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From Shock to Strength: Transition of Parenting A Special Needs Child
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Have you ever faced a life-changing diagnosis that turned your world upside down? Join us as we welcome Kim Stewart, a dynamic podcasting coach and strategist, who shares her personal journey of becoming a parent to a special needs child diagnosed with autism. In a candid and heartfelt conversation, Kim recounts the initial shock and emotional turmoil she experienced, managing not only the new diagnosis but also the demands of a newborn. She opens up about how she sought solace in books and built connections with other parents navigating similar challenges, highlighting the power of community and shared experiences.
Our discussion doesn’t stop at the early years; we delve into the ongoing journey that parents of children with special needs face as their children grow. From the first days in kindergarten to the complex dynamics of adulthood, each stage brings its own set of surprises and adaptations. Kim emphasizes the importance of a supportive network and staying proactive, sharing personal anecdotes that illustrate the delicate balance between gathering information and implementing practical strategies. She offers insight into the recurring need to adapt and revise plans to navigate an ever-evolving world, underscoring the resilience and strength required to move forward despite feeling overwhelmed. Tune in for an episode filled with inspiration, practical advice, and the raw reality of parenting a child with special needs.
Where to find Kim:
Podcast
Website
Shock Episode
Limbo Episode
Re-Entry Episode
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Is there a major life transition benching you? I know you may be asking what's next? What's my purpose? What if? Because I've asked those too.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Start your Comeback Podcast. I'm Toni Thrash, a certified life coach, and I want to share the tools and practical steps to help you create a winning game plan to move into your new adventure. Hi, welcome back. You're listening to episode 38.
Speaker 1:My good friend, kim Stewart, is here today and she's a genius podcasting coach and helps authors market their upcoming books. We met through Hope Writers in 2021 and decided to have coffee together. The rest is history. She's a brilliant strategist for your marketing needs and helps with content outlines for your podcast. She's the reason why you're listening to the Start your Comeback podcast. I'm grateful for her friendship and her constant note-taking when we talk about anything.
Speaker 1:Today, however, kim is allowing me to talk about one of the biggest transitions in her life becoming a parent of a special needs son. Let's get to it. Becoming a parent of a special needs son let's get to it. Hey, kim, thanks so much for being here today on the Start your Comeback podcast. You guys heard me rave about Kim and all that she's done for the podcasting world and for Christian book authors out there, helping them market their books. So, kim, welcome today. It's so nice to have you here. Yeah, this is so fun, toni. Well, I just kind of want to go ahead and jump in. One of the things that you know I didn't understand when we first met was that you had a major life transition early on in your marriage, and so the question is when we have some sort of transition, there's a shock factor. Is when we have some sort of transition, there's a shock factor. And so I'd kind of like you to talk about what that transition was and your first reaction to that, and how did it affect your world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my big transition I've been through several, but definitely the big one that Tony and I've talked about the most is becoming a special needs mom, and that happened about maybe three years into my marriage. Yeah, that my oldest son was diagnosed with autism and it was right before his second birthday and I was pregnant with my second child and just about to. I guess actually I had already delivered my second baby whenever we got the formal diagnosis and that's when we started seeing some signs that his development had kind of stalled out. So he's a boy, so he's a late talker, of course, like a lot of boys, but he just kind of hit this stall out of his milestones and so, yeah, we just we went through. It's probably a year from the time we saw this initial signs to where we got the diagnosis.
Speaker 2:And this was 26 years ago, 24 years ago probably, when we went through this with him. So it was very different world. There was not the internet as we have it today. So that was definitely a shock to our system because one we didn't know anything about autism, didn't know anybody with autism in their family. It was just like, so unknown to us, something is different about my child that I wasn't expecting. You know, it was such a shock to us. It definitely rocked our world for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, what did you? What was the one thing that you tried to implement during that shock period, just to help you get through that period?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me, I love to read, and again, because back then there really wasn't the internet we have today to go scour the internet. And so I just like went to the library and checked out a ton of books and just started asking people. You know that I knew, and my husband is much more of a verbal communicator he's not the reader, he's the verbal communicator and he actually had told one of our neighbors, who was a co-worker of his, about our son getting the diagnosis. And he actually hooked me up with a mom that very same day. She had just come home from the hospital having a baby and she had a son with autism also, and so she immediately got on the phone with me. I mean, literally, she just got home with a new one. She got on the phone with me for several hours and just helped me understand what the heck autism is and what you know what we were up against, and so that was super helpful just for me.
Speaker 2:I'm just like a resource hog, like I just, and I want to know everything about everything before I make my first step, and my husband's the exact opposite. But that that really kind of helped me, I guess, get over that initial shock of. Okay, this is what it is like to really understand what is autism and what you know. What are we facing? What are the things to do? Just for me to get all those resources under my belt, I guess that information really kind of helped me get through the shock of it.
Speaker 1:Well, I can't even imagine having just having that diagnosis and then having a new baby and trying to manage and do both.
Speaker 2:Well, that had to be hard it was and you know it was. I think having the new baby in the home this is what our pediatrician kind of that's. When we first started seeing the signs and our pediatrician really felt like that my older son was having a lot of like he would start kind of playing all alone, like he just preferred to be alone, I guess was one of his big symptoms back then. Like it's so much easier to talk about it now, like we just didn't know back then, but he was. He was so much more like on his own. He was always been really social with other little babies. We always had play dates and all those things and he kind of started withdrawing to himself and it kind of we thought it was really strange and our pediatrician told us well, that's normal.
Speaker 2:Like you've got a new baby in the house, he's not getting the same attention or you know, maybe the baby's crying is getting on his nerves so he's just going to kind of be off on his own. You know, and so, yeah, so we didn't even know and then, yeah, once we did it was it was really really difficult to have a newborn baby. You know, try to figure out what we're doing with the second baby as well as, yeah, trying to figure out what our first baby. You know, the help that they needed.
Speaker 2:Luckily we had lots of resources around and friends and family that prayed us through it all for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I can't imagine. Well, you know, when we go through a life transition, we have that initial shock, but then the shock wears off and we go into that limbo stage where we don't really know all the answers or the shock's sort of worn off, but now you've got to find that help and build a game plan on what's next and how is this going to. What is the next? You know? Couple of years or however long maybe it was more than that.
Speaker 1:Did it take for you to kind of figure out your new normal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it and it. I will say too about special needs, and you probably know this as an educator too, Tony is there's just like, I think, with special needs kiddos and other transitions too, but especially with special needs kiddos, it seems like you're going through these different shocks along the way you know, because I know like there was that initial shock.
Speaker 2:And then you know, for us moms that have been through this like you're, you just start thinking in these like you want to know everything that's going to come in the future. But we don't know. But we just started like, again, he was in between two and three and so the next thing you're just thinking about is kindergarten, like getting to school. Your age, you know, like what do I need to do now just to get him into school, you know, and be able to succeed and stuff. So you do take these little chunks of time, but I do think along those chunks of time.
Speaker 2:As your children, you know, get older, there's just these constant shocks of you know, like, when you got to kindergarten age, oh, it's not going to be the same kindergarten I expected for him. You know, like he is going to have some special ed classes. And then you know, when you get to graduation time, it's like that shock oh, it's not the same graduation experience as everyone else is having. And and as they get to be adults, you know, it's just there's so many things that come up along the way that you're just constantly back in that shock factor. So I'm so glad you know, tony, for your podcast and your coaching and stuff. Just that we have people to turn to, you know, because it is that constant, you know and you have to remember. Okay, well, just take a break and you know, talk to somebody and figure out like you talk about your game plan to move forward.
Speaker 1:So let me get this straight. You feel like that, probably even now, 26 years later or whatever that there's still some shock factors.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And maybe because of that, shock factor leads to a new limbo. You have to completely stay on your toes to be able to find answers and to be able to move forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean one of my really sweet girl friends and I think, Toni, you've actually met her just because we are local and get together in person. But we get together often and it's been such a lifesaver for me to have somebody else that's going through this journey and it's their personality is a lot like mine too, and you know she loves to learn about things too. But we balance each other really well, because one of us can be in that shock, you know, and it's like I'm in the shock of whatever's going on in my child's life, but then the other one can help, pull you along and go okay, I've been there done that, or I haven't been there done that, but I'm in an okay place today to kind of help you through this. But we were just talking the other day like our children are now young adults and there's been some things that have popped up that we didn't know about, no one had prepared us for. So I think it is it's just constantly.
Speaker 2:Again, my son is 26 and it's like, oh wait, no one warned me that this was going to happen at this age, and what the heck do I do? And so you're again, you're in that shock stage again, and so then you are in limbo, like what are my resources? Who do I turn to for help? You know, how am I going to move forward? Or am I going to just stay stuck on the bench, like you talk about on your show, tony? Like you know, it's so easy just to get stuck on that bench and don't even want to move. You know forward?
Speaker 1:I can't imagine. Well, I mean, I feel like the next question is I don't even know if you have an answer for it, but typically the third stage that we kind of get to in any sort of transition is a re-entry, and that's just. You figured out what your new normal is, you have your game plan, but now you're going back into a world that's changed the rules and nobody told you about those, and so how difficult was it to implement your game plan and get off that bench to live out your life, or do you feel like you've re-entered?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean obviously because, yeah, he's 26. So we've had to, we have had to re-enter and move and you know, I think about like right after he was diagnosed, tony. This is again this is my personality Like I'll just the information is so important to me, like just to dive in to get all the information about everything I possibly can, but I'm not so great and my personality is not so great about implementing it. But I can remember again, this is you know, we had a newborn and I just remember, like I don't know what the kids were doing Maybe they were napping, I don't know but my husband had come home one day and I had like books scattered all over the bed from the library. Of course, this was back when the library was really all your choice for books, but I just had like books about autism scattered all over the do.
Speaker 2:And my husband came in and he knew it was like just really taking over my life and my thought pattern, which in a way it should have, but not to the extent of forgetting about my family. But my husband just said, look, you know, right now I just need you to listen that we're this, this is. We have had our life change in a huge way and we're going to figure this out. You know it's a lifelong thing we're going to be dealing with, but we're, you know, go over the deep end trying to figure out this autism thing today, because it is something we're going to be figuring out tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and so I so appreciate that. He was really good about that, you know.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so I think the re-entry it does, it just keeps happening over and over Cause, like you talk about, you know it would be easy just to sit on the bench and you know boo, hoo, hoo about it every day and every you know shock that comes along the way. But you can't. You got to. You know your son has to keep on, you know getting up every day and moving forward in his life, and so you have to do that too. You know you just have to get a game plan, like you talk about that, the game. You know you don't know what the forever game plan is. We know what the game plan is for today at least, or this week or this month you know.
Speaker 2:and then Next thing hits we'll deal with it, but you do have to get off the bench. So you don't want to. And there's days, yeah, you really don't want to.
Speaker 1:But you have to. That is so interesting to me because I never looked at it as a reentry, but it makes so much sense that there's a constant reentry.
Speaker 2:There's a constant limbo.
Speaker 1:There's a constant shock because you don't know what's coming down the road and I don't know how you do it. I know God's got you and I know God's grace has been sufficient for you this whole time. But, man, what an incredible journey that you've had and your family has had, and I'm just so very grateful for you being here today. Oh, thanks, it's been so fun, well, and I so appreciate, yeah, and your family has had, and I'm just so very grateful for you being here today.
Speaker 2:Thanks, it's been so fun, Well, and I so appreciate, yeah, your show, Tony, and just you know being able to have a resource to turn to when you're trying to figure out where am I at in this transition.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate you being here and if you guys would like to listen to the podcast on shock, limbo and reentry, I'll make sure to put the link in the show notes. Kim, thanks for being here today. You're my very first guest, my podcasting coach, I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is so fun.
Speaker 1:One last thing before we go today. I just want to make sure that you know how to connect with Kim. In case you are a Christian author and want help marketing your book or you are interested in starting a podcast, she's your girl to go to. I will make sure that I get all of her links into the show notes. So next time, join me as we talk about a newfound freedom as we jump into July. Can you believe it's already July and July 4th and celebrating our national freedom, but even in that, our own personal freedom. Thanks for being here. I'll see you next time. Hey, thanks for listening. I don't take it for granted that you're here. You didn't listen by mistake. If you want to reach out, you can DM me on Instagram at Tony Thrash Until next week. Remember, there's still time left on the clock. Let's get you off the bench to start your comeback. I want to give a special shout out to Country Club for the original music. You can find them on Instagram at Country Club. You.
