Unedited Transcripts of my recent podcast
Mom’s 16-year-old daughter with autism, ADHD, and sensory processing differences needs sex ed and support regarding boundaries without shaming her.
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- ND Kids Episode – Question from a Parent: Autistic and ADHD girl needs sex ed and help with inappropriate boundaries
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TRANSCRIPTION (this is rough!)
Hi, Amy, birds and bees and kids. Welcome to my neurodivergent kid episode. Y’all have special needs if your kids are autistic, ADHDers, any number of other ways of being neurodivergent.
And so I have been doing this work for just a little while now. And if you have friends who have neurodivergent kids and they’re not getting to the sex talk stuff or worried or whatever, please, please, please forward my information to them. Might not wanna start with this because it’s a little complicated.
So anyway, I love advice columns, like totally love advice columns. And the original version of Just Say This was that. And if you have questions, please email me.
I wanna help you and you’re gonna help other parents. And then also if you need extra help, I do quickie consultations for half an hour, deep dive into whatever you need. And I help you make a plan and figure out resources and that kind of thing.
So anyway, here’s my neurodivergent kid question. Let me go, I gotta go find it because I gotta read it. Okay, here we go.
I have a 16 year old daughter with ADHD sensory processing difference and she’s also on the autism spectrum. I realize now that I’m behind with her, talking with her about sex, bodies and boundaries. With my older child, I followed your guidance closely, but with my daughter being neurodivergent, I told myself she wasn’t ready in the same way.
I can now see that this was a misstep. She’s very sexually curious and is often flashing us or getting physically and socially inappropriate. I don’t wanna shame her curiosity, but I do want to guide her clearly and safely and I’m realizing I need support to do that.
So she’s gotten help she needs or she will cause I can’t remember. Okay, so yeah, you know, I think that one of the things that happens for parents of neurodivergent kids is that they set aside or put off conversations about sexuality, puberty, consent, because they think their kids can’t handle it or they’re not ready or they might not even need it. So depending on, you know, support needs with an autistic kid, it might never be relevant.
They may never have a romantic or sexual relationship. Who knows, right? And so one of the other things that happens if there’s a myth or many myths about neurodivergent people and sexuality, which is that they’re not capable, they’re not interested and so kind of like this why bother thing. Well, I know you know that that’s just not true.
They are human beings, they are sexual, they may or may not have romantic relationships. They are most likely gonna have some kind of sexual feelings. They’re gonna go through puberty.
They’re gonna go through crushing possibly. And so your best bet is to not do what this mom did, which was wait and make these assumptions about her child. And again, I don’t, I’m sorry, I might sound shamey, but I just wanna say that’s not my intention.
Our world is full of bullshit when it comes to dealing with neurodivergent kids and families and humans. And so this is one of those bullshit places. So anyway, it just makes me mad.
And I know how hard you’re working as a parent, but let’s help out this mama with her 16 year old. So all those diagnoses, ADHD, the sensory stuff and autism make for a combination of things that when it comes to sexuality and curiosity, it can be just more complicated for a variety of reasons. So she is curious and she needs accurate information about sex and how her body works and relationships and consent and all of that.
And it needs to be delivered probably in a really simple, small bite size. So there are books out there. Amaze.org has really great videos about a bunch of different topics.
It’s Amaze.org/us if you’re an English speaker. But if you speak any other language, they have them in a bunch of different languages. So I would go there and look for consent and boundaries.
That seems like a big thing for her right now. Also just basic sex and relationship stuff too. But that’s a tool, right? Having conversation with her and saying something like, hey, you’re really curious about this part of life and I blew it and I’m really sorry.
I didn’t think you were ready, true. And I was nervous about it, but I can see you’re ready. So let’s get you some healthy resources so you can learn about your body and sexuality and the feelings you’re having and how to have healthy relationships and that kind of thing.
Then you shut up, that’s it. And then you move on to, in another day or two, you provide some resources and open up that door. The apology is really important because kids lean in when we apologize, when we make a mistake, right? Very good parenting tip from me.
Anyway, so that needs to happen. With the flashing and the inappropriate touching and probably comments, this is a little bit more complicated. So the flashing piece, I’m just gonna like, one thing I understand about neurodivergent kids is sometimes socially, they’re a couple of years behind their peers.
So even though she’s 16, she might be acting more like a 13 or 14 year old, which would mean that her impulse control is not quite as tight as it would be for an older kid. And then we throw in the ADHD, right? The impulse control issue can be a challenge when it comes to this stuff. So with the flashing, my guess is that she’s getting really great, strong reactions to that.
And that the human beings in her world don’t freak out and yell at her or tell her to knock it off or like, we’ve told you a million times, that’s not okay. So one of the things you can do with the flashing is to A, try to get ahead of it. Like maybe if you look back and see, oh yeah, she flashes when we are in this circumstance, she flashes when she’s in that circumstance.
If it’s attention-seeking and it’s a good one, right? Oh my God. If she’s attention seeking and you can smell it coming, then get in there and redirect her. And one really good way to redirect someone is to say, hey, can I have a high five? Or hey, look at the shiny thing.
Oh my God, I really need your help. What do you think about this? You know, it depends on your child and try to get ahead of it. Because if she’s attention seeking, then you can give her positive attention.
You’re not rewarding her for her behavior. You can even do it, she flashes someone and it flashes and you’re like, ah, come on, let’s have a hug, really weird, but it’ll fill that kind of attention seeking bucket. If she’s flashing at school, if she’s flashing when she’s out in public, a conversation about, a calm conversation about safety and people feeling uncomfortable, people making decisions about her when she’s doing that, might be helpful as well.
But you have to be super chill, use really simple words and not be mad. Because she doesn’t know what she’s doing on a fundamental level, especially in terms of her safety. What was the other thing? I’ll be right back.
Oh, yeah, physically and socially inappropriate. So you might need to do some role play practice. If she is touching people or going in for hugs or slapping butts, I would definitely have like, hey, you know what, you keep, I think they’re forgetting the rules.
That is absolutely not okay to touch someone without their permission, without them agreeing to be touched. And so, I just think you didn’t notice, I’m not saying the word consent, because I’m on this whole bandwagon with consent to say agree or give permission or say yes, because it’s more clear, especially with neurodivergent human beings. Oh, wait, especially with every fucking human being.
Anyway, so might wanna do some practice with that, just in terms of, let’s just do it with high fives. And she can like, you know, ask first for a high five, ask first for a hug. So she gets that in her bones.
And then it might not be enough. I love code words. If you’ve ever dealt with me, you know I love code words.
So it may be that you need a code word. So if she slaps someone on the butt, then the code word is coconut, because I’m funny. She slaps someone on the butt, and then you say, hey, coconut, coconut.
And then she knows she’s cued to apologize. Or if you see her heading in, coconut, that’s the cue to don’t do it. Remember, you need to ask first.
And again, this might just be, not might just be, it might be a attention seeking thing. And she’s curious, like she’s looking at people, she’s seeing the world around her, she’s having sexual feelings, and she sees someone that she thinks is hot, and she may just blurt, man, you are so hot. She might even say horrible, like, please don’t say that.
I wanna bonk you, right? If she’s saying stuff like that, then again, just some more conversation about like, hey, you can get in trouble when you say these kinds of things. People can feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, and I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. I don’t want you to make people feel uncomfortable.
I’m pretty sure you don’t either. Again, I’m saying this, and I know lots of autistic kids are like, I’m not uncomfortable, I don’t care. So just kind of working with that.
And finally, if she cannot stop any of this stuff, it’s probably time for some kind of therapy or intervention because this could be just a way she’s, like, I don’t know all the details, but this could be a hyper-focus kind of thing. But at the end of the day, I think she’s attention-seeking, and she needs lots of information about sex and consent and relationships, and she needs also just to be told like, hey, it is normal to feel sexual feelings and to have crushes on people and that kind of thing, and this is how we handle it. This is how we hope you handle it.
So it’s safer. All right, I’m just gonna say “coconut” to you. Find a code word, and for any number of things, actually.
And then, yeah, just let me know if you have questions or concerns, and again, you can work with me one-on-one. And yeah, oh, and by the way, if you are in the U.S., sorry, I have an alarm. Don’t you like that this is just so call? Sorry, I turned off my timer.
If you live in the United States or elsewhere and you are watching the shit show that our government has become, I just strongly encourage you to not sit on your ass. You do not wanna be on the wrong side of history with this. Also, if you don’t agree with me, go away.
So you can do something as simple as call your senators. MomsRising has really good, easy resources, and call your senators, even though you know they might be like, and Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, they’re gonna vote the right way, but calling and saying, get ICE unfunded and fund our healthcare. Say that anyway, because they’re counting us.
Anyway, fingers crossed things get better, but in the long run, you’ve got this. Just pick a tiny thing, show notes have all kinds of fun stuff, and please, please share this. I’m having a lot of fun.
I’ve gotten really good feedback, so share it. I’m not for everyone, but do we care? We want all kids to grow up to be whole, healthy, and happy adults, and this is part of it. All right, I will see you later.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai
