45 Healthy Sexuality, Emotional Intelligence, and Parenting Children with Autism with Counselor, Lauren Dack

The Savvy Sauce

*DISCLAIMER* This message contains some adult themes and is not intended for little ears

45. Healthy Sexuality, Emotional Intelligence, and Parenting Children with Autism with Counselor, Lauren Dack

**Transcription Below**

John 10:14 (NIV) “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me"

Lauren Dack is a Jesus follower, wife to “a sexy accountant," Mommy to 2 wild and crazy boys, counselor, writer, small group leader, and friend! She’s a lover of people, nature, coffee, dessert, Netflix, books, and laughing. Lauren loves helping people feel good about who God made them to be and partnering with them in their journey to healthier, more joyful lives!

At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Lauren’s Website

Lauren’s Blog

Schedule a Session with Lauren Here

Ian Morgan Cron’s Podcast

Book: The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile

Jen Hatmaker’s interview with Ian Morgan Cron

Emotional feeling word list

Emotional feeling word list with faces

When I Feel Sad by Cornelia Maude Spelman

When I Feel Angry by Cornelia Maude Spelman

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sexual Wholeness

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:00:17]

Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message.

As a teacher or counselor, have you ever wished you could get more training on healthy sexuality or to have better skills in helping people deal with the sexual part of their lives? Sexual Wholeness is a Christian teaching organization desiring to help you accomplish this goal through classes and helpful resources. Visit them online at sexualwholeness.com.

Lauren Dack and I were classmates at Richmont Graduate University. She has always been kind and refreshingly honest, and she models well how to love others. She's a marriage and family therapist, and she is married with two sons.

Today she's going to cover topics related to healthy marital relationships and parenting. I hope you learn something new from our time together. [00:01:18]

Hey, Lauren.

Lauren Dack: Hi, Laura.

Laura Dugger: I'm so excited to have you here with us today. Can you just start by telling listeners a little bit about your background?

Lauren Dack: Sure. My name is Lauren Dack, and I am a therapist, a mommy, a wife, a writer, which I am kind of putting air quotes around the writer part. I want to be a writer. Let's see. I've been married for ten years last Thursday, so it's been quite a journey.

I started my internship right after my honeymoon, so I've been counseling for as long as I've been married. I specialize in marriage and family therapy with Christian sex therapy added in there. I just wanted to take more classes in grad school, I guess. That's been a really helpful addition to working with couples is being able to have an understanding about sex, since that tends to be one of the big issues that couples present with. [00:02:18]

Let's see. I've got a cat. Her name is Penny. We're about to get a dog. I'm super excited about that. I have two really handsome kids, Caleb and Mason. Caleb is six and he has autism, and Mason is four, and he has got a big personality. Or they both do. And they're both great kids.

Laura Dugger: As a counselor, you care a lot about emotional intelligence, and you believe that it's connected to a healthy sex life. Can you first define emotional intelligence for us?

Lauren Dack: Emotional intelligence is just the ability to identify and express your emotion with control and empathy. So being able to figure out what you're feeling and name it and then being able to express that emotion in an appropriate way.

So when we don't know how to do that, we tend to, first of all, not know why we're acting the way that we're acting. Maybe we're acting out or we're drinking too much or shopping too much or whatever it is to try and avoid some emotion that we may not have even recognized within ourselves. We just know we don't feel good, right? And we want to feel better.

So I really believe that emotional intelligence is not just great for a sex life but for anything relational, whether that be our career, whether that be our marriage, or parenting. [00:03:36] Being able to relate to other people and understand emotions that are motivating you is incredibly important in fact.

There's been research that says that emotional intelligence is a much greater indicator of success than IQ, which I just so agree with.

Laura Dugger: You define that so well, and it, like you said, affects so many parts of our lives. With your background, we're going to dive in a little bit further. How do you see it as being connected to a healthy sex life?

Lauren Dack: The sex life piece of it is, as believers, we believe that sex is not just physical, right? I mean, we believe that God created it to be a connection of our bodies, yes, but also our emotions, our souls, and spiritually, right? So it's a mind, body, and soul, three-dimensional sexuality, and it's very holistic. It's not just about our bodies joining together.

When you don't know yourself, when you don't really understand your emotions, you're unable to have intimacy in the way that it was made to be. If intimacy is a deep knowing of someone, right, whether that be emotional or physical. You've got to know yourself first in order to share that with someone else. [00:04:50] So I think without emotional intelligence, we're really missing a key aspect of sex, of good sex.

Laura Dugger: Okay, that sounds great. And we would love to grow in that area. So how do we grow in emotional intelligence?

Lauren Dack: So many ways one simple way is I have clients just if they have a calendar or have them get a little notebook and just to jot down or put in their notes even in their phone. When they recognize something within themselves, to take a minute, or seconds really, and just label it.

This requires just getting a bigger vocabulary for our feelings sometimes. You can look-up online an emotion word list or you can get one of those cheesy face emotion things where it's got all the smiley faces with the different feelings. But you can also just get a list online and do that, start there. [00:05:46]

Another great way to grow in your emotional intelligence is to see a counselor. That's where a lot of my growth came from, was my own personal counseling. Recently, I've discovered the Enneagram, and I highly recommend the Enneagram if you want to know yourself.

The Enneagram is really just this... it's a personality typology, but it's way deeper than that, than Myers-Briggs or some of the other personality tests. It goes into the heart of your motivations, right? So the Enneagram teaches us what we do when we're not as healthy, but it also shows us who we can be when we're in our healthiest place.

It's such a well-rounded holistic test that you can take, although Ian Morgan Crone, who's one of the leading Enneagram teachers, says really you should just learn more about all the types before you take the test. And I highly recommend The Road Back to You is his book.

He also has a podcast called Typology, and he just did an interview with Jen Hatmaker on For the Love podcast. So he gives a better overview than I could give about the Enneagram if anybody's interested in that. [00:06:56]

Laura Dugger: So as you're learning about the Enneagram, can you tell us maybe what your number is and what that means?

Lauren Dack: Absolutely. I am two, which means the helper. So first of all, when you take the test, the real test, they'll give you a big book when they send you your results that tell you a lot about your type. But I love Ian's description in The Road Back to You about my type. And when I was reading about when I'm not healthy, it was embarrassing because it was so accurate.

Helpers are people who anticipate the needs of other people really well and who kind of instinctively know what someone needs without having to necessarily ask them. Helpers are the people who are usually the first to volunteer or to bring soup or whatever else. Although that's not always true. That's a gross generalization. [00:07:58]

So, the Enneagram, I'm still a beginner at this and I'm still learning so much about it. It really is a process. So you have to kind of be in a place where you're looking to learn. I learned things about myself that I knew, but it was fascinating to realize that I am not the only person who has this type. Because I think so often we feel a little bit misunderstood and we feel sometimes lonely and that no one is experiencing the world quite in the way that we are. Even though that is true on some level, it also isn't as true as I think we feel it is inside ourselves.

So it was really cool to realize that we all fall into categories of these nine types and that we all exhibit things from all nine types, but that we have one that we really kind of lean on that motivates our behavior. For me as a two, what motivates my behavior is wanting to be loved. And that's rooted in a sense of abandonment and childhood. [00:09:05]

So to read that in a book was like, what? How do you know my life? It was so weird, but it's so true for me. That what motivates my behavior is a fear of abandonment. So when I'm in an unhealthy place that looks like codependency, feels uncomfortable to the people around me, when I'm in a healthy place I'm naming my emotions, I'm sharing with other people and I'm not afraid of rejection and being myself and expressing that I too have needs, not just meeting the other people's needs, but that I also have needs and being comfortable in that. So when I'm healthy, that's what I'm doing.

Laura Dugger: That's so well said. And I feel like you gave us so many incredible resources there or next steps. We will link to all of this in our show notes if you want to do any further study on yourself and the Enneagram and the emotional words list as well.

We will dive further into emotional intelligence in a moment, but first, a lot of our listeners may currently be pregnant or nursing, and I just feel like it's a disservice not to pick your brain further here. So what are some helpful suggestions for the couple? [00:10:20]

Lauren Dack: Well, first of all, it's so normal for this to be a difficult time when it comes to intimacy. Your body is going through such tremendous changes when you're pregnant. Granted when I was pregnant I wanted to have sex more. It was very, very different after I had the kids.

But everybody's different, right? Some women, when they're pregnant, they lose their sex drive. Some women's sex drive increases, but because they're feeling uncomfortable, they're not sleeping as well, they don't like how their body is changing.

After you have kids, your hormones do some pretty crazy things, especially when you're breastfeeding. When you're breastfeeding, your estrogen levels drop significantly. Estrogen is responsible for the stuff that makes us feminine, right? And it's the stuff that makes our vaginal walls be elastic and helps them become moist.

So when we have lower levels of estrogen, we tend to experience discomfort during sex because our bodies are not doing what they're usually doing. So you can be drier and it can be uncomfortable. And for that, I recommend a silicone-based lubrication. [00:11:30] My favorite is just called Wet and you can order it on Amazon. I think it might even be Wet with an exclamation point.

Another thing that happens when you're breastfeeding with your hormones is that your prolactin is increased, which reduces your sexual desire, and your testosterone drops, which is connected to libido, both in women and men.

So, we've got a lot going against us. First of all, I just want to normalize this season, and I really feel like it's important to educate ourselves and our husbands about what is happening to our bodies while we're breastfeeding, and why things are different, and so he can understand. But it doesn't have anything to do with him.

Laura Dugger: And what are some conversations we could be having so that they do believe us? It's not that we're not attracted to them.

Lauren Dack: Yes. Just share this podcast or show him some articles online that you found or have him hear from your gynecologist even. Come with you to one of your appointments. Just something so that he knows that you're not making excuses and it's nothing to do with him and your attractiveness to him. [00:12:37]

But you probably will find that you're not as attracted to him. Not that he is less attractive, but just that you're so stinking tired that you're having a harder time seeing him in a sexual way because you're exhausted and your body is so your desire is down because of your hormones and also Might not be feeling sexy because of your own changes in your body. All that goes into it.

Again, here comes emotional intelligence again. You're really taking the time to think about what's going on within you. Obviously, the physical stuff you can just tell him but the emotional stuff too about how you're feeling about being a mother, especially if it's for the first time and if you're feeling any insecurities or feeling like a failure or feeling lonely or maybe a little bit abandoned or jealous of him because he gets to go out and talk to adults or whatever it is that you're feeling, make sure that you figure it out and you talk to him about it so that he knows what's going on inside of you. [00:13:36]

Something that I think is really important that we remember after we have kids or while we're pregnant and then, you know, while we're breastfeeding is to widen our definition of sex. I think we tend to have such a narrow view of what sex is and we think of sex as only being intercourse. But sex is so much more than that.

You are expressing your sexuality in the way that you hold hands or basically the idea that sex begins in the morning time. It begins outside of the bedroom. And it's something that just includes an awareness of your husband as a man and his awareness of you as a woman and his expressing appreciation for who you are as a woman and vice versa, of course.

So whether that be a thoughtful note or a text or a, wow, you look beautiful today, or I just love how well you are mothering our kids right now, and I've just never been more in love with you, or I just appreciate you staying up all night last night, I know you're exhausted and I love you. [00:14:47]

You are having those moments and then you're enjoying things. If intercourse is painful or uncomfortable right now, even with the silicone lubrication, I don't recommend having sex when it hurts. And I know that your husband wouldn't want that either. We don't want to associate sex with a lot of negative things.

So if you're having trouble with intercourse, I highly recommend that you do other sexual play and do what feels comfortable. And who knows, if you do enough of that, it may lead to more, but you can have it be open-ended with no expectations.

Another thing I highly recommend for women is to think about a time, whether it be during the week, that they feel most open to sex. Women are what's called sex neutral. That doesn't mean that we don't enjoy sex. It just means that we don't walk around thinking about it like men do. I'm generalizing, but that's the way it is for most of us. [00:15:46]

We can either be open to sex or we can kind of be closed to sex. I use some terminology of what's a sex-positive thing that your husband can do that makes you feel like you would want to have sex with him? And what are some sex-negative things? I call them emotional turn-ons or emotional turn-offs. So if we're in neutral, how are we shifting the gears, right?

For your husband to take over a job that you usually do, whether it be he's giving the kids a bath and letting you take a bath or something where you can kind of get your mind in the place where you're feeling good, you're feeling more rested, you're feeling more at peace or more relaxed.

You know, having sex when you've just spent the entire day taking care of the kids and then making their lunches and doing everything, and then all of a sudden your husband wants to have sex and he had been sitting on the couch, obviously, that's not going to be something that is an emotional turn on for you.

So using that kind of terminology where he's realizing that it's not just about physical things. It's the emotional things that he's doing. That he's noticing you, that he's offering help, that he's allowing you to get some rest so that your body and your mind can be in the place where you are open to sex. [00:17:02]

Laura Dugger: That's great. It goes back to what you said about intimacy being three-dimensional. Your mind, body, and soul are all intertwined. I've heard recently on the internet something that I didn't personally agree with. I would love for you to weigh in on this.

They said for the woman after you have children, you may not feel like having sex, maybe even for a year and a half, so your husband will understand you don't need to. What's your take on this with your background and even your theology?

Lauren Dack: First of all, there's some truth to it, I just don't agree with it fully. If you are in the place where having sex with your husband would be uncomfortable, painful, or feel completely like you were being used, that is not a good idea. However, not having sex for that long a period of time makes it really hard to get things back on track.

So we really need to have some in-between. We've got to have some kind of compromise here because I really think that that's not a good idea for either one of you. And if you need professional help with that, go for it. [00:18:14]

But I think having a very open conversation with your husband about what's going on with your body and your mood and doing whatever you can to take care of yourself. What happens so often is we as women feel like after we have kids we get a pass not to do anything for ourselves. That we literally can't do it.

And the truth is your marriage and your sex life depends on you, taking care of yourself. I could go on forever about this but I love that God made our sexualities different. It's kind of annoying in some ways, but in other ways, I feel like there were so many good reasons for it.

One being for a woman to want to have sex, she's got to be fairly healthy, she's got to be taking care of herself, and she's got to be loving herself well enough or accepting herself well enough or getting the sleep that she needs. She's got to feel good.

Again, you can push through that and have sex anyway. I just don't recommend it. So for you and your husband to come up with a plan. Like, here's what's going on and you know, what can we do about this? [00:19:22] Whether it be to get someone to come and watch the kids one day a week or to put them in a short little school so you can get a little time to yourself or for your husband to take over a couple nights a week for the nightly ritual so that you can have some extra time to yourself before you guys are alone together in their bed.

Whatever it looks like, it doesn't have to be complicated, but for you to take care of yourself. And that be a motivation, right? Because not having sex for a year and a half, it's not a good idea long-term for your marriage or even short-term, honestly.

I know some really understanding husbands, but that really does do some damage, right? So even if you can't have intercourse, that you're having intimacy in some way.

Laura Dugger: I love that answer because it's so balanced. It speaks to both sides that you can be creative too if there's pain, like you said, or if you're feeling used, you need to bring back in that emotional intelligence and work through some things. Don't just stop. Put a game plan together. Be on the same page. Find intimacy, even in the problem-solving, together. But this can be overcome. [00:20:38]

Lauren Dack: This goes with any problem in your marriage. It's not just going to go away if you do nothing about it. You have to actively engage in, like you said, problem-solving. And to do that together is the best way to do it. This is something together. You both want to be able to have a healthy, whole marriage. And that does include physical intimacy.

And so to be able to come up with compromises and game plans and ideas of how can we work through this issue? It's not, hey, this is your problem, lady. You know, you fix it. It's no, this is our problem and we're in this together as a team to figure out what we can do to make this something that works for both of us in this season of our lives until we can get back to maybe something even better.

Laura Dugger: And now on the flip side, let's say it's a different issue. The wife just feels like she has a past now, and because she doesn't feel like engaging, she thinks she's off the hook. What would you say to her?

Lauren Dack: First of all, I would say, I love you. I would just say, I get it. It makes sense. It's hard to want to think about anything else when your whole life, especially for those who have maybe colicky babies or just a baby who just will not sleep and you are at your wits end barely making it through the day you're surviving. [00:22:09] I get it.

And it's so easy to put your marriage last. I've done it. So first of all, I just want to say, I love you. There is no judgment here. But again, going back to what I said before, these kinds of things just don't get better by themselves. And when we get into these habits, it's really hard to get out of them.

So if you're feeling alone or resentment or what, you know, all the things that I was listing before, to really talk to your husband about that. If he is not hearing you, go to counseling. Don't just let this be something that you ignore for a long period of time.

The leading cause of divorce really is not feeling loved. So much of how a man feels loved is through sex. And so whatever that looks like, again, we don't have to define it as narrowly as intercourse, but through you making an effort with him.

Sex is not just for him, by the way. I don't want to give that impression. Sex is also for us. But there may be a time where we're not enjoying it as much as we used to and it is more of a nurturing kind of sex that we're giving him in this in-between time. [00:23:23]

But I want you to be able to get to the place where it's more connecting and then eventually sometimes passionate again. But we cannot go from 0 to 100. It's not just like flipping a switch when your kids are old enough suddenly you're gonna want to have sex with him again.

If you've gone a year and a half without having sex, you're going to be cool with it, probably. And it's going to be really hard to get things going back up again.

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Laura Dugger: Well, let's switch over to speaking more about parenting. As you discuss emotional intelligence, how can we teach this learned skill to our children? [00:25:46]

Lauren Dack: Well, first of all, You need to be modeling it. Let's say that you raise your voice, you make a mistake as a parent, you're going back and you're apologizing, you're owning that you are angry and you are not expressing your anger in the right way and you're letting your kids know what you should have done instead. You are talking about your emotions as much as you can.

When you're watching a show together, a movie, you can ask your kids, what do you think they're feeling right now? Say a character is crying or something like that. And let them tell you what they think. And if they don't know, you can say, "Well, it looks like, because their face looks sad and they're frowning and they're crying, that they're feeling sad." You also can do the same for them. So you're telling them what you're seeing, you're asking them, Are you feeling sad?

Another thing you can do is those faces, you know, when they're a little bit older, showing them the little feelings chart with the faces. Something I love to do with my kids is read books. [00:26:50] There's a lot of books out there for emotional intelligence for kids, but When I Feel Angry and When I Feel Sad are some good ones. But there's a ton out there.

Those books really help you identify what the emotion is and what are the appropriate ways to deal with it. So, for example, your child is feeling really angry and they're throwing things or they're hitting and you're letting them know, "Hey, it's okay to be angry. In fact, it's normal to be angry and it's okay. I don't mind that at all, but it's not okay to hit and kick." What can we do instead to show our anger? You can say, Take a deep breath. Ask for a hug. Take some time alone. Walk away.

You're modeling to them and giving them those ideas over and over and over again, because good Lord, they're not going to learn it the first time. So you'll just keep doing that. It'll be those teachable moments.

Laura Dugger: There's so much research that talks about the brain and how to get our thinking brain caught up with our emotional brain. Like you mentioned, taking a deep breath, that gives time for them to cool down and it actually increases the blood flow to the correct part of the brain that catches up so that they can think through something rather than simply be emotionally reactive. [00:28:11]

Lauren Dack: Well, and I think, too, it may not work, because kids and deep breathing... I mean, it's still not working great for my kids, but I'm not going to stop trying to get them to do that. So don't give up if they're not responding to it immediately. Just keep doing the same things.

You know, just in our culture especially, be aware or wary of some of the language that we use. For example, if your child falls down and they're hurt, instead of saying, "you're okay," say, "are you okay?" Instead of kind of putting on to them as they're crying. And parents mean well. I totally get it. There's no judgment again because I used to say that too. But just trying to give them a place to say "yes I am".

Letting them cry. We try to differentiate between crying because we're upset about something and crying in a tantrum. I tell my kids it's okay to cry because you're sad or you're hurt. But when you're doing this just because you didn't get what you, you know what I mean, we've got to do something else because you're screaming and crying for attention or because you didn't get something that you wanted. You know, that's different. [00:29:19]

Laura Dugger: Any other tips for teaching emotional intelligence to our kids?

Lauren Dack: Comforting them when they're showing emotion, saying, Hey, I love that you told me about this or that we were able to talk about this. I noticed how you were sad, and you didn't kick the door or whatever. And you told me about it, and you came to me and asked for a hug. I love that you did that. So you're giving them the positive feedback for when they do express their emotions.

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As a parent, you have a unique perspective. Can you tell us why?

Lauren Dack: Sure. As I mentioned in my introduction, my oldest son, Caleb, has autism. We'd been dealing with autism long before we knew that it was autism. All of the training that I've had as a counselor and the parenting books that I read pre-kids and the ideas that I had about who I was going to be as a mother and how my children were going to behave, all of that went out the window pretty hard and fast when I've got a two-year-old who is completely out of control, and screaming and bucking and kicking and hitting and biting for an hour at a time. I wouldn't even know what had triggered the response.

We went and got some testing done and realized he had a sensory processing disorder. And then about two years ago... no, maybe it was more like two and a half years ago, I was like, "I think it's more than that." We went into a developmental pediatrician and did a bunch of testing and questionnaires from the teachers and from me and some testing in the office, we got the diagnosis of autism and he put mild because they don't give the diagnosis of Asperger's anymore, which I think is really what Caleb is if they still had that. [00:31:53] But now it's just a spectrum. It's a very, very wide spectrum.

I feel like I'm still learning what autism is, but it's a neurological disorder where there are some deficiencies in certain areas, social areas, and that often includes communication. Some people with autism can't communicate verbally. I have a blog where I ride this all out because I still am learning about it, but it just means there are some deficiencies. But there's also some giftings there too, oftentimes.

People with autism tend to have a really good memory, and that's definitely Caleb. And not always, but they tend to have some area where they're gifted. That's not always true though, so I hate to make these generalizations because there's such a wide spectrum here.

There's some deficiencies emotionally and then there's the sensory piece that I talked about. You have to have a sensory processing disorder in order to get the diagnosis of autism. [00:32:53] A sensory processing disorder just means that you experience either too much or too little of all of the senses or there could be a few that you're more sensitive to whether it be sound, touch.

So you could be on the low end where you need very firm touch and you don't really feel the light touch or it could be touch you're very sensitive to it, you feel it very acutely. I'm sure you've seen kids with autism wearing headphones. They're just very sensitive to the lights or sounds feel really, really loud.

I also have a sensory processing disorder, so I can relate to how noises can feel very, very overwhelming. And sometimes the sensory things can set off what's called a meltdown, where your brain is just kind of going haywire because of the overstimulation.

Laura Dugger: That's so helpful because we just want to understand this further. So will you teach us more of what it's like to be an autism mom?

Lauren Dack: Well, I will teach you more about what it's like to be Caleb's mom, just because it's a little different for everybody. [00:33:57] Caleb is a bright, loving, affectionate, really, really, really smart kid. And he is very aware of how other people perceive him. So he notices if you're upset with him or he can really pick up on how you're reacting to him.

He likes to have structure. He likes to know how things are going to happen and what's going to happen. There are many people who don't recognize the autism in him because he can work really, really hard to behave neurotypically, so to speak. The problem is that takes a toll on him. It's hard for him because he's so much is going on inside his brain.

I'm still learning about what makes Caleb tick, honestly. But there are things, whether it be just overwhelmed from working so hard at school, and then he comes home and he's just tired, that the smallest thing will trigger a meltdown that looks like rage [00:34:59] and he becomes not my Caleb for a period of time. And there's not much I can do once a meltdown has already started except just try to keep him from hurting himself or someone else and try to keep him safe and wait it out.

So despite the care that I've taken in being a good parent and having consistency and doing quote-unquote "all the right things", which I'm not saying I always do, but I certainly make a lot of mistakes, but to not see the gains from that as quickly as I do with my four-year-old, it's hard. It can be lonely and discouraging. It can be a little bit embarrassing at times, although I'm getting over that, because I just want to tell people, "I don't spoil him. I don't give him whatever he wants. I know he looks like he's the most spoiled kid in the world, and I say no to him. So getting over that.

I feel like I'm so much less judgmental then. I mean, I was such a judgy person when it came to parenting before I had kids, and now I'm just like, No girl, you do you. You're doing the best you can. [00:36:00] So I give props to parents who are just doing the best they can. And sometimes we just got to survive. So I get that.

I've let go of sort of these expectations for myself that I have to be perfect. I mean, for the most part, I still struggle with that. And I'm constantly, constantly learning. I'm never saying, Gosh, I've got this figured out. I'm going, Okay, this isn't working, so what now? I'm figuring out as I go.

Caleb has taught me to keep trying. He's taught me to never give up, to keep doing it even when it doesn't feel like it's working right away. I'm so grateful to him for teaching me that, even though it's been a hard one to learn.

Laura Dugger: But your humility and your response is just inspiring for all of us. Some people are relating because their child has a similar diagnosis. Some people may be hearing this and want to take further steps to go to a doctor and see if this is something that their child is dealing with. You mentioned... What type of specialists did you meet with? [00:37:01]

Lauren Dack: You can go to a developmental pediatrician. You can also go to, I want to say, a psychologist who specializes in autism. So there are a few different paths. We did a developmental pediatrician because that was covered by our insurance. If you have to do it privately through a psychologist, it's thousands of dollars, so you have to choose what's right for you.

Laura Dugger: Once you did get that diagnosis, was there anything helpful that came from that for you as a parent?

Lauren Dack: Yes. It made me realize that I wasn't a bad parent, that the struggles that Caleb were having was not because of deficiencies in what I was doing for him as a mother, or what my husband and I were doing for him as parents. That we had a little bit more ability to get the kind of help that we needed for him and to understand him better.

Again, this is still a process. But we got an ABA therapist. And there's a little bit of controversy about that that I won't go into, but I'm continually learning more about all this stuff. But for us, an ABA therapist was very helpful. This just stands for Applied Behavioral Analysis, I want to say. [00:38:12]

It's basically a behavior therapist. They teach you how to deal with a behavior that is not good. So, for example, your child is having a hard time putting their clothes on. The therapist is helping you gradually make your way towards that desired behavior that you want them to be able to put their pants on by themselves or whatever the behavior is, the desired behavior is. We're looking to understand the motivation of the negative behavior and we're looking to reinforce a positive behavior that we want to see.

So for us, this is a little bit different the way it usually is. An ABA therapist works with the child directly a couple times a week. In my case, the ABA therapist actually worked with me. I had the therapist teach me how to parent him and how to employ what's called a token economy, which works well for kids with autism, where you're really rewarding the positive behaviors.

Of course, there's a consequence for the negative behaviors in that they're not earning the reward. But that is something that works very well. Giving a lot more rewards at the beginning and then kind of tapering them off is part of the token economy. She did it for me. She printed off the sheet and laminated it. So I was like, thank you, thank you. I'm tired of trying to figure this out by myself. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. So that was that. [00:39:24]

Then getting in the services in school has been a whole nother podcast with getting the IEP, which is an Individualized Education Plan, meetings at the school, trying to find the right school for him. He's in first grade and on his third school, so it's a journey.

Laura Dugger: It sounds like it. But I just really appreciate you sharing a little bit of your story and the grace that covers all that. You're an incredible, engaged mama, and I think it just shows we all need support and somebody to come alongside of us and help us get over whatever hump we're facing.

Lauren Dack: Yeah, thank you. Absolutely.

Laura Dugger: Well, and this is tied in a little bit, I believe, to your decision. You seem to have a thriving practice going with therapy. How did you decide to take a year off?

Lauren Dack: There are a lot of reasons, but the main one was I was working part-time, but I was working two full days. There were two days a week that I actually didn't see the kids except for in the morning. I was coming home after their bedtime. [00:40:27]

In some ways, it was awesome because they have a really close connection with my husband, but in other ways, it was difficult because I was out of pocket for two full days and pretty tired the next day. The challenges that we faced with Caleb going to school last year and everything that has happened since then and then sort of the final straw was him not being able to stay in his after-school program.

So I was faced with either having to shift my schedule significantly so that I could be home with him after school or to take some time off and just focus on him and focus on getting myself in a place where I was feeling better about my role as a mother.

When he had been in after-school I didn't see him very often except for the weekends. I didn't have any time with him alone anymore since he started school and so I was wanting to get back that connection. So it really has done that. It's been incredibly hard because I love my job so it's been a way for me to get things back on track and be fully engaged and ready to go back to work. [00:41:31]

I think working mamas are amazing, and I think stay-at-home mamas are amazing. So for some mamas, working is something that makes them a better mom because they feel like they're able to be someone outside of their role as a mom, but they're also able to be present and engage with their kids when they're with their kids.

Some mamas are home with their kids and they're able to be there for everything and able to be engaged in all the activities and all the little school parties and all the many, many things that I don't know how working mamas who work full time are able to do well quite honestly. So I think they're heroes in and of that.

I know for some people there isn't a choice, for some people they have to work. They have to make the most of that for financial reasons. And I just respect people making the most of their time with their kids, whatever that looks like, but making sure it's quality.

Laura Dugger: You are in it right now with two little boys at home. What encouragement do you have for other mamas in that season?

Lauren Dack: Well, my oldest is in school for a lot of the day, but yes, it's hard. I know myself well enough to know that my fulfillment as a person is not necessarily coming from my role as a mother. I love my kids with everything that I have and I really do enjoy a lot of my time with them, but some of my time with them I don't enjoy, and that's just being really honest. [00:42:52] And that's just me being okay with that, right?

That some of it I'm just kind of like, right, let's just get through this. Bedtime. Having a little bit of time to myself. I've got both of my kids in school for a couple hours. Mason goes to school for a couple hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I get a little bit of time to go to the gym and to just do something for myself. I think that's really important to be able to be an engaged, active mom is to not ignore yourself as a person and your needs.

And then date night, game changer for my husband and I because we'd never had a regular date night until recently. And that has been something to look forward to, a time for us to talk because our kids literally will not allow us to talk when they're around. Then after the kids go to bed my husband and I, we've always done this, we watch TV together and we talk if we need to. We don't turn the TV on if we need to have a conversation about something. And we reconnect at the end of the day after they go to bed. So that's also huge. [00:43:55]

Laura Dugger: This has been incredible. Can you share where listeners can further connect with you?

Lauren Dack: Absolutely. I've enjoyed this as well. If you are interested in learning more about my counseling practice, you can go to my website, which is just joyfullifecounseling.com. Or if you'd like to read more about my story or just more about our autism journey, more about my decision to become a stay-at-home mom temporarily, all of that, you can read about on my blog, which is ourmessyjoyfullife.com.

Laura Dugger: Perfect. We will connect to those in the show notes as well. I have one final question for you today that relates to our name, The Savvy Sauce. "Savvy" means practical knowledge or discernment, and we want to hear insight from your life so that it can inspire us to take action today. So, Lauren, what is your savvy sauce?

Lauren Dack: Well, about 10 years ago, I decided that whenever I had a positive thought about someone, I would tell them, even if it was a complete stranger. So I have really found a lot of joy in being able to call out the good that I see in people. [00:45:09]

So I was thinking it a lot of the time, Oh my gosh, I love her dress, or oh, her shoes are so cool, or whatever, right? Not even just outward things, but inward things too. And now I'm just saying them out loud. And it's only made someone uncomfortable maybe once or twice, but that's just because in general we have a hard time accepting compliments sometimes. But I am not going to stop doing that. In fact, I'll keep doing it until people get comfortable with it, because it's very important to be able to receive the positive things that others see in us.

Laura Dugger: This has been such a rich time today with you, Lauren. I just appreciate what you've brought today, sharing your story again with such humility and grace. I've really learned and been convicted about how non-judgmental you are, and it makes me want to do my own work further. So thank you just for your presence and everything that you shared with us today. Really appreciated it.

Lauren Dack: Absolutely. It was my pleasure, Laura. I enjoyed talking to you. [00:46:11]

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.

This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.

This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. [00:47:17]

We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him.

At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started? [00:48:19]

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.

Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.

We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. [00:49:17]

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.