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Journey to Sarah-Rise
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From her daughter's diagnosis to creating Sarah-Rise, Jennifer Celeste Briggs shares with us her motherhood journey in helping her daughter, and how that turned to inspiring other moms of children on the spectrum. Listen in to this truly inspirational episode!
To read Watching Sarah Rise - https://www.watchingsarahrise.com/
Follow Jennifer on IG - @jennifercelestebriggsauthor
Follow Sharla on IG @sharlamandere.happy
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Transcript
Introduction of Jennifer and her journey with Sarahrise
00:00:01
Sharla Mandere
Hello and welcome back to Momtabulous. I am your host, Sharla Mandair, and with me today is Jennifer Celeste Briggs. She has BA in English Literature from Swarthmore College, and she's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and two daughters.
00:00:18
Sharla Mandere
Her daughter, Sarah, has a genetic anomaly and autism. And when Sarah was four, Jenny decided to run a Sunrise program for her, calling it Sarahrise.
00:00:29
Sharla Mandere
and training at the Autism Treatment Center of America.
What is the Sunrise program?
00:00:32
Sharla Mandere
The Sunrise program is a loving child-centered approach to helping those with autism and other challenges connect socially, verbally, and through increased eye contact.
00:00:42
Sharla Mandere
Organizing hundreds of hours of therapeutic playtime for Sarah She trained and coordinated multiple volunteers who contributed their love and creativity to the venture. Jenny started a blog to share the experience of Sarah Rise and has heard multiple times that her words were helpful to others dealing with life struggles.
00:01:00
Sharla Mandere
So she wants to help parents feel understood and to spread the word about the Sunrise program. She hopes that her words bring comfort, joy, and inspiration to readers, whatever their challenges and journeys may be.
Jenny's book: 'Watching Sarah Rise'
00:01:13
Sharla Mandere
And you wrote a book too, right
00:01:15
Jennifer Briggs
Yes, I did. It's called Watching Sarah Rise, A Journey of Thriving with Autism.
00:01:21
Sharla Mandere
I love it. Well, welcome. i get to call you Jenny.
00:01:24
Jennifer Briggs
Oh, yes, you do. And thank you so much for having me.
00:01:27
Sharla Mandere
I'm so excited. So tell me more about this. So the sunrise S-O-N, right? is But you call it Sarah Rise, which I love.
00:01:35
Jennifer Briggs
That's
Origins of the Sunrise program
00:01:36
Jennifer Briggs
right. Yes.
00:01:36
Sharla Mandere
fear So
00:01:38
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah, the program was started by Beres and Samaria Kaufman for their son, Ron Kaufman, who was, um he was diagnosed as being severely autistic in the 1970s, and they were told to put him in an institution.
00:01:38
Sharla Mandere
Yeah.
00:01:53
Sharla Mandere
Mm-hmm.
00:01:53
Jennifer Briggs
And they said, no, we don't want to do that. And they didn't have anybody guiding them about what to do, but they said, well, we want him to know that we love him, and we're not actually judging his repetitive behaviors as bad or anything about him as bad. And so they started working with him in one of their bathrooms so that it was ah an environment that was kind of controlled and not too overwhelming.
00:02:19
Jennifer Briggs
And they would just spend lots of one-on-one time with him. joining his behaviors. If he wanted to spin plates, they would get a plate and they would spin a plate to communicate by their action that they loved him.
00:02:30
Jennifer Briggs
And after three years of doing this 12 hours a day, seven days a week, he was able to connect and communicate and take in the world and relate to the world and interact with the world in ah just a completely different way and went off to school, mainstream school, and went through college and then became the global director of the Autism Treatment Center of America.
00:02:54
Jennifer Briggs
Anyway, so then we back up in time and lots of parents heard what Bears and Samaria had done and they were like, well, can you teach us? And so they started the Autism Treatment Center of America. And then when I was in college, I read the book that Barry Neal Kaufman wrote.
00:03:09
Jennifer Briggs
He goes by Bears as his nickname. It's called Sunrise. And I thought it was amazing. And I thought, wow. wouldn't it be amazing to run a sunrise program? And then I forgot about it and
Reflections on Sarah's growth and challenges
00:03:20
Jennifer Briggs
finished my studies. And, you know, and then many years later, then I have Sarah and,
00:03:24
Jennifer Briggs
It's evident pretty early on that she is not a neurotypical kid and she is very delayed in meeting all of her milestones and she was diagnosed as failure to thrive. And I worked my butt off to get her to eat enough so we wouldn't need a feeding tube and just everything was so hard one. And then when she was four and still not talking, I was like, okay, I know to run a sunrise program is a really big deal, which is why I haven't been doing it, even though I thought it was cool, but like it takes, it's gonna, this is gonna be a thing.
00:03:54
Jennifer Briggs
ah But I thought, okay, I'm ready to do this thing. So I got the help that I needed to go away for a week and leave Sarah at home with my husband. And it was the best, most life-changing week. And i hadn't known I was carrying all these like bricks of guilt on my shoulder and in my heart until those bricks fell away. And then...
00:04:14
Jennifer Briggs
I felt lighter and freer and also empowered to go forward of like, yeah, I can run a program. I can think about what Sarah loves and how to connect with her better and encourage language by going towards what she loves more. And so as soon as I got home from that week of training, I interacted with her differently and her language started coming differently than she had only had the sound for each letter of the alphabet.
00:04:41
Jennifer Briggs
and wasn't putting them together. And it was basically that I just had to ask her to put them together and give her the time instead of like running to do whatever I thought she wanted, but give her the time, keep looking at her.
00:04:47
Sharla Mandere
Mm-hmm.
00:04:55
Jennifer Briggs
I mean, like, you can do it. You can do it thinking that in my head, but like, Keeping my mouth shut to give her the time and then she started putting her sounds together and, and then I started getting her more one on one time with me and with volunteers and it just completely changed her life and the lives of everyone in the family and all the volunteers that helped.
00:05:17
Sharla Mandere
That's amazing.
Emotional impact of 'failure to thrive' diagnoses
00:05:18
Sharla Mandere
i love i i love i love that like that that you you took that time for you right? And kind of healed you a little bit and then came home and just were able to give her that space.
00:05:31
Sharla Mandere
And I think, I mean, whether you have a neurotypical or a neurodivergent child, I think that's that that's something that we all need to do, right? The kids just want, they want the space to grow and figure themselves and things out, right? On their own.
00:05:45
Sharla Mandere
um And I think that that's amazing. And being able to recognize what she needed and give her that think that's awesome. So, so like what, like I, I have a, but well, had a failure to thrive baby too. Right. So, um, you know, and that was, that was a really hard time.
00:06:07
Sharla Mandere
Um, and, and I don't think she was technically failure to thrive. She just wasn't gaining weight.
00:06:15
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah. so
00:06:15
Sharla Mandere
You know, I had, I had a very thin baby and they like big brown fat babies.
00:06:21
Jennifer Briggs
Yes, yes, they do. Mm-hmm.
00:06:24
Sharla Mandere
I don't make them big and round and fat. I don't. i don't like Tiny little babies, you know, but, um, but she had, she was hitting all of her milestones. So, you know, I don't think she was a total, they just failed her because the growth chart was like well below, you know,
00:06:38
Jennifer Briggs
Yep. Yep. yep That's exactly why Sarah was put on it. It's because she wasn't gaining weight at the rate that they wanted her to gain weight. And I mean, she truly wasn't very interested in eating solid foods when it was time. So that's why I had to work really, really, really hard to get enough food in her.
00:06:56
Jennifer Briggs
And I look back and I think maybe I just should have gotten her a feeding tube. But at the time, i really just didn't want to do that. It felt like admitting to... a problem and I was not ready to admit that we had a problem.
Working through guilt and finding acceptance
00:07:11
Sharla Mandere
Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard to say something's not right.
00:07:18
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah.
00:07:18
Sharla Mandere
You know, it's a really hard, um, as a mom, um, really hard to go, this isn't quote unquote normal, right? This isn't right.
00:07:34
Sharla Mandere
There's, ah it's, it's, and it's kind of defeating and it's kind of like, um, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is It's, it's,
00:07:45
Sharla Mandere
it's scary, right? It's gut-wrenching. It's a bit defeating. And it's it's it a lot of it just gets put on the mom, right? Like, oh, it's somehow your fault. Okay.
00:07:58
Jennifer Briggs
That's right. That's how I had been feeling as if like i had messed up somehow, like, you know, my oven where I incubated this child somehow was faulty. And that's why we're having difficulty and I better work really hard, really fast.
00:08:13
Jennifer Briggs
to get her caught up. And so, I mean, honestly, that was a lot that was driving my getting her all the different therapies. And even doing the Sunrise program for her was thinking, oh, if we could just do enough, then she'll somehow catch up and no one will ever know.
00:08:29
Sharla Mandere
Yeah.
00:08:29
Jennifer Briggs
And I had to work through those feelings and really come to a different place of, you know what, I don't need her to change at all. I love her exactly as she is. And it was only once i really came to that feeling in my heart that then I could give her the space and attention that wasn't loaded down with fear and pressure towards her.
00:08:49
Jennifer Briggs
And I think that also is what helped her then actually start to ah put her words together and connect more and feel more comfortable making eye contact and then We helped her learn to play games and play imaginatively. And now her imagination is just like off the
Sisterly support: Amy and Sarah
00:09:06
Jennifer Briggs
charts. It is. She is always coming up with new creative ideas that just make me crack up out loud laughing.
00:09:15
Sharla Mandere
I love it. Bringing the joy back, right? Into parenting because it's such a stressful...
00:09:17
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah.
00:09:18
Sharla Mandere
time And so when they're when they're babies, right, and that you get this failure to thrive, and not that everybody, this failure to thrive is going to be neurodivergent, but my failure to thrive kid is neurodivergent.
00:09:32
Sharla Mandere
She's not on the spectrum, but she has you know dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, auditory processing issues, you know all sorts of stuff that makes school very challenging and um and sent a whole other slew of events into you know place with that.
00:09:48
Sharla Mandere
But, um, I'll see now my, uh, you know, the, the, my, my, my ADHD came in now. i'm like, where was I going with that? The, the failure to thrive, like that diagnosis, that part, I remember we were, um, I was running a youth theater program at the time and we had rehearsals in my living room cause we didn't have a space. yes And, um, one of the girls' moms was a social worker in the hospital and Sorella was probably about She was less than a year old.
00:10:16
Sharla Mandere
And I was talking to her about the the failure to thrive. and And she said, well, have they called in a social worker yet? It gets so clinical, right? And i I was like, no, they haven't. And I said, why?
00:10:31
Sharla Mandere
Why, what could, what, what would happen if they did? And she, she just very clinically, very matter of factly said, well, if they called one in, then they could assess the situation. And if they thought there was any kind of neglect, she could potentially be taken away from you.
00:10:47
Sharla Mandere
And i and, and it was so. this is step A, step B, step C, you lose your child. And I was like, it sent me into, i was weighing her three times a day.
00:11:00
Sharla Mandere
We were, my milk was not working. And so we were double scooping formula and adding heavy whipping cream into it per the doctor's recommendation. I mean, it was like triple cheeseburgers for this child in terms of calories.
00:11:14
Sharla Mandere
And she just wasn't gaining. And I was like, there's no neglect. We're trying as hard as we can. i Every time she poops, they freak out because she loses three ounces. Like it was like, I, I, I, it was so scary, you know?
00:11:29
Jennifer Briggs
Yes.
00:11:29
Sharla Mandere
and it's just a hard time as a mom to feel like we're doing everything we can. And then you know And and nobody they never did call in a social worker. There was never a thought of there was neglect.
00:11:39
Jennifer Briggs
Thank goodness.
00:11:41
Sharla Mandere
there would no There never was, but that was in the back of my mind ever since she said that of like, holy crap, that could happen?
00:11:49
Jennifer Briggs
That is terrifying.
00:11:49
Sharla Mandere
ah It was awful. And she was so, she didn't think, she was so factual about it. She was just like, you asked a question, I answered it. this is And I was like, okay.
00:12:01
Jennifer Briggs
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I remember um after one visit to one of Sarah's nutritionists and afterwards they give you the paperwork and it says, you know, the diagnosis. And I looked at it carefully and it said, failure to thrive and feeding mismanagement.
00:12:18
Jennifer Briggs
was like, excuse me, am working my butt off to get this kid to eat. Like I am doing anything.
00:12:25
Sharla Mandere
Well,
00:12:26
Jennifer Briggs
i will drive around and around and around because if I pause every block and like pull over to park and give her a goldfish, then she eats it. Or we go on long walks and every few steps I stop and I give her a sip of something like,
00:12:39
Jennifer Briggs
And I talked to the doctor and he actually he said, well, that's what the insurance puts. It automatically goes with the code. But he had the paperwork redone to remove that line of the feeding mismanagement.
00:12:52
Sharla Mandere
Yeah, because that really puts it on the fault of the parents, right?
00:12:54
Jennifer Briggs
I know.
00:12:55
Sharla Mandere
It's like if there is feeding mismanagement, okay, cool. But when you're working your butt off to feed your kid, yeah, that's a scary, it's a very scary, you know, thing.
00:13:06
Sharla Mandere
And and that's the problem, like insurance and paperwork and all of that in it. sends parents into this tailspin of like, oh my God. So what you have other kids, right?
00:13:16
Sharla Mandere
Yes, you have two.
00:13:18
Jennifer Briggs
I do.
00:13:18
Sharla Mandere
Where is Sarah in the,
Early observations and therapies for Sarah
00:13:20
Sharla Mandere
like, is she oldest youngest? Where is she?
00:13:22
Jennifer Briggs
i would say yes. So technically, age-wise, she is the oldest. She is 18. And then her younger sister, Amy, is 14 and is about a foot taller than Sarah and is developmentally the older one. So I figure they are each playing the role of the older and the younger sister.
00:13:43
Sharla Mandere
Yeah. Do you notice a dynamic with Amy in that? Like, does she, like, how, how is she with helping Sarah and, and with her and the sibling?
00:13:57
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah, um I think she is incredible. And I couldn't have designed a better, more perfect sister for Sarah. And that said, I mean, there have been hard, hard times and each year and each stage of development is a little bit different.
00:14:13
Jennifer Briggs
When we were um like just before the pandemic shut down, every time Sarah and I would walk to get Amy from school and we'd be walking home, Amy had no space for Sarah to be herself basically and was lashing out and so upset and i was like, oh, well, all of her stress from school and the day is coming out directed at sarah and well how do we get around this i i have to pick amy up but sarah can't be on her own own at home how am i doing this and and in that way the pandemic actually helped because all of a sudden then they were together a lot but needing each other more for that social connection and i think amy felt
00:14:44
Sharla Mandere
yeah
00:14:58
Jennifer Briggs
better having Sarah around and that it wasn't just her being at home doing the schooling. And um that really helped their relationship a lot. And Amy would help Sarah with her homework. And sometimes Sarah wouldn't let me help, but she would let Amy help.
00:15:12
Jennifer Briggs
And now Amy understands that kind of how to help Sarah more than she used to, although she's always been pretty intuitive about that. um And I mean, they still they still can fight and get upset. And sometimes Amy can still reach her limit of how understanding she is. But, you know, I reach my limit with that as well.
00:15:32
Sharla Mandere
Yeah, she's human and she's a teenager. So yeah.
00:15:34
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah.
00:15:35
Sharla Mandere
Yeah, my girls too. Like my, my failure to thrive kid is the youngest. So she has an older sister that is just really great with her and all her friends are like pseudo older sisters.
00:15:48
Sharla Mandere
It's interesting because Delia has ah few really good friends that are only children. that always wanted a younger sibling. And so they kind of have taken Sorella on as this younger sibling. So she's got, I just say she has all these big sisters that she responds to way more than me.
00:16:04
Sharla Mandere
Like lot of times I'll get the shut down. you won't answer mom, but you know, this girl, this friend can walk in the room and get her up and dressed and we can get out the door and the anxiety has subsided, you know?
00:16:17
Sharla Mandere
Um, so that's a nice, you know, dynamic thing. Um, you know, yeah, in the sibling relationships.
00:16:26
Sharla Mandere
My girls share room, so um they they they are they have to be close. okay
00:16:26
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah.
00:16:32
Jennifer Briggs
ah yeah
00:16:34
Sharla Mandere
They have to be close. home And they're they're very different. You can split the room in half and see whose side is whose.
00:16:41
Jennifer Briggs
with
00:16:44
Sharla Mandere
So when did you start noticing then with Sarah? You noticed, you said you she wasn't hitting milestones, right? Because I imagine... like when it's your first kid, like Sorella has, um she's sorry, I've frogged my throat.
00:16:59
Sharla Mandere
She, um she's allergic to art. I say allergic, but she can't have artificial food dye. She reacts to it. Like it's that she told me she feels like her face is burning on fire.
00:17:11
Sharla Mandere
Now we choose two when we were figuring it out, she couldn't tell me what it was.
00:17:12
Jennifer Briggs
Oh my gosh.
00:17:15
Sharla Mandere
So she would just like scream a lot, bang her head on things.
00:17:19
Sharla Mandere
She would bruise and bump on her forehead. She, ran across the room, ran into the front door and banged her head on the front door. we were like putting a helmet on her.
00:17:19
Jennifer Briggs
um Oh,
00:17:27
Jennifer Briggs
poor thing.
00:17:28
Sharla Mandere
It was really, and when I realized, and she wasn't having like candy, it was Doritos were the problem.
00:17:33
Jennifer Briggs
and
00:17:34
Sharla Mandere
So it was like, I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, but she was my second. So if she was my first, I would have been like, man, these terrible twos are really nice.
00:17:43
Jennifer Briggs
well ready Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:17:46
Sharla Mandere
You know, but I was like, this is not like, like we talked about in the beginning. This is not a quote unquote normal behavior for even the terrible twos. Like this is lasting for hours.
00:17:56
Sharla Mandere
This is way beyond. And I was looking at like, is she on the autism spectrum? Is she like, I was looking at all of those, but I'm not kidding you. The day I figured out what it was and removed the Doritos from the house,
00:18:11
Sharla Mandere
The next day it didn't happen for the first time.
00:18:13
Jennifer Briggs
Wow.
00:18:14
Sharla Mandere
And so it was like, oh, okay. All right. Now we know, you know, but was there, was there like, what was it was Sarah where you started realizing? Cause the oldest, I can imagine there it's different, right? You didn't have anyone else to compare to of like, well, this happened or this didn't happen. Right.
00:18:37
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah. um Well, when she was six weeks old through eight weeks old, she had some seizures. And so that was kind of the first thing where we were like,
00:18:44
Sharla Mandere
Mm-hmm.
00:18:49
Jennifer Briggs
Well, that doesn't seem like everyone's normal path. But then they cleared up and was like, well, OK. And the doctor said they were benign and like, OK.
00:19:00
Jennifer Briggs
And it was only as she continued to get older, and I was doing play dates with other moms who had babies about the same age, and and I was noticing that they were reaching for toys and and rolling over. And so by the time Sarah was six months old, it was really clear.
00:19:18
Jennifer Briggs
that she was delayed. But we still didn't know what was going on. And it took a while. and We started getting her occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy at home. And then a nutritionist started to come to weigh Sarah every two weeks.
00:19:34
Jennifer Briggs
um You were talking about the, oh no, you pooped, you lost three ounce. I would always feel like glad if Sarah wouldn't go to the bathroom in her diaper before the weigh-in. like, keep it all in your body.
00:19:46
Sharla Mandere
you
00:19:46
Jennifer Briggs
um Anyway, so so we were doing all of that. And and then um and when she was a year old, after doing all sorts of tests, they were checking for, was there like swelling on her brain? They did an um MRI, they did a CT scan.
00:20:02
Jennifer Briggs
They did um just blood work and and things in it. they um When she was a year, that's when they said, oh, she she's a little bit unique genetically.
00:20:13
Jennifer Briggs
um And that and we keep to ourselves until she's ready to to say what that is. And also, um in terms of sharing about Sunrise, I really want families to not pigeonhole themselves and say, oh, my kid has a different diagnosis because it has been used to help so many kids and adults with a wide variety of diagnoses that I want people to lots of people to be able to see themselves in that diagnosis.
00:20:36
Jennifer Briggs
um And then when Sarah was three, actually after I completed my first week of training at the Autism Treatment Center of America, that's when she got diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. And i was like, well, great. I'm already doing the thing that I know is best to do. So let's keep doing it.
00:20:53
Sharla Mandere
Yeah, I love that. So, so you didn't, so when you went into the Sunrise program, you were just interested in it, but you didn't know yet that it was going to help specifically Sarah, right?
00:21:07
Jennifer Briggs
i I really hoped that it would. i knew it had been used to help some kids with feeding challenges. Although when we were really in the thick of it with Sarah's feeding challenges, I i was so much in survival mode that I didn't think I could go away to get any more training or and anything.
00:21:25
Jennifer Briggs
um And then when she was four, eating was easier enough and she was gaining enough and she was walking by that point and... um And I was pregnant with Amy. um And then by the time I decided to do the training, then Amy was on the outside and she came with me and my mom came with me to take care of her.
00:21:46
Jennifer Briggs
And um yeah, i I knew that the Sunrise program can help with language. So that was that was a big part of it. And with the feeding difficulties and just connection with overall So I was pretty confident that it would help her.
00:22:01
Jennifer Briggs
I was not sure how far she would go. Like, would she become completely like neurotypical and you'd never know that she ever had challenges or not?
00:22:13
Jennifer Briggs
And but I really i was kind of willing to go into it being like, well, let's just do Let's just try this. Let's just just see what happens. And I want her to know that she's loved and and what can we do to support her the most so that she can thrive as much as possible.
Lasting impacts of the program
00:22:30
Sharla Mandere
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's beautiful. I feel like maybe intuitively, right, even way back when, when you were like, that would be kind of cool someday to run. Like, like maybe just intuitively you knew that you would need it, you know?
00:22:47
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah, maybe.
00:22:48
Sharla Mandere
So, so what do you do with Sarah Rise Yeah.
00:22:53
Jennifer Briggs
Now I'm not running an official program anymore. And yet I also feel like once we did it so intensively, like you can't take that out of your system. It's like changing the whole way you see yourself, your kid, the world.
00:23:10
Jennifer Briggs
um So a lot of it is not shutting down any repetitive thing that Sarah does um when she was little. especially in the days when we were more working on language, she loved to do things like open and close a lid over and over and over. So that is how I would communicate my love to her, was sitting near her and opening and closing a lid. And then if she was ready to connect, well, then I could work on language or playing more imaginatively.
00:23:36
Jennifer Briggs
Now, she talks a blue streak and what she wants to do, the repetitive thing, her stim or her ism is how the Autism Treatment Center of America refers to it, is
00:23:37
Sharla Mandere
Hmm.
00:23:48
Jennifer Briggs
to talk and to say things over and over and the same thing. And she wants me to respond saying the exact same thing. Or maybe I have a little flexibility. It depends. i can I can sort of test it out of is she going to allow me to say something different this time or do I need to stay to the script?
00:24:06
Jennifer Briggs
But it's very interactive. And um I think what I love about the Sunrise Perspective is to know that that that is still the best doorway to connecting with her and to helping her and to showing her that I love her.
00:24:22
Jennifer Briggs
and to teaching her anything. Because if I'm trying to force her away from where she feels most comfortable and happy, then we're not getting anywhere. And it's only if I can figure out how to weave in my own desires to what she loves, that then maybe I can get some progress outside. um like Like for cleaning up or something that she might not want to do. She loves the frog and toad stories where toad gets upset or doesn't want to do a thing. It doesn't want to clean up his house and is blah.
00:24:53
Jennifer Briggs
And so if she is not wanting to clean her room and I can say, oh, are you feeling blah? Then she'll crack up. And then then we can kind of work on it together. and And it's not getting us into a mode of fighting each other.
00:25:06
Sharla Mandere
yeah I think that's so like this program sounds amazing. And it also sounds like just like neurotypical rit kids too, right? Like my, my 15, you know, I remember, you know, when they're little and they want to watch Finding Nemo 17 times in a row.
00:25:21
Sharla Mandere
And right. And it's just, you just watch Finding Nemo 17 times in a favorite episode of Bluey, right.
00:25:24
Jennifer Briggs
That's right.
00:25:27
Sharla Mandere
It's just the same episode. There are a million other episodes, but you want to watch this one again. Okay. You know, and, um, and now, you know, my, my teenager will come in the room and be like, mom, I want to show you these TikToks. And I hate, I'm like, I need something that takes more of my attention than that like like eight seconds of this video.
00:25:48
Sharla Mandere
But no, it's really funny. And I want to show you. And that's how she's choosing to connect with me. And if I'm like, i don't want to watch it right? it it it It sets that divide, right? So I have to buck up and watch the TikToks until 10pm.
00:26:03
Sharla Mandere
felt like yeah would just rather watch Survivor, you know, I would rather catch up on, you know, what I missed of The Amazing Race or something. But like, Yeah, we're watching TikToks because that's, it's I think it's all the same, right?
00:26:19
Sharla Mandere
It's just on a different wavelength, different level, right?
00:26:22
Jennifer Briggs
Right, right. Yeah, right. it's It's seeing where your kid is and what they love and going towards that and meeting them there instead of needing them to come to wherever we are.
00:26:34
Sharla Mandere
Yeah. Yeah, I think that that works for, mean, God, that works for adults too.
00:26:39
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah, that's true.
Advice for parents: Trust and connection
00:26:40
Jennifer Briggs
that's true
00:26:41
Sharla Mandere
So what's something that like you really want moms to take away from this conversation? Because I i love everything you've said, like said and how you found connection with Sarah and and and and all that. What's something that you want moms to to take away?
00:26:55
Jennifer Briggs
think just how we do have the skills to help our kids and connect and that we know them so well and we have the love that we're going to keep showing up no matter what.
00:27:07
Jennifer Briggs
And in the really early years, I think I kept trying to follow what other people were telling me to do. Like, oh, the PT said to do this with Sarah and I would try and Sarah wouldn't like it and I would feel like a failure.
00:27:19
Jennifer Briggs
And we were both just having a bad time of it. And I think feeling less guilty and responsible and also knowing that it was okay if I wasn't doing it perfectly, but just let me try, let me show up and do my best and try these ideas of how to give her space and, um,
00:27:39
Jennifer Briggs
If she's doing something repetitive and not looking at me, then I'm not going to try to force anything. I'm not going to say, hey, can you look at me? I'm just going to be there offering my presence. um I think all parents can do that. And again, that could be for any kid. And even also giving more time, I had to really learn to count to 20 in my head after asking Sarah something.
00:28:01
Jennifer Briggs
And I still have to do that. And it's usually when I'm about to give up on her answering that that she will say something.
00:28:08
Sharla Mandere
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of kids, like you get the one word answer, right? How was school? Fine. ah
00:28:16
Jennifer Briggs
That's right. But that we actually, if we need to be there with our body and our attention, but then zip our own lips to give them the space and attention for them to start talking more, to have them fill the vacuum.
00:28:31
Sharla Mandere
Which is so hard to do sometimes, right? You just want to go, i mean, did you pass the math test? You know,
00:28:39
Jennifer Briggs
good
00:28:39
Sharla Mandere
um you know I can look in the app, but you know, um it's not in yet, you know?
00:28:43
Jennifer Briggs
That's right.
00:28:46
Sharla Mandere
Yeah. So I love that giving them the space. And, and I like that. Ask the question and count to 20 in your head, because i think, again, that works for everybody. It works for everybody.
00:28:57
Sharla Mandere
Yeah. So thank you so much, Jennifer. This has been, Jenny, this has been been such a great like conversation.
00:29:01
Jennifer Briggs
like
00:29:05
Sharla Mandere
I love everything that that you have done for your daughter with the Sarah Rice program. I love bringing the attention to the Sunrise program because they think that maybe there's someone out there that just has feels like they've tried everything and they don't quite know what else to do.
00:29:20
Sharla Mandere
And I love this approach of connection with with your kids. So thank you so much for sharing about that.
00:29:26
Jennifer Briggs
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Conclusion and gratitude
00:29:29
Sharla Mandere
and And again, say your book is is Journey.
00:29:32
Jennifer Briggs
It's called Watching Sarah Rise, A Journey of Thriving with Autism. And I don't know if this will show up backwards or forwards on here, but there it is.
00:29:39
Sharla Mandere
is It seems regular to me. It looks normal.
00:29:41
Jennifer Briggs
and And that's Sarah right there. That's really her.
00:29:43
Sharla Mandere
Oh, wow. Oh, that's great. That's a great photo. Yeah. And so if you see it on YouTube, that's a photo. if you're listening to the podcast, it it was a picture of the book.
00:29:53
Jennifer Briggs
Right, good to clarify.
00:29:54
Sharla Mandere
was It was.
00:29:58
Sharla Mandere
All right. Well, thank you so much again for being on. This has been great. And we will see you in the next episode.
00:30:03
Jennifer Briggs
Thank you.