An interview with Liora Schwartz: Trauma-informed and neuro-developmentally sensitive approaches for parents and professionals.
Liora Schwartz (she/her) has over two decades of experience in the trenches of the New York City public school system and is a parent of a complicated, brilliant, neurodivergent teen. As such, she has a unique perspective that has broadened outside many traditional boxes. Liora's work with parents and professionals aims to be trauma-informed and neuro-developmentally sensitive and is informed both by current research and the lived experiences of autistic advocates.
An interview with Liora Schwartz: Trauma-informed and neuro-developmentally sensitive approaches for parents and professionals.
Liora Schwartz (she/her) has over two decades of experience in the trenches of the New York City public school system and is a parent of a complicated, brilliant, neurodivergent teen. As such, she has a unique perspective that has broadened outside many traditional boxes. Liora's work with parents and professionals aims to be trauma-informed and neuro-developmentally sensitive and is informed both by current research and the lived experiences of autistic advocates.
Guy Stephens 0:11
Well hello and welcome back to another Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint Live Series. My name is Guy Stevens, I'm the Founder and Executive Director of the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint. Those of you who may not be familiar with who we are and what we do, the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint was formed about, well, gosh, four and a half years ago, really started around the issue of restraint and seclusion in schools around the country. But it's really much more than that. You know, we obviously don't want to see things like restraint, seclusion happening anywhere that can be prevented. And of course, it's broader than restraint, seclusion, even in schools, it's restraint, seclusion, suspension, expulsion, corporal punishment, often all the things that are being done to kids very often in the name of behavior, we are proponents of bringing about change, bringing up changes in laws and policies, but also in education, what are the better things we can do to better support students, teachers, and staff? What can we do to better support individuals working across many different settings. And those are things like bringing in trauma-informed approaches, bringing in neuroscience aligned approaches, approaches that are based on relationships and collaboration. So we do a lot of work around education, law and policy, and of course, individual support. As you may know, we do a lot of these live events every two weeks. In fact, recently, we've been doing them even more often, we've had a couple of great kind of add on events that we've done recently. But we do these events every two weeks, and we interview lots of amazing people. We talk to experts, we talk to educators, we talk to families, we talk to self advocates, we talk to people that are out there, helping to bring about positive change in the world. And it's a great opportunity to learn some things that meet some people, and just spend a little time together and hopefully have a really positive time. So today, we're very excited to have another guest with us. Liora Schwartz is joining us. Liora is a coach and licensed social worker that guides parents and professionals working with differently wired children. And while today, we're going to be talking about trauma-informed and neurodevelopmentally sensitive approaches that can be used to guide parents and professionals, I think we'll have a lot of topics to cover. And I'm going to introduce Liora here in a second. Our session today is of course, being recorded, as always, so all the time, every time we do these sessions, they are recorded, you can go back later and watch them on YouTube, LinkedIn. We also have them on Facebook. You can also listen to them as our audio podcast. So our podcast is available, an audio version of this is available on Spotify, on Apple Music on Google, wherever you might listen to podcasts. So with all that said, we're excited to have you here today. If you are a frequent flyer here in the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint Live Series, you know what I'm going to ask you next. And what I'm going to ask you in the next is if you are watching us live, let us know in the chat, who you are, and where you're from. We always love to see all the, well, I mean, we have a lot of regular attendees that come and join these every other week. We also love to meet new people as well. We'd love to know where you're joining us from and who you are. So tell us in the chat, who you are and where you're from. And with that, let's get to the good part here. Because you're not here just to listen to me, you get to listen to me all the time. You're here because we have a special guest. And I want to go ahead and introduce Liora Schwartz, who has over two decades of experience in the trenches of New York City public schools. And as a parent of a complicated, brilliant and neurodivergent teen. I love that description. As such, she has had a unique perspective that's broadened outside of many traditional boxes. Liora's work has been with parents, professionals, and really aims to be trauma informed and neurodevelopmentally sensitive, and is informed both by current research and lived experiences of autistic advocates. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, has a master's in social work. And before we start here, I told Liora what I always tell my social worker friends, which is that social workers are the nicest people in the world. And yet, I've yet to be proven wrong on that. And I think you'll find that to be true again today. But lots of experience. Has gone through Dr. Lori Desautels’ Applied Educational Neuroscience Program, which many of you know we're huge proponents of and it's a fantastic program. Has a lot of experience in trauma-informed approaches. You know, it's really kind of a commitment to looking at systems of oppression and intersections of power within race, gender identity, ability, a lot of background with PDA, pathological demand avoidance, and we have some connection there as well. So really excited to have you joining us today. So thank you so much for being here. And we're really excited to talk to you today.
Liora Schwartz 4:55
Yeah, I'm happy to be here and to chat with you as well.
Guy Stephens 4:58
Great. So uh, Again, if you're on the chat, feel free to weigh in and say hello and tell us where you're from. I see a number of people on already. I see somebody here from Connecticut. Divinna Smith, from Connecticut, taking a–let’s see, taking you on a much needed walk. Well it's great to be able to go mobile. So I'm glad that people can take us and listen to us on the go. So that's fantastic. And hopefully, we'll get a couple other people here to join in here in a second. So I gave some background and who you are. And of course, I think this conversation, probably, you know, got planned almost nine months ago, and I think you and I had a conversation and that conversation led to “oh wow, you know, love what you're doing love, love what you believe, love the things that you're bringing forward. You should join me on the podcast sometime, I'd love to have you.” And of course, suddenly, you know, time goes by and you're like, “oh gee, I've got that event coming up in a week, right? What are we doing? What's it going to be all about?” But as I told you, we're gonna have a conversation, and hopefully have some fun here. And, you know, along the way, the hope is that people might learn a few things as well and learn a little bit about your experience. So thank you so much, again, for being here today and excited to kind of dive in.
Liora Schwartz 6:11
Yeah, I'm excited to chat a bit.
Guy Stephens 6:15
So why don’t you begin by kind of giving me an idea of what it is that you do today? You know, I know that you work with parents, I know that you've also worked with professionals. What is your area of focus today?
Liora Schwartz 6:29
Yeah, these days, I've been doing a lot of work with parents, and I do a fair amount of parent coaching. Mostly, not all, but mostly a lot of people who find me have have kids who fit this PDA profile that you mentioned,
Guy Stephens 6:44
And just for people that might not know, will you talk a little bit more about what the PDA profile is just to give people a little bit of a background.
Liora Schwartz 6:49
Yeah, the more clinical definition of PDA is pathological demand avoidance. However, lots of Autistic Self-Advocates have sort of renamed it pervasive drive for autonomy or persistent desire for autonomy, there's a few different names floating around out there. But essentially, it's a neurotype, usually considered under the autism spectrum, a particular sort of type of brain wiring, where kids and adults who fit this profile really have a very hypersensitive nervous system response. So they're getting, you know, hijacked into that fight, flight freeze response, according to moments of having lots of demands put on them or feeling like they don't have agency and autonomy. They're really, these folks are wired, to feel in control, and to feel like they have agency and when that feels threatened, they go into a really intense response. So as you can imagine, kids in schools, all people do is tell them what to do all day long. And so, so oftentimes, you know, what one of the biggest challenges for the parents that I work with, is helping their kids to be able to access education.
Guy Stephens 8:11
And tell me a little bit more about you know, you know, PDA, you know, my understanding, and I know, you've got a lot more experience than I do in this area. But, you know, it's been recognized. In fact, it's not really even officially recognized over here in the United States, kind of, from a diagnostic point of view, right? But, but there's a growing movement of kind of recognizing that difference, you know, how do people begin to understand because, you know, we know, we know, well, that many kids are looked at as a summation of behaviors, right? People don't really go beneath the surface to figure out what's really going on. So how do parents even begin to understand that they might have a child that might, you know, might fit the PDA profile? What do parents see? Or what do we see in schools that lead people down that road to think, Hmm, I wonder or when might you say to a parent, like, have you, are you aware of PDA?
Liora Schwartz 9:10
Yeah, I mean, now, nowadays, there's a lot more visibility around PDA in the US. I think it's, you know, as you said, it's not, it does not have its own diagnostic code in the DSM. But more and more clinicians and diagnosticians are sort of recognizing and able to name it as part of a diagnosis. And so it is getting more recognition in the US and most of the research that's out there comes from from the UK and other places in Europe. But, you know, parents find me or find other folks in the PDA spaces when all of the advice that they've been given by many different professionals doesn't work and in fact, backfires. So a lot of the behavioral type of interventions, building incentive programs and point systems and color systems and all these things and introducing consequences. Those things don't work for these kids, there's no kind of Scooby snack that is right, that is attractive enough to get you out of your hijacked sort of fight or flight, brain state, right? You're not accessing the sort of parts of your brain that think about consequences and outcomes and so forth when you're in that state. And so, a lot of times parents come and this was true of myself too, as a parent of the PDAer, don't come to find this until you've sort of exhausted all the more sort of traditional parenting techniques and disciplinary approaches. Nowadays, I'm getting much more larger numbers of parents are coming to me whose kids are much younger 4, 5, 6, you know, because they're hearing about it. It's out there and it's an approach that feels like it matches their kids, you know, in a way, and so many of these kids previously, were receiving diagnoses of things like ODD, which is problematic in a number of ways, right? Oppositional Defiance. Typically, there's a reason for oppositionality and defiance, right? And, and so really, more people are trying to look underneath. Well, “this kid is just defiant,” but really trying to understand well, what is it underneath that's causing that behavior? What's the underlying stressor that's happening? So yeah, I mean, parents often find me after they've done some of that work. But you know, when you're using more traditional parenting techniques, and offering incentives, and so forth, and it's not helping your kid, that might be a real clue. You need to look outside the box a little bit and look more towards the nervous system regulation.
Guy Stephens 11:56
Yeah, absolutely. And I love the way you put that and it's interesting, because we might share this idea, but, you know, my thought is that a lot of these traditional behaviorism rooted approaches aren't really working for a lot of kids. You know, and I think the kids that need our help the most, is where these things work the least. And the kids that maybe they appear to work for probably don't need them. So, yeah, there's a lot around the the approaches that are common, you know, and, of course, you know, I lived through this as well, where, you know, the behavior tracking sheets, and the star charts and the clip charts, and, you know, the, the incentives and the rewards, and, you know, I could, I could think back to probably some of the most difficult days my son had at school, and trace it back to a behaviorally driven intervention that went wrong, trace it back to a behavior tracking sheet that, you know, when the kid realized that by 10 o'clock that their whole day, had not earned them the points and then then, you know, you know, kind of went off the rails. So a lot of these approaches aren't working, I think, for a lot of kids, but, but some kids are really having, you know, kind of probably intense, you know, responses to them, right? So, so that when they're kind of moved into that fight or flight, I mean, you know, what happens? That the cortex is going offline and that kid is dysregulated. So, you know, it's often probably, I guess, then through the behaviors, that, that, you know, that people are looking for that help, and how many tries, I mean, it's, it's, it's good to hear what you're saying, about, like, more awareness, and more people beginning to reach out. But you know, how many people do you know, really go through a lot of things, a lot of effort? I was reading a book recently, Low Demand Parenting, and you know, in that book, kind of like, listening to the journey, like, here's all these things we tried. And then of course, as a parent, you feel like, “I'm a failure.” You know, they're, you know, so all of this. By the time somebody, you know, connects with you and hopefully, that's happening earlier and earlier. Where do you begin? I mean, where do you begin, and I know, we're kind of going down this PDA, you know, direction right now. And we'll get back to some other things here as well. But, you know, I think much of this is applicable to a lot of kids that I think are neurodivergent. And, you know, have stress response systems that may be you know more sensitive than others and experiences, even including trauma that lead to that. So where do you begin, when a family comes to you? And talk to us a little bit about like, what your approach and what your coaching looks like?
Liora Schwartz 14:44
Yeah, I think what you were just saying about, you know, all kids, maybe. I feel like my experience and what I say so frequently to parents is that kids who fit this profile sort of demand a certain approach, but that approach is actually really helpful for all kids, right? That approach is an approach we should take for all kids. And the approach is: number one, thinking about nervous system regulation and regulatory states, which means we have to look at the nervous system of the adults that are surrounding that kid, whether it's a teacher a para, you know, an aide, parents, when kids are having certain behaviors, are we getting really triggered by it and we're activated? In which case, we're further activating their nervous systems, because our nervous systems are always–
Guy Stephens 15:32
Yeah, let me push on that a little bit and say, you say that, and I'm with you. And I'm like, Yeah, yep, yep. Right. Hold on. It's, you know, understanding their stress responses, as the adult understand, but how do you begin this conversation? And let's take a step back to say, a parent that like this is all new world to. I mean, you know, they grew up with lots of rewards and consequences, they grew up maybe getting spanked, they grew up with a lot of other things. So how do you begin to bring some of this brain science to a parent that initially might not have any knowledge basis for this? So what what's that conversation look like?
Liora Schwartz 16:12
Yeah, I mean, I think I can start with real basics of sort of explaining the regions of the brain and how brains develop in childhood and throughout adolescence, and even our 20s and sort of understanding polyvagal theory and making that feel really accessible in sort of language, everyday language. And also, I mean, the truth is, I say, Well, if you're trying these other approaches that they worked fine with you. I mean, I that's how I was raised as well, with a sort of very traditional behaviorist kind of approach, like, how's that working out for you? Oftentimes, you're coming to me, because it's not working, right. And your kid is miserable, and maybe making other people around them miserable, because their behaviors can be really inflammatory. And so, you know, we really sort of look at like, what's, what's working, and what's not where, and as you said, sometimes some kids, that those sort of incentivizing things can really work. And so I don't paint with a broad brush I really want to look at, for each particular family, what's the dynamic? What's happening with, you know, what's working with your kid? And where are you stuck? And, you know, and I say the same thing, I do a lot of training for teachers and school staff and, and other folks, mental health staff working with kids is, you know, really trying to just look at the data. Look at you know, what you're seeing. Behavior is communication. We know this and so what's underneath?
Guy Stephens 17:43
Right, right, right. Yeah, you know, it's funny you say that behavior is communication, what's underneath? Because I go back to like, yeah, behavior is communication, but what's underneath? Behavior is biology, right? There's so much more at play here in our behavior, that we sometimes you know, if you think you can simplify it to a sticker chart, or a consequence, I mean, there's so much more I mean, there's, there's hormones, there's dopamine, there's, there's stress response system, there's, you know, all of these things that happen. And it really is, I mean, to think that everything can be, you know, like you said, solved with a Scooby Snack, it's just an oversimplification of, you know, kind of really dramatic proportions. I mean, there's so much more to all of that. So thinking about, you know, the kinds of and what I already heard you say, so, you know, it always depends, right? Or it's very individualized. So there's not just one set of advice that you might give parents, but, you know, what are the kinds of things that you look at for an individual that might fall under the PDA criteria? What what kinds of things might people do to begin helping them move in the right direction in terms of supporting their children and, and I do think that the, the understanding piece is critically important, like, you know, I'm a huge proponent of like, a little bit of brain science goes a really long way, in looking at yourself differently, looking at your behavior differently, and looking at behavior of others differently. Like, even just acknowledging like, not all behavior is a choice. Like, that's huge. But often, that's the prevailing thought, like you're making bad choices, you need to make better choices, I'm gonna give you an incentive to help you make a better choice. So what are some of the places that you start with all of that?
Liora Schwartz 19:32
Yeah, I mean, I think one concept around that brain science is talking about the idea of neuroception, right, which is sort of beneath our awareness, our body is reacting to its environment, it's reacting to different cues to our sensory information that's coming in, and we can kind of get hijacked by our nervous system sometimes when our body perceives a threat. I often tell a story, I'll tell it very quickly here, is that you know, my teenage son at one point, said, “Mom, I have some money saved up and I want to buy something on Amazon, can you, like, facilitate this with your credit card?” And I said, “Sure, what is it?” And he said, “it's an Amazon death whistle.” And I was like, “what? I don't know what that is.” And we looked it up. And it is, in fact, you know, this sort of clay chunk whistle thing. And when you blow through it, it mimics the sound of a human scream, like a, somebody's chasing, an Axe Murderer chasing me kind of scream. And, you know, we sort of talked about where it's appropriate to use this and how it could, you know, really scare somebody and came up with some ground rules. And it's his money. So I said, “Okay, look, you can have it.” So we ordered this thing, and it comes in the mail. And I was like, “Oh, your package arrived.” And he, I sat in the same room with him. And I watched him sort of open the tape on the package and take out the bubble wrap, and it's in a little velvet pouch, and he’s unwrapping this whole thing. And I know he's about to blow in it. And I knew what the sound would sound like. And yet, when he blew in it, I had a huge full body reaction, like all my hair stood on end. And in fact, when I recall it and tell the story, I sort of get goosebumps all over again. Because my body is remembering that moment, my heart started pounding, my stomach did some stuff like I really got hijacked in my nervous system, even though cognitively I knew that nobody in the room was in danger. And it was this whistle. But I still had this full body reaction. And so you know, this idea of neuroception, that our body is constantly taking in cues from the environment, and deciding whether or not we are safe. And that kids often get cues that make them, their bodies and their nervous system, determine that they're not safe. And that's their perception of their nervous system. It may or may not be a real threat, just like that, that whistle was not any threat to me. But my body reacted as if there was a threat in the room with me. And so this is a good place of understanding, I think, because this is sort of the response that we see. And a lot of the behaviors that we see come from something invisible that's happening. And oftentimes, we're not even aware that our body is sort of going into this reactivity mode. So that's one place that I sort of start with, with parents and professionals and thinking about kids is really understanding, you know, this idea. And Mona Delahooke has written a ton about the idea of top down versus bottom up responses. So is this something that's coming from the top parts of your brain, your thinking brain, your rational brain, your cognition? Or is this something that's coming up from your nervous system and your sort of survival instinct? You can't use those kinds of rewards and punishments. They don't work on bottom up behaviors, they only work on top down behaviors, and so really beginning to tease out and notice the difference, like what are the things that you're seeing, that are top down versus bottom up? And we need to respond to those differently.
Guy Stephens 23:09
Yeah, and so keep going with that we need to respond to those differently, because, and what happens. So, you know, I mean, just just the, in the spirit of the conversation here, what happens when that person becomes dysregulated, because their threat detection system has detected threat. And again, as you say, that's not cognitive. They're not thinking, looking around going, “Oh, this looks unsafe.” It is our nervous system, our body and maybe an internal sensation that has left us to feel unsafe. And then of course, what happens in our brain, what happens to our, our prefrontal cortex, you know, that goes offline, right? So these cognitive responses aren't working for kids, right?
Liora Schwartz 23:47
That is not the time to be like, do you understand what you just did, you have to stop doing that because if you do that, he's going to be upset, or you're gonna get a bad grade or, you know, any of those sort of consequences, that conversation is not useful in the moment. And that feels really like new and different information for most parents, most educators, the idea that we can speak to that prefrontal cortex, we can speak to that cognition later on, maybe when this kid is regulated, but in the moment, what they need is help getting to a more regulated state. And that's a nervous system approach. And that those can be sensory supports. It can be, you know, offering a cold drink of water or offering some movement, or even just sitting in proximity on the floor next to that kid, and you do some deep breathing, so that you have sort of enough regulation for your nervous system to absorb from them and them to absorb from you and sort of come meet in the middle somewhere.
Guy Stephens 24:48
So really, really kind of laying the foundations for, kind of, that co-regulation, right? So here we have a dysregulated child and of course, what's not going to help is for us to kind of catch their dysregulation which can happen, right? Their dysregulation can lead us to be dysregulated. But, you know, if we're able to keep ourselves regulated, and then, you know, by, like you said by by doing things like you know, by even being with, it doesn't mean that you're even doing something just sitting on the floor and being with them can have a tremendous impact, right? So that helps you. I mean, if you can kind of help to share your calm, that kind of helps them to get to a point where the child can begin to regulate and of course, beginning to regulate what's going to happen with their brain? Their—
Liora Schwartz 25:36
Right. Yeah and that doesn't come intuitively to those of us who were raised differently. I was actually chatting with some teachers this morning about a particular student, and they were trying to figure out ways to support when he got dysregulated. And she said, “Oh, well, maybe I just need, I'm just gonna tell him to just look me in the eye. Just look at me, I'm right here. And then, you know, not not do any talking about all this stuff.” And I thought, “well, you're making a demand on him to look you in the eye because it helps you feel more comfortable that he's connecting with you. But actually, that might just be more dysregulating to this particular kid.” Instead of giving him another command to look you in the eye, perhaps you might just offer to him that you're there, or that he’s safe or just do nice, calm deep breathing next to him. Or validate him in some way. You don't need to–
Guy Stephens 26:27
Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Liora Schwartz 26:31
But that doesn't come intuitively. It's not the go-to and it takes some practice, right?
Guy Stephens 26:35
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Takes some practice. Yeah. And of course, when you're giving that example of, you know, look me in the eye, of course, that instantly kind of, you know, hits me in here, because I'm thinking how often we see that happening with individuals. And let's take neurodivergent individuals where eye contact may not only be difficult, maybe actually physically painful or threatening to somebody. So you know, we've got to be aware of that as well, we've got to be aware of, you know, kind of our own, you know, our own thoughts and expectations. But let's, let's tease a little bit more about demands, because, you know, one of the things that we find in the work that we do around you know, restraint and seclusion, is of course, we find that kids that are more likely to be physically restrained and secluded, are kids that are already more likely to have experienced trauma, already more likely to have kind of that, you know, more sensitive neuroception, right, more more likely to sense threat when maybe there's none, more likely to be hyper vigilant, more likely to have distressed behaviors. And very often when kids have distressed behaviors, the viewpoint is of them as misbehaviors not stress behaviors, and then become, then what comes are demands. And demands, people often don't realize are escalating, not de-escalating situations. So, talk to me a little bit about demands, because I, you know, I mentioned you reading that one book recently Low Demand Parenting, but you know, I think I've long had this idea that, you know, when someone is having a difficult time, you know, is not the time to be piling a lot of demands on them, is not the time to be forcing them to be compliant. You know, it's the time to co-regulate and to be there and be with, but very often, that's the approach. So talk to me about demands, I mean, how do you help people, whether they’re parents or educators to kind of shift that mindset? Because that's the natural go-to is like, “okay, mister, you're going to do this, you're going to do that,you're going to sit there” and escalate, escalate, escalate, fight or flight, you know, talk to me about that a little.
Liora Schwartz 28:41
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I talk a lot with parents about what it means to drop demands, and what it means to shift your ideas about what things are really necessary and what things you can maybe let go of. I mean, Ross screen and his work, if folks are familiar with the CPS model, really talks about sort of, you know, are there some things that you can, he calls it Plan C like this is, this is an expectation, that isn't the thing I'm most worried about right now. So I'm going to put it, I'm going to intentionally let it go so that we can work on the things that are really bubbling up to the top, that feel the most difficult and the most problematic for our family or our classroom or you know, whichever it is. And so, you know, dropping demands is an intentional, and sometimes really challenging road. Once you go down, a lot of people think, “Oh, it's just kind of this loosey goosey, let it all hang out” kind of approach. But it's actually in many ways, it's more labor intensive, I think than having those sort of behavior charts and star charts and things like that, because you have to be really thoughtful and you have to dig deep internally to think about what your values are and what the things are that are really important to you. And so, so yeah, I mean, there is a time, I think there's a threshold, right? Over which you can sort of sometimes, even though we're a little bit stressed, we can push through and do a thing, right? Like I was a little anxious about this, this conversation today and wasn't sure exactly what we were talking about what this was going to be. And—
Guy Stephens 30:21
I told you we're gonna have fun. Aren't you having fun yet?
Liora Schwartz 30:26
Totally. Totally. But yeah, so, you know, I had like a little bit of anxiety, but it was the kind of anxiety that I can push through and motivate me and move me forward, right? And then there's times where I'm at my tipping point, and I'm going to tip over into some other kind of fight or flight state or frozen state, right? And so I think the job of the adults around these kids is to be able to sort of identify where that tipping point is, and where that threshold is, where are the moments when this kid is able to sort of stretch and meet certain expectations? And then what are the times when that's not important, because regulation comes first. And if we push this kid and pile more demands and expectations on top of them, they're going to, they're going to melt down, right? And so, you know, it's really, it's about, and I often say, and I know lots of people say, you need to be a thermometer and a thermostat, right? So you're, you're sort of judging, you know, what the stress level is, what that window of tolerance is, how stable and grounded and connected and safe this kid is feeling in this moment. When we feel connected and safe, that's when we can take risks.
Guy Stephens 31:37
Right and I love that you just brought up, kind of, the window of tolerance idea, which you've said this already, like, stress is normal, stress is natural, stress helps us get things done. Through our daily lives, we go through states where we, you know, we feel a little stress, we feel a little anxiety. And the idea with with regulation is not that you're always calm, not that you're always regulated, but that you're kind of moving in and out of states, right, and it's about what's tolerable stress, you know, what is so significant that it might push us into a fight or flight response? You know, it doesn't mean that we're always calm, that we're always regulated. But, you know, again, knowing that there's a threshold and, and sometimes our adult demands are the things that are pushing the child over their threshold. And, you know, I mean, I even find with demands and as a parent, as well, and one that learned many things on my own journey. You know, I did, like ask myself tough questions, right? Like, why is this really important to me? Like, what, what about this demand is important and is it really important right now? I mean, even if it might be important, and giving, you know, kind of, you know, giving up a demand and a moment doesn't mean that demand is not something that's important, but sometimes it means not right now, not right now, it doesn't have to be a priority. And, you know, you kind of got to this a couple of times, but the regulation first piece, right? We're not going to make progress if we're continuing to de-escalate rather than help a child who, who needs to, you know, I always like the analogy of like a kid that's becoming dysregulated. Like, they need to borrow our well regulated prefrontal cortex, right? They need our help to get them there. But this is not natural. You're right. So, you know, again, I want to keep with parents for a second, then we're gonna kind of shift over to talking about educators. You know, so you've talked about some of the things that you might be doing to help parents in their journey. What about, and I'm just kind of curious, what do you tell them in terms of helping them to understand, not only understand this, but to be gentle on themselves? And, you know, this is really important. I mean, I think sometimes, by the time somebody gets to needing more help, and they might get to working with someone like you, they've often been through a lot. They feel judged, they feel like failures, they feel like, you know, so how do you help a parent also reflect on that? Because, you know, we've also got to be in our cortex to be able to help others. So do you have anything to share about that when you're coaching parents, how you help them on this journey?
Liora Schwartz 34:23
Yeah, it's true there's so much pain and so many people, by the time they find me, they've been fed a lot of, you know, ideas around everything is their fault, they’re parenting wrong, they're not doing it hard enough, or with fidelity enough, you know, and a lot of schools being like, “Oh, today your kid did this, this, this, this, this, this and this here, take them home, keep them home for however many days and bring them back and have them be different.” And that's like repeated kind of information coming at you over and over again. It's traumatizing. We talk about this as a trauma response in kids, but parents are mirroring that with their own response, you know, it’s almost like gaslighting. And particularly sometimes these kids can do really well in school. And they're kind of masking in school and holding it together all day. And the stress is building, building, building, and then they come home, and they let it fly at home. And then and then parents really get blamed because everybody's like, “well, they're fine at school, I don't know what your problem is at home.” So yeah, you know, it's true that there's a lot of pain. And, you know, I think one thing that has been incredibly helpful for me, because I've had those experiences, as well as a parent, is finding community. And so one thing that I do that's sort of my volunteer work is, I partner with PDA North America to run support groups, and bring parents together so that they know that they're not alone. And I just started a new support group actually just finished right before we came into this meeting today with a new group of parents. And it's so powerful for parents to know that they're not alone in this, and that there's other folks who are going through similar kinds of struggles, because, you know, from what we understand the percentage of kids who fit this particular profile, if we're talking about this PDA profile, is pretty small, you know. And out of all the kids who are diagnosed autistic, which probably there's many people who are not even diagnosed autistic, those who sort of fit within this profile of autism is something like four or 5%. Don't quote me on that, but it's a pretty small number. And so parents can feel so lonely. And that's part of why I'm drawn to this work, because I want them to know that I've been there too. And I've gotten all those messages too. And I've made mistakes in my own parenting and done things, and followed advice that was probably traumatizing to my own kid, including leading to school situations where there was seclusion and restraint, and, a lot of, you know, scary, scary dark moments that came out of that. So, you know, I'm starting from a place of really validating, and understanding this is tough work. Our kids are so brilliant, and hilarious and fun, and also really complicated. And they are really challenging to parent, because it really asks, you know, demands this really kind of radical shift in approach. And that takes a lot of courage.
Guy Stephens 37:49
A couple things. The first thing I want to hit is you were talking a moment ago, and I was trying to remember the terminology and I think the term that's been used is after school restraint collapse, this idea that, you know, kids are holding it together. I mean, there's a name for it, right? I mean, kids are holding it together all day long. And then of course, what happens is parents often get blamed. A lot of what you just said resonated with me. I mean, one of the reasons that I started the Alliance, when I did was similar to some of the reason that you had shared why you're doing some of this work. When I started the Alliance, I started it in part because I wanted people that were going through this to know, they weren't alone, right? It's, it's really difficult when you you know, as you said, and I think looking at something like the PDA profile where, you know, as a parent of a child that might be, you might have a neurodivergent child, you might have a child that's getting special education services, you're already a smaller subset of the population, right? So you've got a smaller community of people that might understand you. But then then in our case, when you're talking about a kid that's actually been restrained and secluded, it's even a smaller, you know, and even the people that understood you before, don't understand you now, but but finding your community and that's, again, one of the things that I value most about our community here at the alliance is that it's so powerful to be able to connect with people. One of the other things you said that was really interesting to me, is, you know, you're talking about kind of the smaller, you know, looking at a PDA profile, but on, on what I know of your approach, and what I know of PDA, you know, one of the things I would say, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but, you know, honestly, I think the approach that you might take with a child that is under the PDA profile could benefit a lot of children. A lot, especially a lot of neurodivergent children. I think the same kinds of approaches, regardless of, you know, what, you know, again, regardless, I mean, you know, I know a lot of individuals with ADHD that this is a similar kind of approach. And I always think that brain aligned approach, that trauma informed approach that, you know, sometimes reducing the demands approach, I mean, all of those things. What are your thoughts? I mean, are the same kinds of approaches helpful to others?
Liora Schwartz 40:16
Yeah, I mean, I think these approaches are helpful for all kids, right, coming from this lens of regulation. And, also giving kids the opportunity to make decisions for themselves. I mean, part of this is around autonomy and agency, right? And, and as I said, there's not a ton of research out there on PDA, most of what I have learned about PDA has been from, from adult autistic advocates who identify as PDA themselves. And I listen very deeply to their stories. And I'm always trying to learn more. And then, of course, from all of the parents who I've worked with, as well as my own lived experience as a parent. But, but a big piece of, of what folks recommend for these kids, is providing opportunities for agency and making their own choices and making their own decisions. And I think that that's hugely important for all kids. We want our kids to grow up and be able to live their own lives and make decisions for themselves. They need to practice that and they sometimes make some bad choices and what that feels like. And, you know–
Guy Stephens 41:27
Absolutely. Alfie Kohn has a great quote about this, I'm not going to get it right. But it's essentially a kind of the idea of how do kids learn to make good decisions? It's not by having a reward or having a consequence, it's by making decisions, right? And, you know, I mean, you probably know, but I'm, I'm not a big proponent of a lot of the compliance based focus that we have in education, there's so much focus on compliance. And, you know, I mean, I'll tell you, and you would probably agree, out of all the parents and all the people that I talk to day in and day out, and I say, you know, what do you want for your child? What are your dreams? I can't tell you that anybody's ever said, I want a compliant child. You know, of course, we want kids that can work with others and get along with others. And that's great. But, but really, a lot of our systems are very focused on compliance. And I think, I think that's to a detriment, I think that, you know, when you're too focused on compliance, you know, you're not getting kind of, in fact, many of the kids that that we find that are on the wrong side of a lot of these punitive things restraint, seclusion, suspension, expulsion, and all these things. Many of these are kids that actually are probably somewhat non compliant, but are also kids that are questioning things and that are pushing back. And some of these kids will change the world. I mean, you know, I mean, I have one, I mean, my son's one of those kids that, and I so value that, but you know very much a lot of what we do, and a lot of our thoughts around children in general, I think are dated. I mean, I think that, you know, autonomy, and, you know, if we wouldn't do something to an adult, I don't think we should be doing it to a child. But there's still a lot of values around raising children that look at children as somehow having fewer human rights, you know?
Liora Schwartz 43:20
No, yeah, yeah, I agree. And I, you know, I think that's so important. You know, as I said, these kids are really wired to really need that autonomy and kind of demand it. But, but all kids, neurodivergent or not, you know, need to sort of understand who they are and what their comfort zones are and where they can push themselves and, and they should be able to be somewhat self-driven, hopefully, by the time they reach adulthood. So how do you get to be self-driven, you practice being self-driven by being given a little bit more agency by the adults around you. And that's not really how our system or at least our school systems typically are built? I mean, there are some, like really radical groovy schools out there. But for the most part, our education system is not not built to give kids those opportunities.
Guy Stephens 44:14
Yeah, yeah. And that's a change that needs to happen. And, you know, I need a lot of partners in making that happen. But one day, right? Listen, I want to get to a couple of comments and questions here because we got a couple things that have been piling up in the chat. And it's not hard for me to just you know, start you know, just have have a fun good time with the conversation then we're like, oh, gosh, I'm missing all these. So just a couple things, Jennifer said, you know, “being with is powerful.” Absolutely, I agree. Also said “People so often have no idea how often they place a demand on another…we need to stop shoulding on others.” And I think you're right. I mean, very often there are demands that people don't even realize that are being placed as demands. Valerie loves one of your quotes here, “when we feel connected and safe, that's when we can take risks.” Fantastic. Sandra says, “as a parent, one of the hardest parts of co-regulating with my child is the time it takes. It's not always convenient and when that happens, I have checked myself. It's hard when a child is dysregulated and we have a schedule we need to, such as school or doctor's appointments. When I can let that expectation go that we will just be late, or we have to change our plans, things go on with so much better for all of us.” So really just kind of a comment on their experience. But is it something you see?
Liora Schwartz 45:36
Yeah, that's, that's maybe the hugest thing. And I think sometimes it requires us as adults, maybe shifting our priorities a little bit. And, you know, is really the pandemic sort of aided in some ways, people in rethinking their priorities and understanding how they want to spend their time. And, and I think that that comes up in parenting a lot, too, is you know, really reevaluating, you know, I have this work schedule, I have this appointment, I have these places to go. And I'm one of these people, I don't like being late, the pressure of being late stresses me out. And you know, and so, you know, how can I build a world in which I'm not rushing all the time from place to place or making my commute time shorter, all these different things, like–
Guy Stephens 46:28
We need to drop some of the demands on ourselves, sometimes, too.
Liora Schwartz 46:32
Right. We need to, sometimes as parents make shifts in our lives so that we can open that space up to sort of have more flexibility with our kids, like, “Oh, we're not going to get out the door on time,” and if that's not that big of a crisis for you, as the parent, then you can co regulate with the kid. But if there's really high stakes for you, as a parent, you can't help but pass your anxiety on to the kid, which just makes them escalate even more. Yeah, I think I can't remember whose name it was who said, I think Valerie it was, maybe, who put in that comment, I think you're spot on, you know that all those pressures of everyday life really do make it so much more challenging to be there for our kids. And sometimes we can make shifts and change those things, and sometimes we really can't.
Guy Stephens 47:17
And we all become dysregulated, and we all have a window of tolerance, and we all need to recognize that. And we also need to be forgiving to ourselves as well that, you know, our body, our stress response system is doing what it was designed to do. Sometimes that may come at a little bit of a cost that, you know, we become dysregulated. But it really is about our body is designed to keep us safe. And sometimes we have a stress response, you know, that may make it difficult. Let me keep going through a couple of these comments here. Here’s another one. Sandra Dawn, “And I find with teachers, they are also bound to a schedule and a dysregulated child who needs time to regulate is simply not convenient–causing escalation and stress for both child and teacher.” This is a multi parter here, “I've lost count how many times people accuse me of letting my child ‘get away’ with things–” This is a good one, I want to touch on this a little bit– “when I'm prioritizing co-regulation. It wasn't until I practiced co-regulation enough that I felt confident in what I was doing to help my child.” Great point. And I want to ask you about that because you certainly have a lot of experience working with schools as well. And you know, here's something I found. One, there are more and more people that are beginning to get some of this knowledge which is great. But it is by far not mainstream. People having an awareness of, of kind of the brain and bottom up behaviors and top down behaviors, it is not common. There are certainly some really strong pockets of people that are out there and they're in Dr. Lori's cohorts, and they're reading Mona Delahooke’s books, and, and all of that, but it's not common. And, you know, so a lot of the prevailing thoughts look around, you know, behaviors all being intentional, all being a matter of choice. So the interventions are rewards and punishments. But then I might find that an administrator, an administrator has really been digging into this and gets it and a kid is sent to the administrator, and the administrator works on regulating that kid and to the teacher, they say, “Oh, it's just the reward, they just get to go and have candy with the principal” and then they feel like you didn't do anything and there was no consequence. So, you know, I think this point that's been brought up here is a really good point, that there's perceptions by other parents, by educators, about letting kids get away with things. Tell me about, you know, tell me about you know, kind of with your career and education, the things that you do, how do you educate people and how do you get people to see things differently?
Liora Schwartz 49:58
Yeah, it's a huge shift in thinking, and it is very hard to, even if you can kind of get there, sometimes it's hard to stay there because it's so internalized and ingrained within us, this idea of, you know, you're rewarding the bad behavior, when you offer a kid some quiet space, or a drink of water or, you know, to play basketball or whatever it is right that, to regulate them, it feels like actually, you're rewarding them for the behavior that they just exhibited. And that, that is coming from that top down idea that they decided to behave in such a way and that they planned it out and it was, you know, a decision that they made as opposed to a reaction that their body was having. And it's, it's a difficult shift. And it's hard. You know, even if, if you have one or two teachers on board, that doesn't kind of go all the way. You kind of need the community to embrace some of these ideas and begin and begin to shift. And it takes time. And it's not easy. And the other piece is, you know, it is true that a teacher has a job to do, they have lots of pressure to meet different standards, and testing and attendance and all these other pressures that get passed down onto them and when they have a student whose behavior is disrupting the classroom like that, that creates a problem for them. And they often don't have the bandwidth to sit and co-regulate with that child, while they need to be, you know, schools are oftentimes not designed to meet the needs of, of all the kids in the classroom. And then on top of that, you had the added layer of, well, this kid just really irritated me and pushed my buttons, and now I'm pissed. And then I can’t co-regulate with them, because I'm irritated and I feel all of this pressure. And so a lot of the work when I go into schools, we start talking about about teacher, you know, the adult nervous system, and what are the things that they can access during the school day and outside of the school day, to sort of, as we've said, again, expand your window of tolerance. I always say, the catchphrase I always use is QTIP, quit taking it personally. Like, is there a way that? I don't know where I got it from? It wasn't mine originally. But I've been saying it for many years now. Like, this is your cue like, you have to cue yourself to not go there with the student who does something that pushes your buttons, right? How do you stay, because nobody who's dysregulated can co-regulate with someone, right? You have to find a way to stay in a place of regulation. And that's a tall order, because teachers have a lot on their plates. And so really, it's about, it's about community, self care, or whatever you want to call it, but like really having a community of people who are working together to prioritize adult nervous system regulations, self awareness, and, and that, that is a big shift that takes time. It's not an overnight change.
Guy Stephens 53:02
And it's a cultural shift that needs to happen within the schools. I mean, you know, these things that you can do to improve outcomes for kids aren't just about the kids, they're about the teachers and staff too, right? So, being trauma informed means not just being trauma informed towards kids, but being trauma informed towards the educators, being trauma informed towards parents. You know, co-regulation is not just important for kids, but, you know, how can educators help each other through co-regulation? You know, rather than, you know, you know, I mean, even administrators, you know, how instead of escalating an educator, might you help them through co-regulation. We've seen educators do things that of course, you were in the program with Lori, the Applied Educational Neuroscience program, I have seen some people do some really amazing things, you know, had a educator that had set up calm corners that weren't for kids, but they were for educators, like, what can we do to take care of the adult nervous system, which is so important in terms of supporting, you know, supporting each other and supporting children? So, you know, that's a piece that sometimes is left out. I mean, it's really critical. I mean, we can't expect well regulated adults that are gonna be able to help kids if we're not doing things and focusing on how do we support the adults in the classroom. How do we, how do we help adults understand that all of this applies to them? You know, all of this brain science that applies to kids applies to them as well.
Liora Schwarts 54:25
Right. All humans. Yeah.
Guy Sephens 54:26
Valerie said, “I wonder if–”and I have an answer for this, but I'll let you go first. “I wonder if the nervous system responses of PDA children to demands put them at a higher risk of restraint and seclusion.”
Liora Schwartz 54:38
Oh, I think absolutely. Yeah. 100%
Guy Stephens 54:43
Yep. Yep. You know, I would absolutely agree and, you know, especially again, when you're talking about demand avoidance, so when you're talking about, you know, I can't tell you how often although, you know, although some states do have high standards, many don't, but um, you know, the standard in some states is that you don't do restraint or seclusion unless it's a situation that evolves imminent physical harm, that it's a potentially life threatening situation yet, you know, we often see that what begins as a demand, escalates. So, you know, if a demand to do a worksheet escalates into a physical restraint, like there was a whole lot of opportunity between that demand and when a restraint happened, that things could have gone a different way. But it's not uncommon, it's for, you know, that it happens for non compliance and disrespect and minor behavior.
Liora Schwartz 55:33
Yeah, and it can escalate so quickly. And I, there's this terminology used in ABA therapy called extinction burst. And, you know, the idea is that if a if a kid starts acting up, when you ask them to do their math, you can't ease up on the pressure, because then they learn that, that, you know, whining or complaining or rolling on the floor, whatever they're doing, we'll get them out. Yeah, it's, it's very behaviorist kind of approach and so you can't release the pressure. Well, what happens when you don't release the pressure is oftentimes you see aggression, right? You see explosive behaviors, you see screaming, yelling, meltdowns, throwing chairs, etc, right? And then, and then, that, those are the moments when you see seclusion and restraint practices put in place, when really there was a moment, where there was a moment when somebody could have moved away from further activating, or an accommodation that helped that kid feel, you know, safe and connected, I always go back to safe and connected because that is when kids can do hard things. That's it, right?
Guy Stephens 56:37
That's right. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I mean, I think back to the the very simple things that I learned as a parent, that were transformative, you know, that, you know, rather than when things were escalated, raising my voice and taking a step forward, lowering my voice taking a step backwards, you know, the things that we do, you know, have so much influence over what happens next. But, you know, very often I mean, that idea, and you probably know, what I think about a lot of behaviorism, and a lot of compliance based approaches. I mean, it's, it's absolutely the wrong thing to do. But that idea that terminology, that approach is used in many schools across the country, many schools across the country, we're looking at this behavior through our lens of well, it's it's manipulative, and it's, it's attention seeking, and it's all of these other things, and not really looking at the stress system below the surface and really trying to figure out what's going on. And that is so harmful to so many.
Liora Schwartz 57:43
Yeah. It really is. And I think, I think that the adults working with kids, whether they're, you know, an aide or a teacher, or a camp counselor, or so forth, we all want to seem like we're proficient at what we're supposed to do, we all want to seem competent. And I think when there are behaviors that feel challenging, the adult feels like, “Well, in order to show that I'm a competent teacher, after school staff, whatever it is, I need to control this,” right? And so they are getting activated themselves. And that's why they get louder, or get you know, more threatening or intimidating, or all these different things, you know, the step towards and raise the voice as opposed to step back and lower the voice. Because they have the pressure of what other people will think of them in terms of their you know, everybody's got our insecurities. And so there's layers to it. And I think when you're talking about that cultural shift, it feels so important that everyone in the building understands that what we're going to try when we see this escalation happening is we're going to try to work towards de-escalation through nervous system regulation. We're going to take that step back, we're going to lower our voice, that's our go to, it's not me being laxed, it's not me, you know, letting the kid get away with murder. It's not you know, any of those things. It's working towards not having this blow up into really a scary situation.
Guy Stephens 59:05
Yep, yep. Absolutely. A couple more comments here, Sarah said, “My child fits the PDA profile.” So certainly dig deeper. Just ask you, you know, if you're a parent, and you suddenly have this, “gosh, we're watching this and maybe my child fits the PDA.” Are there resources? Are there books? Are there things that you would point a parent to and I know we mentioned one of them PDA North America and we shared the website earlier. But what other resources might you point somebody to if they're kind of like, “Hey, this, this is interesting and this may be aligned with what's going on?”
Liora Schwartz 59:35
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of, there's, actually, there didn't used to be almost any books, but now there's actually quite a, quite a few books out there. I think on the PDA North America website, there's probably a list. I don't want to spend a lot of time listing books and authors. There are, and you know, there are folks doing a lot of cool stuff on social media as well. Casey Elrich from At Peace Parents puts out a lot of good content, Kristy Forbes who's out of Australia puts out a lot of good content. So, you know, there's, there's podcasts, I think, especially on Tilt Parenting, there's a number of podcasts. So there's, there's, you know, and I certainly have some information on my website as well. And I do coaching with parents. And so there are resources out there more and more every day in the US. You used to kinda have to go overseas to get a lot of that stuff. And more of us now are able to have, have this conversation in the US.
Guy Stephens 1:00:33
Yeah and then I think I mentioned, I sit on the board of PDA North America, and over the last year, I mean, it's just really blossomed, and they've got a tremendous community of volunteers that have been helping them to put out more and more information. And I believe actually, Diane is working on a book as well, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, yeah. There's a lot going on there for sure. A couple more comments here. Sandra says “blind compliance is dangerous for children–we must teach children how to recognize when their body feels unsafe. Forcing compliance requires them to ignore those threat detections in their body, which could cause them to get hurt.” Absolutely. And could make them more vulnerable to abuse. There's a lot of things that happen when we, when we do that.
Liora Schwartz 1:01:12
Absolutely.
Guy Stephens 1:01:12
And then I've got a comment here from Jennifer. Oh, gosh, the comments just keep on coming here. “We've created a world and communities that have not considered the needs of our younger citizens.” And we were talking about this earlier. “And have lost our way as to what even basic needs our kids have…No one does well under all this stress.” I think that's a great point. All right, so I'm just taking a look here. And just seeing what else we have here. Okay. So, you know, we've got, we've actually been through an hour already, believe it or not, and I told you, I told you, this will go quickly. And for me, it has at least so let's just shift a little bit in the last few minutes. And we'll give people an opportunity to ask more questions if they have them. But you've been working in schools for some time as well, you have personal experience. And from my own experience, where I know individuals who have been parents of let's say neurodivergent children, and worked in the schools, the two things didn't always mesh real well. And yeah, I'm judging from that look that you're gonna, so tell me a little bit about that. And tell me a little bit about, kind of, the challenges that you, you had, in terms of, you know, trying to bring these things together? Because I know that your work today, not only focuses on parents, but also on professionals. So tell me a little bit about your journey with that if you would.
Liora Schwartz 1:02:40
Sure. I mean, I, people think New York City's big, but my worlds were colliding a lot when my son was younger, and sort of trying to figure out appropriate schools and avenues. And yeah, that was, it was tough to ride those two things at the same time of working in public, at one point, I was working in a public school in a middle school that was in the same building as the elementary school that my child was attending. It was not a good look. So yeah, I think those things can really, you know, particularly the public school system in New York City is such a behemoth. There are so many schools and so many school children. And it's such a huge bureaucracy, that it's hard to make change and take, make that cultural shift. And yet, when I, when I'm invited into these spaces, to have these conversations with teachers and guidance counselors and administrators, people are very receptive. People are very excited to learn these things. And yeah, I was, I sometimes, I supervise Social Work interns. And it blows my mind that even the social workers are not getting this content around understanding sort of the neuroscience in a social work program
Guy Stephens 1:04:04
We've got a higher ed problem here. We absolutely do. Higher ed is lagging and any of you out there in higher ed, we need to change this, or keep your programs or social worker programs or behavioral programs are decades behind.
Liora Schwartz 1:04:17
And it's not that people aren't open to it or even excited about hearing the science and understanding and shifting. It's just that it hasn't been part of their training. And it hasn't been part of the status quo for so long. But when I get out there, and I'm able to work with school staff, educators, people who are working with kids, mental health staff, you name it, by and large, they're, they’re with me. You know, there's always some questions and some things to grapple with and some things that feel hard to shift. But, but in theory, they take this framework and they grab hold of it, and it makes sense. So, you know, that feels really hopeful to me. And it's just a question of continuing the work and getting the word out there.
Guy Stephens 1:05:01
Yeah, no, and in fact, it's kind of funny because I was, I was thinking, as you were beginning this question about another question I was gonna ask you, which was about what gives you hope? And it sounds like, you know, I mean, it sounds like you are feeling a little bit more hopeful. And that's fantastic. Because I think, you know, depending on where you are, this varies quite a bit, you know, there are places that I think are, are doing more work moving forward. But across the country there is a lot of, there's a lot of difference between school districts. And even in a state, there is often a significant amount of difference between school districts, and this is really tough. So let's bring those worlds together for a second and say, as someone working with, with families, who may have children that are neurodivergent, they may have children that fit a PDA profile. What are some of the things that you share with them, to help them bring some of this back to their school? So if I'm a parent, and I've come and seen you, and at first you started to turn a light on, and you know, it's like, okay, here comes something else, and, and then it starts to go on. And then suddenly, I'm like, “oh, okay, you know, I see this.” So as a parent that maybe has started on this journey, and is beginning to see the power of what you're talking about here. I can change what I'm doing as a parent. But let's say that a lot of the issues that we're having are happening in a school environment. What is your guidance for a parent that might be trying to navigate a school system to better support their child?
Liora Schwartz 1:06:38
Yeah, it's, it can be tough. And I think as much as we are looking for, and pushing toward this sort of big cultural shift and a shift in our society, we're not there yet. We're, I feel like we're moving towards it. We're getting there, right? And people are learning to talk about ability in the same, you know, in the same way and diversity in neurotypes, in the same way that we're able to talk about diversity in race and gender and other things. We’re starting to learn that conversation.
Guy Stephens 1:07:08
And of course, we're not as far along there as we should be.
Liora Schwartz 1:07:10
Yeah. No, no. Exactly. Exactly.
Guy Stephens 1:07:13
When I hear people’s opinions, I’m like, “oh, that's kind of scary, I thought we'd moved in a better direction.” So.
Liora Schwartz 1:07:18
Yeah, that's true. That's true. And, and I think, but I think those things are moving forward in some parts of the country, maybe more than others. But, but that, nobody can wait for that when my kid is really struggling. And so my, you know, my advice in the, in the here and now is just if you can, can you find one ally, can you find one person in the school, who sees the things that are amazing about your kid, because there are no doubt some really cool things about your kid, somebody who can see those things and not just tolerate your child, but really embrace them. And, and see where that person can support you. Are they able or willing to find ways of being flexible, of building in more opportunities for co-regulation, of letting kids take breaks on their own without having to do it in a punitive way, is there, you know, ways that we can build in opportunities for agency and autonomy so that kid feels safer and more connected at school? Well, I think you know, just starting, it's a great if you have a whole team of people who are on your, on, on the same wavelength as you, but sometimes you just got to start with one person who you feel like kind of gets your kid and wants to, to work with you. And then it can kind of spread out from there.
Guy Stephens 1:08:37
Yeah, and it sure would be nice if that person happened to be on your IEP team too. Sure would be nice to have an ally in that, you know, that can be a tough world. You know, I've also been known to do this myself, and also recommend it to others but, you know, give, you know, giving members of an IEP team, a copy of Mona Delahooke’s book, Beyond Behaviors or getting something that might help them to begin to look at things through a different lens. I mean, I'm a, I'm a real strong believer that if you begin looking through, kind of, a brain-aligned lens around this, one you do, it's really hard to see it a different way. I mean, and once you see it in that different way, you look at your own behavior, you look at the behavior of others in such a different light. And you realize, I mean, you said it earlier, you know, it's gotta, it's gotta start with that regulation, right? If we're, in fact, Jennifer was on here earlier, Jennifer is a volunteer with us, but somebody I've known for, probably almost as long as I've been involved in the Alliance, wrote a fantastic article for us. A couple of years ago, the article was called Regulation Before Education. And of course, I mean, that, that, you know, kind of mimics what Bruce Perry says in the neurosequential model, right? It's like regulate, relate, reason, right? You know, we don't reach those higher. Yeah, there's Jennifer. She's there. We don't reach those higher functions. We don't, you know, have the ability to, you know, you know, critically think and decision making and so many of those things that are really reliant on our cortex if we're dysregulated. It's got to start there. But not only do we have to help kids that are dysregulated, feel dysregulated, you know, to feel regulated, not only do we have to help them when they're having a hard time through things like a regulation, but we also need to make sure that we're not actively dysregulating them, which is what we're so often doing with the tons of demands and the compliance, right?
Liora Schwartz 1:10:32
Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, I love that you give out that book, I don't know how many teachers are going to take the time to read it.
Guy Stephens 1:10:39
Right, right.
Liora Schwartz 1:10:40
So that's why I like to offer like, here's some social media influencers you could follow, here's a podcast or two, here's a video and an animated video, or whatever it is. I like to, when I offer those resources to teachers, understand they have their own families, they have a lot of pressure, you know, they may or may not be able to dive into all the reading that you and I have been able to do. And it'd be wonderful if they could and great if their school administration, you know, made that part of their professional development.
Guy Stephens 1:11:10
Sure. Yeah.
Liora Schwartz 1:11:11
There are things that feel more accessible as well, where you can sort of take this in bite sized pieces and start to shift and learn more about it in that way too.
Guy Stephens 1:11:22
Well, I mean, I've got a great solution, and it would only take about an hour and 15 minutes, and that is, share this podcast, right? Share, share, share the, the discussion you and I are having today. And of course, we always encourage people to do that. I mean, I say that kind of jokingly, but, you know, we have in our audience here, a lot of parents, a lot of self advocates, a lot of teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, you know, social workers, psychologists, you know, share this with your co-workers share this with your teams. You know, these conversations are really important. And, you know, again, I mean, who can't, you even but, if you put on two times speed and listen to the podcast version, you know, you'll get through it in 35 minutes. But, but, time well spent. Well, listen, we are nearing the end of our time here. And as I said, that would happen quickly. I want to, want to, of course, thank you for being here. But before I do, I just want to see if there's any kind of final thoughts or final words. I know, suddenly, it feels like a whole bunch of pressure, right? I’m setting your stress response system off here. But it doesn't have to be anything terribly profound. But any final thoughts you want to leave people with as we wrap this up today?
Liora Schwartz 1:12:30
Oh, gosh, I just think, you know, anyone who's, whether you're coming to this, because you're concerned about seclusion and restraint, or you think your kid might fit a PDA profile, or there's a trauma, has any of those things, is a lot to be carrying. And so I'm just, you know, sending out some, some love and support and the knowledge that you are not alone. And just by virtue of spending time listening to this conversation, that sort of demonstrates how deeply you care. And so you know, give yourself that grace.
Guy Stephens 1:13:04
And of course, as we mentioned, you, you are a coach, for parents and for professionals as well. And I'm going to, I'm going to share your link again, here, right now and in the chat. And of course, you are based out of New York. Do you work with families only in New York, or with the event of COVID and now us being so proficient at other things, do you work with families across the country or even beyond that?
Liora Schwartz 1:13:30
I do work with families outside of New York as well. I tend to end up working mostly with people in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts area, but I certainly have had some clients, you know, time zones and things like that get tricky. But I do have some clients outside of this sort of Northeast as well. So yeah, I'm pretty open.
Guy Stephens 1:13:50
Okay, great, great, great. Well, we've provided your link here. So hopefully, people can find you if they're interested in learning more. I want to thank you for spending, you know, the last 75 minutes with me today. Even if, you know going into it, there was a little bit of stress. I always enjoy these conversations. And I think they're really powerful. I think, you know, having these conversations talking about what we can do to you know, better. I mean, honestly, not only serve kids, but adults and educators and so many. I'm one of those people that has this belief, and sometimes people tell me I'm too optimistic and I don't believe that, but that the same things that we do to do better for kids can really end up doing better for the adults and everyone else involved. So I really appreciate you taking the time to join me here today and just want to thank you. Yeah, thank you for all you're doing. Yep, yep. And all you continue to do, so with that. You can stick around here, but we will let everybody else go. Those of you that have joined us live, thanks for watching. If you're watching this back on recording, thank you for getting through it and please share it and come back and see us again in two weeks. All right. Thank you everybody. Take care.
Liora Schwartz: 1:14:59
Bye-bye
Guy Stephens 1:15:00
Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai