Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back to another conversation in the Parenting with Impact podcast. We're thrilled to have you here. And we're really excited for a conversation today with our friend and colleague, and client, Jean McIver.

Jean, welcome. We're so glad to have you here. Let me tell you a little bit about Jean and why we're talking with her today. Jean is a mom of seven kids in a blended family. She's also a teacher. And she came to us because her youngest child was really struggling with ADHD. And as a family, we're struggling with how to help him.

And so we've known her for many years. She worked with us not only through Sanity School but also became trained as a professional in Sanity School and has used it a lot in her classroom as well. So we thought she'd be a great person to have a conversation with.

And as we were, in our private forum, talking to members in our community about what they were looking for, in terms of talking to people who maybe we should do coaching, maybe we should do talk to former clients, there was a lot of people saying, yeah, tell us success stories bring us people who have really seen their lives change. And Jean was one of the very first people to raise your hand and say I'm in.

Diane Dempster: Jean, you are a success story. So tell us a little bit about how you came to work with us and a little bit of the backstory.

Jean McIver: So I guess the first word I have to say is drowning. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, but you do with a smile on your face.

Jean McIver: Anyway, mom, husband of seven kids in a blended family. I was also a teacher of second graders. And the administration realized that I could handle children with challenges.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Complex needs.

Jean McIver: Complex needs. Exactly. And so I would go from one environment of complex needs and walk right into a crazy house of complex needs. And door swinging opened and closed in our house because we're a blended family. So, with mom, not with mom with dad, not with dad, and then one that stayed in all times who was the cherry on top.

So I started researching, which I do. I call the rabbit hole of research. First, I was more concerned about the classroom. What could I do for some of these kids and parents who were dying, didn't know what to do with their kids?

And I came upon Impact ADHD and loved the free resources that you guys provided, which educated me, and in return, I could help educate some of the parents. And then I realized, wait, I'm educating parents, and I can use those in my own home. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I am a parent.

Jean McIver: Right. Exactly. Oh my gosh, and so I started applying some of those strategies at home and noticed that they started working. And it was about that same time that you guys are reaching out with a new class or the first class, really.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So that's when we started the Sanity School certification program. Exactly. 

Jean McIver: Exactly. And I was first in the class. And that was about the best experience I ever had, was just one, figuring out how to do all the readings and listening to all the videos and learning, but then getting together with that class of amazing women and with you too as the leaders and that just is really how it all started. It really all started that way.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So let me just clarify because I don't know that I remember this. So you started with Sanity School For Teachers.

Jean McIver: No, I started with Sanity School-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: For parents.

Jean McIver: -yeah, for parents.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay. We didn't have the teacher's part yet.

Jean McIver: We didn't even have the teachers then. And I was part of the "What do you think teachers would need to know."

Diane Dempster: I have to say we did a focus group, and you helped us figure out what to put in Sanity School For Teachers. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That's right. Wow. Yeah. And so for those listening, after we created Sanity School, we knew that we needed to get it out into local communities that not everybody wanted to learn online. So we started training professionals, and they were therapists and coaches and teachers and all kinds of different professionals to be certified to teach Sanity School in their local communities.

And I'd say most of them didn't end up teaching it in local communities necessarily. It became something that professionals could use as professional development to enhance their skills in managing complex kids, which is what happened for you. I remember conversations with you about how it changed your classroom.

Jean McIver: Absolutely changed my classroom. Parents needed help so badly. Our parent conferences turned into these mini sessions on what can I do. And I think I gave out your website 50 times.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. And if I recall, you took the executive function chart into your sessions with your parents, right?

Jean McIver: Yep, absolutely. And said, this is where you need to start focusing and go from there, which is pretty amazing. I still stay in touch with so many of those parents in those last couple of times. I've since retired from teaching.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Because there are seven kids plus now grandkids.

Jean McIver: One, just one grandbaby. We kept saying adding on. [inaudible] add-on.

Diane Dempster: And Jean, I'm torn because I want to hear more about your story as a mom and what came up for me immediately as you're talking about using some of our tools with parents in your classroom. I know a lot of parents are interested in how do I help my child's teacher get them in a very different way.

And so I would love for you to riff on that a little bit and talk about that dynamic between parent and teacher and from a parent's role. What can they do to really help and support the teachers in a different way?

Jean McIver: I can tell you, from our district, I needed to help a lot, especially with Reese. As we always said that Reese is more. He my loving child, redheaded, down to his toes of redhead, and then top on top was ADHD. And teachers didn't know what to do with him, and I know parents will resonate with them.

The teacher would say to me, I know he can do this. He's just not trying hard enough. And I would have to sit them down and say, let me explain to you why he really can't do that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or why this is trying for him.

Jean McIver: Right. And then when you send all that home because he didn't do it at home, let me explain to you what he did at school, and then he can't do at home. I started out defensive. I'm trying to remember what grade it was, third or fourth grade, and I was backpedaling because I needed to catch up.

And then, I approached fifth grade with, "I need to meet with you before school starts." And so I would sit down, and I still do it. He's going into eighth grade, and I already have our pre-meeting ready. But I would sit down with the teacher and counselor, sometimes an assistant principal, whomever is ready to listen, and I would explain to them the backstory of Reese as much as I can.

All the things that he does and what he responds to. We have a 504 plan for him that I wrote, but guidance counselors didn't get it. They just didn't understand. And I said no, this is what he needs. I advocate for him not because I want to be that pain-in-the-neck parent because once the teachers get it, they don't hear from me again.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Because they don't need to.

Jean McIver: They don't need to because they're already aware. And every single year I meet with these teachers, and usually, it happens within the first two weeks of school because the teachers prefer to meet the child and then meet the parent. So I've let them do that. [inaudible]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Me, too. I did the same thing.

Jean McIver: Right. Exactly.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I want to ask a question because I kind of highlight what I heard you say. I heard you say at first you were defensive which is kind of a no, not that. I don't want that. I don't want that. And what I hear is that you then shifted into this is what I'm asking for.

And when you shifted to a positive requesting, here's how I can support you, and this is what I'm asking for from you. You got a much better response from the teachers.

Jean McIver: Absolutely. And to share a story that we laugh about now a lot. I wish everybody could meet Reese because he is a kid that's full of joy. And he has learned to, we call him being a beaver, but he lets the things roll off his back pretty well. I think he's used to so many things happening that he lets it roll, and it doesn't bother him.

Good or bad, I'm not really sure. But I love his personality. He got lunch detention for being impulsive. Funny, that's what he is. And he got lunch detention quite a few times because he couldn't stop talking out loud. He knew the answers, and he just wanted to answer them. Okay. And I get it, as a teacher. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Eager participant.

Jean McIver: Exactly. But let your friends also, so as a teacher, I get that I understand how that can be a problem. I said, how do you feel about that? What can we do? I'm talking him through. And he said, mom, it's not a big deal. It's lunch detention.

Okay, they let me take my computer in there. I get all my homework done. It's okay. Finally, we had a meeting with the teachers. And I said I don't want to be disrespectful, but it's not working. This is how he's responding. And she went, "Oh, huh."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I don't know. He's getting his homework done.

Jean McIver: [inaudible] Why leave them at home? It's not good for me, too. So it's just the teachers didn't understand, and so we talked about his impulsivity. And right there, I had come up with ideas, and I brought to them.

I went out and bought sticky notepads for all of them, all the teachers in his team, and I said, just give him these and ask him to write the question down or the answer down while he's raising his hand because he would often say I forgot what I was going to say by the time they got to me, so I have to let it out. And the teachers appreciated me being proactive, not coming to the table and saying this is my kid.

Take it or leave it. I was there as a team player, a planner. I helped them. All of them, every single one, would always say thank you so much for the background. And Reese, they didn't realize these kinds of things. It just works.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Let's go back because you were a teacher. You had a natural proclivity for working with complex kids because they kept giving them to you. And yet something shifted for you when you found it was then Impact ADHD everybody.

Now it's Impact Parents when you found this coach approach. What did you learn that was doing for you that shifted things for you because I remember you talking about how it shifted your classroom and it shifted your home. So tell us a little bit about what that was. 

Jean McIver: For me, it was pre-planning. We called them brain breaks were essential to rewire the brain and ready for learning. That everybody needed their own whatever it was, whether it was space learning environment.

So not only did I change the way I taught, but I changed my classroom environment. I had two or three desks, but I also had pillows and couches and load lamps. And my classroom became almost like a home environment.

And literally, people would walk in my room and go. Like there's one putting their feet up on a table and he's reading upside down. There were others who are under the table there. But everything came with teaching like I pre-taught.

This is how you may read in my classroom, and boundaries were drawn. And they practiced it, and we did it together. And they knew they just changed everything. And then that turned into my house, like this is what our expectations are, knowing what they're able to do, what he's able to do.

He's learning to be a list person, like his mom. And so we had checklists everywhere for everything. But I didn't do it all. Reese helped me do it. What can I do to help you get out of the house so we're not screaming at each other?

What can we do for you to get down the stairs by this time because this is the time that we need to eat breakfast or whatever? I ran my classroom that way, like how are you going to be able to do this in the classroom? And then we would plan it with that child.

How am I going to get my kid out the door without screaming? Nobody wants a screaming parent. Nobody wants a screaming teacher to add to the chaos. So that's how it [inaudible]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So that so really, what you're describing is collaborative problem solving is what you learn is how to shift out of directing into a collaborative model, both with your students and with your family.

Jean McIver: Absolutely, and it's buy-ins. If they're part of the planning process, they're part of the success. 

Diane Dempster: Yeah. And I'm listening to some of the voices in the heads of the parents listening. And I know that sounds like you had ease of collaboration with Reese when you were trying to get him engaged in the process.

A lot of parents are like, if I asked my kid what you mean, they'd say, I don't know. And that would they would just throw their hands up in the air.

Jean McIver: And he didn't know. He honestly didn't know. But what he wanted as much as we wanted was not to be screaming, so I would do a lot of memory. I know there's a technology word there. You're going to get it.

So we would come off a horrible session of screaming at each other and trying to get out the door. And I'm a redhead, so I'm a little [inaudible] 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We got you.

Jean McIver: I'm a little explosive. And so not far after that, I would say, I don't want to do this anymore. And I would have him feel that emotion, and he didn't want to do it anymore. And I said, okay, how can we do this together so that we're not screaming at each other anymore? 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So that was the same experience in my home, was when I sat down with my kids one afternoon after a really bad morning. And I said, forgive my language, this morning sucked. Was everybody else's unhappy as I was? Do you all want to change? 

Jean McIver: I mean, I can tell you a times where I would drop them off at school after screaming the whole way to school about what you could- And then I would sit in the parking lot and almost bawl, just cry and think what am I just done? How can he be successful after sending him in that way?

There are so many times I turn around. I would write a note to him and hand it to the secretary; please, please, please figure out how to get this to my son. He needs to hear that I do love him that this can't be this way. And so it's better, but it changes all the time. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And they hit a new stage and learn to deal with that one.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. So I want to go back to the situation in the classroom and the school detention because the thing that I pulled out of that was that you realize that consequences aren't what change behavior. And I guess that's the question.

We always talk about the fact that consequences are valuable for sending messages, and these kids need help to change their behavior in addition to the consequences, or maybe sometimes even instead of the consequences. So how does that play out for you in the classroom or at home?

Jean McIver: That's a great question. How does it? There are consequences like so. Reese has impulsivity, obviously. Now it's getting better as he gets older because I make him aware all the time, like, look at your friends whose hands are up, or in the classroom or somebody else.

What could you have done differently instead of yelling out? Those kinds of things because they're not even aware sometimes that there's anybody else in the classroom.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They're in the world, for that matter.

Jean McIver: Exactly.

Diane Dempster: Certainly not right now.

Jean McIver: So that they have to understand there are consequences for what they're doing, but they have to understand what they're doing first and making them aware first that they're not the only one in the whole world, or classroom or house.

We talk about naughty or neurological. Are they doing it on purpose to be disrespectful and everything else, or is it just that their brain isn't tuned up where it needs to be? So I think as a teacher, I really needed to approach everything that way. Are they trying to be disrespectful? Are they being mean on purpose, or they just don't have the words to figure it out? And I taught seven-year-olds, so that's where I am with that.

And the same thing with the teachers with Reese. Is he being disrespectful to you, and is he doing it purposefully? Or is he really just not even aware? Or the fact that I found out that he couldn't remember what the question was by the time the teacher called on him.

So he didn't want to lose what he had in his head, so he blurted it out because he wanted to give the answer. He knew the answer. He didn't want to lose it. So by understanding that whole background, then I was able to change the behavior.

And I think, as parents, even as teachers, we have to step back and use that question. Are they trying to be rude? It's a great valid question, which you guys help us to understand which is, is that naughty or is it neurological? Is their brain ready for what's happening? 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So let me shift gears a little bit, and we talked to a lot of parents who are trying to decide what to do to get help. And we know that behavior therapy training is recommended treatment and a lot of parents feel like they just can't do one more thing. It just seems like getting help for themselves is one more thing, and it's a luxury.

The focus needs to be on their kid, not on themself. Speak a little bit about your perspective about how actually doing something else actually ease your burden instead of maybe harder.

Jean McIver: I didn't have the resources. As a teacher, they don't focus enough on these kids, and it might not even be ADHD. It just might be executive functions. Or, developmentally, their brain hasn't grown to where they are. I just didn't have enough resources.

And so, for me, I had to. It was so bad. It was just like, I was losing me and it was not easy taking all those classes because I was taking care of kids, then grading papers. And so sometimes I would be watching those videos with one eye open just trying, and I watched two or three times because I was like, I did not remember that part.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That's okay. We often say just let it watch over you because it becomes immersive over time.

Jean McIver: And that's it. I still sometimes go back and reread or redo look at my notes and things that I'm feeling badly right now, but I had to do something for me because otherwise, I was going to have to quit something, and I knew I couldn't quit my family. So I still can't quit. So that's where I needed to do it. I needed to make it happen, and I'm so thankful.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So what would you say to parents who haven't gotten to the point where I need to do something for me? They still think they need to focus exclusively on my kid has the problem. I need to do something for my kid, whether it's a tutor, whatever it is,  that there's that focus on my child.

Jean McIver: Right. I think by getting my mind on understanding a little bit about them. My kids, or Reese, or whomever it was, I was way better to help them. I'm way better at helping Reese plan out what he needs to do because all of a sudden, I go, wait, oh, I got to go back. Remember what I learned, okay, and now we go forward.

And the response of every step that I would take in that direction that helped him was just another reinforcement of why I needed to continue to work on what I needed to know in collaborating. Oh, my gosh, being in that room in Georgia, with all of those professionals, as we were all telling stories and working ideas, I have never felt more alive.

I've never felt more validated. And I came with so much information that just totally redirected everything for me. I would wish that upon anybody. I felt like I have full toolbox. Sometimes I didn't know what tool to get but it was full. It was ready to go. And I just really felt validated.

Diane Dempster: Sometimes it doesn't matter what tool you pull out as long as you keep pulling them out.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Pull a tool.

Jean McIver: Right. Exactly. I wasn't drowning anymore. I definitely wasn't drowning.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So is there anything else you'd like to say to parents or people or professionals, people listening, that you hope they'll take away from today? What do you want them to know?

Jean McIver: The most important thing is to know that if you fix it today, there may be a new week tomorrow. It really does. It changes all of the time because every baby step is a step forward, but there's still other ones that are pulling us a little bit backward so don't lose hope. Just keep breathing.

Sometimes, just go back in the toolbox and pull out another one. But just remember, we know what really works for me is sometimes when on Facebook, when you have those memories, and they pop up. And I see that three-year-old little Reese or the two-year-old little Reese and that little boy that I have. He is 12, almost 13, and he is amazing, so don't lose hope ever, ever, ever. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. Thank you for that. And if you feel like you are losing hope, get some help. 

Jean McIver: Yeah. Do it. Reach out.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Seek out support because that's really what it's about is parenting from inspiration. [inaudible]

Jean McIver: Even if it's reaching out to your website and reading one article. That article has a little insert, and that you hit that, and it will take you to another article that will take you to a chart. I can tell you I got lost in there. But every one of those enlightened, and it still does.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Thank you.

Diane Dempster: So Jean, we've been ending our interviews as a wrap-up with a favorite quote or a motto that you'd like to share with everybody.

Jean McIver: So for us, we laugh at this, but our counselor, who has just retired, which I'm very sad about, said it's her favorite quote, and she actually has it written down, and we'll take it to her next job, but we always say "Downtime is clown time" for Reese.

He, my boy, is a ball of motion. And if he doesn't have something to do, he can't get anything else done. So that's our big downtime is clown time.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Awesome. I think we're at a wrap, yes?

Diane Dempster: Thank you so much, Jean, for being here with us to share a little about your story as a teacher, your story as a parent, give a little bit of advice about how parents can partner differently with teachers, and it's just been really lovely walking down memory lane with you. Thank you for that. 

Jean McIver: Thank you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And we're so thrilled you found our community and that you've been with us for now, many years. It's a pleasure to grow with you and your family. Thanks for joining our tribe. 

Jean McIver: You bet. I love it. Have a great day, ladies. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You too. Take care, everyone. See you in the next one. 

Jean McIver: Sounds good. Bye.