Welcome to the Exploring Neurodiversity Podcast for adults who support Neurodivergent children.

Whether you're an allied health professional, medical professional, education professional or a parent of a Neurodivergent child, you are welcome here.

This podcast is recorded on the Aboriginal lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people.

I acknowledge the traditional owners elders past and present, and I extend my acknowledgement to any Aboriginal first nations people listening in.

I'm Adina from Play.

Learn.

Chat.

I'm an autistic ADHDer, a speech therapist, professional educator speaker, and I also support Neurodivergent Business owners in my other business, neurodivergent Business Coaching and Consulting.

I'm obsessed with creating a world when Neurodivergent people are understood, embraced, supported, and celebrated.

A world where we Neurodivergent people can understand ourselves and thrive in a life aligned with our individual strengths, wants and needs.

On the Exploring Neurodiversity Podcast, you'll get my perspectives and conversations with my Neurodivergent friends.

All about how adults can best support Neurodivergent children in our lives.

I bring a Neurodiversity Affirming approach and indeed a human affirming approach to the support that we all provide for Neurodivergent kids in our lives.

Let's dive in.

This podcast episode is a crossover between my two podcasts, exploring neurodiversity and differently aligned.

So you're gonna hear me talk about all of the things that I share in both of my businesses.

I love to talk about neurodiversity affirming practice, how it applies to supporting Neurodivergent children to feel supported, secure.

Connected, seen and understood by the grownups around them.

And that is the Exploring Neurodiversity Podcast with my business, Play learn Chat.

In my other business.

Differently Aligned podcast is where I share my neurodiversity affirming approach to running business as a neurodivergent business owner.

Which is aligned with my business, neurodivergent, business coaching and consulting.

So wherever you're listening to this, thank you for being here.

And if you happen to have a crossover interest in the other area, go to the link in show notes and you'll be able to find my podcast, the other one that you're not listening to right now, and go over, check it out, subscribe and follow along.

Now, the reason I've chosen to do a crossover, even if it might not seem completely obvious, why, is because at the core of what I share, it's all the same messages.

It's all the same ideas, just applied in different ways, whether we're talking about children, adults.

Business owners, neurodiversity affirming approaches are all about understanding what the true experience is for an individual, believing that that individual's experience is true for them, and finding ways to support that individual, or if you are that individual, finding ways to support yourself that are aligned with the truest version of you, not necessarily following a path that is normal expected standard.

This episode is in response to a few messages that have come to me wondering how anybody grows or learns or develops if we are being neurodiversity affirming.

I think it's such a myth.

It's such a misconception that neurodiversity affirming approaches just mean being permissive, going along with exactly whatever a neurodivergent individual wants, and never doing anything hard or progressing or stretching outside comfort zones.

I mean, comfort zones itself is a really interesting concept but.

This is the deep misconception.

A neurodiversity affirming approach doesn't assume that neurodivergent people are just going to stay wherever they are.

doing comfortable things, whatever seems easy.

That is not it.

We can do hard things.

We can learn new stuff.

We can teach the children in our lives new stuff, we can try new stuff, we can stretch ourselves and we absolutely should.

That's the experience of life.

But the biggest key here is in the title, and I'm gonna say it over and over, is you can do the right hard things with the right support at the right time.

I've got a visual model for this that I have linked in my blog post about this episode.

So in the show notes, you're gonna find a link to my website and that is gonna have the visual, but I'm gonna talk you through it and then give you some examples about how this doing hard things model applies to children, to adults, and to neurodivergent business owners.

So mostly it's amazing.

It's wonderful.

It's important in life to do things that you enjoy, to do things that feel good, to do things that feel right and comfortable and safe.

And sometimes it's important to do hard things for good reasons.

Now, good reasons is a real big catchall phrase, but the idea there is that these good reasons could be things like safety, long-term wellbeing, meeting long-term goals that you, yourself or the individual you're supporting has things that will generally help that person Longer term in life.

Sometimes good things are about.

Keeping connected to people around you in a negotiation, the dance of social interactions where sometimes we have conflicting needs or conflicting comforts and therefore sometimes just, sometimes we might need to do hard things for us for the good reason of helping somebody else.

There are lots of good reasons, and I'm not here to spell them out for you because it's very context based and it's very personal.

What are the good reasons for doing hard things?

I'm kind of imagine it with capital letters, like a hard thing.

You know, again, that's a catchall phrase.

Whatever this hard thing is.

It varies moment by moment, by context, by perception.

Something that was an easy thing yesterday might be a hard thing today.

It doesn't only mean new things.

Whenever it's decided that it's a good idea to do this hard thing, you need to make sure that it's done with the right support and at the right time.

I will make this concrete.

We're going into examples in a moment.

But let me tell you the six aspects that I recommend looking at to make it as easy as possible to do the hard thing.

Firstly, it's really important to focus on the big and small motivations.

Understand what are the good reasons behind doing the hard thing, and sometimes adding small motivations can be really, really helpful.

For some grownups, it's simply putting a checkbox on a to-do list.

For some kids, it can be a token reinforcer, like grabbing a sticker.

Very, very individualized.

Ideally the motivation is intrinsic.

It's within that person.

They are personally driven to get the outcome that that hard thing will lead them to.

But sometimes we do also need to build in small motivators that are aligned with what a person truly wants.

It helps them get over the line for those extra little bits of motivation that are lacking.

And importantly, they're not used manipulatively.

Ideally, these small motivations are self-driven by the person who is doing the hard thing.

My little example today is I really wanted to get Facebook ads up and running, and I wanted to paint my nails.

The hard thing was all the pieces that go into getting my Facebook ads up, I'm pretty good at it.

I've done it a lot of times and it's still kind of hard, so I did it and then I painted my nails.

Hooray.

As a grownup, I get to decide that for myself.

What other little and big motivators that I put in place to help myself get excited or be ready and interested in doing the hard thing.

Another way to make it as easy as possible is to pick your ideal attention time.

This takes a lot of experimenting.

You're not always gonna get it right.

But there might be some general patterns about when you or when the child has the best possible attention for that kind of hard thing.

Another way to make it as easy as possible is to have maximum support for sensory needs.

So making sure that there is sensory regulation and sensory comfort when attempting to do the hard thing.

And equally, having maximum emotional regulation is super important too.

There might be a day where you plan to do that big hard thing, but then something made your emotions go really way off.

You just know that it's a really tricky day.

You're feeling triggered, you're feeling frustrated already before, anything hard has even happened, and that might be a great reason to delay doing the hard thing to another day, or at least to prioritize emotional regulation before diving into the hard thing.

Getting help from other people is another really, really important way to make it as easy as possible.

Maybe that's learning from other people, getting examples from other people, having tutoring, having an assistant, having a support person, having a coach, a therapist, family member, friend.

There's just so many ways this can look, but use the people in your world.

To help you do the hard thing.

And finally, using all your support tools and systems possible to help you do the hard thing is so important.

If it crosses your mind that this certain thing might help, just do the thing, put that thing in place or get comfortable or.

Get the right music happening, whatever it is that you can think of that will help you do the hard thing, just a little bit easier, do that.

There's no shame in making hard things easy.

It's a brilliant life hack, and it's the key to actually growing in a sustainable way without heading down a path of stress and burnout and exhaustion and self-doubt when we try to do things that are way too hard for us in that particular moment.

So let me talk you through some examples to make this a little bit concrete.

Now, a lot of the audience, especially on my Exploring Neurodiversity podcast.

are, professionals who support neurodivergent children, there are also many parents listening, or people who work with children in different capacities or care for children.

So we are gonna talk about supporting an autistic child who's learning to read at school and how this idea of doing the right hard things with the right motivation at the right time, with the right supports, it's fine because you can make it as easy as possible to get the hard thing done.

So we're talking about Mason, age six.

He's in year one, and he really, really struggled throughout kindergarten to learn to read.

His kindergarten teacher insisted on pushing his reading forward.

Even when he was getting upset, frustrated, and disheartened because he wasn't getting the same progress that his peers were.

He was becoming more and more aware of his difficulty in shutting down and his teacher continued to persist because she felt that she had to get him to a particular reading level.

But the pushing continued.

To push Mason further and further away from wanting to read.

However, here's the motivation, here's the reason.

First of all, literacy is generally where it's available, seen as a good thing for everyone to have, in as much as they can possibly do with the right supports in their life.

Literacy helps us keep connected with the world.

It opens up so many opportunities.

I am not gonna keep selling the value of it, but I am gonna say literacy is not available to everyone and it looks different to everyone anyway.

Mason also loves animals, and he's got such a deep curiosity and he wants to learn more about animals.

He started choosing library books and books at home about animals.

And he's getting curious and bringing them to the grownups around him for them to read more to him, which he hadn't done most of kindergarten.

So on his own, he started to recognize that he wants to learn to read so that he can get the information from these books.

This idea of making it as easy as possible for Mason, it looks like this Mason and the grownups around him are reminding him of his interest and allowing him to pursue reading around his interest of animals.

They're supporting his ideal attention time by doing reading time early in the morning.

Pretty much when Mason wakes up 'cause he is very alert and very on when he wakes up fresh, they're not trying to do reading in the evening because he gets easily frustrated at that time and that's a pattern that they know day after day.

Mason's family and teachers are giving maximum support for his sensory needs before diving into reading.

So he's helped create a reading corner at home and at school, and he is had that agency and that support from the people around him to build a space that feels great to him.

On the note of emotional regulation.

His parents and teachers understand that he can easily get into frustration and when he does, that might be reading time shut down for the rest of that day.

So they're proceeding gently.

And that's working.

Letting Mason lead.

The reading time is working 'cause he wants to do it.

He's moving forward, he's asking to do it, but it can't always be hard for him when things are too hard, when he is getting too frustrated, when he is too tired 'cause he hasn't slept well the night before.

The grownups around him helped by reading to him without any shame, without any judgment.

It's just on offer so that he can access the information he's curious about in those books without him having to feel that he's forced to do the hard thing on a day where everything feels too hard.

I hope that is a clear demonstration of some of the ways that these aspects of making things as easy as possible to do the hard thing can pay off.

Mason, can progress in his reading.

He is progressing in his reading.

It's in the right way at the right time with the right support.

And now let's flip it to an adult.

We are gonna say that this adult is a business owner an ADHDer Lois, who recognizes that her work is completely chaotic.

Lois is a graphic designer and she absolutely loves her work.

She's really energized by her design work and absolutely avoids all admin.

She avoids invoicing.

She avoids spreadsheets.

I mean, personally, I love them, but this is Lois.

She avoids any of the business parts of business and just wants to do the work.

Lois recognized that she needed a project management system, and she settled on one she's ready to implement.

It looks pretty enough.

She's keen, she's got the right idea about the hard thing that she wants to do because she recognizes that that hard thing of learning this project management app and.

Using it day to day, getting into these habits and patterns.

This is hard for her.

She's never done it by default.

She's never stuck with a list for more than five minutes, but she just knows that it's time to tame all of the load of stuff that's in her brain, and obviously always getting forgotten and left behind, and the guilt associated with that.

And the missed business opportunities.

She knows it's time to tame it and put it into an app and make some sense of it all.

So she's got the idea.

It's a good thing for her to do that she's decided, but it's not her usual groove, so it is gonna be really, really hard.

Lois is gonna make it as easy as possible for herself.

She is going to focus on those big and small motivations by writing on a post-it note.

Exactly what the outcome will be.

When I learn to use clickup, I will take all the junk outta my brain.

I won't forget so much stuff, and I'll make more money.

That's so cool.

Right in front of her, she's gonna pick her ideal attention time.

Lois commits to watching.

Step-by-step videos from another neurodivergent business owner that she has seen a little bit on YouTube and decides that the how-to videos are gonna work for her, but she picks a particular mid-morning time and a particular favorite cafe to go to and watch these videos.

Lois is gonna set up maximum support for her sensory needs to be able to be ready to do the hard thing.

She's gonna have her favorite coffee in her favorite environment with noise cancelling headphones, so she doesn't hear all the coffee making going on around her.

She's gonna wear her comfiest, most bright sparkly clothes to feel kind of joyful, fun, and comfortable while she's doing this hard thing.

Lois is also going to have a little pep talk with herself before each of these sessions where she's trying to learn the new thing to remind herself that it is hard and it might feel like slow going and it might feel like she wants to run away and do anything else, but every little step forward is gonna be an improvement.

That's part of her emotional regulation.

She's gonna be supporting herself to be okay as she's moving through the steps of learning something really new and different for her, and on a day where the kids were quite wild that morning and she turns up at the cafe and she's feeling completely dysregulated and absolutely distracted.

And a client has sent her a grumpy email or she's not quite sure if it's grumpy, but it feels that way a little bit.

She's feeling just completely off.

She decides that is not a day to do the hard thing.

She puts that aside to another day.

The hard thing can wait.

Lois also decides to get help from other people.

By working with a business coach and a community where she can chat back and forth and get support along the way from expert people.

Even just watching that YouTube video tutorial is a way of getting help from other people.

You know, watching people who've gone before you to see how it can be done.

It is a brilliant way where you don't have to learn it all from scratch.

So.

I really hope that these two examples, while they seem quite different, it's the same framework applied to these ideas of doing hard things, but with the right reasons and with the right support and at the right time.

I'd love you to reflect on your own experience, whether you're neurodivergent or not, your own personal experience of learning something hard or doing something hard.

Maybe it's facing a tricky conversation or.

Writing a report that seems -particularly complex for you or turning up at a meeting where you need to be a really strong advocate for somebody.

It can be physical challenges.

Maybe it's, you know, running a marathon and training for that.

Maybe it's.

Simply getting up off the couch to put the washing away.

You get to define what the hard thing is in any one moment.

If it feels hard, it is hard.

That's a valid, real experience.

Nothing is too big or small to be deemed a hard thing, but I hope that this framework of doing the right hard things with the right reasons, at the right time, with the right support is useful for you and for the people that you support.

Now I wanna share two ways that I can help you do hard things and I can be part of that support.

I'll be sharing one from each of my businesses and all the links that will take you to where you need to go are in the show notes.

Firstly, if you are a neurodivergent service based business owner, you are invited to my upcoming free webinar.

It's on the 19th of May, 2025 if you're listening after the fact.

You'll still be able to go to the link in the show notes and go and check out what else I have available for you that other ways that I can support you as a neurodivergent business owner.

But anyway, on the 19th of May, I'm running a free webinar called Shift Your Business from Burnout to Boundless, and I am so, so excited to be sharing Neurodivergent friendly ways that you can build your business so that it is far away from burnout land and in a direction that really makes you feel.

That you are in your element doing less and less hard things.

'cause everything that you do in your business, if you are a business owner, should eventually be up to you.

You are the boss, but it takes a lot of intentionality.

And so I call a lot of this out and share lots of strategies and ideas for how you can shift your business away from burnout and into a boundless future that works for you.

That is free.

And the registration for that is in the show notes.

And at the end of that webinar, I'll be sharing about my Neurodivergent Business Collective, which is my membership for neurodivergent business owners.

It's a delightful online space where I can be that support for so many people, and we have a beautiful community.

And yeah, I just absolutely love helping other business owners do things in a way that works more for them.

And on a similar note, I have also just released a webinar through play, learn chat, but kind of co-presented from Neurodivergent Business Coaching and Consulting.

I brought both of my brains together for this one, diversifying revenue Streams for Allied Health professionals, and I'm sharing innovative business models to fit your brain, your life, and the unpredictable NDIS landscape.

For those who are in Australia.

You'll know exactly what that means, but wherever you are in the world, having a more diverse lineup of things that happen in your business is only going to benefit you.

And I really encourage people to think outside the box for the supports you offer people, because it will also benefit.

The people that you support.

I've got 30% off that webinar until the 15th of May.

But if you're listening after the fact, please go check it out anyway and see what's available, what is on offer, and how I can support you to be your best self.

Whether you are running a business, whether you are, you're a divergent, running a business, whether you're an adult supporting children who are having a hard time in life because life is built on hard mode for them.

I want you to find ways that you can support them to make their hard things as easy as possible, and make sure that the hard things that they're working on are the right hard things for them.

As always, I'd love to hear your feedback, your questions, your suggestions about what else you'd like me to share.

Thank you so much for sharing this space and time with me.

Thank you for being open to learning and unlearning and to listening to the perspectives and experiences of Neurodivergent folks.

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend, share a screenshot on Instagram, pop a five star rating and a review in your favorite app.

And join me on Instagram and Facebook.

I'm @play.Learn.chat.

Have a beautiful day.