Show Notes

 

https://youareseen.com.au/

 

My child was diagnosed at the age of two years old; it was something that both my husband and I were not expecting. We had no clue what Autism was nor did we know how to support our precious son. In the beginning I wasn't coping. I wasn't sleeping. In fact, I was grieving for what in my mind was no more. I would lay in bed wondering if my child would one day say “I love you, Mum”? Would he be able to go to school? Would he have friends? Would people judge me? Would people judge him?

I battled with feelings of shame and blame for far too long. I drowned my sorrows with alcohol to numb the pain and constant negative self-talk took its toll. - Nathalie Karras

 

Do you still feel surreal as parents of kids with special needs?

This show is for parents who are mourning the loss of the life and the child they thought they would have. This show is for parents who are tired, lonely and see no hope in sight.

You will learn how to deal with your non-verbal child with a sensory processing disorder, seizures, meltdowns, haircuts, and family trips. Embark on a journey of consciousness, self-care & meditation.

My name is Chad Ratliffe. I am a single father of five kids within 6 years of age and two of them are with  special needs. 5 years ago, in a nasty divorce, my depression led me to addiction and hopelessness. Today, I share with others a life I never imagined possible.

Subscribe to The Naked Parent Podcast and take back control of your life. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/naked-parent-podcast/id1579108619?fbclid=IwAR0YYW_4TVbhX_nxNoLP0LUAGmTqsoEJX5bPgVl_KBPiuQ3m0JKNWFBmJU4

 

If you find our podcast beneficial, you can help us continue producing the show by subscribing on our Patreon. We are truly inspired and grateful to create a community for parents raising their children with special needs. https://www.patreon.com/thenakedparentpodcast

If you’re interested in getting more information on the next Naked Parenting Transformational course,  email chad@nakedparentpodcast.com and put "I Am Ready For Transformation" in the subject heading.

Looking forward to navigating parenthood journey with you!

Check our website to learn more: www.thenakedparentpodcast.com

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

parent, child, naked, life, love, learn, special needs children, autism, early intervention, wins, today, higher, remember, awesome, moment, listeners, beautiful, day, family, pediatrician

SPEAKERS

Chad Ratliffe, Nathalie Karras

 

Nathalie  00:00

I know where you are, because I've been there. And I know how dark it is. And I know how scared and uncertain you feel right now. And I know how much you want to run away and wish that it wasn't the case. But I will be your biggest cheerleader. I will celebrate the wins with you, I will do the happy dance with you. But I will also give you the solutions and the strategies where I can to help you be able to show up for your child because you know your child better than any doctor, therapists, whoever, it doesn't matter. You have everything in you to help your child and I'm just going to be the conduit to unlock it.

 

00:39

Welcome to the daily naked pair podcast brought to you by rocket blue. The first ever brand focused on supporting parents with special needs children. A good parent nation is a group of parents with special needs children who are willing to give honorable, stripped it all down and take a look at ourselves, our parenting, our family and our plans create a life beyond our wildest dreams.

 

Chad Ratliffe  01:13

On today's show, you're going to hear the story of a mom raising a special needs child. And it's going to be beautiful. So stick around Hello naked parent nation and welcome to today's episode of The Naked parent podcast. My name is Chad ratliffe and I'm your host. Before I introduce you to our guests today, let me start by sharing a message from naked parent nation. Naked parent nation is a worldwide community of parents and professionals raising children with all kinds of needs. We come together to share Naked Truth, support our fellow parents and inspire the inner growth that each of us needs to build the life and family of our dreams.

 

 For the parents that are struggling, we want you to know that we will love you until you can love yourself. For your children we pray and send power from our collective group. Naked parenting is the process of moving from where you are to where you want to be naked parents and understands that the mind is responsible for all of our problems. As you shed the layers of your mind, you will find your true essence.

 

As you continue to peel back the layers you will return to the deepest truths of your own being through connection with one another and a belief that there is more we expand our consciousness so that the challenges that perplex us today dissipate one by one, until we're able to see and experience gratitude and beauty in everything just as it is. We have the power to create any kind of life we want for ourselves and our families. We do this by living in the naked present moment, one day at a time. If this is your first time connecting with us, I hope you feel the love that's here for you. Together we walk different paths side by side. So as we often do, we'll do a little centering, exercise, breathing, exercise, guided meditation.

 

We'll see whatever flows out from me. But we like to do it because it's a time that we have for ourselves. If we don't take any other time during the day, this is a moment to connect with the sweet spot of the present moment. In that place where there are no problems. There are no financial worries, there are no difficulties that we feel uncapable of handling. So if you want to gently let your eyes close and become aware of your breathing. Take a long slow, deep breath in through your nose and let that go so gently to take another long, slow, deep breath in and hold it and then gently let that go. I want you to take a long slow deep breath and imagine yourself in the room where you are. On your next inhale.

 

I want you to take a long slow deep breath and imagine yourself loading up off the ground towards the ceiling Almost like a hot air balloon, or like when you're in water, if you hold your breath, you become buoyant and start to float. On each inhale, you your approaches in your room. And with your next deep breath, I want you to inhale and go right through your ceiling and outside into the sky.

 

Keep floating higher and higher. You're now looking down at your house. You can see your neighbor's homes and higher and higher. Feel how quiet it is up here feel how free your body is to do whatever you want remember, this is a place you can go whenever you want to fly around, check out your beautiful town. Circle around your home.

 

Go visit your friends home and just have time to be the amazing person that you are and on your next exhale I want the bubble to pop just like in the movie and just come back into this room and when you're ready let your eyes come back in here we are I hope you had a nice light and I hope you had a nice moment. Present Moment. But today on our show we have Natalie and Natalie you're gonna have to help me pronounce your last name. Charisse it's Karis. Natalie Charisse, we were excited to hear your story. Natalie, can you tell us a little bit about you, and your family makeup and so we can get to know who we're going to hear from better?

 

Nathalie  07:53

Yeah, definitely. Thank you for having me on. And that was a beautiful meditation. Thank you. So I'm joining you from Melbourne, Australia. It is very early in the morning. Yeah. So we're just getting the light now. So my story began back in 2016, my son was almost two years old. And we've gone to the maternal health nurse, which I'm not really sure if you have been in the States, but they basically just check to make sure that your child is developing the way that they should. And she noticed some red flags.

 

She knew automatically what was going on. But obviously she couldn't diagnose. So she sent us across to the pediatrician. I remember sitting in the pediatrician in the waiting room, it took a while for us to get that appointment. So I'm now sitting with my mom, myself, my almost two year old son and my six year old daughter. And I remember thinking, wow, is am I going to walk through those doors, and something huge is gonna happen. And it was almost like I was getting a whispering like an intuition that something was going to teach us trying to prepare me for what was happening, what was going to happen.

 

And so I walked through the doors, the pediatricians in all of her respective tests. And then she looked me straight in the eye and she said, I'm sorry, Your son has autism. Good luck getting him out of that world. And, yeah, and I just remember thinking, hang on, what? What do you mean, and everything went into slow motion, just like the movies. I could see her mouth moving. And I just couldn't understand what had happened. And so I went home, and I breathed. I cried like he had died. And it was the most heartbreaking grief that I ever experienced in my life. It was just, it came out of nowhere.

 

I didn't know what autism was. I just assumed that him flapping his hands and standing on his tippy toes was just him being a boy. Like he was just a child. He was a baby. He was having fun. And so Before I clicked into motion and got all my solutions intact, I went into a very dark place. I was hitting the drink way too much, just trying to numb my pain. And I distinctly remember at one point, praying to God, I said to God, please bring me your biggest, strongest man so that he can come and beat the absolute crap out of me. So that I am black and blue, so that the outside resembles the inside, so that I don't have to hide anymore.

 

Because it was so hard to go out into, like, into the world now, people would be like, Oh, he hasn't got his words yet. And like, oh, you know, he's fine. He'll get them soon, you know, in this constant masking, which was just exhausting. And so, you know, after a while I was, I could see that he wasn't progressing. I was definitely not progressing.

 

And I was like, That's it. We've had enough, we're getting solutions. And so I just, I'm am one of those people that once I set my mind to something, look out, because I will achieve it. So I sat through, we went through so many different avenues to get him to where he is today. And I can safely say now that as an eight and a half year old, he is doing magnificently. He is a growing beautiful boy, he I'm sure he eats more than I do. And he loves martial arts. He loves being able to be you know, with his friends. But in saying that, you know, we tried social needs school, because that's where we were told to put him into he, after two years he academically had outgrown that.

 

We then moved him across the mainstream, that didn't work very well. And mainstream is like your typical where all your typical children would attend went mainstream, it was too loud, too noisy too much for him, even with the full time carer. So now we're homeschooling and that I have just seen so much evidence to support that that works for him. That's my right. So yeah, and I'm in between all of that. I basically from pain, I decided that I was going to create purpose. So I became a certified specialist, parents coach, and I now help mums of newly diagnosed autistic children overcome the overwhelm and the stress that comes along with the diagnosis.

 

Chad Ratliffe  12:20

That's beautiful. Wow, thank you. It never gets old. Here, the intensity of that moment. I'm so sorry that the way it was delivered to you, it's hard enough to have that moment. nicely presented to you. That's just horrifying how it was presented to you. I love the journey, it really gives a feeling of hope to someone who's new on the path. I mean, you had trials, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I hope that the listener hears that, who feels like there's no light at the end of the tunnel? Can you take us back, though? And tell us what had to happen for you to go from that place that maybe all of us parents understand to where you are now?

 

Nathalie  13:13

Yes. So for me, I just needed to get really scrappy, I needed to get on and research and find people. So we went through a lot of biomedical doctors. Now again, I'm not sure if you have them in the States, they basically look at doing a variety of urine samples, stool samples, basically checking what's going on in the gut, to counterbalance any sort of if there's like high heavy metals, or if there's like basically just detoxing, what's going on in his body. So we did that for quite some time. We did early intervention. So going to he was after he was diagnosed, we pretty much got on to speech therapy as soon as possible. And then ot joined about six months later. And we've been doing therapy ever since he was two.

 

Chad Ratliffe  13:59

And like I said, That's awesome. That's awesome.

 

Nathalie  14:03

Thank you. And, you know, because early intervention for me personally is so important. You know, I think that having that early intervention, especially from where I stand, and where what I've seen with my child, it's been really helpful to be able to see where, what I could learn how I could gain knowledge from a therapist and how I could utilize that at home.

 

Because you as a therapist, from what like the people that I've worked with, they've helped my child just as much as they've helped me. You know, there have been times where I've gone in there just crying not knowing which direction to go in and they've been able to help me in, you know, the uncertainty that comes up at different times, just as much as they've been able to help my child with their speech, and you know, and they rotate. So we did by medical doctors, like I said, we're homeschooling now so it was a lots of test and measuring around what schooling was going to work for him.

 

It's unfortunately I hate to say it but the school Link system in Australia for special needs children, it's part it is broken. It is broken in a way that if you're in that middle ground, where you've got a higher IQ, but you don't do really well, in mainstream, there's really nowhere else to go. And that's why we're finding homeschooling is really taking a massive leap. Because parents are just saying, Well, you know, child is coming home, stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, not coping, you know, their nervous system is literally on fire. And now we've got to try and get that back into homeostasis, so that we can actually get them to learn. And that's one thing I've noticed with my son is, when you take them out of fight or flight, the likelihood of them learning is really high.

 

But it doesn't work. If you're in that situation like I, the analogy I give is, could you study for an exam? If you were in a nightclub, right? So much noise so much, like so much going on? I know I couldn't. So why are we expecting our beautiful children to sit in an environment like that, where it's too hot? And granted, not everyone can homestore homeschool, I understand that. But it's just recognizing what your child needs. And being able to offer that in the best way possible with the tools that you have.

 

Chad Ratliffe  16:17

Yes, I remember when I got a brain scan for my kids. And they explained the brain scan and how on fire. brains were you know, and then they explained what you just explained to us about fight or flight. And you know, how much would you learn if you had a cheetah? You know, chasing would eat you? Not much. How about for you personally? How did that dark place that you were in ever change?

 

Nathalie  16:42

I want to say now at peptides present moment, I have been able to manage to put it into a box and contained into a box. Does that box open from time to time? Yes. Like I would be lying if I said I didn't have bad days, even as a coach, right? Because I never want to show up to my clients and be like, Oh, I've got it all together. I know what I'm doing. My child is perfect. Bla bla bla. That's not it. I definitely have bad days. I definitely have moments where I cry. But I recognize that, okay, have the moment, give yourself the time, run yourself the bath, eat the chocolate cake, whatever you're going to do to support that grief, and then move through it and then get back to being functional. Get back to being able to really deliver for your child, for your family for yourself.

 

Chad Ratliffe  17:32

Yes, we love keeping it real on the naked parent podcast. That's where the name came from. So can you tell us a little bit about how your child's autism makes him unique? Hmm,

 

Nathalie  17:45

it is so unique. So he is I'm sure he has a photographic memory. I can't tell you this, for sure. But just the actions that I have seen, have shown that, for me that personally is part of his autism. I also think that his ability to be like The Matrix and miss a wall when he is running by like an inch is like it's like can you see it in slow motion when he like just get out of the way? I'm like, How did you do that? He's a super fast runner. It has excellent spatial awareness. And I just, I don't think you can love it another human as much as I love this child like I would lay down my life. If I could take if it was to better him, you know, I would go to the ends of the earth. And I often say don't mess with a special needs parent because their resilience is that of an AMI.

 

Chad Ratliffe  18:38

That's awesome. There's lots of aha moments along this journey. Any that stand out for you,

 

Nathalie  18:46

for me when he started getting his words, just to be fair, and I wanted the listeners to understand we're getting we're just getting sentences now. So 88 and a half. i We're just getting functional sentences where we can sort of communicate and get an understanding of what his needs are.

 

And so in the beginning, it was those tiny teeny tiny wins that I'll be like, okay, just push through, like does amazing. Oh my gosh, he you know, he high fived me or he waved or you know, he even like the smallest word or he would just say one word. I remember just recently we've just taught him how to brush his teeth. I don't think I've screamed as loud as I did. I'm sure the knife is heard. Because I was so excited that he was able to desensitize his mouth to even get to a face and a toothbrush in his mouth.

 

And like we went through all of his the stage where he was losing his baby teeth where he wasn't brushing his teeth at all, like nothing would have been able to use to pay so it's those small wins, that I encourage my clients to just be like, you don't compare yourself to other parents wins because those wins are not the same. It's the small wins. So it's a small wins that we really need to concentrate on.

 

Chad Ratliffe  20:04

Yeah, I love that. I love that the expectations kill, they really kill. Because if there was I upset before that if there was nobody else around, well, then you would celebrate the wins that you're describing as the big wins in life, right? It's only by comparing to somebody else. But if we can focus on our own journey, then I think that's an amazing point that you bring up. Is there anything that you believe to be true that most parents disagree with? You got any controversy? Controversial?

 

Nathalie  20:47

I just think that at the end of the day, we as parents, we need to get ourselves right. Okay, wait, if we are not right, like I know, everyone who told me it was always every doctor, every therapist that I spoke to, it was so focused on the child was so focused on the child, not one person ever stood up, put me aside and said, How are you going? What therapies are you doing? Like? How are you taking care of yourself? Have you got a list of things that you're making sure that you want to get delivered in order to be the best parent for your child? Right. And it's no one does that.

 

 And that's what really, that's why I created my business, because I didn't want to be in a position where parents are walking up here with a stack of information for their child, and nothing for them. Right, this journey is just as much for the parent as it is for the child. And that is one thing. I've learned all of my lessons from my son. Well, I've definitely learned lessons from my daughter. But I have learned the big lessons around me personally, because I feel like his autism was the lesson for me. Right? I am, I'm on this journey of learning from him. And what I have to go through to better myself to be a better person, versus what it looks like for him because he only in his world, I'm sure he doesn't even know that he's any different. Any anything else. He doesn't even recognize, oh, I'm autistic. Okay? No, he's just like, I'm living life. And this is the best thing ever, and I'm playing with my trains and this day rocks. Generate,

 

Chad Ratliffe  22:26

yes, that's awesome. That's awesome. It's always a different feeling when I do a show, where the parent is trying to get their kid to talk so that life can become a good life, or once their kid is able to do whatever it is that they feel is holding the whole family back from life being good, or whatever. And that hasn't been my experience. My experience has been what you just described. And I appreciate you bringing that up. Just to get like more of your thoughts and opinions, we do a lightning round where you give one word to short sentence answers to a few questions. Are you for trying it?

 

Nathalie  23:10

Absolutely. All right.

 

Chad Ratliffe  23:12

What's the best advice you have received?

 

Nathalie  23:16

Definitely early intervention?

 

Chad Ratliffe  23:17

What kind of course or retreat or training? Would you sign up? For today? If it was available?

 

Nathalie  23:26

I would do something to do with professional development for me, because when we know ourselves better than we can show up at all.

 

Chad Ratliffe  23:34

I love that. Do you have a top resource or recommendation to share with other parents?

 

Nathalie  23:39

Yes, if you go to my website, I have a free guide. And the guide is called My child has been diagnosed with Autism NOW WHAT? And it's just it's a guide around what you can expect in terms of the emotions that may come up a little bit of an introduction from me. And I also mentioned in there that I offer a free 30 minute free session, all of my new clients to just get to better know me.

 

Chad Ratliffe  24:06

Don't pass that up listeners. Where do they what's the URL for your website?

 

Nathalie  24:12

Yeah, so you are seeing.com that I use so that's why are you a r e s double E m.com.au.

 

Chad Ratliffe  24:24

That's awesome. Also, if you can email me that after the show, we'll put it in the show notes for anybody that doesn't remember it but we do all want to be seen. What's the next thing on your list that you want to add for your individual well being

 

Nathalie  24:39

definitely want to work better at meditation. I think that my mind goes far too fast sometimes and I have too many balls up in the air. But I would like to be able to just better myself through courses and learn more around how my brain thinks because our each of our brains whether you you're autistic or typical, your brain is unique to you, and you have your own personal learning style. So I'm determined to find out how I learned what I can do to better learn so that I can retain an intake information so much quicker.

 

Chad Ratliffe  25:16

Beautiful. What's one thing you think would improve your life if you did it or had it?

 

Nathalie  25:21

Definitely more holidays, that's for sure. It takes a long time to leave Australia. So like four hours, and you're sweeping the country. More sunshine, more time with my kids. More just, yeah, family time and just just waiting for the summer. We're in winter at the moment, and I can't wait for the warmth to come. Nice.

 

Chad Ratliffe  25:43

Nice. Your sounds like your kids are lucky to have a parent like you do. Do you have a favorite product you use for yourself or your child or your family that you just love and couldn't live without?

 

Nathalie  25:55

Yes, absolutely. So we use Epsom salts in the bath. I usually take a bath like at least once a week, just my own mental health. My kids love the bath and the Epsom salts that we get this call from a company called glance, it's in Australia here. But you can find it on my website, I've got a section on the website that has my favorite things as well as my children's favorite things. And I just find it it just relaxes my muscles and just sets me up.

 

Chad Ratliffe  26:22

That's awesome. You are seeing.com.au Did I get that right? You got it right? Go to you are seeing.com.au Get a lot of great information, sign up for your free 30 minute call and get on that path that you need to be on to better yourself or get out of that funk, or whatever it is we always need to keep growing. That's at least my thought. So just from what we've talked about, or just like what's on your heart, to the parent that just got the diagnosis, and doesn't think that they have what it takes to do this. What do you say to them in closing?

 

Nathalie  27:07

Yeah, I would say I know where you are, because I've been there. And I know how dark it is. And I know how scared and uncertain you feel right now. And I know how much you want to run away and wish that it wasn't the case. But I will be your biggest cheerleader. I will celebrate the wins with you. I will do the happy dance with you. But I will also give you the solutions and the strategies where I can to help you be able to show up for your child because you know your child better than any doctor, therapists, whoever, it doesn't matter. You have everything in you to help your child and I'm just going to be the conduit to unlock it.

 

Chad Ratliffe  27:49

That's beautiful. Natalie, thank you so much for being on the show taking time out and I hope we can stay friends and connected and share this amazing crazy journey will love that that we're on. So thank you again and to all the listeners. Here's a vision for you. If life is challenging if you're feeling sad and lonely, if you're feeling overwhelmed, naked parent nation and the naked parent podcast provides a framework for living that helps your life become bright, wonderous and joy filled, you will see how the path you've traveled can help other parents on a similar journey.

 

 No matter how dark life is today, you will be able to shed feelings of being a victim feelings of loss and come to accept and enjoy life exactly as it is how you perceive life will change. You will come to understand that higher consciousness will allow you the life of your dreams and beyond. Are these promises realistic? We think they are parents and naked parent nation are realizing these promises each and every day. The vision will become your reality. If you put in the work through self care, meditation, love for our families, and divine consciousness.

 

May we all build a life beyond our wildest dreams. The biggest takeaway I want you to get today listeners is take an action, take an action, you might just be sitting there and feeling stuck taking action. Go to urc.com.au and sign up for that 30 minute session. You won't regret it. And I wish you all a wonderful rest of your day. Until next time. Thanks, Chad. All right.

 

29:35

This concludes our show for today. And I'd like to personally thank you for spending the time with us on a topic near and dear to our hearts. If you'd like to be part of the naked parent nation and help us reach those parents that are struggling and overwhelmed. There's no better way to help them by subscribing rating and reviewing the show on iTunes.

 

iTunes highlights the shows based on these metrics. And the more the show gets highlighted, the more opportunities people will have to be introduced to the show where they can hear that message of hope, or that tip that can change everything. So follow the link in our show notes. And we hope to have you back here tomorrow where we'll do it again. From the team here at the naked parent podcast we wish you the life you've always dreamed of, and then some so long