Parenting Your Intense Child with Samantha Moe

All right, welcome back parents to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Today we're talking about parenting your intense child with my guest, Samantha Moe. Parenting an emotionally intense child can be overwhelming. It is so often overwhelming and it leaves you feeling like you must constantly do more and be more just to get by. But what if there's a better way?

Well, my guest today, Samantha Moe, is talking about the unique challenges of raising an intense child from their heightened emotions to their strong-willed nature. You're going to learn why traditional parenting strategies often fall short and leave you feeling drained and frustrated. In addition to parenting education and support, Samantha Moe and Associates provides continuing education, advanced training, and parent coach certification for professionals who support intense kids and their families. There is nothing wrong parents with emotionally intense children.

They just need a different approach to communication and a different parenting approach. Samantha believes that when parents, family service professionals, and educators learn what's beneath the challenging behaviors, seek first to understand step one of no problem parenting, right? You can reduce defiance, tantrums, and anxiety, and you can increase peace, calm, and enjoyment for the whole household. So did you hear yesterday's episode number 257 on mindfulness?

We are talking a lot about mindfulness. It's not just a buzzword. Samantha believes in mindfulness too. It takes mindfulness, a different sort of communication and practice to learn her Mad to Glad program and approach.

It's going to teach you and the providers that care for your children how to reach your intense kiddos. So be sure to click the plus sign or the follow button on whatever app you are listening to the podcast on and get notified when part two of our conversation publishes next week. In part two, we're going to discuss that feeling of defeat and how professionals can effectively support families of intense children. But for today, we're going to jump right into eight pillars of the Mad to Glad approach, which is a brain-based approach.

So for all you parents listening today with a kiddo on the spectrum, maybe with sensory issues or super emotionally intense child, we are here to help you today. Stay tuned. Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. From toddler tantrums to teenage eye rolls, this podcast is your go-to for updated and old school tips and tools that are gonna help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be.

Do you ever wish there was a specific manual that came with each one of your kids? I mean, what works for one often doesn't work for the other, right? And let's face it, we don't know what we don't know. And even if there was a manual, well, it probably wouldn't be able to keep up with all the changes in our world.

Well, this podcast is the next best thing. I'm your host, Jackie Finneman, a 30-year counselor turned parenting coach, and I've got a lot to share, including hundreds of resources that you have access to right from your home and strategies that are gonna boost your confidence and energize you. So whether you're knee-deep in diapers or navigating the tween years, or you're launching your child into adulthood, subscribe and share this podcast with your friends teachers and daycare providers we're going to turn your parenting problems into no problem one episode at a time hey samantha we did it we finally made this happen welcome to the show hey thank you before we get into mad to glad tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to specialize in coaching parents of intense kids yes well you know i graduated from the university of minnesota with a master's degree in communication disorders in 2004. And I was bright eyed and bushy tailed, excited to specialize in autism and use my gifts and make a difference and help kids learn communication skills to make friends. Fast forward a few months, and I'm standing outside the third grade classroom with my hand on the doorknob. And I'm filled with dread, because it is my job to get Charlie,

who is the kid known for his epic meltdowns in the school, I needed to transition him out of the classroom down the long hallway to my speech therapy office to work on some new skills. Well, I was able to transition him out of that classroom without a meltdown and hope was rising as a new graduate working in this job for just a few months as we're getting 15 steps away, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 and Charlie melted down. So Charlie is laying at my feet, screaming, saying those things you never want to hear a kid say to you in public. And as I looked over my shoulder and had this moment of feeling lost and do I know what I'm doing here? I looked over my shoulder and I saw some teachers peering out of the cafeteria.

And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, are they judging me? Are they wondering what is Samantha going to do because this happens twice a week? And I felt the sweat roll down my back and I thought, I don't know what to do. And that moment of honesty allowed me to skip the lesson, bribe Charlie, and he went back into the classroom and had a good transition back.

But I still had to do this walk of shame down the long hallway. And I went to my office. I turned out the light with my head in my hands, sat at my desk, and I really wrestled. And I share this because I know that you listeners as parents wrestle.

I know that you practitioners who specialize in incredible things like you with attachment disorder and relationship, I know that you struggled in moments too. And in that moment where I was like, really, am I cut out for this? I didn't know this is what I was signing up for. Maybe I should just cut my losses and do something different, which is hard to do when you're actually a parent.

It's a different question mark when you're a professional, right? And thank goodness, I also heard my mother Cheryl's voice in my head. Now, my mom raised myself plus four siblings and five daycare kids in a suburb north of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. And I heard her voice say, Samantha, every child has gifts and you can learn to draw them out.

And I'm kind of like wrestling with that, like, yeah, right, maybe, whatever, maybe if you're so-and-so. And then I heard it again, clear as a bell, Samantha, every child has gifts. You can learn to draw them out. And that kick-started my real work in the world, which was starting to research and observe and learn from professionals around me, how do you move through these states of dysregulation and meltdown?

What are some common themes and patterns from the field of brain science, the nervous system, mindfulness, sensory processing disorder, play therapy? Like what are people doing? And I saw a pattern and it was a pattern that nobody had taught me. It wasn't clearly written anywhere that I had been looking.

But I noticed that if we want to unlock children's gifts, and I would say gifts of what they have to offer the world, which comes as a result of being in control of reactions and emotions, having self-regulation is what we call it, right? That in order for that to occur, children's brains or any brain has to feel calm and it has to feel safe. So my work was to like answer this question, what's missing? What is missing from this child's brain feeling calm and safe. And there's lots of ways of looking at that. You can look at it from a gut inflammation perspective. You can look at it from an occupational therapist, like working with sensory processing disorder perspective. You can look at it as relationship and attachment.

You can look at it from all these perspectives. But my heart was parenting. And I wasn't even a parent yet. I'm this 24-year-old fresh out of college. Like, how do I help this kid's brain feel calm and safe. And so I began developing a curriculum accidentally over seven years of the tools to help the brain calm down and feel safe and emotionally connected and with good organizational skills and impulse control for families, for kids who don't just have autism.

I found that these tools are really relevant to kids with big feelings and big reactions. And this could be a strong-willed kid. This could be a bunch of other diagnoses like oppositional defiance disorder. And ultimately for me, it's like, I am curious, how do we create peace at home for the kid to have the childhood that they deserve? And for parents, I have a three and a half year old at home. So I needed these tools for myself to feel like the purpose I have in the world is also enjoyable instead of constant burnout. I just love it all so much. We have similar backgrounds, P.S. When did you decide it was parents? And I'm going to guess this because for me, it was wanting to make sure that, yes, I could help the kiddo in their school environment or in their daycare environment. But what happens when I'm not there? And, you know, parents, I could say, oh, do this, do this, do this. I leave. And this used to happen all the time when I was an in-home mental health practitioner. I would leave and the parents would try something that I suggested and the kid would say, well, that's not how Jackie said to do it. Or that's not how Jackie said to say it. And I was like, oh, I just don't like that. Yeah. Power differential kind of thing or that and like and meeting with kids in front of their parents or parents in front of the like really wanted to reach the parents and help them help their child outside of school therapy

services, et cetera. Yeah, I think there were a few key moments. If I were to answer this really broadly, what I would say is growing up in a large family, there was some stress in our household, like there is in most households, right? And the Minnesota Association for Children's Mental Health actually invited me to do a TED style talk. And so I have a talk on healing the silent family struggle, which speaks to things can look great on the outside. And it looks like like all five of us kids have some sort of college degree or more. And we're, most of us are in long-term relationships and have stable housing situations. And so from the outside world, those look like measures of success. And as a 10th grader, I had such bad anxiety that I would black out before high school. So when I start looking at that level of stress or need for mental health support, I don't just look at what was it that I needed as a kid, but what was it that could have made an impact for my parents as well, who, you know, my dad was stressed because he's had seven mouths to feed. So that's kind of the long version is I think it comes from my own childhood and loving my parents, but also really feeling a lot of stress that I internalized.

Now, more practically, I remember being seven years into my speech therapy career. And sometimes the coaches who I certified to learn my program and teach it on site at their clinics or therapy centers know this story. And I don't always share it with parents, but I'm going to share it right now. So I was seven years into my speech therapy career, and I'm working at an outpatient pediatric clinic.

And I was frustrated by a kid's dad. So I'm going to call him Drew. He was five years old, autistic, making great progress on social skills. And I was doing unusual speech therapy.

I had him on scooter boards and jumping on swings and getting smushed between pillows, which oftentimes looks like occupational therapy work. But I knew that if I could regulate his system by going in through his muscles and his breathing, then he would make eye contact. We could talk about who was his favorite animal at the zoo or what was his favorite animal. And that made my job easier.

so whenever I'm looking at at like how to move forward I'm usually working with a couple questions what am I missing and how do I enjoy this more and Drew's dad would come and I'd say hey how did the home program the social skill program go for you and he'd say I can't get him to do it and I'd lay in bed at night and feel frustrated like okay I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what I could teach differently and I'd refine it. And then he'd come back and how's the home program? Oh, I, he won't do it. And I'm like, oh shoot, now there's resistance. What do we need to do to regulate his system? Yada, yada. And ultimately how it ended up was dad came in one day. I'm like, how'd it go? And he just looks at me. He's like, I didn't do it. And I was like, well, I mean, I can only be so bright and shiny for another person. And I remember asking him. This was at the time where I knew that I had strategies to help kids feel calm and I could set up preventative environments so there are fewer meltdowns, even in a really challenging population.

So I asked this dad, because I was quitting my job, I was starting my own practice back in 2011, and I said, will you be honest with me? Like, I'm trying to understand what am I missing since I'm not a parent yet because I didn't become a parent until 2020. And he said, sure, I have chronic leukemia. So when you're doing the speech and social skill sessions, I need to leave the clinic and go to the grocery store so that I can bring my kid home afterwards, put dinner on the table for my family of five, and then I'm out of energy. And like that judgmental part of my personality was like, oh, right through the heart, instant compassion. So I think that there's like part of these gems of my own upbringing and my own childhood that put me on this path to help parents. And also I've, I'm not afraid of the conversation with parents. I feel really brave about asking them if there's meltdowns, how did you feel and what did you do and what got in the way of you doing the thing that somebody else taught you to do that seems like a good idea.

And by the way, is that thing even the right tool? Because you've been working on a lot of things. And could we make that simpler so that we can put it together in a little pyramid style, and you can only focus on your top three to five that actually matter. And so there were moments like this that moved me into the parent coaching world. And I knew that with a parent coach certification, parents were coming because I'll say we, since I'm a parent, because we know when we're not feeling great about our style, we know what's happening behind closed doors. Even if our kid transitions well out of the, out of the car, into the school, holds it together. When you're at Trader Joe's buying groceries, we know if we're yelling, slamming doors, feeling unhappy, super burnt out kids,

hitting us we know and so um that's why I love working with parents it's real and I think when parents are angry or frustrated or feeling defeated and when we can empower them hear them listen to them rather than judge and I you know again similar thing first client at first family's home I ever went to walked on the wooden front porch with my cherish every child sweatshirt on And I was going to just be the best person I ever met.

And, you know, walk in and the girl had just gotten done with a two and a half hour tantrum and the parents answered the door and they're like, here she is. She's all yours. We're going outside for a break. And I'm thinking, well, no wonder why this kid has problems.

But I didn't know that the two and a half, the parents were just waiting for me to show up to get that break and that feel some relief. So let's transition in a little bit. Then when was Mad to Glad born and, and to walk through the steps of Mad to Glad. Sure. Yeah. It was officially born. So when my business opened in 2011, as a certified parent coach and life coach, Mad to Glad started as the five polka dot approach, because I was working with a lot of kids in the three to seven range. And it was kind of like a preschool vibe.

And as I started doing one on one parent coaching over the course of a couple of years, I realized that I was missing some polka dots. And I realized that families with 11 year olds and 13 year olds were contacting me. And especially if their kid has a diagnosis, you know, they're contacting me because their kid's 15 or 19 and they're autistic. And that's such a strong specialty of mine that I didn't want to say no to them.

So when it was really born, like officially, I think I offered it to the world in 2014 as the full package of what it is now. And then there's eight pillars and they're designed to create peace at home working from the bottom up. So I teach brain-based parenting tools. I don't want to like, yes, I like evidence-based practices. And I know lots of people who have clinical backgrounds or educational backgrounds really like that. But for me, it was also anecdotal.

I just saw that it worked and it was simple. So I teach parents, the first two pillars of my program are how to calm fire in the brain. Because whenever there's a meltdown, if it's Charlie screaming, I hate you. If it's somebody throwing a chair, if it's a parent slamming a door, what that means is downstairs brain fight, flight, or freeze is activated.

And in loud moments, that's the fight response. But in my quiet, what do I do? I'm lost moment. That's the freeze response. And so I want to teach, how do we calm the fire so that we can become more functional and outward and pay attention in relationship. So those are the first two of my eight pillars in the program is like, let's learn how to calm that for ourselves and the kids, and then avoid the hidden things that are embedded in everyday language that are fire starters. After that, we move into the next two pillars, which are midbrain, relational. And you know this with your specialty and attachment and repair and relationships. So how do we create play or positive connections so that fight or flight, stress, like chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol decrease and happy chemicals increase.

Because like that family you're talking about with the kid with a two and a half hour meltdown, that kid wasn't just having a meltdown in that moment for that day. That's hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of times later. Of course, this parent feels absolutely defeated. So for me, it's important to learn how to build happy chemicals like oxytocin for bonding and dopamine.

and like fun note you can elicit that simply by laughter like genuine laughter and play so if the child is stimming which means they might be like spinning a top over by the fireplace if you can join in play and the child gets to be the boss of that play and you join in and not that you have to entertain them or you have to ask them questions to engage them but there's ways of joining kids in play that I teach so that it elicits happy chemicals and those mirror back and forth like we literally have mirror neurons in the brain. So if the kid's feeling happy and the parent can join in on that, boom, more oxytocin bonding chemistry. If the parent's having a good time and the kid wants to engage in that, boom, now together we're creating neural pathways of positive connection. And you need a higher ratio of happy chemicals than stress chemicals if you want to enjoy parenting. And so we figure out how to do that and acknowledge kids emotionally.

and then finally we work in upstairs brain this is the dr daniel siegel language who wrote the whole brain child downstairs brain upstairs brain we work on collaboration so once we've got these bottom of the brain stuff figured out now we add in things like positive discipline conflict resolution shifting your routine so that it flows and you're not anticipating the same meltdown at the same time of day um and so when people go through my program they either self-guide through my website, my DIY eight pillars, or they join my six month group coaching program where we walk alongside them for eight weeks to learn it. And then repeat the pillars the four months after that program spaced out so that they get to really implement it. And parents start seeing along the way, Oh, wow. I knew this strategy. I knew I should practice empathy, but I didn't know. I can also have boundaries and say, there's no hurting. I know you're upset and there's no hurting. And I need to do a barrier to keep our bodies safe. And vice versa, the parents who, you know,

generally generationally is a pretty safe. It's a pretty safe stereotype to say that in past generations, authoritarian parenting was a go to, that means the parent is the boss, and the kid will obey and the parent won't be flexible and kid you better put up or shut up. Right? Right.

And how well does that work these days? Well, and not with emotionally intense kids. Right? So by nature of fire in the brain, if there's higher escalation of fight or flight and higher tendency to fight response, which is temperament, more strong-willed, if you match that fire, if you get into like, do it because I said so, that intense brain kid is going to match you there and escalate it. So the same thing is true in these pillars when people go through them. I don't know from the outside exactly which ones you're missing. I mean, I have a guess. I usually know about three because I've worked with almost a thousand diverse families.

But we also have the parents who are too heavy on boundaries and expectation, obedience, and authority. And so that parent needs to learn what you know, like, can we bring in some emotional validation here? Instead of, I see this a lot because I have a three and a half year old. So on my Instagram feed, I see positive messages, like instead of saying, stop crying, what if every parent learned to say, can I hold you?

Or do you need a hug? And I love that. That worked really well in my family with our temperaments and phases of life that we're all in. So finding ways that this parent over here who's too strict on boundaries also brings in warmth and connection. Because here's the thing. When a kid feels connected to emotionally, this is brain science.

when you connect a child to their emotions, it connects them to you. But what that means is as a parent, you got to be growth oriented. You got to care what's happening beneath the behaviors. And you have to, you don't have to, you're welcome, you're invited to understand that if you misperceived a situation as manipulative or defiant, but we reframe that into they're upset, something feels unfair, and we learn how to label that briefly and move on, parenting is a lot Yeah, it's a game changer. And so much of it is fear based for the kids, but it doesn't come out as fear comes, you know, if they're misbehaving or they're back talking or, you know, wet noodling on the floor, it doesn't come out that there's any fear in there. But fear can be the root of a lot of their behavior problems. So our challenges and also parents not feeling confident about like, how do I how do I get this in control? What do I do?

And so if you're second guessing yourself and you're not feeling very empowered or skilled at responding to your kiddo, that's defeating. Yeah. I mean, can we talk about defeat for a few minutes? Yes, absolutely. I want to talk about defeat.

Let's do that in part two next week, because you have a great story about not only feeling that defeat as a parent, but also as a professional. And then I also want to share your program for educators and how parents who are really passionate, they've raised their kids, they've figured it out with their kids, now they want to help support other parents, how they can become certified in your Mad to Glad program. So let's do that next week.

And until then, head into the show notes. There's lots of information in there about the Do It Yourself Mad to Glad online parenting program. You can look at Samantha's website, schedule a call with her. get the make it better freebie. It's a download that's going to come right to your inbox.

And there is an upcoming free professional skills webinar on February 17th. That is this coming Saturday, 2024. These webinars are held monthly. So if you're catching this episode after February 17th of 2024, there's likely another one coming. So there's a link in the show notes to register for that until next time, be sure you're clicking the plus sign or follow button, subscribe, download the podcast, share it with your friends and family. We are rocking the daily podcast episodes. Let me know if there's a topic you'd like us to cover. Email me at Jackie, J-A-C-I at noproblemparents.com. We'll see you next week.