Nurturing Unique Minds: Parenting Beyond Labels

Nurturing Unique Minds: Parenting Beyond Labels

D Brent Dowlen: [00:00:00] The term neurodivergent is used to describe people whose brain differences affect how their brain works. That means they have different strengths and challenges from people whose brains don't have those differences. It can include mental, medical disorders, learning disabilities, and other conditions.

The possible strengths include possibly better memory, sometimes better, Uh, three dimensional imagery in their head, the way they see things, mathematical calculations, or any number of things, but it may not be any of those neurodivergent isn't a medical term and said, it's a way to describe people using words other than normal or abnormal, and that's important because there's no single definition of normal of how the brain works.

I have a special guest today and that's what we're going to get into. Kim, right off the bat, what do parents need to hear right up front about raising neurodivergent kids before we dig into this?

Kim Pomares: That there's a lot more going on in the brain of those, in the [00:01:00] brains of those kids than they And the kids let on and, and often you have a younger kid who's processing differently.

Maybe they needed extra time to do something, but when it comes out, it's magical. And if you can allow the person to be and process the way they want, then some real magic can happen. And so I think patients slow down and

D Brent Dowlen: observe. That's a good place to start guys. We're going to kick this thing off and let's get into it.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential, growing to the men we dream of becoming while taking care of our responsibilities, working, living, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question. And in this podcast, we'll help you with those answers and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Valuable Man Podcast. Welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast. You're home for all things, man, husband and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. A warm welcome [00:02:00] to our first time listeners. It means a lot that you've given us a chance. Cause we know there's a lot competing for your attention.

So thanks for checking us out. My name is Brent. Today. My special guest is Kim Pamiris from MenAbility, who's going to talk with us about parenting neurodivergent children. Please understand that even if you're not a parent of a neurodivergent child, this will actually benefit you because you likely have neurodivergent, divergent children in your circle and.

It will help you in your interactions with them as well. Kim, welcome to the Fallow Man podcast.

Kim Pomares: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

D Brent Dowlen: Now, gentlemen, we're going to spend a few minutes getting to know Kim, uh, because to me, it's very important that you understand who you're talking to before we get into, uh, Something that's serious.

If this isn't your favorite part of the show, I understand some of you don't love this part. There's timestamps below. You can skip ahead straight to the meat, but we're going to spend a few minutes, just get to know Kim first. Now, Kim, we are closing in on Halloween. As of this episode, it's right around the corner.

Are you a [00:03:00] big movie fan? Oh yeah. Excellent. So today's trivia question is how many Halloween, like the movie franchise, movies have they actually made? Is it A7, B10, C13 or D15? Oh, dude, I don't

Kim Pomares: know. I actually haven't seen any of the Halloween movies.

D Brent Dowlen: Make a guess. Uh, 10. 10. Okay, guys, you know, the rules don't look it up. Don't cheat. Make your guess for God's sake. Don't write it down if you're driving. And we'll come back to that later in the show. Now, Kim, before we jump totally through the looking glass and into the entertaining stuff about who you really are, I want to know a little bit about men ability first, just so we understand where you're coming from.

So tell us about men ability.

Kim Pomares: Men's ability was created, um, between me My mom and a [00:04:00] past client after a really successful experience together. He was a businessman and thought that our little private clinic needed to, to, to what we were doing with the children, the miraculous intervention that My mom developed needed to be evaluated in randomized control trials, automated, streamlined, and turned into a business that people could access more easily.

So that's when mendability was created. It was a way to get as many people as possible doing and benefiting from This way of engaging with the environment that is really good for the brain to make it stronger, more resilient, uh, faster even sometimes, um, that's what mendability is about. And the, what, why we're doing this is to help people feel better, uh, feel more comfortable, feel more confident, feel proud of themselves.

So they can be their true selves and together we can all journey [00:05:00] through life more happily.

D Brent Dowlen: All right. It's always good to know where people are coming from. And while we're talking to you today, we're really talking about your work with men ability, uh, specifically. So I wanted to build a foundation on that.

Now we need to get to know who you are a little bit. So this is the speed round. There are no wrong answers. Are you ready?

Kim Pomares: No wrong answers. You asked me about the Halloween movies. There was a wrong answer. You should have asked me about the alien movies or something.

D Brent Dowlen: What's your go to dessert? All right.

All right. I'm ready. Go for it. Go to dessert.

Kim Pomares: It's rare to find a restaurant that will do it. Um, but if I can, chocolate mousse, but it's my mom's recipe that I really prefer. So if I'm at a restaurant, I'll go for key lime pie. So do I get two choices?

D Brent Dowlen: Yeah. Hey, I told you there's no wrong answer. I, you know what I understand. My grandmother's brownies.

All other brownies fail in comparison to my grandmother's recipes. It's not a [00:06:00] brownie. Otherwise it's just like thicker cake. So exactly. We get that. What is the worst song ever?

Kim Pomares: Oh, Oh, you can pick any pop song in a top 10 today. And I'd probably pick what the worst song is ever. I know. And I'm exaggerating.

There's probably some really good artists these days, but I, I don't know. I just stopped trying because it's just. It's just the same stuff rehashed over and over. Uh, so yeah, pick a pop song and that's it.

D Brent Dowlen: Fair enough.

Kim Pomares: Except for Michael Jackson. He's the king of pop and he's untouchable.

D Brent Dowlen: Agreed. Agreed. If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who would you choose?

Ooh.

Kim Pomares: Ooh. Jesus.

D Brent Dowlen: I used to say anybody but Jesus because that's like the default answer for that.

Kim Pomares: Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, um, it's a bit, it'd be interesting, but [00:07:00] I'd really like to know what was happening in the head of Hitler. Why? Did you really hate those people? Was it like, I don't, if I could be safe with him and, uh, that's, I'd like to ask him some questions.

D Brent Dowlen: You know, it's normal to want to understand a monster because we, our, our logical brains go, someone can't really be that broken canvay. Right. So that, that makes sense. What purchase of a hundred dollars or less did you make in the last year that's had the biggest impact on your life?

Kim Pomares: Membership to chat plus.

Yeah. Oh yeah. All the way. Um, all the things that I can do, but it can do it. I mean, I'm not, it can do some things so much more quickly. It's like having a virtual, a bit of a dumb virtual assistant, but a very diligent one. And he'll go over. And you have to [00:08:00] check his work and you have to base almost redo everything.

But if you know that you're, that he's going to give you a workable draft every time, yeah, no, it's, it's changed my, it's changed my

D Brent Dowlen: day. Oh, I use it quite a bit. I understand. And here's the ultimate question, Batman or Superman?

Kim Pomares: Superman.

D Brent Dowlen: Every, every, every guy has a hard line on that. So I always got to ask.

That's the speed round, guys. Little insight into Kim so you can connect with him. Kim, what is something that everybody needs to know about you before we dig into the show today?

Kim Pomares: Um, friend, and that means a couple of things. One of them is I challenge everything. I question everything. And also it means that I say things that I mean, and sometimes it's.

It's not sugar coated like the Americans like it.

D Brent Dowlen: I [00:09:00] love it. I like direct people.

Kim Pomares: All right,

D Brent Dowlen: guys, we've been getting to know Kim just a little bit. And the next part of the show, we're going to dive into understanding and demystifying neurodivergence and neurodevelopment to challenge developmental challenges.

We'll see how many times I can try and say that too fast and make a mockery of it. We're going to roll to our sponsor and we will be right back with more from Kim Parmaris.

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D Brent Dowlen: Now guys, I can personally say I sleep on my pillow. I sleep with my pillow, body pillow, and I've gone through a lot of body pillows and pillows over my lifetime as a big man. And I absolutely love my, my pillow stuff.

And we're proud to have my pillow. Mike Lindell is sponsor of the show guys. Welcome back. And in the first part of the show, we're just getting to know Kim. And in this part of the show, we're going to dive into understanding and demystifying neurodivergence and neurodevelopmental challenges. Now, Kim, I read a loose definition and I'm definitely going to emphasize a loose definition of neurodivergent at the beginning of the [00:11:00] show.

Can you help our audience understand more clearly what being neurodivergent can mean? Because the term is being used commonly from ADHD to autism. And for a lot of us, we don't actually understand what's being said. Can you break it down into layman's terms for us?

Kim Pomares: Okay, let me try. Um, I think everybody's unique. Your brain formed connections as a result of a series of experiences. You, uh, you ended up being more afraid of certain things than I am. But then I'm more afraid of some things than you are. I'm really better at some things than you are. Uh, and, and, uh, neurodivergence is a way of Is one word that says basically that.

I think what we want to add to the mix. Is that, um, [00:12:00] some people are born from the beginning with a difference. Maybe your brain and my brain kind of looked the same when we were born and then our experiences shaped us. With neurodivergent people or neurodevelopmental people. challenges, they're born with a brain that's slightly different than yours or mine.

And so they start from a difference. And so even with the same experiences, they would end up in a different place. And that place, like you said, at the beginning, I think I love your loose definition. I think neurodivergence is a very, there's no hard and fast definition. For example, where do you draw the line between somebody who's neurodivergent and somebody who isn't?

I don't know. I mean, does that mean that, does that make me neurodivergent? But then if we're all neurodivergent, then we're all what? Neurodivergent? Maybe that's a better way of looking at it. But there's another, on the other side of the spectrum, you have the neurodivergent people who are [00:13:00] in so much pain, so much discomfort, who struggle so much in so many ways that Um, it's unfair to them to say, Oh, you're just neurodivergent.

If society adapts and learns to embrace difference, then you will live better. That's not true for them. They will need help to just to, to get to a level of comfort where life becomes bearable because to them, life is unbearable. And I don't want to, to discount the voice of those people and the families who are suffering.

Now,

D Brent Dowlen: I told you before we started recording, I spent over an hour on a conversation with a dear friend of mine who is himself autistic. Both of, well, at least two, I don't think the youngest one's been tested yet, but at least two of his three children are neurodivergent at different levels. And he talked, [00:14:00] was trying to explain something about understanding the levels or flags of severity with different neurodivergent issues.

Is that something you can help us understand?

Kim Pomares: Well, I don't know what he's referring to exactly. I wonder if he's talking about the different classifications of the autism spectrum. I think that's what it was. And it's really just mild to severe and it's different degrees. And, um, uh, there's the, you know, there's a, this, the psychologists have this manual that they use, um, the, uh, It's the DSM 5, their own version 5 of the manual, and every 5 or 10 years they kind of change things around.

And so doctors will use definitions in there to say, okay, you're not in the mild, you're in the mild to severe, or you're in the severe category. Um, And it's really trained professional, psycho, trained doctors [00:15:00] who observe your kid in a room for a couple of hours and make some decisions about what they think the child can or cannot do, what their experience is.

It leaves so much. On the table, uh, especially in terms of what the child is experiences is experiencing. Um, but it's the best we got right now. I don't know if that's what he was referring to.

D Brent Dowlen: It, it sounds like it's along the same lines. Um, and I'm, and do you

Kim Pomares: have a question

D Brent Dowlen: about that? No, he was just talking about, you know, we were talking about the overall range of neurodivergence.

Uh, which actually kind of pans into my next question. So my youngest has a problem with her speech that actually originates in her brain and is linked to some of her specific motor skill functions. And her ability to have those. She's never been diagnosed. This is something we actually learned from the school system here, because the same disconnect that [00:16:00] was causing her speech, uh, her speech difficulties, like she's been doing speech therapy since preschool.

Um, she has problems like skipping or galloping and PE or something like that. Which I, I looked at PE teachers. Like, I don't give a crap if my kid gallops, she's not a horse. But I understand it's connected right now. It has, it is, if you

Kim Pomares: look at the map of the brain, um, there's right on top of the brain, there's a band of nerves on either side.

And so one side will handle one side of the body and the other side will handle the other side of the body. And that band of nerves is just like a strip there and it handles. sensory and motor functions. So, uh, information it receives from the environment and then information that it wants to send to the rest of the body to engage with the environment.

So if, if you feel something, [00:17:00] um, rough on your skin, then you'll go and be processed over on, in that strip. And then if your body wants to speak or to, to, to move muscles, It'll come, it'll originate from the same spot. And so feeling and doing are very related, which leads to some interesting, uh, observations.

But when you look at that map, then every bit of that on that strip, you have the bit to handle the feet and the hand and the mouth and every part of the body. And. The, there's a crease that brings the mouth and the hands right next to each other. They don't touch, um, uh, it's really close. And so very often we see kids who have speech delays where they have, they have the motivation to talk.

They, they want to emote and relate to people and they know the words, they understand everything you say. But when it [00:18:00] comes to speaking of, there's like a bottleneck. And very often people who have that physical or motor bottleneck also have motor issues. They'll hand the, you know, they'll write, they'll hold their pencil differently.

They'll find in younger kids, um, you see when they pick up like food for themselves, they'll use all their fingers in a raking motion instead of using pincers, or they'll not be able to gallop in PE. And in fact, we in our program, when we want to treat speech delay, if there's a part of the brain that's deficient in a way or not, not working the way you want it, and if, and after observing that if you stimulate it directly, you get stress and a poor response, then we stay aware from it.

And instead we look for a neighbor that's healthy enough. And then we work on that and a surge of activity and growth in that area will benefit all the neighbors, including the one we avoided in the first place. [00:19:00] And then that's how we get the first word being spoken by kids who never could speak a word by working on hand exercises, like rolling Play Doh snakes or doing some games, you know, like poking Play Doh and planting rice, things that are fun for kids to do, but get them to work a little bit on things Good enough, but a bit struggling, expand that.

And all of a sudden they're starting to talk because of that connection. They're really close in the brain.

D Brent Dowlen: So it hasn't been a huge overall issue for her. Like I said, I don't care if she can gallop, uh, and her speech has gotten better with practice. Uh, the schools, we were really blessed. The school's speech therapy program here is actually really good.

The people who are involved in it are very gentle and loving and, and They adore the kids they work with and play a lot of games to help them with that. But then my brother has a daughter who has Asperger's and she faces challenges that are much more difficult and impact in everyday life. [00:20:00] Uh, I think she's 29 now and our parenting requirements because of these two things are very, very different.

How can parents start to wrap their minds around what kind of things they need to help their children with? neurodevelopmental, as neurodivergent children and the challenges they're going to face, right? It took a while for my oldest niece to be diagnosed. My child's never been diagnosed. We knew she needed some speech help and got her into that early, but it wasn't until we were doing parent teacher conferences that we made any connection with physical movement.

So there might be something else. What are, I mean, how do we even begin as parents to recognize that maybe we have a neurodivergent child and it just hasn't come out yet, or it doesn't express itself as obviously, I know it's a really [00:21:00] big question, sorry.

Kim Pomares: I know. So which part of the journey you're talking about?

Is it that the part of the journey where your gut's telling you there's something different about this child? It seems to be more uncomfortable, it seems to cry more, it seems to have more meltdowns, maybe not meet his milestones. He seems to be walking funny, maybe on his tippy toes. He hates it when I pick him up, but before the diagnosis or, you know, um, or late in the stage where they say, you know, enough is enough.

We need to see a doctor about this. What

D Brent Dowlen: I just, as parents, what are we looking for? Some, maybe some early signs that would help go, Hey, maybe we should actually pay more attention to this are. Maybe there is something different about the way my child's brain functions. Is there any overall warning signs we can start to look for that might help inform us that we would blow off?

Um, not,

Kim Pomares: uh, [00:22:00] not being easily consolable is a sign that the child is in real distress. A kid, if he's hungry, tired, or just three reasons, I can't remember. I think I don't if it's scared or something. Just got hurt. He's angry, scared, or hurt. He's going to cry. You kiss it better. You give him some food and he, and it's fine.

But when you, when you solve all those primordial issues and they're still crying, then it's something that is, is, that goes deeper than that. And, uh, and that's, that's when you have to decide. Um, Uh, When, when you need external help to assist with helping the kid feel better, at least give you some answers.

Why is he crying that way? Oh, Yeah, He's got sensory processing issues and every time you turn the neighbor turns on his lawn mower. He's is in ext, your son or child, your daughter is in [00:23:00] excruciating pain or every ti uh, your, your, you don't realize it, but the neon light, they're seeing that all the time and it's just driving them mad or so that would be a sensory processing issue or if it was a, maybe a brain chemistry issue where they don't produce enough.

There's a hormone in the brain that makes you feel calm, that makes you feel in control, that everything's going to be okay, right? It's your, like, serotonin. Comes from serenity, right? Same root. And a lot of the kids on the spectrum struggle regulating serotonin in their brain, and it's like the fuel to make them feel good.

But that fuel is used for so many things, and so they run out very quickly. And, and so things that are okay in the morning all of a sudden are not okay in the afternoon this is why you have inconsistent behaviors like what do you never it didn't have a problem with this earlier now he's and there's a lot of inconsistencies um uh or it could be and there's there's lots of different ways but [00:24:00] I it has to be when you when you go to a doctor and you get a diagnosis You get a level of understanding that maybe is a good thing, but you also get a whole list of things to do that don't necessarily make things better.

Um, and, and it's, so as a parent, you have to do your homework. Don't necessarily, and that's the French in me, don't necessarily take what the doctor tells you at face value. There's some stuff they've been doing for 200 years just because nobody's challenged the status quo. There's, and there's stuff that's coming out of, you know, the, of, of neuroscience that's really exciting but hasn't been vetted yet.

And, and this and everything in between, and it's up to you to decide, follow your gut. I think as a parent, following your gut is probably the best advice that I could give at this point and be patient.

D Brent Dowlen: I, you know, to your credit, I knew that was a really hard [00:25:00] question because there, there is such a wide range.

And what neurodivergence covers, right? So

Kim Pomares: to me, I don't care about labels. I don't care about Asperger's ADD autism dyspraxia. I don't care. I just care. Is the kid happy and that, and if he's not happy and. Mom and dad have done everything they know how and it's still not happy, then let's bring some additional help to make them happy, not to make them speak, not to make them gallop, not to make them do math better, but to make them happy.

That's the first thing, because once they're in, in a state of calm, then they can learn the way every kid can. Uh, their brains aren't, So, and I'm going to use a word that's a bit controversial, so broken is that they cannot learn eventually they can if, and I think mom and dad, their prime, their primary responsibility is to make the [00:26:00] kid happy and the rest will fall into place eventually, I think.

D Brent Dowlen: That actually perfectly segues because the next question. I have for you is what are some common myths or misunderstandings that you have run into about having a neurodivergent child with the families you work with? Um, people come in and go, well, uh, or hey, you work with nerd parents of neurodivergent children.

What are some of the common myths and misunderstandings people seem to have about this? One.

Kim Pomares: Um, so there's two types of misunderstandings. They're the misunderstandings that come from parents who think they understand, but have developed a, they're, they're missing one thing and they're afraid of the truth.

And then you have the misunderstandings from people who aren't, haven't been exposed to [00:27:00] this and just. Don't understand because they haven't experienced it. Um, and I feel like the most damaging misunderstanding is from the parents who are afraid. And there's a lot of things that we see parents do and they say it's for the sake of the child, but it's really for their own sake.

They've got some unresolved trauma, they got some biases, they got some And, and then to, to the parents, before I start to sound like I'm bashing on parents, they are tired because they're probably not sleeping a full night's sleep and they haven't since the kid was born. So they're working on No, there were, you know, they're driving on fumes.

So nobody is at their best in this situation. And this is, this is where the brain protective mechanisms start to play where they, they, they, they put all those barriers. And so you can't see. properly, you can't think properly. You think you do because you've been living in that state your whole life and so you don't understand that [00:28:00] that you're not seeing things clearly.

In a very similar way that a neurodivergent child, see I'm struggling with that word too, a neurodivergent child is also not, Seeing things clearly because they also have filters. They're annoyed at something they're in pain because of something. And so they're not seeing the beauty of the world around them and the parents aren't.

And so, uh, so I feel like that's a common misunderstanding is what do you think is the, you think you're doing something for the. sake of the child, but really you're doing it for yourself. And if you can take a second to try and think, then you realize, Oh, I can let my kid be stimming. For example, it's terribly annoying when you're not the one stimming.

And there's like somebody on like clicking a pen, like click, click, click, click, click, click, like annoying.

It doesn't hurt anybody. It's [00:29:00] you are being annoyed. They're not being annoying. They're trying to soothe something. Their brain is like, I need to click a thing and it soothes them. You in comparison with a non neurodivergent child with your sensory processing filter pretty much in a good spot, you can manage yourself, say, this is just a stimming and fine.

I'm fine. Right. Um, And so you think, Oh, for the sake of the child, I'm going to stop the stimming because it's going to create some, I don't know, people are not going to want to be friends because he's looks weird or sound weird when he's stimming. Um, I think that's a misunderstanding. Just let them stim.

It hasn't hurt anybody. Let me interrupt you for a second here. Explain stimming. Uh, stim, it's an abbreviation for self stimulation. And so people, uh, Americans are very good at shortening stuff and coming up with words. Stemming doesn't exist in the dictionary. Maybe it does today. I haven't checked because they add new [00:30:00] words in dictionary, but yeah, it comes from self stimulation.

So it's something that you do to control, to induce a controlled, uh, response, um, it's something interesting. I learned a lot. Sorry?

D Brent Dowlen: Like, fidgeting might be a similar Fidgeting!

Kim Pomares: It's a stim. It's a self stimulation thing. Yes, totally. Sorry, I've got a notice on my phone I need to turn off.

D Brent Dowlen: No problem. Okay. I just wanted to clarify, uh, on the word.

My daughters love to fidget. They function better. I function better with something in my hands. I always have. Uh, but as a podcaster, I laugh when you say clicking that pen, because I've had guests who will sit there and click, Oh, kills me on a recording, man. So I'm always looking for quiet fidget toys or fidget stuff for my kids.[00:31:00]

That doesn't necessarily have an audio sound to it. Any kind of,

Kim Pomares: yeah,

D Brent Dowlen: audible noise.

Kim Pomares: Yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, I'm sorry. I had another thought about stimming, about self stimulation. If you don't think you do, think about what happens when you knock your toe or your pinky toe on a piece of furniture. What do you do as a reflex?

Very often you'll find yourself shaking your hands or doing something to sort of evacuate the pain magically out of your fingers. Well, that's, that's, that's kind of why a lot of the kids on the spectrum, you know, flap their hands or things like that is they're feeling the same level of it's not always pain.

Sometimes it's the excitement is so strong and we have no idea how. Much excitement must be happening in those brains, uh, because they're super sensitive. So [00:32:00] everything that happens to them is like times 10 what we feel. And so to them having a, Ooh, I'm getting chocolate mousse or, uh, a key lime pie for dessert.

And you, the excitement turns into a hand flap because it feels to them like what it feels like to us when we jam our toe in furniture.

D Brent Dowlen: My friend was trying to explain to me, uh, that a lot of neurodivergent children, no matter what version of neurodivergent, one of the more common things is they over simulated easily.

And he was trying to explain that, that through, you know, he said it's like an electrical impulse. They're trying to. That excitement has to go somewhere else. So they move their hands.

Kim Pomares: Totally. Exactly. Exactly. And to deny them the ability to evacuate or control that experience. Is like, you know, gaslighting you.

No, you [00:33:00] didn't, you didn't hurt your toe. Don't, don't tell me that you hurt your toe. It's, it's, it's damaging physically, emotionally, psychologically to try and deny them, uh, a self stimulation. They're, they're probably more productive ways. Like I've, I've, I've spoken to some parenting experts who come up with a way to divert a stim into something, into like a superpower and to, and you can observe what they do during their stim that can give you clues about their interests or how to get them engaged in, in a world that is really not prepared for people that are different than me and you.

And, um, And I can't remember, I have a really cool story on the tip of my tongue, it'll come to me, but you can do wonderful things if you know how to use STEM to your advantage too.

D Brent Dowlen: Now, gentlemen, let me be [00:34:00] really clear. Just because your kid likes to fidget, doesn't necessarily mean they're a neurodivergent child.

We'll butcher that one a lot today. That does not mean they're necessarily a neurodivergent child. Uh, we, we live in a society where we now have a common attention span of less than a goldfish as people. And we have a whole lot of kids who spend a whole lot of time sitting and not a lot of time moving.

So most kids have an excess of energy at this point. That's why fidget toys are so popular. Uh, they weren't, I'm 44. They weren't popular when I was a kid. We fidgeted with paperclips or whatever we get our hands on. They didn't actually make toys for it. They just called this routing

Kim Pomares: plastic bands,

D Brent Dowlen: picking them on people.

But

Kim Pomares: talk about another fuel. I talked about the serotonin, which is the fuel that makes you feel I don't, uh, in control and calm and at peace, there's [00:35:00] another fuel in the brain called dopamine. People may have heard of dopamine, you know, if you take drugs, you get a rush of dopamine and you feel exhilarated.

Well, this is a misunderstanding when it comes to movement. They feel like if you get a rush of dopamine, you gotta move. It's the other way around. Dopamine makes your muscles not move. Your muscle fibers are designed to always be in motion. And so the brain needs to say, don't move. And it uses up dopamine for that.

And so kids who have issues regulating their dopamine or they're bored and their dopamine levels are going low, or the stuff is not interesting. Then there's this urge to move because dopamine is being diverted somewhere else, and so the muscles now are wanting to move. This is a physiological urge, and to te tell a kid to stop moving is almost as bad as [00:36:00] telling a neuro, neuro, neuro divergent kid give jinxed me a neurodivergent kid to stop stemming.

It's they can't help it if they're starting a fidget toys are a very good way to sort of control for a little bit but eventually they're going to need to stand up and do something and the best kids can probably just do a fidget toy, but some kids who are less able to regulate their dopamine fuel need to get up.

And to tell a kid, don't get up is, is a dangerous thing to do. It's useless. It's, it's very, um, I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit. It's not dangerous. It's just, it's not productive. And the kid, it's not helping anybody. It's getting everybody tense. Just let the kids go for a run, use up his dopamine and come back and he'll be fine.

D Brent Dowlen: It's frustrating. It may not be physically dangerous. It is. [00:37:00] Emotionally and mentally frustrating to be told to be still over and over again without being able to express that.

Kim Pomares: Yeah. And I don't think the kids even know what's going on. They just have this urge. They got to move that they can't. I'll tell you why, there's no reason why, except their dopamine levels are low, so they gotta do something.

And I'll tell you what you can do that is productive in those situations, um, if you want to give the brain a quick shot of dopamine and a natural boost of dopamine, and uh, you don't want to use stimulants. Because stimulants will have all sorts of different bad side effects. Um, but if you want the brain to produce double its dopamine release instantly and to have the effect last for an hour and a half, all you have to do is use a sense of smell.

Turn on the fragrance diffuser and you'll see all the kids settle [00:38:00] down. And you think, no, no, no, the smell is supposed to be energizing. It's going to energize them. It's going to make things worse. No, you don't understand. The sense of smell is, is, uh, the, is processed in a little part of the brain right behind the nose.

And that part of the brain is connected to all other parts of the brain, and, and when that part of the brain is stimulated, the whole brain just sort of energizes. And when that happens, then the brain is engaged, and in tune, and interested, and curious, and it wants to be stimulated. It doesn't want to go run away and do useless stuff.

It wants, okay, give me something interesting to to chew on. And we teach that to special education teams all the time. We have a, we have a protocol we call the mendability minute where we get the serotonin to flow and the dopamine to flow. Um, using in two minutes, like put a slideshow on the wall and very simple stuff.

And within a minute, [00:39:00] all the kids are like calm and ready to learn. So that's a tip for your audience.

D Brent Dowlen: Well, actually rolls us perfectly into the next. Moments of the show guys. Now we've been trying to clarify and demystify and help you understand neurodivergence and neurodevelopmental challenges. A child who is truly neurodivergent, there is somewhere in their life developmentally in their mind that.

Is not developing at the same pace. There is slightly held back. Uh, it's delayed development somewhere. It doesn't mean they're broken. It doesn't mean anything's wrong with them. It's. There's a delay because there's actually something wrong in the brain wiring, not broken. Let me just wire it differently.

Let me clarify that.

Kim Pomares: I'm going to challenge you. You cannot sugarcoat this. There [00:40:00] is something that's not working right. But we all have, to a certain extent, something that's not working right. All of us have developed coping and protective mechanisms and the brain to preserve energy has let some things go.

And so all of us, I got a part of the brain that's just not working right. And we just kind of work around this and, and work happily with it. Um, the difference between me and you, and maybe somebody that will label neurodivergent is usually because, he's, he's thinking, he's saying things. He's thinking differently, he's saying things differently, and it, it bothers some people.

It's like, ah, it's, it's weird. I don't know what to do with it. Oh, I'll put a label on it. I'll put it neurodivergent. Any label, whether it's politically correct or not, means that I've decided that you're different than me. Really, we should say, Oh, this is how you think, oh, I wonder [00:41:00] what in your life is causing you to think this way.

Oh, because when I think about this, I think about it differently, and I wonder why I think that way. And all of a sudden, we're all trying to understand one another, and boom, the labels go away. So I think this is why you were struggling, like, uh, neurodivergent.

D Brent Dowlen: Yeah,

Kim Pomares: it's a label. So as soon as you use the word to label someone, it's like, you know, queer or tall or fat.

It's like, Oh, where's the line between fat and not fat? Where's the line between tall and not tall? We're all at different heights and different everything. And we just, I don't know, stop labeling. Labels are useful when you want to be able to, as, uh, doctors invented labels because they label everything.

Because they need to be extremely specific when they talk to one another. Because they want to talk about that piece of the eye that's behind that particular muscle. Because now they can talk to another surgeon and say, you know, cut that, and they know they're going to cut exactly that [00:42:00] and nothing else.

So it's useful in the medical world to then, okay, when I say neurodivergent, neurodivergent is not a medical term, that's why they don't use it as doctors. They'll say autistic or ADHD or pervasive developmental disorder or all sorts of things because then, ah, okay, this is what I'm talking about and now I know how to help.

Where was I going with this? Oh, I was, I was challenging you on It's, uh, broken, but not wrong. It's just, if they're broken and they're wrong, then we're broken and we're wrong too, that's what I'm saying.

D Brent Dowlen: Well, that's why I was struggling with it because when I talked to my friend about it, it's like, they see the world through a different lens than you do.

And for them, that's absolute reality. You just see it that way. So you think it's wrong because you're seeing it a different way than they are. But for them, that's absolute truth and reality because that's the lens they see the world through.

Kim Pomares: That is a very good way of describing [00:43:00] it. We should have had your friend on a podcast to explain this, not you or me.

Cause I mean, you know, I'm in the world a bit more than you are, so I see things and I'm more familiar with some concepts, but I'm not in it, you know, I'm open minded enough to know that. My lens is just as flawed as their lens, you know, who's to know where the truth is. Maybe there's a third lens somewhere out there that neither he or I have experienced that makes us see things better, more accurately.

But we're all, yeah, to deny them their reality is, is, is, is, is so arrogant because that means, oh, my reality is better than yours. Okay, all right, then what are you compensating for? What are your what's your insecurities? Why? Why do you have to deny them the option that their reality is probably more accurate than ours?

How come maybe they did? Okay, something about sensory processing. [00:44:00] Um, the happy people are the mediocre people because the role of the brain is to protect you and use as little energy as possible. And so it's not going to try anything hard, it's not going to learn anything new unless it has to. And so your brain says, Has, um, for people like you and me have a very strong filter.

This is important. This is not important. This is important. This is not important. And so we can focus. Um, have you ever listened to, uh, uh, a bad record? Like, um, you're in a conference and you want to record somebody and you hear their voice very well. And then you listen to the tape and it's. Garbled mess because so many other sounds are being recorded by the microphone.

The microphone has no filter to know that that's the voice you wanna listen to. It's recording everything. And so, p uh, a lot of the neuro divergent people that I, I know have a very poor filter, and so their brain is processing everything at the same level of importance. And that's why they get [00:45:00] overloaded and overstimulated.

It's because there's this light, and this light, and that light, and that sound, and that sound, and that thing. They're seeing and feeling everything all the time. And it's very tiring. But it also means that they don't And so if you need, this is why I mean, I'm It's almost cliche and stereotypical now, but if you want to do quality assurance, you want to hire an autistic to do this, because they will see everything.

You will miss that because, ah, that's not important, so I'll ignore it for now. And they won't, they won't, they will see every single thing. Um, and so that leads to, um, that leads to a very different way of seeing the world when everything is important. Um, and I don't understand that. I don't know what that is, but I'm sure it's very employable somewhere, including quality assurance, but there's probably other places where that would be a useful skill.

D Brent Dowlen: Guys, we've been trying to [00:46:00] demystify this a little bit for you. We're going to move on into this part of the show. Now, at MenAbility, you guys, one of the techniques you focus on is sensory enrichment therapy. So Kim is going to help give you as parents and people who are around neurodivergent children some tips and some tools from sensory enrichment therapy to help you as you work with these amazing kids.

Yeah. Okay. So. I'm going to let you go with this for a minute.

Kim Pomares: Sure. So I think to understand, I don't know what tip I want to share yet, but I think I need to explain what sensory enrichment therapy means. Um, 60 years ago, they were doing some experiments. Um, they noticed that if a rat was raised in a, From the same mom was raised in one environment compared to another environment, and they would behave differently.

And if they sacrifice the animals and [00:47:00] analyze the brains, the brains would be different from one environment to the next. So it started, uh, um, a series of, of, of, studies looking at what experiences in what environment would lead to more brain cells, fewer brain cells. And that field of neuroscience is called environmental enrichment.

So they're looking for ways to enrich the environment to enrich brain development so that brains are not just performing well, but they have reserves and they're super fast. And so for the last 70 or so years, they're making. They've been making rats very happy and very smart. And sensory enrichment is a subset of environmental enrichment that looks at sensory type of experiences and motor type of experiences that have an influence on how your brain develops and how your brain functions.

And we've discovered that if you combine sensory inputs and do a certain activity in [00:48:00] a certain way, then a, you know, a certain part of the brain will light up. And if you do another type of, of, uh, experiences, another part of the brain will light up. So yeah, people come to us and for example, your daughter and she has motor issues with her speech.

I mean, it's very complex, but we're probably look for ways to stimulate that part of her brain that's blocked right now. And, um, So that's what sensory enrichment therapy, it's a, it's a way of using sense, uh, environmental things to therapeutically enhance brain function, if at all possible. And again, the objective is to make people feel good.

That's all we want to achieve. And if your daughter is happy. In, in the way she talks right now, and she's not frustrated in any way, leave it be. But if she gets into like anxious states and all of a sudden, and it's affecting her ability [00:49:00] to live happily, then yes, let's look at a way to facilitate her speech.

So what, um, having said all of that, um, do your friend, you know, the one you spoke to for an hour, an hour and a half, do you have a sense of if there was something he could improve in his life?

D Brent Dowlen: He would like that. Um, I'm not sure he would change anything for himself. I think that, you know, as a father, he would do anything and everything he can for his kids.

And one of those things, one of his daughters doesn't read, like, social interaction cues well. And I'm sure if there was a way that he could help her with those issues, he would like to.

Kim Pomares: Often, social skills, and I don't like talking [00:50:00] about social skills. Again, it's a poor label. It's like something you can train.

You can't really train anybody to be comfortable. Doing something, unless you increase their, um, comfort level with it. Uh, and I think social interactions are very. Uh, driven by emotion and driven by an interest, uh, in reaching out and being part of a community. Everybody wants to feel like they belong.

But what we've observed in a lot of the, uh, individuals who, who struggle to read body language, for example, is that they, they struggle to know their own. body language and they struggle to, they've got like their map of where their body is, what their body is like is distorted somewhat [00:51:00] or fuzzy and there's no clear Separation between them and the environment and other people and and so what we do with our program is it will work on on self awareness, body awareness, uh, sensory processing and uh, so we'll do, we'll do protocols that and then all of a sudden they can, they didn't, they, they're um, They, they understand better and then we didn't train say, Hey, when somebody winks this way, or their eyebrows raised this way, or when their shoulders droop, or they look briefly to the left or briefly to the right, something funky is happening, it just sort of naturally develops.

And so those social skills classes to me are a little bit of spit, like putting the horse before the cart, um, they need to understand themselves and then they'll be interested and able and comfortable with engaging with other people. [00:52:00] Um, and again, that's if they're interested in doing that again, it's, if it's making them unhappy, cause.

Maybe they, maybe they're fine that way, it's just everybody else is uncomfortable because they don't know how to deal with somebody who's like that. Alright, I think what I want, um, what I want to share is, is from our guide. How do we develop and we call it four senses to activate clarity, motivation and stress relief.

Um, it's, it's actually based on, uh, the routine I was mentioning earlier that we use in schools. We train schools, teachers to set something up in their classroom so that when they welcome the kids into that classroom, there's a series of experiences that the kids are going to engage with. passively without really putting any effort into it and it's going to talk to their brain in such a way that they're going to get a little boost of dopamine, a [00:53:00] boost of serotonin, maybe a little boost of oxytocin at the same time.

And it's going to, to help them feel calm. It's going to help them feel interested and curious. And so the stress relief part is like whatever, you know, if they came from the bus. And or they came from a tense situation and then this rush of serotonin is going to give them a sense of stress relief. And so you as a, as an adult parent, um, you can do it yourself.

He's like, Ooh, um, something's happening. I gotta, uh, and I've got a big project coming on. I gotta be able to lower my stress. I gotta increase my clarity. I gotta increase my engagement. Well, what you need is extra dopamine and what you need is extra serotonin. So, we're going to do a few different things that are going to be surefire ways to get your dopamine and serotonin fired up.

The first one you want to do is you want to get a [00:54:00] smell of something you like, alright? It could be your cup of coffee, if you have it, it usually smells a lot better than it tastes. I don't know if you're a coffee lover, I'm not so much of a coffee lover. But I just love the smell of coffee and books when I go to a bookstore, right?

Um, but it could be anything. It could be a candle. It could be an essential oil. It could be the smell of your kid's head. It could be anything. Just get a good two deep sniffs, slow down, and be mindful about it. And then, because we smell something, we smell stuff all the time, right? And, but our brains again are pretty good at filtering, uh, stuff as important or not.

So it needs to be a new, a new experience. So either you, uh, because we need to smell stuff all the time, kind of gets at that base level. You want to get, Super high. So it breaks through that therapeutic threshold so that it becomes something that's going to actually change the way your brain is working.

It's [00:55:00] not just telling your brain something quick, it's telling your brain something intense that it has to focus on. So it's not just, uh, oh, I'm smelling something nice. I gotta close my eyes and concentrate on it if you can. What? And whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Hot cocoa, an incense stick, doesn't matter.

When you've done that, you're probably done. You already have a lot of dopamine flowing, and that's going to be great for whatever you're doing, whatever your kid's doing. But if you can add some extra things If you can go to YouTube and then put on an art slideshow with some relaxing music, what's going to happen is your visual system's going to be stimulated by a lot of dots that don't make a whole lot of sense unless your brain works at putting it together into an image.

And that work, Putting something together that looks beautiful, there's a part of your brain that processes beauty. It's dedicated. It only activates when you find something beautiful. And when that activates, you get extra dopamine, you get extra [00:56:00] serotonin. And when you listen to classical music, again, you have multiple instruments playing together.

And again, that process of identifying the instruments and putting them together and say, Yep, that, I like that sound of that. It's beautiful. Boom. Serotonin, dopamine. So smell, look, and listen, and you've got, um, and you've got a lot of happy juices going. But if you want an extra touch of serotonin, because maybe you're like really stressed and you want to like nail this.

Um, then you need a tactile experience. You grab a back scratcher and you give yourself the perfect back rub and you kind of think about it, be mindful about it to turn that tactile experience into a therapeutic experience. Close your eyes, get the perfect back tickle and boom, and you get a rush of serotonin.

So one of those is going to work better than the others. And maybe you only pick the smell and the touch. You don't need the visual and the audio, but maybe you don't have [00:57:00] access to a touch. You don't have access to a smell. So then you have a screen and you got access to the internet and you just take a couple of minutes to enjoy beautiful music and beautiful art.

One of those is going to get those juices going and it's going to help you for you, but it can help a kid, you know, for homework or coming back from school. Right? And it's, it's been a tough day and they're all drained out, all their juices are gone and they're going to come home and have a meltdown for 10 minutes and then they get over it, but they don't need the meltdown.

Give them a way to transition into a nice, pleasant environment with a tactile experience. It has nice music and nice slideshow. Hey, here's the iPad. Watch this for a couple of minutes. Put your earbuds on and you watch their mood settle down.

D Brent Dowlen: Now, gentlemen, if that sounds like good news to you and you're looking for more insights and tips on how to be a better parent for your [00:58:00] neurodivergent child or you have neurodivergent children in your life, uh, be that friend who goes the extra mile and, and educate yourself on this. Um, You can go over and check out what they have over at Medability.

Kim Pomares: Yes, Medability. com. And if you have like a way to put a special link, I can give, uh, send a link to that, uh, Pete, uh, guide so they can download and reread what I've tried to explain.

D Brent Dowlen: We will absolutely have that. You'll find that in the show notes. So you can get a free copy of that. And try applying it in the life of your child, uh, or maybe even in yourself.

I guess I have a feeling there are a lot of adults who could use that as well. Kim, I know everybody's really worried about how many Halloween movies they made and the answer is too many. You guessed 10. The answer is 13. Like I said, way, way, way [00:59:00] too many. Cause you know, that's the most important thing. Uh, no one actually cares.

We'll have all of Kim's links, all of the ways you can connect. Minability has presences on most social media platforms, and I'll have all those links down in the show note as well. Kim, if our audience heard nothing else today, what is the most important thing you want to share with them?

Kim Pomares: The world is a beautiful place and if you can enjoy it, everybody would be happier.

I felt like something I wanted to say.

D Brent Dowlen: I love it. It works guys for Kim myself. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Be better tomorrow because what you do today and we'll see on the next one.

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