Eps 120: Dr. Robin McEvoy is on Talking About Decoding our Children with Complex Issues

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Joy, joyful courage parenting podcast episode 120

Hey everybody. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the conscious parenting journey. I am Casey overdy, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and honored to be your guide in the work of showing up as your best for yourself and your family. If you feel as though parenting is one long personal growth and development workshop, you have come to the right place. The conversations you will hear on this podcast are all intended to offer you tools for moving forward, for expanding your lens, for shifting your narrative to one of possibility, connection and empowerment. You can be the parent you want to be. We are influencing the world with how we raise our children. When we bring deep, listening, acceptance and courage to our relationships. We are doing our part to evoke it in the world. I am thrilled to partner with you on this path. I hope you enjoy the show.

All right, so my guest today is Robin McEvoy. She is a developmental neuropsychologist practicing in Denver, Colorado. She evaluates and diagnoses a wide range of learning disabilities and learning needs in children, adolescents and adults. This includes the identification of reading disabilities such as dyslexia. She then works with the families to develop a treatment plan to remediate the weaknesses and accentuate the strengths. She is the co author and editor of a recently published book called Child decoded, unlocking complex issues in your child's learning behavior and attention. What I love about the work that Robin does in the world is that she takes a very holistic approach when working with and supporting children and families. I'm really excited to share her with all of you, and I really, really hope that you walk away feeling empowered and excited about how to support the kids with special needs in your life. Hi, Robin. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast. Hello. Please share with the listeners a little bit of your journey to doing what you do.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 2:38
Okay, thanks, Casey. I am just so happy to be here today. And it's sort of funny, because my journey in child started in childhood, because I got interested in child development really early. And I started reading books about child development when I was 12 years old. I remember reading my first ones then, and now, I've progressed to my own my own book writing, and I continue to study it. I eventually got a doctorate, and I'm practicing as a developmental neuropsychologist, which I told my parents was the longest title I could get. So I've decided I should start working after that. It's a good like, 12 years in college.

Casey O'Roarty 3:18
So you just said developmental neuropsychologist, right?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 3:22
Yes, okay. I have a PhD. I have a PhD in developmental psychology, which is like womb to tomb psychology, and then fellowship in neuropsychology. And I've always been interested in all the things that impact how children develop, you know, like what shapes them into the adults that they are. How can we influence their development to help them be at their best? And so then, for the last few years, I've worked with two colleagues to create this book, child decoded. And it's a book for parents who are struggling to find that best path for supporting their child when their child's got unique challenges or even just a unique style.

Casey O'Roarty 3:57
Yeah, and tell me about what was your biggest inspiration for writing child decoded.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 4:03
You know, it's, it's kind of tough out there right now. You know, the academic expectations are really high. We want children to learn to read in kindergarten and learn to write, and before, I think their motor skills are quite ready. And the educational funding is not particularly high, and in some places, it's quite low, and more and more children are struggling, and the rates of certain diagnoses such as autism and attention deficit disorder continue to go up, and parents are busier than ever. And if their child is struggling, they these parents can really feel overwhelmed and confused and often downright afraid. Parents would do anything to help their kids, but then they don't know what to do. And if the child and it is a child's development that they're so they're doggedly hurting their kids towards a finish line that actually keeps moving a little farther away, because it's child development, you know, there's as soon as you hit one milestone and you're like, Yay, we. It is like, oh, shoot, they've moved the finish line.

Casey O'Roarty 5:02
Gotta keep going, right?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 5:06
So we wrote it to help parents sort through their child's needs, explore underlying factors, and then read through this book. What are the common supports? What's the common treatments? How do you get a beat on those different finish lines and find the best strategies for getting there.

Casey O'Roarty 5:20
Yeah, and in the beginning of your book, there's a master checklist for parents. And it's it's big, it's fascinating. So tell me about how the checklist, but it's also like, as I went through it and looked at it, I saw how helpful it is to think, to look through all of these different lenses, all of these different things around our kids. But what happens, you know, the way your book is kind of laid out is it actually helps parents to find what they need inside of the book. So can you talk a little bit about the master checklist? Yeah,

Dr. Robin McEvoy 5:57
that checklist is sort of a triage, you know, let's go in. Let's, let's assess a bunch of factors fairly quickly and see which ones are most relevant. I always think of like the old mash series, where they used to do triage and then send you off to this specialist, send you off to that specialist. So we're gonna screen for a lot of possible needs and then referral to the proper information in the book that will help you find the right resources. So the checklist, though, is the first opportunity also to look below the surface. And we use that iceberg analogy, and that's a big part of child decoded the tip of the iceberg. And maybe, for example, my child's not learning to read when expected. May be just that the tip of the iceberg, but that tip may be indicative of deeper issues underneath that. Reading problem may stem from a reading disability, but there's also the possibility of a deeper issue, like an auditory or language processing and for some reason, we didn't really become it didn't really pop up to the surface till reading also was behind. So this looking under the surface approach can be even more important for other issues. I mean, reading is an important skill, but in the big life scheme of things, we have so often a bigger fist or fry those of a child with autism, attention deficit disorder, emotion regulation issues, what else could be going on under there? And the checklist helps you think about those things. Well, not just define what's happening above the surface of the water, but what else you maybe need to look at below the surface. So it adds that critical element of looking at possible physical or biomedical symptoms that dig deeper into the child's physiology and also connects the mind and the body. Will

Casey O'Roarty 7:39
you explain to me, but what biomedical means

Dr. Robin McEvoy 7:43
biomedical is just trying to get a sense of a lot of systems that are part of our biology and could also be considered medical. Maybe I'm trying to think of what's the easiest way to explain it, so you look at neurochemistry. So are we running? You know, you can actually do this tonight. Some of the psychiatrists are now doing these lab tests to say, how does this medication, how might it interact with this child's particular, particular genetic makeup? To help you do that, but you can also look at how the immune system and the gut will fit, will influence your neurology. So like serotonin, the calming neurotransmitter, a lot of that serotonin is produced in the gut, and if your gut is off, therefore your serotonin is going to be off, and there you may be experiencing anxiety and depression. You can treat at the brain level and do an anti anxiety, or maybe you can reset the gut, and that will reset the serotonin in a more natural, authentic way, getting at the underlying issue and not just trying to mask the symptom.

Casey O'Roarty 8:53
I love that, and I feel like I'm jumping ahead, but I'm going to do it anyway, because not a long I mean, it was probably about six years ago where I know I love the iceberg metaphor. First of all, my listeners are familiar with me talking about the iceberg just around getting clear about underlying beliefs that are, you know, showing up as particular behaviors that we're seeing with our kids. So I'm all about the iceberg, yay, but this whole gut, brain connection, this is kind of a tangent, but about six years ago, maybe, actually, maybe more like seven or eight years ago, I had my my two kids, my son was at the time, like three, maybe three or four, and I had was about 35 pounds heavier than I am now, and really bad mood swings. And my sister in law said, Oh, you read that. Check out this book, and it was called the ultra mind solution. I can't think of the author's name, but I'll put it in the show notes. But he was all about fixing your brain by changing what you eat. Yes, and connecting all of the the ways that we feel and the brain stuff with what we were putting in our body. And it was amazing. And a lot of what I did was take things out of my diet that yeah, and mostly gluten and dairy, and it was like the mood swings that I was having. You know, there's still variation in mood. I mean, now I have a teenager, so there's a lot of variation of moods going on over here, but it was incredible what a difference it made when I paid more attention to the food that I was putting in my body.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 10:36
Yeah, I think reintegrating that mind and body, and that's another issue, I think, with very busy families is we've drifted so much in what we consider to be a decent meal, or even what we consider to be food, that we forget about that. And then also our food has drifted with a lot of genetic modification of things and things we're getting differences. And actually what we were eating things that, in theory, are on and Word Wise, flour, wheat, that we ate 100 years ago, ate for 1000s of years, but it's really a different product now. And I think it really is shifting things around for people, and we sort of have to come to grips with that and realize what we are, what we eat? Yeah, that's been around forever. That's funny at my we have a magazine. My daughter found it, and she loves old things, and it's a magazine from 1908 and there are two things in it that mention too much white flour being bad for your energy. It was like a Grape Nuts advertisement, advertising for Grape Nuts. And have you had too much? Oh, so we sort of known this for a long time.

Casey O'Roarty 11:51
Yeah. So all you people, people that have become gluten free, you're not, you're not that ahead of the curve. So another thing that I noticed too, lately, I feel like I'm meeting more and more parents, both professionally and personally, who have who end up sharing that they have children with multiple needs. You know, in your book, is, you know, the byline unlocking complex issues with your child's learning behavior or attention. So there's these multiple needs that are showing up, and it can feel so overwhelming. I have one, one client in particular that's coming to mind, and they're continuously advocating for their child, working to convince others of what they're seeing. And whether it's, you know, doctors or specialists or schools, you know, that's a whole nother story about, you know, schools and what they're able to offer to all kids. And they're these parents, are they? You know, I know that it can become exhausting telling the same story of what they're seeing with their kids, and that, that feeling of, you know, why? Why isn't everybody else seeing this, or why am i It feels like an uphill battle. So what do you find through your own experience and the experience of the parents you work with, what are some of the toughest parts of being a parent with a child who has complex issues?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 13:22
Well, I think what the toughest parts is when you have this complex child, and the child is calm and comfortable and rested and in their safe nest, maybe at home, and he or she is bringing out their best, and that child will do something that teachers or therapists don't think they're capable of doing, and that can actually be tougher than the irritability, the tantrums, the meltdowns, the running, the avoidance. To see that spark of ability. And you know, you How do I stretch that to other situation? Because you think that that is who my child is, but how do I bring that out in the world? And then there's, of course, there's the occasional child who presents some of their worst at home, and people aren't, and then they exhaust themselves, holding themselves together during the day, and come home and fall apart. And people's like, Oh, they're fine for us. I'm a big believer in, you know, the art of the videotape. Let's tape our best. Let's tape our worst, and so people can see it, because it's like, well, this is what I'm talking about. What do you think of this? Yeah, and, and, and see if we can bring out both the best things and the biggest challenging things. I had a parent once we I was actually evaluating one day in another room, a child threw down a tantrum that was so high pitched and so intense that it actually scared the child I was working with. He's like, is that? Is that kid okay? And I'm really as like, I'm sure he is. And this child's tantrum he was about eight years old, had been sparked by the request that he put his shoes on because the session was over. And so I found this out later, and. Found out, and then the therapist is like, well, his mother wasn't too upset at all. She says I was sitting in the in the waiting room so relieved that he's having one of those major tantrums for someone else, right? So they can know what I'm dealing with. So I also, I think, you know, I sometimes think the one page summary is useful. I would do a one page summary. Here are my biggest concerns, and here are this child's greatest strengths, because I'll talk about that. We'll build our future on our strengths, not our weaknesses. Always keep those things in mind, and then no you as the parent, no specialist, no teacher, doctor, therapist, will be in your child's life. As long as you will, you are going to be the keeper of the data. You're going to be holder of the threads that run through this child's life. And it's an incredible responsibility when a child has complex needs. So remember, you're in it for the long haul, for complex issues. There are no simple fixes. You're slowly chipping away at the issues. There's no magic wand to wave the issues away. But because you're in it for the long haul, you know, be willing to give yourself breaks. Be willing to give your child breaks, refresh yourself, regain some perspective, and then get back in there and then, as I said, videotape, take photographs. You know, if your therapist, your teacher, doesn't think there's a skill or a problem, you know, gather some evidence.

Casey O'Roarty 16:19
Yeah, yeah. Well, and it seems like, you know, it seems like there's so much overlap, too. I mean, in so many parts of our life, like things do not fit perfectly in a box, right? And so, yes, multiple symptoms or multiple behaviors can show up, or many different things show up, and maybe they point in multiple directions. How does your book and how do you and your work with parents? How do you help them make sense of all they're seeing?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 16:52
Yeah, I agree. In fact, there was a book out years ago called the child and the syndrome mix pretty much saying, you know, all the major symptoms have overlap with different diagnoses, and so your child is just in the mix, but the checklist does try to help with that as well. It tries to show some of the overlap of symptoms across different challenges, but also pick apart some of that overlap to see where you might best focus your time. So we'll talk about attention issues, but there'll be a little in parentheses that one also goes under auditory processing disorder, and see if you can see, is this child not paying attention because he's got auditory processing issues? Paying attention doesn't even help, you know, because he can't get all the information processed. Or are we still in attention, you know? So the checklist will give you the information about the issues which might be most relevant, including some of the issues that you and your specialists may not even have considered. So it's like, oh, we haven't thought about auditory processing. And you direct it to chapters that explain that issue. Talk about treatment options, and we talk about the standard of care options, like in western medicine, this is how we approach Attention Deficit Disorder or dyslexia or auditory processing issues. But what also the emerging complementary, alternative approaches, you know, and then how to find a good provider. I think that's just scary too. Is like, Have I got my child with the right person? What questions would I ask this person so you can feel a little more assured that you're on the right path.

Casey O'Roarty 18:23
Yeah. So I have typically developing kids, I guess we haven't really been confronted by this, all of these issues. And I'm wondering, Robin, this book is this, does this book kind of fill a gap that you saw, as far as resources available for parents,

Dr. Robin McEvoy 18:46
I think so we couldn't find a whole lot, and we went looked on what we think of as getting started, like I've got worries, but I'm not even sure if they're legit worries or restarting If you've gotten stuck. I we had a legit worry, and our pediatrician synthesis and direction, we're two or three years in, and we don't feel like we're making gains, and my child's not happy. So yeah, we felt this was really going to fill a gap for those two needs. What happens? I mean, I'm not even sure I should be worried. You can go through this and look at things, or we're stuck. We're not making headway, we're not sure what to do next. We've done all the things that have been recommended. And I certainly get families who come in who have done everything that's been recommended in standard of care. And we have to look a little deeper.

Casey O'Roarty 19:36
Yeah, and do you find that it's pretty often that providers will consider like you were just talking about attention deficit, but then considering an auditory issue. Is it pretty common for providers, or is this like a new kind of new way of looking at some of the issues where you're kind of combined? Seeing possibilities.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 20:03
I think what will happen is like the pediatrician may see it as attention and like I have one pediatric group will send the kid to me for evaluation before they will consider medication. They just want to make sure we've done the dig under, underneath, like I had a young man come in. He was already diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. He was on medication to support attention, but the medication was exacerbating anxiety to the point of self harm. He would get so anxious, which can happen with some stimulant meds. So they've sent them to me, like, what else can we be doing in this situation? And we evaluate. And it was a little read between the lines, but it was, he was having auditory processing problems. We he misheard things several times, and we sent him off more auditory processing evaluation, and they did verify it. And then you look at his history, he only has attention issues inside the school or other crowded indoor places. He's this great athlete. He's this great friend outside of school. But of course, the classrooms are very unappealing for him. Ever since he was a little kid, he'd walk in and just, you know, that experience was making him arable and everybody was blaming attention, but really, he just could not process language well with a lot of background noise in indoor places. So he every day is working in the classroom and getting overwhelmed. So modifying his life a little bit towards that processing problem was going to make a bigger difference, and say, just staying on the meds or putting in the more counseling, yeah, yeah. It's like, well, let's go treat the anxiety now, let's modify his life. Give him some written notes, some written instructions, keep him out of really loud situations. Maybe use an FM system, which he could, you know, there would focus the teacher's voice directly to him. We can do some other things that way.

Casey O'Roarty 21:51
Do you ever find pushback? I'm just thinking about this particular auditory piece where the conversation is, well, the world's a noisy place, so how are we helping them cope if we're modifying the environment?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 22:08
Well, you have to look at growing up. I tell people, the nice thing about growing up is you can start to design your life to suit your strengths and weaknesses. The things that we're bad at, we actually don't do a lot of as adults, and the things that we're good at, we start focusing and building a career in. And so I think it's, I mean, what? What other time in your life do you have to spend every day in a loud cafeteria with a lot of stinky food? Yeah, truth, I mean, that is that is not an adult experience for the majority of us. I'm sure somebody does. You know people who work in school cafeterias, but you can avoid some situations. And if you are not a person who does well in large crowds and with background noise, you're going to drift into a career that doesn't require that. Yeah, yeah. And so I don't think it's wrong to say I can shift your experiences away from something that I don't think is a necessary adult skill. Well,

Casey O'Roarty 23:14
yeah. And I love, I love the come from of, you know, shifting environment to fit the kid, versus trying to shift the kid to fit the environment. I think it's so much more respectful of the child. And yeah, I really appreciate that.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 23:33
Yeah, and sometimes we do have to shift a child a little. I am not going to say, I mean, because there's some everyday like, say, this child only eats three foods and then not particularly nutritious. Yeah, we're gonna have to shift the child in that situation. But there are other situations where, as they go, yeah, we can, we can shift that situation so you are assessing each need and kind of making a making a decision from there, right?

Casey O'Roarty 23:59
Well, in your mission, and the mission of your co authors, is for parents and professionals to start to have a paradigm shift, and I'm hearing it show up in just what you've already shared, but that that we can be seeing every child in a more holistic way. Can you talk a little bit more about that, and maybe the contrasting lens of that our culture seems to look out of, and where you're hoping that we move to?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 24:29
Yeah, I mean, there's our current lens, you know, and we're trying to move away from that and move what's keeping us from taking a more holistic or a deeper approach, and like first in our current lens, we tend to, we tend to treat at the symptom level with what we hope is the quickest approach. You know, a child can't pay attention, let's medicate for attention support. If a child can't regulate their emotion, let's consider a mood disorder, and maybe we medicate that too. If a child can't read, let's do a specialized reading program. But I've actually seen some reading problems treated with. Medication for attention as well. I'm like, well, now the kids really alert to the fact that he can't read. We treated a symptom level, and sometimes we're treating multiple symptoms, each at the symptom level, and second, we use treatment protocols that have often held up in research as having the most benefit for the most kids. But that doesn't mean that it will be of the most benefit for any individual child. So what we're trying to do in this paradigm shift is to remember to look back at the child as a as an individual. We need to recognize the symptoms and sometimes medication may be the right treatment, and we also need that research to improve our understanding of what can help. But then we need to integrate that information with information about the individual child we're trying to support. And there's that param paradigm shift also, of trying to consider mind and body,

Casey O'Roarty 25:52
right? And so for a parent, that's just that isn't part of the medical conversation, that isn't a doctor and what I'm, you know, what I'm hearing you say is basically, it's, you know, it's, there's more than just medication that can be a solution. So I'm hearing you really speak into like, let's exhaust all possible solutions.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 26:15
Well, let's consider all of our possible solutions.

Casey O'Roarty 26:19
Yeah, that's a better word than exhaust, isn't it?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 26:22
Yeah, you just have to look broadly. I think one of my funny situations came up once I had a ninth grader come in who thought he had Attention Deficit Disorder. He wanted a medication trial, and I evaluated and he didn't have a whole history his elementary years. There were no attention issues that were reported. He's also a very bright, bright young man, and so sometimes they can coast in elementary school, but things started to emerge during middle school, and by ninth grade, he's clearly having issues. His parents certainly wanted support for him. And so I finished and he wanted a medication trial right away. He was a very strong willed kid, and he just knew this was the way to go, and so I called a pediatrician, as I can see, the attention issues. But I don't think I've really dug down deep enough yet, but if, if you want to, if y'all, if he and you agree that a medication trial is warranted, you can give it a try. And then this young man did come to the feedback session. I don't always have kids coming, but he said, I have to come to the feedback session. I think my mother will misrepresent me.

Casey O'Roarty 27:26
I can't imagine a teenager thinking like that. That's so shocking. Oh, he

Dr. Robin McEvoy 27:30
was a piece of work. And so he comes in and his feet are tapping and he's jittery, and as we're talking, you know, I finally went to, you know, what do you what foods do you like best? And his mother's like, Oh, He only eats two foods. He eats buttered noodles and cheese pizza. I was like, that's the only two things he eat. She says, that's the only two foods he'll eat. And I was like, which one of those do you eat for breakfast? He goes, Oh, I don't eat breakfast. And I said, and you don't eat lunch because you're noise sensitive and you're smell sensitive and you don't like the noisy cafeteria. And he's like, exactly, and it's like, you're hungry. And I said, have you done a medication? Yeah, that I think that's why I'm so jittery right now. I said, Oh, I thought you were just nervous being in here. There's

Casey O'Roarty 28:21
no been like this ever since

Dr. Robin McEvoy 28:23
I started. Yeah, it's not the golden ticket, is it? And as a you need to eat some food, you need to get some exercise, and you're smart, you have not had to pay attention to learn, but now you're in high school, and you're gonna have to pay attention for output, and you're gonna have to learn a new skill, and so, but sometimes the answer is really kind of simple. I really think one of our primary problems was he was hungry, and his mother's like, oh, well, he's so smart. He's our only kid, and he talked us into this diet. And I look back and I feel like, I think she felt kind of dumb for her. And you look back at it, it's like, wow, you're paying money for me to tell you that your kid shouldn't have just butter noodles and cheese pizza, right once? Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 29:05
yeah, once a day. And I love, I love that insight into you haven't had to pay attention and now you're in a higher level of a rigor, and it feels like, Oh, I must not be able to do this when you've never actually been asked to do this before, so it makes sense that it feels uncomfortable.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 29:22
I think understanding, once again, what's the finish line, and it's a moving target, and we are asking more organization and more output. So the child who coasted through elementary who's hitting some walls in middle and high school, I have to consider that. And on the bright side, when they're sitting here. I said, Well, the first problem is you're smart. If you weren't smart, you wouldn't be having this problem, and that takes some of the worry that there's something very wrong with them. I said, You're a type of normal, but you're the type of normal where the learning came a little easy, and now you're having to learn to work at it. And don't worry, it's an important skill. You'll be able to use it. You're in life, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 30:01
yeah. Love that. So your book, also, the big chunk of your book, talks about broader solutions and complementary and alternative medicines. You've, you've mentioned, you know, the Western medicine. Take on add. So what are some of these, of the alternatives that you promote in your book.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 30:22
Well, complementing an alternative medicine, and I just call it cam for short, is becoming more mainstream. For example, sensory processing disorder used to be sort of a complementary and alternative medicine, but now it's fairly well recognized in an area that we should assess and treat, though it's not yet in the psychology diagnostic manual, but still it's no it didn't make it into the DSM five. It was up for consideration, and it did not make it in. So when you

Casey O'Roarty 30:50
talk about sensory is that you know that can be anything from, you know, kids who, if the sock has a funny little knob on the end of it, they just can't wear those socks and or the tags. Or you have

Dr. Robin McEvoy 31:04
seven senses. You got your taste and your touch and your hearing and your smelling and your vision, and you got that proprioceptive sense, which is a sense of where you are in space. And you have your vestibular sense. Any one of those can be either hyper alert or hypo alert. And so it's, there's a lot of different presentations for the sensory kids, but we are starting to, you know, more routinely assess it and treat it. But it's still not in like the psychology diagnostic manuals, but but also, more and more medical centers are developing integrated medicine departments, I mean, Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins, they have integrated medicine to bring in complementary, alternative approaches, such as acupressure, homeopathy, chiropractic care. So and in my front line of work, I've just had so many families come in over the years who have done all the standard of care. They have done everything that that says do, and their child is still struggling. I had a family come in just like, well, he's got ad the attention deficit disorder. We have the tutor. He's on medication, but we need a little bit more. And I was on the phone with her, and just out of curiosity, I said,

did you have to change formulas when he was a baby? She said, Yeah, he didn't tolerate dairy based formula, but he seems okay now. I said, just out of curiosity, see if you can pull him off the dairy for a couple of weeks. Just tell him two weeks, not forever, just two weeks. And when she came in for the evaluation, she says, Oh, I got right on that, and I took him off the dairy, and it cleared up four years of congestion, and he's sleeping so much better. Gosh, as a Yeah, and that might be worth 20% and which is sometimes what you're doing, you're not going to find a single cure. You're looking for, say, like five things that improve things by 10 to 20% and that was one of them. So that's what we do. We look at nutrition in the book naturopathic care, acupressure, King gang wish, the second author, has an acupressure protocol that I found so helpful for so many people, neurofeedback, craniosacral therapy. We have not covered all the complementary alternative medicine, medicine approaches. There's just a lot of them out there, but we've covered some of the major ones. We have a few on the website. We put the chapters on the website because the book got too long.

Casey O'Roarty 33:28
It is a big book. It

Dr. Robin McEvoy 33:29
is a big book. I mean, you don't have to read it from start to finish, because we do help you use the checklist. But yeah, it is. It was like, All right, this sucker is too long. We can't get it to print

Casey O'Roarty 33:39
well. And I really, yeah, I really just appreciate the both and mindset, right, like instead, because it seems so often the conversation is, either you use Western medicine or you use alternative medicine. And I'm always, I'm, you know, even in my own practice, because we've used a naturopathic doctor, and we have a pediatrician, and you know, it's kind of, we try to take care of things as naturally as possible, and then sometimes the headache gets so bad that we take some Advil or whatever, right? And so, so appreciating that there's space for both in your work,

Dr. Robin McEvoy 34:17
we've done a lot of good work in western medicine. We shouldn't ignore it, but we also shouldn't ignore what else is out there in the world, and we shouldn't lose track of, you know, our natural processes and how to use those as well. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 34:31
but you know, on the on the journey, on the parenting journey of trying to find that the most effective and helpful care for our kids, you know, and all of us, really, you know, with the state of healthcare right now, you get what you get, and when there's insurance companies dictating who we can see, what we can do, what they'll pay for, how do parents put together a team? What advice do you have for parents to put together a team? And that has the whole child in mind.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 35:04
Yeah, I agree. It's it can be really hard. You know, first of all, you have to determine what is going to comprise your team. And maybe you don't need a reading specialist and a speech language therapist, because you found someone who can do both, which those sorts of things do exist. You just have to go looking for it. Maybe you don't need the developmental pediatrician all the time or on an ongoing basis, but just for the initial evaluation to explore, say, medical contributors to the issues, like, have we tested genetics and things like that, and we do try to help them, use the book to help you sort that out. Some people will need a big team, the pediatrician, the psychiatrist, the speech language therapist, the occupational therapist, the ABA therapist. And isn't it is daunting, and it is incredibly expensive, and it does take some research to find the practitioners who take holistic approach and you end up and also take your insurance and then know your state laws, because sometimes there's state laws mandating reimbursement for certain therapies and certain diagnoses, so you end up having to get very educated on those things. You can also push your school district to provide more services and to provide therapists that have particular training. You don't just have to accept the speech therapist who's at the school if they do not have training in a program that your child needs. Schools are incredibly busy. They're often underfunded. So again, it is up to the parents to do the research. I always recommend that parents be a squeaky wheel at the school, but to be the nicest squeaky wheel they can be, you know, I mean, I don't want to blame schools. I think a lot of them are working for the most part. People are working incredibly hard, but sometimes they lose track of things too. Then I think another important part though about exploring complementary, alternative and even mainstream approaches. When you're talking to a provider, ask them to give some clear estimates on what kind of improvement they expect to see with their treatment, and how soon will there be a 10% improvement? Will there be a 50% improvement? I think that's you go in with everyone. I was like, I am the person who's going to help your child. Well, how are they going to help and what sort of improvement do you expect to see? How long will it take? What sort of guarantees do they offer? And some of these therapies are expensive. Do you have a money back guarantee? Are you guaranteeing that this is going to be helpful to my child? Yeah, and as much as I like the cam approaches, there's a lot of them out there and a lot of providers with varying ranges of experience, and I think it's okay and even necessary to ask these questions so that you can make an informed decision. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 37:36
it seems like there is a need, and maybe this already exists for someone as like at the consultant level, just to do a little hand holding for parents to help them navigate all this stuff. Is that a thing?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 37:54
We have a chapter about case management, and you can sometimes get a case manager through your insurance for a child who may have a complex medical need or even something like autism. Other than that, it's often the parent who's the case manager. You are stuck with the job and and it's sometimes, if you're at a larger clinic, you can find someone there who can help coordinate those things. If you've got a complex kid in the school situation, sometimes a good educational advocate can step in and do at least some case management here and there to make sure school is giving what they can get to the best of their abilities, and then also integrating that with their Outside supports.

Casey O'Roarty 38:39
What support do you or what advice do you give to parents around the the I mean, because all of this sounds so overwhelming and lonely, how do you Yeah, what do you say to parents like, what is, you know, your top three things to make sure they are also doing as they advocate and love on these kids of theirs,

Dr. Robin McEvoy 39:04
I think it feels lonely. And then we do have things. We do have we have the internet now we have social media. You can find people who are going through very similar situations. I think there's a Facebook page for people who've adopted kids from China who are then diagnosed with autism. Wow, yeah. And so exactly, fairly specific groups where people can discuss experiences and things that have helped. So I think it's good to get out there and look particularly if you are isolated, if you're in a larger city, you can often find a support group and good practitioners more easily. But if you're out in a rural or are just a smaller setting, you know, smaller cities, you may you may have trouble finding resources. Some people, more and more people, are practicing telemedicine, where the therapist can give. Of insights by Skype, you know, like, like, let's watch this kid. Like, let me do some video taping with it, and take a look at things and give recommendations from there. So there's, there are ways to UN isolate yourself, and hopefully you have the internet to do it, because probably the easiest way. And then, you know, and to breathe, you know, when you're parenting a child with special challenges or not, whether you you're in it for the long haul, you've got 20 to 25 years, typically, to help this child reach their potential, because we know they don't launch at 18. What I was thinking. I was thinking this morning, how, you know, they used to send kids off to their apprenticeships. Like Ben Franklin went to his apprenticeship, I think when he

Casey O'Roarty 40:49
was 12, amazing.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 40:52
And they were like, 20 is nothing. Some

Casey O'Roarty 40:55
days, some days I'm ready to launch.

Dr. Robin McEvoy 40:59
You know, it's like, hey, here come see the end of my foot. So, but you got this so don't panic if you felt you dropped the ball sometimes. Don't panic if you find out. You know, nobody mentioned diet, and clearly we have a gut issue going on, I mean, but it doesn't negate how hard it is. I earlier this summer, or right at the end of the school year, I was talking with a mother at my daughter's school who was having a lot of psychiatric issues, was on a lot of psychiatric meds, and they're not making good headway. She's working hard with the emotional support team at school. And then recently, in this a major hospital, it wasn't a compliment alternate provider, they finally realized that something so often her gut, she's not absorbing any psychiatric meds. Oh, wow. And so, you know, it's like, you can be really frustrated, but you can also say, Oh, Thank gosh. Finally, you know, so um, and you may think someone else dropped the ball, or you may think you dropped the ball, like, I should have realized that, because I know she gets stomach aches all the time, or she's never feeling quite right, or every time she eats, she feels weird. Don't worry about thinking you dropped the ball. Sometimes it's gonna happen. Just, you know, think I've learned something, and get up and get going, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 42:17
stay focused on the solution, and less on the blame. And

Dr. Robin McEvoy 42:20
you're going and you're on the Remember, you're on the 20 year plan. Here, 20 to 25 year plan. It's not like it's gonna fix tomorrow.

Casey O'Roarty 42:27
It's a marathon, not a sprint. People, yeah. And

Dr. Robin McEvoy 42:31
I also tell people don't expect dramatic shifts in ability. Occasionally, you'll find something that was, Whoa, that was big, but mostly you're getting incremental shifts. And talked to a mother when she said the most helpful thing I had said, and I just knew her socially, her child had some attention issues. And what do I do? What do I do away? How do how do I approach Middle School? I said, you're not looking for her, that you're going to say the right thing or do the right thing, and she's going to turn into an A student. You're looking across Middle School that we go from being a DC student to hopefully being an AB student by doing these, doing these things and just does that has been the most important thing to let go of. If I just did the right thing, I'd see her natural talents emerge much more easily, and she'd just be this great student. It's

Casey O'Roarty 43:18
so interesting how much power we like to think that we have right? Oh, man, so Robin, in the context of all that we've talked about today, I would love to know what does a joyful courage mean to you in your work?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 43:38
Know you know that you have more experience with your child than anyone else, even when you know that some of the specialists will know your child's challenges better than you you know your child's the best. Have faith in your child. Have faith in yourself. And sometimes, when you're juggling all the balls of parenting and working in therapies, and you drop a ball, have the courage to take a break. Just enjoy this child. Enjoy your life. It actually takes some courage to get off the hamster wheel and have some fun. But if you're having some fun, you're probably involving your child's strengths. So in that way, you can even tell yourself it's therapeutic. Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 44:16
there you go. Perfect. There you go. Thank you so thank you so much for your dedication to your work and all you put out in the world for families and children. I really appreciate getting to meet you and chat with you. Where can listeners find you and follow what you do?

Dr. Robin McEvoy 44:36
Okay, I have a website. It's simply Robin mcavoy.com we also have the book as its website, which is just childdecoded.com and that's where we have those supplementary chapters. If you want to get a sense of the writing style and what it looks like, I blog at something at blog at learning Moxie, but you can access that through my website if you want to just see my writing, which is kind of backs up a lot of what I talk about. So and then we're on Facebook. I'm under Dr Robin McAvoy. We have childly coded, and we post different things and extra things and blogs and information about where I'm speaking and stuff like that up there. Awesome.

Casey O'Roarty 45:11
I will make sure all of those links are in the show notes so listeners can have one easy click to finding you. Thank you so much for coming on Well,

Dr. Robin McEvoy 45:20
thank you so much for inviting me. This was great. I really loved it, and people can just keep in touch. I love hearing from people.

Casey O'Roarty 45:34
Oh, man, powerful conversation today, right? So grateful for Robin and all the work that she does out in the world. Hey, I want to also say that I'm so grateful to all of you. Thank you for showing up each week and listening to the podcast and sharing it and liking it and commenting on it. I don't know. Do you see that in the live in love with joyful courage community page. I always on Thursdays invite you to share your thoughts about the current week's podcast. And I've just been so, so glad to see when people are sharing. And I, you know, I think I'm going to tweak that actually now that I'm thinking about it, because I know that there are those of you that listen to the new show the week that it comes out, and then there's some of you that just kind of pick and choose. So I think on Thursdays, it's just going to be a feedback Thursday. What is the most recent podcast that you've listened to? What are you taking away from it? It's really helpful for other people to see what the parents in the community are listening to and how they're being impacted. So if you want to participate in that, join us over in the live in love with joyful courage Facebook group you just asked to join. It's a it's a closed group, and it's just full of really like minded, wonderful parents who are on the path, on the journey to conscious, positive parenting, and, you know, also being really real about how messy it is, myself included, it's not about being perfect. And actually, speaking of that, I had somebody in the group mention that sometimes it's difficult to listen to the podcast because there are these feelings of guilt and shame around some of the things that she's currently doing with her kids. And you know, my goal, my intention with this show is never to make anyone feel bad, really. I show up every week to this space because I want to open the door to possibility. I want to encourage and invite and empower parents into stepping into the practice of being the best that they can be for their kids, and also being very transparent around the fact that it's messy and we make mistakes, right? We make mistakes. I make mistakes. I am not perfect, right? I am not a perfect parent. I swear. I'm a Swearer. I'm a cursor, and sometimes I let my emotions get the better of me and I'm hurtful. And I've also developed a practice of coming back and making it right for my kids and taking responsibility and ownership around how it is that I'm treating them, that you know that practice, in and of itself, is really powerful. So you know, it's important to me that when you listen, you are leaving feeling inspired, feeling empowered, and feeling as though there's something that you can take away to put into action right away, right away and and you know I am available, so if you have questions, if you have feedback about the podcast, you can send me a private message on Instagram or Facebook, or you are welcome to email me. Casey at joyful courage.com I really value your feedback. I really value knowing when something that's come up on the podcast has made a difference in your life. I really value getting feedback around. Hey, you might want to reconsider the way you say this or or the way you present something or other, like last week, right? The dedication last week of my show was to that dad that reached out and said, You know what? Sometimes when I listen to your podcast, I feel like I'm on, I'm the only guy, and like I'm on the outskirts. So it's really important to me to know who you are and what you need, and I can only know that if you reach out to me, this is our space. This is our show. We are having a conversation with each other. So help me. Help you by letting me know what you need, right? Letting me know what you need. Oh, man. And speaking of what you need, how is your intention? Practice coming? I'm just going to mention this really quick head over to joyful courage.com. Head over there, and in the navigation bar, you'll see the word. Shop, and when you click on shop, you'll see some choices. So I've got the daily intention cards, which I'm going to start really playing with as a collective experience here soon. The daily intention cards, the intention T shirts and tanks, which are I don't have very many of those left, but you should check them out. They're really cute. And the intention bracelets, you guys. These are, these were voted on by members of the live in love with joyful courage community. They are bracelets that are super sweet, created by my friend Antonia, the grateful. And they say things like, pause, trust, surrender, kindness and breathe. Those are the five messages on the bracelets right now, if that's a message that you would like to be giving yourself on a regular basis, head over to the shop and grab yourself a bracelet and for a limited time, for a limited time, my friends, when your purchase is $50 or more, you can use the coupon code grateful to get $10 off. All right, so for orders over $50 you can use the coupon code grateful and receive $10 off of your purchase. So get on over there, check it out again. Super duper grateful to you. Grateful to my producer, Chris Mann, who shows up for me every week, no matter how early or late I get him the files and makes sure that this show sounds so good before I publish it out for all of you, grateful to my own children, who I can hear in the other room who are my teachers and continuously inspiring me to be a better version of myself. Thank you. Have a beautiful, beautiful day, and I'll be back next week with a solo show. Bye.

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