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Autism in Motion
23 Plays6 months ago
Welcome to The Positively Healthy Mom Podcast! Today’s guest is Amanda Trisdale, a remarkable mom and CEO of Autistic Wings Dance Company, a nonprofit she co-founded with her 13-year-old daughter, Lita, an exceptional tap dancer on the autism spectrum. 🎶💃
Amanda shares their inspiring journey of creating a safe, inclusive dance studio tailored to the unique needs of autistic dancers. From small class sizes to individualized programs, their studio fosters creativity and confidence for dancers of all ages.
We also dive into Amanda and Lita’s podcast, where they highlight tap dance and provide resources for the autism community. This episode is filled with inspiration, innovation, and advocacy for creating spaces where everyone can thrive. 🌟
Grab your coffee, get cozy, and join us for this heartwarming conversation! 🎧
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Transcript
Introduction to Positively Healthy Mom Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey moms, it's Laura Olinger.
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast.
00:00:05
Speaker
Because there's no manual for the hardest job in the world.
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome to today's episode of the Positively Healthy Mom.
00:00:15
Speaker
Today we have Amanda Trisdale, who is an amazing mother.
00:00:19
Speaker
She has an awesome 13 year old daughter.
00:00:21
Speaker
Her name is Lita Rundell.
00:00:24
Speaker
And it just so happens that you are the CEO of a dance studio that you founded with your daughter called Autistic Wings Dance Company.
00:00:34
Speaker
And so why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got started with that, Amanda?
00:00:39
Speaker
Well, Lita is autistic herself.
00:00:42
Speaker
She is an amazing tap dancer.
00:00:44
Speaker
She works with some of the biggest names in the industry.
00:00:46
Speaker
She is a member of Chloe Arnold's international youth tap company, Soul Talk.
00:00:53
Speaker
It's some of the best tap dancers in the world, not just in the U.S.,
00:00:59
Speaker
She's always thrived in that area, but she's always had difficulties with her autism fitting in in traditional dance studios.
00:01:10
Speaker
It's not the fault of the traditional dance studios, but they're built for neurotypical kids.
00:01:15
Speaker
They're not built for that slightly...
00:01:18
Speaker
weird, miswired child like my daughter is.
00:01:21
Speaker
She's too good for the autistic classes because those focus on kids who can't dance, but she gets lost in the neurotypical classes.
00:01:30
Speaker
And she does, which are just autistic, like she doesn't like looking people in the eyes.
00:01:35
Speaker
She stims.
00:01:37
Speaker
She's rather shy and mousy with her voice sometimes.
00:01:41
Speaker
These get taken as her being disrespectful to the adults in her life.
00:01:47
Speaker
even though there's things she can't control, it winds up creating some miscommunication between the adults and her to the point last fall, she got fed up and went, the adults are all bullying me.
00:02:00
Speaker
I don't think they meant to bully her, but in her mind, that's what they were doing.
Founding Autistic Wings Dance Company
00:02:04
Speaker
And she's like,
00:02:05
Speaker
I work with Emmy nominated choreographers.
00:02:08
Speaker
I work with Tony award winning choreographers.
00:02:10
Speaker
If they're doing this to me, what are they doing to other dancers?
00:02:14
Speaker
And decided she needed to build a nonprofit dance studio for dancers on the spectrum.
00:02:21
Speaker
Wow.
00:02:22
Speaker
That's like quite an ambitious dream for, you know, if this was a year ago, a 12 year old, that's incredible.
00:02:27
Speaker
And so it sounds like you were able to help her fulfill this dream.
00:02:31
Speaker
How did that all happen?
00:02:32
Speaker
It's,
00:02:35
Speaker
Probably easier than I expected when you go up to the IRS because you have to get, you know, their permission to become a nonprofit.
00:02:42
Speaker
And I went, this is what we're doing.
00:02:43
Speaker
And the IRS went, okay, check.
00:02:45
Speaker
Nobody else is doing that.
00:02:47
Speaker
Wow.
00:02:49
Speaker
The dance community still is a little leery of us, but the autism, autistic community here in Colorado Springs, the therapists, the providers have all jumped on board going, this is something that needs to be done.
00:03:00
Speaker
And it needs to be done from the perspective of people in the community who know what they need.
00:03:05
Speaker
A lot of the classes are done from people outside the community that don't know as much about autism.
00:03:11
Speaker
They have great hearts.
00:03:12
Speaker
They just don't know what autism is.
00:03:16
Speaker
So when you're coming up to the community and going, hey, we're going to have a dance studio version of an IEP, everyone has been jumping on board on that one.
00:03:25
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, that just seems normal.
00:03:29
Speaker
And we're having small class sizes versus, you know, normal dance classes.
00:03:34
Speaker
Lita's 13.
00:03:35
Speaker
Those classes can get 20, 30 kids in a class.
00:03:38
Speaker
Our classes never go above five.
00:03:40
Speaker
We're also offering for the, I like to call them the older kids, the 18 to 99 year olds, because there's not anything for them.
00:03:50
Speaker
Once you turn 18, things like this disappear.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:54
Speaker
Well, this sounds like such a great program.
00:03:56
Speaker
I bet every city and town in the country can really use you as guidance for what they should be doing as well to provide these resources and this great, wonderful program.
00:04:08
Speaker
Okay.
Lita's Journey into Podcasting
00:04:09
Speaker
I know you and Lisa, Lita, sorry, Lita also have a podcast together.
00:04:13
Speaker
Can you tell us about the podcast?
00:04:15
Speaker
We do.
00:04:16
Speaker
It kind of started as she was trying to help a friend's mom out and doing stuff for her friend's mom's dance store.
00:04:23
Speaker
Because what do you do as a teenager?
00:04:24
Speaker
You get on YouTube and do stuff like that.
00:04:27
Speaker
But then the studio's Facebook page got hacked.
00:04:32
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:04:33
Speaker
And my then 12-year-old went, well, I guess we need a podcast mom because they can't hack a podcast.
00:04:40
Speaker
Smart.
00:04:41
Speaker
And so it's now two days a week.
00:04:45
Speaker
On Tuesdays, we focus more on tap because that is what she loves.
00:04:49
Speaker
It is actually what her stimming is, is she stims complicated tap moves.
00:04:54
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:04:55
Speaker
Which has gotten her in trouble at dance studios because they try to correct it.
00:04:58
Speaker
And I'm like, you realize that's subconscious and she's not conscious of what she's doing.
00:05:02
Speaker
And they're like, oh, but I can still correct the technique.
00:05:04
Speaker
And it's like, have fun with that.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:08
Speaker
And then on Fridays, we're bringing in a lot of experts from the autism community because we've noticed a lot of parents, they're not from this world.
00:05:15
Speaker
I have autism myself.
00:05:17
Speaker
It's a world I grew up in.
00:05:18
Speaker
It's a world I know.
00:05:20
Speaker
A lot of the neurotypical parents, they're being dumped in this community they don't know about.
00:05:25
Speaker
They're still comparing their child to...
00:05:29
Speaker
They're neurotypical friends and they're neurotypical friends.
00:05:32
Speaker
And they're like, my kid isn't perfect.
00:05:36
Speaker
My kid is broken.
00:05:37
Speaker
My kid isn't doing what's being done over there.
00:05:39
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, but it's normal for the community.
00:05:42
Speaker
Just take 10 deep breaths.
00:05:44
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:05:45
Speaker
And realize you're quick comparing your child over there.
00:05:49
Speaker
And she has done a few episodes where she has, as a 13 year old can gone off going quick comparing.
00:05:57
Speaker
Mm.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:59
Speaker
And I mean, it's such a big topic.
00:06:01
Speaker
In fact, it's one that I focus on as well, both because of teenagers spending so much time on social media comparing themselves and then also the moms and the adults do it, too.
00:06:13
Speaker
We're all comparing.
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:15
Speaker
And honestly, there is a part of this that literally goes back to our ancestral roots where there was times where we, you know, needed to compare to survive.
00:06:26
Speaker
Like we needed to compare to see who has the resources, who's the strongest person, who's, you know, able to lead the tribe or whatever, you know, type of group that they were in.
00:06:35
Speaker
And so there was part of that that was survival.
00:06:38
Speaker
But since we're no longer in that age, we
00:06:41
Speaker
We're not needing to, you know, fight for food, you know, so to speak.
00:06:45
Speaker
And in the one beautiful country that we live in, we're fortunate, most of us, not all of us to have, you know, access to food.
00:06:53
Speaker
And so that's the thing.
00:06:53
Speaker
It's like when we get to this thing where it's not an issue of survival, but it's just done out of like kind of our brains are wired to do that.
00:07:00
Speaker
It becomes a real unhealthy mental habit to be doing.
00:07:03
Speaker
And so what do you do or say to encourage people to not compare?
Parenting Advice: Embrace Uniqueness
00:07:10
Speaker
After I stop laughing sometimes, because I am terrible at it, they'll sit there and go, I want my kid to be like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Alan Meakin.
00:07:18
Speaker
And I'm like, if you wanted neurotypical, those are not the three I would pick.
00:07:24
Speaker
There is something every kid is good at because they will compare like their children to my daughter and go, well, my child isn't as good and tap as your child is.
00:07:33
Speaker
And I'm like, trust me, you do not want necessarily to live the life we have to live.
00:07:38
Speaker
Unless you want to spend a lot of time on airplanes flying around the country with a child who is terrified of flying.
00:07:43
Speaker
Wow.
00:07:47
Speaker
And she puts in, she's homeschooled.
00:07:49
Speaker
She puts in about five hours a day practicing.
00:07:52
Speaker
Our entire life revolves around dance.
00:07:54
Speaker
We're even building a dance studio.
00:07:57
Speaker
That's not what you want to do in your life.
00:07:59
Speaker
You need to realize that each child has something unique and special to them.
00:08:04
Speaker
They all have something they're good at.
00:08:08
Speaker
And you need to lean into that versus...
00:08:11
Speaker
losing joy going, well, but my child isn't perfect.
00:08:14
Speaker
Your child is perfect just the way they are.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
That's, that's just such great advice.
00:08:21
Speaker
And so what about the times, you know, we had talked where in the past, you maybe felt blamed, or somehow, someone was blaming you, there's this kind of blame culture.
00:08:34
Speaker
So tell me about that.
00:08:36
Speaker
Especially with having an autistic kid, the amount of times I've gotten yelled at by doctors and I'm like, yeah, I come from a PhD.
00:08:45
Speaker
I may think that MDs are just glorified master's degrees.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:51
Speaker
There's definitely a little academia still in me.
00:08:54
Speaker
But they're like, well, your child's not doing X, Y, Z. And I'm like, you do realize she's autistic, especially like we were in the ER once and they were complaining that she was acting immature and not understanding them.
00:09:07
Speaker
And I'm like, she's autistic.
00:09:09
Speaker
At the time, she was nonverbal.
00:09:12
Speaker
She didn't have receptive or expressive abilities.
00:09:15
Speaker
And I'm like, you are asking a nonverbal child to interact with you.
00:09:21
Speaker
have you guys gone insane?
00:09:23
Speaker
You have, I've had therapists go, well, this is somehow something you've done.
00:09:27
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, I've read the papers.
00:09:29
Speaker
It's not something I've done.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:34
Speaker
Other parents going, well, she's melting down.
00:09:36
Speaker
If you just would discipline her more.
00:09:37
Speaker
No, the meltdown comes from, she's not understanding what's going on.
00:09:41
Speaker
She's been overloaded.
00:09:44
Speaker
Are you guys, I get it.
00:09:46
Speaker
Everyone's sitting there thinking, if you're just a better parent, your child wouldn't be autistic.
00:09:51
Speaker
There are plenty of papers that say differently.
00:09:56
Speaker
So it sounds like you've had to build up some pretty thick skin or maybe you already had thick skin in the first place, but you somehow learned to not take it personally and just kind of push back and say, no, sorry,
Challenges with Professional Advice
00:10:06
Speaker
that's not right.
00:10:06
Speaker
Like how have you learned that?
00:10:10
Speaker
I've done politics for 20 years.
00:10:12
Speaker
I'm pretty sure I got some things in there.
00:10:14
Speaker
Growing up autistic, I also got all this as a kid where I, back then you had even more therapists going, well, if you would just stop being autistic.
00:10:24
Speaker
Nice to know you think that's a possibility.
00:10:26
Speaker
It's not really, but thanks for the suggestion.
00:10:31
Speaker
And it was, I've got to be the one protecting her from all these people who
00:10:38
Speaker
don't understand.
00:10:38
Speaker
They don't know what they're doing wrong, but they're going to blame the parents.
00:10:42
Speaker
Cause they're like, well, if you just, and it's not your fault, you feel like it's your fault when everyone's yelling at you, especially when it's coming from like the medical fields or the teachers or the dance teachers.
00:10:55
Speaker
Cause you look at them as though they're experts when they're not experts in your child.
00:11:01
Speaker
Oh, that's such a great quote that you just said.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, they're experts in their field, but they're not experts in your child.
00:11:06
Speaker
So I think that is just some words of wisdom that other moms can live by when, you know, they are feeling this feeling of blame, whether they have a neurodivergent child or any other, you know, complex child or special needs child, anything like that.
00:11:21
Speaker
So what would you want the world to know about, you know,
00:11:28
Speaker
you know, kind of like that misinformation, like kind of what you just said where they just don't
Understanding Autism Correctly
00:11:32
Speaker
know.
00:11:32
Speaker
What would be like some top three points that you can explain about what autism is and what it's not?
00:11:39
Speaker
The number one thing is it is not a learning disability.
00:11:43
Speaker
It's an actual physical disability.
00:11:45
Speaker
That learning disability came from a 1978 law, legislative bill that they passed in Congress.
00:11:54
Speaker
Before then, we were not treating it in schools.
00:11:56
Speaker
We were treating it like the medical disability it is.
00:11:59
Speaker
Kids with autism have a higher rate of issues with seizures.
00:12:05
Speaker
They have a higher rate of having issues with GI movements.
00:12:09
Speaker
They have a higher rate of heart problems.
00:12:12
Speaker
That doesn't come from learning disabilities.
00:12:14
Speaker
That comes from actual physical disabilities.
00:12:18
Speaker
Um, they're not stupid.
00:12:21
Speaker
The number of dance teachers Lita has had that are like, oh, well, she's has the mental capacity of a three-year-old because that's what autism is.
00:12:30
Speaker
They're not stupid.
00:12:31
Speaker
They just don't express themselves the same way you would expect.
00:12:35
Speaker
She's a brilliant young woman.
00:12:37
Speaker
She can actually carry on a conversation when she wants to now.
00:12:42
Speaker
But, and she can be very snarky when she wants to now.
00:12:44
Speaker
She's definitely a teenager.
00:12:47
Speaker
But the number of people who hear she's autistic and they're like, oh, so she's like a two, has a two-year-old mind.
00:12:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:12:56
Speaker
And I don't know why that is still something that we have wrongfully kept in the lexicon.
00:13:08
Speaker
And just because they're not speaking doesn't mean they're nonverbal.
00:13:13
Speaker
There's a lot of
00:13:15
Speaker
difference between Lita was because she didn't have the receptive, but a lot of these nonverbal kids, they do have receptive.
00:13:22
Speaker
It's that they don't have expressive and expressive is very difficult, especially with the English language.
00:13:28
Speaker
English language is hard for anyone.
00:13:33
Speaker
Don't treat them like they're stupid.
00:13:35
Speaker
They have a very good ability to understand you.
00:13:39
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:13:42
Speaker
And talk to us a little bit, or I guess, you know, we're kind of like creating this awareness about what it is and what it isn't.
00:13:48
Speaker
Can you shed some light to kind of the emotional reflective process, you know, compared?
00:13:58
Speaker
Well, we just said we're not going to compare, but like, what is it in the emotional world?
00:14:04
Speaker
It's a spectrum on that.
00:14:05
Speaker
You will have kids who completely understand the social emotional awareness that they should.
00:14:10
Speaker
You will have kids who don't understand the emotional, what they should feel emotionally and are much more like Spock from Star Trek, more Vulcan in their thought process.
00:14:20
Speaker
But they know that they should be feeling it, which kind of aggravates them a little bit.
00:14:28
Speaker
But I mean, you have that, I think, within the neurotypical still that some kids understand their emotions better than other kids understand their emotions.
00:14:37
Speaker
The difference with autistic kids is they get lucky and get to go to therapies to try and explain emotions.
00:14:45
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:14:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:47
Speaker
Which probably could help all of us if we went to occupational therapy to discuss how to deal with emotions.
00:14:53
Speaker
Right.
00:14:53
Speaker
But I do like what you said about, you know, even neurotypical kids, there is just a big spectrum about who's, you know, kind of comfortable, who can process, you know, and, you know, who's less able to.
00:15:06
Speaker
And so it sounds like it just kind of translates over there as well.
00:15:10
Speaker
So what if Lita could pop on here today?
00:15:13
Speaker
What would she want us to know?
Encouragement for Parents of Autistic Children
00:15:16
Speaker
Uh, pretty, she's really big on understanding that autistic people, especially the kids, they can do stuff.
00:15:24
Speaker
Um, she has a lot of arguments with neurotypical parents of autistic kids who are like, I don't want my child to try that.
00:15:31
Speaker
Cause what if they fail?
00:15:32
Speaker
What if I'm judged for how they act in the classrooms?
00:15:34
Speaker
And she's been yelling at them going, let them try.
00:15:37
Speaker
Just see if they like it.
00:15:40
Speaker
Just, and if someone's being judgy, they're the idiots, not you.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:47
Speaker
And that much more in a 13-year-old voice that you're the idiot for thinking your child should be judged.
00:15:52
Speaker
I know.
00:15:53
Speaker
I know.
00:15:54
Speaker
I watch some of her YouTube videos and I just love her personality.
00:15:56
Speaker
She just definitely does have that zest and that fire and that little bit of sass of the 13 year old.
00:16:04
Speaker
She sounds like an amazing child.
00:16:07
Speaker
So, you know, we talked about bringing awareness, not just to your dance studio, but the podcast and
Future Aspirations for Autistic Wings Dance Company
00:16:13
Speaker
the YouTube channel.
00:16:13
Speaker
So where do you want people to go to promote everything that you all are doing?
00:16:19
Speaker
Lita would love it if she could get a thousand subscribers on YouTube because she is definitely gen alpha and they have all moved back to YouTube.
00:16:27
Speaker
I don't know why.
00:16:29
Speaker
I'm like, I'm feeling old because I thought we migrated away from YouTube, but hey, Lita Tap Styles is the handle on YouTube.
00:16:39
Speaker
That's the podcast.
00:16:42
Speaker
We're also...
00:16:44
Speaker
Her dream is this Autistic Wings Dance Company.
00:16:47
Speaker
It's autisticwingsdancecompany.org.
00:16:50
Speaker
It is a nonprofit.
00:16:51
Speaker
We are always looking for donations because we do not charge nearly what we should for our classes.
00:16:57
Speaker
I just did the money again.
00:17:00
Speaker
And for our preschool kids who are in 30 minutes a week classes, it's running us about $586 per student.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
And we're charging 45.
00:17:11
Speaker
So all the donations we can get over there is helpful.
00:17:15
Speaker
The big thing with that is because we're keeping the class sizes.
00:17:18
Speaker
Our preschool classes are never over three students.
00:17:21
Speaker
Our normal classes are never over five students.
00:17:24
Speaker
You can't make money with small classes.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:17:29
Speaker
Well, hopefully this episode can bring awareness and have people go on and donate as well.
Self-Care for Mothers
00:17:35
Speaker
Any last words, anything that we didn't cover that you would like the moms to know?
00:17:40
Speaker
Just quit being so hard on yourself.
00:17:42
Speaker
You are doing an amazing job as a mom.
00:17:44
Speaker
No matter what anyone else tells you, you are doing an amazing job.
00:17:48
Speaker
Hmm, that's so nice to hear.
00:17:50
Speaker
I think even, you know, we can never hear that enough, right?
00:17:53
Speaker
It's like every day is a struggle.
00:17:57
Speaker
And I think it's so important to just hear that over and over again, that repetition, because it's true, right?
00:18:02
Speaker
It's like we need to support each other and realize that we really are doing just the best we can.
00:18:07
Speaker
So I think that's a great parting message.
00:18:10
Speaker
Well, Amanda, it was so nice to meet you.
00:18:12
Speaker
I so appreciate you taking this time and I can't wait to help you.
00:18:16
Speaker
Lita reach her goal on getting all those followers on the YouTube channel and getting more donations to your organization.
00:18:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me on today.
00:18:27
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:18:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:28
Speaker
Take care.
00:18:29
Speaker
All right.
00:18:29
Speaker
Thanks.
00:18:31
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast, because there's no manual for the hardest job in the world.
00:18:38
Speaker
Don't forget to subscribe and share with your friends.