“But everyone does that!” and other things people say about neurodiversity

What this does tell you is that you have a nervous system with a high threshold, a need for intense, frequent, proprioceptive input, and your only job is to provide that input to your nervous system. That is it, that is my stance on it, that is neurodiverse, affirming, that is accepting the brain you need. You need to create a lifestyle around those needs, not stop those needs to fit your lifestyle. Welcome to the sensory wise solutions podcast for parents, where parents can get real actionable strategies to support kids with sensory processing disorder. I’m Laura OT and mom to Liliana, a sensory sensitive kid who inherited my anxiety and my love for all things Disney. Consider me your new ot mom, bestie, I know my stuff, but I also know what it’s really like in the trenches of parenting a child with sensory processing disorder.Okay, mom, enough about me. Let’s start the podcast. Hello.Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I did not have this episode planned for this week, so this is a completely different route than what I took, but I feel like this is on the top of my mind this week based on a reel that I put out there, and the discussion that is it that has had because of it, and a discussion that I feel like I just want to have on my podcast so I could point people towards it. I kind of feel like, you know the teacher who when you know when you’re in class, and like multiple kids come up to the teacher and ask a question on, like, a test or something, and they keep asking the same question. Then the teacher finally, like, pauses, and he’s like, Okay, everyone, look at me right now. I’m hearing the same question over and over again. So listen up. And then they decide to address it to the whole class, because a few people have been asking the same questions. I feel I feel like that. I do feel like the select few of you who are here listening to this, chances are I’m probably preaching to the choir. But I still, I just, I really want to have this out there. And the theme of today, the topic is that there is a difference between all kids do that, and all kids do that, but some kids who do that still experience challenges and are significantly impacted in their daily life. So here’s the context. I created one of those reels where I was acting out things you might typically see sensory seekers do. I was climbing on the couch, biting a straw, hanging and swinging on the doorframe, with the overall intent to educate people parents that if you see your child doing this, then they may need more proprioceptive input. I think the overlay text was as an OT these are signs that tell me your child needs more proprioceptive input. Now if you’re not used to this language, you might hear that and think that I’m making a diagnosis or making some clinical claim, but really that was just my fancy lingo, my fancy way of saying, if you notice your kid doing this, it means they need more of it, period. It doesn’t mean that they need ot. Doesn’t mean all of that. But anyway, that’s when, that’s when people started commenting some things that I feel like I want to settle today. And of course, when social media posts go viral, this one reached over a million views in less than a day. It starts reaching the deep, dark depths of the internet, and gets on people’s feeds who do not need this information, like this was not intended for them, but then they start asking these questions, and it just reminds me how little people understand about the nervous system. And so I see comments that sound like, you know what? Just let kids be kids. Let them do this. Why do we keep creating something out of nothing? I also hear a lot all kids do this. So are you saying that all kids need ot? I also get I did this as a kid, and I’m 40 now. Does that mean I need ot or what’s wrong with me? Are you going to diagnose me? And then I also get very real questions, like, if my child does this, does this mean they have ADHD? Does this mean they’re autistic? What does this mean? So I hope that this very short episode helps you take what you’re seeing, at least on my page, on social media, I cannot comment on others, but any of my content that you see in short firm, I hope, in short form, I hope that this helps provide more context for you and reminds you of the underlying theme here and what we always need to keep in mind. So here’s what you need to know. Everybody has a nervous. System, all nervous systems depend on a certain threshold of sensory stimulation in order to feel the most regulated, the most calm and in control of their body. Remember that being regulated allows you to participate in conversations. It allows you to follow instructions. It allows you to enjoy leisure, be in the moment, relax, learn, play, all of those things that we would all need, even adults and kids in our daily lives. Now, that threshold to get to a state of regulation looks different from person to person, even among neurotypical individuals, this is unique to each person’s brain wiring. To illustrate this, I want you to imagine, let’s say it’s a video of two kids, but let’s say the video is paused, so it’s like paused on a certain frame. And let’s say these, both of these kids are jumping on the couch. They’re mid air, and they’re both laughing, and their faces are lit up, jumping on the couch, right? It’s paused. So yeah, look, all kids jump on the couch. Both of these kids are jumping on the couch. But if we were to press play, and we might see one child jumping much more intensely. They’re giggling, screaming so loud that you can’t understand them, and they like just don’t seem to be slowing down. It’s just constant, constant jumping. Let’s say we keep playing and we hear a parent shout, hey, no jumping on the couch. It’s not safe. One child moans and groans, but stops jumping. The other child maybe doesn’t even listen. They require multiple cues and reminders to stop, and when they do stop, they continue to be dysregulated. Maybe they’re moody. They continue to move fast. They’re out of control, or maybe they stop jumping on the couch, but now they move over to the door flame, door frame, and they’re trying to climb up door frame. Both of those kids may benefit or enjoy that proprioceptive input from jumping, but one child’s nervous system is completely dependent on it in order to maintain regulation, while another child can find other ways to regulate, or maybe just does it because it’s fun. So the difference between a child having a hardwired sensory difference and a child who happens to like jumping on the couch, comes down to which child is most impacted behaviorally and functionally when jumping on the couch or whatever action is taken away or not available to them, a child with hardwired sensory differences will not be able to focus, listen to instructions, control their body or volume of voice without the input that their nervous system needs. They can definitely try and attempt, and those attempts to keep those things under control is going to take a lot of mental energy, they will reach burnout. It is much harder for them to access those skills without the support of sensory regulation tools. The next comment that I frequently get is,I did this as a kid, and I still do this now as an adult. What does that mean? Again? Let’s think of this in the context of the video where I posted, where I was jumping, bouncing, swaying, crashing on the couch. If you’re an adult who still does this, there is nothing wrong with you. Go for it. That’s amazing. You You don’t need to change any of those habits. What this does tell you is that you have a nervous system with a high threshold, a need for intense, frequent, proprioceptive input, and your only job is to provide that input to your nervous system. You don’t need to look at stopping or decreasing that need for yourself. You just need to be able to keep up with those needs. That’s that is it. That is my stance on it, that is neurodiverse, affirming, that is accepting the brain you need. You need to create a lifestyle around those needs, not stop those needs to fit your lifestyle. But that can be hard, especially if you don’t know what to do. And I think that’s when adults see these videos, and they see me talking about it in the context of a child, and they’re like, Oh no, I’m 3740 42 years old, and still do this. There must be something wrong. That’s not it at all. You can still learn about your body if you’re an adult. Adult who has a high need for jumping and squeezing and chewing or any other proprioceptive input, and maybe you have a traditional office setting job, you probably benefit from a standing desk, from lots of outdoor breaks, desks, snacks or fidgets. You need to be able to have those things to focus on long periods of work throughout the day in a traditional office without those accommodations or breaks, you probably feel unfocused, you probably feel irritable, you probably fidget a lot. You’re probably restless. You’re probably extremely burnt out by the end of the week if you don’t have those accommodations in place. Now, if you’re that same adult with the same need for jumping, squeezing, chewing or any other proprioceptive input, and you work as a bakery chef, you probably get a lot of moving and squeezing and standing in your day. Or maybe you work from home, and you can tumble and jump and squeeze things as much as you want. My point is you can make your lifestyle work for your sensory needs. And if that’s the case, you don’t need to do anything different. So this goes for our kids, too. If you’re a parent and you see those, those videos and you and you say, Oh, my child does this? What do I need to do? You don’t necessarily need to do anything to make them stop, but notice what they tend to gravitate toward, and see how you can provide more availability of it so that they don’t seek it out inappropriately or unsafely. That’s the key. And I think this just comes down to the different resources and households and environments. Some households and classrooms are much more conducive to this than other homes and classrooms. So in one classroom, this need for jumping and movement is going to be a problem and needs to be accommodated or addressed, and those adults and caregivers are going to try to stop that need, while other spaces this is going to naturally be an opportunity for kids, and it’s not going to prohibit them from functioning in that classroom, and so they don’t need to work on stopping those needs. Another question or comment that I always get is, if my child does this? Does this mean that they have ADHD or that they’re autistic? And the short answer is not always, but yes, there is a large overlap most autistic individuals. I believe the statistic is somewhere in the 90% 90 to 95% of autistic individuals experience sensory processing differences. I don’t think it’s that high for ADHD, but also a majority of folks with ADHD tend to have sensory processing differences. But not all people with sensory processing differences are autistic or have an ADHD diagnosis, or any diagnosis for that matter. And I want to remind you that for me as an occupational therapist, I focus less on the diagnosis and more on the recognition and awareness of the different ways that people can learn and experience the world, and I take those clues from the child’s behavior to determine what’s the best way to support them. I happen to have a lot of tools in my toolbox. I just need to see and understand the child and their behavior to know which tool is best for them. And I love educating parents on that, and that’s what I try to do every day, on Instagram, in this podcast and in all of my courses and programs. Now, all of these examples have revolved around sensory seeking, but we could say the same about sensory sensitivities. If we looked at a paused frame of a video of two kids and they’re both covering their ears as the toilet flushes, you might say, See, all kids do that. All kids hate loud sounds. But let’s press play. After the toilet flushes, what happens? One child, without sensory processing differences, will be able to walk out of the bathroom stall, wash their hands and carry on with their day. The other child may walk out of the bathroom stall and be unable to wash their hands because of the echoes of the toilets flushing their their hands are still covering their ears. They may exhibit attentional difficulties because their hearing is so hypersensitive that they can’t filter out sounds and everything sounds like too much at once. That child is much more impacted functionally with their auditory processing than the other child, who also couldn’t tolerate the sound of the toilet. I’m going to leave you with one more example before I sign off today. So we go to Disneyland a lot. We are magic key holders, which is basically the Annual Pass holders for. Disneyland, California, my family depends on the use of their disability access service Pass, which is a pass for folks who are unable to wait in a conventional queue for longer than 20 minutes. So if you have a neurodivergent child, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But there are people who are outside of the neurodivergent community who push back and they judge us, and they say things like, Well, I hate waiting in line too. Do I get a special pass? Or my kids get bored in line two they they whine the whole time, but they have to tolerate it. Why don’t you and I say again, this is not the same. Not only can my child not tolerate long waits, but her nervous system completely shuts down and goes into fight or flight when she’s in a stagnant queue, especially if there are extra sensory components around, like smells and people and heat and sounds and all of those things that come with standing in that queue at Disneyland. And while we’re at it, while I’m this fired up, I just want to say that this episode, all of this information, applies to the people who say we’re all a little bit autistic, or we’re all a little bit on the spectrum. No, we are not. No, we are not. Ultimately, what this all comes down to is there are a lot of behaviors and quirks that neurodivergent individuals display that are also commonly displayed by non neurodivergent folks, but it’s not just the behaviors and the traits that are indicative of neurodivergence. It’s the level of impact that it has on their functioning, on their relationships, on the their well being, when those behaviors are not either allowed or supported. Okay? I hope this episode was still helpful for you, even though it was a short and sweet one, I just had to get this off my chest. Share this with anyone who you might think needs this information. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider rating it and leaving a review, which helps other parents find me as well. Want to learn more from me. I share tons more over on Instagram at the OT butterfly, see you next time you.