#27 | I am Clueless

Watch the webclass, "4-Part Roadmap to Encourage Adulting Actions."

Get the Preview of the workbook, When Autism Grows Up by Lynn C Davison, Adulting Coach, Available in Fall 2022.

Download, "The Quick Start Guide to STEAR Mapping"

RESOURCES

• SEEING AUTISM by Barb Avila: https://www.lynncdavison.com/pl/2147533610
• STEAR Map Phone Wallpaper
• John Denver singing, "It's In Everyone Of Us" on Sesame Street.
• Danica Patrick explains the complexities of IndyCar steering wheel
• The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• Always Measure Backwards Phone Wallpaper
• Reflective Listening Phone Wallpaper
• PEOPLE SKILLS
• LISTEN UP OR LOSE OUT
• LivesInTheBalance.org by Dr. Ross Greene
• Q&A with Susannah Cole, author of  FLEXIBLE MINDSETS AT SCHOOL
• The Art of Adulting
• Proactive Collaborative Problem Solving Process Phone Wallpaper

Hi! It's Lynn, your adulting coach, I help autistic young adults and their families systemize adulting together. Thanks for watching this video. Today I want to introduce you to a mom, a grandmother actually, who I found on the Facebook page Parents of Young Adults with Autism. I think this is a great place to find support. There are a lot of options here to to get the kind of reinforcement that we need from time to time.

First situation we're going to go right into her STEAR map. S, which is the situation, out of our control. T is our thoughts, our story about it. Our Emotions that that story creates in us in our bodies, our actions and suffering was happening here using this tool.

So she has a granddaughter who was recently diagnosed with autism and you know, it's making sense, and she's living with the grandmother. And the grandma's thought is. "I have no idea how to help her." I've been there. That was my predominant thought for the first five years of understanding that all of our children have differently wired brains.

And then that, "I have no idea," creates that emotion of confusion in our bodies. You know, our head, our minds translate the thought, it's amazing. It's kind of a miraculous process. Our minds translate our thoughts into Intel, our bodies secrete chemicals, which is the way that we learned how to survive in caveman times and run. And nowadays, most of our challenges are psychological in nature more than physical in nature. So this is why this tool is so appropriate for all of us and it's really a great tool for our autistic young adults.

So her action was to ask for help. What a great action that her confusion inspired because now her result is she gets some ideas. She got some ideas of things to do. And I think that's a wonderful way that we're seeing what's happening in her STEAR map right now.

You know, we parents of autistic young adults have been consulting you know, to try to understand that first step. Always understand what's going on. We've been consulting doctors and therapists and nurses, especially psychiatric practitioners who help us with our the meds for our kids, autism experts, speech pathologists, social skills, teachers, reading teachers, the list goes on and on of the people that we have consulted over time to see what you know what ideas they have, and I'm going to suggest that that's especially helpful during the school years. There's a lot of special ed teachers, there's even autism support specialists in schools these days. They have a lot of really wonderful ideas.

And I'm going to also strongly suggest that it's in every one of us to be wise as well, and we need to connect with ourselves. This is John Denver singing that song by David Pomeranz and it's every one of us to be wise with the Muppets and I love the way that he sings. I love the song. The words are we need to find our heart and open up both our eyes. We can all know everything without ever knowing why it's in everyone of us to be wise.

The way that we do that is we first connect with ourselves. We know that we need to be the calming presence in our autistic young adults lives. And the way we do that is by noticing what's going on inside of ourselves. We really need to be aware of the thoughts of the situation.

Okay, that's the autistic granddaughter, what are all the thoughts? Sometimes the trouble with the thoughts is that they're spinning so much. It's like you know, that cycle of the washing machine where you can't tell one piece of clothing from the next because it's spinning so fast. It actually feels like that with our brain spinning with those thoughts so quickly you can't even identify them.

So we can know when we take a deep breath and find some space for ourselves to just record what we're thinking; just get those thoughts out of our heads, and then take them through the STEAR map.

We can decide which of those thoughts are helpful to us. And we want to make sure we practice those. And then there are some thoughts like I don't know, they're not always so helpful. And we just want to steer them a little bit. We just want to change that.

I think it was Danica Patrick. That's it. She's one of the first women that competed in the race car arena. And I remember her describing that she never really changes that steering wheel a lot. It's just tiny little adjustments all the way around the track that allowed her to become a top notch race car driver.

That's all we're asking ourselves to do here is just notice where we're headed, where that GPS is pointed. And then let's maybe sometimes, if we just steer a little bit, we can get on a path that's going to get us there faster, easier. So that's what I'm talking about when I'm saying let's look at the story that we're creating with our thoughts and see if means there isn't a way that you can wiggle it a little bit and just adjust it so that it would work better for us. So slowing down and recording our thoughts is my first recommendation for the connection step.

The other thing I want to share with you is just such a good frame for our autistic young adults and ourselves that we always want to be measuring our progress backward. And here's what I mean by that.

If we always focus on where we are that's the blue person and where we'd like to be. That's the ideal. That's the sunshine up there. We're always going to see the gap between where we are and where we'd like to be. And if we focus on that gap, if we really just keep noticing that gap, it's just always gonna be there. And it's gonna cause us to feel discouraged and depressed and overwhelmed and all of those thoughts if we notice where we are versus our ideal all the time. Because there's always going to be a gap even if we do progress, we humans, we always push our ideal out. When you think about it, we thought oh, that's the goal I'm going to get to and then the minute we get to that one. As human beings, we always level up where we want to go. It's just our nature.

So instead, I'm going to suggest that we always measure backwards, that we look between where we are and where we started, and notice all of our games. And when I was looking over the grandma who posted it, the parents of young adults, she has done so much so that her granddaughter feels safe and secure and seen in her home. It's amazing.

And yes, there's some challenges. There's some school refusal, there's things going on, that are definitely unsolved problems, and there's some explosions. It's what all this stuff is that we always see. There's always gonna be those lagging skills and unsolved problems as Ross Greene says.

So that's what we really want to do is, first connect with ourselves and recognize how far our autistic young adults have come.

And then we want to also connect with our autistic young adults and I just have found this reflective listening tool is the best. It was taught to me by Dot Bolton and her husband wrote a book called PEOPLE SKILLS. And it's just phenomenal and they have another book called LISTEN UP OR LOSE OUT. I had the pleasure of meeting her a couple of times. And I just think they nailed it. She and her husband have nailed the art and practice of listening.

And when you think about it 50% of the time we're supposed to be listening in any conversation. And yet no one teaches us how to listen. We're always processing what we're going to say next. I mean, that's just such an easy thing to do, because we want to appear in our culture, appearing like you have a quick way or a quick understanding or being fast is so valued. And that's what pushes us to want to produce an answer.

Their books explain that their whole life they spent helping fortune 500 companies really learn the skill of listening. That's I think, one of my lagging skills, and I still can learn a lot more but this is the process where we actually tell them:

1. It sounds like and that's so that we recognize that we're not experts in how they're thinking, which is just we're trying to check whether or not we understand what's going on. So it sounds like or I hear you saying or if I'm following you or help me understand better. That's how we open it up. We want to open up with that productive puzzling  that Susanna Cole talks about in her book, FLEXIBLE MINDSETS AT SCHOOL.
2. The second step is you feel this is critical. You feel it looks to me like you feel… really listen if you don't know how they're really feeling, you know, they're either comfortable or uncomfortable. Start with uncomfortable. Other feelings can be reluctant, frayed, ashamed, lonely. I mean, there's a whole you know, there's a lot of emotion, sensations and wheels online where we can look at the gambit, but they say there's six main ones. But the whole point is either they're comfortable or uncomfortable. That's a great place to start.
3. And when you are very uncomfortable going to school because it's not working for you. I mean, that's literally all you have to say and that then, you know we double zip our lips and listen some more. We listen with our ears and our eyes, what's going on in the bay feel seen and heard and safe within our presence. That's who we want to be for our kids is just that safe place. And then we start the Ross Green process of you know, remembering that of course kids will do well if they can. And that's when we start our assessment of lagging skills and unsolved problems that he advocates at his website that we just start a list, what are the problems and we work our way through that.

We start at The Art of Adulting with the ten domains and we look at all the things that we have created and they have created in their lives and then what do they want next? And the whole idea is to discover what it is that they are looking for.

So I just want to make sure that becomes the practice. We keep track of what it is that we're seeing in their lives, that we know a problem that needs to be solved or skill that needs to be improved, as we all have them.

So then we go from there to practice that collaborative problem solving process that Ross Greene outlines where we:

1. State the situation with just the facts because facts can hurt us; facts can scare us. They're just the facts.
2. What is their thinking? That's the empathy step and we need to really listen well to understand what's going on with them.
3. What are our thoughts and feelings about the situation and it's really helpful if we figure these out ahead of time. So we can present them to our autistic young adults in as short sentence as possible, and if possible at all, some kind of a visual where you just took a piece of paper and you just wrote down here are my concerns. So if we start I love to start with a blank piece of paper with my kids. And we just write the situation at the top something we can all agree on. Then we go to okay, what are your concerns, and I ascribe those and then I ascribe the three things. I try to stick to only three that are concerning for me. What are my thoughts and feelings on that?
4. And then together we come up with a solution and it's a golden process.

So I just want to summarize what's happened in this video with a new thought that I'm going to offer this grandmother and that is, "I don't know, and that's okay."

It's okay to not know exactly what to do next, and how things are going to turn out. That's fine. Just add to your sentences and that's okay. And go figure it out. Go figure it out. Together.

This is what we do at The Art of Adulting and on Facebook, and please come find me at www.lynncdavison.com. I coach autistic young adults and their families and together we come up with a strategic plan for their life. That is just amazing.

And I've seen amazing things happen with my own autistic young adults. And with my clients. I know this process works and I'm sure it will work for you.

Bye for now.

Bye for now.