← Autism Parenting Secrets
Autism Parenting Secrets
Stop Guessing, Start UNLOADING
00:38:50
Patricia Lemer returns for her third appearance, bringing five decades of unmatched wisdom in understanding what’s really going on with our kids. She explains how stress accumulates, why nervous-system dysregulation is the first root cause to address, and how parents can begin unloading the burdens overwhelming their child. The secret this week is… Stop Guessing, Start UNLOADING
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- [00:00]
A
Total load theory is an engineering term that refers to wire bridge collapses. And I think people can understand that because it's very concrete. Pittsburgh has more bridges where I live than any place in the world. I think, at least in the country, we have over 400 bridges, and these bridges are all in disrepair, and almost every year one collapses. And, oh, we're so surprised. No, we haven't painted the bridge, we haven't inspected the bridge. We haven't done anything to the bridge in 30 years. But, wow, why did it all of a sudden collapse? Because an overloaded truck went over it, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
- [00:52]
B
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage, and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be. This podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is Autism Parenting Secrets, where you become the parent your child needs now. Hello and welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets. This week's guest is someone I admire deeply and I've learned so much from. She's a true pioneer in every sense of the word and someone who spent over five decades helping families find clarity, confidence, and hope. Patricia Lemmer is a licensed professional counselor, educational diagnostician, and a longtime host of the Autism Detectives podcast. She's also the author of two essential books, Outsmarting Autism and now Total Load Theory. Transforming Lives in Autism, adhd, ld, spd, and Mental Health. Patti helps parents understand what's really going on with their child and what options exist. And her work is really about awareness, about uncovering the hidden stressors and understanding how they connect. And my work picks up right there where I'm obsessed with helping parents implement, taking the knowledge and insights from experts like Patty and turning them into consistent, daily, effective action. She focuses on clarity. I focus on execution. Together, that's how parents transform and get better outcomes for their child. So you're about to hear from someone whose wisdom has guided tens of thousands of families and continues to light the way forward. The secret this week is stop guessing. Start unloading. Welcome back, Patti.
- [02:45]
A
And that was beautiful. Thank you so much. I'm honored to come on your podcast again.
- [02:52]
B
Fantastic. Yeah, this is number three. So, yeah, I just really know what a gift it is for parents who are listeners or clients to again, to really leverage the wisdom that you have. So I am delighted that you have felt compelled to write another book. So, you know, I always look at the book Outsmarting Autism. That's the guide. If you want to know what those options are, why you would consider something for your child, it's all there. So I kind of thought you stuck the landing and you were done. What prompted you to write this book right now?
- [03:25]
A
Lynne I thought I was done, too. And actually this is my fourth book. You missed one. You missed Envisioning a Bright Future, which preceded Outsmarting Autism. That was my first book, but I didn't write most of it. I counted on experts to write those chapters because I wasn't confident enough to write it. It was published by the Optometric Extension Program, so we won't count that one.
- [03:55]
B
Fair enough.
- [03:56]
A
What happened was Outsmarting Autism went out of print. The publisher put it out of print after five years, and I thought I was done, too. But the powers that be said, Patti, you have to have an active book out there. Outsmarting is the Bible. We read it every day. And so it was really Mary Holland and at Children's Health Defense who talked to Skyhorse Publishing. And we all put our heads together and Skyhorse said, yes, well, doing this book. And so I was lucky. I didn't have to look for another publisher. I didn't have to self publish. And here it is. The other part of it is I wanted to reach a larger audience. My books have been about autism and autism spectrum. And you and I know that this, what I have in my book applies to adhd, to learning disabilities, to sensory processing, and even to the mental health disorders like OCD and panic disorders and bipolar even. So I decided go for it. Go for the whole world. Everybody knows somebody who has one of these diagnoses. So that's what I did.
- [05:24]
B
Wonderful. Well, I am thrilled that you did, because I was one of those people who I was panicked when I saw on Amazon that Outsmarting Autism was not available anymore, because I've talked about it before on this podcast that is a book that I gift to every single client, every parent who I'm walking alongside. It's just such a phenomenal resource. So wonderful that now something's going to be coming out imminently. And so I think with that in mind. And Outsmarting Autism, I know, was more of kind of a reference guide. That's why I know it's even something that was at one point available as an audiobook, but you can't really listen to an audiobook that has so much knowledge. What I loved about Outsmarting Autism, it was a great reference, a go to guide. And again, so many people, including myself, have so many Pages dog eared. So it was a great reference. The new book is clearly you're taking it in a different direction. Can you talk about how it's different than outsmarting autism?
- [06:27]
A
Well, it's different in that it has a lot of new information. As you know, things are happening really fast and I had to revise and update outsmarting because of new information. And there's new stuff here too. The main thing I actually, the two main things I did was I had been introduced to Dr. Neil Nathan who wrote the Sensitive Patients Healing Guide. And I don't know, I don't see it back there. It's hiding. There it is. And you interviewed him too?
- [07:13]
B
Oh, he's phenomenal. He's phenomenal.
- [07:15]
A
He's really phenomenal. And he, in that book, which is I think his fourth book too, he talks about the patients of his who did all the right things and didn't get better. And he looked deeply at those cases to discover that those were patients whose nervous systems were. Were deregulated. They had had some kind of multiple or single traumas that kept them in a fight or flight mode and their vagus nerves were just unregulated, dysregulated. And he convinced me easily of the necessity of addressing the nervous system first and foremost before you go into some of the other therapies. And so I took that advice and went that way in this new book, in the same way that I added a lifestyle chapter in the updated version of Outsmarting. Because I realized that if you're throwing money at occupational therapy and speech pathology and. And nutrition and you're still drinking Cokes and eating Twinkies and not getting enough sleep and not turning off your WI fi at night, your body is in danger. And so this book also has a lifestyle chapter, but it also has this chapter on getting to safety before you start intervening. So I sure Dr. Nathan talked about that on your podcast. He is a genius. And so that was one thing. The second thing I was introduced to the Bioregulatory Medicine Institute. And B RMI is an umbrella for a lot of the energy therapies that people don't understand. And so this has a new chapter on BRMI and how it encompasses homeopathy, trauma, desensitizing the nervous system plus plus plus family constellations, things that go back to prior generations that have trickled down into influencing what's happening today.
- [10:07]
B
All right, great note. I'm excited about that because again, as things are emerging, and you're right, there's a lot that's changing. And especially in this category, which I would just call like an energy category of these different modalities, which some people dismiss as nonsense. But, you know, we know for our son, homeopathy literally saved his life. So we know it's not all nonsense. And some of those modalities can be extremely powerful. And it seems like that's where a lot of things are going. So I love that you're including that now. But maybe just to frame, though, at a high level, you and I, along with the entire functional medicine community, right. Everyone knows that the success plan is about addressing root causes. You know, in addition to maybe trying to suppress or modify behaviors and symptoms, having a root cause focus is the key. So I think what prompted your shift and what Dr. Neal Nathan's all about is this idea that, yes, there may be many root causes about what's going on with your child, but perhaps the first one to start with or the foundational one to start with is this, know, dysregulated nervous system and this felt sense, felt lack of safety that a child or a person is feeling that that has to come first. So when you go back to smarting autism and he's talked about foundational things to do, this is kind of a root cause that needs to be addressed as part of that foundation. Correct?
- [11:32]
A
Said very well. I couldn't have said it better. Thank you.
- [11:35]
B
Perfect. No, so that. That makes sense to me because, yes, the landscape's changing. Yes, we're learning more and more every day. But the key steps, the power moves to make for a strong foundation, those really aren't changing. I mean, it all goes back to the boring stuff that everyone knows, but very few people really have a great plan to implement across things like nutrition as an example.
- [11:57]
A
Right. And it is boring. I'll never forget Dr. Alan Gaby, who was. Was one of the very first doctors who I got involved with in the early 90s. And he said, patty, I know a lot about medicine and chemistry and biology. And he said, but let me tell you, the way I get a majority of my patients well is I take them off of four white foods. Milk, sugar, salt, and flour. He said, and you eliminate those foods, you get better, you feel better, you sleep better. And he said, it's that simple and it's boring. Because he doesn't sound very eloquent when he talks about taking you off dairy or how much ice cream does your child eat or how much salt is he getting. And that leads to how much sleep is he getting and how much movement is he Getting. Is he a slug or is he going outside because he feels well enough to climb trees? Oh, no, that's not safe. I forgot. So, you know, when our kids aren't moving, they're not sleeping, they're eating the wrong things, and some of the good foods may be the wrong things. So it is really complicated, and it's individualized. And that's why I love doing the diagnostic work, why I love being an autism detective, because no two kids are alike. And I've been a card player my whole life. And you have only 52 cards. That's 52 root causes. And you deal those cards every time you get a different hand. And every one of these kids is a different hand with different stress factors. And that's what the book enumerates, are the stress factors that hit your kid. Peter Sullivan designed me a great chart that's in this book that looks at the child in the middle and all the different stress factors. And that's the way the book is organized by. Some of the stress factors come from inside of us. Our own biology and our own energetic biology. What happened when our great grandparents left a foreign country and immigrated to the United States? Most of them don't do that, except under duress. They don't pick up one day and say, oh, wouldn't it be fun to live in the United States? It's usually a trauma, a war, a situation that forces them out of their own country. And if that hasn't been resolved biologically, emotionally, energetically, it's going to trickle down to today's kids. And then there's the outside stressors. The obvious ones are the air and the food and the water. But have you thought about that cell phone tower that they put on top of the church down the street, zapping you every day? And those cell phone towers are creeping up overnight, and they're paying schools and churches to put them there. And that's money that these nonprofits can't resist because they need them to make their budgets. So you can't blame them. But it's a crazy world, and we have to look at which combination of stressors are happening to your kid.
- [16:06]
B
Yeah. And I think that's the key where just somebody listening to you talk right now, you may be generating stress just from all the stressors that are out there to be worried about.
- [16:16]
A
I'm sorry.
- [16:18]
B
No, but it's a gift, because I think awareness is the key to take your hat out of the sand and be like, okay, I want to be aware of what really might be happening and with more awareness, which, you know, again, it takes an intention to become more educated. And that's where again, I think your books are dynamite. But with more awareness, there's always something you can do. And it also doesn't mean that you have to go full throttle, live off the grid or live in a bubble. It's really about understanding the stressors, figuring out what might be most relevant for your family, for your child, and taking some action to play better defense. So going back to nutrition, that doesn't mean you're going to 100% organic, gluten free, dairy free, soy free diet. I mean, that causes so much stress. For parents who try to go from where they are to something super clean, that's not necessarily the best move. It's about steps in the right direction. And again, I think as you take these foundational measures to basically play better defense, to create an environment where your child can thrive, you'll start seeing the impact of those actions and that will give you the fuel to keep going. But it's not about having to address everything perfectly because again, that could just feel like an incredible weight.
- [17:39]
A
Good point.
- [17:40]
B
So, yeah, as long as we're talking about load, and you know the title of this discussion, right? So stop guessing, start unloading when you talk about that term, and I know your book dives into this, but can you talk a little bit about load, particularly like cumulative load versus acute load of what somebody may be experiencing? Load can take many different forms. So do you mind expanding on that a bit?
- [18:04]
A
Well, total load theory is an engineering term that refers to wire bridge collapses. And I think people can understand that because it's very concrete. Pittsburgh has more bridges where I live than any place in the world. I think, at least in the country, we have over 400 bridges. And these bridges are all in disrepair. And almost every year one collapses. And oh, we're so surprised. No, we haven't painted the bridge, we haven't inspected the bridge, we haven't done anything to the bridge in 30 years. But wow, why did it all of a sudden collapse? Because an overloaded truck went over it and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. And that's what happens with our bodies is little things like too many rounds of antibiotics, that fifth round of antibiotics, that last booster from the vaccine, that egg salad sandwich on top of three glasses of milk that the child isn't digesting well could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. And each one of these things may not cause symptoms, but the body is responding and trying to alleviate the inflammation or whatever issue is going on, and we may not have a symptom. No red lights went on. And the red lights that our body turns on of a fever, of redness, of itching, of vomiting, of diarrhea, those are all red flags that have become part of normal. Oh, it's okay. If your child spikes a fever after his booster shot. Every child does that redness at the site of injection. Oh, of course that's fine. It'll go away. But what happens is we're taught, and we need sometimes out of convenience, to suppress these symptoms that are warning signs. And we suppress them with Tylenol and creams and fever reducers of all kinds, because we have to go to work and our kid has to go to school, and we hate to see our kid in distress. So when we have a distressed kid who has a fever, we want to help. We feel helpless. Watching that kid suffer isn't a good option for a mommy or a daddy. We want to do something, but the best thing to do sometimes is to wait. And that's where knowledge is important. How long do you wait? You don't want to kill your child, so you have to have good intuition and trust it. You have to have a doctor in the wings when you need him or her. And it's important to know when the body is able to take care of healing and when the overload is just too much and you need to intervene.
- [21:43]
B
Understood? Yep. Just a couple weeks ago, Dr. Larry Pilecki was on the show, and he kind of has. Has a guide in terms of how to help parents know when to have patience, when to take action. And I think what you just shared really underscores that for any parent, having a medical advisor, somebody who's on your team, your main advisor, whether that's a functional medicine type pediatrician, whether it's an integrated pediatrician or a MAPS practitioner. Having a trusted guide is really, really key. And your book has so much information. But again, in addition, having someone who can be that advisor and play that role on your team with you as the decision maker is definitely really key. And just like every child's unique, every parent's unique in terms of what practitioner would be a fit.
- [22:31]
A
Right. And Larry Poletsky has been out there not quite as long as I have, but I've known him for 30 years. I've also had him on my podcast. And he's great. He's just great. And he's sensible. And he wants you to trust your intuition and to be educated and not just Be, as you say, guessing he wants you to know what's going on and when to interface and interact with the child.
- [23:05]
B
Absolutely. Yep. Nope. So it's a dynamite guide. And again, there's this. The key is having resources available to help you become more knowledgeable about what's going on and having a good team around you that you carefully select and curate who gets to be on the team. And it may not be the pediatrician down the road or someone who you hear great things about. It's really discerning who's a fit for me and my child and my values. And that's where what's great is there's a lot more practitioners who are now available, whereas if you rewind 10, 20, 30 years ago, there weren't many practitioners who were skilled at really kind of meeting a child's unique needs, which is really required when you have a child on the spectrum.
- [23:51]
A
That's such a good point. And what makes it easier now is all this technology. So people like Dr. Christian Bogner and autism is biomedical he. And he's available even if you're not his patient because he and Alex at Karis have a once a week podcast where you could just ask questions. I think it's a webinar, not a podcast, where you can call in and ask a question and the answer will help you, but it'll also help a lot of other people because we're all dealing with the same junk out there.
- [24:36]
B
We are, and we're all looking for answers and looking for guidance. Which kind of brings us to another thing that's really different, particularly since the last time you were on this show, is that now AI is here, everyone's using it, leveraging it in so many different ways, and it is in many ways extremely scary, but it's also in many ways extremely exciting in terms of what you can, how it can help you with getting more information. But again, any AI tool or any information source is only as good as the source data. So for a parent navigating, trying to find answers for their child, it may seem tempting to say, well, what does ChatGPT say? But that can be extremely dangerous and sending you an incredible number of non directions that are going to be useful for you. So knowing when to use AI and when not to, again, if you're abdicating your decision making to whether it's a practitioner or an AI tool, that's never a great strategy. So with that as a backdrop, I know part of your book, you are finding a way to disseminate the information that you've accumulated in a more cutting edge way. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [25:49]
A
I was astounded to discover that there was a dad who, an Egyptian dad who had immigrated to Australia right before his son was diagnosed with autism at age 3. And he attended an autism conference online where he learned about outsmarting autism. And he bought the E version of it. And it was overwhelming to him. His English wasn't good enough to understand it. And so he put it aside for a year. But he got the understanding that you had to go back to old fashioned ways and you had to eat good food and you had to move and you had to sleep well and get away off the grid. So he took his kid to the ocean for a year and he loved him and he put him in nature and he ran him around and he fed him good food and he then had good enough English to read the book. And to make a long story short, his kid today is 11 and healed. And he attributes his healing to my book. And he followed everything that I said. And the way I found out about him was here is this 11 year old holding up outsmarting. And with his cute little British accent tells you it's the most comprehensive book there is to read if your child was diagnosed. And the son is now interviewing people and reviewing books on Facebook. And it's called the Optimal Parent is the nonprofit that he founded. And when I discovered him, he told me that he wanted to give back to me. He wanted to give me a gift. And so he took my manuscript from Outsmarting right after it had been put out a print. And he transcribed over 100 autism detective podcasts and he threw them into a universe of Patricia Lemmer intellectual property. And you can now search that of the old book. And just like ChatGPT, you can ask it a question and I answer your question. And then he also puts you into two of the podcasts which have answers to your question. And he offered to do this for Total Loaf Theory book. So he is developing and when it comes out on November 25th, hopefully it'll be ready for you to ask my new book a question. And there'll be a way for you to do that. It's in the book when you buy it. And the doo doo doo doo science fiction part is that I have a very complicated setup for recording five hours of my voice. So he will clone my voice to answer your question in my voice, which is, I can't wait to hear that.
- [29:29]
B
That will be very, very cool. No. So I'm super excited for that. And yeah, and this episode is going to be released on Thanksgiving, so two days after your book is released. So yeah, everyone, you'll be able to access that tool if you buy the book, which I highly recommend. And I'm excited to play around with that. And again, just to kind of put an exclamation point on it, what you put into your tool, Patti, what you make available to people. If people have a question about something that's happening with their child, the answer that you will get in Patti's tool will be wildly different than if you put it in some other platform. So I think that's the key where for some things, yes, a generic AI tool could be great just to get quick static information. But in this case, what's available, what your options are, what's related to what symptoms are related to what root causes, all those connections, you can't rely on just a generic search. So that's where again, what the source of that information is really important. So yeah. So that makes your book even more exciting in terms of what's going to be available for parents.
- [30:41]
A
It is, it is. And I'm just thrilled to have that option and I'm very grateful to him for doing that for me.
- [30:50]
B
Wonderful. All right. Well, I think in terms of what you're trying to achieve with this new book and putting it in parents hands after they buy the book and maybe use your tool, is there anything top of mind that comes to you of what would be their biggest two or three power moves to make as they're just trying to take from wherever they are and whatever they're currently doing for their child? Where would you say the key areas are to focus on or where to start? And I'm sure it's in the book, but if you could recount it now, what are the key next steps for a parent? Generically knowing that everyone's different but what comes to mind?
- [31:30]
A
I think it goes back to the episode that you and I did on sequencing that sequence matters. And look at what they're eating, how much sleep they're getting, and how to improve the bedroom as a sleep sanctuary movement. And if you've done those things, what haven't you looked at in terms of nervous system deregulation? What are some of the things that could have deregulated this child's nervous system? It could be anything from a move from a traumatic school experience. It could go back to your parents into a past generation, something that you didn't consider. And look at the chapter on nervous system DYSREGULATION and what you can do that you haven't done to make things move more quickly.
- [32:29]
B
Super. I think that's very sound advice. And again, if you take that kind of curiosity and look at it that way, there is always something that you can do. Now, even if you've been at this for a while, there's always more, and it doesn't mean necessarily spending more. Sometimes the biggest moves have no cost associated with it. But I think you'd agree, right? Pretty much everything that's going to help your child is going to be at least somewhat inconvenient. And so to be able to embrace that and know that doing things differently is actually a good thing and actually may pave the way for faster progress, greater connection within the family. There's so many benefits of embracing inconvenience.
- [33:10]
A
There are. And the other thing is you and I got to know each other through the autism world, and I'm pretty well known in the autism world. But I'm reaching out into these other worlds and to look at some of the organizations that say that bipolar disorder, ocd, LD are lifelong disabilities and we can't do anything about them, perhaps they think they're genetic, Perhaps they think that they're going down the wrong track to remediate them. And I was very heartened by a new group of psychiatrists who are calling themselves metabolic psychiatrists. And these are doctors who have recognized that drugs and counseling are insufficient to help their patients. They haven't asked about what they're eating, they haven't asked about how much sleep they're getting. And they're starting to do that. And the miracle of metabolic psychiatry has become the ketogenic diet. Well, I've known about that diet for over 30 years because I was a. 30 years, 50 years, because I was fortunate enough to work with a neurologist who used it to stop seizures. And that's what it was discovered for. And so how many families in the mental health arena are aware of these metabolic psychiatrists that are changing lives by adding fat and oodles of fat and good fat to their patient's diet with remarkable results? And I have several ways of doing this in the book. I have a whole chapter on different diets. I have a whole chapter on the gut and why fat is important. And fat is not a three letter dirty word. It is essential to our brain, which is made up of fat, and it's not made up of Crisco. It has to have good quality, essential three fatty acids. And so this is a whole new world of an approach to mental health that is showing enormous promise. And I want to be able to talk to those people, too.
- [35:55]
B
Wonderful. I share that with you, and I think that was so eloquently put. And that's why even calling you an autism expert or even this podcast, Autism Parenting Secrets, it doesn't do it justice, because this isn't about, you know, having interventions for autism. This is about what can you do to address these root causes, these stressors that may manifest itself in very different labels, perhaps, or even if your child doesn't have a diagnosis, if they're being held back, if they're not functioning and progressing as well as they could, there's something that's holding them back. And a lot of it does come down to these more environmental stressors and also about really prioritizing that foundation that you talk about. So that's why I think there's a lot of great insights in your book, and I'm excited that you decided to put pen to paper again. There's no doubt I will be inviting you on down the road, but I wish you tremendous success with the book. Hope it reaches many, many people. And again, for anyone listening, this is a resource that, in my opinion, isn't optional. Invest in this. Check out Patty's tool. There's not many guides I think that would be universally helpful for any parent, regardless of the situation. And that's why I'm so excited you decided to take some time away from your schedule to share your insights with our audience. So thank you so much, Patti.
- [37:21]
A
Thank you, Lynn. And as a last word, it's never too late. No matter how old your child is, it's never too late. We can always make progress. And there's a lot in this book on adulthood, and that is a whole other podcast.
- [37:40]
B
It is. But I'll echo that sentiment. It is never too late. And that's just not a trite, nice thing to say. Truly. There's so much that you can do if not to help that adult or that child or that adult. There's so much you can do to create so much more connection and joy within the family, you know, whatever that might be happening. So I think there's a lot of moves that a parent can make. A parent has much more power than I think, you know, we're told that we have, or we may sense that we have, but a lot of it is having those. Those insights that really make a difference. So, again, I thank you for putting that out now and for what you've done over these decades. Helping families. So again, thank you so much and.
- [38:25]
A
Thank you for what you do. We work together to give people hope.
- [38:30]
B
Your child needs you. Running on all cylinders now and the fastest way to rise is with personalized one on one support. Get started today. Go to elevatehowyounavigate.com.