Why Smart Teens Struggle: Parenting Twice-Exceptional and Neurodivergent Kids with Dr. Susan Blumberg | 088

My daughter is profoundly gifted. She's

brilliant. She's beautiful. She's an

accredited pastry chef. She has a bachelor's

degree in biology. She has

so much value in her life because I

was who I was because we got her the right services

and I have dedicated my life to since she

was born, helping other families not

be lost. Well, welcome back to another episode of

Resilient AF with Blair and Alana. But this week, Alana's not here,

but we're going to trade her in today for Dr.

Susan Bloomberg. She is a former child clinical

psychologist turned life coach who has spent 40 years helping teens,

young adults and parents move from chaos to and conflict to

trust, respect and connection. I honestly think everyone in the world needs that.

She earned her PhD in child clinical psychology in

1991 and practiced as a cognitive

behavioral therapist for 30 years and has served as a special

education advocate for four decades. Today she leads Dr.

Susan coaching, guiding families through the demanding

teen to adult adult launch years. She's the author of

seven books. She has a new book coming out. We're going to talk about all

of that. She is a recognized authority on the twice

exceptional children, which I just learned about that which are children.

And basically she's also an expert on non

verbal learning disability. So today we're going to talk about

her journey as a parent, but also her career and the work she does

and her full bio and all of her links are in the show notes. But

she is fascinating. So welcome to the

show, Susan. Thank you so much, Blair.

I'm so excited to be here with you. Amazing. I'm excited that you're here.

So we only just met but we fully hit it off. It feels like I've

known you for a really long time and the fact that you've been a part

of like co authored seven books but now your own book is coming out, like

that's such a feat. So congratulations. Thank you.

It's so exciting. It was so hard to do it all on my

own when I've co authored all my other books, but I felt

like I had so much to say after all these years of

helping families. That's awesome. And I think also with

your experience and I think before we kind of dive into your personal story,

can we maybe just do some definitions for people out there who are

new to this? Like what is twice exceptional?

And we'll start with that. What's twice exceptional? 2e? Children.

2e means children who and adults.

Let me say it's not something you grow out of. Being twice

exceptional means you are both labeled gifted, and that could

be intellectually in the arts, such as music or

dance, or even athletically in some way. And

you also carry one or more disability label.

So both of my own children. Serendipity

hits me after 10 years working in this field.

I had two children myself who both fall under

that category. Both my children were identified as gifted.

And also my son carries two disability labels,

and my daughter actually carries five disability labels.

Wow. Okay. Thank you so much for explaining that. I didn't know that

you were working in this space before you had children of your own.

And I mean, if any parent is going to have children that are

two E. I mean, yes. What lucky kids. That's why

I say serendipity. Yeah. Many people who work in this

field had their children realize they became so

educated in meeting the needs of their own children and

then decide to become professionals. But I already worked in this

field and then had children who needed my own services.

Right. I think that's. Yeah, that's serendipitous. And

what is non verbal learning disability?

So that is a little bit of a misnomer, isn't it? Because these children are

often very, very verbal. But what it means is they have

difficulty with non verbal skills. So that

starts with visual spatial skills, such as

math, maps and directions,

motor and fine motor skills, and gross motor skills,

balance and coordination. I often say of my daughter

that she can trip over the painted line in a parking lot,

but it means eye, hand coordination, it means

handwriting. That's why math is the difficulty.

But it also means executive functioning skills, planning and

organization skills, and last but definitely

not least, nonverbal social skills.

So learning how to interact socially, reading

people's nonverbal cues, tone of voice,

body language. So there's a lot of overlap with

those social aspects of autism. But the

visual, spatial, and the balance and

coordination pieces are different. That's not

usually part of autism. Thank you for explaining that.

I just think that's really important as we go into this conversation. Now, let's

talk about you. And you shared with me that your daughter was born

16 weeks prematurely, and you had to

marshal all of your emotional and professional resources and go from shock and grief

to advocacy in mama bear mode. Yes, let's talk about that

experience. Tell me your story. So I was only

six months pregnant, 24 weeks pregnant.

You know, I had just had my

baby shower a few. I only found out I was pregnant at eight

weeks. I had my baby shower at

maybe 18 weeks, and six weeks later,

I woke up one morning Bleeding. So I

rushed to the hospital and

found out that I was in full labor.

And so they rushed me into.

Literally, I was at my OB GYN just

wearing a shirt. They sit me on a wheelchair, throw a

blanket over me, take me through an underground tunnel to the hospital

next door where they put me on a

gurney, upside down, head down, so the baby doesn't come out

and start trying to stabilize me. Wow. My baby was

born 36 hours later. They could not stop the labor.

She weighed 1 pound, 11 ounces at birth.

A normal baby weighs between 6 and 8 pounds.

And I was shocked. I mean,

my first child and I was 36 years old. I was

an older parent, and I didn't know what to do. I

truly didn't know what to do. I was horrified.

I had barely any time to be pregnant. I mean, I had only

had 16 weeks of pregnancy because I'd found out only at

eight weeks that I was pregnant at all. I hadn't been,

you know, really actively trying. I really

didn't know what to do with myself. She spent 12

weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. She spent

three weeks of that and do not resuscitate orders after

her lungs collapsed. Wow.

It was a very shocking experience

because we didn't know if she would live or die for much of that time.

She was not breathing when she was born. They had to

put her on a ventilator to help her breathe,

and the power of the ventilator burst her lungs.

So she has scars in multiple places where they had to put in

breathing tubes to help bring her lungs

back online, so to speak. And that's why we put her on do not

resuscitate orders. We said if her heart stopped, we would let her

go. She was so fragile, but she recovered from that

and she lived. And after 12 weeks, at

£4, we brought her home, still on

oxygen, still on heart monitors. She was

severely developmentally delayed, did

not meet any milestones, did not walk or talk on

time, so to speak. She was so developmentally

delayed. We had in home early intervention. We had speech

therapy, OTPT. And yet at

three months, I mean, at three years old,

she scored at 47 months

cognitive and communication and only 22 months

in fine and gross smarter skills. She was already

twice exceptional at only 35 months old.

And what would be the. Like, what would the average. Well, at

35 months old, you would expect everything to be within

just a few months. How many? Okay, so for the non children, people, they're

me. Yes. Just trying to quickly do the math. What is so 36 months

is three years old. Okay. Okay. So three years old.

36 months is three years old. 48

months would be four years old. Okay, 22 months.

24 months is only two years old. So she was at four

years old in her speaking and thinking. She was only

two years old. Wow. She wasn't

able to do any of the walking,

you know, she didn't turn over, she didn't walk, she didn't do any of

the skills you expect children to do.

So at three years old, she was like a two year old in all the

physical skills and she was like a four year old in her thinking

and talking. Two years gap. That.

Okay, so let's just, first of all, thank you for

sharing your story. I like, it was shocking.

It's the grief, the loss, the

feeling of what do you do with a child like this?

There's a lot. There's a lot there. And also, I mean,

how scary for you. And I want to just

quickly talk about you. So during that time

you're already an expert in what you're an expert in. Did you

already know that there was going to be

developmental delays or anything? And like, you know, I like to

say, like, do what I say, know what I do, like obviously do it.

So let me tell you what my job was. I wanna, and I also wanna,

Yeah, I wanna know, like, how did you take care of yourself during that time

and how did you like prepare for what was to come? I, I went,

I, we went to therapy. My husband and I went to therapy while she

was still in the neonatal intensive care unit. And we continued to

go to therapy after she was born in

her carrier with her oxygen tanks to go to

therapy with us. Let me tell you my job. And then it's going to answer

some of your question. At the time she was born, I was the early

intervention psychologist at a health clinic where I

evaluated babies at risk for early intervention services.

And the woman in the office next door was the one who provided early

intervention. So she had her first evaluation

three days after she was born.

People were coming to the hospital to evaluate her because I literally

called up my next door neighbor and said, I have a baby to

refer. And they said, of course. Who? Because that was my job.

I referred babies for early intervention. That was my

job. 0 to 3. I did the evaluations

and referred them. That was my job.

But how do you separate the job from the mom from being.

Yeah, you couldn't. That's why I went to therapy.

The shock, the grief, I'm going To

cry. Excuse me? You can cry. I don't cry often. My daughter is

31 years old now, and the

shock still hits me every time I think about it.

She was on a ventilator. She was on intravenous feeding.

I started pumping breast milk immediately so that when she would be

ready, she would have it stored up. I didn't know what else to do.

So what you do is you function. You sort of separate yourself.

You go to therapy and you talk about it there. You go

to the hospital six hours, eight hours a day.

You talk to the doctors, and then you go home and you talk to

your friends and your family. And then you go to therapy twice a week

because the feelings.

What did you do wrong? Did I not. You

know, Was the fact that my fault that she was born

early? Was it something I did?

You know, I drank. My husband's

father had his second marriage a week before I found

out I was pregnant. I drank champagne all night. Did that. Cause it

was my age. The problem.

What did I do wrong? Did I make this happen?

The chances of her even living

a 60% chance that she'd

live with severe disabilities. There was a 5% chance she'd

just die, which is why we had her on do not resuscitate orders after her

lungs collapsed. Was this my fault?

It was not my fault. It was not

my fault. Apparently, there's a much higher risk of having

premature babies at high altitudes. And you're in a

high altitude, and I live in Colorado at one

mile high. I also had a condition.

I always say, you know, a male gynecologist named this condition.

It's called incompetent cervix,

where under the pressure of a baby, your cervix opens

involuntarily. You can sew it closed if, you

know, you have this condition. But I didn't know.

So my cervix opened and the baby fell out.

Seriously? That's what happened. That's just. I

can't. Like, that is such a journey, Susan. And

I'm really sorry that you went through such deep trauma. It's so

hard, terrible that you experienced that. And now.

That's been over three decades. Yes. And you

can still see how emotional I get talking about it.

But let me tell you some other things, okay? My daughter is

profoundly gifted. She's brilliant.

She's beautiful. She's an

accredited pastry chef. She has a bachelor's

degree in biology. She

has so much value in her life because

I was who I was because we got her the right

services. And I have done dedicated my life

since she was born, helping other families

not, not be lost. Getting the

resources they need so that other families, all

the thousand families I've worked with, not be lost.

Yeah. So that I can't imagine, like it happening. And

then you know what to do but, like, what happens? Or

maybe someone's listening to this and they just are realizing by listening,

oh, my child is a 2E twice exceptional child

or I'm twice exceptional. What do you recommend? These

adults or parents that are just learning that this is what they have to try.

Like, I'm in the. I'm in, like I'm a vintage millennial. And what I'm seeing

is a lot of people in my world, because of videos on

Instagram and TikTok, are realizing, oh, I might

be like autistic and ADHD. Oh, I might

have this, I might have that. And they're going to the doctors and learning

in their late 30s, 40s. Yes. And so this

is my mission. That's why I do what I do. So

what would you tell someone who's just learning in their adult life or learning that

their kid might be this, like, what are the steps? Like, what should they do?

There's so much you can do. The first is if your

kid is in school up through college, they are

legally entitled to supports and services.

That's what professional special education advocates do, and

that's what disability services programs and colleges do.

You're legally entitled to those services. And people

like me and other special education advocates

can help you get those services up through

college. We're out there. I

can direct you to those services. There are agencies across

the United States and in other countries,

and people like me can help you get connected to those services.

There's also parent support services

that can connect you to what's available in your

state. So in the US for example, there are

federally mandated parent support and training

agencies. Every state in the US has one.

I can help connect you to those. It's called Parent to Parent of

the United States. It's a national organization. Every state

has a chapter. There are learning disability

organizations in Canada. In the uk,

I can help connect you to those. I'm the admin of one

of the largest international parent of twice

exceptional children Facebook support groups.

Let me know you're interested. I can get you connected. We have over

35,000 members, mostly in the

U.S. canada and the U.K. but we have members from

Egypt, Singapore, Poland, the

Scandinavian countries, Israel,

Arab countries. Every country you can think of over

35,000 members, I get 20 to 50 new

requests on a daily basis. Wow.

Wow. And so, like, if you're just learning about this,

dive in research, join these groups, like, you aren't

alone. And, you know, this is completely different. But I was

officially diagnosed with ADHD at 39. Yes. And

for me, there was a huge grief there of, like, all the things I thought

were wrong with me because I was always in trouble for doing certain things as

a kid was just my neurodivergence. It was my

adhd. And I felt also this grief of, like, if I would have known as

a kid and got medicated or extra support, imagine what I

could have done. But now you have that opportunity. Exactly. There

are ADHD organizations for adults

that run support groups internationally. There's a

national conference for ADHD women

that I highly recommend. Ooh, that's amazing.

And so just because I want to make sure we have enough time to talk

about this. Yes. You have your book coming out, the Parenting Compass.

this book about? Thank you for asking.

The subtitle is why smart teens struggle.

And this is my book for parents of

twice exceptional and neurodivergent teens. And

I cover literally every chapter. Starts with a letter

A to Z. Everything you need to know

from active listening, independence,

IEPs. If you need help getting support in schools,

managing expectations, vulnerability, and

resilience. That's my V chapter.

Extraordinary children, quirky kids.

I talk about everything parents need to know to

support your twice exceptional and neurodivergent

children. 40 years of what I've learned

working with families of twice exceptional and

neurodivergent teens and young adults. What you need to know

about school, about disabilities, about bedtime,

about homework, so that I can share not just

my knowledge, but my strategies about executive

functioning, about expectations, about communication

and problem solving. And I've distilled it into

150 pages. It's an easy read.

I use the research that my work is based on. A lot

of it is evidence based, but it's a parenting book.

It's not about schools. It's not about advocacy.

It's a parenting book. We want to make it easily

accessible for all of you. That's

amazing. And so that's going to be available on Amazon? Yes, it

is. I. I think it's. It's great the way you

broke it down. You know,

it's really special out there, especially because you are one of the leading voices and

authorities on twice exceptional children. And just being Focused on

teenage, I mean, teenage life. Like, I have a lot of friends with pre

teens and. Or tweens and teenagers. Like, without, you know, being

twice exceptional is difficult. Yes. Right. And

so just for neurotypical teens, it's hard. Do you

want to share maybe a little bit from your. You don't have to read that.

But like, do you share personals, like stories? Like, do you share? I

share a lot of my family stories and with permission,

a lot of the stories of my clients. Do you. Yeah. Do you want to

share, like, tell us about Word? But yes, please do.

You know, so I have permission for my kids to share their stories.

One of the things I say right up front in the book, and I share

the story a lot about my own son. My son

started struggling in middle school, not turning in

assignments, not, you know, speaking up in

class. He loved being the class clown. Well, I'm going to change that. He

didn't love being the class clown. He was the class clown because

it was his way of handling his adhd,

his anxiety. Those are his two diagnoses.

Because he was having difficulty coping with being really gifted.

Did. But not knowing how to manage his executive functioning

problems. And so we ended up having to put him on a

behavior plan. He had to turn in his work. He had to check in

with his teachers on a regular basis. But by

ninth grade, things were really out of control.

He ended up lying to me all the time about whether

or not he did his work, whether he was studying for his tests.

And then I started getting those horrible

automated messages. We use Infinite Campus here in

Denver. It could be power School. School.

Every school district uses a different program, right?

Missing assignments, failing because he had

zeros on his teacher wiki pages.

I was getting all these horrible messages and my son and I were

fighting constantly. And I will confess,

here I am the psychologist, right? Coach,

specialist and executive functioning. And I was screaming at my

son. I would lose my temper because he was lying

to me. And lying is something we took really seriously.

So he was getting two punishments. He was getting a punishment for

breaking our family rules about not doing his work,

you know, and not turning in his assignments.

And he was getting a second punishment for lying, which in our

house was that he would lose his weekly allowance.

Every time you lied, you lost your weekly allowance, which was a really

big deal in our house. So here's what was happening.

I kept trying to give him insights into here's executive

functioning strategies, things to try, and he

wouldn't listen to me. So I'm going to ask You a question, Blair

and our listeners. Here's the question. Why wasn't he taking

my advice? Was it how you were delivering it?

No, it was even simpler than that.

I have no idea. I was his mother.

He wouldn't listen to me because I was his

mom. So he wouldn't do anything I said.

So what did I end up having to do? Here I am, this

expert executive functioning coach and psychologist.

I had to hire an executive function coach for

my own son. It was

life changing, honestly, because I no longer

checked Infinite Campus three times a week. I no

longer got those nasty messages saying missing assignments

and failing a class. Everything was handled by the

outside coach. And. And what happened instead?

He and I could talk about exotic cars again. We both have a

mutual love of Rolls Royces and Maseratis.

We'd look at pictures and we'd see them on the street. He and

I could watch his famous favorite science YouTubers

together. We went to movies. We went out to eat before

his taekwondo class. We went

back to our good relationship together.

It absolutely was life changing. It really

made all the difference in the world to us as a family.

Wow. It really changed everything.

That's a cool story. Thank you for sharing that. And you know,

if you're listening and you're like, oh, maybe I should try that, like, this is

what Susan does.

I. I really appreciate you coming on and taking the time

to share a small portion of your journey and to

talk about the work you do and your book. Well, as

we wrap up, I would love to invite you to share a piece of advice

for any new mothers going through something similar where their child is,

you know, born fairly prematurely, where they are

predisposition, predispute,

predisposition, predisposition. Yes. To having

disability labels. Yes. The reality is

about 50% of all kids who are born

prematurely will have one or more disability label.

That's just reality. And the

likelihood is that all premature babies will end up with

developmental delays. At the very least,

please find your early intervention community

immediately. Don't wait to be referred until your baby

is out of the nicu. Find them right away.

Early childhood goes through your department of Education,

in most cases, sometimes Department of Health. And if you're in the

U.S. find your parent to parent chapter

immediately. Don't wait to be referred. Don't let

your pediatrician tell you they might grow out of it.

Find your early intervention immediately. Immediately. If your

child is born more than three weeks prematurely.

Wow. It's urgent. Even 35,

36 weeks can have some developmental

delays. You're Legally entitled to have an

early intervention evaluation. If

your baby is smaller like mine, 24 weeks to

28 weeks, you will benefit from early

intervention services. But here's the even bigger thing.

Get therapy for yourself. You're. You need

it. You need. Find a support group through parent to

parent or through your parent PTI,

it's called. You can find that again.

Every state in the US has one. Get therapy for

yourself. We deserve it. It wasn't our fault. We

didn't do anything wrong. These things happen. Get support for

yourself, for your spouse. Don't wait to

see if your child will grow out of things. We deserve the support

our child needs us to be. Okay, it's the

airplane. Put your own mask on first. Take

care of ourselves so we can take care of our babies.

You're so wise. This is such beautiful advice. And I'm

Canadian and I've never been down this road, but I've worked.

I've been in the hospital with a lot of family members with different medical stuff.

And our hospitals offer social workers and they

may be a really good resource also to help point you in the right direction.

Luckily, the Internet and Google is great and Susan's contact information is below.

You're not alone. You're not alone to go through this. And I

am so grateful for you coming on Dr. Susan Bloomberg, to share your

knowledge and your wisdom with us. And I cannot wait to get this book

out into the world for you. Thank you. Yes. So thank

you so much. I've offered a free gift. It's for

parents of teens, which is about how to help

your teen with executive functioning skills. And the link will be there

as well. Yeah, so the link is in the show notes. You, you know, if

you're driving, remember this for later or pull over.

And yeah, like, Susan's here to support you. So

thank you to everyone who tuned in for another episode of Resilient af.

It's okay to not be okay. You will get through that hard stuff

and let us be that lighthouse in the storm. You're not alone, and

you are resilient af. Thank you. Thank

you.