes that actually could be enough.
Speaker:Right. What might interest me in this meeting that might
Speaker:keep you focused and. Yeah, it's really.
Speaker:I find that really helpful. Right. I mean, you know, cause
Speaker:for me, communing with my interest is.
Speaker:And that could be a lot. I don't have one specific interest.
Speaker:I have lots. But if I'm with the presence of
Speaker:my interest, I find that deeply nourishing.
Speaker:And sometimes it could be, the answer could be just communication.
Speaker:Right. Communicating to someone that you really may or may
Speaker:not want to be in that meeting. So it could result, the
Speaker:results of that could not be forcing yourself to
Speaker:be in a place you don't want to be because it has no interest.
Speaker:Maybe there are other solutions. Maybe there are other ways
Speaker:of resolving this issue. Yeah. Because if it's important, if
Speaker:it's an important meeting with not interesting and I don't really
Speaker:have to be there, could you just, you know, like, record
Speaker:it on Zoom and send me the link and then I
Speaker:can just watch it and fast forward, you know?
Speaker:You know, it's like, you know, it's like that, right?
Speaker:Yeah, I know. Now you can send AI bots to meetings and
Speaker:they. Yeah, they take down the notes for you.
Speaker:You don't have to be there. I don't have to be there.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, so there are lots of things that could be
Speaker:helpful for me, you know, and it's knowing what is, you know,
Speaker:which, of course, is, I mean, wow, zoom fatigue.
Speaker:Yeah. Just send me the transcript. Yeah.
Speaker:That would be genius. Yeah, it definitely sounds like people
Speaker:would find, like, a lot of value in your coaching specifically,
Speaker:and the way you go about things, because it is always about getting
Speaker:down to the roots of any quote unquote goal.
Speaker:And sometimes the goal is just finding your goal.
Speaker:I've been in sessions where it's, hey, before the next one,
Speaker:can you come back and come back with a goal?
Speaker:Like, you're not helping me find it, so I'm not coming back.
Speaker:I hate that. It's putting all the work on the person.
Speaker:And when you're dealing with a neurodivergent individual, they
Speaker:are definitely probably going to have no idea.
Speaker:They know they want one. They know they want a goal.
Speaker:They just don't know how to get there.
Speaker:They don't know what the first step is.
Speaker:They, they don't. They just haven't figured it out yet.
Speaker:You're supposed to be there to take the journey with them.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sorry. Wow, that sounds.
Speaker:That sounds very shaming, too. Yeah, no, it is a
Speaker:people I do not recommend. If you ever hear that in a
Speaker:therapy session or coaching session, oof, that's not a good
Speaker:way to go. That's not somebody who's there with you.
Speaker:That's someone who's just like, hey, can you do homework for
Speaker:me at that point? You know, and. Yeah.
Speaker:And, you know, at spark launch, that's definitely something I
Speaker:don't think anyone is ever going to run into because it is specifically
Speaker:designed to avoid problematic histories that the professional
Speaker:sphere kind of has littered about. And if you're interested
Speaker:in booking Craig for a coaching session, you can
Speaker:go to sparklaunch.org and find out any information.
Speaker:Where can people find you at on maybe like social
Speaker:media or anything like that? I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker:So you. Which is how Chia and I met.
Speaker:We. I'm on LinkedIn. I post frequently there.
Speaker:And you can also find my website. It is www.
Speaker:Dot craigmeyer maie rhe.com. Awesome.
Speaker:And I'll also make sure to put all those links into the show
Speaker:notes. So if anybody just wants to head over there, Chaya, where
Speaker:can everybody find you@sparklaunch.org?
Speaker:And also on Instagram, the sparklaunch and Facebook at
Speaker:the Spark launch, also by my name, Chaya Malawram.
Speaker:You can look me up and you can get in touch with
Speaker:me on anything neurodivergent. I would love to talk
Speaker:about it. Great. And as for me, you can find me
Speaker:on LinkedIn on Instagram, follows his ghost.
Speaker:You can also, if you go to the bio of particularly the Instagram,
Speaker:you can find information for my neurodivergence social support
Speaker:group called Motley Minds that is being launched with forum.
Speaker:So if you want to sign up or interested in hearing more about
Speaker:that, just send me a message there. First month of meetings
Speaker:is completely free by the way, so feel free to sign up whenever
Speaker:you want. As for this episode of the Spark Launch podcast,
Speaker:thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your support.
Speaker:See you next time.
