Episode 235 — Have Wants Not Expectations
Date: December 19, 2024
Episode Overview
Discover a simple mindset shift to create a positive, empowering environment. Resilience starts with one key change.
Referenced in This Episode
Full Transcript
Len Arcuri | 00:00
Hello, it's Len, and welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets. Based on your feedback, I'm recording lately shorter episodes that go into a very key concept in a short amount of time. This is a holiday period where I don't think lots of parents have excess time to take in a deeper, longer podcast.
So this episode is going to be shorter, and it's no less impactful because the secret this week is have once expectations. So that might be clear or it might be wildly confusing to you. But either way, keep listening because the nuances here matter. Give me about 10 minutes and I can guarantee you'll get a boost. You'll get some takeaways that will definitely give you more wind at your back. Have wants not expectations. Let's define wants. Pretty straightforward, but a want is basically just something that you desire. These are wishes. Things that you're truly wanting for yourself, or your child. I guess one way of defining want and making it clear is knowing what it isn't. And a want is not a need.
So those are very different terms. If want is something that you desire, then expectations, at least in the way I'm defining expectations, those are more like needs or even more specifically they're expectations from a parent's perspective can be really demands in disguise. And at least from your child's perspective, they'll be receiving expectations on your part more as demands there's pressure And from your standpoint as a parent, if you're anything like I was, there's a certain clinginess to an outcome. An expectation was one, something I wanted for my child, let's say for speech to emerge as an example. That was really not just a want that I had. That was an expectation. That was more of a demand. I felt kind of a desperation and I'm sure my son felt all of this. Another way of looking at expectations is if you don't get that expectation, if that doesn't come to fruition, then you're going to show and express your dissatisfaction. There'll be some unpleasant outcome. Again, for me, this was strong emotions, frustration, disappointment, anger.
So the reaction I would have if something didn't happen or if it was taking too long was some strong emotion like those or that emotion will be accompanied by some action. That would be a pained facial expression. A lot of nonverbal cues coming from my body that were expressing my unhappiness.
Sometimes it translated into me raising my voice and being really short with my family. Sometimes it was me complaining about doctors who weren't helping or therapies that weren't working.
Sometimes that resulted in arguments. And my go-to was kind of withdrawal. I would withdraw and kind of check out a little bit. By having expectations, I was effectively setting myself up for a lot of unpleasantness in terms of emotions that I was feeling and actions that I was taking. And so that's why having wants are very different than having expectations. The two concepts are wildly different.
So when it comes to what you are doing to help your child, The opportunity is to get super clear on what you're going for and to have wants as opposed to expectations can make a huge difference. And at the same time just know that You are the greatest gift for your child. Your efforts are a tremendous expression of your love for them. But at the same time, what I wasn't aware of is that the actions that Cass and I were taking and everything I know I was doing, it was self-serving. Sure, I wanted the best for my son, Rye. But I wanted more for my family and I wanted more for myself. I wanted to get out of the prison that I felt autism was in terms of all the things that our family couldn't do, not just because of autism, but because of Rye's extreme allergies.
So I wanted more for myself as well. So just know that as you're doing everything you can for your child, you're doing this for yourself. And that's totally understandable.
So whether it's something that you want for your child or something that you want for yourself, Why would you want wants instead of expectations? Simply because you and especially your child are going to feel the difference. It's absolutely night and day. And maybe a way of looking at this or to think something to think about You know, the big question is this, what are you like? When you don't get what you want. Are you fun to be around? Does your best self come through or is it your worst self? Do you throw a tantrum? And we're always looking at kids who throw tantrums, meltdowns. Basically, so do parents. Parents have meltdowns and tantrums. They just take different forms and maybe they look a little bit different. But the result is the same, it's unhappiness. Having those kind of strong negative reactions when things don't go your way feels horrible and it just drains everyone around you. And it simply just doesn't help in any way.
So whether it's a child who tantrums, whether it's an adult who's pouting or complaining, All that energy is wasted because it doesn't bring you closer to getting what you wanted in the first place. So. Doing unhappiness, getting unhappy when you don't get what you want, which is basically what an expectation is. It's when things don't go your way, you're not okay with it. It just never works. It never helps. For this episode, the big insight is Go big on what you really want and let go of the outcome. And that might sound totally contradictory. But here's how you put it into action. When you think about what you want, for your child especially, or for yourself, Go big. Don't hedge what you want. Don't reduce what you're going after. Aim higher. You can have whatever want you choose for yourself or your child. And it comes up time and time again when I'm having the privilege of coaching parents where they don't dare to want more for their child or for themselves. And of course, that's because they don't want to get their hopes up or some version of that. But no, with your wants, go big. Go for what you really want. You don't have to restrain yourself.
So aim higher. When you actually aim higher and go for what your heart desires... It'll force you to think outside the box.
So when I think of autism and all the services, the diagnosis that parents get based on symptoms in order to get a diagnosis that enables you to get services and insurance coverage for therapies and interventions that only address the symptoms, it's basically a hamster wheel that is designed to keep everybody stuck, yourself and your child, because it's all symptom driven. So if you identify your big wants and have something big that you're going for, It'll actually force you to think outside the box and it may help you to see that a lot of the options that might be right in front of you won't get you there.
So having big outcomes that you're going for. Is actually very useful and it's not unrealistic. You can want what you want. But the second part of this outside of going bigger, which seems counterintuitive, but trust me, go big.
And then the second part is to really check in on what you want. You know, what do you really want? I've talked so many times about how I wanted nothing more than autism to be gone. I totally shifted, thankfully, because of some great guides. I shifted from that outcome to basically not caring about the label of autism. And I shifted on the episode 233, which is two episodes before this one, is all about how the big shift from compliance, me wanting compliance, my son to comply with what I wanted, to comply with what society expected of him, how he was supposed to behave. I shifted from focusing on compliance with my son to really focusing on connection and Which led to wildly different actions and a totally different journey, a much better journey.
So go big on what you want, but really double check and confirm that you're wanting what you're wanting makes sense because there might be some other way or some other outcome. That resonates more with you.
You know early on i was so focused on the outcome of recovery and of healing and you know i've learned that it really isn't about some outcome like that it's much more about just truly meeting rye's unique needs and helping him to become the boy he was destined to become so meeting rye's needs was the outcome as opposed to healing, recovery, or some outcome of that nature. I shifted from wanting neurotypical. My son's not neurotypical. He is so unique and has such incredible gifts and exceeds in so many ways and has opportunities to improve.
So it's really shifting away from that outcome of neurotypical was really helpful. So many of the parents that I coach want the same thing I wanted early on too, which was speech. I wanted my son to talk. He had words, then he lost them.
So I was really obsessed with wanting speech. And I've learned again from so many amazing people who have taught me, you know, that speech wasn't necessarily the best thing for me to be wanting for Rye. It was really more communication. And so I let go of me clinging to speech and just wanting Rye to communicate. And I know Cass worked with Rye early on to help him communicate with sign language, which was really helpful. For anyone who listens to the podcast, you know, there have been many episodes where we've done with the spellers and spelling to communicate and the spellers method. Listen to those episodes if you want to better understand how for some kids, speech, that that's not necessarily the only outcome. The real important thing is for a child to be able to express their wants and what they're thinking and to be able to communicate. And thanks to the methods I mentioned, so many kids who didn't have the ability to express themselves now have a way of doing that.
So listen to JB Hanley's episode, that's episode 38 or episode 140, 143, 213, 217, 228 are all about this concept. If you're really focused on speech, I'd invite you to just perhaps tweak that to focusing on communication because communication can take many forms. And so, yeah, keep that in mind in terms of what do you really want? I was focused on forcing Rye to want to be a part of my world and I shifted to just inviting him and becoming more appealing to him to come out of his world and into ours. There's lots of ways that you can just think about what you want right now. Nothing's good or bad, but just really check in. Is what you're wanting now the most important? There's a phenomenal animated short that won the Academy Award a couple years ago, and it's based on a book. The title is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse. And it's just extremely powerful, but one of the lines in there is... When the mole asked this boy, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And the boy said, mind. And that kind of sums up for me with Rye. I had so many expectations of what I wanted him to become and I had no awareness that kindness was a really important thing and it turns out my son has that. And it's only because he was met where he was without us trying to push and force him to become someone he wasn't. That brings to the third and final item, right? To go big, check in on what you really want, and the third is to let go of the outcome. And that gets to where you can model what you want your child to learn. Basically, teaching your child that life is really, most of the time, you don't get what you want.
So if you can model what it's like to not get what you want and to still be okay and not have not to pivot into unhappiness and That's an incredible thing that you can teach. This is how you show up powerfully. Every day with positivity and resilience. You don't have to model unhappiness for your child. Many of you know that the Sunrise Program, the Option Institute, was a real key source of knowledge and guidance for both Cass and I. And this concept of not going to unhappiness when things don't go your way is something that we learned there.
So. All of this is how you can show up powerfully every day. You can drop the expectations and double down on your wants. Your child is watching. If you can't be happy or content when things don't go your way, don't expect your child to be. How your child responds to what life throws at them is going to largely be determined by how they see you respond.
So respond powerfully, with grace, with curiosity, with positivity, with a growth mindset of constant learning. And know that you can never fail. Because after all, you're either winning or you're growing.
