(upbeat music) >>Welcome to A World of Difference Embracing Neurodiversity.

I'm Darryl Owens.

From almost the moment a pregnancy test confirms parenthood is months away, soon-to-be parents begin preparing for one thing, a successful launch into independent adulthood for their bundle of joy.

These days, the road to independence is littered with potholes, rising rents, a higher cost of living, an evolving job market, and sometimes an emerging adult who's not especially eager to leave the nest.

For parents of neurodivergent children, those potholes can be compounded by additional obstacles.

Young adults often face a narrower path to a successful launch as they contend with employer misconceptions about their abilities and confronting the very real fear of living and thriving on their own.

The good news, parents can improve the odds of a successful launch by strengthening executive functioning skills and making sure their child's developmental stick shift never gets stuck in neutral.

In this way, families can help emerging adults gain momentum toward independence.

On this episode of A World of Difference, we traveled to Hoosier country to meet parents who are thoughtfully and intentionally preparing their neurodivergent collegian to fly solo soon after she strolls across the graduation stage.

Next, our panel of national experts explores the causes of failure to launch and offers practical strategies for supporting their neurodivergent child along the way.

And later, you'll meet our latest Difference Maker, a dyslexic two-time X-Games medalist whose life didn't truly take off until he discovered himself while flying down mountain slopes.

First, our journey takes us to Evansville, Indiana, where the Koehler family has feathered a solo home for their daughter, Lexi, to learn the ropes as she prepares to leave the family nest.

Their plan, gradually loosen the leash on their college senior so she can confidently step into adult independence.

(upbeat music) >>It used to be really bad.

I couldn't even step outside and stuff.

I think maybe a message for my past self would be, that sounds so cliche, like it gets better.

Hang in there, don't forget to ask for help.

It does get better, I think.

>>For Lexi, we probably didn't think that her path would look different until at the earliest, probably middle school, but then it became more apparent in high school.

She went through a lot in middle school as far as just struggles with depression and anxiety, a lot of challenges with bullying and things like that.

And then once we got to high school, I think all of those demands and pressures also became worse and really just had us kind of pausing and thinking that maybe we needed to kind of reevaluate and think about what her path might look like and that it might look a little different than what we had anticipated.

>>The little sugary sprinkles.

They're so good.

>>Yes, that has been a lifetime favorite, hasn't it?

>>Can we get those little cat cookies?

And then can I also get regular?

Do you want up?

Oh?

Or do you want to go over there to her?

>>There were several, several times when we didn't know if she was gonna be able to make it through high school.

We considered homeschooling.

>>I get very nervous around a lot of people.

I used to be really bad.

It's not as bad anymore.

I had really bad agoraphobia or whatever it's called.

>>I think the one thing I took away though is it was still really subtle.

I thought some of it was just some of the, just a kid struggling with maybe a little social, not connected and so forth.

And so the frustration of not really being able to help her to get through some of that and maintain relationships and do those things.

You love them and you want them to be thriving and you just watch them kind of bottoming out.

But yeah, we definitely thought she wasn't gonna make it a few times.

>>We were so worried that since she had been so close, especially with me, that it would be depressing or she would be lonely or she would be sad.

And she loves having her space and having her cats and being able to have her own space to play games with her friends.

And I think for me, that's probably been one of the biggest surprises is that she is really thriving and she's happy.

That's what was in the box.

>>It's my lucky day.

That makes sense, I forgot.

I did that on accident.

(cart rattling) I'm still as close with my mom as I used to be when I was living with her, but I think it's really good because it gives a chance for them to have their own space.

>>Do your girls need anything?

Do they need food or litter?

>>No, but I tell you what, we should see if they have that Philadelphia cream cheese thing.

>>Okay.

>>I tend to be like, I'm kind of a lot sometimes, but then also my mom, she works really hard.

Don't get me wrong, my stepdad does too, but my mom is like, my mom is the glue.

She's the Elmer's glue, but she deserves a break.

>>Historically, I think before Lexi, I would've defined independence as you're completely living on your own, you're financially independent, you're paying all your bills, you're managing your own schedule, you're doing all your own stuff.

Today, I think of independence as kind of like a scale, right?

It doesn't have to be all of those things, but it can be, are you able to get up and go to school and to drive yourself to school and to manage your classes and to take your medicines and to make sure that you sleep and to make sure that you eat?

We're both hopeful that as Lexi grows and matures, that we can just kind of continue along that spectrum.

But yeah, I don't think of independence as so much of a you're independent or you're not independent anymore.

>>I hope I get maybe more of an idea of the trajectory that I want to go, because right now, it just feels very blurry.

I have what I like and what I maybe want to do, but it's just fuzzy.

I hope it gets more concrete.

>>You want your kid to be thriving and functional and have the, life's never gonna be all happy.

So you just want them to be kind of on that path, right?

But the fears before were just, gosh, is she even gonna be able to launch at all?

And yeah, those are going away.

(gentle music) >>Has your family experienced something similar?

We'd love to hear your story.

Email us at awod@beaconcollege.edu.

(upbeat music) Next, our panel of experts explores how families can smooth the runway to independence and improve the odds that neurodivergent young adults launch successfully and stay airborne.

(bright music) Dr.

AJ Marsden serves as Interim Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Psychology at Beacon College, the nation's first accredited college for students with learning differences.

Her research and teaching focus on motivation, self-efficacy, student development, learning disabilities and college readiness.

She regularly trains parents and professionals on fostering independence and helping neurodivergent students successfully transition to adulthood.

Michael Faeth is founder and director of adult programming and employment services at the Franklin Center in Minnesota.

For more than a decade, he has worked with neurodivergent adolescents and young adults in transition, employment and adult service settings.

His expertise includes executive functioning, self-advocacy, employment readiness, independent living and helping young adults build the skills needed for lasting independence.

Patty Laushman is the founder of Thrive Autism Coaching and the author of Parenting for Independence, Overcoming Failure to Launch in Emerging Autistic Adults.

As author, speaker and neurodiversity coach, she specializes in helping parents of autistic and neurodivergent emerging adults build their motivation, confidence and real world skills.

Her work equips families with practical strategies for fostering greater independence and adult success.

And we're gonna begin our conversation with Dr.

Marsden.

When people use the phrase failure to launch, they often focus on visible outcomes such as unemployment, difficulty with college or continuing to live at home.

From a psychological perspective, what is really happening beneath the surface for many of these neurodivergent young adults?

>>That's a great question, Darryl.

And when we talk about failure to launch, we have to kind of take a step back and say, when does failure to launch usually occur?

And that's usually during adolescence and young adulthood, right?

During this time, Eric Erickson, who is a developmental psychologist says that we have a developmental crisis that we need to experience in order to move on to the next stage of our life in order to grow.

During adolescence, that crisis is who are we, right?

Who am I?

So it's finding your identity versus being confused and not knowing the direction in your life.

So basically it's figuring yourself out.

So when a teen fails to explore something, we call that a failure to explore or a foreclosure.

They might fail to commit to something and that's called a failure to commit or a moratorium.

But when they fail to do both, when they fail to explore and when they fail to commit, that's a true failure to launch.

And when we talk about neurodivergent teens, we know that they're usually a few years behind their peers when it comes to their emotional developments and sometimes their psychological development.

So this failure to launch can sometimes extend well into their 20s.

>>All right.

Thank you, Dr.

Marsden.

So Mike, in your work with neurodivergent adults who are preparing for independence, what are some of the biggest skill gaps or developmental holes that prevent them from successfully launching?

>>Yeah, I think on the skill side, one of the biggest barriers I see is that gap between knowing an expectation and then actually consistently applying it in real life.

So a young adult, typically the ones we work with will know perfectly well that they shouldn't interrupt people, that they should ask for help when they're stuck, that they should read social cues to try to figure out how to navigate a situation.

And they can often explain those expectations back to you perfectly well, but there's a big difference between knowing the rule and actually carrying it out in the moment.

And you can be successful 95% of the time, but the 5% where you kind of get caught up can be really what trips you up.

So adult life is just full of changing expectations and the rules are usually not consistently stated or clear and people will expect you to kind of just intuitively know how to figure those things out.

So being able to understand context, adjust yourself accordingly, those are the things that I think really are gonna be helpful to navigating these kinds of situations successfully.

And I would echo AJ's point.

I think from a developmental barrier, these milestones can be somewhat arbitrary.

And if you're working with a young adult, I think that self-determination piece of trying to determine, is this your goal?

Is this something that you've really kind of created and developed and bought in?

Because all of these things, whether it's college or employment or anything else, they all involve some degree of sacrifice and routine work and things like that.

So if this is a goal that somebody else has set for you based on some sort of arbitrary milestone, I think it's very hard to build lasting progress.

>>Thanks, Mike.

So Patty, Mike mentioned the word stuck and you work with many families who feel stuck.

So I'm wondering what are some of the early warning signs that parents should be paying attention to that their young emerging adult is being stalled in their transition to adulthood and what can they do to make sure that they don't stay entrenched there?

>>Yeah, I think the earliest warning signs really depend on two things.

So first, the emerging adult's individual profile and how long the family has known about this neurodivergence.

So some families have known for a while, so they had a heads up that the transition into adulthood might not go smoothly, but other families don't find out until after a failure to launch has already started.

So their child may finish high school and decide not to go to college or do anything else even though they're fully capable or, and I see this a lot, they start college, their support needs aren't met, they drop out, they move back into their childhood bedroom and then they won't leave again.

Sometimes that is literally the first sign that something is going on.

But I would say in both cases, there's usually a quiet pattern happening that can be pretty subtle that parents can look for.

There's an increased resistance to trying anything new and the emerging adult's world starts shrinking.

It's getting smaller and smaller.

On the outside to parents, it can look pretty calm, like they've just figured out what works for them, but often there's a lot of anxiety happening underneath.

>>Thank you, Patty.

So Dr.

Marsden, Patty mentioned the word anxiety and that brings me to this question.

How can things like anxiety, low self-efficacy, learned helplessness, and just repeated struggles contribute to a young emerging neurodivergent adult's reluctance to seek greater independence?

>>Well, just like Patty said, Darryl, that anxiety can end up kind of paralyzing you and you're really hesitant and you don't want to take that step forward and you don't want to take on more independence because your anxiety is already really high and you're already feeling like you can't do it.

So repeated failure when you've tried something in the past and it hasn't gone the way that you wanted, it does lead to more anxiety and that anxiety can build over time.

And the more anxiety they experience, then the less likely they are to try to take on independence.

Same thing with low self-efficacy.

If they've tried in the past and they failed and they failed and they failed, they really start to believe like, I can't do it.

They failed in high school, they failed in middle school, they failed in elementary school, and they literally believe, I'm not right for college.

I can't go to college.

They believe that they can't do it.

And part of this happens because of these experiences failing in the past and things not going their way, but honestly, it also happens when parents swoop in and take over.

>>Watch the full Ask the Experts segment on our website at awodtv.org if you want to learn more about this topic.

You can also watch or listen on Facebook, YouTube or on your favorite podcasting platform.

(bright music) Next, let's meet our latest Difference Maker.

For some children, snow is more than a welcome gift from heaven delivering a day off from school.

For Alex Hackel, snow, or more precisely, skiing down snowy slopes, became a lifeline when his life felt adrift.

Undiagnosed dyslexia convinced teachers he wasn't capable, and for a time, Hackel bought into that narrative himself.

His diagnosis freed him from that misconception, but it wasn't until he slipped on a pair of skis that he truly found liberation.

The Boston native and two-time X-Games medalist built a reputation for pushing the boundaries of freestyle skiing while shattering assumptions about what neurodivergent people can achieve.

As a celebrity ambassador for the Neurodiversity Alliance, Hackel has shown that athleticism, creativity and artistic expression aren't competing forces, but complimentary ones.

When it comes to redefining a sport and challenging societal expectations, Alex Hackel has never been over his skis.

(upbeat music) (tense music) (skis whooshing) >>I would say skiing is like a really like a freeing thing.

Like physically it feels awesome because you're just speeding down the mountain and you have so much adrenaline and you're really feeling yourself present in the moment.

And I feel like mentally that just brings you like so much joy that even when you're like done skiing, then you still kind of feel the residual of that happiness and it really is like very self-expressive, almost like artistic.

(birds chirping) So when I first heard about dyslexia, I had actually a pretty positive experience with it because my dad has dyslexia, my granddad has dyslexia, and I thought so highly of those people.

Like they were my heroes growing up.

My dad was probably my first hero, loved my granddad.

So I was actually like happy when I figured out that I was dyslexic because I pretty much knew nothing about what it meant, but I just thought like, okay, all the people that I looked up to in life have dyslexia, so I'm now part of the gang.

(birds chirping) (patrons chattering) When I was in the third grade, I had this teacher and I basically like dreaded going to school that entire year.

And I remember like just wanting to break down and cry because every time I would ask a question, she would like handle it as if I was like just completely stupid and she would have such like a short temper/attitude with me.

So my like schooling experience gets semi-emotional because I feel like it was such a difficult part in my life and that I was like a lot more depressed as a kid as I think a kid should be.

And that like when I look at my like elementary and middle school experiences, I don't look back at it in like some like happy, like formative years.

I look back at it more as like being very painful and that basically the blessing of it being painful was then it set me up to have good character and to work hard and to then appreciate things in life more than maybe my peers did.

(wind whooshing) So when I decided to quit slope style skiing and pursue film skiing, I saw it as being like this awesome moment because I felt like in film skiing, you have so many more resources to express yourself.

So in a competition skiing, they're gonna tell you the date that you're gonna show up, they're gonna tell you the course you have to ski, and you have three tries.

Whereas like film skiing, it's like on your own prerogatory.

Like if you can find something, if you can dream something, then you can do it.

And that's an advantage because it's like the playing field's just whatever you want it to be.

And then also like when you do film skiing, so much of the product that you get and like what affects whether it's good or bad is the actual filming element of it.

So if you have really good creative instincts, you can basically also use that to your advantage.

And when I released my first real ski and I got a medal and I won fan favorite, it was like a huge moment for sure because I had this like, it's like a milestone in my life to win this X Games medal.

It's probably the highlight of my ski career and it's sort of like one of the defining moments for sure.

I would say that dyslexia has shaped the way that I ski because I think that it kind of teaches you to think outside the box and also to just be like persistent.

So I think in my skiing, I try and always look for a creative path.

I don't always necessarily take like the easiest path in front of me or the most like sort of direct, but I'll kind of think outside the box and also like you need so much determination.

There's times where I've tried ski tricks hundreds and hundreds of times and that the ability to keep trying and keep believing yourself even when you fail.

And I feel like I got that from, you know, being dyslexic and, you know, having troubles in school and having to try and try and try again and sort of that brought to my skiing sort of really helped me.

(birds chirping) (water rustling) I would say what makes the skiing community open to neurodivergent minds is I think it's like a pretty loose sport compared to other sports.

So there's not really like a whole lot of like rights and wrongs, especially in free skiing.

It's basically like however your body naturally does it.

And I think that that suits itself well to neurodivergent people because I think we have a hard time doing things like exactly one specific way, but it kind of allows our creativity to shine through and allows our problem solving to shine through.

So I think it really attracts people who can think outside of the box.

And I like to call it the iceberg effect.

So iceberg is really big, but you can only see 10% of the iceberg above the surface, and you have the 90% underneath the surface.

And if you have neurodivergency, I have dyslexia, we have a superpower in our bottom 90%.

Why I've decided to be public about my neurodivergency is because it's such a important part to my story and I think it really shaped me like into being who I am today, both as a person, athlete, and just, you know, everywhere in my life.

So I feel like if I didn't talk about it, then you wouldn't really fully understand who I am and you wouldn't understand the story of how I got here.

So I feel like it's not really something I have to think about.

It's just a part of my story and who I authentically am.

So when I speak to neurodivergent kids and I give them the speech about how it turned out to be one of my biggest superpowers, I think in their hearts of hearts, they know that they have this thing inside of them and that it's special and that they're really intelligent and that they have so much to give to the world.

(bright music) >>Congratulations, Alex Hackel, for making a difference.

And that does it for this episode of A World of Difference: Embracing Neurodiversity.

I'm Darryl Owens.

Thank you for being a part of our world.

See you back here next time.

Did today's episode give you a strategy you'll try at home?

We'd love to hear from you.

Email us at awod@beaconcollege.edu.

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(upbeat music) (bright music)