Eps 508: Raising neurodivergent teens with Dr. Matt Zakreski

What does joyful courage mean to you

That is the question I prepared the most for, and that honors the great work you do.  Joyful courage is allowing yourself to see the challenges we are presented with as opportunities.  I have been blessed enough to give hundreds of talks and have been on a lot of podcasts, and I always say that I’ll stop doing them when I stop being anxious about them.  I was nervous to be on here today because you’re like a rock star!  I’m in the rock star circle today.  To me, joyful courage is like, “Yes – I could absolutely put my foot in my mouth for 45 minutes and she deletes the podcast and we never speak again,” but it’s an opportunity to do something I love and help some people, right?  So I can be courageous in a joyful way because this opportunity I’m blessed to be given gives me the platform to do my job better.  It’s opportunity, not a shackle, and I think that’s pretty cool. 

 

Resources

The Neurodiversity Collective 

The Neurodiversity Playbook (releasing October 2024) 

Dr. Matt’s Website

Subscribe to the Podcast

Transcription

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
kids, parents, teens, gifted, big, talk, perfectionism, dad, neurotypical, emotional intensity, part, year, brain, practice, school, mirror neurons, listen, anxiety, speak, life
SPEAKERS
Dr. Matt Zakreski, Casey O'Roarty

Casey O'Roarty 00:02
Hey, welcome to the joyful courage podcast a place for inspiration and transformation as we try and keep it together. While parenting our tweens and teens. This is real work people and when we can focus on our own growth, and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact. My name is Casey already I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder coach and the adolescent lead at Sprout double. I am also the mama to a 20 year old daughter and 17 year old son walking right beside you on this path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting. This show is meant to be a resource to you and I work really hard to keep it real, transparent and authentic so that you feel seen and supported. Today is an interview and I have no doubt that what you hear will be useful to you. Please don't forget sharing truly is caring. If you love today's show, please pass the link around snap a screenshot posted on your socials or texted to your friends. Together we can make an even bigger impact on families all around the globe. I'm so glad that you're here. Enjoy the show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:24
Hi, listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. My guest today is Matthew Zakreski. Dr. Matt is a high energy creative clinical psychologist and professional speaker who utilizes an eclectic approach to meet the specific needs of his neuro divergent clients. He is proud to serve the gifted community as a consultant, a professor and author and a researcher. He's spoken hundreds of times all over the world about supporting neurodivergent kids. Dr. Matt is a member of supporting the emotional needs of the gifted the National Association for gifted children, the New Jersey Association for gifted children and Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education. Dr. Matt graduated from Weidner University's Institute for graduate clinical psychology in 2016. He is the co founder of the neuro diversity collective, which can be found at the neuro diversity collective.com Hi, Dr. Matt, welcome to the pod.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 02:26
It's great being here. And every time I listen to my bio, I'm like, gosh, that's a long bio who wrote that?

Casey O'Roarty 02:34
Right, you're like, Look at me. Weird.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 02:38
I might be impressive. Yeah, it's

Casey O'Roarty 02:42
weird. I find it. It's bizarre to listen to somebody else. Read your bio while you're sitting there. But will you fill in the gaps and tell us a little bit more about how you found yourself speaking about and working with the neurodivergent crowd and what makes your approach eclectic.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 02:58
So I grew up as a gifted kid. And bakwin gifted just meant smart. It's smart. You're going to Harvard, like, cool, right? And I would whip through my schoolwork. And it was literally part of my academic plan that like once I was done, I could draw on anything that wasn't stapled down. I mean, I was just like Banksy. I was just filling everything with doodles. Because of them. Let me do that. Idle hands being the devil's plaything, right. I'd be like, what chaos Can I cause then I would kid to. In high school, I was diagnosed with ADHD, like a lot of really bright kids, you're smart enough that you get by and nobody notices the stuff you're struggling with until it's much later in your career. And when I went to grad school, I was like, I want to work with kids like me. My first placement was at a school for twice exceptional kids. I loved it. Like these are my people. You know, I mean, like, I was just watching Pitch Perfect the other day. It's like, I love you awesome. nerds like that's like my whole vibe. So I sort of built my career around this. And the more of these neurodivergent kids I saw, the more therapeutically, I was working with their parents, and then their teachers. And then the teachers were talking to the administrators, the administrators would want me to come in and train everybody. Then there's use and speak at conferences. And the next thing I knew I'm speaking at conferences and flying all over the country. And I mean, I say this with no false modesty. It's all just sort of been a happy accident, right? Just yeah, I keep saying yes to things and doors keep opening.

Casey O'Roarty 04:30
Yeah, that's amazing. And did you feel like you were motivated by what was missed for you and your experience? Would you say that you want to show up differently? Or did you have some experiences as a twice exceptional kiddo that are things you want to repeat? I mean, I feel like we've gotten better at working all different types of kids. I imagine you being a kiddo. Probably had some not. So great experiences. I mean, you look like you could be close to my age, but maybe not. We're

Dr. Matt Zakreski 05:05
pretty close in age. I turned 40 Last year, so Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 05:10
I love you. I turned 50 last year. So there you go. You're a little behind me, Dr. Mad?

Dr. Matt Zakreski 05:19
I don't think anybody would have guessed right. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Clearly, you're doing some clean living, Casey. Thanks. Thanks. Good bye. Zoom

Casey O'Roarty 05:27
has a great filter to Instagram. So what was your experience growing up?

Dr. Matt Zakreski 05:35
I mean, part of the reason I do what I do is, I had every advantage, right? I am a white male. I brought a upper middle class suburb with great public schools. And I still got my butt kicked, right? Yeah. So I thought to myself, if I ever get to do this work, I want to support kids like me who probably weren't born on third base, right? I never thought I hit a triple. Right, I knew I was born on third base. There's a lot of kids who never get out of the dugout, like, it's our job to, you know, I always say if you have more privilege, you build a bigger table, not a higher fence, right? Part of the reason we'll talk about this so much, is like, I want to model that inclusivity I want to model that idea of like, isn't just kids who look like me, right? Black and brown kids. It's kids who don't speak English. It's kids who are physically handicapped. It's kids who don't say a dang word in school, but are you know, are writing architectural equations in their notebooks right? The more we check our own biases, the wider net? Yes, we catch all the kids, right. That's what we're here

Casey O'Roarty 06:43
to do. Yeah, beautiful. So you know, my show is focused on parenting teens. So what are you seeing with the neurodivergent teens and their parents that is curious to you? What are some of the pain points for the families that you are working with?

Dr. Matt Zakreski 07:00
So the primary thing that we all have to deal with is neurodivergent people as a general rule are just much more emotionally intense than neurotypical people. So you take your, you know, if a regular kid is somewhere between one to 10 on the emotional intensity, and a teen can go up to one to 15, then you've got that gifted or twice exceptional kid who can go to 20. Right. So it is just a question of emotional intensity. So you know, I always joke like, gifted kids don't get sad, they get despondent, they don't get, they get furious. They don't get happy. They get euphoric, like, it's just the biggest version of that feeling. And they of course, have the vocabularies to express that, like, you know, it's like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, right? It's like, a life changing speech about why they can't go to the Taylor Swift concert, and you're sitting there be like, I just, we don't have the money. How have your reasons are good reasons. emotional intensity is big. The second piece is how we parent around academics. So gifted kids are at risk for a phenomenon we call the performance cliff. So if you can imagine that you're this smart, right? And you're smarter than school is hard for the first several years of your academic career. So you're kind of coasting, right, you don't have to work as hard as long as other kids. So while you're chilling, those kids developing soft skills to developing resiliency to building ask for help learning how to study, and then all sudden, they hit this cliff, where it's like, Wait, school is now harder than I am smart. Right? It would be like if you weren't a very strong swimmer, and you got pulled out deep into the ocean, like you could swim, but you have been practicing swimming like that. And now you're in danger, right? So parents are going to have to navigate kids through that, because you've got a kid who say 16 years old, who's never failed the test ever, and then take AP Chem. And they're like, Mom, what is this number on here? It says 53 is that out of 53? And you're like, No honey that's out of 100 and your kid has an existential crisis. Because if we're not the smart kid, who are we? Yeah. And then last but not least, the third leg of the stool, as it were, is that neurodivergent people tend to develop asynchronously, they're out of sync with themselves. So you might get a kid who's chronologically 15 intellectually 19 socially 13 and emotionally 11. Right. Okay. You know, we call this in gifted psychology, the rule of five, because every gifted kid is five kids and one because of the way they develop differently. So you might be out there parenting and KB like, my kid is 15 but sometimes As they feel like they're in college, and sometimes they feel like they're an elementary school. And that's what this asynchrony feels like, at home at the dinner table in the library on the car trip to Grandma's house, because kids don't always fit well together. And if you've got row divergent kids and neurotypical kids in your house or in your classroom, that difference is going to start to feel really stark around the high school era. Because that's when you start to see that big gap between intellectual academic performance in social emotional, so like the like, I can't do group work. And he or I don't have the spoons to do it. Yeah, you're trying to teach them those skills in real time. And we all know how receptive teens are to here's how to be a better social person. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 10:48
I mean, it's so interesting to write because I mean, part of adolescent brain development is the emotional spark and the emotional intensity just in general, right. So I'm hearing you speak into the extra when it comes to neurodiversity, and the performance cliff. I mean, my son is not gifted, nor is he ADHD, he's pretty typical, but school has come pretty easy. And I will say he has not necessarily been in environments that have been exceptionally challenging, either. And he's headed off to college in the fall. And my listeners are like, here she goes, because I've mentioned this before, what I do feel well, what I keep saying to him is listen, when you feel like holy shit, I am underwater, you get to go to the Learning Center, you get to go and talk to somebody, you get to, you know, learn the skills that you need to be a college student, because there has not been a lot of practice in the on ramping of that for him. And I'm feeling pretty confident it might take some experiences for him to really kind of lean into it. But yeah, that performance cliff is real, it's real. And then it's so interesting to hear about the asynchronous development. I've not heard that before. Although I have heard you know that ADHD kids tend to be, you know, socially, emotionally, a little further behind than neurotypical kids. But I think, and you'll have to tell me, if this is accurate, I imagine that for a parent, oftentimes, you know, when they get into mischief, which is also teen brain development, right? novelty seeking, they get into, yeah, they get into mischief. And we, the first place we go is you're smarter than this. Absolutely right. And then it's this whole, like, you should know better, because you're smarter than this. And so I think it's really interesting to hear about this rule of five and the different places of development where our neurodiverse kids are just like, up and down, depending on who they are. Oh, my gosh, so is your work a lot of working with parents? And this is a question that I have to like, teasing apart, what is their neurodiversity coming into play? And what is typical teen behavior and then trying to respond to it in a way that's useful? I imagine that's the work you do.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 13:10
That's exactly I mean, I have often been described as aggressively pragmatic, like, listen, we can about best practice, we can talk about proper techniques, it's gotta work, right, and I got to have buy in, and parents have to buy in school has to have buy in. So that's why I do a lot of my professional development around like, Listen, I'm not going to pitch you some high flying thing, right? Yeah, as my mentor told me in grad school, he's like, if your idea for an intervention is if everybody would just dot dot, dot, your invention will never work, because everyone isn't gonna just.dot.it That's just not how we got to focus on the little gains, knowing they'll turn into big games, right? We are playing on game as parents, and you I have a six year old and a four year old. And I have to remind myself of that constantly. Because there's a part of my brain that's like, in 10, short years, they'll both be in high school. And, and, and right, you know, so get ahead of ourselves. So when we try to tease out what's neuro divergence, what's typical team behavior, I think that what you can expect is higher scores and what we call in psychology, the big three. So every behavior that people do is normal human behavior. It doesn't become maladaptive or pathological until it passes a certain standard of frequency, intensity and duration. So how often it happens, how long it lasts, how intense it is, right? And we know teens hit high levels of the big three all the time, right? That's actually why we can't diagnose teenagers with borderline personality disorder. Because borderline personality disorder is all about intense emotions, chaotic relationships, mood swings,

Casey O'Roarty 15:01
the definition of the teen years. Right? And they all have borderline personality.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 15:10
And you know, and then you think about like conduct disorder, which includes things like sneaking out of the house and trying alcohol, you know, and breaking into places like not necessarily like I'm gonna rob our neighbors, but like, there's in house, I want to go geocaching in it. Like, let's do it. I mean, those are typical brain development things. Yeah. Yeah. So you can expect your neurodivergent teen to just be more intense more often for longer periods of time. Yeah. And you're going to layer that in through these levels of a synchrony. But here's the trick, right? And here's a key thing for all our parents out there, before you respond to your kid, they do something stupid, right? Or you respond to your kid, remind yourself how old they are. sit there and go, Wait, my kid is 17. My kid is 13, my kid is eight, whatever that is, because we get sucked up into our kids highest levels of behavior, right? You're sitting there, your son's getting ready to go to college. And I'm sure that the way you conceptualize them in your head is this young man or, you know, a future world changer, a leader because he's an awesome kid, right? And then, you know, knock on wood. And then you're sitting there, and he does something boneheaded. And you're like, you're 23, you're a one man. It's like, but he's not. Yeah, we gotta sit and reset ourselves. Because if you're grading your 15 year old, like a 19 year old, they're gonna fail all the time. You're grading your 15 year old, like a 15 year old, you can still be upset, but the the fall is shorter. And that's a good thing to maintain that relationship.

Casey O'Roarty 16:58
Yeah, I appreciate that, for sure. And I also try to remind parents that we look at their behavior through our lens, my lens has accrued 50 years of life experience. So I'm looking at their choices and their behavior from this place of learned and lived experience. And so remembering that our teenagers are making first choices, or having first time experiences, or even like fifth time experiences. I mean, honestly, how many times does it take to learn a lesson that varies, right, and let's all be honest with ourselves, some of us it took a lot of mistakes to learn the lesson. And so if we're talking about something like the emotional intensity piece, because I definitely work with clients, where that's a really tough, I mean, it doesn't matter if it's around school, or friends or any of those big fives, like the emotional intensity shows up and trying to be with that break. Our mirror neurons are going berserk and right. We're taking things personally, and it's just such a prime place for disaster. So how do you support parents, you know, after they're like, Okay, this is my 15 year old, or 16 year old, I have a client whose son just, you know, is now on his third driving test. Right? And she's really nervous. She's like, Oh, God, I hope he passes because the last time he didn't pass, it was really intense and really hard to be with them. So what are some tools or tips, you know that you work with parents around in that emotionally with the emotional intensity that can come with twice exceptional kids? Or neurodiverse kids? And is that the same? I just said neurodiverse and twice exceptional as if they were the same thing? Yeah, I'm sure they're not. I mean,

Dr. Matt Zakreski 18:48
there's some nuance to the language, right? So broadly speaking, 80% of brains are neurotypical that's a brain that functions largely like we'd expect it to for that age. So a 15 year old who's more or less 15 and everything they do. A neurodivergent kid is a kid with a different brains, about 20% of people ADHD, autism gifted, dyslexic, that sort of thing. And that's where we see that a synchrony, right? They're going to be all of them. Now, neurodiversity is all the brains, right? You, me, your kids, my kids, my wife, right? Everybody is neurodiversity. So twice exceptionality falls under the umbrella of neuro divergence. So it's gifted plus a learning difference, right. So that dysgraphia dyslexia, you know, and so it's absolutely under the term, right. So it's, you know, think of it like those Russian nesting dolls. Right. neurodiversity is the big one neurodiversity than there are so as neurotypical right, we're just pulling the pieces apart. I just made that up. I feel pretty good about that like

Casey O'Roarty 19:46
that. I love those Russian nesting dolls, too. It's a good visual,

Dr. Matt Zakreski 19:50
lock it down. So when it comes to dealing with your kids, your teens and their big emotions. Let's go back to mirror neurons. So let's say you're a neurodivergent parent and you have a neurotypical kid, your mirror neurons are literally on different wavelengths, right? So your neurodivergent wavelength is like seventh eighth time, your neurotypical kid is going to be in three fourths time, are there times where the beats sync up? Absolutely. But you're vibing at a different frequency, it takes an intentional effort to find things, moments of commonality, and to level set those things. So you're experiencing the world in different ways, and you're experiencing each other in different ways that we can't change our mirror neurons, but we can be intentional about how we're filtering the data we get in. Okay, second thing, and this is a tough one parents, so strap in, we're about to get real. Emotions can't be wrong. And I had a kiddo who recently did not make the varsity volleyball team and proceeded to scream, cry, punch a hole in a wall whole thing, right? Yeah. And her dad kept saying to me in session, like, I don't understand why she's so upset. It's like, she started playing volleyball like three weeks ago. Of course, he's not going to make Varsity, right? I'm like, Dad, that doesn't matter. Her field cannot be wrong. If we see our feelings from a place of judgment, it predisposes us to be judgmental. So parents when it comes to feelings, we want to be curious, not furious. Right? So why is my kid this upset? About, you know, this situation, right? Turns out that the boys she really liked is on the boys volleyball team. And they go on a lot of trips together as like, okay, like, see all the pieces fit? Right? Once we had that context, everything locked into place. Right. Right. But we weren't gonna get there if we weren't curious.

Casey O'Roarty 21:52
Right? Yeah, I talk a lot about curiosity. That is like the number one tool? Yeah, for sure. Especially with teenagers, I think it just really levels out, you know, we're gonna really defensive place by the time we're teenagers in the we realize like, actually, all the adults seem to do is tell me what to do and what they think. And I think when we can shift into curiosity, so yes, so curiosity as a tool. And I appreciate that example to around emotions never being wrong. One of my favorite sayings that I took from marriage counseling is that we're all living in equally valid separate realities. Right. And so that experience of trying to understand listen to understand, get curious to understand, and even if you can't understand, so, and I want to talk a little bit about how mental health comes into this, as well, because while we haven't really had much neurodiversity in our little family unit, we've had a lot of mental health to navigate. And I remember realizing, like, I've never been depressed, I've never been anxious, those have not been experienced, like clinically, you know, experiences that I had, one of my kids, you know, really was, you know, thrown off course, big time, by depression and anxiety. And once I realized, like, oh, I don't have to understand it, to show up well, and in a way that's helpful and not hurtful for her. That made a huge difference. And I imagine as a neurotypical person, parent raising a neurodiverse child, that it must feel like, there's kind of just some relief and some permission there. Like you don't have to understand their experience to show up well, for them.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 23:39
I mean, part of the reason I love listening to your podcast is you have this sort of authentic curiosity, this intellectual humility, where you're like, I may not know this, but based on what I know, I wonder if this thing was true. Like you just all of us walked through a really lovely human way of seeing this reframing our relationship to these concepts. And it was beautifully said, Oh, thank

24:03
you. Well,

Dr. Matt Zakreski 24:04
I mean, it's easy to say when it's true, right? And that concept is so important to this right? I work with a kid and you know, his dad was a big deal college football player, right like has been on magazines level college football player in so dad six, five to 80 giant human being, right. I'm being of course a little vague because I want to protect their confidentiality, even though dad's like you're told to tell the story. It's awesome. It's awesome. But he really wanted his kid who was a teen boy to play football, but his kid got mom's jeans and is five, six 123 pounds, something like that. He's a twig. And so dad's like he could be the punter like, you'll die if you live in a state that takes high school football very seriously, like, yeah, let it go, dad. Like we're just gonna let this ride and his kid is super into live action. Roleplay right LARPing LARPing we love alarm. And dad's like, it's stupid. It's awful. It's terrible, right? Like, but imagine if your dad didn't get how much you cared about football. Your it cares as much as you cared about football as about LARPing. Right? Yeah, you know, I'm gonna He's big music. I was like, you know, my favorite musical artists is Bruce Springsteen. I know yours is Kenny Chesney, right? I don't have to get Kenny Chesney to get how much you love Kenny chest. Like, you can see that land for him. So it actually turned into this intervention where it was like, just go to one of his LARP events, right? Stay for an hour. If it sucks, you leave. If it sucks less than you think you stick around. If you enjoy it, maybe ask if you can play and I said I will be the first to admit, I said the last part completely Josh and I was like, and then I get a buzz from my phone. And there's the kid dressed as an elf and there's dad in an orc costume. Oh my gosh. So he got into it into pageantry in the competition. He was me against me abroad sort. Right. And that's part of the reason I asked if I could tell the story. Because when we meet our kids where they are we go inside that world, that connection, that authenticity, that CO regulation builds outward organically from that space. They were never going to organically connect about football, because that's dad wanting the kid to meet him where he is. Dad had to move. And that was hard for him. Me. Absolutely. And I mean, if parenting is anything, it's constantly questioning and reevaluating your comfort zone, right? Like, there was a time in my life I had never been peed on. I'll tell you this. Those days are over. Right? Totally. And you know, and like, now you're sitting there being like, I'm braiding hair, like I'm painting nails. I you know, hashtag girl dad, right? But that's the thing. Like, we don't have to get it to support our kids, we get that they get it. It's one of those things that's simple, but not easy. But something we're all capable of trying to do.

Casey O'Roarty 27:13
Well, and what I'm loving about all of this is, you know, the overarching theme is parenting, you know, neurodivergent kids, and yet, you're talking about all the things that I talked about in neurotypical kids, right? I mean, it's just obviously, there's probably, I imagine a little extra patience, a little extra, right? Curiosity a little extra, right? It takes a little longer for them to find their regulation and for us, and it's a little more work for us to stay regulated to hold the space for them to come into. But, you know, meeting our kids where they're at is the work, right? It is everything. It's everything. So you mentioned you know, when we were kind of in exchange about coming on the show, you wanted to bring up perfectionism and mental health. So talk to me about how perfectionism shows up specifically in twice exceptional kids. So the gifted kid who is also has another layer of neurodiversity, and is perfectionism. Is it their perfectionism? Is it parents expectations of perfectionism. Yeah, talk about that.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 28:21
So perfectionism has three directions to it. There's internal perfectionism, right? The standards I hold myself to, there's external perfectionism, the standards I'm held to. And then there's outward perfectionism, which of the standards I'm holding everybody else to. Right. And, you know, if they're more anxious, if they're more rigid, and the other children are behaving poorly, please see the situation. Yes, they're just drinking their milk. Like I know, it's just take a breath right? In those three factors can create a perfectionist worldview. Perfectionism really boils down to anxiety, right? Because when we feel out of control, we want to control whatever we can. What are the number one things kids can control is their performance in the things they do, namely, school and their extracurriculars? And so what you're going to see is spikes of perfectionism, when your kid is feeling out of control. Like during finals, they're going to be like, What do you mean, you don't have checks? I'm supposed to have chex mix. And you don't have that, like, yeah, they get rigid. But two weeks ago, you and I cared about this. But when our anxiety is spiking, and our sympathetic nervous system is going to control whatever we can control, if you're a neurodivergent kid and you already feel out of sorts, and you already feel like you don't fit in, the one thing you can control is how you show up in these spaces, right? Because it doesn't matter if you're the weird kid or the cool kid. Everybody says 100 on tests. It's good. That's the way I can stay in that space. Right? If I am the best frisbee player or the best golfer, or the best coder, I know where I stand. And if you're at the top of the mountain, you don't have to worry about where things are coming from. They're all coming from below you that there's a sense of control. So our kids are going to rigidly hold on to those places and spaces. Because otherwise, it's like holding on to a tree in the middle of a raging river. As long as you're on the tree, you're okay. But as soon as well now utterly being bashed about, right? And unfortunately, since anxiety and Anxiety disorders are irrational, our brains are telling us Yeah, you got a 93 on that test. Good luck not going to college, you're gonna lose all your friends, because you weren't the lead in the musical. Right? And our anxiety brain is very persuasive. Right? Is that, like,

Casey O'Roarty 30:51
I hear a lot about kids that won't try new things, or won't get coaching won't get asked for support or get help? Is that part of this as well? Because it's this expectation of I should be good at it. Or Yeah, or like discomfort around that stretchy, weird learning place.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 31:13
I mean, you named both parts of it. It's a bidirectional process. Right? And, you know, if we can speak broadly, globally for a moment, right, the one word I tell my clients to try not to say to their kids is the word should you guys should is could plus Shane should have gotten an A on that test. Nah, yet coulda. What got in your way. predispose us to be curious. Not furious, right? I mean, take this away, please. From this past podcast, it's like, Just do yourself a favor. And every time you say the word should to your kids this week, stop and say, Wait, I meant could. You shouldn't have snuck out? You could have not snuck out lately, right. That was the default option. You had to work really hard to get out the window? What the heck was worth it? Yeah. And then your kids going like, well, you know, there was a very attractive person on the sidewalk. Yeah. And like, you know, in the backseat, we're hugging like, 15 once like, okay, you know, yeah. And these sorts of conversations, right? They're giving opportunities for connection. So yeah, so we try not to say should. And as a recovering perfectionist, I should say. My name for this is what I called trapdoor perfectionism, right. So you don't practice, you don't study, you don't go to a tutor, you don't meet your coach, you don't practice the piano, because you're worried if you actually put in effort, you may be found wanting, it is better to control the level you're at right now, knowing it isn't enough, because then you've got the trap door of well, it wasn't that, you know, it would have been better. But I didn't practice a release valve. Right? And you've probably heard that from your more anxious teens. Like, I mean, yeah, I can be the third female lead in the musical. And I guess if I went to training, I might get the lead lead. But also, what if I put in all that work and stayed at the third? Lead, right? You know, our brains get very stressed when we put effort into something, that we're putting effort into something because we are in fight or flight mode, right? There's a challenge to be met, there are few things more stressful for our bodies than putting an effort without immediate return, your kid will absolutely jump in the car and drive to the grocery store to get a gallon of milk before they close. If you've got five minutes to get there, your kids like challenge accepted this is passing the theory, let's do it. But your kid will also not practice the guitar because Damn, that makes me feel really vulnerable and the recital six months from now, right? So, you know, perfectionism allows us to sort of build in this trapdoor. And that feels a lot better than trying and failing.

Casey O'Roarty 34:08
So because I definitely have clients where this is something that I hear about, what are some tips that you have for parents when their kid is I'm thinking of a couple of specific clients, with kids that are just really resistant to coaching and any kind of extra support and hold themselves at this crazy level? What is the bridge that we can build that invites them into dipping their toe in to what like you said can start to feel a little vulnerable. So I

Dr. Matt Zakreski 34:42
think that part of what alienates teens from us is when we don't honor their upper potential, right. Kids want to be treated with respect and dignity, right? If you come down on them like they're 12 That door slams shut, right so long as they listen This is your life. I don't have a horse in the race for you to be better with a guitar, right? I know you had designs on playing it on the quad next year at Northwestern State and getting some attention from your dreams, right? Anyway, here's Wonderwall. And like, if you want to be that person, you are fully aware of the work when most need to get there. But if that's not where you're at, then that's not where you're at. I will see you in whatever steps you want to take to get there. Yeah. So what we're, we're passing the anxiety football back to our kids. Yes. As we hold the anxiety, football, we're like, my kid might not get into Harvard. If they don't study for this test. They only got to study. Yeah, they're not dumb. Right? By being on tick tock till two in the morning, when you've got to count test the next day is a choice. And just like you said, about your kid going to college? He's probably gonna fall on his face at some point. Well, I will, I will be sure to send you loving hugs around. Because that might be the time of that rude awakening. Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 36:06
yeah. I'll be like, what, I've never done this before. Welcome so much better education than what you got. Sorry about that, buddy. Like the languaging that I use around what you're talking about? Is energetic responsibility. So like, and it's so funny, even I get in the illusion of like, I'm going to ask this question. And Dr. Matt's gonna say something that I've never heard before. And it's like, oh, no, right. It's what we always talk about right? Listeners talking to you. I know, this all sounds familiar. So if you're having one of those moments, where you're like, oh, right, energetic responsibility. Yes. You know, and that need, like us had said a little bit ago, how we want to see results really fast. Like parenting is a long term, game. And teenagers, whether they're neuro diverse or not, it takes a hot, long minute, before we really start to see like, oh, yeah, the energetic responsibility the handing over to our kids, and reminding them that ultimately, they get to decide if they're, you know, swooning the girls on the quad next year in college, or they get to decide if they really have a chance for the lead, or they get to decide if they ever get to, you know, improve and pitching or hitting a ball or academically or whatever. Like, ultimately, I love that you're saying what I often say, which is handed over handed over, these aren't your grades. And the little part of me is like, so is the difference then if you're a parent of a neurotypical kid versus a twice exceptional kid is the main difference, just those big threes like it's all the same. It's just a bigger invitation for us adults to keep our shit together, or are there special secret tools?

Dr. Matt Zakreski 38:00
yes to both right. And, you know, because if there's a thing that distinguishes two ie kids from, let's just say quote unquote, just gifted visa vie neurotypical kids, that twice exceptional kids are going to have high highs and low lows need to accommodate at all levels. So I often use this because she's sort of my archetypal to II kid in my head, this young woman had a verbal IQ of 141, right. So in the 99 point, second percentile, she also was dyslexic and dysgraphic. So she

Casey O'Roarty 38:37
say what this graphic is just for listeners who don't know, it

Dr. Matt Zakreski 38:40
is a specific learning disability around writing and oneself the written language. So this is a kid who had the next Percy Jackson series in her brain, but couldn't express it with writing and had trouble reading the instructions to tell the story. I mean, it's like if somebody gave you a rocket powered car, and no brakes, and only half a steering wheel, like you would be frustrated, you need to build some specialty stuff around that to get them there in a meaningful way. Right? So it isn't just oh, all kids drive cars, you know, the gift to get might have to drive a stick shift the to eat kid you are building the car from scratch, right? And there's, there's a lot of challenge for that, because you've got a kid who is just so advanced, so average and so behind, and app just puts a lot of strain on every single system that kid operates. And of course, one of those systems is home. So we mean, you know, to go back to just a second for this idea of 80% of people are neurotypical 20% are neurodivergent twice exceptionality is a small slice of that pie. Figure, the neurotypical kid in a regular classroom is going to be like four out of the five kids there. Right so the numbers like well, there's a lot of kids I can be from Unsworth here. Cool, the neurodivergent kid is one out of five. But if you're a gifted kid, you're one out of 50. To e, it's, you know, it's a smaller number than that. Right? So it's just diminishing returns on the people, you can vibe with the situations you can vibe with, and the places that really can and will support you. It's a lot of hard work. Yeah. And what is increasingly unicorns, right. I mean, like, we're not hunting deer, we're trying to find unicorns, and it's like, no deer and other deer and other deer and other deer, my goodness, right? We've got to be able to really recalibrate our expectations here, because it's just harder.

Casey O'Roarty 40:43
Well, it's harder. And that kiddo is on the same kind of mission for belonging as the rest of the kids in the classroom. Yeah,

Dr. Matt Zakreski 40:54
they still want to get they want to go to college. Right, right.

Casey O'Roarty 40:57
And I wonder too, like, I'm imagining all of that, right, and trying to express it, and being the parent navigating the frustration, curious about what's going on under the surface. And the tool of just validating that it's hard, I imagine is really powerful for these kids, too.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 41:17
I mean, I think validation is the number one gift we can give anybody in our lives. Sure. Actually, our teens, I would say one of the seminal moments in my life was the town I grew up in didn't really have the arts. So I played sports, four seasons here, you know, soccer in the fall basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring. And, you know, a swim in the summer, like that was just what I did. And in high school, I was like, Alright, I'm definitely gonna play soccer. I'm pretty good at soccer. I definitely not gonna make the baseball team I suck at baseball, I might play basketball. And on the day that they were basketball tryouts there was also tryouts for the musical. And one of my friends I hit me, he's like, Dude, you got to do the musical. Like, I just carried my basketball gear into the auditorium auditioned for the musical, they gave me a part. And then I went home that night, and at dinner, my basketball go, I'm like, Oh, my God, I didn't think my actions would have consequences. And I explained that to my dad, and he goes, cool, how do I need and it was just so validating in that moment, like, he didn't have to understand why I chose to do theater over basketball. I have to like it. He didn't have to, you know, shout from the rooftops. But he validated me in that moment. And that gave me the permission and the confidence to show up more authentically is me. I think authenticity means everything to our teens.

Casey O'Roarty 42:47
Yes. Because they ever very fine tuned bullshit radar. Oh, I

Dr. Matt Zakreski 42:51
mean, they are allergic. Right? Like, you know, just be real. And sometimes real is messy, it's ugly, but they may not like it, but they'll respect it. And, you know, my, my favorite stat that I quote all the time to parents of teens is, you know, patients who like their doctors die sooner.

Casey O'Roarty 43:11
Tell me more about that. So,

Dr. Matt Zakreski 43:14
if you like your doctor, your doctor is probably not telling you hard truths. Doctor is probably pulling some punches, right? You're 350 pounds, and you need to lose some weight. Not that there's anything wrong with being heavy. But this is a health thing, right? Your babies are heart attacks, and the dogs like maybe try a salad versus like, Listen, if you want to live to see your grandkids, we need to make some serious life changes. Like my doctor saying that to me. But I'm going to respect it because my doctor is choosing my health over the safety provided by our relationship. And so you can say to your team, like, listen, it's up to you how much you want to practice the guitar. Yeah, that's your choice. But you're also smart enough to know what it's going to feel like in six months when you show up for the concert, and you haven't played in six months. look like an idiot? Yeah, I also know you don't want to look like an idiot. Right? And in between those two poles is where our solution is going to come from. I call these third door solutions, right? Yeah. Either or it's and. And that's cool.

Casey O'Roarty 44:19
Yeah. What is having a strength based approach? What does that mean to you?

Dr. Matt Zakreski 44:23
It is so easy to focus on what our kids can't do and aren't doing. But we don't want to be deficit detectives. We want to search for strengths. You know, I had a kid I worked with a couple years ago. Amazing TrackSTar right. And he had been recruited to this very elite prep school out of a really rough part of Philadelphia. And this kid was, you know, to get to the school he had to take a bus to another bus and then walk three quarters of mile he like he was barely making the school most days and he kept missing breakfast. Turns out that his track thing was the 110 hurdles and his season went first place last place First place last place last place, first place last place. Last place the end. And the coaches were sitting there being like, how do you keep losing? And I'm like, Hi, I'm sorry, I was a discus thrower. But isn't the 110 hurdles really freaking hard? And there? Yeah. So how does this kid win the 110 hurdles five times?

Casey O'Roarty 45:17
Right? That's the question. Yeah.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 45:20
It's easy to lose. It's hard to win. And then we, you felt the energy in the room, just shift around that kid. And we're like, buddy, what's helping you win when you win? He goes, Well, those are the moments I can have breakfast at school. Those are the days I had breakfast. And we all looked at each other like, oh, man, like, you're one of those, like, punch yourself in the face kind of moments like, Damn, I missed this. We owe them a hot breakfast, right? Yeah, you did a lot better. But it's like, if we focus on what our kids can't do. If even if we lead with that, it sets it on sort of a downward slide, right? You can say like, you are an incredible actor, you're an incredible singer, you're incredible dancer. Also, you cannot memorize lines for crap. Right? I am going to celebrate the things that make you special. Those are strings. I'm going to play your strengths. I will write a part for you where you don't have to say a single word. Right. And also, while we're doing that, I'm going to work with you on reading lines. Right, right.

Casey O'Roarty 46:22
Yeah, yeah. I love that. I really appreciate that because it holds a space of encouragement. Right? So I'm a positive discipline, lead trainer. And it's based in the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolph strikers, right, yeah. And a misbehaving child as a discouraged child. Yeah, right. So holding that space of encouragement, you know, Prime's the pump Prime's the brain. You know, in your example, like, I'm feeling encouraged, I'm gonna sit down and run lines with you, right? I'm feeling discouraged. Screw you. I've got 100 Other things that I could be doing. You don't get me. I'm out of here. Right. So I really appreciate that. I appreciate that. Talk about your handbook. Because I know we're running out of time. Like I was like, we probably won't talk for an hour, Matt. But now we're coming to an hour. Talk about the handbook that's coming out.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 47:11
This is the Dr. Matt podcast experience. We just keep going and good. I mean, your version of Adler is my version of Ross green, right kids do I love him. And parents, I'm like, if that's all you hear kids do as well as they can eat just level sets. Every thing that comes from that, right takes

Casey O'Roarty 47:28
it like quit taking it personally. Right? It's not about you parents, they're doing the best they can with the tools. They have parents

Dr. Matt Zakreski 47:34
in the moment being coaching men, they're egoless acts we are but vessels moving these children around, they matter more than right. And like, yeah, like the sunscreen song. Like, if you figure out how to do this tell me like I fail at it all the time. But it's a lovely mindset. So basically my nerd divergent playbook, a sort of a distillation of my most popular talks, my favorite therapy strategies, and a lot of case examples, because I want it like the whole idea of trying to live in a world that's not built for you, is that you get reminded a lot that you are a square peg in a world full of round holes. And it feels like your only options are to blend in and lose yourself or like just be like, Nope, I may I won't listen, there's a middle ground there where we can essentially code switch, right? Going from speaking neurodivergent to speaking neurotypical, and acting neurotypical when it's appropriate, right. So you can absolutely be your best nerdy self at LARP. And if you've got a job interview come Monday, right, you can do what it takes to follow those rhythms. Right, you can follow that code. So you know, I mean, I think that it's based in a lot of humor, a lot of neuroscience, and but you know, really practical examples. Like, I can't ask you to go to five years of grad school to do what I do, right. But I can say like, here's the stuff that my 20 years in mental health has taught me works really well for these kids. Yeah, so increasingly, these adults, right, so all these strategies, and it'll guide you to a life that feels more worth living.

Casey O'Roarty 49:16
So who's the audience? Is it for parents? Is it for Neuro diverse people? Is it for adolescents? Who's the audience for the playbook?

Dr. Matt Zakreski 49:25
It's for anybody who is or loves a neurodivergent person. Cool. Yeah, that's my that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So your 16 year old ADHD or could read it and be like, This is me. And your 61 year old recently diagnosed autistic could go, Is this me? Oh, my gosh, it is this me and the teacher, have a class of gifted kids is going to read this and be like, that's you and you and you and you and you. Really, you know, I tried to cast a wide net, so we could speak to as many parts of this experience as we could

Casey O'Roarty 49:59
Love it. Thank you so much for the work that you do and for coming on and talking to me about it. My last question that I asked all my guests is What does joyful courage mean to you in the context of neurodiversity, and working with families the way that you do.

Dr. Matt Zakreski 50:14
So joyful courage is allowing yourself to see the challenges we are presented with as opportunities. Right. I have been blessed enough to give hundreds of talks and bid on a lot of podcasts. And I always say, I'm going to stop doing them when I stop being anxious about them. I was a little nervous to be on here today, right? Because you're a rock star. And I'm like, I'm in the rock star circle with. And to me joyful courage is like, Yes, I can absolutely put my foot in my mouth for 45 minutes, and she deletes the podcast, and we never speak again. But it's an opportunity to do something I love and help some people, right. So I can be courageous in a joyful way. Because this opportunity I am blessed to be given gives me the platform to do my job better, right. It's opportunity, not a shackle. And I think that's pretty cool. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 51:09
I appreciate that. Where can people find you and follow your work? I think this podcast should come out before your playbook. So where is that going to be as if people are interested in finding out more,

Dr. Matt Zakreski 51:22
so I have two primary presences online. The therapy practices, the neurodiversity collective, which we talked about before? You and I kids, basically from the whole country for therapy, so that's always fun. Nice. And then for the speaking consulting part of what I do. That's just me. That's Dr. Mansur kreski.com. So if you think kid, neurodiversity collective, if you're like, holy, geez, he needs to speak to my school. Dramatic rescue.com Okay,

Casey O'Roarty 51:50
awesome. And listeners, you know, those will be in the show notes. Thank you so much. Thank you for hanging out with me. This was really really useful. Well, I'm

Dr. Matt Zakreski 51:59
so glad and thank you for having me. It was truly a treat.

Casey O'Roarty 52:08
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you to my spreadable partners as well as Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay connected at B sprout double.com. Tune back in later this week for our Thursday show and I'll be back with another interview next Monday. Peace

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