With Christian Vinceneux, a life and parent coach who helps anxious and exhausted neurodivergent families to thrive. From growing up as an anxious kid in a neurodivergent family to working as an occupational therapist for over 30 years, Christian has developed a unique approach to help parents relieve stress in their home, restore calm, balance parenting with their personal and professional roles creating practical changes for themselves and for their child. Christian also works with families dealing with issues related to ADHD, Autism, Bipolar, OCD, Dyslexia, Tourette’s, SPD, HSP/Empath, etc.

In this conversation, Christian shares some information and tips on how anxious and exhausted parents can support their kids with neurodivergent issues. He also talks about how important it is to get the right diagnosis to help you get pointed in the right direction, get access to the right type of support, and improve your quality of life.You will love the wisdom and perspective that Christian brings to this conversation!

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• “Emotions always show up. You can’t surpass them, they just spill into something else.”
• In Western society, people don’t have the mindset of looking at the roots of the problem.
• Parenting, with added neurodivergent challenges on top, is a lot more difficult.
• Why is body movement important for neurodivergent kids?
• Entrepreneurship attracts a lot of people with ADHD.

“Don’t ignore what is difficult, whether it’s with your child or with yourself… if you’re finding yourself always exhausted with certain things or people, start looking at that because that’s going to help you get closer to who you really are and improve your quality of life.”

-Christian Vinceneux

Check out these highlights:

• 04:05 Christian shares his experience growing up as a neurodivergent child.
• 23:51 What Christian sees in the families with no support.
• 26:33 Christian shares his philosophy and how he applies it to his work.
• 32:53 Challenges faced by kids with neurodivergent issues.
• 36:06 How Christian transitioned from working as an Occupational Therapist to becoming a Parent Coach.
• 01:03:18 The common denominator with neurodivergent people.

How to get in touch with Christian:

On social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifeguidecoaching1/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeguidecoaching1/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-vinceneux/

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnIbYz703T5GL-5pVl_ZJyg

Learn more about Christian, by visiting his website at https://www.lifeguidecoaching.org/. You may also email him at christian@lifeguidecoaching.org

Special offer for listeners: You can schedule a free 30-minute video discovery session here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro  00:00

Coming up today on Guts, Grit and Great Business™ … 

Christian Vinceneux  00:04

Giving feedback to the child in a non judgmental way and saying things like, I can see you, you’re moving. Alright, it looks like your body needs to move right now. Is that an important piece of information? Yes, because the body needs to move a lot, and probably not going to change for years. It may be there for the whole life. So do we want it to develop as each time they feel like they need to move to feel guilty about it to feel ashamed. They know I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I always want to, you know, but I can’t work, say, Oh, my body needs to move right now I need to take a movement break and I’m going to walk around the house or work something out with the teacher and get a movement break. They’ll turn or you know, whatever it is, and and so when you start identifying what’s you know, what’s causing this problem? It’s not an excuse. It’s not a way to say oh, you can do whatever you want. It’s looking more like okay, how can I support my child’s needs better?

GGGB Intro  01:03

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business™ podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:36

On rainy Welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®, serving online information entrepreneurs throughout the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business™. I’m super excited for this conversation. We connected some time ago. And so it’s taken us a bit to get this on the books. But welcome to Christian Vinceneux. Welcome, Christian.

Christian Vinceneux  02:04

Thank you, Heather. It’s good to be here. And I’m glad we are finally doing this.

Heather Pearce Campbell  02:07

Yes, I am too well, this is a topic I care a lot about. And I think a lot of people are silently suffering, not having the right help with this in their lives. And so especially if you’re a parent, or you know, you’ve got friends and family in your life that our parents, it’s a super timely, relevant, very important conversation. For those of you that don’t know Christian Vinceneux, Christian is a parent coach. He helps anxious and exhausted neurodivergent families thrive. without guilt. He offers practical solutions for problems big and small. From growing up as an anxious kid and a neurodivergent family to working as an occupational therapist for over 30 years. And now as a parent coach, Christian has developed a unique approach to help parents create practical changes for themselves and for their child. Welcome, Christian. I’m super excited to have you here.

Christian Vinceneux  03:10

Thank you. Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:12

 Yeah, well, this is not a topic that I’ve really addressed on the podcast yet. And yet, for so many people, including many of my entrepreneur, friends in the entrepreneur space, who are parents of neurodivergent children, like this is an issue that many of us live with and need to learn more about, especially if we ourselves want to thrive. We want our children to thrive, which of course we do. Right. So I’m really curious about your background, if you’re willing to share a little bit about, you know, and let’s just go back to childhood, your experience as a neurodivergent child in your family.

Christian Vinceneux  03:56

Right? Well, let’s see. I always love to share stories. So that’ll be a  good opportunity. It’s funny because as kids, of course, we don’t know what’s happening. We just absorb, and we do the best we can to cope with what we have. And then we form our experiences. And so that was very much my experience growing up, you know, feeling like everything was just the way it was supposed to be. And, but in retrospect, I realized that my dad was definitely on the neurodivergent side. He was very kind very smart. But he was, you would most likely qualify as a highly sensitive person HSP and so, what that meant is that he had a lot of sensory sensitivities. So he felt fine as long as all the stars were aligned and everything was was perfectly matching the requirements of his nervous system, but when things were not good for him, then he just didn’t feel good. And he would get cranky would get. You know, I was fortunate there was never any violence or anything like this. But, you know, for example, he was very noise sensitive, those probably the biggest. So, you know, little kids playing well, that creates some noise. So there was often a reminder to keep things down and to not make so much noise. And some of it could have been also, you know, older generations and things that were a little different. But overall, he was just, you know, noise. It’s something that dysregulated him and then he didn’t like a lot of sudden changes. So anything unexpected somebody coming to visit without being announced, it was just what is wrong with that person, we just can’t do that. And because that would, it wasn’t so much a rule, but it was, it took a while for him to kind of readjust and go with the flow. And so he preferred to know ahead of time, or he didn’t like son was one that sounds funny, but he didn’t like windy conditions. So if he loves to be outdoors, and you’d love to explore and go hiking, and there was a day where we had planned to be adults on the weekend to go visit something and it was really windy, then he would just, he was basically okay, we either put up with that being cranky all day, or we go home early. So it was sometime it was one or the other, but you know, there was a smell and you know, too much garlic in the food, my mom like garlic hit dedans, or like more of a bland diet, and she liked a little more, you know, more flavorful foods and so, there was just a lot of those little situations that created an impact without knowing it, without realizing it. Because, you know, if we went somewhere where we had to be aware of those things, we were reminded, quite often not to make too much noise or, and then my mom was very anxious, I suspected she was probably an empath. You know, very loving, highly, highly anxious. And that showed up in different ways. But some of the ways it showed was to control control my sister and I and to say oh, no, don’t do this, because this bad thing could happen. Or you could hurt yourself or you could so you know a lot of cautioning us of the possible dangers.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:42

Oh my gosh, I can just hear by the way, all the bells going off for people. Yeah, I think so. I think so many of us, whether somebody in our life has a diagnosis or not, can relate to some of what you’re saying. And like, I’m wondering, you know, as you discuss your Mom, do you feel like she felt it was her job to kind of try to mitigate some of those impacts for your dad? Like did any of the anxiety stem from trying to control the scenario so that there was less of the type of impact that would upset your dad?

Christian Vinceneux  08:18

Very much. So no, that’s a great question. Because she was very much a peacemaker. So she wanted everybody to be okay. Constantly. So she would, which of course, you know, so that was the plus side. The downside was that I never learned as a kid to process to manage my so called uncomfortable emotions because as soon as sadness or anger or frustration was expressed, the response from my mom was something along the lines of, Oh, don’t do that. It’s gonna make me sad.

Heather Pearce Campbell  08:53

We need to calm that down. We need to not…

Christian Vinceneux  08:56

And so again, it was done in somewhat of a loving way. That it created a lot of confusion because I just learned as a kid and even teenager that okay, you know, being sad is wrong. Being angry is wrong, being frustrated is wrong. So I just have to immediately you know, push it under the rug, but then what do you do with it, then how does it show up? Because the emotions always always show up. You can’t suppress them. They just spill into something else. So there was that you know, that going on? And then…

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:31

So did you feel as a kid like, I mean, obviously, you probably had some awareness of that, but did you feel overly contained? Like how would you describe your feelings as a kid like obviously I heard you express, you know, having big emotions was wrong or having the negative emotions felt wrong.

Christian Vinceneux  09:50

The overarching feeling at the time was that I grew up super shy. And I’m not sure you know how much was no nurture versus nature, I think it was both. And that’s my best guess. But I can see her with, you know, with the dad who was often correcting me in terms of oh, you making too much noise or don’t do this or so that made me really hyper aware of doing and then with my mom somewhat, you know, suppressing or cutting short my emotional expression, I often felt very, very self conscious and very shy in terms of, you know, I felt like I think I was walking on eggshells, and you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna upset my parents. And then what I saw, to kind of, like, emphasize that to or that was was that when, you know, my mind, I could see how my mom’s sensitivity was just, I could see her if I said the wrong thing or something that was upsetting to her, it would really affect her. And it really affected me emotionally. And so I learned very early on to, to take care of my parents emotionally without realizing that I was doing that. So I really took on this burden of making sure that they were okay. And learning what how to, you know what to say or what to do that was going to keep them comfortable. And they never asked me to do that. And but that’s how it was…

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:32

A natural response. Right. I think it’s a natural response for so many people, it’s, you know, whether it’s your mom responding to your dad’s, you know, relationship to the like, the noises or whatever, I think that it’s human nature, to want as much as possible to live in peace, right? It can be really hard when people around us are dysregulated. And we have these things called mirror neurons, and we end up feeling what they’re feeling and right. It’s it can be really stressful. And so I think, like, I don’t want to condemn the motivation, but the impact can really be tremendous. Right?

Christian Vinceneux  12:11

Right. No, absolutely. And it was so, you know, out of that. When I found my, you know, fast forward several years, and I graduated as an occupational therapist, and then I, you know, I started working with kids who had a variety of conditions, you know, and the timing of the emphasis was definitely more on calling those conditions disabilities, you know, right now, it’s changing a lot that disorders, you know, and whether it was ADHD, whether it was autism, whether it was, you know, sensory processing disorders, learning disabilities, but basically, I started working with kids who were often very sensitive, we were often on edge, because they either were, they were usually told repeatedly that they weren’t doing the right thing. And they were told repeatedly that they had to try harder when they were trying harder than any other kid. And they were trying to fit in, they were trying to learn, they were trying to and they were very capable of learning, but not necessarily the same way that some of the other kids were and so I started working with those kids, and you know, many of them were so shut down or angry or just, you know, super shy, and, and somehow just nobody had to tell me what to do. Because I mean, yes, I had the  occupational therapy training of, okay, we’re going to do an evaluation, and we’re going to target some goals. And we’re going to work on things that I just knew when it was time to push a little when they needed more stimulation, and they were bored, because, you know, not enough was happening, or they were shutting down because there was too much happening. And even though everybody in the room may have thought, there’s nothing happening. This is really simple. But I could tell that the child was overwhelmed. So I would immediately I think, probably because that was, you know, I had been well trained by my parents, I knew how to back off and I knew how to do the right thing and say the right thing energetically to keep that child calm and make them feel safe. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  14:21

So like now you’ve got this superpower, right? Isn’t this interesting? Yes, that you really had developed almost an intuitive part of yourself that just knew what response they needed.

Christian Vinceneux  14:38

I know and it’s funny how things work in life because, you know, it’s often what happens the things that we grew up with that really or can be difficult and, and on one hand, if you had the choice, you probably wouldn’t choose that kind of combination and but I look back and say, Well, you know, if I wasn’t neurodivergent or if I had not grown up in an environment of with neuro divergence, I probably wouldn’t be doing this work today.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:08

Yeah, so well, and I was gonna ask you, at what point did you recognize that that was the work you wanted to be doing?

Christian Vinceneux  15:17

Well, I love to tell that story. So my mom was an accountant. And my dad was in management, like sales management. And so that’s what I heard at the dinner table when they talked about work. And it was not in a boring way. I mean, they made it seem interesting, and they would share just tidbits of this and that. And so when I graduated from high school, I had decided that I was going to go to college for a business major, because it just felt broad enough. And I thought, Well, God, give me plenty of opportunities to, you know, do different things. And so I started the first year in college, and halfway through the year, I don’t know why on that particular day, but I can actually still remember how the classroom look like. And it was late morning, and I just realized that I was bored. I was just so bored. And I was not really connecting with the professors. I was not gonna like connecting with the classes, the topics. I had a couple of friends, but they weren’t really great friends were in high school, I had, you know, I was fine. I was, you know, I had good amount of friends and so suddenly, it just hit me on that day. And I, without intentionally doing this, but I fast forward in my life. And I thought, oh, my gosh, if I keep going down this path, I’m going to turn 40. And I’m going to have a complete midlife crisis because there’ll be hating my wife. And I just had this vision of dread and boredom. And then I thought, wait a minute, this is wrong, because this is  not the high school anymore. This is college and choosing it. So I shouldn’t be maybe not enjoying every single class, but I should be enjoying some of the classes, I should be excited by what I’m learning and I was not, I thought what am I going to do and, and pretty quickly, you know, my at the time I was 18 in the first year of college. And so the first thought that came up was I want to help people. It was very broad, and then I started fine tuning it. And, you know, this was pre internet. So I took a lot of trips to the library and reading books and and but I read, my parents gave me this Bob me this, it was like this, I don’t know exactly what the title was. But it was a, like a career book. And it had, I think it’s something like 700 different professions. And it was a little, you know, a little paragraph for each other with kind of like, you know…

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:55

Jolly options, the Bible of options.

Christian Vinceneux  17:57

Yeah, exactly the options, and, you know, and some of the highlights of this professions and trainings. And so long story short, but I decided on occupational therapy, and I thought that’s, that’s what I want to do. And also, I finished the first year of college. And then it was too late to register for occupational therapy school. So I took a sabbatical, went to Thailand, went to Spain, and took more language classes, and then started occupational therapy school.

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:32

I love that well, and it just highlights the importance of paying attention to those moments where we’re observing something. And usually there’s a part of us that like, wants to not observe that thing or accept it right, and tell ourselves some other story. But, like, look, because you probably would have been right that had you gone down that other path that clearly was not the path for you.

Christian Vinceneux  18:58

I work with clients who are in this situation, unfortunately, yeah. Yeah. You know, 30s 40s 50s

Heather Pearce Campbell  19:08

They did the thing they thought they were supposed to do.

Christian Vinceneux  19:12

And when they look back, you know, they often trace it to some expectation either, you know, parent expectation that you know, sometime somewhat forced for where know you have to do this, we’re not going to let you do this and, or just, you know, enough parent expectations that somehow the Trump took that on

Heather Pearce Campbell  19:32

myself expectation that’s embedded. Yeah,

Christian Vinceneux  19:35

I really need to get my master’s from Harvard because, you know, it’s just better to have a prestigious degree. But this is a client who would come to me asking, so I just can’t make the decision about I want to go but I can’t quite pull the trigger. Florida and exploring, explore and then eventually they realized that the main reason they wanted to go to Harvard was because of parent expectations. And then when they finally faced, you know, what it was that they really wanted to do, say, Well, maybe someday, but not right now. And you know, I have other other clients who are in their 50s or reassessing their career, because they realize that just kind of ended up in one career and then pay the bills. And of course, they learned a lot, but they really burnt out and then not enjoying it, and, and they still need to work, trying to figure out how to make that transition. So I feel very grateful that that piece that parent expectation was not really strong with my parents. So obviously, the whole emotional thing was created some pressure, but they were quite okay with with me shifting and trying something different.

Heather Pearce Campbell  21:04

So that’s good. Well, it does. I mean, it’s a powerful example of the ways in which we can influence our children knowingly, unknowingly, right? I think so much of this is fairly mindless, which is why we need to get more mindful about it and understand the impacts.

Christian Vinceneux  21:23

Now very much so. And, you know, it’s always so sad when I run into someone I remember one day running into someone through for a while I took salsa classes now learn how to dance salsa, and it was just a fun part of my life friend hobby. So this woman was taking a class, so we just started chatting, and she shared that she was a physician, and I say, oh, you know, I made an assumption, shouldn’t have made but oh, you know, when did you know you wanted to be a physician. And she said, Well, I never wanted to be a physician, I actually don’t like to be a physician. And it was just, you know, some of it was painful to receive, because I could just see, as she was in the place, she was so unhappy. And it was, you know, expectations that came from her parents. You know, I heard that it was the physician. And I think there was someone else in the family who had been, and it was just that, you know, they really wanted the best for the daughter. But the best ended up being becoming very stressful.

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:30

You know, all of this, whether it’s in relation to careers, you know, that just thinking about the ways that we not only perceive but influence our children based on, you know, what we want, I think the point of all of this, and as I think the point of the parenting journey period really is to let go, right? To let go in a way that allows us to be the person that we need to be to allow our child to really flourish. And I think the heartbreaking part about that is people somewhere, recognize that wanted, et cetera, but I’m sure and my next question for you is, what do you see in these families that don’t have the support that they need to be able to do that? Like, where? Where are they intersecting with your path? And what do you hear happening, and here is the precursor to them coming to find somebody like you that can help them.

Christian Vinceneux  23:38

It shows up in a lot of different ways. I’m trying to think not to be too general, and the identify family that I can think of, it’s more specific. So the family that I’ve worked with on and off over the years, and there are some, so I’m also trying to filter because I don’t want to share too many how I get it, you know, where they could identify themselves or other people but both parents were very, very, you know, caring and committed and dedicated parents and they’re very invested. But long story short is that mom realized at some point that she was pushing too much. She was pushing her child with things like homework and to get perfect grades. And it was all coming from very good intentions. It was coming to also from anxiety of, you know, if my son has bad grades, you won’t have as many options in terms of future or college or so I want the best for him. And so, you know, it can’t be blamed for that, but what was happening is that as the child entered adolescence, he started pushing back more and more. And he started pushing back with the control also so they were, you know, there was more time spent on playing video games, there was more not participating in family life, just more expressions of being unhappy and, you know, more little angry bouts, you know, here and there and the parents who had a loss because they said, Well, what we’re doing everything right where you know, he’s just being, it’s just not being reasonable. So they could you know, they couldn’t see what was going on and when you know, what they tried for a while was, you know, as the very natural response from parents is, when the child starts pushing back too much, or when the child you know, becomes more angry or doesn’t want to do anything, the parents just push a little harder, then become stricter and set, you know, higher expectations, which most of the time backfires. And because it doesn’t truly acknowledge what is at the root of the issue, and I think as a society, you know, whereas Western society we’re not, we’re not in the habit, we don’t have the mindset of always looking at the roots of the problem, we tend to, oh, this is not acceptable, you know.

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:24

We look at the behavior, and we think that’s the wrong behavior, you know.

Christian Vinceneux  26:29

And so myangle, my philosophy is always to treat behavior as data, you know, to look at emotions as they are, and we can’t ignore the data because it’s really risky. And so data and what’s really difficult for parents, is that, okay, they look at the data, but they don’t know what to do with it. Yes, then what do you just then ignore it, or you try to do something and it doesn’t seem to work. So you just revert back to your old ways and do the best you can. So it’s, you know, it’s a type of, you know, it’s an example of where we’re having someone reaching out for, for professional help, can really get you out of that quagmire because you know, it can really help you, it can really help shine the light on what is going on, and understanding the dynamics of where everybody’s at work with what the child wants, what the parents want. And it’s not about saying, oh, one is right, and the other is wrong, it’s fine. But it’s never about that it’s really looking at, well, how can we? How can we create a bridge? How can we create better understanding of what of everybody’s needs? And then how can we come up with a system that is going to work for that family, which may not work with any other family?

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:48

Right? Well, this is the interesting thing about neurology, right, you have to map the individuals because there is a system and a family, right. And it’s about figuring out the  puzzle pieces and how they fit. Now, one thing that I have, because I’ve been pretty open about our own journey as parents, you know, our son, at a young age was really struggling to remain in preschools, he was getting out, he was getting kicked out of any preschool that we put him in, and generally the feeling, you know, and the message that got conveyed was just like, he’s too much. He’s just too much to handle, you know, and it was really clear to me early on, you know, and I’d had certain struggles at home feeling like, wow, this is really hard and like, feeling inadequate, as a mom, you know, just feeling like, wow, some things are really like, they feel really hard getting him out the door, felt impossible. The number of times I ended up in tears just sitting at our front door, you know. And so what I’ve regularly shared with other parents is like, if you’re having one of those points where you’re like, This just feels hard, and it feels consistently hard. And I don’t know, the way out. And yet, there’s some little nagging voice that says it shouldn’t really be this hard, right? I didn’t know how else to describe it. And, you know, there was a point when I’m not a person without resources, let’s be clear that across society, and I’m also pretty persistent. I’m blessed with a really persistent personality, right, which sometimes serves me well sometimes is a big problem. But I was not giving up obviously, on trying to figure out what the solution was because him getting kicked out of, and he was a highly highly social kid. The problem was that he was really motivated to socialize and he kept being excluded from experiences that would allow him that socialization, right, so it was like a weird experience of kind of being forced into being a helicopter parent, because there were no supports for him. Right and so by the time and it took forever, I’m in Seattle, and I thought there’s got to be supports, there’s got to be ways that there are programs out there for kids that will and it took us a year and a half start to finish, to get a therapist that would do a full analysis, do a diagnosis to also get an evaluation through the public school system. He was four years and eight months, before he got placed in a preschool that wouldn’t kick him out, because it was a public preschool, and he had a diagnosis. But it was devastating to me that he had all those years of not experiencing it. And anyways, I’ll shorten the story just a bit by saying that there was a point where I’m on the phone with a woman who had been referred to that was a therapist that worked with kids like my son, and she did like social therapy, like in a group. Brilliant, we were so grateful to have crossed her path, but we were just trying to have an introductory call. And as a parent with a child with challenges, having a telephone call was like, no small thing, it was always a big deal. There were times I had to like leave the house and lock the door to make sure I could attend a telephone call. And on this particular day, because I was so concerned about being able to have this phone call, I actually went to a playground, because I thought it’d be outside, he can run around like this won’t be a problem. I’m like one minute into the call with this woman and I look over, and he and a kid are fighting, like rolling around on the ground, punching each other. And I lost it, I broke down in tears because I couldn’t even have the conversation. And I just had to tell her, right. And so I’m just highlighting just that little vignette, if you will, because one, I’m gonna get emotional. I really want parents to know that if you’re at that point where everything’s feeling so hard, like you have to get support, you have to reach out because if we hadn’t, the delays, he ended up getting so much support that we finally got built in, but it took a while to get it. That’s the trouble with the system, right? So, you know, I just so appreciate and value the work that you do, and other people like you that help our little people and help us as parents figure out how to navigate this. But I want other parents to know and to hear those vignettes. And for us to all talk more openly about those struggles so that people can start to see themselves in those struggles, and also see that there is support available.

Christian Vinceneux  32:34

Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, yeah, and it’s an I you know, I know many parents can relate to that. And I think often that’s the tragedy is that kids are not, you know, kids who are a little different for whatever neurodivergent issues, whether or not they have a diagnosis. It’s really hard for them to get the right support, you know, they’re all there, they tend to be told now, you’re too much, you’re not enough, this is the wrong way of doing it. And then for parents, you know, there’s the sense of, you know, there can be so many feelings, there’s a sense of guilt, there’s a sense that you’re failing, there’s a sense that, you know, you must not be doing the right thing, obviously, because…

Heather Pearce Campbell  33:29

Because, you know, we’re all struggling, we’re all struggling. Yeah. 

Christian Vinceneux  33:32

And then, you know, I mean, any parenting is, everybody knows that parenting is difficult. But when you add neurodivergent challenge on top of that, it just exponentially make things a lot more difficult. And unfortunately, you know, it’s not a popular view that schools often don’t help.

Heather Pearce Campbell  33:53

No, they don’t. 

Christian Vinceneux  33:54

It make it worse

Heather Pearce Campbell  33:56

It make it worse. My son by the time he was placed in a preschool that couldn’t kick him out, he already had internalized. I’m the bad kid. I’m the bad guy, you know, which is exactly the path I wanted to avoid with him. But kids are not dumb. neurodiverse divergent kids are very sensitive and very aware. Right. And so that part was so painful to see that that early on, he had already internalized that I’m the bad kid. I’m the one with problems. I’m the one that people have to keep eyeballs on, you know, he just wanted the experience of just being a kid just running around like anybody else on the playground, but it’s yeah, it’s our school systems are right often don’t help and, you know, even people that are trying their best, like so for example, in one of his early preschools, we had a and it was a co op. So you actually as a parent kind of participated. I think it was like one day a week you would just show up and do an activity or support the school in some way and with our son We had to attend three days a week, and he only went three days a week, we had to be there with him full time. Like, again, this whole thing of like being forced into being the helicopter parent, even when you don’t want to, I had PTSD from having to attend preschool full time with him and just worry about like, what’s gonna go wrong? You know, what if what if he hit somebody because that was something that he was doing when he was frustrated, you know, to mean, like, just worrying so much about the impact of their people or their parents, the teacher and, and really feeling that all the weight was on my shoulders, to fix it to help him to be responsible for anything that could go wrong, right? 

Christian Vinceneux  35:45

It was a lot. You know, this is one what you’re describing is exactly what made me want to transition from working as an occupational therapist to becoming a parent coach, because I was doing great for all these years working with kids and the kids were getting better. And, but what I realized at some point is that no one was checking on the parents to see how their child’s therapy program was working for the whole family. Yes, and I remember talking to because often, children I worked with at the time had had multiple providers, they may have had a speech therapist, or they may have had a tutor, or they may have, you know, an A and so I would I would talk to the other providers about it. And they would just kind of like, look at me, like I had three heads and so well, but the child has problems, not the parents. I mean, like, No, you don’t get it like, don’t you see? I mean, don’t you talk with the child’s parents. And I would have, I think, because of you know, I’m being an empath, highly sensitive person myself. And, you know, when I started, including the parents in the sessions, and then I would have at times just consultation just for the parents, and we would have the child play in the background, but just so that there was that space to to really talk with the parents, it was really common that depends would break down my office and, and I thought, okay, and break down and have pure exhaustion or frustration with the system, and then being able to get the right help in the school or whatnot. And I thought, this is, you know, yeah, there’s this concept that, okay, if you’re going to help the child be better, you know, they’ll self regulate bearer, they’ll manage their behavior better, yes, or that works, it’s all good, that there’s still going to be this child is still going to be a little more challenging to to raise that then a neurotypical child, and no one was supporting the parents. And so little by little, that’s what kind of like, pushed me to transition. And I thought, you know, there’s I found that I had won so much over the years, but that it was some of that knowledge that was not being put to use. Now, if I could use it to specifically focus on the parents and, you know, give them tools, give them strategies, so that, you know, because often what we see is that, or what I see is, is, you know, let’s say that we have a child who’s too much, you know, too loud moves too much. We keep telling them all the things that they should not do. You need to you need to sit more you need to, but we’re not really looking at the root of the issue, we’re not looking at what’s going to really help them understand themselves. Well, little kids just don’t have time to understand themselves. No, I’ve worked on that with three year olds, yes. At their level, you can give them information that, you know, when they’re there, they’re moving a lot, let’s say they’re bouncing around and they’re starting to, you know, create some problems, maybe, you know, they could break things, or they could hit other kids or, you know, accidentally, the logical response is you need to sit down, you need to slow down, you need to, you know, need to just stop. Yeah. But that’s assuming that the child knows how to do that. That’s assuming that the child’s brain has the ability to say, oh, okay, let’s turn the volume down. Let’s calm myself down. But that doesn’t work with a lot of neurodivergent kids. I mean, it hardly works with neurotypical kids.

Christian Vinceneux  39:28

And so, you know, my approach is always to look at, okay, well, first, we’re going to, you know, there are lots of things that get somebody just not one strategy. But one thing to start giving feedback to the child in a non judgmental way and saying things like, I can see you you’re moving a lot. It looks like your body needs to move right now. Well, is that something that they need? Is that an important piece of information? Yes, because their body needs to move a lot. Yes, probably not going to change for years. Fine, it may be there for the whole life. So do we want it to develop as each time they feel like they need to move to feel guilty about it to feel ashamed. They know I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I always want to, you know, but I can’t. Or say, Oh, my body needs to move right now I need to take a movement break, and I’m going to walk around the house or work something out with the teacher and get a movement, right? They’ll turn or you know, whatever it is. And so when you start identifying what’s, you know, what’s causing this problem? It’s not an excuse, it’s not a way to say, Oh, you can do whatever you want. It’s looking more. Okay, how can I support my child’s needs better? Yeah, yeah, they do move more. Let’s give them movement opportunity. Let’s give them choices to hey, you know, I’ve noticed that when you come home from school, you know, your body wants to move on. And it’s hard to settle down. So usually, when you start having those kinds of conversation, the chances? Yeah, I mean, one way or another, they acknowledge because they get it, they get it. And so then you can move on, say, Well, you know, I wonder what we could do, I wonder if, you know, we should maybe spend a little more time in the playground after school, or, you know, spend some time on the trampoline outside in the yard, or, you know, go for whatever, you know, ride your bike, whatever it whatever is appropriate for the family, for the child for the and give them a couple of choices, even to just have things that they know already that they liked. And so that the child can start getting in the mindset of problem solving, of identifying their own needs and starting to think, Oh, well, what would I prefer, and then you close that loop afterwards, after the activity by saying something by reflecting and if the child does seem a little calmer, then you feed that back to them and say, you know, it looks like, this helps you it looks like jumping on a trampoline for, you know, X number of minutes and look like, you know, it’s it’s making it easier to sit down to do your homework. And so that it’s going to make it even easier for the child another time or six months down the road to say, I need a movement break, because I can’t focus. Yes. And it won’t be an excuse. It won’t be a way to get I mean, it could be that, you know, so. So that’s always my approach of looking at, you know, helping the parents to really identify what’s, what’s the need there that we’re not addressing? And how can we better address it? But in the process, I can we help the child? Can we teach the child how to self manage, because we don’t want to do everything for the Trump? No, right? They happen when they’re when they order and they don’t know how to self manage. So we want to start that as soon as possible. And each time I’ve had the opportunity to do that, you know, those kids are growing up as as being able to advocate for themselves being able to self manage a lot better. And without the guilt.

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:01

Yes. It’s you know, it’s such an important example, I remember, somewhere in those early years, those years where I was like desperate for the right help I read a book called What is it? It’s about it’s written by Howard Glasser of the children’s success foundation. It’s called some transforming the difficult child. So there’s a program called the nurtured Heart program. But basically, he was in the psychology world and and for years was being sent families that had some of the biggest difficulties. And it was always related to children with behavioral problems, right? I’m doing air quotes around problems. And he realized and the thing that I love, like the biggest takeaway from his work in his book, I cried, when I watched his videos on his website, I was like, oh, somebody who gets it, who understands my child is not a bad kid with behavioral problems, right? He was just saying, every behavior is a child’s attempt to get a certain needs met. It’s our job to help them and to help ourselves understand what is that need, right. So you’ve just demonstrated, one of the ways that you help your clients understand what that underlying need is, and in the process, help their little person also begin to understand that need right through that behavior. And it’s just such a powerful thing when you start to because I realized, like, there, there are no bad kids. All there are kids trying to get their needs met. And the saddest part is even still seeing you know, other parents talk about kids like oh, yeah, he’s just one of those really bad kids. And it’s like, no, I just want to like scream from the rooftops like No, even in the teenage years. That is not a bad kid. That is a that is a kid who has tried probably unsuccessfully in this way to get their needs met. Right. So I love that approach has done wonders for us in our house to understand that, and to be able to even help our little people check in with their bodies like, oh, I noticed we’re getting a little dysregulated we’re getting into the red zone, you want to check in with yourself? Are you feeling thirsty or hungry? Or do you just need to go run around outside, you know, and kind of help them brainstorm that list and choose something for themselves? Right?

Christian Vinceneux  45:27

That’s so great. So great, you’re doing that you get the right, help?

Heather Pearce Campbell  45:31

Well, it took I’d say it took a lot it took and the thing I love about your dream is recognizing the absence of support for parents, because you’re right, once the weird thing is like, once you have a diagnosis, and it’s like, okay, well, at least now I can start to go look, for example, at different therapies or like, you know, ABA therapy, which tends to be the automatic thing you enroll your kid in, if they have an autism diagnosis, right. And there are certain things that are just based around repetition, you know, that they’re going to learn based on repetition. So, you know, we did all the therapies, the ABA, we had a wonderful occupational therapist that we worked with for years until COVID hit and they couldn’t do it in person anymore. So, you know, that was painful to lose all these therapies all at once. But we learned a lot through all these therapies. And the final piece was, we found somebody who could help with the parent coaching. Right, we found we finally, but it took years, we got a referral to a woman who says I don’t work with the children, I work only exclusively with the parents, because my job is to map your neurology as parents, to hear your experiences of your child so I can help you try to map theirs, and then create systems that will help you navigate these difficult scenarios a little better, and create a result that, you know, is not harmful to the child. And that helps them do a better job of navigating this each time in the future. And it you know, it was amazing, getting her support and realizing like oh my gosh, we needed this like three years ago or four, you know, and we were still pretty early on in his journey, but still feeling like oh, my gosh, I wish we’d had this years ago. Right.

Christian Vinceneux  47:19

Now, that’s so true. And you know, the other side of this is, I work with adults who grew up as neurodivergent. Right? And who didn’t get the right support? Yeah. And, you know, I, as you know, I I post a lot on LinkedIn. So I posted,

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:42

I would just how I found you, yeah,

Christian Vinceneux  47:44

This, you know, Monday through Friday, usually, and I post a lot of event, a lot of different things that some is related to parenting to neurodivergence to mental health, sometimes more from the child standpoint, sometimes more from the parents standpoint. And in some of those posts, I’ve had so many adults share even things as you know, like what seems common today, but as a diagnosis, ADHD, and how traumatic it was, and how, you know, some people share and some of them shared, we’re comfortable enough to share it publicly on in the post comments and some, some semi private messages to say, Well, I’m responding to your post, but I’m not comfortable responding publicly. So I’m going to tell you and but people sharing the some of them were beat up for you know, by their parents, some of them were just bullied in school, or, you know, and they hated school, or they and and perfectly capable individuals, and you know, the successful individuals today, but they maintain many of them acknowledge this piece of, of, of trauma. Yeah. And I’m not saying

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:58

Repetitive trauma, right? Because the consistent messaging, right, and the way that I relate to this, it’s different, because, I mean, although some days I feel like I have ADHD, I you know, I’ve never gotten a diagnosis I don’t think I actually do. I think it’s the product of parenting and COVID and all of it coalescing, but like, every day, my brain feels like scrambled eggs at the end of the day, you know, I mean, I had that experience, often in COVID. But growing up, there was in my family, a lot of body shaming wasn’t like I was ever beat up or anything treacherous happened, but the consistency of that message. Right, just like I have to correlate that because I know what, like how it’s impacted me and how it continues to impact me as an adult. And I can only imagine that a child who the repetitive messaging is, you’re too much or you can’t sit still or you can’t measure up or you get better, you know, like there’s no way that that’s not going to have a long term impact,

Christian Vinceneux  50:01

it’s always going to have a long term impact. And it’s so, you know, on one hand, it’s the human resilience is, you know, beautiful, because you see the the kids who grew up with those conditions, and they still are able to be successful, and they still, you know, manage to find their way and to find their way in the lives that, you know, when people are in the space, the time in their life, where they’re willing, they’re comfortable, they feel safe enough to start reflecting on how much it’s affecting them, how much it’s not only how much it affected them as a kid, but how much it’s still affecting them today. How many negative beliefs they have developed by themselves? I can’t finish what I what I start, or I’m just, you know.

Heather Pearce Campbell  50:50

I’m not smart enough to do

Christian Vinceneux  50:52

The wrong thing meetings are trusted, or I can add.

Heather Pearce Campbell  50:57

Too much energy, and I just…

Christian Vinceneux  50:59

And so when they start looking at the budget, often, you know, with the way a whole system is, you know, with not a big emphasis on mental health. And often what happens is that these individuals, as adults, somehow accept that that’s just normal. And it always saddens me because it’s not like, there you know, there is no workshop in the world coaching program that overnight is going to eliminate that. You know, there’s no book, you know, it’s gonna give you a lot, you need to start building awareness. And then with each layer of awareness, you become aware of, you know, some things that you’re doing that you’re thinking some of your negative beliefs, some of your automatic reactions, and it becomes easier to challenge them to think well, do I really, where does this come in? How much is this impacting me? You know, I work I work with people who are realized that their ADHD has impacted their entire career trajectory. And that they have done things, we’re struggling this man the other day where I said, Well, you know, I just, I’m just realizing that I’ve been blaming myself my whole life, my whole professional life, from jumping around from job to job, and never lasting more than two years in the job. And it’s really taking a toll on my confidence and my self esteem, because I always seen myself as somebody flaky. And when you realize they weren’t the ADHD, brain likes novelty. We thrive on novelty. So you’re either going to, so if you don’t get the novelty in your job on a daily basis, then you’re going to it’s going to get stale really quickly. And you’re going to have to, you’re just going to be bored, you won’t be able to function, you won’t be able to be your best and, and and so that you can only work for different jobs. So then, you know, then it’s a matter of, and again, it’s never going to be me telling the person well, you need to do XYZ, but Okay, so now that you know this, you know, let’s start unpacking hearts affected you? Who’s the real you? When do you feel at your best, you know, and why I feel the best when I’m interacting with people. I hate meetings, I hate sitting down I hate but if it’s a one on one meeting, I’m good or, you know, it’s like, okay, well, as long as I’m working with, I’m moving around, or hey, so Are there jobs or careers or ways to you know, change your business to to include more of those things? And and is it easy? Of course not. And but it’s you know, it’s…

Heather Pearce Campbell  53:44

So you help people. It sounds like in your work, especially if they are neurodivergent adults, like start to recognize the patterns, the beliefs, like some of the stuff that is that they’re carrying around right now.

Christian Vinceneux  53:58

Yeah. And it’s always exciting to me when that happens, you know, when someone is basically just ready for a shift, but they haven’t somehow found the opportunity found the right book or pursuing that, you know, and I put together a couple months ago, a guide like a digital guide on ADHD, you know,  is it a curse or a superpower? And it’s been really interesting, because I’ve had, I’ve just given it some of my connections on LinkedIn. And I’ve had actually quite a bit of people who are really keen to turn with having ADHD and you know, my goal, I don’t diagnose so diagnosis tool, anything but people who said, Well, you know, I kind of knew that I had ADHD, but I was fighting it so much, because because of the stigma. Yeah. And then the guide helped him to look at it from a different perspective and look at it Well, yeah. They all the challenges, that’s the curse. But what are the superpowers? You know, and I work with entrepreneurs or solopreneurs who have ADHD. And, you know, one example is, you know, ADHD people with ADHD often criticized for being impulsive, too impulsive. Well, if you shift your lens and you look at enterpreneurship. Through the lens of what entrepreneurship requires a lot of flexibility requires a lot of risk taking requires a lot of winging it, when you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to do it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  55:38

Rapid decision making, right? Decision making quick.

Christian Vinceneux  55:42

Okay, well, or entrepreneurship attracts a lot of people with ADHD because the impulsivity, at which, you know, can be seen as a witness turns into the strength where if you had if you had maybe someone who’s not as impulsive, they will probably look at those situations and say, Oh, I don’t know, if I want to go this way too much risk. I have no idea if it’s gonna work. I don’t really have all the skills. I don’t really know, you know, with someone, obviously, it’s a generalization. But someone with ADHD may say, Well, I like this. Yeah. But saw there’s nothing exciting about let’s just do it. So is it going to work every time? No, but you know, that’s one example of of looking at your strength and what your neurodivergent gives you and also…

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:28

I think it’s really important. I mean, you mentioned like, yeah, of course, there are challenges and the reality because the other question I have is like how many parents how many adults out there are resistant to getting support or getting a diagnosis, because they’re just afraid of what that means, right. And I suspect that there’s quite a few because even in my conversations with people, I’ve talked to parents who are resistant to even going down the path and like opening the door, because they’re afraid of what that will mean for their kid. And what it meant for us is that we could finally call on and get access to support that we needed. And what I realized is like, look, the challenges are going to be there, whether or not we choose to look at it in depth, right, they’re going to be there. Like, I wanted to just know and understand better. Like, again, it’s about creating the map to your child, right. And the other thing I’ve learned is a diagnosis is not a one size fits all, there are plenty of things that are highly unique about my child that do not match some of what you read when you get a description. And so the other thing I’ve learned is like experts really helped with the signpost and kind of the bigger understanding. And you still have to use your firsthand experience as a parent, or as an individual, knowing yourself to provide even more clarity about how that applies to you or what it means or you know what I mean? It’s, it really is a puzzle. And it’s not just like a single, you know, uniform path or uniform meaning at all.

Christian Vinceneux  58:10

As I said, and it’s you know, when it comes to neuro divergence, I always say that there is no absolute or that the only absolute is that there is no absolute because, you know, every person with same diagnosis is going to be vastly different from the other one, right? I have ADHD and I have, I know lots of people with ADHD and and there are things that are challenged for me that are not a challenge for someone else, and vice versa. And so it’s being able to, I think, you know, going back to what you were saying a minute ago, but yeah, they are a lot of parents were concerned about getting a diagnosis and feeling like, oh, my, it’s going to be a stigma, it’s going to put my channel box and and, but the way I see it is that it makes it easier to access information, and in some cases, makes it easier to access services. And in some situations, having a certain diagnosis would allow you to get funding from insurance companies. So wait, allow your child to have an IEP, maybe, you know, otherwise. And so, to me, the diagnosis has always been assuming it’s the correct diagnosis, which is the whole other…

Heather Pearce Campbell  59:26

Oh, man, I bet that’s a whole separate conversation.

Christian Vinceneux  59:30

You know, when you get the right diagnosis, it’s kind of like points you to the right direction. So as opposed to, you know, having to explore the entire world to find the right information. It’s like, okay, go down that aisle and there’s a lot of information there for you. So it makes it a little bit easier to…

Heather Pearce Campbell  59:46

Yeah, totally. Well, I can imagine because I’ve seen your content and for anybody that’s listening that has curiosity around this topic, whether you’ve got somebody in your household like I suspect like your description of your father, right, I’m married to somebody with a lot of sensitivity to noise and like he’s out and about this is not a surprise. And it’s not like a secret. You know, in his workplace, he’s bothered if somebody’s doing a repetitive, like, he just notices it wherever he goes. And it means that at home, you’re right, children’s outburst or a loud noise, somebody popping a balloon, right? Those events tend to not go very well because of his nervous system. Right? So it is like, I think there are many people who think, or maybe who have thought, like, huh, but have not really opened the door into looking, whether it’s, you know, understanding for themselves or understanding on behalf of somebody in their life that they love and care for. And if anything, I hope this conversation prompts people to start looking and to look a little deeper into this. And your videos are such a great introduction, what I’m starting to say is if you’re listening to this conversation, go to LinkedIn and find Christian’s videos, because they’re short, they’re bite -sized, totally consumable, really enlightening, like whole wide variety of points. Right. But I think it really is an excellent way to invite people into the conversation. Thank you.

Christian Vinceneux  1:01:17

Thank you for this.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:01:17

Yeah. I’m curious how many people have seen those videos or seen some of your content and reached out to you with things like, Okay, I don’t have a diagnosis, but I think that’s me.

Christian Vinceneux  1:01:30

Many. Yeah. Are there any? Yeah, you know, either from the videos or the posts or times with the guide, I created another guide also couple months ago was are you too sensitive? That was a little more for the people identifying as an empath. HSP might be sensitive person, introvert, or, you know, people who have sensory processing disorder. And because a lot of the way we, you know, we learn about ourselves, and and there’s, this whole concept of neuro divergence is still like, fairly recent, you know, it’s not really mainstream. I mean, ADHD has become a little more mainstream, but it’s more, there’s still a lot a lot of stereotypes about that we hold about ADHD, you know, and so, I remember when I started talking on LinkedIn, about the strengths of ADHD, that was just a whole, a whole explosion of comments, because, right, people were like, Oh, my God, I never thought about it this way. Or, and, or people thinking about it for for their child and really saying, Okay, I’m going to show this to my child, because they’re a teenager with ADHD, and they’re already beating themselves up for not being good enough or not being and, and looking at all their strengths, where parents say, Yeah, I see those strengths in my child, too. So I think it’s really really important to have these conversations and you know, when it comes to like, the going back to the sensitive part, or a lot of what happens with neuro divergence is that although there’s dozens of different conditions, but I would say one thing that tends to be a common denominator is that neurodivergent people tend to get a little more exhausted, tend to get to burn out a little faster, if they don’t understand how to support their needs. Right? So it’s not an inevitable sentence, you know, and it’s that it’s so if you’re, you know, if you’re more sensitive, so I often joke that, you know, my ADHD always wants to get involved in the new project. And, and the, you know, the highly sensitive person and he says, well, well, let’s just slow down for a minute, you know, and then the anxious me saying, Yeah, but what if it goes wrong, you know, and so there are those forces but, you know, I am at a point now where I’ve done I’ve done so much personal work that I can recognize when my energy dips and I can recognize that okay, this is not a time to, to have you know, to get together with friends because I just need some quiet time or, or the opposite. Okay, I’m getting cabin fever. I’ve been in the house for too long, I work from home, and I need some social stimulation, and I need some sort of social interaction and but paying attention to our energy is not something that we grew up with. It’s not a theme that’s that’s emphasized in school it’s not a you know, and and so, you know, when you first start talking to people on that, on that level, what has you know, has affected your energy of often the response you get is something really generic is well yeah, that’s fine. It’s you know, I’m going to stress but you know, stress part of life and then when I work more closely with people on that level, they start realizing, oh my god, this is why I’m getting migraine headaches. This is why I can’t sleep at night. This is why I’m so irritated when I talk with my spouse or with my kids that I snap? And it’s not about what they’re doing. It’s about my own dysregulation. Yes. So if I’m dysregulated, well first, you know, as understanding the concept of dysregulation recognizing it in you, and then the next step is okay, well, how does it show up? How does it manifest, but without shaming yourself without your fault? You’re getting stressed. Right? Oh, so it’s not your fault that there’s too much noise that is giving you a headache. That’s not your fault. So you can always do something about it. But you know, I’m very very fortunate because I’m at a point in my life, where I decided to take certain steps in terms of career and I’m working from home, and I’m working virtually. So it’s given me a lot more flexibility. And, you know, not everybody has that option. But, you know, I work with clients who don’t have that option. But who still, once they have the understanding, then they’re going to take some steps. Yeah. And when they come home, they’re going to take certain steps, and they’re going to, to parents a little differently, are they going to set some activities to make sure that they can have a little bit of time? Yeah, so do an activity that’s going to be really successful for their child, so that there is no chaos. So they’re not going to invite three kids for a playdate when they’re already feeling dysregulated themselves,

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:06:24

Right? Yeah, well, it’s even just the recognition of it and sensing like, Oh, this is occurring because of dysregulation I think is so important. Because I think even as adults, it can take a really long time to start to recognize that and recognize it for what it is, right? We’ve had lots of talks around this household about dysregulation, and the thing that is interesting, that came out of COVID is right, all four of us in the house, my you know, my husband and I and two children. And I think for a lot of people COVID was one long experience of feeling like you’re living on top of people, if you’ve got, you know, suddenly, kids are not in school, and we’re mostly working from home and all of that. But my kids have learned and this is the the silver lining, that if they need space to themselves, they can say, I’m I just need time to myself, and I’ve seen both my kids do it right. And Henley you know, COVID hit when she was two, but it was really like around age three, that she would start to go take herself to her room or go do and, and play independently with Legos for hours sometimes, because that’s what she needed. And that’s actually been a real joy to recognize and like sometimes Aiden will go into our room, which is the master bedroom and close the door, and he’ll just want to watch a cartoon or something. But he’s like, I just need some alone time. And I’m so I’m so glad that he can ask for that and let us know what’s going on.

Christian Vinceneux  1:07:50

That’s wonderful. But you know, whatever you did, or would you have been dead, but it’s this wouldn’t have happened on his on its own, you know, you have to create space for this, you have to empower the child, you know, somehow one way or another, the message has to be that sometimes we feel bad. And what can help is to be, you know, alone and to have some quiet time. If there’s a tinge of punishment, you too loud, you need to go to your room, that’s not going to work as well. Yeah. Because you’re going to be, you know, punishment attached to it. And it’s going to be seen as Oh, being alone is a punishment, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:08:30

It’s a bad thing, rather than a choice that I get to make if I need it. 

Christian Vinceneux  1:08:34

Yeah, like that you empower them to, you know, recognize when they needed this and created, you know, options for them to do that as well.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:08:44

It’s good. And it’s, you know, all we can do is the best that we can do, right? And at any given time that might be different. But like, I look at my childhood, one of six kids, like, we were all up in everybody’s business all the time there. You know, like, I don’t know, that I ever had my own bedroom. And that’s not the important part. But like having a space or a way for a kid or an adult to like have some alone time, I think is really, really super, super important in the context of this conversation, neurodivergent. dysregulation, right, and being able to recognize those times because the alternative is that, like, everything feels harder if we don’t have the space to recognize those needs and do something about it. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Christian, I feel like I can talk to you all day. You’ve been very generous in staying over time with me. I just really care about this topic and the conversation. I’m so grateful that you’ve been willing to have it with me.

Christian Vinceneux  1:09:45

So glad for the opportunity to to talk about this and chat away to you. It’s been great.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:09:50

Yeah, well, I just want people to know that that you’re an amazing resource out there. And especially for folks that have for some time thought like we need extra help. We don’t know what it is, you know, for folks that like to connect with you or check out your work, where do you like to send them?

Christian Vinceneux  1:10:08

Where they’re mostly to places. So if we’re on LinkedIn, I’m there quite a bit I joke that is my office. That’s always a good place. It’s listed under my name Christian Vinceneux. And otherwise, to my website, that’s a good place. So it’s lifeguidecoaching.org. They can email me through my website, they can request a chat, like a free chats through the website and can schedule it through. There’s some information there that you can check out and then get in contact with me, and I’m always happy to chat with people and figure out if we can work together. And if I can help, I can’t, I’m always, you know, always happy to try to refer out and make some recommendations in terms of, you know, this supports, this is probably not the best option right now.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:11:08

No, I love that. Well, I appreciate you, I appreciate knowing that you are a resource in the marketplace, particularly for people who are desperate for this type of support. If you’re listening, be sure to pop over and check out Christian’s work his website, I’ll also put your link to your profile on LinkedIn, I’m such a fan of LinkedIn, it’s where we connected. So you can go to the show notes, which can be found at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Christian, any final thoughts that you would like to leave with our listeners today?

Christian Vinceneux  1:11:40

I think my final thought is to, to really not ignore, you cannot ignore what is difficult, whether it’s with your child, or whether it’s with yourself. And if something keeps coming up pattern keeps coming up, and you keep finding yourself exhausted, you know, we really quick at stating that, well, that’s just the way life is stressful these days. As long as true, but we have options. And the more we accept those signs, again, behaviors data, you know, emotions data, and so pay attention to those signs. If you’re finding yourself always exhausted with certain things around certain people start looking at that, as opposed to right away, saying, Oh, well, that’s just what it is. Oh, it is, yeah, it got it because there’s most likely something to learn from it. And it doesn’t mean that you have to make a decision right away. But this most likely something to learn from it, that’s going to help you get one step closer to who you really are, and, and not be stressed and have you know, improve your quality of life.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:12:55

You know, that is just such an important like, what it reminds me of like this increased toleration that we have of like stress levels, or anxiety or whatever it is, however it’s presenting it, what’s the phrase about you know, if you drop a frog into boiling water, it jumps out if you slowly cook it, right, I can’t remember how it goes. But so many of us are slowly being cooked. You know, it really is true that like our stress levels ramp up, or we have a problem that starts and it’s simmering, and it progressively is getting worse. But we’re not recognizing, like, Oh, we’re past the point where we should have gone and looked for some help or look for some resources. And so we do start to just think it’s just how it is like, this is just how my life goes. It’s just going to be stressful like this.

Christian Vinceneux  1:13:42

It’s out there reinforcing that. That’s just you know, just…

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:13:45

Just modern day living right? Now, thank you for that reminder, it’s really relevant. Super, super important for people to remember that. Christian, thank you so much. I appreciate you. It’s been such a joy to have you here today.

Christian Vinceneux  1:14:01

This was great. So thank you so much for having me. Loved it.

GGGB Outro  1:14:08

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business™ podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.