Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
13. Autistic young people understanding their identity
92 Plays12 days ago
In this episode, Kerrie Highcock, Family Development Manager at the North East Autism Society, is joined by Nic King—an autistic trainer, consultant, and founder of PANDAS Online. Nic is also a parent to two neurodivergent children and brings both lived and professional experience to today’s conversation.
Together, they explore what it means for autistic young people to understand and embrace their identity. From discussing the importance of a positive autistic identity to when—and how—families might share an autism diagnosis, Nic offers thoughtful, compassionate insights rooted in authenticity and empowerment.
Topics covered include:
· What is a positive autistic identity?
· Is there a “right” or “wrong” time to share a diagnosis?
· How can families approach these conversations?
· The story behind Neurobears—and why pandas?
· Why a strengths-based model matters
· Agency, autonomy, and future plans
Recommended
Transcript
Strengths and Challenges of Being Autistic
00:00:05
Speaker
I think everyone has the right to positive identity. This is the first generation that we are diagnosing en masse. That immediate association of it being a very negative thing.
00:00:19
Speaker
There are a lot of strengths to being autistic and being an autistic young person isn't necessarily the place where you will find them.
Introduction of Guests and Mission of Pandas Online
00:00:32
Speaker
Hi and welcome to This Is Autism, the podcast from the North East Autism Society. My name is Kerry Highcock and I'm the Family Development Manager at the charity. Today I'm joined by the lovely Nick King, a trainer and consultant who runs an organisation called Pandas Online and provides training for children, young people and their families on what it means to be autistic.
00:00:52
Speaker
Nick is autistic herself and has ADHD and has two neurodivergent children. So thanks very much for talking to us, Nick. and Just to make sure I got all of that intro right, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
00:01:05
Speaker
I think you were there or thereabouts. I do um have a company called Pandas Online. We do have NeuroBez, which is... training for autistic children and young people and just for them.
00:01:19
Speaker
ah do train everyone. um I'm not ah and literally everyone, anyone. Anyone who will listen. Anyone who will listen, anyone who's passionate, people who aren't passionate, but they're a slightly different vibe.
00:01:31
Speaker
um Yeah, so anyone. Wonderful. So, I'm going to go straight into questions for you,
The Importance of Positive Identity for Autistic Individuals
00:01:38
Speaker
Nick. and You talk a lot about positive identity when we're working with our children and young people and, of course, autistic adults. What what are we talking about when we talk about positive identity? What does that mean?
00:01:51
Speaker
I think everyone has the right to a positive identity. I think being autistic, being neurodivergent is fundamental to who you are, how you experience the world.
00:02:07
Speaker
And I think we could have learned a lot from not helping other minority or marginalized groups have a positive identity about themselves.
00:02:20
Speaker
And I think there is learning there. And I think everyone has the right to a positive of identity. Autistic children have the right to a positive self-identity around being autistic.
00:02:33
Speaker
They do.
Should Children Be Told About Their Autism Diagnosis?
00:02:34
Speaker
So do you think, I think I already know the answer to this question, and but you know a lot of the families I work with will say, and should I tell my child they're autistic?
00:02:45
Speaker
Is there a right time to do so? I mean, what are your what are your thoughts about that? Yes, I mean, they need to know. um ah They need to know. and There's research out there only within adults that finding out...
00:03:03
Speaker
while you were younger, um can have positive mental health outcomes. It's not a huge study. There's not you know thousands and thousands of parts of data because realistically, this is the first generation that we are diagnosing en masse.
00:03:21
Speaker
um and i no Why are we doing it if we're not telling them? Why are we diagnosing thousands and thousands of autistic children if we're not telling them?
Neurodivergent Privilege and Family History
00:03:34
Speaker
what How is it different from our so-called lost generation not being diagnosed?
00:03:42
Speaker
How are we going to make it be different? And I think that starts as telling them. Yeah, and and i'm I'm a big advocate for that as well. I think it's really important to know who you are as a person.
00:03:55
Speaker
And I also think there's something around, you know, we take our children to appointments to sit through numerous assessments and talk about everything that's wrong with them often. That's how it's often framed.
00:04:09
Speaker
And think there's something about knowing why you are in that process that's really important as well. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. if I mean, I don't recommend anyone looks at the DSM criteria because it's awful, and but it's about rigidity. It's about being slightly broken. It's about not you know it's it's about being somehow wrong of normal.
00:04:36
Speaker
it It's unpleasant and they hear it. And and then we're we're sort of we're wondering why... they don't have a positive identity. If I had only framed myself within you know the DSM criteria, I wouldn't have a positive identity either.
00:04:50
Speaker
what so what helped you, Nick, as a ah later diagnosed person? Was there something around finding your tribe or what helped you?
00:05:01
Speaker
No, you see, I think, and this is something that, you know, I i talk about in other places. I have ah neurodivergent privilege and i do and Our family looks like the adults being diagnosed before the children. um And that's very, very different than most people's experience around diagnosis or like self-identification.
00:05:24
Speaker
I also come from a very, very long line of people who understood they were different. So although my grandfather would be 100 and odd now, and he definitely didn't consider himself within the word autism because at the time there wasn't the word autism, um he knew he was different and he knew lots of the world didn't work for him. So he did, you know, self-employment. He had ah job around his interests. And I i come...
00:05:59
Speaker
from a very multi-generational line of that where we weren't using the word autism, but we had a very sort of clear idea about sort of finding your own path and finding what works for you. And that if that looks different in the majority of people, that's okay.
00:06:15
Speaker
um So
Timing and Environment for Autism Diagnosis Discussions
00:06:16
Speaker
sort of there's there's that in that we were kind of a little bit of ahead of the game. And I feel like I get to share that.
00:06:29
Speaker
You know if you have privilege, share it kind of thing. Yeah. and And I hadn't, so as you know, and I'll give you a plug here, I've been listening to Nick's wonderful podcast, Neurodivergent Privilege.
00:06:42
Speaker
and And actually I hadn't heard of the term before neurodivergent privilege until I heard you speak about it. And it really made me think, yeah, if you're in that world already where it's all okay to be different it's fine like that's all right like let's all embrace difference and I loved I think you shared a story Nick I think it was you okay about um where I think it was your granddad or your designed the um thing for the telephone so we had like internal telephone lines in the house yeah yes we did brilliant you know and and what a
00:07:19
Speaker
you what ah What a creative way of being. and I just think it was, I think that term was just very interesting for me. And I was like, actually, interesting. I may or may not have made it up myself. There's potential. I do that.
00:07:35
Speaker
But I do. I think as i think there are some neurodivergent people out there who have a level of history and privilege within there their families where we aren't the first through to even conceptualize yourself as sort of slightly, you know, different to some sort of societal model.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah. No, I like that. i like it a lot. So we believe both of us that yes, it's a good thing. It's a positive thing. Why would you not, you know, explore with your child about them being neurodivergent?
00:08:10
Speaker
and But do you think Nick, there is a right time or a wrong time to share that information? Oh, maybe. ah I think it's twofold, isn't it? So obviously we've got significantly long waiting lists, which may result in young people sort of knowing and self-identifying before they're diagnosed, which is good um we have more self-identifying adults which means it can be more of an like an average conversation within your household where you talk about sort of neurodivergence and your needs and things like that we we've thought about the fact that when we're sitting in these appointments it might be a very negative or weird experience at best um
00:09:03
Speaker
um i think there is something, and it's part of what I like and want out of Neurobears, there's something about... creating space to talk about it.
00:09:14
Speaker
So like, i I don't want to talk about it in the appointments where we're using negative language. I don't want us to talk about it immediately after meltdowns. I don't want us to talk about it immediately after something's gone wrong at school.
00:09:28
Speaker
I don't want us to talk about it when we're like necessarily in crisis. That definitely shouldn't be the first time we're bringing it up. But Also, our system in a way works that you might not even get a referral into the system until your young person's in crisis.
00:09:45
Speaker
So you're kind of being forced into these discussions at completely the wrong time. And ah
Language, Identity, and Community in Autism
00:09:55
Speaker
feel like just creating that time and a sort of like just a neutral and safe time to talk about it away from any kind of negatives, deficits, bad experiences for the young autistic person is where we need to do it.
00:10:13
Speaker
If I had the magic wand, I would like every young person to have neurobears within year to 18 months of being diagnosed or self-identifying. Because I think it's important to sort of get in there and build before they start associating it with being a negative thing.
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah. and And I think... You know, and I love the work that you do with NeuroBears. But I think there is stuff out there that still is framed very negative. So I've had young people who will get a diagnosis and then will go on Google, for example, and come up with all old horrendous stuff like the triad of imp impairments. You know, some people are still talking about that. Wow.
00:11:01
Speaker
and And then actually completely disassociate from the idea of being autistic and it kind of put but a wall up already. And I've got families that say, you know, my son, my daughter is saying to me, I didn't want this diagnosis. Why did you get this for me? and and And then that immediate association of it being a very negative thing because they've not had, like you say, wouldn't it be wonderful if after diagnosis they were signposted or they went on to a wonderful program of self-exploration.
00:11:30
Speaker
But unfortunately, I think there's there's a big gap for some young people in between, isn't there, where we get on Google and it's all... awfulness, some of it. Some of it's good, but a lot of it is not good. Sometimes how I describe it within as well, like putting yourself on the right algorithm.
00:11:47
Speaker
um So like the right sort of, the search term. So if we think of like language, and that's what we're fundamentally talking about here. We're talking about a move away from some language associated with autism to the language of like a culture and a ah community. And within that, that's how we sort of like...
00:12:07
Speaker
we build relationships, we create a sense of community. And it's it's always been in the feedback that it's incredibly important to the young people that NeuroBears was created by autistic people that it is we and not them.
00:12:24
Speaker
And it is a language of us and not how they are being like perceived. it's It's the language that we use in our culture. It's a language that we use between ourselves. It's the language that we use in our community.
00:12:39
Speaker
And that's how
Introduction to NeuroBears: Exploring Autism Identity
00:12:40
Speaker
you create a self a sense of like belonging. It's how you create a sense of like
00:12:47
Speaker
self-understanding it's how you create positive identity it's how they understand that they are not alone because if they go and google one of the first results will still tell them that they are one in 700 000 which is not true no not at all not all i think you're absolutely right nick about language and i Well, I've been on a massive journey and with everything in the in the world of of autistic experience, I guess.
00:13:17
Speaker
But one of the things I've noticed that I've shifted, and this is a tiny thing in language, when we used to deliver training, I would very much say, you know, autistic people, autistic people, um i don't know, autistic people, yeah.
00:13:30
Speaker
might be wonderful creative create creatively. Let's just use that as a frame of reference. But now I reframe that to say for those of us who are autistic, and that's a very different message, isn't it? That's saying for those of us, we are all, you know, let's let's not other, let's not, it's not us and them. And I think that's really important.
00:13:50
Speaker
um And that was a very tiny example of how I have shifted language and it has quite a big impact. Yeah. Yeah. And language you know, it's everything and it's changeable as well. It doesn't have to be static. Language, you know, grows and moves and you know, is fluid. And that's important because although in theory we're 120 years in, we're still only just at the start of some things about, you know, being autistic. We're really just at the start of autistic people leading autistic research. Yeah.
00:14:26
Speaker
We're very much just at the start of autistic people so delivering the knowledge and the training. um And even then there's this there's more work to do there. There's huge amounts of work to do there about sort of privilege of which I have, you know, some and identity and on like intersectionality. this's We've got huge places to go.
00:14:48
Speaker
and if we sort of, you know, put a line in the sand and say, this is it and that's the end of it, it's it's got to be movable. It's got to be fluid. And the best way to do that is through language because it's the easiest thing to change.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. but has the biggest impact, I think. has such a big impact. Okay, we're going to take a little break, Nick, and then when we come back, we are going to talk about neuro bears and pandas.
00:15:15
Speaker
Hi, while we're on a quick break, I thought I'd tell you a little bit more about the Family Development Service here at the North East Autism Society. The Family Development Services provides support for families pre, during and after diagnosis and includes a variety of services, including our parent and toddler groups, autism hubs, workshops for families, a dedicated inquiry line and our resource site as well, which can be found at at the Family Resource site on the Northeast Autism Society website.
00:15:41
Speaker
So if you go to www.ne-as.org.uk and go along to the Family Development site, you can find all the information there. Welcome back to This Is Autism. Today, we're discussing young people and autistic identity with consultant Nick King.
00:15:59
Speaker
So Nick, so I know you have a wonderful program called NeuroBears. Can you tell us what is the aim for NeuroBears? Okay, so NeuroBears is...
00:16:14
Speaker
The only course for autistic young people, think, still. Definitely the only one that you can have pre-recorded and just do at home. um And it it's all about sort of exploring, you know, autism and autistic identity from autistic people.
00:16:31
Speaker
people. It's essentially like you ah love letter to my younger self, you know, if you could have known what you know now. And it started with what what the they need to know, what do we need to tell them?
00:16:45
Speaker
Because i think it's fundamentally wrong that we have diagnosed discharge as a policy here in England.
00:16:56
Speaker
and that where we're not telling young people. I can absolutely accept that a lot of adults don't have the knowledge, the words, et cetera, to tell their young people to explain it to them. i think that's I think that's very, very valid. And I think there is a level where NeuroBears is sort of like a learning alongside program as well. And that's great.
00:17:21
Speaker
and But it is for young people. We're average user age is 10. um And
Creative Process and Symbolism in NeuroBears
00:17:29
Speaker
I like the idea of getting to them slightly before they go to secondary school, and before those hormones really hit in and all adults are wrong, which is very fundamentally normal.
00:17:39
Speaker
But um i like I like the idea of them having... knowledge and we we use all the proper words. We talk about monotropism and we talk about the double empathy problem and we talk about environment and masking and burnout and communication and sort of thinking about just what works for you. you know I think there's so many...
00:18:09
Speaker
tick boxy observational this the observational thing drives me mental because this there was that big push wasn't there there was a big push for all behavior is communication and it's not necessarily all behavior is open to interpretation and unless we give these young people like the knowledge about themselves the words to express themselves and I can't do anything about all the teachers and all the professionals and everybody else in the world. We can't fix that.
00:18:47
Speaker
And it's not going to happen within our generation, possibly the next generation, maybe ever. I don't know. Progress is not linear. um But we can give young people an understanding. We can give them the words. We can give them a positive self-identity.
00:19:03
Speaker
And we can do that with bears. Or at least that's what I did. a Which leads me to the bears because they're beautiful. And I can see at the back of you, you have your lovely bears on your, which our listeners obviously can't see, but they're wonderful.
00:19:18
Speaker
So why bears, Nick? Do you know what? It's slightly your fault if we really get back to it. I can remember you, in a very you kind of way, sending me a WhatsApp at the very last minute saying, can you record a video with Zed, who's my eldest child, about autistic identity and first person language?
00:19:40
Speaker
And I was like, yep, can do, no problem. And i was like, I wanted to talk about how that you can't separate like parts of your body from your autistic identity. And then i was like, well, I can't like pull Zed's ear in this video.
00:19:54
Speaker
So I took a bear down for the video. And I think there was definitely a moment in that where it would just literally happen to be the first person I picked first like thing I picked up.
00:20:06
Speaker
um And there was definitely a moment there. And then it was a while it ruminated. And then I had hook a sort of a moment cause I was doing inside of autism with Kieran Rose and everyone was like, we need a child version of this course. And I'm like, cool. That's really easily said.
00:20:20
Speaker
um Very difficult to do. And I did definitely just have a moment where I woke up one day and I was like, can do it with bears. I can absolutely do it with bears. Bears can happen.
00:20:31
Speaker
And then I told like, you know, Kieran and my husband and Zed and they were like, you've gone crazy. um And then I sort of like, it came, it's one of these creative things, you know, sometimes stuff just comes out of you.
00:20:43
Speaker
Um, and I did and I sat and I was like, I can, I can absolutely explain this with bears and we can think about how like different bears have different needs. We can have different bears need different environments, different bears use different types of communication. Um, yeah.
00:20:59
Speaker
And that was it. And I think I did research bears. There's like, there was a point where it was going to be different bears, but I think it was always going to be a panda and it was always going to be a panda. There was always going to be a panda.
00:21:11
Speaker
Um, We love pandas. I love pandas. And I think as well, I think not only have I always loved pandas and part of the... the thing where pandas became a thing between me and Kieran and delivering the inside of autism. Um, and I had a panda head in my house already that I once walked, we're meeting with him.
00:21:34
Speaker
I mean, I seen a screenshot of that somewhere and it was wonderful. You just sitting as a panda. as a panda I think many years ago now, many years ago, um,
00:21:47
Speaker
Me and Kieran were working together, probably on Inside of Autism. um And i am not demanding all. It's not a thing. Don't listen to anyone who tells you. no um Kieran's definitely not demand avoidant. Definitely not.
00:22:01
Speaker
and And he was avoiding my demand. um And he sent me a GIF of a panda sort of like shaking its hands sort of in a go away kind of way. and And then not long after that, we'd had ah bit of a tricky week.
00:22:14
Speaker
And I showed up to the meeting wearing the panda head that we had in my house. And it really sort of like evolved or devolved depending from there where he then went out and bought the same panda head and he started show up to meetings wearing the panda head. and It just, it became a bit of a symbol of like making a safe space and like working together and like the things, the things that we were doing within that space that felt very good and very
Focusing on Strengths of Autistic Young People
00:22:40
Speaker
positive. Yeah.
00:22:41
Speaker
um so it was always going to be ah panda so nick i know in new reverse well i know in general you talk about strengths strengths-based models well strengths strengths rather than weaknesses and deficits um what do you why do you think this is important i mean we've kind of touched on this throughout this whole podcast but why is it important that we focus on strengths i often think about It was Boxing Day and it was one of my uncle's friends who now self-identifies and he's in his late 70s maybe and he now self-identifies as autistic and dyslexic.
00:23:18
Speaker
And he told me that when he went to school, he had the option of labelling himself as stupid or lazy and he knew he wasn't lazy, which left him with stupid.
00:23:32
Speaker
And he did genuinely start to believe that. And I think, you know, we've we've got a lot negative labels about people and we always have.
00:23:46
Speaker
and we need to start sort of moving away from that. There are a lot of strengths to being autistic and being an autistic young person isn't necessarily the place where you will find them because you might be stuck in a school system that is not exploring your strengths.
00:24:05
Speaker
You might be stuck in a school system where you're not able to even access your strengths should they be available to you anyway. If you happen to be really good maths, um you know the the environment might still be so difficult that you're not even able to access them and it's just sort of starting that process about thinking what you might be good at um and I always like it when we get like strength stuff back it's a lot of it's a lot of creativity it is a lot of maths it's a lot of gaming and it's it's a lot of
00:24:40
Speaker
groups. It's often like really quite niche groups that they go to. um And that there's something in that because obviously young people don't have...
00:24:52
Speaker
the autonomy you get with being an adult. you know They legally have to go to school, um or at least you know in the main, obviously you can be educated outside of school and stuff like that. But mainly they have to be environments that don't lead to autonomy, that they don't lead to agency, that they don't lead to finding what you are naturally good at.
00:25:19
Speaker
And, you know, that that can have a huge negative on, you know, how you you feel about yourself, how you perceive yourself, particularly when you're like, you're talking about tiny people here. You know, they're they're not even in secondary school.
00:25:33
Speaker
little. I know, we need a lot more positivity. Or at least neutrality.
Future Plans for NeuroBears
00:25:39
Speaker
You know, I'm not trying to sell being autistic as, you know, rainbows, glitter and unicorns. That's that's not the deal.
00:25:46
Speaker
not the deal um But there is room for neutrality. There is room for, you know, this aspect could be great. This could be, you know, this could really work out well for you.
00:25:58
Speaker
And then there's room for, you know, this aspect might be hard, but here's why. And maybe here's where, you know, it'll end or what you can think about doing as a coping strategy, what you can think about doing, you know, about it. How often are you in that space? Can you be in that space less?
00:26:17
Speaker
You know, start that process of sort of like thinking about, Where's safe? Who's safe? Where you're masking? Where you don't have to mask?
00:26:29
Speaker
And where you feel like, you know, positive, positive to be yourself. And just, and how much can you be in that space? million percent. So Nick, and we've spoken a lot about lots of stuff, lots of stuff here.
00:26:44
Speaker
and And I know you are always super duper busy, but what are your plans for the future? Do you have anything exciting you want to share with us? I've got loads of exciting things that I'm terrified to share because then people start wanting us to put dates on them. You also don't have to share, but I mean, if you've got anything exciting, this is the time. But if you just want to I mean, we know that you're doing wonderful stuff anyway.
00:27:06
Speaker
I mean, wonderful stuff anyway. NeuroBears research is coming soon, hashtag soon. um And that's done and is currently in write-up, depending on when you're listening.
00:27:20
Speaker
Might be out, you never know. and And that's been amazing. NeuroBears Cubs is coming sooner rather than later, which will be for under eights.
00:27:33
Speaker
Neurobears for older children is currently being written, but definitely won't be out before 2025.
How to Learn More and Stay Connected
00:27:43
Speaker
So taking over the world. i love Neurobears. That is such a good name. Neurobears Cubs.
00:27:54
Speaker
oh Wow. Now that's exciting. That's um yeah. I'm, I'm, it's, short but it's animated wonderful so nick if people want to find out about neurobears where do they go to they go to pandas online.org which is my website but we also have socials we have facebook we have a tiktok we have ah um LinkedIn. That's not as exciting.
00:28:24
Speaker
um And we also have my podcast, which is slightly separate NeuroBears, which is Neurotypicals Don't Juggle Chainsaws, which has its own website. um And yeah, so I'm very findable, very Google-able. Yeah.
00:28:39
Speaker
I mean, actually, we didn't touch on on your new podcast, but for listeners, I would absolutely go and get yourself on there and listen to it. So I spent about i was I was telling you, wasn't I Nick, I spent like a week with you last week in my car because my car automatically connects to Spotify. So every time I started the car, your voice popped up and it was really quite funny because I was like, oh, she's here again. But actually, what wonderful, thought provoking, easy to listen to content, I think, for people that just want to, you know, listen in and learn and listen.
00:29:13
Speaker
Get some thoughts percolated because I have lots and I've wrote them in a book for you, which I'm going to share with you and you can then do a million other podcasts on those things. and yes So check that out as well. Neurotypicals do not juggle chainsaws.
00:29:27
Speaker
So Nick, thank you so much for being a guest with us today on our podcast. And thank you to all our our listeners. If you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard today, please get in touch at info at NEP.
00:29:40
Speaker
hyphen as.org.uk you can also follow northeast autism society on facebook twitter instagram or linkedin and the podcast this is autism comes out each month so please subscribe on apple podcast google or spotify so you never miss an episode and bye for now