Episode 134: They Say Autism, But it Doesn’t Seem Right with Marci Melzer

Children  0:00  
We think you should know that Imperfect Heroes Podcast is a production of Little Hearts Academy USA. 

DJ Stutz  0:10  
You're listening to Episode 134 of Imperfect Heroes, Insights into Parenting, the perfect podcast for imperfect parents looking to find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world. And I'm your host DJ Stutz.

Welcome heroes and heroines, and thank you for choosing to spend the next few minutes with Imperfect Heroes. We have a crazy amazing topic and guest today. But before we get started, I'm wondering, have you found yourself just yearning for 15 minutes of uninterrupted peace in the past month, just so you can take a shower? Have you ever dreamt of leaving the house without a single yell? And have you ever watched a news story and thought, oh, that could be my child in the future? Well, I've got your back, sign up for a no-cost 50-minute conversation with me. And let's chat about those parenting moments and find some solutions together. The link to my calendar is right down there in the show notes. And I can't wait to connect with you. 

Well, today we have, like I said, a crazy awesome topic, and an equally crazy awesome guests. Autism can be a pretty scary word. And it seems like we are hearing it more and more. And the spectrum is just so broad. Have you ever heard of the term educational autism? This is when the doctors say the child doesn't have autism. But the educators feel their behaviors in class, and their difficulty and social skills and learning capacity are autistic in nature. And so they're going to label your child with educational autism. Anyway, don't even get me started. Well, my guest, Marci Melter has some answers to this. So let's talk about virtual autism. Get ready to be amazed. Welcome, everyone. And thanks for joining us here at Imperfect Heroes podcast. And today we are talking about an amazing concept that's kind of new. I've got my friend here. Marci Melter. Marci, why don't you tell us you're with waves of communication, what's going on?

Marci Melzer  2:34  
Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me, your audience, my audience. So I'm super happy to talk to all of you moms and dads out there. My name is Marcy. And my platform is called Waves of Communication, because my background is a speech pathology. So I was a speech therapist for 30 years. And about six years ago, I shifted my platform from working with children directly to working with parents and caregivers who have children from birth through way more than eight. But those are certainly the key years for communication development. And my platform is all about equipping and empowering parents and caregivers. So if you're the mom, or the dad, or the grandma, or the nanny, or whoever it is that spends the chunk of the day with this child, you can be their primary language facilitator. And we know DJ that there are so many kids now that are late to develop speech more than ever used to be since before the pandemic, for sure. Now, there's a lot of reasons, many, many reasons as unique to each individual child. But there are categories of kids that I see who are showing up more now these days. And those kids I categorize in this area called virtual autism. So the trend is that every child who's not talking by two years old is automatically shoved into that autism label, because they can get therapies and all of that stuff. And that's been going on for a really long time. So with all of these kids, so late talking, and there being more and more and more of them, the problem is they're all being stuck into the same bucket. And that's that autism bucket, right? And it's because the kids are not talking yet they're late to develop speech. And but they're not there's nothing wrong with their intelligence, their curiosity, their interest, even their motivation. But the issue is like the old days, kids learned about life and the world from being out in life in the world from playing with mom and going to the grocery store. or go into the park and go into preschool and all of those other things. And yes, before the pandemic, we had those things. But when it shut down, there is a whole new crop of kids that are coming out whose parents, it never was normalized this going out. In fact, they were stopped from doing it, right. So they were, they had to find some solutions, we all had to find solutions during the pandemic. And unfortunately, for the kids, most of those solutions were rooted in technology, right, because we all the classes were on the computer, and the parents were giving the kids the computer or the TV to babysit, so they could work from home. And there were no choices. Because remember, they didn't give us a choice about going out at all. They told us, we had to stay home with our kids. And they didn't even give parents much training or support and what to do with their kids. They just had the Zoom appointments or this thing or whatever. And with so many different financial and health issues, people were losing family members are afraid to lose family members and all these emotional and financial stretches, and all that other stuff, that moms and dads and grandmas and parents and kids and the focus on the child, you know, like all of that stuff, that kind of couldn't happen for a lot, a lot of people and it's not just a small percentage, it's a real lot of people. So I know that there are moms and dads and caregivers and grandmas listening to this thing. Because this idea of virtual autism is becoming very well known because what's happening is parents are freaking out, their kids are not developing. Maybe they have older siblings who are did it differently, like they were pre pandemic, you know, talkers. These little ones aren't doing it the same. And they're not socialized on the same or they're resistant right now that things are opening up. Because the inside was so normalized. And everybody had to stay in and stay in and like it were pretty much what we were told. Now. That's what parents told kids stay in and like it. And so now that we can get out and they say let's go to the park, let's go out let's go do these things the kids don't want to. And this isn't just till eight, the teenagers got it. The 20 year olds got it. Even the parents got it. You see, because you and I are in a generation where our parents had us on our hip while we were everywhere they were cooking. There were no devices, there was no even places to stick us in front of because the TV kid shows only ran on Saturday mornings, you know what I mean? So it wasn't like there was available stuff to teach us. And so guess who had to do the job? Moms and dads, right? And so I think it just happened that culturally, parents sort of felt like it was okay to give this up. And then what happened in the field? So like I'm in the field, right? So here we are, as therapists and parents keep bringing these kids who are not talking. And they're showing these red flags. I'm doing my air quotes, red flag behaviors. And the parents are freaking out and they take them to the professionals, right. And the professionals say oh to statistic that's autism, you need all the things just give that child to me because they are impaired. And again, my air quotes, because remember, that's all they have in the health care system, or the special education system is some kind of diagnosis or something. And that happens in the healthcare system with the autism. But it also happens in the education system, doesn't it? Yeah,

DJ Stutz  9:01  
in fact, I've had cases with kids who did not qualify for being autistic, medically, the medical doctors weren't saying, Oh, he's autistic, but the educators and the specialists, and so they developed the term educationally autistic, which was like, what are we talking about?

Marci Melzer  9:21  
Right? And remember you and I know as the professionals who've been in schools, that these labels are there for criteria of kids for financial reasons, because if the school labels a child with something, then they can submit those labeled kids those numbers of labeled kids in their school to get more funding for the school. And the same thing happens in the healthcare system, a child who shows up again, so basically a child who shows up at the doctor's office, you know, the parents are taking them all over there and if a child shows up with the symptom comes to the doctor, they're going to get the diagnosis. And then what do they have, except for therapy. And same in school, if they show up with issues, then all they have is these labels that they can put on them so that they can give them special education service says. So whatever else because they can get any of those things, either insurance payment for therapy, or special education services without some kind of label. And even though these kids are really late to develop, they really are late, I promise, they really are needing help, they really, really do. It's not because they're impaired. And the problem is, it works in the education system like it does in the medical system, if you get diagnosed with something, you get the therapy that goes with that diagnosis. So if you get a diabetes diagnosis, you're gonna get the medicine that goes with it. Now, in the old days, some of your audience might be old enough to remember that about 15 years ago, everybody wanted to get their kids diagnosed with ADHD, because they wouldn't sit in the class and they couldn't sit in learn and that kind of stuff. And it was about the time when TV started to get very kid friendly, and cable was friendly, and all of that stuff. And people were having kids in front of the television a lot because both parents started working. And all of that was happening. So now there was less parenting time, because both parents are out of the house working more kids are watching cable TV, getting ideas from cable TV, and not from their moms and dads and whatever, right. And so now we've got this new generation of kids that are parented by tech. And because tech can't teach child language. This is the problem. It can teach them words to say, it can give them ideas, it can even teach concepts like gravity, because you watch the thing fall in somebody's head and out, she goes out and you see when images of what's going on. But usually, in fact, almost always, the whatever's coming off the video is far too fast and complex for a new language learner, right? They need moms and dads to say, Come on, Joey, let's go play outside, come with. Let's go with Mama. And because they start with basic kind of talking, as there is they evolve, right? Right, the kid evolves, they start with baby toddler talk, and then they evolve it up through and actually it starts with crying out of the womb and evolves into the base. But that's how it works. This whole evolution, that's what I teach, you see, because we don't need therapists to diagnose kids with something wrong. We just need moms and dads and grandmas and caregivers and whoever spends time with the child to take up that job, not give it away to the technology who's talking too fast and too far above the child. And it's not giving it away to therapists who are below the child thinking they're stupid and impaired and autistic and talking to them, like, you know, because they could be four or five years old. And if they don't move past certain levels in the therapy, they're still having a match pictures, because they're not talking right. And then

DJ Stutz  13:24  
this leads to is the technology is not teaching them taking turns in talking, I say something, you say, oh,

Marci Melzer  13:32  
it's teaching that to hyper independence, I did it, I can do it. I did this myself. I don't need you. I don't want you I don't want your way I want my way My way is better than your way. This is what kids learn from these videos. Because look at the influencers. They all want to be the best, good enough or try your hardest or let's work together all these concepts that you know they do, you got to give the kids shows credit because at least they do that like the Daniel Tiger and the power pets and all those guys, those they tend to bring up these feelings right about how to be kind to other people and whatever. But that's not what a lot of these kids are watching. They're watching kids opening their backpacks and pulling out their stuff or their surprise boxes that they're opening or silent videos of them playing with their toys or shopping or things like that. They're not learning about how these toys work and where did the money come from? And we're driving to the store and we can only buy one thing this is our budget you know all this stuff because parents can teach all these same concept with the grocery store every week. Do we buy the cookies or not the cookies? Do we buy the milk or not the milk which one is more important in our life? Like this is how we teach kids and this is what I feel like is missing nowadays, like it was it started to get replaced back when both parents had to work and kids We're in daycares. And then they fix the daycares. It wasn't like 20 kids with a dark room. Now they have regulations in these daycares, and they're better. And there's a cleaner since COVID, right? And all of those beautiful curriculums that are set up for kids to go and have circle time, and groups and centers and all day on the playground and playing with kids. But again, we've got a whole population of kids that is either not ready to go there, because they don't know how to talk and socialize, they're going to steal all the toys, they're going to take their stuff, they're not going to want to sit and listen to the school and the teacher, or they don't have any rule following because there's been no boundaries at home, because there's been no early preschool and things like that. There's all these things. But remember, DJ, these are not things that therapy teaches kids, right? They're not. And in fairness, these are things that parents teach kids, and you need everyday exposure, right. So like, that's how some kids, their first exposure to rules may be an early preschool at two years old, right? But then, if your child missed it, if they didn't get to go to early preschool, and then three years old, they got to that early intervention, right? That's that screener, saying Oh, no, your kids not ready for kindergarten, they're gonna have to go to special ed. So they're segregated all these nonverbal kids together, whether they're impaired or not, because they're not using real standard that literally judging kids by the money they can get. And so what happens to these kids is they just get left behind, and called autistic. And then they just get piled into this special ed thing where there is no expectation of meeting those goals. So the other kids in class, we've got targets, right, you got to memorize all your ABCs, or you've got to know all your letter sounds, or you got to do all this stuff. And the teachers got all these criteria that they're trying to get through. But see, they're waiting, they're not giving these kids a chance even to catch up with that curriculum, because that teacher can't possibly help those kids. Well, he's got,

DJ Stutz  17:16  
it depends on where you live to. Because I know when I was doing kindergarten, all of my kids who are on IEP s special needs, right? They still had to meet that they did. And so then you have teachers who are freaking out and I ki won't learn, you know, he's autistic, how am I supposed to, and yet, with the right approach, you can do it. And for most of these kids, the right approach is being with their peers, and working with their peers, and having that exposure and that practice every day. And understanding how to get the toy if I want the toy and someone else has it. And making those rationalizations, I always felt bad when I would see teachers who were like, Oh, this kid, and so teacher gets more frustrated with that child, because that child is keeping them from getting their whatever percentage and keeping them from being like a highly effective teacher in their

Marci Melzer  18:12  
evaluation. Yes, because then you know, you don't get your bonus, or you don't get your whatever your pay all your kids up. So yeah, that's what's happening. And so some places, teachers are complaining about that. And so they're not accepting any more special needs kids in their classroom. So some teachers are just not teaching them at all. I've been traveling around the world, it's been interesting, because I've been able to see school situations in Australia, and India, and Dubai. And what they're doing in those places, is just segregating the kids like the old days, not even letting them into the class, because the teacher says, I have no structure, I have no way to train these kids. And a lot of them are private pay schools. So if you're paying for a private school, you may not have any therapy or whatever of that going on to and those teachers don't have the support to teach your child that's not talking well yet, and doesn't have social skills, and no pre academics because they've been on their phone for five hours a day, watching their same favorite music videos and five languages because they figured out how to work that algorithm. Because they're learning you see these kids on learning every day. It's their environment that is causing them to show up not able to work in the environment to go in the environment. So right yeah, so that's what my platform is all about really giving this responsibility back to parents just like you. What is it that parents can do with children to help them catch up now seems like a no brainer but getting that tech time redo is obviously the number one thing that needs to be considered. But it can't just happen willy nilly. You can't just take that phone away cold turkey. It's up to you, the one who realizes number one that there's too much tech time going, Yeah, that it's up to you to fill that time. So you're the one that gave the child the phone instead of you. Sorry. I mean, it happened. It's true. You whether you could help it or not, it was the only solution available. It was the easy solution about it doesn't matter why it happened. But the really good news, the really good news that we know about is that brains, especially young brains, especially those under eight have a ton of neuroplasticity. And yes, it is easy for them to fall into habits and learn rules, or learn unhealthy habits. But it's also easy for them to follow rules to it only takes about two weeks of a new classroom kids that never met you at all. And in your case, you had kids that didn't go to school very much. There were a lot of issues even at their home and stuff. And you were a strange white lady with who knows what kind of ideas right and it was up to you to on those kids trust and respect, right? That's what it takes. And it starts even now with these little kids so you're not going to earn their trust and respect if you swipe away their tablets and then make them sit and cry you've got to figure out what to do instead. And so it's all about habit change. And then not just to replace one entertainment with another entertainment but really try to get in think about in your own child's history. Where have they missed exposure to peers like you said they need to be around their friend Where have they been around teachers who will let them come that won't try to strap them into something but will be so attractive in their learning that the child will come to them your soccer coach your swim coach your nanny the kid up the street you know what I mean? That one that's that's good ideas right the one that's got the good ideas this is all you need moms and dads is this kind of community around your child to rebuild this connected community with peers and aunties even if they're not realize he's you know what I'm Yes. Familiar adults, those friends. When you go to the store, you can facilitate these things again, yes, your child isn't but you're going to have to take the phone away before you go to the store and you have to plan ahead teach I had you and I were talking about this before you can't just boring this. I'm a child. Okay, tattled times over now we're getting out in the world because remember, we talked earlier, they don't like it. They don't know it. It's unfamiliar. They're afraid of it. And they're not so sure it's gonna be fun. But you and I, when we were kids, you didn't come in the house unless you were all dirty. And your mom knew you had fun because you were all dirty?

DJ Stutz  23:10  
Yes, I'll tell you. I even had a little kid the last year that I taught, so I've only had one year without kids, but he wouldn't speak above a whisper in class. And everybody's worried about him. He was fine at home. But with COVID he had had such limited exposure to and no fault to the parents. But such limited. Exactly. I don't want anybody feeling bad about this. It's not something that was

Marci Melzer  23:35  
yeah, no, this is an inflammation alert for you. It's just sort of like one of those Amber Alerts only it's like, what's missing now is your connection with your child, the only thing that's missing, and that's what you have to look for. Right? And that's what you have to look for. And that's what my platform is all about. Because I know if your child is two, or three, or four, or five, or six or eight even, and still not using speech functionally, right? I mean, outside of the house with everybody else. And even if they are talking but in the house, but not out of the house. Kids are doing

DJ Stutz  24:16  
what works for them well, right. And so if I'm a nervous kid, I don't want to talk to the other kids. I'm a little shy, because I spent all this time for whatever reason away from other kids, or there's a lot of other reasons that kids will be shy and not do that. But I have found that oh, wait, if I don't talk if I keep it quiet, I get to get pulled aside, not by all these other kids and all the noise. And so then there's an encouragement for them. For me, I wish that I could just for kindergarten spend instead of 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes 15 minutes in the afternoon outside. Let's do yeah All this morning outside while it's or after, depending on the weather. Right, right, I ate that they were like an hour and a half, two hours. And just go and argue about things and work it out and learn how to manage. Yes. Go she ate how to speak my piece and stand up for myself. And then we as teachers are watching and supporting, I would take my class outside every chance I got so that we're looking for even if we're counting how many pine cones Can you pick up?

Marci Melzer  25:30  
Right? Yeah, yeah. And that's an amazing strategy for parents to again, it might feel too hot. So this is your excuse to get the hose and have a water fight outside

DJ Stutz  25:44  
those sprinklers. Sprinklers when you were a kid.

Marci Melzer  25:48  
Because we didn't have all kinds of air conditioning and all that stuff. I lived in Chicago and it got hot. So we sprinkle we ran in the sprinkler. This is your time because what it takes here's the thing, there's a lot of shock and awe in the technology, right surprises new things, I want this thing. This is the key. If you want to attract your child away from technology and into the world where you can teach them how to swim, or how to not touch poison ivy, if you're in the woods or house, stay away from jellyfish at the beach. It doesn't matter where you outdoors, how to avoid dogs, somebody's walking their dog, how to not run up to that dog. Right? All these things that you realize in life, see that when I talk about parents taking this job back, it is exactly those kinds of activities, DJ that I give them to cooking is another one, you know, following a recipe step by steps, measurements, you know, if you screw it up, and you burn it dealing with the loss of that. And on the other hand, you make a beautiful cake, and you get to give it to grandma for a birthday, the positive end of that there's so much more than just the labels of what things are. Yes.

DJ Stutz  27:11  
Well, and to another thing that you can do with your kids that with recipes, is you're teaching them following instructions. You're teaching them math, you're teaching them all of these other things that are academic, and but at the same time, you're building relationships, you're building confidence, you're building the ability to understand the world around them. You're teaching them the science, all of these things. It's not

Marci Melzer  27:39  
even just about being kind and letting them learn on their level. It's about teaching excellence, right. Because if you're going to make a recipe or build a dog house, or whatever you fix the car, whatever you're doing with your child, clean the toilet, even, you want to show them how to do it the best, right from the get go right from the very beginning. So you're demonstrating what it looks like. Because remember, they haven't been watching you moms and dads, they've been in their phone, they're not watching peers, they're not watching you. They're not watching anybody, if you reflect to them, what it looks like to be a successful social, academically, you know, I did my stuff, you share your life with them. Because I think this is what a lot of parents forget to do, too. And when life is not so fun, we're worried about health losses and money and job and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not so appropriate to share that stuff with kids. But the positive stuff, when something new is coming, I can't wait for my birthday next week or daddy and my anniversary is next month, or grandma and grandpa are coming to visit from across the country. You know, these are coming cool events that are connected to people we love. Not everybody celebrates these things, but our family does, right. Our family has barbecues we go fishing, whatever your family does, as a culture and values and that kind of stuff. That's where you start. You don't have to google anything, which toy should I buy on Amazon, willing to

DJ Stutz  29:13  
I mean, we've got a culture right now where kids are so used to getting the toy that they want, bam, right away. They don't have to plan and wait. A five year old is completely capable of saying my toy costs $40 And I need to or you can even say if you earn $10 I'll pick up the rest. You know, there are different ways that you can do it so that our kids aren't getting everything at the snap of a finger. And then they come into adulthood. And they have these adult relationships and they're like, What do you mean you're not letting me have my way like

Marci Melzer  29:49  
this is how to write when they were two or three. They it worked all they did was sweet one way sideways. They didn't even have to talk and this Here's what's happening. We're all you moms dads out there that are in virtual autism. You see your children are smart, and they know how to get you to understand exactly what they want from you or for you to do. They want you to give them not the pink one, but the blue one, not the little one, but the big one, not the hot one, but the coat, they will find the way to tell you exactly what they want. And so most parents right now today, with kids that are doing that non verbally, they're using their behaviors, they're using their gestures, they're using their whatever's they're singing songs, they're using echolalia. They're using all kinds of stuff that's not functional speech. And parents are responding to it without teaching the proper spoken language to replace it. So that's what is the big responsibility. It's not about taking away tech. It's about what are you teaching your child, and if you teach them because your family loves fishing, you're going to be talking about fishing. If you're cooking, you're going to talk about cooking and your child will learn. You don't have to be a teacher. You are a teacher.

DJ Stutz  31:08  
Oh, yeah, the minute that. Well, when I became a big sister, I became a teacher. Right? It's right. I don't even have to have a kid to become a teacher. That's right. But another thing too, is that it's funny that kids even very young, so I'm the oldest of seven. And I have five brothers. And the youngest, was born two weeks before I turned 17. And wow. Yeah, I know. So he was actually he slept in my room. I got up with him. Wow, he was 18 months old. And he would sit on a Wednesday morning at 6:30am while the rest of us are up and getting ready to go to school. And he knew how to turn the TV on. And he knew how to turn the knob for channels. And he would be screaming at the TV because he couldn't find a football game at 630 on a Wednesday morning. And isn't it interesting, though, at 18 months? What kind of language does he have? And yet he was very clear. We knew exactly what that kid was looking for that week,

Marci Melzer  32:08  
even though you know it was football, even though you guess what he does for a living now. It has to be something football related. He's

DJ Stutz  32:16  
a high school football coach. And you guys know, the weight room? Yep, yep, yep. And he got his master's in. I forget it. It's like athletic training. Yeah, making sure right, or taking care of injuries. And so even when they're really young, he had to learn there was nothing we could do to get a football game for him. He he wanted, right. That's right. That's right channels, he could turn the TV off and on again. Although injury wasn't gonna get football at 630 in the morning, there was nothing we got to do. He had to manage it. Yeah.

Marci Melzer  32:50  
Yeah. So interesting. And that delayed gratification that he had to develop in himself at starting at 18 months old was I gotta wait till Saturday or Sunday to see a football game. It's only happens on the weekends. This is Monday. And we got to wait a whole you know, because the day before Sunday, he we had football all day, right? And so he was in football, heaven. And on Monday, oh, depression, football is gone. And you think about now a kid could find and watch that game over and over and over and over and over again, any game they want with any sport they want with any team they want, anytime this idea of delayed gratification is what keeps us on our drive, right? Because if he had got to watch that football, he wouldn't had a chance to even think in his mind about his previous experience. He just be watching more of it. More of it, more of it, more of it. And now he's thinking about the plays. And he thinking whatever interests him about them football, when he's not got, he had like you said he had to figure it out somehow. Because nobody wants to be upset all day. And your family was like, Dude, we can take you out we can play football with you we can, which is

DJ Stutz  34:04  
what we're doing.

Marci Melzer  34:06  
Right, of course, right? Because the kid is focused on football. And that's no different than every child watching this. They just find it themselves. You see on the phone more quickly.

DJ Stutz  34:18  
Yeah, they find it more quickly than anything that we've ever had. And so we're feeding into that instant gratification that the kids are used to getting. And yeah, and all they have to do is start you get in that gentleman. And instead of like, oh yeah, you're upset. Well, we can go outside. We're at a restaurant. We don't want to bother anybody but right, we can go out. So yeah, I've done that with grandkids. And it's funny because my youngest daughter, her son was having a fit. He wanted something and couldn't find it or I can't remember we're in a restaurant. And I'm like, Hey, come on. We'll go outside and you can yell at my daughter's like. And I said he'll be fine. Then he'll be fine. And he calmed down. And we came back in. And I did it twice, I had to do it twice with him. He's very used to getting his way. And when he came back in, he was like, Oh, if I cry, Nene is gonna take

Marci Melzer  35:14  
me out again. So, so there's another lesson for everybody. I mean, I know that this is not, you know, I'm sure I'm singing to the choir here. But you talk about consistency, you must be talking about consistency. And how when you see this problem, it's going to keep coming up if you don't just stop and address it. And okay, maybe you didn't get to eat your food on time, or you know, whatever. Like you didn't get to sit and have conversation with the adults at the table. But you guys chose to take a kid with you to the restaurant. So you can't just leave the kids. I mean, you chose to take your child, if you want to have adult conversation, you hire a babysitter. Right? Oh, I love you. mean, now you feel bad that you can't have adult conversation because I can't afford to eat and have a babysitter. So you're going to suffer through your meal. You see, just wait. Do your own delayed gratification, right mama exactly the weekend this week, but we can go have dinner every other Saturday. And it's just grown up time. And in the middle. We'll spend time with our kids. And when you swap babysitting with someone else, or you figure out because you just like your brother, I know you want what you want right now we all do. It's human nature. It's human nature. But again, what are you reflecting to your child? When you make them suffer for your benefit? Right? What are you showing them how to turn it around and do it straight back to ya?

DJ Stutz  36:46  
Well, and here's another thing you can do if you're going out or whatever it is, you let them see, oh, we're going into church, oh, we're going into a movie or to dinner or whatever, we're leaving our phone in that car. It's not even available to you. And not even to me, right? And you've told them ahead of time. When we go to x, whatever it is, that's not a fun place.

Marci Melzer  37:13  
That right is a it's a no phone zone.

DJ Stutz  37:16  
We're gonna use our manners, we're gonna have it's right conversation,

Marci Melzer  37:20  
because a lot of the time you're all going there together. And see, this is also a problem that parents fall into a habit, a habit that parents fall into, and you're in your own head making your itinerary. Yeah,

DJ Stutz  37:31  
you know, and I love the idea of having an itinerary. And so that's what you've got to do. When I would go out and do my errands, and blessed me, I only had two preschoolers at home at a time. So they wasn't on purpose, but that's how they were faced. And so I would have two kids usually in the car with me. And we could have a list. And first we're going to do this. And then they could cross it off when it was right. Okay, right.

Marci Melzer  38:03  
Since they're part of right, you give them jobs. So we're going to the cleaner, you're going to give them the stuff and you're going to give them the credit card. And now we're going to the groceries, everybody's got to help carry or you go and find the milk and you go and find the cereal, that kind of stuff. And another

DJ Stutz  38:20  
list is I put in after this then 20 minutes at the park.

Marci Melzer  38:25  
Right? You always keypad schedule in super cool thing. So it's super hot out, we have no milk or ice cream, let's go to the store. And we're definitely gonna buy ice cream at the store. And then when we come home, we'll have splashpad time and then ice cream. But we can't have any of that until we go to the store exam. So come on, let's go to the store. And I'm gonna help you make it easy fun. And that's the thing. You as the grown up know how to make everything easy and fun. It's when you're stuck into I got to do this and do this faster. Do it baba, baba, you know when you're not having fun, and they're not having fun because you're too big of a hurry because you haven't planned ahead and you haven't got your itinerary. That's what happened. It just parenting catches up with you. And you turn into a firefighter solving problem solving problem solving problem solving problems putting out fires, instead of the prevention in the head at teaching. So those are the biggest I would say takeaways from this podcast, if I could help you summarize, when I do a podcast to obviously we're talking about virtual autism, kids are being diagnosed with autism getting that stamp either at school or at the whatevers. And a big majority of them do not have the disorder. They're just getting it because of the systems. And so what that means is, that means it comes down to you as the mom and dad to rely Is what you're being offered. You know, because you're getting something for free with your services or whatever you're getting offered, you know what I mean? Pay attention to what that is see what it is and all that. And if it doesn't sound like time on the playground where kids get to be with kids and learn and practice, things like that, if that's not what that education environment sounds like to you, then you really need to second guess it. Find another one. And the best thing is, if you can't find one, take a break, your child's already late, take six months and dig in or one year and dig into a homeschool situation where maybe they'll be behind academically, they can always catch up on algebra, moms and dads, but they will never catch up with seeking and social skills. And those pre academics like sharing and listening in a group and all those things that DJ is talking about, because you want your child to be able to go and learn from the teacher. And you want the teacher to be able to see your child is one of those kids ready to show up to learn. Now they don't come out automatically like that, that comes from moms and dads and caregivers doing it. So even if your child is now in special ed or they're in other things, you've got weeks left of this summer to be able to help yourself or if you're watching this in the fall, you've got your child's whole life to turn this around, and you've got all the time you have with them. Even if you're working full time and it's before and after school or the weekends, you have that time Don't give it away to professionals. Don't give it away to devices

DJ Stutz  41:36  
you are. Love it. I love it. Let's talk for a minute Marcy about your podcast because I want parents to know where to find you because you have so much great information. They can listen to listen to mine,

Marci Melzer  41:47  
while recording this in July. And I just hit 6000 subscribers yesterday. So I'm pretty proud of. I've been at it for about six years, there's 800 videos on my YouTube channel. And that's where it starts. But I also have a podcast called the language facilitation helpline podcast. So if you like to listen, you go there. If you'd like to watch, you go to YouTube, you might really like those YouTube videos, because every one is like a lesson there are slides and videos. And I recommend other videos from the channel. So if you are really in the mindset of I'm motivated to help my child get caught up so that I can send them to school, ready to speak and be social and all of that stuff, waves of communication on YouTube is the best place to find all of that. And then I have a website where I offer coaching. I've written some books, I've got all kinds of other stuff, too. So if the YouTube videos aren't enough, I know a lot of people are going to the YouTube University. And that's why I created my own coursework there. But on my website, I have workshops and trainings and coaching offerings, and you can buy my books and all of that stuff at waves of communication.com. So Marcy,

DJ Stutz  43:05  
You're wonderful i You make me tired, just thinking of all the things that you have going on. You're doing so great. So mercy before we go, because I always ask my guests the exact same question at the end of the podcast. But how would you describe a successful parent since we know there are no perfect ones. 

Marci Melzer  43:22  
If I had to go with an analogy, word, it would be old school, old school parenting, like your grandma's did. They taught you the stuff that you needed for life, how to cook for yourself, how to clean up after yourself, how to do all that stuff for yourself, how to take care of yourself so that you don't have to depend on other people. And you can communicate all your wisdom with the world. So old school parenting, where you share the experiences of your life and teach your child through those things. That's my favorite parenting model.

DJ Stutz  43:56  
I love you. So good. Yes. So everybody, if you are listening on the podcast, please leave us a rating and a review. And if you go down on whatever format even Rumble on YouTube, if you go down into the show notes, we're gonna have all of Marci's information and how to connect. If you're on Rumble or YouTube. Be sure to follow... hit that follow button. And then leave a comment. I'd love to hear what you're thinking about what we're putting out there. We love that. And so, Marci, thank you for joining us and being part of things and to everybody else. Let's find joy in parenting. Bye, everyone.

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