Understand Me, Don’t Fix Me - Creating Real Change for Children on The Spectrum #178

hi everybody Welcome to tonight's coach manakan burnfield on this beautiful Sunday night March 3rd thank you for joining us tonight is sheer 178 again I want to thank everybody coming on every week and we have a bunch of amazing topics and speakers coming up and thank you for telling people about it and sending the emails around and the whatsapps we appreciate it and tonight is again we've had Rob and nakan before to discuss this but we're going to go a little bit deeper tonight on children and even adults on on the Spectrum and hopefully tonight's talk will be very helpful for people now and hopefully down the future if anybody wants to join the WhatsApp communities you can just WhatsApp me at 732 314710 and I'll send you the link to the communities I'll also send the community links in the emails and also in the in the zoom chats you can also go to mfl.com and sign up for the website and um he sends out all the emails all the replays and all the important information that's going on in the coach mam world so please join us again for anybody who's watching in this on YouTube later on click on the like button and subscribe button so every time you upload a video to the kosam uh platform you get to watch them and hopefully we all grow together special thank you to all the advertising sponsor Lakewood for here at Lakewood Scoop La AR 5 Central and KY Calin from jcn we really appreciate promoting us again if anybody's here the first time every Sunday night at 9:30 on this Sumer this Zoom ID we have different important topics different therapists ranim important people and we really try to clarify and go through some important things that are happening M next week March 10th going to have deep discussion do be Pinon supposed be on this Sunday but something happened he pushed up to next week and we still didn't confirm the topic but he's very mystical and hopefully it'll be something very interesting so thank you for joining and tonight we have the honor of having again ra Bernstein together with no uh man manof man man and uh we'll get into their whole background and everything soon first was start with to tonight katria tonight share 178 and our CEO CFO and everything of behind the share the one who started the share will give us Thea and will say if it's a gooda because he likes to hear if it's good on or not let's go sheer number 178 understand me don't fix me creating real change for children on disection in order to accomplish this feat it has to be done in a clever way which leads us up to tonight out 178 is smart Nation do things in a clever way no what do you give that that was was that on the spot I think that's very good Rob he's good perfect I mean more than good okay I think he's too good for us actually I have to agree with that okay now we're going to turn over to the the host the World Famous coach maak burfield he's going to lay on he's going to lay out the the the the map the map tonight what we're trying to accomplish what what are we all doing here tonight coach bernfeld thank you thank you very much I want to welcome everyone welcome to another let's get real with coach manim and bar we're doing tonight number 178 and we have with us Rob and we did have them in the past and we're very excited to continue the conversation um like we always say it's very hard to um to finish you know to an hour an hour and a half is not enough and we probably won't have enough time tonight either but we'll start we'll start the conversation starting the conversation is important so that people out there that need it and they can reach out to those who can help them so to understand a little bit many parents the first child second child everything went well and they went to school and behaved and everything is amazing and then for some reason the next child is very frustrating the child is struggling in school struggling social skills and they're trying to figure out what the child needs and they're trying to do this do that the teacher tries this and that he's in in class out of class the principal and the parents just have to go to work they don't have time and it takes a lot of time when when you get called down to the school once and twice and they ask themselves why can't this child just figure it out you know like everybody else and they just they just hope one day things are going to work out hopefully you know he'll get older he'll get to understand but for some reason they don't so talking talking about the Spectrum I'm saying there is a huge Spectrum talking about from high functioning low functioning it's interesting which one is easier sometimes for parents when it's low functioning could be easier even though you might think it's you know there is a side to it that's easy because it's very clear it's clear that the child needs extra help and they you have to figure out how to how to do deal with the child but when the when a child is high functioning in a regular class a regular home and everything is working out for some reason there are small things that they can't figure out sometimes it's much harder so it's something that to think about which one do you think is is easier high functioning low functioning I guess everybody would have a different answer for that but but until they get to the answer until they get to the diagnosis which a lot of times we don't want to hear it's too hard to hear until we figure out what's going on with the child there's a lot of frustration and we heard heard last time for those who remember for many just being able to figure out that they have that you know the diagnosis make them feel so much better because they can go so many years trying to figure out why they're different why things are not working out you know they have a hard time just being around but once they figure out ah you know finally I can figure out where I am now again it's you know a lot of people don't want to diagnose they do which one is easier something to think about and tonight we'll we'll discuss it but when you have a child that's all over the place runs in the street no matter what you do so you start punishments and this and that they don't eat they don't sleep they're crawling the walls and you know you name it and you're trying to figure out what am I doing wrong many times parents blame themselves that they have you know the parenting is not good talk about the grandparents you know they blame their kids you know take care of this child you know got to be a little stronger you know put down your foot and till till till they figure it out that this child needs something different they will not respond to our regular to our regular parenting they don't they don't respond the same way and there's nothing wrong with you you know you could have been the have you know could have had with other kids you had success but with this with this one you don't so it does take that being able to slow down and to understand like we're going to discuss tonight to understand the child what's going on what does he need and tonight we have with us the big ones Rob and they work together trying to help all of all of those who need and we'll try to understand a little bit this child and before we go I just want to mention understanding the child understand me don't fix me he not only for autistic children I think it's for everyone you know when this when you're trying to parent many times we forget it's we're constantly saying don't do this don't do that do this do this you know first understand the child and more important let the child feel understood the child should feel somebody is there for him is parents understand them he can talk they can discuss things when they're in a bad mood when they throw Tantrums regular kids throw Tantrums yeah not you know they all need to be felt and understood so mitem we'll start the discussion ask your questions and let's see where it goes thank you for that beautiful opening let's get into it the title tonight is understand me don't fix me creating real change for children on the Spectrum we're going to start off first with no is going to go first no msed bcba no manof received his master's degree in applied Behavior Analysis University of Cincinnati 2019 as bcba certification 2020 also received a New York state standard teaching license 2015 since 2010 no Mano has provided educational behavioral therapy for children in adolescent Lakewood New Jersey no has started real change ABA therapy to provide ABA therapy incorporating robs Bernstein's Innovative approach and will open it up first okay thank you very much um first of all coacher for you know inviting us again on the program um I you know the the message that that we get is that this is um a topic that's dear to you you're passionate about it you know about you know helping these you know children or you know not just children adults and you really wanted to bring more awareness to this topic um so thank you for bringing us on um now last program we did rasher you came up with this beautiful title understanding the misunderstood and I think this big this title was a big inspiration for a lot of what we're doing because we're sort of doing that you know intuitively we want to understand the kids want to really help them but sort of this title really opened them up opened up this idea that this is like maybe one of the C things that we need to do to help these help these people we we really just need to understand them um and you know as we're working more in the field you know working together talking to Rob working more with kids with families you know I'm seeing more and more that just understanding the kid just understanding his point of view understanding how he views the world how he understands things is the best way to really you know help them really change fundamentally and really grow um so you know there's a story that happens with me recently which is a big inspiration for this program um you know the lots of stories that that come up but this specific story was um you know I started working with a boy and you know in a short period of time this boy was really making a lot of progress you know it started out seemed like you know from the rebi that he's he's just Reby doesn't feel like he can do anything with him he just doesn't respond to anything the rebi says he's totally not cooperating and then in a short period of time you know we worked with him you know I worked with him part myself part through as a therapist that I was supervising that was working with him every day and in a short period of time you know the child was noticeably changing and improving he's doing better with friends his participation in class did make some progress you know he's coming home Happy the mother's reporting that you know he's just happy when he comes home he's not so upset said about school and so we had a meeting um you know meeting you know with the with the school with the parents with the teachers with the principal and during this meeting the mother said something I think is very profound she said all the child needed was to be understood and she felt that this you know the therapist that's working with her kid every day he really was able to understand the kid and one of the thing is the therapist himself actually went through similar challenges when he was growing up and he discussed it and he says like he really gets the kid you know he sort of could like feel like he's in this kid shoes sitting in the classroom and you know listening to how the teachers you know the rees's teaching and it's just not connecting to how this child thinks how this child's mind works and being able to understand the kids's point of view and tune into that that was already enough to just make this fundamental change um and really get the kid to really start growing and improving in a meaningful way um so you know a little bit more details about this you know just to be more descriptive I'm going to change details be you know but um we're gonna say that this boy's name is schy schlim is in fifth grade and the rebby said that schy he's he as if he's not in the class he's sitting there he's as if he's not in the class and you know he doesn't participate he doesn't do anything he's supposed to do he doesn't open his far he doesn't listen to the gumara you know he doesn't take any tests and the rebi started you know trying to tell him to do things and it just like there's no response rebie said okay this kid is not for me I don't deal I can't deal with this kind of kid and um so so one of the things that that I try to focus on and you know one of the things I'm learning from Rob is that you know let's figure out what is schamy what what gets him really excited what gets schy really going right I want to see like you know I'm going to just sit down schamy I'll bring a bunch of you know games or things to talk about and I want to see what's that thing that's going to really get me like spark that you know that aliveness that excitement like this is really life this is really meaningful and using that we can sort of figure out how we're going to help this kid and I realized that schi you know I like to do Woodworking and I saw schy you know he loves things with building loves things with Woodworking and I said we're gonna work on you know making this little um project this wood project we're going to make a little box and there's a elic lock on this box and you swipe it with a card open up the electronic lock the cover opens up and schamy was absolutely fascinated by this idea about this project and you know so one of the things you know that that I see is that you know things that are visual things that you know he could tangibly build and put together is so much more meaningful so he's sitting in a classroom and the you know the Reb's teaching gamar but there's not that much visual there's not that much that he could really you know hands on incorporate it's just you know it's reading it's words it's translation and it's just totally not connecting with him so just having somebody that you know took him out of class for you know some time every day spend time trying to teach him and make the learning something that he can really connect to something he can really engage with um you know we're going to talk we're going to learn about things in in the paraa about the mishkan you know building things for the mishan we're GNA actually let's figure out how we can actually build them let's talk about you know what are the things that you know that the man is really made of and then when it's real when it's alive that's something that he really connects to now I'm gonna have to really add something that you coach maam said that right why are we calling this title for children on the Spectrum really this should be for every child you know every child that's challenging this is really it's the same thing we need to understand what this child is going through how he learns how he develops and then we can figure out how to gear our education and our teaching to address what he needs and um you know figuring out maybe for some kids you know just reading they can't relate to we have to find something that they could relate to and then they'll start to really learn um now another point I wanted to mention is that sometimes when you talking about understanding the child maybe the child says that nobody understands and maybe we don't fully understand the child so what does that mean understand me well at least the our approach should be we're we want to understand you we're going to try to understand you we're going to try our best you know maybe we won't but at least that's what we're trying for and at least the child's going to get that message that we're here to try to understand him try to see what's going on and if he senses that's our interest and that's our approach instead of us deciding for him what he should be doing and what should should be unless you know if we tell them oh yeah we understand you that's that's not understanding him understanding means we're open and we're ready to accept you know what the child has to say and and we're going to you know respond to his feedback um so and then one more point that you said coach M that's you know very important is that there's a lot of pressure societal pressure which sort of is inter in with this you know this pressure let's say from the grandparents you know different kinds of pressure in the family that like hey how could the kid just be doing this all this kind of stuff you got to put a stop to it you know just put your foot down don't let him get away with it and that sort of and that makes it hard to you know engage with the child understanding for who he is and help him because we have to somehow disregard understanding him and just get him to do what he need him to do and that's really one of the big challenges that that interfere with this with this process and that's why I think that this is a really really important topic and a really important discussion um to understand me and don't fix me don't just try to fix me and change me and and if we understand the child then he will change and he will get fixed but not because we're fixing him he he'll fix himself okay thank you okay beautiful turn it over to Rob I'm going to read his bio and then uh we'll give it over to Rob over here Robert J Bernson has developed a cognitive based approach more than 30 years starting with the H summer program at park Seville New York he's he's seen thousands of clients he speaks internationally runs webinars and has a podcast uniquely normal a Rob Bernstein podcast Rob serves on the board of the West chusta Arc Rob Bernstein has a child and a brother on the autism spectrum who are both highlighted among the 27 stories and his award-winning book uni uniquely normal tapping the the reservoir of normal to treat autism his latest book uniquely normal manual using the bursting cognitive method for autism it's an honor to have Mr Rob back with us Rob open it up for us well it's a real honor to be here thank you thank you for inviting us again um a lot of wonderful information has already been said I think number one what Nim just said about being engaged that's that's a key and you can't emphasize that enough and as we talk more um if you have a kid who's bored and not connected to school well there something wrong kid should be enjoying she kid should be liking school is that asking too much they should be engaged you know and um and that should be a primary especially with kids who have learning problems if these kids aren't and engaged they they cut out they can't wait till they're old enough to say you know Bye Mom bye dad I want to be on my own and that's what happens in in in the community they have to be engaged they have to love what they're doing love learning love love the Jewish life and um and not feel that they're tortured and why are they torture because they're not understood it comes back to that um I love what both U uh Coachman Aram started with the idea that it's if it's good for some of these kids it's good for everyone I I was observing a child in a classroom there was a circle right and this kid was right outside the circle and afterwards I went to the teacher I said you know the two kids who are sitting you know in front of them could just reach back and grab one hand and the other per kid could reach back and grab the other hand all of a sudden the kids's in the circle the kids included now this is a kid who wouldn't mind you know holding hand some kids would mind and the teacher said oh it's so simple thank you you're making me a better teacher a better teacher for everybody so that's what we're talking about just just good education good teaching good learning um this idea of being understood and not understood um coach maram said something else that was I thought really important the kids often get blamed why aren't you doing what you're supposed to be doing so the kids are often getting blamed and you know who else gets blamed the parents the why why you know you how come it's your fault I've been in the schools for for 30 years and I know and I know this firsthand that the teachers in the school the first thing to be blamed are the parents the kid comes in it's it's always the parents fault and the parents like they have they're dealing with a thousand things it's not the parents fault it's it's the responsibility of the teachers in the school to connect with the kid to understand the kid if you connect and understand the kid all of a sudden there's I I'll give you example off the top of my head um the like being understood being connected there was a behavior problem this girl was just disconnected I said this girl needs a personal relationship with the teacher something personal well what does that mean I I I I thought about it and I went talked to the teacher I said you know sometimes you bring things from your car like during lunch or something you take a break you bring take this kid with you take this kid with you and ask going to help you bring something in from your car that connection was all the kid needed the kid needed this special connection and that's all the kid needed because I understood what the kid needed I understood what who she was what she needed and it's the same thing with kids in in in college they may need this personal connection I had a kid uh couldn't relate to anything Shakespeare anything but if she knew the times of Shakespeare she was introduced to the to the Elizabethan times then she could all all of a sudden she connected to everything it's it's understanding the kid understanding what the kid needs in order to make this connection um so I wanted to give an example of kind of the work or the cognitive work that um that we we do here I'm getting something um and that is some people some teachers when they need to understand the kid and look I was trained like everybody else how do you understand the kid's math you know ability okay you give a kid a you know up count to count to 10 all right the kid could do it count to 20 the kid can't do it okay now I know where where the kid's level at now I understand the kid you give him a test and you see oh what level he's at okay now I understand the kid and just with the math example I had kids coming in they count to 100 they count to 120 from our point of view a cognitive point of view what's important with counting let's just take counting the important thing with counting is the idea behind counting now if I asking you could look at you could write in the chat if I ask you what is the idea behind counting now I know you all know the idea behind counting but if you have to learn it and that's the point some of these kids have to learn what other kids learn naturally they don't have to be taught it you didn't have to be taught the idea of counting now if I asked you what is the idea of counting what would you say and I see faces thinking well you're thinking because you never taught it you know it doesn't come easy and natural to you like what's the idea I did I did this in India in front of 800 people two people had an answer one was totally off so one person out of 800 actually had a response what is the idea of counting so I'm going to I'm going to just keep talking because I don't see any um anything on the idea of counting to me and this is important is that four when one two three four four is one more than three right and three is one less than four if a kid doesn't understand that and play with this I was going to say trust trust me but I don't like that expression play with this idea a lot of our kids do not understand when they're counting that oh four is one more than three they don't get it so now we're teaching them something wrote right the counting and it's literally meaningless right because they don't understand the idea behind it it's meaningless so fine the teaching is meaningless but something really and I been studying John Dewey and it's re I I'm convinced something very harmful is happening because now the kid is learning he's getting reinforced he's getting rewarded oh now you count to 20 now you count to 30 so the kid is learning that this is the behavior that is good that he's rewarded for meanwhile he doesn't understand in terms of counting he doesn't understand it at all it's totally meaningless so now I'm going to I'm something about me if I tell you something that's not good or I don't like something I'll always tell you what to do about it otherwise what why why should I say that so I'm gonna give you is it okay for me to share a secret uh coach manakum I don't want to share all my secrets but okay all right all right here okay I share okay um all right so this is what you do all right you play you have fun with this you have four pennies right and you have could count four pennies he could counted 100 one two three four how how many pennies in my hand you close your hand four pennies he got it four he gots it he gets it four pennies right then what you do with the hand close and you show them you take one penny away now how many do I have now if the kid says open your hand because only knows who how to do is count right then well I I I use it as a learning tool so I don't open my hand I go all right I let's I have this challenge for this kid you could do what you want I don't care but the kid says open your hand now you know it doesn't have the concept of counting because if he had the concept of counting before you got four four one away well it's three obviously the number before four is three you took one away it's three right he should know that right away it's amazing how many of our kids don't know that and if they do know it fine you give them another let's say sticking with math something a little harder the concept of addition and subtraction the I have a great great I'm not going to give it now I don't think until unless I'll I'll I'll wait for someone to ask for it a great conceptual understanding of multiplication which I guarantee will be difficult for most of you guys because it's it's because I've done it I've done it with adults you know so I'm just saying have have fun with this idea of I think of it as a conceptual approach when the kids's learning something what's underlying the learning what's underlying the behavior what's the ideas that underline virtually everything what's the ideas that underly language I think language comes from ideas not watch this picture car watch this boat who cares it comes from ideas it comes from within so this idea of meaningful engagement understanding and I hate to say this and love because once you really understand how a kid's mind works then it's then it's a real Bond then you can answer any question about the kid because you understand you get the kid and a lot of these kids have no one to really understand them and then they feel isolated and they feel socially isolated and then it's a vicious circle of not being connected to school having no friends or very few friends which is another topic that we should discuss so I think that gives us an introduction of kind of who I am where I'm coming from and and uh thank you for the the coach manakum for opening up a beautiful introduction to this uh this this this webinar now and and um I'm welcome to you know go on with with whatever ARA has in mind okay so we're gonna start with four question poll everybody give the answer you think it is and then we will take live questions andbody wants to ask Live question you have the gurus over here in this para everything is acceptable ask whatever question you might have feel comfortable and let's get into it okay four question poll here we go let's see if it works this week okay one second same problem as last time I don't know I did a double okay do you believe there's resources and support both for with within the school and at home for children with autism spectrum disorder ASD there three options I I doubled one because it's a problem yes there's more than enough resources B yes there is enough not that there's more than enough it's just like it makes it or option three no there's not enough second question do you perceive ASD to be greater challenge for children or for adults there four options it's harder for children harder for adults both children and adults equally depends on the individual circumstances third question what do you believe is the most effective approach method to support and treat ASD ABA therapy right floor time development individual therapists uh individual differences cognitive approach teaching proper thinking strategies a sensory OT approach the fourth question what do you believe is the most critical aspect in supporting individuals with autism what you believe is the most critical aspect in supporting individuals with autism spectrum whether children or adults a providing sensory accommodations and interventions B fostering and fostering social and emotional development through relationship based approaches or C implementing structured behavioral intervention such as ABA those are the four questions a lot of questions read them over and then we'll vote on them and then we'll hear the input from the the gurus over here and again anybody wants to ask a Live question please text us over here okay five more seconds okay here we go okay let's share the results with everybody first question um do you believe that there's an adequate resources and both within the school and at home for children with with autism in the Spectrum just s ASD 1% of people feel that there's more than enough 18% of people feel yes there's enough and a whopping 81% feel there no there's not enough resources Rob do you agree disagree yeah I can't argue with 81% I think that people know people know what there is out there I think Pary why people say that there's not enough because the ones that are there are not really adequate it's not working you know and then you have the illusion if you have more if you have speech therapy four times a week instead of two that would make a difference and see I would say it's the quality of these connections with with with your child um yes if there's some kind of OT occupational therapy or physical therapy okay that's a physical thing that that is standard that's a standard kind of thing but um but something like speech um I'm a little more cautious about because I'm wondering how the speech is being taught you know we have to kind of look at that and see if it's really language and see if it's it's really meaningful so um yeah there not enough but I would qualify it in saying that you want the right what I told the parent the other day I said your kid needs to connect with something it could someone it could be a therapist any one of these therapists that we're talking about or could be somebody who works in the kitchen needs you know that's more important that's more important than having a half an hour of speech therapy and not not being effective I just want to add to that that's really I think that's really um um that's that's something that's really really important um something that you mentioned coach manum that teacher or maybe oh sorry maybe Rob you said this that the that teachers want something what a teacher can do I'm sorry it was you Rob what teachers can do is something very simple like the teacher's like there's so many struggles with this kid and how could a teacher deal with one kid to have a whole entire classroom to deal with just making a connection with the kid it could take you know two minutes you know maybe there something the kid really likes maybe he likes to talk about you know outer space or coin collecting the teacher could just you know find something to engage with the kid and really connect with the kid spending a very short amount of time and that can make such a big difference for the kid so it's not necessarily the quantity of how many specialized classrooms and how many oneone teachers and how many oneone hours of therapy it's really the quality of the support and of what we give for these children let me give a can I give an example of what you're saying in terms of connecting and quality when I go into a school I'm there I'm the first one there and the last to leave I want to see what happens at recess what happens at lunch the social dynamics the whole thing so this is a a girl who was going from one class to another to her class to Art and she took a long time longer than anyone else just getting her things together okay that's that makes sense she has trouble doing that she comes like three minutes late to art and she sits okay she sits in the back we're fine everyone's on the floor she sits in the back fine and and and to at the very end of then they they do their ma art project at the very end of the class I went over to the teacher I said what was the idea of the project and she said oh it was it was potato stamping you know you know taking a dye on potatoes and the idea was to when you stamp at it part of that stamp is outside the Border there's some word for that the border of the paper and uh I had no idea of course the kid had no idea so why couldn't the teacher realize that that kid was late I'm gonna have some student explain the idea to the kid or I'll take like said I'll take one minute of my time and go to the even though there 30 kids in the class go to that kid who came in late who missed the whole idea of the project it doesn't take much to be sensitive to these kids and to be aware what these kids need and she's on the Spectrum and or or had learning difficulties so she neither one of us really had the wherewith all to say hey hey could you please repeat the first two minutes of the of the class that I missed how do you know what you missed and you should ask right and it's it's really up to the adults in the room to give these kids what they need in order to be successful okay let's go to the next one um do you perceive autism the ASD to be greater challenge for children or adults 11% of people say children 8% of people adults 43% of people feel the equal Challenge and 38% of people feel depends on the individual circumstances robob what's your 30 plus years experience well I'll tell you something that I learned from my friend W Lawson who wrote WR about 25 books on the Spectrum and he said something to me that I I don't think people would disagree when these autistic kids grow up they become autistic adults and that's and that's what we have and it's when when the kid gets out of school when certainly after 21 years old the services right looking at drop that's it there's very little between very little and nothing and the parents will confirm this uh for kids that are out of the system they don't know what where they sometimes they go to college and they they graduate college but they don't have the wherewithal to get a job and be independent and live independently right because it's whole social dyamics I you could be like coach manakum said you could be high functioning but be severely socially deficient if you want to call it that you know and and just so then what happens there so many kids and I mean you know this 25 years old living with the parents and that's scary because now whose responsibility is it to get this kid to work be independent be happy have relationships be married have a have a life an independent life and like where's my help there's there's nobody there and you know it's you know the parents are going to die some right it's it's like it's like you know it's it's and it's a total it's really an ignored population the adults are are just systematically the system ignores the adults on the Spectrum and um and that's why you know autism speech this was years ago5 Million Dollar on Research you know what the research went for The Unborn the causes of autism how about the six-year-old kid who needs your help you know there's almost no money going into the adults because it's not it's not sexy you know it's it's it's it's you know it's it's not gaining that that impact there's no funding there's it's very it's a it's tragic it's really tragic and more attention should be paid with adults on the Spectrum or adults in general yeah the next question is very interesting because you have a really split a four-way split what do you believe is the most effective approach to support ASD and obviously every case varies there's no one answer but across the board you have 23 29 27 22 ABA floor time cognitive approach s sensory sensory OT approach so it seems like everybody's like split across the board I don't know it's their personal experiences what they think no Rob from your experiences can you go through them and tell me if any of them are just a waste of time okay that's a it's a really good question and and you know so I so I do ABA therapy so you know obviously I'm gonna say that you know ABA therapy is effective and it works but push back on you a lot of ABA therapy is I have a family relative who does aba therapy she came out of a seminary she took a two-hour course and she sits with the kids and plays with them so I'm I'm not knocking it but it's not exactly right so so it's so you know so really you know know the best approach is really you know you need some of you know everything has something to offer all the approaches do have something to offer and you know the there's a lot of push back on the behavioral approach that focusing too much on just you know what the kid is behaving what the kid is doing so you're really ignoring any understanding of the kid ignoring any why he's acting up why he doesn't participate in class why he's not connecting with the class with his friends so if you just focus on behaviors and you're you're a purist you're an ABA purist yes then that's definitely a lot of um criticism and people are finding a lot of difficulties with the ABA field but you know on the other hand if you go too much the other way too much floor time I just spoke to a you know a bcba therapist she works she you know she does you know she's involved in floor time and she says sometimes she sees these kids you know they don't try to teach them the skills to develop they're just trying to you know just playing with them engaging engaging engaging with them and never you know directing them and teaching them to learn things they need to learn and then you're also limiting the kids development so you do need to you know sometimes focus on the behaviors and getting the kid to change his behaviors but at the same time we want to get kids to change their behaviors by understanding the kids point of view and getting the kid to understand and being on board with changing his behavior what's really Rob what's the difference between ABA and cognitive approach is there a difference there is it's n and day it's a it's an incredible yes a vast difference and um how about if I tell you a story to illustrate it we love your stories the behavior approach by the way is concerned with the behavior itself right it's the most efficient way to change Behavior we have this all the time reinforcement and punishment is we can't get away from it it's part of the natural course of things so I'm not against behaviorism per se but as a way of of teaching these these kids if you're only interested in the behavior itself and you're ignoring what's underneath the behavior I I'll give you I'll distract myself and I'll give you a a quick example the kid comes into class and he's a little upset and the goal is for the kid to sit down right and and do his work so you give him a reinforce you say oh you know come on sit you sit down and you give him a Pandy or you give him some reward or whatever and he sat down and um and then I went to this is when I was in college I went to my I had two professors I went to this other Professor I said isn't that a good way of doing it and this humanist said wait he's upset why don't you ask him you know what's going on maybe his dog died in the morning you know if his dog died then like forget you know he's not going to be paying attention to you all day he needs he needs some help or some counseling or to be alone or something you have to ask him and I go back to the behaviorist right we're going going back and forth this is in college and he says well if you do that to everybody you never get to teach the class then I went back to the you right so you could see where I'm coming from I'm coming from wait I want to know why all right the rest of the class could wait you know 20 20 seconds I want to know what's going on with this kid and um so that's the difference between a be it's a behavioral mindset it's a behavioral attitude it's it's a it's a Phil philosophy of education I want the kid to display this Behavior he sit now in the beginning he didn't sit down now he sits down every time he comes into the class because he gets a reward and after a while he doesn't even need to rewards great checkbox good and I'm saying wait how about the kid himself how about his you know so the kid learns that but how about who understands the kid who understands you know maybe maybe he should sit down because he's really interested in the work maybe oh my God if I I can't say God forbid but you know I'm I'm not qualified to say that but I'm just saying uh you know so and and the cognitive approach is you know finding out what's going on under inde the kid but I want to tell you can I tell it do we have time for a story um I think you ask more I think you waste More Time by asking if we have time for a story just say the story you know you didn't have to say that if you just let me tell the story so uh H let's let's we have time for the story so okay I bring this kid to a restaurant it's good I'm thinking of it I'm bringing this kid to a restaurant he has like a boot on his foot like a cast right there's a broken foot and I call the owner over I mean they know me by now right they and and the owner looks at this kid and says whoa well you know you know a couple of weeks ago I had the same problem with my foot I didn't know how to sleep I couldn't find the comfortable place to the way to to position myself on in the bed how do you do it how do you how do you figure out a way to sleep comfortably now listen to this the kid says nothing now a behavioral approach what most people would do would be what she's talking to you answer her question right so now how many people here in the audience know people on this spectrum who answer the question but not answer it doesn't it makes no sense they just answer and it doesn't make any sense it does it's not relevant to the question happens all the time because they're to to answer the question and no I I didn't say that the kids they're saying nothing what do I say and this is but if this is a talk I would wait for answers what do I say I say nothing so the owner after what what 20 seconds walks away and then I say the kid you know Stacy the owner she thinks you're kind of unfriendly and he says what do you mean I didn't say anything you see what I mean just what nakam said it's from the kids's point of view he didn't do anything wrong that's where the learning takes place the next 10 minutes with this kid is what every single person here would do well yeah I know well yeah you didn't say anything but you have to be considerate you have to be you know cordial you have to you have to be civil you know you you have to you know listen to the person's asking you know you know but you know he didn't know that something that we all assume that every in other words when you say and I'm sure I'm right about this when you tell the kid answer the question what you have in your mind as an adult is that he's gonna answer the question and he automatically knows why right he know that right if a kid drops a pencil and someone else picks it up what he say say thank you he'll say thank you because you told him to say thank you he doesn't really maybe not really understand why you know that's so I explain to him about that and then what do I do I call Stacy over again and and this is true I don't care if she asked the same question I don't care I I because I'm looking at the underlying thing I want him to respond appropriately I want them to be civil I don't want her to ask the same question because then I want I don't want him to memorize something and that's that's where the behavioral point of that's where the ABA up that's where the checklist comes I want him to say what I think he should say you know and and then he responds and then okay he understood something about underlying the nonb behavior in this case ignoring her that he may have for the rest of his life when someone talks to you and ask you something you need to listen and respond and not just say nothing because that's what people do so that's a that's a difference between the behavioral and the and the cognitive approach and I could go through each one of these if you want I don't mind giving you specifics about each one but I want to add a specific example because this is something that every you know everybody could use some specific examples how to use it um [Music] you know you come to see a kid and you know the kid's supposed to say hi you know you say hi to the kid no response so you know he say you know instead of giving the kid a lecture hey you're supposed to say hi to people when they say hi to you which would be the behavioral approach instead we want to get the kid to think about you know how does it feel like kid doesn't see that you know when the other person says hi you don't answer you know maybe he's offended maybe doesn't think you're friendly the kid's not thinking about about all those things we want to get the kid to start thinking about you know someone said hi to me and he doesn't want you to you know you don't want him to think you're not his friend so what could fit more with the cognitive approach getting the kid to think would be to say um you don't want to say hi to me you know you say in a friendly in a joking way you don't want to say hi to me or you know saying goodbye hey you don't want to say goodbye to me and then all of a sudden the kids like realizes like you know it's coming with that feeling like you know he he doesn't like it that I didn't say hi to him and then the sort of kids is going to start to think about you know maybe it's important to say hi instead of it just being a rule that when you see people you say hi when you see people when you leave them you say goodbye when you talk to them you look at them you don't look away and instead of it your whole social interaction being you know a bunch of rules you're following rule by rule by rule by rule which is an endless amount of rules and the rules are always changing you want the kid to understand what's behind a friendship what's behind a social interaction that he could on his own start doing it I love that and when you said I'm just going to add one tiny thing that you when you said don't you say hi to me that's fun right you're hitting you're hitting that part of the kid's mind where you want them to think right and and respond in some way but it's fun it's said in a fun way if you remember if you look at the tone that said it it's like it's said in a fun way it's like what you don't want to say hello to me and that's the that's where the learning comes in let's do the last but I want to just jump into question there a lot of questions people want to ask what do you believe is the most critical aspect in supporting individuals autism spectrum whether children or adults and 9% say providing sensory accommodations like working around the sensory but most people 78% I think that's what we're really saying fering Social and emotional development through relationship based approaches and 133% say implementing structur behavioral interventions such as ABA so I think that's pretty much what we're saying all time like that that relationship and understanding and the back and forth so let's jump into life questions okay here we go everything's on the table okay you're on unmute hi hi hi everyone okay there just so much to say thank you for uh what you said I don't even know where to start but um so let me ask you one question if okay um we're speaking about so much about first of all we speaking about so many different ranges and ages and stages obviously right the spectrum is so vast um but I just have a general question because we put so much emphasis on the school and how to help the children develop and grow and Foster but what about the home you know we also need a lot of education in that sense but and I don't hear that spoken as much about you know that's taken for granted as if the parents will know what to do and will develop a relationship I I don't know I'm just saying where's where's that education support you know element put in to place are we expected to well I I mean I thought we're talking to parents so we didn't want to say anything about parents we you know we blamed everything on the school but you're right actly the same thing at home and with parents yeah I'm sorry Rob I interrupted you with that no no go go for it no no no no I I was expecting you to talk but I just had to that was funny that was that was funny yeah you know I'll tell you what doesn't work when the parents are told what to do with the kids there's a problem in school and the parents are told you have to do the homework you have to have you have to help the kid with the homework you have to do this you have to do this and like the kid doesn't want to do it so now now the parents are going to get blamed the uh this is what I do I I asked and you know they're different families like you know what's the most important thing in your family you know I went to a SAT Mar's house in in the munay area and and here's a kid who couldn't talk she's multiply she's in a wheelchair she really couldn't talk and the father said I want my my girl to learn gamorra gamorra and I said okay all right if that's your goal then it's my goal right so it's it you know and and it some families love to eat out and now they can't because they can misbehave well that becomes an issue some families just love to read and and they can't because the kid is you know all so I always ask the the parents what is say I know where you're coming from uh Joseph and that is you're coming from a place of uh well what the schools are telling you to do and what do we do at home you know for the same goals that the schools are telling you that the kid have had difficulties with I want to know what are you what is going you know the kid can't get up get get dressed in the morning I want to know that I've gone to people's houses 11:00 at night well starting at 8:00 at night to 11: at night because the kid had trouble going to sleep right that's important so I would go and I I'll see what the kid needs in order to go to sleep and I'll figure it out and I'll tell the parents you know try this you know don't get into bed with him because that's not the greatest idea uh unless you really have to and this is what he needs you know and and and so it starts with that it starts with what are your needs at home that's going to make your family function I want to add two two two points um first of all you know one one thing that I you know just a general you know educational thing you know let's say parents want to implement something in the house they want the kid to you know start cooperating with uh you know cleaning up picking up the garbage or any kind of thing that you know parents they want to give a you know some kind of you know consequence or whatever it is or even a reward you know we want to get the reward the kid to start doing what he's supposed to do so if you're just going to focus on you know the the reward or the consequence without thinking about how's the child going to be thinking how's the child going to be understanding what is going on you know it's much more limited if if you're going to reward the kid and tell the kid look you know we're rewarding you but the idea is not that we want to give you the reward the idea is that you really want to be a better person you really want to be better at what you're doing we're just trying to help you along with this little reward make it easier for you but that's not really the idea of it so if there's that message that you're giving to the kid with your with your um teaching or with your um parenting there's that educational message that's accompanying what we're doing you know that's just something that parents could I'm trying to give something general that parents could incorporate you know without getting to all the specifics when you're trying to parent your kid think about the message that you're giving over and sometimes that could be more effective than actual you know consequence so I'm sorry I'm gonna jump back in because um it's not really what I'm asking I'm sorry um I'm actually asking much like different level of not rewards and benefits but more of like creating safety connection communication you were talking about longer term goals of the person remaining connected with Society with people with family you know I I hate to break you I've learned from a certain section including my own that there is a large Dropout in the religious community high functioning autistic people they are falling you know we don't and many of them undiagnosed late diagnosed whatever it is you knowas didn't know what to do schools who has nobody has time nobody has it's too much you know what you're asking the schools to do they're barely able to even put in in mainstream putting in the curriculum and then you're saying okay they have to stop it's okay when they're six years old I get the story but when they're 13 14 we're trying to do all that plus the wonderful things that you said you know to be able to be compassionate understanding who's got time for that I'm sorry that was rhetorical cynical um but there's so much it and and the parents really I'm in contact with so many parents the real struggles are not you know yes the schools are blaming for homework and things of that sort when really the school the houses are you know in sibling interaction trying to navigate one with the other remaining connected not over disciplining not losing them it's a lot bigger than that so that was really my question not specifically about the education system per se although that's that becomes a big part of it so if we could break down your question into multiple questions number one how do you get the K to occupy himself the kid cannot occupy himself this is a big concern parents have he's driving everyone crazy he needs everybody's attention he he won't give anybody in the family A Break he's all day just he needs people to entertain him either he bothers them he harasses them how do you get the kid to occupy himself well I have both I have one that's in his room all day doesn't bother anyone and I have the other one in that polar opposite who is attacking everyone so it's even that's not right okay so I mean if you break it down that would be let's say one question right okay then another question would be the kid is torturing his younger sibling you see the younger sibling you know you see the the pain in the younger sibling's eyes what do you do about this older sibling who's you know of in Spectrum has challenges that non-stop torturing the younger sibling what do you do about it had the parents just sit and watch the younger sibling you know being demolished by this older sibling right that could be another issue [Music] um you know now you you you you you also me mentioned another question what do you do about kids that are you know dropping out this is another big concern sometimes you see kids they're they're so super learning they're super involved they're super focused they won't do anything but learning they come on for a break you know from Yeshiva they're just opening the book they're opening the safer you know I met a kid and I said I wanted to say like hey what do you want to do like let's do something like that you enjoy right because you know he's learning all day this kid was 18 19 you know there's nothing he wanted to do I said maybe we should meet in in a bagel story goes no he wouldn't do that so what he want to do with me he wanted to learn with me so that idea is like he's so you know obsessed or rigid about what he's doing eventually it's gonna it's it's gonna it's not going to work there's going to be a Fallout the drag will end are we hitting some of the more specific questions that you wanted to okay can I can I jump in here I I just want to again not answer your question if I may don't expect this to answer your question but I I think it's interesting and I'll the idea of siblings is is I had the exact same problem with my older boy who's autistic hinting his younger son the younger brother and uh and my mother I remember telling my and this is coming right from from the beginning I can't wait for the younger one to be old enough to hit you back you know so this kept on going on for for years and and then I finally told the old said to the older one I said would you he's you know didn't want the young one to do anything any kind of competition he wanted to destroy the I said would you rather the young your younger brother be in a wheelchair so he never has to compete with you and be intellectually disabled however so he doesn't have to think and he he he'll never compete with you and he was young enough my you know the kid I was talking about is young enough to say to believe that you know that qu would you rather have that he says no no no no no no no okay well look he's the only brother you're ever gonna have and and you're gonna you're going to have to change your ways of hitting him all the time unless you want him to always be you know in a wheel you know and he and he from that moment on he changed and now they're they're they're they're good friends from there on but that if I I'm a big believer in intervention I'm I'm not when who was it um it was coach monum who said uh the kids will figure it out I'm a big believer in intervention because the kids may not figure it out you know so um so the idea of the siblings I'll just say this one more thing is is very underestimated and and The Sibling could do things for the kid on the Spectrum the brother or sister on the spectrum that is we no no one else can do so we need to kind of enhance that relationship as opposed to the what I've been told that uh I can't wait to go to college to so I can just not be bothered by my younger brother who's bothering me all the time it's not good that's not good right the school has to have enough needs so back to home what about the parents the family grandparents rabbis Community you know we're that's for the home you know I mean school has a whole system but what about there are a few I know there are some programs but I have a really simple I have a really simple answer to that if you really understand the kid and know and you know what your child needs then everyone could be involved and I love talking to community leaders rabbis anybody right because if you know the kid you know what the kid needs the kid needs more time to process information don't don't expect an answer right away I mean like there's a hundred of these things and we need people like you out there teaching that the community more I don't think there is enough uh knowledge in many places unfortunately awareness right I mean so that yes that just you know I I know a story with you know with a boy that he he didn't want to go to sh he didn't want to go to synagogue he wasn't comfortable um you know he's getting closer to his bar mitzvah so the parents spoke to the RV to you know set something up that when he comes to SCH you know the rabbi is going to come over and make the kid feel comfortable that this kid should be you know willing to go to SCH so you know setting up some kind of something in the community you know with the RAB you know many you know I'm I'm sure any Rabbi you know sensitive to his community needs just telling him what's going on a little thing he could do for the kid and that can make a big difference you know for that specific kid um but the other point that you said Rob about um one of the big problems is that you know I think that there's this overall mentality that you know we struggle with not just in schoolwide but you know as parents that we just need our kids to be what we want them to be you know we need them to fit a certain mold a certain image and then there's that all that you know you know he's not doing this he's not doing that and we get caught up in all the things they're not doing right and instead of appreciating the gift that this kid has this kid you know with his challenges he really has something unique something to offer the world that nobody else has he has his own unique thing that he can offer the world and if we can understand that and appreciate that you know I'll give you a little example I was learning with Kusa about you know we're learning about Hashem how you know different St about hasem guides the world and I told him you know a kid asked me a question he's like just because Hashem just because the first man bumped into a tree all of mankind has to suffer now so like that's a really important question but the average kid doesn't think that he's supposed to be asking such a question this kid actually thought of it like they could think of things and they could have real things that contribute to everybody their way of thinking about things I learn from and so if we could appreciate their uniqueness and if parents would would look at this child like okay yes he's not he has a problem with friends he's harassing his siblings he's getting to trouble with the neighbors but he has something really beautiful and something amazing that he can offer the world and if we can value that and cultivate that you know that could really change things significantly for the kid beautiful beautiful okay let's go to the next Live question you're on hi um how can I tell if an adult who is clearly suffering and is having trouble living a productive life if it's if he's suffering from ASD or trauma something else all right um it's an interesting question and here's my answer to that um even if even I'll say the same thing even if it's for a little kid and that is the label really doesn't matter as much as what's going on so if we had a conversation if we were the only ones in the room we we could ask whatever 180 people to just step off for a few minutes I'd be asking you to um you know like okay what's what's the issue what's the issue okay well all right is it gonna help and a lot of times like it was been said that if you know the person's on the Spectrum then like my brother my my I got a call from my my brother's girlfriend and she says we go to a party and my brother Mark uh just stays by himself he just stays by himself he doesn't interact with any of he's a professor in a university he doesn't want to interact with anyone and she asked me is my brother on the Spectrum I go whoa this is loaded why why I want to know what's going on and she and she said well you know if if he has Asbergers I'll I'll marry him but if he's just an ass forget it so so sometimes knowing the the cause of it or knowing what we need we need to have more of a conversation to find out what what to do um the solution is is usually the same or is I'm saying if if the label doesn't matter well what does it's well it could help no should I should I know I want to qualify that the most important thing to me is like what is going on and what could we do about it if and if you feel or he feels that if he's autistic that would explain a lot and that would allow you to breathe and allow you to look at him and him himself in a different way and allow you know more progress to happen from this there yes then then the label is important uh my own kid who's on the Spectrum he didn't know until he was a graduate student he didn't know until his girlfriend in graduate school called me up and said oh did you realize your son's on the Spectrum I go well I knew yeah since he was two I knew he was on the Spectrum but now he's gonna know so I was holding my breath waiting for him to be either angry at me you know being on the spec if I knew then I would have I would have had a much better life if you know up until then you know if I knew it would have answered a lot of these questions that I've always had about myself or he could have said you know what I'm glad I didn't know because I'm I'm in graduate school I'm I'm happy I'm I'm and I'm you know having my own life so it could go either way okay thank you it's hard to know also on the Spectrum so many people have different there's such a range and there could be so many different causes of you know so sometimes you know sometimes the diagnosis making everything diagnosis is actually not always beneficial because people could have struggles for so many different reasons and sometimes it's beneficial because you know then it could lead to self-acceptance like okay now I understand myself I know why I'm like this and now I don't have to be so um you know so ashamed why I'm not doing things the way other people are doing it because you know I work differently I have a different way of operating different way of connecting with people so it could go both ways amazing okay let's go to the next slide question by the way Usha I work with a lot of couples and one couple is often on the Spectrum whether they're diagnosed or not usually not and it's usually the you know the male and the and and and it's it's it's a real interesting Dynamic how why doesn't this guy understand me how come he doesn't know how I feel why doesn't he listen to me and and knowing what's what the problem is and what to do about it with a with with a couple such as that is is um is just another another thing that that's important to do to look at I I I personally I really enjoy that Dynamic and helping people like that Couples married couples okay amazing okay you're on okay so I hope I'm not going to open up a Pandora's Box here but I wanted your opinion on um I have a daughter that's um developmentally disabled she's officially diagnosed on the Spectrum only because they couldn't come up with any other diagnosis for her um she as a baby very very obviously and clearly we saw um a correlation of regression and damage from vaccines as soon as like a day after she got vaccinated she started having seizures and it went down hell with each vaccine so I went on a path of Education um again I'm not an antivaxer at all I just became an educated vaxer and um I'm curious what you can help let us know about how we family members that have seen um this detrimental effect when there is so many vaccines given to babies specifically in the United States um how we can um communicate with our pediatricians if you have an opinion on this and if you could help out with navigating pediatricians for the following for the next kids or even for the grandchildren when we don't feel comfortable giving a slew of vaccines from even from pregnancy from even before the baby's born they're already giving vaccines and in the hospital and then throughout the first two years um I'm wondering if you could Enlighten us a little bit on your opinion on that I'm I'm going to get into trouble anything that I say on the topic so I'm just not going to say anything and I'll let Rob take full control oh oh I don't I don't mind getting into trouble um well at least so far the science says the vaccines are okay right but then when you look at individual cases when some I think there was a case that a a girl got vaccinated with nine vaccinations in one day and then you know and so then there's this I you know it's hard to think about it it's hard to prove that what are you gonna have a controlled study with nine vaccinations suffice five vaccination you can't really you know prove it but it's in the back of a lot of people's minds like my own that I'm I'm not GNA have a lot of and some people say that it's just a number of vaccinations rather than the kind of vaccinations I don't know I don't I just don't know but when you talk to people who are you know Pro vaccine the scientists and they know they know the history they'll say if it's my kid I'm not gonna have them have several vaccinations at once I'm just gonna you know but um but that's that's all I I can I can tell you is a lot of people in your position I'm just saying the science is not you're saying the science is is proving that it's safe but really if we look at what's going on right now with um ADHD anxiety disorder OCD peanut allergies asthma eczema how how was that that the science is okay maybe we don't have as much measles rebella and um whooping cough which anyway really they say did go down once the population got more Santi sanitized and cleaner and um healthier in other ways but we do have a classroom full of all various other type of diagnoses now not just autism and I don't know maybe that maybe that's a correlation right so just to keep the conversation back because this is a very important topic and people are very passionate about and I've been involved that I was on a forum of you know having people having this discussion you know I myself don't know enough about it I hear things from both sides and one thing we could say is that you know there's a lot of unknown you know sometimes people sometimes you know you know you know your specific story I definitely understand that you know you saw clear correlation and was clear to you and but for some people there's a lot of just question marks they really don't know you know maybe something during birth happened and there was some complication and maybe that's why the kid is the way he is and we can never really answer these questions and it's just like you know maybe sometimes we just need to you know you know I'm not talking about your specific you know story because you know you saw a clear correlation but you know people can speculate all kinds of things and we just need to let go and you know we don't know what we don't always know what it was right that's why I was curious to see and at the same time the same time if you you can still help these kids by teaching them they'll still develop they'll still grow they'll still become smarter they'll become more adapted to society by teaching them because I see this approach works the same whether it's what you call ASD or sometimes can be some other diagnosis which I I worked with a child and I was told he really has another diagnosis but they got the ASD diagnosis it's really something else and he was improving the same as all the other kids that I've worked with so in terms of how we helped them I don't really see a difference in what the cause is I just see you know the kids struggling and we help them grow and learn and and the brain has this way of developing the brain does grow it develops right I do I do have to just to mention that what Rob said is very important a lot of times you do go to the doctor and they they go through that four or five shots at once and there's nothing wrong with trying to say let's let's do it a little bit spaced out if you if you have any concern whatsoever there's no there's no emergency to do it that day sometimes you go with your kids and they literally give them five or six shots of different things at once it just seems like a lot okay let's go to the next question okay hi hi hi thank you so much I'm talking about an 18-year-old boy who's on the Spectrum do you have anything to suggest how to help him entertain himself because he constantly asks for help when it comes to being entertained yeah I think this is one I I gave a little talk for parents of children with high functioning autis ISM and this I think was like probably the biggest concern that they had how do you get the child to occupy himself keep himself busy well so what did you say thank you I'm gonna let the Reby a student is not supposed to speak up and aside haa questions in front of his Rabbi so I'm GNA let my Rabbi speak well first of all he's in school or is he out of yes yes yes okay does he like anything at scho in school yes what he likes the learning and he's generally likes the social life not all the time but most of the time I would start with that I would start with things that he likes you know if if he if he needs a rabbi or a partner to come in and study with him you know if you know see uh what what is you know is it just learning between him and the rabbi it's learning in a group it's learning with a friend I love the idea of learning with a friend you know and I would introduce that if he if he doesn't have that I mean if he likes learning have a friend from the community have something someone coming in and and say okay this could be as often as you know this could be every day and this could be a wonderful way of of him being occupied I mean there's nothing wrong with uh with learning um and uh so I would start with some of the things that that you know he likes and I also like the idea of of getting out you know today was like I don't know 60 degrees or something um I also like the idea of getting out as something that he might like to do right and and that's and that opens up a whole other realm of of activity [Music] um the other thing I'll say is that I work through zoom and I'll bring people on Zoom together and people are really establishing genuine friendships through talking with each other on zoom and then they'll they'll meet in person as well so it's sort of an easy way of of meeting people I I have one person who's brilliant he's talking to professors of hittite of you know I mean on Zoom you could meet almost anybody in the world and and that could be a way of him interacting and also being occupied yes so that I mean that's really that's really what you know I I try to do the same thing you know when I work with the the you know the boys that I work with the children that I work with you know it's always looking for ways you know both friends that have similar interests or things that you know the kid may may interest him you know if it's a hobby if it's an activity and you try to you know encourage the kid you know encourage the you know the individual to get more involved in that maybe it's a sport um so maybe it's reading maybe likes to read certain things so you get him you know certain books on topics that he likes to read about or listening you know if it's listen listening to you know those topics looking for different things that interest him specifically and he'll start getting more engaged than that now now it is a process because you know they you know it's easier for them to just put it on everybody else I mean that I think that's part of the challenge they're like I don't have to work hard to keep myself busy it's your job it's the whole world's job to figure out how to keep me busy I'm bored you figure out how to keep me busy and then our challenge is to sometimes you know so I'm adding now a new thing you know besides her finding things that the child might interest in If the child is resisting it you could say look you know I'm here to try to help you I can give you ideas but you know that's the most I can do I can't force it upon you so that's that's another Dynamic If the child is saying you know I don't want to do the things you telling me to do I want you to keep me busy well that's the topic tonight really to understand the child so it takes time to go down to that child's level and having the conversation with the child understanding what the child likes and obviously in the beginning the child is G is going to say you know what do you want to do he'll say that's the first answer I don't know I don't know I don't know so being able to have that conversation and coming up with ideas making it easier but it does put the work on the appearance and eventually hopefully he makes some connections where he can connect right right and and here's the thing sometimes parents say look I'm trying to do everything for him but nothing's working and then it sometimes comes down to because there's that Dynamic that the the boy or the kid wants doesn't want to have that hard work of having to occupy himself he wants he wants you know just give me a credit card that I can go to the store and spend $20 that's how I want to appify myself I what does he want to buy I don't want to just have to work hard on doing something that doesn't cost money give me the $20 and that's what I want to do and then then comes the conversation of like you know I can't Supply you with endless amount of money to just do what you know there's that learning of him understanding other people and others people's boundaries and what parents are capable of and that's also part of the learning process and then we can you know by letting go of us having to figure it all out for him it sometimes also gives the child now the space to you know need to come up with things to figure out look I can come up with a bunch of ideas for you but I can't make you not bored if you're bored that's really your problem and you're gonna have to somehow figure out what to do with that I want to just add one more one thing to this we're talking about what he wants to do and I'm saying wait a second isn't that what we're talking about good education where's the educational part I just want to bring that in I own the term chess therapy chess if he likes chess chess is a wonderful game in order for the kid to learn all kinds of things you know looking at a situation from another person's point of view when they where the other person made a move what could he do to your why did he make that move I mean there are so many things you could learn that's really important in terms of the kids development through some of these games even video games so kind of keep that in mind as the kid gets engaged with things that he likes no when you're saying that he should entertain himself and I forgot which one of you said he has to learn the boundaries of the people around him right because I want you to do with me how do I explain to him the boundaries right so sometimes sometimes instead of explaining it directly it's about you know so look so so here's here's what here's the tricky part we want you to keep yourself busy so if it's something that I'm trying to get you to do if I want to try to get someone else a kid to do something he's like well I don't want to listen to you I'm not interested in listening to you I don't know how to do it that's right tell me what to do right yeah yeah you're telling me I should go keep myself busy I don't know what to do but now what does he want to do instead does he want to just sit in his room quietly and not bother anybody or no now he wants to ask you for something get something out of you and then you know once that's the dynamic he's trying to get something from you you're like I'm sorry I can't help you then you you can't force me to do what you want to do and then so that that's in terms of working out the you know this boundary issue because they don't know always want to respect other people's boundaries and then you know one of the ways to deal with that is you know I don't force you but you can't force me and then when we're not dealing with that boundary struggle you know if we could have a real convers look if you're ready to have a real talk I can sit down with you and give you a bunch of ideas and we can figure out something that might actually help you you know I want to jump in here and give you an example of exactly what you're saying you know you have an opinion and this kid has an opinion right okay here are two kids in my office at about your kid's age one wants to have ice cream one wants to have Pizer and they're both totally obsessed with it no boundary it's just do what I want to do do what I want to do and the other kid is the same way and I say well I let the situation dictate the boundary instead of getting into a fight I go well in another 10 minutes it' be too late to go anywhere and one of the kids says okay we'll get we okay we'll get ice cream we and then and then I said okay now I went to the kid who wanted ice cream and he said okay what do you think great he said ice cream let's go I said wait a second now the therapy starts he he wanted Pizza you know what what do you think and it takes a while all right next time we'll have pizza all right well wait a second wait a second that's not enough maybe next time he'd want something else maybe he want you know a different kind of food maybe Chinese maybe he wants a PO you know maybe so it's like you want to respect him next time next time may not be Pizza next time is whatever he wants to do so it's it's it's kind of a learning experience and kind of giving up your your you know blinders that's on your mind with the what's where the boundaries come in kids being inflexible is what you want to change you want these kids to learn to be flexible so there are different ways of doing that and so that's what's brilliant to about how Rob does this approach that you know okay so the kid finally gave in let's just get let's just get the pizza and and and Rob is saying like for most people okay great you know we had a great session we got the kid to give in and now we continue doing the the pizza Rob saying no no that's not the point you know but what about the other kid and you know that you know you know that back and forth that's the real therapy to get that to challenge that thinking and to get them to really think and that's that's the that's how Rob really um you know that you know in that that way he really owns this approach of really getting to the kids thinking and developing the kids thinking all right you want another story don't you one second now let's let's go to the next question a good you see you see I knew it let's go it's important question you were a little late can I Rob can I go I have a question if you have if you could present to the guest okay parents came to me it's a therapist with the following dilemma they have a 16-year-old child in who believe is on the Spectrum he wasn't officially diagnosed as they didn't want to label him however he's been working with an ASD psychologist guiding the parents recently he's been exposed by friends this explicit sexual material that ended up him stealing money and purchasing a smartphone and being hooked onto it the parents came to me hysterical and broken that all the hard work investing in the child has been lost they managed to convince him to give up the device and he owned and being torn and addicted to stealing and now he wants expensive motorized bikes as compensation for giving up a smart device what do you recommend to the parents to do and how to manage the child's like keeping a loving relationship okay that's a good qu that's a really good um important question but um I would say a couple of things is it okay that I'm talking first that's no um so first of all with this um you know the sexual you know kind the sexual nature of his behaviors is going to be a big um worry for parents in the fir Community because you know that's not acceptable that's something that we learn about from young age not to you know engage in that kind of thing and that that worry on the parents head is what's behind a lot of this like you know desperation they're like desperate what do we do over here you know all our hard work that we invested in this kid from when he was a little kid is just all about to go down the drain and it's like the parents are going to be panicking at this point and and it's very hard to educate and be effective when you're in that state of panic and Desperation so the number one thing which I think that the parents you know or anybody in any situation is that this is a challenge that the child is going through just as any other challenge that may be coming up for the child his challenge turned out in this way it doesn't say anything about you know their education and you know kids when they get to a certain age yes they do have an interest in sexual content especially if he may be struggling in other areas maybe he he doesn't have enough friends maybe he's not connecting with his learning he's not enjoying his learning so this is maybe the only thing right now he's really enjoying and he he really needs something some kind of thing in his life that he could enjoy and so he's going to be you know just go after that so if the parents would understand the kids's point of view and look at this like you know this is a challenge that he's going through like any other challenge that kids can go through and we can work with him and we can help him we can guide him and he's going to get over it just as any other challenge they won't be in that state of desperation and they won't have to act that of panic which will be helpful for them to be more levelheaded and deal with it in a much more appropriate and balanced fashion I love that right the kid is hurting the kid is lost the kid needs help and I think I want to emphasize one one thing that you just said and that is you could only help these kids if you're calm if your kid is displaying high anxiety and yelling you need to be I could show you two or three books right now they all say the same thing you as a as a therapist as a parent if you want to help somebody and who's hysterical you need to be calm without saying calm down who calms down I don't know of any hey calm down I don't know has that ever worked but but you if you're calm and if you think of what no just said if you're calm then you can start thinking the way is just thinking it's like all right kids hurting what what where's his Connection in life what what positive thing does he need instead of being punished for stealing which is okay if you want to go that R but what what positive thing could could he have in his life that maybe he's never had before you maybe a genuine friend or maybe something that's that's important to him um so I love I love that answer yeah and and I'm going to add to that that that you know helping the kid you know the the immediate response to this incident that kid stole you know he did what he wasn't supposed to do the the the fix is not something just to immediate sto the behavior there's a symptom over here we need to address you know if this kid was happy this kid felt productive then he wouldn't he would be he wouldn't have to he wouldn't be doing that kind of thing you know it's not like the kid is really happy to be going and stealing and doing that he knows it's not right but so we got to find something in his life we need some kind of change maybe he has some kind of passion some interest that nobody ever recognized that he had and could be developed maybe he likes to build I like to build maybe he likes singing maybe he likes music maybe he wants to earn money you know I saw one of the chats you know let's figure out how he could earn money make his own money make a business He he'll be excited about earning money and then you know stealing won't be important anymore because hey I can earn my own money so there's so many other things to you know let's look into because that's that's really what the direction that's pointing to when the kid is you know dealing with this situation okay let's go to the next Live question you're on thank you so hi my name is Eliana I'm 22 years old and I'm autistic and I was wondering for me and other people in the community who are autistic how we might be able to apply our experiences towards being part of the conversation on autism and helping to CH make the community better for not just ourselves but for other autistic people and for all the kids and their parents and everyone who's involved in this wow thank you for coming on um I do a webinar for the USAA and it's free um and it's called voices hearing people's voices like yourself making your voice known um is um is is really important and and and here's I've been interviewing um with my co-author we've been interviewing adults about their childhood experience I mean maybe 20 of them every single one of them has one thing in common they all say one thing that's exactly the same and that is when they were kids in school they weren't listened to they weren't listened to and uh and it's it's time for people you know like yourself who has this very strong voice being being autistic yourself to share with with other people for we could learn so much from you you know what happened when you were six years old were you bullied were you taking advantage of were you did you was were you made to feel left out of things um I mean there's so many stories that you can give us to help Enlighten us as to what we could do now with the six-year-old in our class or the 18y old like the parents saying 18y old at at home I mean there's so much information that you can share with us and it's um it's just the blessing that you're that you're on today yeah just want to say I really appreciate that yeah and I want to add to that that we're you know we're living in a very narrow-minded world that you know everybody has to think a certain way act a certain way do it a certain way and we need people like you that can offer something that nobody else could offer to the world a different perspective a different way to look at things to understand other people and other perspectives because you know especially like you know understand there's so much you can give in and understanding you know other people like you or kids that are growing up with different challenges and it really boils down to you know what we're trying to discuss it's about understanding other people understanding what they're going through hearing their point of view because there's something that that you have that we don't have or that I'm saying that I may not have or someone else may not have but but you can offer that that I love that because like just what I was saying with siblings sometimes the siblings in a better position than anyone to do certain things for that that child and and you would be a wonderful asset to be come on say on a zoom call with um I'm thinking of this girl who uh who has suicidal he she tried a couple times to commit suicide all right now I could talk to her but maybe hearing from you it might be more effective you know so that you know there's so much that you could come on with uh and with zoom it's it's not it's an easy kind of thing to do to have a real direct effect on on people who really need that connection with somebody else thank you that was really good thank you thank you thank you okay let's go to the next Live question you're on hi uh the busy single mother and the pressured private school teachers of an eight-year-old boy who's doing well academically are pushing for neuros pych evaluation with a boy in order to get a diagnosis and seek control of the boy through medication uh the boy is expressive um in performance is cooking sports jokes Dancing Arts openly likes attention but expresses is um disliking being controlled and he doesn't look he doesn't look at people when communicating and he just acts rather than communicating it's just easier for him to um instead of asking permission or acknowledge boundaries of other people um and their things what do you say to evaluators to teachers uh so the otherother well sometimes teachers see a challenge they see a difficulty with a child and it's just easy to say okay just give the medication and then it will fix the issue and our whole presentation is about let's understand understand me don't just try to fix me or give me some kind of medication that's gonna because the medications have a lot of side effects and there's certain things that maybe reduce certain symptoms and then it increases other symptoms that the kid now has to suffer with yeah I'm not saying medication never has a place but if that's the first Resort that's the first thing that the teachers want to throw out it's really a copout on yeah educator um I'll just throw something else in here and you're talking about he likes to be controlled controlling the situation well I happen to like basketball and if you if you're a good basketball player or if you play the game well you need to pay attention to another person if someone's open under the basket you you can't control the ball you can't always be the one to shoot the ball you have to I would want to teach him about giving up his control by playing one of these sports that that he likes and and have him have a change of mindset it's great he really wants to play football yeah it's perfect and if you do that then maybe may maybe he wouldn't even need the medication because he'd be thinking in a different way yes I I worked with a boy he was you know 13 years old and and he um he had a really hard time focusing in learning in class in school and all the people that tried to come learn with him his you know Kus his he just didn't want to learn with anybody he refused he didn't want to work on it and and what happened was he you know he finally found somebody that was going to work with him and this person was trained in an approach to teach um focusing you know there's a norling program it's to teach the mind how to focus and the person said let's talk about this kid loves sports he said let's talk about you know baseball you know playing you know playing baseball hitting you know there's so much Focus there's so much that you have to learn how to focus to you know to be good at the sport so this kid was now motivated to work on his attention to be able to get good at the sport that he wanted to get good at so could definitely teach attention we can teach these things but we may need to find what what really motivates the kid and then teach it through that through that activity yeah what was the focus program that he used so this was the neural links program so it's a it is a it's a it is a hard program because it's very much very like strict strict um step step by step um it's one approach to teaching focusing um and like Rob said you could teach focusing in a more natural way if you know if it's a younger kid that's not ready for a more intense program he'll be ready he can learn how to focus doing what he likes to do and we have to engage him at his level and his age yeah great thank you okay let's go to the last Live question and we're going to cover some other ones okay you're on thank you so much I I've appreciated everything that has been said my question is over the years working um in special education and counseling I've seen a lot of boys when they go through puberty it's from the lowest functioning to the highest functioning it's like their family winds up having to hold their breath until they're out of puberty what recommendations do you have because yes they've they've tried medication they've tried different behavioral therapy techniques and and it's so hard because the boys themselves are crawling out of their skin and in the process of crawling out of their skin it's like the tumult that they can cause in the house and trying and it it even if it's their way of communicating the tumet they feel inside physically that they don't understand somehow they need the help and the family needs the help what do you recommend yeah well unfortunately I think this is not this is unfortunately you know a a significant issue a serious issue in The Firm community and there is a very wonderful book that was recommended but that was that was just put out um maybe it's you know by schi Zimmerman from Boys to Men and and it's specifically on this topic helping boys through the stage of puberty and dealing with the the the Tyra's laws and restrictions about sexuality and how to deal with it in a healthy emotional way that it doesn't um it doesn't consume the child with guilt and or it doesn't lead to all kinds of um negative ways of acting out now kids that are on the Spectrum you know they may they may or it doesn't have to just be kids on the Spectrum maybe it's kids with ADHD or children that have challenges are obviously when it comes to this kind of issue they may suffer from it more than suppose let's say the average kid so then it will be the same thing it's you know it's you know helping them work through this by you know first of all preserving their self-esteem that it's okay that they may not be perfect in this area and nobody's expected to be perfect and at the same thing it's working through their other challenges of you know developing their own sense of worth unique you know they're a unique valuable person who they are they have you know building up what they're good at they can feel successful what they're good at building up their friendships you know Finding different ways how they could make real friendships like you know Rob was giving many um suggestions a lot of work about you know that and you know and one one of the main things is not to get not to get into that desperate panic mode like oh no this kid is undermining the whole you know his whole life of Education because you know maybe the education system didn't prepare child enough to deal with it because this is not a topic that was discussed it was just like you know don't do that don't hang around girls don't do that and then it's like all of a sudden boom he wants to hang around girls he wants to do all these things and then he's not equipped to so he's gonna maybe act the ways we you know we would not want him to act but if we can accept him and be patient with him then we can help him reach a better place thank you I I I'm also picturing a number of boys who are not even looking to be with girls and not necessarily doing what would be inappropriate ala but boys who just they're already sensorily challenged and then they have this and it just seems this time period they're they're far more aggressive so maybe we're just attributing it to puberty where they don't have the words to express what they're uncomfortable with um and and they may not cognitively be in the place to um to understand that or have that conversation I I think do does that better help clarify you brought up something really important that we haven't talked about at all and that is a good portion of people on the Spectrum I'm talking about 80 90% And there are statistics backing this up who have Sensi sensory sensitivities yes yes and so now it's like that the temperature has been increased by a 100 degrees all of a sudden for them right and and and the and the issue when that happens we're not aware of the smells the the cleaning smell of the night before we may not be aware of that or the perfume that might be there or the or the lights or the or the noise or the number of kids in the room or um so when the smells at the in the lunchroom I mean we we may not even be aware of it but and the kid may not even be aware of that's the issue and then they go off and we really have to consider that as that's the number one thing I think we we really should consider because it's you know it might be really obvious so I'm glad you brought that up thank you so when we consider it what do we do well it's a good question um it depends on obviously what it is I mean kids will have headphones if it's too much noise or um but I'll tell you we have to be careful Simon Baron Cohen one of the you know leaders of of the autism world he said maybe the classroom the way it's the classroom is set up it's like um fish would you know fresh water fish and the kid is just feels really uncomfortable with the way it's set up whether it's the number of chairs or the lighting or whatever and then and then what does the teacher do they say you know well you know what you're uncomfortable leave go into another room go to the principal's office calm down and then come back I mean that may work with some kids but in this example so he goes into his saltwater environment and he's fine and he still comes back to the freshwater environment and like you're wondering like what what is wrong with the kid where it really might be maybe he needs to sit near the window or maybe he needs to sit up front or maybe he needs to sit up the in the back you know maybe he needs to move a little on the side of the room maybe he just needs to move without disturbing other people so it's it's that kind of thing it's just an awareness thing and then once we know what it is talk to the parents maybe the parents could help once we know what it is then then we can do something about it and and I think what you're saying about this age of puberty that their sensory needs like really Spike and you know so really you know it's okay to have sensory needs and they need to find a way to you know you know sometimes the sensory needs are very strong because you know maybe they're limited and other areas like social interactions they don't get that so they have much more of a need for that sensory satisfaction but we need to find for them what they can do that's appropriate um activities or things that they can engage in and let them do what feels good for them and they can let it out in appropriate ways and understand that they have that need and find the things that they can do to you know to give them that sensory input without it being about just okay we have to somehow restrict them from not doing what they shouldn't be doing thank you thank you so much here's a question that somebody sent in before we go to closing um here our son was a real intense learner for all his high school and post high school years now he is refusing to learn and d and function basically something happened and he stopped what's your recommendation you're you're bringing up a really important point and we haven't even discussed it and schools don't really discuss it that much and that is how about the kid being happy how about the person being happy maybe he worked well in in school in high school he was somehow he was motivated to to learn like a lot of kids are and now when they're on their own so to speak now they're when you don't he doesn't have the pressure to go from 10th grade to 11th grade then um then then he feels empty you know he might be a child a young adult who's been his whole life doing things for someone else I remember the first time I was my my parents said okay this decision this life kind of decision is up to you I go what you've been telling me what to do my whole life now you ask now it's my decision and it had to do with school and and and and this you know it's in Jewish studies actually it's it's really interesting like now it's my decision so so it sounds like you know the kid listened to what other people wanted him to do and a certain point and not talked about and a certain point you know when he takes a breath and and there's there's nothing inside to guide him and to motivate him and direct him and we have to he has to find that place now to to direct him to make him whole and it may have to do with studying or may not we don't know yeah I'm I want to add something to that that might help for the closing that um you know a lot of what we discussed is really it's really there's um a verse in in Mishay it says educate the youth according to his way that even when he gets older he won't abandon it because if the education is not according to the child's individual way it's not connecting to the child he's not happy he's not feeling like hey this is really feels good this is really meaningful this is really valuable I'm just instead he's educated in a way just to follow the box that everybody else said is you have to act is you have to behave in his whole life he's just doing what he's told to do told to do told to do and then when he gets older he just can't do it anymore and then there's that break but if we can educate the youth according to his way and give him a meaningful education that he can really develop then even when he gets older he won't drop it now it's not answering what do you do once we reach that point but then the challenge will be let's try to you know go back to trying to start again as much education as we could to give him something meaningful in life and realize that you know at this point he may not be able to do all the things because of you know he's already in that position okay let's go to the closing segment over here first of all big big thank you to Robert and no for coming on again tonight and giving tremendous physic and a lot of deep talk we we went into many different angles tonight um hopefully people will watch it and the replay and you know they really take it to heart and they gives them some guidance to move forward um if anybody again wants to join the WhatsApp chats you can WhatsApp me at 732 314710 I'll send you the community link you can also go to mall.com and you'll get the emails and all the replays again if anybody's here the first time every Sunday night at 9:30 this Zoom ID we have different topics different ABM we try to really cover some very important things next week with March 10th have a deep discussion with Rabbi do bear Pinson he's a dynamic speaker he speaks all over speaks a little bit mystical topics and we don't have the exact topic yet but it's going to be something interesting so please join again everything is recorded by.com if anybody has any questions you can email Coach manam gmail.com everything is recorded will be up on his website bf.com it will be on YouTube and Spotify and apple podcast on all the podcasts on colan people want to listen to that on the phone uh it'll be up on the phone numbers tomorrow the share is number 178 phone number to call 73295 9011 that's 732 305 305 9011 73235 9011 if anybody like to be in contact with Robert Bernstein his phone number is 914 330 3393 his email is rjv at autism speech.com you can go to his website robertj bernstein.com if anybody wants to get in touch with no his phone number 732 231 7363 his email is office at the real change AB 75 7563 732 231 7 what is it five 7563 apologize for that 756 five I'm sorry 5763 email them at office real change Aba his website is real AA real change ava.com will put in the email I'll post it again on the chat and again anybody wants to buy Rob's books they're called uni type Robert Bernstein and Amazon one is called uniquely normal and the other one is uniquely normal manual and again thank you to all the advertising sponsors of Lake scop Ellen AR fown Central K from jcn we're going to go to the closing first and then we'll be Robert and we'll end it and I just want to say I I love doing these programs where're dealing with specific situations we I personally see a lot of people I could say it's because of the shots I could say it's because of the world we live in the cell phone technology we don't know but um we do see people that have children on the autism spectrum and we do see even adults on that spectrum and when we see it we try to say like not really deal with it or look at it because it's not our problem and we don't know how to deal with it we like it's one of those things that we just stay away from because it's just so not our field so for the people that don't ever have to touch this part of their life you know I guess good for them it could be listen to this understand the challenges and even if it's not your child you can learn how to understand the person and be there for the person and understand your needs when you see a kid in scho scho it was famous story recently that I recently a few years ago that I used to go to a certain Shool and there was a kid that was on Spectrum used to scream a lot during DAV he used to Cal his fathers to bring him and a lot of the congregants were were upset they went over to the father ni and they said you know he's not a well child why are you bringing him to je he causes disruption and the father went to the rabbi and the rabbi gave a speech and he said his screaming is more important than your in your prayers because he's trying to express himself in his way so we if we're not in in this para in this in this situation we should listen to tonight and really resonate and be thankful that we're not but also be compassionate understanding understand not just some crazy kid screaming there's there there's emotions there's feelings there's human being in there and for the people that deal with this whether they think their child might have it they should seek the proper help listen to tonight's things you hear what people deal with and you try to pick up on the signals and you get your child the proper help that they need and I think what we learned from tonight tonight is not that we're trying to give them the right pill or what's the magic answers really to be there understand him and try to emotionally connect with him so we could really help him be the best who he could be and help him guide him through life so that's what I think was very important and the reason why it's relevant to everybody because we're everybody know somebody in their world and going out of the autism ASD Spectrum I'm going to take it to the next level people that are regular functioning people we have to be the same way there's emotions and they express things a certain way and they're you know we have to be compassionate understand where they're coming from I don't think most people are evil or cucko I think people are just misunderstood and it's a very complex world so I really appreciate Rob and for coming on and really clarifying A lot of things tonight and we're going to go to Coach mum then Robert then no thank you thank you very much Robert and no I think it's a very important conversation to have for schools parents and I have to say it's not that easy to implement what we discussed tonight it's not that easy to you know the teacher the school the system the classroom it's not easy sometimes we do need that help from outside you have a teacher with h 30 kids in the class what are you going to do so it's important to discuss it to understand the child and that's what it boils down to so that the parent the teacher somebody who can connect we can connect to the child give it some time and so you could be able to understand they can you can understand them they'll feel understood and hopefully they will be able to express themselves no matter where they are but uh not always that easy and that's why it's important to sit and talk about it to hear from others try to figure out and Rob we still need that the concept of multiplication maybe you'll have to come back yeah um thank you thank you very much it it's why does 5 Time 4 always equals four time 5 why is that always the case and we'll leave it but I want to thank you that means we're gonna be on for another two hours we have at least two hours at least I had I had to give you the um but really thank you and I love I love your format because it's it should be the way this is 90% questions and that's and that's how in fact I know we didn't answer all the questions and you're welcome to email me or and I mean that's why we're here to give you real answers to real questions and and um so I thank you for this this format and what you're doing for the community I want to thank Usher for that example of the screaming kid um I know in my own synagogue um parents told me personally I had to leave because the synagogue couldn't accommodate my kid who was on the Spectrum they say they're open they say all the right things but when it comes down to it these kids and families they rejected and they leave and it's um you know I was going to say it's a Shanda but I don't know if I'm quite qualify for that uh but I guess my message is to end with is and we touched upon this is that kids should be their authentic selves and the kids learn Le especially girls they learn not to be authentic it's called masking they learn how to act and and for sometimes they get get unnoticed they're not even tested to be on the Spectrum and they get tested when they're adults but but they learn not to be authentic whether it's this kind of Behavioral kind of thing that we're talking about earlier or personal or emotional not connected um even with they're friends they're not themselves so I mean to me that's everything you know that's really everything to be authentic sense of self your self-esteem so I just wanted to bring home that that one point again and again thank you for for having me and if I offended anyone I'm very sorry aser I forgive you no let's go after two and a half hours yes thank you so much um Coach man for that you know you really bring out you know the understanding and the depth of the discussion um you know with the introduction all the questions and eraser I think you're also becoming a therapist I think maybe you should you know you should start opening up shop but uh I I do the program and I said this years ago because I can't afford therapy so this is my therapy look this is it and this is my therapy you know that's what I'm doing this the same thing exactly so um yes I just want to finish off first of all you know I tried answering questions I don't know if it at all had to do with the question that the person was asking anybody that wants to follow with additional questions feel free to reach out you could reach out to rob you could reach out to me you could email me you could you know send it through my website I will try to give a response um on my website I'm also going to be um as start a little mini podcast on the akas magazine which is given out to Tom's River and on the website they're going to have a little mini podcast that I might be able to address additional questions that we possibly didn't address um and I just want to finish off with that story that you said um R user about the kid that was screaming and that was his ding there's something that I think that you know these children or these people have they have something that a lot of people don't have they they they're really authentic a lot of kids I see you know they're getting close to B mitzah they don't want to D and like they won't go to scho why because they're not going to do something that's not meaningful to them but once they start understanding what ding is really about then they'll dve in then they'll really dve in the problem is that they don't just want to do just comply comply because that's what everyone else is telling them to do that doesn't work for them it has to be really meaningful really authentic and sometimes even if he's not doing all the doing we want him to do but let's wait and let's let him be the real person he can be and the real daver and that's what's more valuable thank you okay everybody thanks for joining us tonight really appreciate it and mm this will be up we listen to the replay send it around to people you think that could benefit for it mm will see everybody next week same time same place March 10th at 9:30 with ROV be Pinson good night everybody and thank you joining and Rob we love you I love you more have a great night thank you