Embracing Neurodiversity: Parenting with Patience and Peace

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Hi and welcome to the You world order showcase, podcast I'm your host, Jill Hart. And today we have with us Andrea Anderson Andrea coaches, parents of kids, and teens whose brains are wired differently. She helps them connect more deeply with their kids, create more peace in their family, and ultimately helps their kids to thrive. Welcome to the show, Andrea. It's really great to have you here. I'm looking forward to this conversation a lot.

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Andrea Anderson: Oh, thank you, Jill. I really appreciate being here and sharing with your audience. So thank you for this opportunity.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: So how did you get started in all of this? It's kind of like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I feel like we're just jumping in and into the middle of of a story.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah. And definitely, there's a story there usually is. Right? So so basically, my sons, I have 2 sons. They're now 20 and 23.

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Andrea Anderson: When they were younger I sensed something was a little bit

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Andrea Anderson: different in terms of their behaviors the way they were showing up, and I didn't have for a while any set label or whatever have you? But I knew, and I sensed that something was off.

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Andrea Anderson: It was sometimes significant calmness to significant like outbursts to anxiety to you know, one son would crawl under the table when there are too many people at the table when we're out to dinner with other people. So there was just different things that were happening, and

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Andrea Anderson: from my experiences of honestly, many times having a hard time feeling like I could rein them in. I could get them to follow societal rules school rules as they start to get a little older. I was like, oh, my gosh! And honestly, I

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Andrea Anderson: through this process many times felt like a bad mom, because I had the kids that would get wild. And I went to therapists. I went to counselors. I read books, I read more books. I started to look online. I did so many things went to doctors.

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Andrea Anderson: and over time I started to put the pieces together, not just what was going on for them. They had different neurodiversities, but what I really started to do was start to see how to help them in different ways, so that they could start to

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Andrea Anderson: move through some of these

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Andrea Anderson: challenges and be able to handle themselves in a different way, be able to show up in a way where they were calmer, where they were able to handle things in life, that there are societal rules, whether we like them or not. There's some things we just need to generally conform to. And then there's a lot of shades of gray that I also didn't realize before that it's okay to not be exactly like everybody else in the pleasing kid and the just right kid. So there was a lot on that journey.

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Andrea Anderson: But the bottom line is through my experience of having a hard time with my kids honestly, and then a hard time with myself, because I realized how I was showing up made a huge difference on how they were showing up. It doesn't mean I controlled how they showed up, meaning if I was feeling horrible or not showing up in a way that I loved, it was hugely impacting and horribly impacting them. It just meant that if I learned how to notice myself, how I was parenting.

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Andrea Anderson: how what my energy was like. It made a huge difference on how they then showed up.

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Andrea Anderson: Does that make sense.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Makes total sense to me. I had like I said I had 5 kids, and 3 of them were boys, and I totally get that I'm of the opinion that everyone is neurodiverse in one way or another, and I love your your. There's the societal norms. But then there's this huge area of grade. And it's okay to be different. We don't all have to be the same. But being able to equip parents with the ability to recognize

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: how to corral your kids when you need to.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: but allow them to be themselves and explore what's interesting to them, and not make them feel like there's something wrong with them, because

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: they're not

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: fitting into that round hole like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you might want them to. Because I

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: this is what I found when I was raising kids is

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: there was outside pressures. There's all these outside pressures, people that mean well in a lot of cases, and sometimes not so much. They want your kids to behave a certain way, and when your kids aren't aren't behaving that way, then there's obviously something wrong with you as a parent.

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Andrea Anderson: Without a doubt. Yep, yep.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: And it sounds to me like you're really helping parents get a handle on that issue

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: to know themselves and be confident in themselves and be able to say, You know I I don't know what your problem is, but it's

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Hi.

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Andrea Anderson: You got it? Yeah, that is part of it. There's so many different pieces to it, right? But that is one of the layers. That's 1 of the components to when I support parents, it's a matter of helping parents. And often it's mom helping mom realize

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Andrea Anderson: it's okay.

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Andrea Anderson: like having a higher level of acceptance for their kids, but also of themselves, because that was one of the challenges I needed to meet along the way. It was, oh, I have 2 kids, 2 boys with different neurodiversities, right? Whose brains are wired differently. And I like to say that because it feels a little bit lighter to me like it's like it can come and go it. Can. You know it's not so stationary as a certain type of neurodiversity, but that aside, it was like.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah, I met so many situations personally where moms would judge me. Moms would judge. My kids. Teachers would judge me. Teachers would judge my kids. And I knew I'm like, this is not an accident. This is for me to decide that I'm okay. I'm good enough, and I'm okay, regardless

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Andrea Anderson: of whether my kids behave a certain way.

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Andrea Anderson: And I'm okay, regardless of whether those parents want to be around me or want to be around my kids.

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Andrea Anderson: It took some, some connecting to an inner strength that we all have, that we don't always tap into, because we're brought up to be pleasers. Most people are right, so pleasing and trying to do the things to have everybody like us, we're completely outside of ourselves. So along come 2 kids who have neurodiversities. And it's like, Hmm, Andrea, you can keep trying to be that pleaser. Or you can choose to connect with your kids.

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Andrea Anderson: Learn to be okay with your kids, support your kids in the best way you can, and teach them to follow their hearts and teach them to go off and fly versus keep trying to make these teachers and parents. Okay with me and them. It's exhausting to do that. And I did it for a long time.

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Andrea Anderson: and but it kept my kids and myself more stunted in the possibilities for us, right? So to just quickly return to what I was saying before, when you were asking me about how I got into this. I got into this because

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Andrea Anderson: I had a journey with my kids that helped me transform as a human and a woman, and that helped them transform as kids, as little mini kids and then adults, right? And this was because of doing some inner work. This was because of eating different foods and changing the way we ate, so that our nervous systems were more relaxed and more at peace, so I could show up calm instead of

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Andrea Anderson: half the time, because something was going off in my house that didn't feel comfortable right or cross the line, so I could settle and see it differently.

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Andrea Anderson: And then the same things for my kids, their nervous systems. What was going on internally was more relaxed, so, rather than not being able to sit still the way. It was at a very high level. For a while it decreased right? And then I looked around and made sure they're in a school where they're outside a lot, and there are other pieces that came into play. But I started to see them, for who they were, accept them, but still support them to keep growing.

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Andrea Anderson: and likewise for myself, and from that where I'm going to with this is that from that I then in turn

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Andrea Anderson: started to eventually coach moms and support them with their kids, who had.

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Andrea Anderson: you know, different things going on. And I've had different renditions of my business, but a lot of it has had to do with parents who have kids whose brains are wired differently. Hence, because of my journey

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Andrea Anderson: and the things I learned that got me there quicker, and the things that I learned that

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Andrea Anderson: took longer or didn't really weren't as helpful kind of erase those out of the program I have. And now it's all. Let's fly. Let's see this happen, and help their kids to improve themselves, too.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: They would imagine to. I would imagine that

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you get results for people pretty quickly.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Yeah, cause it's a lot of it is like.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: your diet's huge.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: But there are some tools that I know of that you can implement into your life that

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: they're simple.

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Andrea Anderson: Yes.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Work.

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Andrea Anderson: Absolutely absolutely. Yeah. There's a there's like, I have a giant tool belt, so to speak, of tools right? And there's going to be some people resonate with certain tools over the others. Food really does. That's 1 that can make a big shift very quickly if somebody's open to shifting

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Andrea Anderson: food right. If they're not, then I have this other approach where we just introduce a couple different foods that are to their liking. And eventually, as we bring in one new food, 2 new foods, so on and so forth, through the weeks. Within 6 months time. There's a lot new foods in their diet, and a lot of the old ones. Not all, but a lot of them have been crowded out enough

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Andrea Anderson: that they and their kids, if they're willing to participate, but especially parents. Because we start, there

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Andrea Anderson: are now showing up differently are now interacting differently with their kids, communicating differently, genuinely okay with

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Andrea Anderson: something that might have created a big problem in the house before they now can be more chill about it, understand it, talk about it, handle it so differently with a lot of acceptance versus a lot of judgment and anger and frustration.

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Andrea Anderson: and that already changes. And yeah, within 6 months time, we can see so many things shift that a lot of times I have Mom saying, Well, I ended up.

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Andrea Anderson: I shifted my food and end up losing weight. My skin feels better, and all these side things that aren't really what we're going after, but come from changing your food. And then also how she shows up with her spouse. It's like, oh, I feel better in my body now, like all these domino pieces that come just simply from

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Andrea Anderson: focusing on how can I help myself? Show up differently with my kids do some mindset work. Conscious parenting work.

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Andrea Anderson: nervous system work all simple. They sound like big words that could mean something bigger than it actually is like you said simple simple things. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: That work. I

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you look at them. Eft is one that I lean on heavily. You think this is the dumbest thing I'm just tapping on parts of my face.

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Andrea Anderson: Right, right.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: How can this possibly work?

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: It does, even if you don't know what it is. If you just like tap on your collarbone.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah. The.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You can.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you can shift. Breathing is another thing. I you know we all breathe, but we really don't breathe intentionally, and learning to breathe intentionally.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: change your whole life.

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Andrea Anderson: I agree. I agree and thank you for bringing up some of those ways that we can just gently, quickly shift in moments, sometimes just a few minutes, 5 min, 10 min. Yeah, because

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Andrea Anderson: for me, one of the overarching themes is, I believe I said this to begin with, but I'm just going to say it again in case I didn't say it before, and that is

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Andrea Anderson: to me.

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Andrea Anderson: as we allow ourselves to feel calmer, we can support our kids in a different way. We can support ourselves, and we get very different results in our life. And some of those ways are food. Like, I already went into a little bit and specific foods that will really help to settle our nervous systems more so over others. And then there's certain foods that will agitate our nervous systems and have us like yelling and freaking out more easily. So it's good to know both.

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Andrea Anderson: And then there's also things like honoring what you really feel.

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Andrea Anderson: That sounds like, well, what do you mean by that? Basically, it's a matter of what you were saying. It's stopping when you feel triggered by your kid, by your spouse, by something going on in the house, and it's just like taking a moment. Maybe you can't stop in the middle of what you're doing. But you realize, okay, you almost set a timer 10 min. I'm going to go to the bathroom, and I'm going to sit by myself, or I'm going to go sit in that room that nobody goes, or whatever it is you find your spot.

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Andrea Anderson: and then you go, and if you feel like crying, you cry

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Andrea Anderson: if you are angry. I went through a period where I was very angry because my kids were rough for a while, and I would sometimes be caught in that roughness, shall we say? And I was like, what? How could this be? How could my my kids, that I'm bringing up. Do this, and so I would go into a room, and one of the ways I honored. How I honestly felt was I took a towel. I was in the bathroom, and I would whip it on the side of the tub

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Andrea Anderson: because I had anger in me at the time. I had a lot of anger. I was angry at myself, I think, for how I was showing up, even though it wasn't so bad. That was my perception of myself, and I was angry with how my boys are acting and behaving.

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Andrea Anderson: I was angry at the lot in life. I felt like I was dealt. I was angry. So I took that towel, and when I get triggered by something that happened by somebody in my home, I will go in that bathroom and whip the towel on the side of the tub. It made a cracking sound, and I didn't even know I needed to hear it, but it brought some level of satisfaction to me in an odd way. Right? It was like

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Andrea Anderson: I was keeping everybody and everything safe around me, but I had an energy that needed to come out.

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Andrea Anderson: so there might not be anybody else listening to this that has that ex those feelings I think there probably are, but there might not be. But if you're not.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Sure they are.

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Andrea Anderson: Category. If you're not in the anchor category.

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Andrea Anderson: you'll be in the sad category. The woes me pours me victim. I would toggle between the 2 honestly and

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Andrea Anderson: And now I don't feel, by the way, just to add this bit. I'm not

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Andrea Anderson: as angry. I allowed that stuff to move through me that was stuck.

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Andrea Anderson: and a lot of personal judgments, all those things I've shifted. So now there's a different sense about things. But regardless anger or sadness are typically what come out when we're triggered, and in that bathroom, or in that little quiet space in your car, wherever you are.

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Andrea Anderson: then feel that if that's what you feel. If it's sadness, then you cry, you cry, cry, then you do what you were talking about.

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Andrea Anderson: You breathe, you check in. It's real simple. You just check in to see what's actually going on in your body. Okay, what?

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Andrea Anderson: Take a couple breaths. And then you just check to see, okay, what's going on? You might feel your heart feeling really tight and constricted, might feel like there's a little pain in your heart. Back of your neck neck is tight. Just notice it and call it out. So breathe a little bit more, and then just call it out, okay. And just like this.

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Andrea Anderson: I feel tightness in my neck. Okay, I feel my heart feels tight. My heart's burning, and just do that for like a minute or 2. So you're moving. You're feeling what's going on in your body. You're not doing anything about it except noticing it and calling it out.

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Andrea Anderson: I take it to another level. You'll already start to feel relief by doing that because a you expressed what you needed to move out of your body

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Andrea Anderson: and you didn't judge it. You just did it to get it out.

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Andrea Anderson: So it's not stuck in there, causing problems later on, right? And then beyond that, you then

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Andrea Anderson: can ask yourself, what is it? You want me to know?

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Andrea Anderson: Because anger, all emotions have something they want you to know. Right happy is real easy. We're like Whoa. This feels good. You want me to feel good, but the thing is when it's anger or sadness. There's message there.

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Andrea Anderson: and it's usually because we're thinking something

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Andrea Anderson: fearful.

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Andrea Anderson: an incorrect thought about ourselves or our kids, or somebody that we're upset with, who triggered us.

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Andrea Anderson: and when we hear what it is.

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Andrea Anderson: it brings a little bit of relief to us.

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Andrea Anderson: So now we walk away from that 5 min, 10 min session with ourselves, so to speak, that time to just honor what we felt

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Andrea Anderson: already shifting into a different space, a different energy.

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Andrea Anderson: And it's actually more of the truth. It's more of what's true for us. It's more of

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Andrea Anderson: what we're meant to be connecting to more of how we're meant to show up. It's just we got so busy we got so busy trying. We got so busy thinking we had to please people. We got so busy with all these other things, all the minutia

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Andrea Anderson: that we lost ourselves in the truth about what's going on for us and our kids. That little space and time helps you to start to shift.

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Andrea Anderson: When you start to make this a habit.

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Andrea Anderson: you, as a human as a woman start to really feel differently.

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Andrea Anderson: more empowered, more even just more. Peace is what you get.

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Andrea Anderson: And now, when we're at peace, and the kid. One of the kids freaks out.

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Andrea Anderson: You're going to still freak out sometimes, but it's gonna be less and less.

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Andrea Anderson: or you're gonna be able to shift very quickly.

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Andrea Anderson: So this is another taste of a tool without going through all the tools. That's just another tool to bring us into a different space, so we can connect more deeply with our kids and create different results for all of us.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You talk about?

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I would I would call them boundaries. But I know with my own kids I had a system for discipline. We were talking about this before, and and

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: we had known consequences for certain behaviors that

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I do not tolerate. I don't.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I don't like liars when people come to me and lie to my face.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You're going to have consequence for that, and it's going to be something you really don't want, because I don't want you lying to me.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Gotcha

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: If you tell me the truth about something, and I don't like it, it's not. You're not going to suffer that really bad consequence. We'll talk about it.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: And

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: but

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Sometimes, like, I know my kids would.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: because they're boys, they would fight. They would do things. And you're just like you get caught up in the energy. And the tendency is to just like scream at them, to stop

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: because you've just like.

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Andrea Anderson: There. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I'll do it.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: But if if you've got some of these tools.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I also know that it's easier. If you approach approach your kids with, okay.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: we used to use the 10 Commandments. These, these are the 10 Commandments, and we're going to adhere to these. These are the the things that have big consequences. Everything else

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: is the gray area, and

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you're allowed to have your boundaries around what you feel about these things.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: and I have my boundaries about what I feel about them. And we'll talk about it.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: the big 10. We're not gonna we're not gonna discuss. You're just gonna get the consequence, and I'm not going to administer. I used to use the belt on my kids. I'll be honest with you. I had 2 boys. My husband was never home, and

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you're either going to get control of them or they're going to be off wandering the 2 leaves, and they knew it. I whacked them once with it. It wasn't like I beat them, and I never hit them in anger

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: ever. It was just. This is the consequence, for

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: and they knew it was coming, and it wasn't like this is a surprise. Mom's beating you with the belt because she's mad.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: It's like I lied to you. You caught me.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I know this is happening, and they would always at the end be like, Okay.

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Andrea Anderson: Right.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: There isn't a lot of crying and histronics about it. It was just.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I'm sorry. This is

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: this is the consequence.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I have a really good relationship with my kids. At this point, too. I mean, it wasn't like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: admitting this

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: on something that's going on. The air is probably not

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: a good thing to do, but that's what I did, and it worked for me. But again.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: if you don't have the tools to not

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: discipline your children

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: in a calm state, with

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: an intention that they learn a lesson from it, so that you don't have to do this like ever.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Then

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: then you wander into the 2 lease where you're you're just like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you're causing. You're gonna end up causing more problems than you're

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: gonna solve. And you're gonna feel bad yourself because

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you you don't have any control over the situation. Right? I think that's where a lot of parents

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: end up frustrated, end up, feeling bad about themselves.

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Andrea Anderson: Right? Right? Yeah.

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Andrea Anderson: right? And for me, I, I,

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Andrea Anderson: i basically would try to understand what was going on for my kids and where they're coming from? Because a lot of times my quick thought was, why are they doing that? How could they be doing that? But I wasn't putting myself in their shoes. I was quickly just getting mad. If they were listening or not, it was like very black and white. Are they listening or not.

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Andrea Anderson: and when I shifted into some shades of gray I got to put myself in the space this took time. It's not like this was a overnight. Oh, I'm going to go from being brought up with punishment to now doing this a little differently, and it was, and they still had consequences. But there was

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Andrea Anderson: the space of well, let me try to understand what's going on for them, because if I can see this differently and see oh, they were doing this, not from being, you know, being vindictive, or this or that, but it was really from this other thing. Now I understand that other thing.

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Andrea Anderson: Now, how can I help them, knowing that they maybe have a tendency to do this because of this other thing? Does that make sense? And then and then supporting them from there.

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Andrea Anderson: so yeah, so. And then sometimes it was a matter of Well, no, you know there is going to be the consequence, like

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Andrea Anderson: when my son was younger. This is a very minor thing, and this was really hard for me, and I still don't know if I loved what I did in those moments. You know how you sometimes reflect and go. That wasn't a good idea. But or maybe it was okay. I don't know so. But he he was in the space of forgetting things a lot right, and forgetting things for school, and then I

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Andrea Anderson: helped enable him by coming to the rescue with oh, you forgot your violin. I'll just deliver it to school. Oh, you forgot that! I'll just deliver it to school. You forgot your lunch again, and so

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Andrea Anderson: I wasn't really holding him accountable right? So he worked on this project. It was like a it was like something he made with his hands, and he spent weeks and weeks building, and the day he was to bring it to school, when all the other classrooms

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Andrea Anderson: for the whole school. They were in a small school, but the whole school would walk through, and they'd exhibit what they created. He forgot that, and I didn't drive it to school that morning. It really hurt my heart. But I was like, Oh.

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Andrea Anderson: if I just this is a big one, Andrea, but if you bring that project to school.

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Andrea Anderson: there's nothing in him that's motivated to keep looking after his things, to try to.

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Andrea Anderson: not to try to rein himself in with this forgetfulness, because sometimes there is literally something wired in the brain where it's harder to remember things, and sometimes it's a bit of a habit, and I sensed it was a habit.

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Andrea Anderson: right? This is where, as moms, you start to cue into your kids. And when we're calm enough, we can start to read them and understand them differently than if we're like stressed and trying to do 25,000 things. And you're not. It's hard to read them because we think we're reading them. But really we're reading ourselves. We're just a mess, you know, like no offense. But I was there so and so I didn't deliver the project to school that day.

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Andrea Anderson: It. Sometimes it still still brings a twitch to my heart like, how could you do that? But then there's the other part of me that was like it was okay. He lived. He was okay. He felt bad. He felt embarrassed.

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Andrea Anderson: And to this day, when he goes somewhere, he travels a lot. He lives overseas. And he's he's like, Okay, do I have everything? He's like going through the list, and he'll sometimes pack ahead of time. So it's just these things can shift somebody right, and they're the tricky things to do sometimes as well. But

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Andrea Anderson: it's a boundary, right? It's a

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Andrea Anderson: wasn't a punishment, but it was a boundary.

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Andrea Anderson: So I understand what you're saying, and we all have different ways of getting there.

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Andrea Anderson: And this is what worked for me in those moments. Right and so.

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Andrea Anderson: but I also am a big

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Andrea Anderson: proponent of what I said before connecting with your kids, seeing who they are, where they're coming from, and then helping them from there, we might have been raised one way. We might even raise one child this other way. But this kid is in a different place and needs something different. Let's understand that, and then work from there.

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Andrea Anderson: And sometimes when we let them take the lead on things

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Andrea Anderson: almost always.

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Andrea Anderson: they're going to show us what they need and what's going to help them get

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Andrea Anderson: be in the space of what would support them best.

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Andrea Anderson: So I won't go into more.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You can even ask them.

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Andrea Anderson: Yes.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: They think the consequence should be, and you'd be surprised sometimes. It's like way worse than you would have.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Maybe we won't go that far

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I had something a little less severe in mind.

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Andrea Anderson: Hmm.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: But I think I think your program is

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: is a necessary

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: bit of coaching that every parent needs on some level or another, whether your kids are their brains are wired differently or not. I.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Personally, I believe they're all wired differently. We are all wired differently.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah, without a doubt, there is. Really, we're not meant to fit in boxes. We just try to fit ourselves in boxes, because that's kind of how it's been done uniformly before us. Right? Parents did that. Grandparents did that. So it's just passed down, and it's literally imprinted in our nervous system to try to do that, to try to fit in those boxes. But it was never a good idea for any of us. Right? There's some people who sort of naturally fit in there, because it's actually an expression of who they are. And then there's so many others of us that no, it's not the case.

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Andrea Anderson: So I want to also add, with respect to another tool that I use with parents to help them to settle themselves, feel calm and parent in a way that they feel good about, connect more deeply with their kids, and then the end result being setting their kids up to thrive because of this deeper connection with them.

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Andrea Anderson: That is nervous system strategies like regulating your nervous system. It sounds like a big deal. But basically our nervous system, our brain or spinal cord. And then there's something called the vagus nerve that

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Andrea Anderson: travels throughout your entire body. So it's not just your brain and your spinal cord, but it's everywhere. All the neurons, all the nerves throughout your body are impacted. So when we go in, if we're triggered by something somebody said or did because of whatever a past experience, a long, long ago, or even recently.

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Andrea Anderson: We can start to get anxious, nervous.

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Andrea Anderson: really anxious, or like an even stronger trauma response

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Andrea Anderson: so we could get caught up in that. And what's happening and just keep. And when we get caught up in that, we just keep feeling the feelings and feeling worse and worse and worse, because we don't want them to be there. And they're still happening.

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Andrea Anderson: Or we can just simply be like, exactly. We can just simply be like, Oh, yeah.

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Andrea Anderson: okay, I see what's going on. I'm getting worked up. I'm getting nervous. I'm getting anxious. I'm in anxiety. Whatever it is, we'll just notice right if we could just notice.

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Andrea Anderson: And then, if you start to do

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Andrea Anderson: simple tools to settle your nervous system, which I'll explain like one or 2 real quick.

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Andrea Anderson: But if you do one or 2 of these things.

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Andrea Anderson: you can start to take your nervous system and settle it so that you come back, and you feel like you're back in your body. You feel a little more grounded. You feel a little less shaky. You feel safer because we're really feeling unsafe. Right? We feel like we're not okay when we're spiraling into this space of anxiety, which is the nervous system just firing quickly. Okay.

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Andrea Anderson: One thing you can do is you can take

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Andrea Anderson: your arms or any part of your body, but I'll take my arms, and I will just take my fingers, and you can just literally start to tickle the insides of your arms outside of your arms, start to

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Andrea Anderson: gently, tickle, or like scratch, tickle, and do it for a minute, do it for 2 min. Just keep doing it and think about what you're doing. Think about how it feels. So you're taking your thoughts off of what was just going on, how you were just feeling. And you're doing this. It literally something as simple as that starts to settle your nervous system in touch touch to the body helps us feel safer. It brings us back into our body because we're actually it feels like we're exiting our body right like when we're getting all worked up.

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Andrea Anderson: Something else you can do is you take your arms and your hands, and I will press my hands up against the refrigerator and lean into it so the pressure from my arms into my hands against the surface. It can be on the table. It can be on a wall. I do it in the refrigerator, on the refrigerator, not in.

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Andrea Anderson: And so

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Andrea Anderson: the same thing. You're bringing yourself back into your body, and it signals to your nervous system that you're safe. You're okay by feeling that pressure. Do it for a minute, 2 min, maybe even 3 min.

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Andrea Anderson: But it starts to settle you again

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Andrea Anderson: when you start using

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Andrea Anderson: little tools like that. Nervous system. Regulating strategies tickle inside of your arms. Sounds funny, but I've been in the car doing it before, like in traffic. Oh, let me do this in the past, when I've had to call a teacher, and I was nervous. What they were going to say. When my boys are younger, I'm like, Oh, I need to tickle inside my arms, I need to like. And one other thing, I'll add, you can just sing or hum to yourself.

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Andrea Anderson: Okay, I've had the shit hit the fan. Excuse me to any of your audience that doesn't like swearing, but

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Andrea Anderson: I have had chaos break out in my house.

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Andrea Anderson: and I have literally walked out. I start to sing. I'll start singing in the middle of it. When I realize oh, my God, I just start to get drawn in, and I don't want to be any more a part of this. I'll start to sing.

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Andrea Anderson: and sometimes I'll walk out the front door, out the side door and just keep singing, and when my kids are younger my older son will run out, be like, What are you doing?

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Andrea Anderson: I'm okay. You're okay. I'm just singing so I can feel better. And then eventually express like, explained it even better to him. But it was like what you know

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Andrea Anderson: he needed to know a. I wasn't leaving him. B. He need to know what's why. She's singing in the middle of this chaos, and then and that, by the way, they start to learn some of these tools for themselves.

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Andrea Anderson: But

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Andrea Anderson: these are simple ways to settle your nervous system. So you take that and you couple it with little bits of food shifting in your diet, and you couple that with honoring how you feel, and you start to implement these things and use them regularly, even though they're foreign@firstst So you don't have to do them all right. Just learn one or 2 new things. Bring that in eventually. Learn one or 2 more things. Bring that in before you know it.

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Andrea Anderson: You feel so different, and you feel amazing when

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Andrea Anderson: things happen in your house, and it's really chaotic.

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Andrea Anderson: You shift your energy, and sometimes in 5 or 10 min the whole room is changed, and everybody's in a different space.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: And changing the way you come at the situation really does affect how everybody else.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Reacts to you.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah, it.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah, absolutely.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I just think.

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Andrea Anderson: Absolutely, and our kids trust us more when we're not trying to fix them, or yell at them, or freak out on them for not doing the things we thought they should do when we're connecting with them versus coming at them. The relationship changes, and when the relationship changes, they're more open to

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Andrea Anderson: either seeking ideas and information from you, or at least working with you, working together to get somewhere to help them. Right? So it's very different. So with that.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You get to know them.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah, you do. You do and understand them, and and you love them always. But there, it's like a deepening of the love, because now, you're just more open. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: When they become adults. Oh, my kids are adults. Now, you

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: you still have a wonderful relationship with them that can mature and and continue on versus. They're stuck in this trauma that you've created for them, and they don't have any way to connect with you as a human being. Often, if we don't know ourselves, and we don't have the tools ourselves to understand who we are, then we really have trouble

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: connecting with our kids or our spouses or other people around us. It's

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I know your coaching is geared towards helping parents with their kids, but

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: it really helps in all your relationships.

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Andrea Anderson: It does. Yeah. And you could take what the work that I do with parents. You could take that and those

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Andrea Anderson: tools, those strategies and implement it with regard to anybody else, and it's going to have the same effect. It does. It has the same effect with your spouse or partner like, it's just. It's just great

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Andrea Anderson: tools, not just tools. But they're great ways to basically

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Andrea Anderson: life coping.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Skills.

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Andrea Anderson: Like, yeah, and it and it always comes back to us. We think we need to change the other people. But it really comes back here. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: It does for sure. So how do you do this? Do? Is it one on one? And is it specifically towards the parents, or do you work with the kids, too.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah. So it is one on one. I do one on one private coaching. I have different lengths of time that I work with parents based on what would support their, what they're trying to achieve for themselves, with their kids and themselves, and where they're at

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Andrea Anderson: And it's it can be anywhere from 10 months, 6 months, 3 months, and even a little bit smaller.

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Andrea Anderson: However, occasionally I have group programs, but one on one private coaching is what I prefer, because I watch people get results faster, and I get to know them more. So we can really tweak it for what their needs are

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Andrea Anderson: And then, what was the second part of that question you asked me? You asked.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Did? Did you do it in groups, or and did you do it with the just the parents? Or is it the parents and the kids.

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Andrea Anderson: I knew there was a second part of that question. Yes, so I do it with the parents, definitely with the parents. There are for people who are local. I have a certain program that I can get into with them where it's actually called, and I don't mean to distract people here, but it's family coaching. So it's the whole families involved. But my primary focus is to help parents

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Andrea Anderson: who have kids whose brains are wired differently, support their kids connect more differently with their kids and and help set their kids up for success in the family management.

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Andrea Anderson: Services that I provide. That's a little bit different. It's that, and then some. So I do bring in kids in at this special level, if you will. But online it would be, since it's probably going to be all online people. It would be what we're talking about. So I didn't mean to confuse anybody. But yes.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Parents makes perfect sense. Yeah.

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Andrea Anderson: 80% of time. It's parents, yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: And you do offer a free gift to people that visit your website, which is Andrea anderson.com. And you want to talk about that a little bit.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah, it's actually Andrea Chapman, anderson.com, and you'll have a link right. There'll be a link

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Andrea Anderson: sure. They can fill it out.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Yes, no, I I will definitely put a link in there. I'm sorry I.

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Andrea Anderson: No, that's okay. Yeah. It's all good.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Saw part of it on the.

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Andrea Anderson: No worries. So it's Andreachapman, anderson.com. And or we'll change that again. That's my website. If you want the free gift. It's Andrea Chapman Anderson.

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Andrea Anderson: Forward! Slash 4 simple recipes again. That's forward. Slash 4 simple recipes.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: It's the number 4.

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Andrea Anderson: That is, what's that?

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: The number 4.

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Andrea Anderson: Number 4. Thank you for clarifying. Yes.

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Andrea Anderson: So what that is is you'll get a download, 2 information sheets covering 2 specific foods that help your body and your mind to feel calm.

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Andrea Anderson: Okay, the second part is, you'll get 4 simple, simple, simple recipes that will help you to get more of those specific foods in you so that you can feel calmer.

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Andrea Anderson: Okay, so I think of it as a great gift, because a

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Andrea Anderson: this is part of what you want to do. If you can bring in these simple foods into your diet, you're going to start to see little changes here and there. You're going to be surprised at how you don't yell when you might have yelled before just little things start to happen as you bring in different foods into your regular diet. The other thing is, these are super simple recipes, because I know myself. If it's a complicated recipe, and I'm making it for my family. It's not going to happen.

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Andrea Anderson: I I need what something I can just make so quick as quick as possible.

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Andrea Anderson: and that will make me be more apt to eat those foods, or also serve them to my family. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: They're the kinds of foods that you can take with you places. And yeah.

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Andrea Anderson: They are. Well, the 2 that I mentioned that are specifically in this free gift that I talk about one is super simple to bring with you the other one. You can get somewhere else if you need to.

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Andrea Anderson: You'll see. Okay. I want them to kind of go in and.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I want. Yeah, I don't want you telling us what it is. I want them to go and.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: And do this. And I I'm gonna go look, too, cause I'm super curious.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: which is the whole point right.

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Andrea Anderson: Absolutely.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Go go check it out. The link will be in the the show notes around this.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: This has been an amazing conversation. I have really enjoyed chatting with you, Andrea. What is the one thing that you hope the audience takes away from the conversation today?

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Andrea Anderson: Well, I think the main thing is to remember that if you help yourself to feel calm

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Andrea Anderson: and use just simple little ways to start to do that. You're going to. Even just by doing simple little things, start to

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Andrea Anderson: have a differently relationship with your kids. You're going to start to see them differently. You're going to start to interact with them differently. And as a result, you'll have a better relationship with your kids, right? So it to think of it as

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Andrea Anderson: helping yourself

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Andrea Anderson: be in a different space versus trying to change them, because we really, honestly can't change anybody. We have no true control over anybody else other than ourselves. So this is actually the easier path to get results than it is if we try to change our kids, which I've done so. I know which way works better for myself.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Yeah, I think that goes with everybody. It's you can't change other people.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: But you can change how you feel about the situation.

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Andrea Anderson: Go, absolutely.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Thank you so much for joining me today.

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Andrea Anderson: Yeah, thank you, too, Jill. I really appreciate it.