Rethinking Adulthood: A Neurodiverse Trajectory (Presented in Partnership with CAC)

Rethinking Adulthood, a neurodiverse trajectory

Thursday, 11/12, 7-8:30pm

What does it mean to be an adult? How is the transition to adulthood addressed in neurodivergent populations? Presented by a neurodivergent educator, we will explore the social and emotional elements of this transition and how we can better support our students and children through this process and the neurodiverse trajectory. Amy Faigin is a neurodivergent educator, activist and individual. Diagnosed as autistic at age thirteen, she attended Bridges Academy, a school for twice-exceptional students. After graduating from high school, she pursued a degree in Digital Media at Otis College of Art and Design, and began work as an independent designer. Amy now teaches at Bridges Academy, instructing in entertainment design, technological history, and mentoring students through their self-directed Young Expert program. She also works with the Ed Asner Family Center as a spokesperson, educator, and co-leader of their LGBTQ+ group. Amy is presently pursuing further education through the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education in order to continue growing as an educator and advocate.

See the transcript here:

Amy Faigin:

Appreciate that so much. And I also appreciate you giving me this platform and this opportunity to speak as a neurodivergent and autistic person. It means a lot to me because I talk a lot about how our voices need to be elevated, and you are doing that for me tonight. So thank you sincerely, REEL Palo Alto and CAC, for sponsoring this. And, um, thank you everybody who's here for lending me your ear for a few minutes. Um, I very sincerely appreciate it.

So today we're looking at adulthood and rethinking it a little bit. Oh no—I didn't want to click that. I wanted to click this one. Now I feel like a true teacher—I just fumbled a button during a presentation. And this is about a neuro-diverse trajectory towards adulthood.

So Callie did an excellent job of introducing me and really covered a lot of bases, but I wanted to present myself with some fish. Fish are my passion. And I am an educator working at Bridges Academy. I work with twice-exceptional students who are neurodivergent as well as being identified as highly gifted in one or more domains.

I live in Los Angeles with over 200 fish, a small but growing collection of reptiles, my affectionate dog, and an extraordinarily patient fiancé. For today's workshop—well, introduction—that's recursive. That's what we're doing right now. And I'm going to share the DBBST with you all and give you an opportunity to explore this test with me.

Um, you'll get a chance to take it, and then afterwards we will debrief it. We'll examine what some of those results might mean. And then I'm going to present on neurodivergence and adulthood. Specifically, we can examine that transition to adulthood, how the DBBST applies, and then how we can use that information to better the lives of our children.

So the DBBST—this is the adulthood test. It is a measurement of an individual's preparedness for adulthood by assessing your responses in three categories: early development, adolescent development, and early adulthood. We can calculate a DBBST score, which can then be used to measure an individual against a bell curve and make meaningful predictions about how one might transition to adulthood.

So I have—let me bring up the chat. And I am just going to paste a link to this test in the chat. And this is just a Google Doc. You're welcome to make a copy of it for yourself. You can print out a copy and fill it out on your own pencil and paper if you prefer that. You can just run a calculator on your phone—however makes you most comfortable. This is an abbreviated version of the test, so it shouldn't take you more than about 10 minutes to take and calculate a score.

I just sent the link. And what I'm going to do right now is set a timer for 10 minutes and let people play with this metric tool. I thought about playing the Jeopardy theme song, but I was worried about your presentation getting copyright striked. But you can all mentally play the Jeopardy theme. So that 10 minutes starts now.

Callie Turk:

Amy. I'm just keeping an eye on when new people come, reposting since the chat, you know, doesn't show up.

Amy Faigin:

Thank you, Callie.

Callie Turk:

Amy, Allison wants to know if they've never done something, what number do they put?

Amy says if you've never done something or you have yet to hit a benchmark, you enter 30. If you're just joining us and you're wondering why we're quiet, we are working on a little test called the DBBST, and the link is in the chat. We've had a couple new people join. If you're just joining us, we are in the middle of a little period where we are working on a little test called the DVDST, and the link to it is in the chat. Susan says her test won't share or do anything with the age line.

I think, Susan, um—you the part—yeah, you can, um, you can either make a copy of the file, or you can just put your answers on a separate sheet of paper. I believe Susan, just add up the scores yourself. Amy will clarify if that is not the case.

Amy says there—this is a pencil-and-paper edition, and she's trying to get a version that will auto-calculate. I'm reading these things because I'm not sure. I think the chat will show up in the recording, but just in case, I want people who see this later to be able to get to what they need.

For those of you who are just joining, we are getting close to the end of taking a test called the DBBST, and I have posted the link to that in the, um, in the chat. Oh, here, Marilyn. I'm going to put the link here in the chat. Thank you for letting me know.

If you are just joining us, we're working on the test, and the link is in the chat—although I don't, uh, know how much time we have.

Amy Faigin:

Just about 20 seconds left on the timer. You are welcome to go and look at the test later if you have the link. You can always go and look at it.

All right, time is up.

So debriefing the DBBST—first of all, my score is a 398.25, which—if your score is higher than mine, please talk to me after this because, um, that is the highest score that should be in the room. I am the best adult—clearly, my score says so.

So some responses to the test that I have heard in feedback when I have tried this out in other audiences: Some people have said, "This test feels unfair," or, "I'm being measured against a standard that isn't my own," or, "These benchmarks didn't apply to my life in a meaningful way. This test feels rigged."

This test is kind of—the DBBST stands for the Developmental Benchmark Test. So before I get into anything else, just real quick, I have to put this in the universe. While what I'm talking about predominantly focuses on neurodivergence and social justice, the issues that I'm going to be presenting today are intersectional in nature. So factors such as race, gender, sex, economic background, and cognitive or physical ability do impact or exacerbate these issues.

Who am I when I unmask? I am sorry—first of all—that I played a trick on you and made you take the DBBST. I will not pull any more pranks. I'm actually not good at pranks. Um, that's why I had to turn my camera off and go mute because I can't keep a straight face.

The thing about the fish is true, but also, I am twice-exceptional myself. I am autistic and loud and proud. I am a happy person. I am a person who has lived the journey that I'm going to be describing tonight firsthand. I'm an artist, a scientist. I'm not a fan of low-quality generic clip art. Um, there won't be any more of that in these slides either—I promise. And, um, no more tricks from here on out. It's going to be straightforward.

So let's talk about neurodivergence and adulthood—for real this time. We asked you at the beginning what adulthood meant to you. What does it mean to be an adult? And we got some interesting answers. Some folks said living independently, paying taxes, maybe driving is a big one, completing an education, financial productivity, having a job, skill acquisition, or legal consent to contracts—that's sort of how the government defines it.

I missed half of this thing because there's something wrong with my Zoom instance. What about long-term happiness, health, and autonomy? Is this presentation an elaborate excuse for Amy to Google cute babies? Yes. But when we examine the transition to adulthood, we find that it doesn't really exist culturally. We kind of go, "You're 18 now," and when a person has turned 18, they're an adult in terms of legal access and expectations and responsibilities.

Now, I'm a biologist—I said I was a scientist—so I'm gonna throw a little bit of jargon at you, but I'll try and keep it jargon-light. Myelinogenesis is the process where a brain grows new neurons, and we have two major growth spurts of myelinogenesis in our lifetime. The first one being that magical time between when a baby makes eye contact and when they're about six or seven years old. And then the second one starts in adolescence and continues through the mid-20s.

Your brain does continue to grow after your 20s. You're never done growing and learning. But there is a developmental process that, uh, is as intense as your toddlerhood happening during puberty. We set the cutoff date for adulthood at 18 when typically developing brains don't really reach what we would consider complete until age 21 to 24.

In addition to that, neurodivergent individuals often have what we call developmental delays. Both ADHD and autism have developmental delays as key elements in their identification. To clarify, a developmental delay is not the same thing as a regression. It's rather that an individual isn't uniformly hitting expected developmental benchmarks.

So for a twice-exceptional student, this might manifest as early speech development before walking or reading before fine motor development. You'll see them hitting some benchmarks, but other ones might be lagging behind. As far as the internal experience, social and emotional or executive function delays are what's most commonly reported within the community, but academic or motor or sensory delays are also experienced.

I myself had a visual processing delay. The timeline of these delays can vary from one individual to another. It's not like you can say a person has X diagnosis and therefore will be three years behind. Every person grows at a different rate. IQ scores can indicate the extent of the delay to some degree, but learning profiles are uneven. These predictions aren't absolute. And more often than not, what we find is that in the case of an IQ being a compensatory factor for a delay, it's because a person is straining themselves.

And a quick note about function labels—this question came up before: Do these experiences differ between high-functioning or low-functioning individuals? It is my belief that when we use the term "low-functioning" to describe a person, we stop looking for opportunities to help an individual be successful. And when we use the term "high-functioning," we stop looking for ways in which an individual might need help.

I'm autistic. I love to put things in boxes. But this is something that doesn't fit in two boxes. Rather, I would say that function is often a function of context. So when I'm citing statistics, I'm citing broad statistics. I'm not looking at the disabled population as being typical disabled and twice-exceptional disabled or any kind of binary like that. We are all one neurodivergent community.

So let's examine the consequences of an unsupported transition, which is what is the status quo currently. Before I get into that, I want to remind people that I am happy today. I have personally faced many of these struggles—and that are endemic to growing up neurodiverse in a world that is not made for me. But I am a happy and healthy person in spite of those experiences.

I have meaningful relationships. I have a career that I love. I enjoy fine dining. I enjoy art and travel. Life is good. I have people who are meaningful in my life. But I'm in the minority. Some of the information that I'm gonna present today is going to be upsetting, and it should be upsetting. But I don't want this information to frighten you or drive you to despair.

I want it to galvanize you. I want you to be bothered by the information I'm going to present, and then I want you to turn that upset into action. I don't want to be pitied. I want to be heard.

PTSD and other emotional consequences are frequently reported in our community. We navigate a world that is not made for us. I describe this as the existential wound, which is the awareness that every neurodivergent person or disabled person—or honestly, marginalized person—feels when they recognize that they are not part of the dominant narrative and that they are not wanted in the world, but rather have to fight for their place in it.

This hurts in a way that we carry with us. When we look at the lack of neurodiverse voices in dictating our treatment—very often, historically, in medical treatment and in education—we find that our population has been mistreated because of misunderstanding because we are not being listened to.

Statistically, neurodiverse people are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes. We're often framed as being the perpetrators. If you watch movies, you'll see, "Oh, the crazy person with the knife who committed the crime." More often than not, the mentally ill or disabled person is on the receiving end of violence.

Autism, in particular, comes with an elevated risk of negative life experiences—excuse me—um, which include things like job loss, eviction, divorce—things that have major emotional and economic impact and quality-of-life impact.

We also face institutional discrimination. The question of whether to out oneself or not comes up a lot in these conversations. "Do I tell my employer or my school that I am disabled or divergent in some way?" And I can't answer that question because it really does depend on the institution, on the individuals running it. And it can be hard for a disabled person to navigate and know whether or not a space is one that will support them or whether they should remain secretive about their needs.

And the ADA is not enough because there are a lot of local laws and state laws that bypass it. At-will employment, which is the employment law in the state of California, makes discrimination unprovable because a person can be fired at any time for any reason. Your employer may not say, "I fired you for being autistic," or "for having ADHD," or "for being dyslexic." They’ll say, "I fired you for being late," or "I fired you because I had too many staff," even though we just hired three staff.

So it becomes impossible to prove that you faced a discriminatory action. In many states, right-to-work laws remit—limit our rights at work. In, I want to say, 21 states, it is legal to pay a disabled person a subminimum wage. It may be a higher number. I have links to all of my resources—I will share after this presentation in my slideshow.

Fewer than 20 percent of autistic students complete college in five years or less. I myself faced the difficulties in college. It's hard when you have an executive function disorder to get help because, in order to get help for an executive function disorder, you must first contact the school's disability office and make an appointment with their counselor.

Their counselor will tell you that you need a psychiatrist's note. So you need to make an appointment with your psychiatrist, remember to request the note, get the note, remember to keep it in your bag, make a follow-up appointment at the disability office, and file the paperwork. And you must do this for every class, every semester—for an executive function disorder, which makes it hard to follow multi-process, multi-step instructions.

I completed that process all of once in my college career.

We face suppressed economic development. Eighty-five percent of autistic adults are unemployed or underemployed. Thirty percent of the ADHD population experiences chronic unemployment. Fifty-two percent of dyslexic individuals report facing workplace discrimination. And 20 to 30 percent of the USA's prison population is cognitively disabled.

We have the highest rate of prisoners per capita of any developed country in the world, and a significant portion of them are cognitively disabled individuals. I find a problem with that, personally.

There are also physical health risks and consequences. Regardless of twice-exceptional status, neurodiverse individuals are at an elevated risk of negative health outcomes. We face an elevated risk of accidental death, suicide, addiction-related death, physical abuse, violent crime, and medical neglect. And these factors shorten our lives.

Autistic people, on average, have a life expectancy that's 16 years shorter than the general population. Bipolar disorder reduces life expectancy between 9 and 20 years. And ADHD doubles the risk of premature death.

I myself faced medical neglect when living in Arizona. I had an autoimmune disorder that was sparked by an infection and ended up causing a cardiac incident that took me multiple years to recover from because the doctor did not believe me when I was doing all this research.

I—my partner is dyslexic, so of course I had to investigate dyslexia. And I found that the life expectancy of someone with dyslexia is between 100 and 200 years. They strive in beauty and always spill milk in their boots. They can be clumsy and, um, I don't know what the source on that information is. I wouldn't personally trust it. My partner does not want to live to be 200 years old without me.

So those are some scary pieces of data. And a lot of parents and a lot of educators are sitting here going, "How can I prepare my child for adulthood given this horrifying spread of data?" And I want you to ask instead, "How can I rethink adulthood—where and when it happens—in order to give my child room to grow into an adult safely and naturally?"

Which brings us back to benchmarks and rethinking them. Individuals are going to mature at different rates according to their own neurology and background. And I believe it is our job as educators and parents to respect that process and work on developing targeted support in order to ensure long-term success as adults—rather than being concerned about an adherence to an external timeline.

I have some proposed solutions. I'm not going to leave you hanging with all that data and no idea what to do with it. So we can ask: Is this a chicken-or-egg problem? Is this a problem for schools? The home? Broader society? This seems big—where do we start?

And I believe in oyakodon. Oyakodon is a Japanese dish where chicken is cooked in egg. I don't think this is a chicken-or-egg problem. I think this is a chicken-and-egg problem. And that it's too big for us to address from one angle. The way that we tackle this is by each addressing this from our own place of strength.

So as far as the family solutions go, the first thing is to reconsider the timeline for adulthood and ask yourself: Is this expectation healthy for my child, or is it being framed by an external narrative? Callie sent me a really beautiful article written by an individual who learned how to drive at 30. There is no reason that a person absolutely must have control of a vehicle at 16. I don't think that, um, neurotypical kids should be driving at 16 necessarily. I've seen what they do on the road.

Incorporate teaching life skills into daily routines: cooking, housekeeping, transportation, basic first aid—so that when your child is on their own, they can feed and wash themselves and live in a hygienic environment and, you know, put a band-aid on.

Introduce financial management strategies early. I mentioned the, um, executive functioning disorder that I have. A lot of autistic people experience difficulty with executive functioning. A lot of people with ADHD and dyslexia do as well. Financial management strategies—the quicker we can get into them and practicing them, the more it's going to protect us economically.

And normalize imperfection and vulnerability in front of your kids. Model humanity and humility. It's okay to be imperfect. And it will honestly give your kid a lot of peace of mind to know that adults aren't perfect.

For teachers and education-specific solutions: I hear a lot the saying, "Assume competence," and I absolutely agree with that ideology. But I also want to assume that every student is going to need help at some point in their academic career—regardless of their ability or disability status.

To that end, I think that we need to change schools beyond a 12th-grade education. If a kid isn't developmentally "cooked" until they're 21, so to speak, then they should have the opportunity to stay in high school until the age of 21. There should be transitionary programs that utilize partner universities or online colleges. I think that this should be the standard practice.

Make differentiated education the default. So instead of having a standard curriculum and special education and 2e materials, establish a library of approaches to topics that allow students to learn from their strengths.

I think that all schools should have full-time mental health staff and occupational therapists, as well as life-skill training opportunities for students. I've seen what having counselors on campus does for the students' welfare, and I think that that should be a basic prac—a standard practice.

Um, and change schools and universities to be more welcoming to neurodiverse students—and all students. Make accessibility the default rather than forcing disabled students to seek it out. In addition to modifying staff, I think this should extend to physical spaces and curriculum.

And as far as the big picture—if you don't have a classroom or a kid—here's what you can do. And also what everyone should be doing: Politically engage and demand disability rights. Don't forget that 2e individuals are gifted and disabled, so these rights do apply to us—and we need them.

Call for trained advocates in situations where individuals may be vulnerable: so police and legal interactions, educational counseling, medical scenarios, housing negotiations—anywhere where there's going to be a major life-altering decision, there should be advocates available to help navigate it.

And please vote. A lot of neurodiverse people cannot vote—either due to legal barriers or criminal records. If somebody has a full conservatorship, they may not have access to the ability to vote. If somebody has a felony record, they cannot vote in many states. So you must vote on our behalf, please, when we cannot.

And sever the link between economics and education. Higher education has to be economically accessible to protect students from accruing debt before they're cognitively equipped to fully understand it. We're asking an 18-year-old to sign a loan that's the equivalent to a down payment on a house when their brain isn't fully developed. Students can't be economically penalized for needing an extended education.

I also believe we need to sever the tie between military and education. I see too many kids who are 18 years old seeing the military as their only economic inlet to higher education. I think we should raise the age of military service to 21—when brains are more developed—and reduce economic incentives. People shouldn't have to go to war in order to access a better life.

And lastly, model neurodiversity acceptance in your life—in your language, in your family, in your classroom. When you go to the supermarket, practice normalizing variances within human cognition and speaking and thinking about them in a compassionate and respectful manner.

Listen to neurodiverse people. Hi, I'm talking. Thank you for listening. Um, so long as we are the "other," we can't have equity. Humanize us so that we may be treated humanely.

Humanize us so that we may be treated humanely. Loving our children for who they are—and really loving our fellow humans—means accepting us as individuals with our own needs and developmental timelines. We cannot hold them to an external standard that was built by a system that was constructed without taking them into account.

Our present system asks children to take a test that's rigged against them—a DBBST—and this is particularly true of our neurodiverse population. We have to reframe how we think about transitioning to adulthood and better scaffold the system in order to allow our children to grow in a way that is natural, healthy, and joyful.

I want to take an extra minute to thank REEL Palo Alto and the Community Advisory Committee for elevating my voice. You have given me—a neurodivergent person—a space to speak and people to listen to me, and I very deeply appreciate it. And I also want to thank everybody who attended tonight for letting me be heard.

Callie Turk:

Thank you so much, Amy. And I know that, um, we wanted to have people put questions into the chat, and I think y'all's going to say a few words about that. But I wondered—before we turn it over to Yale for Q&A—can you just give people a little more, um, information on your background and kind of the journey you took and what college looked like for you?

Amy Faigin:

And—oh, college was a nightmare for me. Um, I took eight years to finish college, and I had to drop out. I think two and a half times. One of those times, I thought, "I'm gonna go to a different college. I'm gonna go live in a different state." And I spent a year in Arizona, and I don't think any of those credits ended up counting towards my degree in the end. Um, but it was a learning experience.

I don't think my brain was really fully "cooked," so to speak, until my mid-20s. Maybe 26 or 27 is when I really figured stuff out. Um, to the extent that I could control my emotions and control and make conscious decisions about how I wanted to navigate through life.

Callie Turk:

And I think I'm—I'm curious. I—I'm taking advantage of having a microphone to say, like, I—how did your parents help you through that? What were the strategies they used? I mean, I think for a lot of parents thinking about their child going on like an eight-year journey kind of like you did to—and then and coming into your own now—how are your parents helpful with that? What did they do?

Amy Faigin:

What—well, my mom is a superhero. Um, she's my champion. But I think that that was honestly a very hard time for her too because my mom was more of a typically developed individual. She had a more traditional college trajectory. She finished in a typical amount of time. She got a graduate degree. She got a career. She got a house. And these happened in the sequence that society told her they should happen, and it worked for her.

And then she winds up with me, and it's not working for me. Um, and there wasn't a playbook for that. It was a source of a lot of frustration in our relationship for a time. We didn't get along. And I think that I sort of figured out my footing, and I think my mom sort of figured out that the timeline was external—that it didn't matter if I finish something in two years or in two and a half years. It got done.

And we came together in understanding at that point, and she's one of my best friends in the world right now.

Yael Valek:

That's wonderful. Wonderful. So we have, um, one question. We have some that were asked in advance as well. She says, "I'm very interested in college. I have a 20-year-old daughter in college who is struggling to feel included. What would you suggest as possible gap years so that she's not just home?"

Amy Faigin:

I think that for gap years—that there's no reason to necessarily walk away from the idea of education entirely. There's taking a class or two, or taking a creative class, or an internship, or an apprenticeship, volunteering with animals. That's—or taking a job.

I spent part of my gap years in college working at a warehouse where we sold freshwater fish for aquariums. And it was my favorite job on earth because I could wear headphones and basically work out all day carrying around jugs of water with fish in them. And there was no brain activity involved, but it was a time that I sort of gestated internally and grew.

Yael Valek:

So one of the, um, questions that someone asked before this: "Are what are some like key moments in your life—classes or extracurriculars you participated in or friends or teachers who helped you towards your journey?"Um, how do we promote and cultivate self-awareness as a means to achieving self-determination?

Amy Faigin:

That's a good question. There's like two pieces to that question, and I'm trying to, like, chunk them apart in my brain. The first chunk is, as far as like getting inspiration, I really believe in punctuated equilibrium as a developmental philosophy. I think that we grow way more than we anticipate in one week and weigh less than we anticipate in one year sometimes.

So I think it's about seeking the unknown and accessing it with an open mind. I've learned tons from attending two-hour lectures from artists, and I've learned nothing in six-month biology classes. Um, and then—what was the second half of that question? Sorry.

Yael Valek:

"How do we cultivate—" No, it's a big question: "How do we cultivate self-awareness as a means to achieving self-determination?"

Amy Faigin:

Man, how does one have an epiphany? Um, I think that we don't—there's not really a prescriptive place that you find it. I found a lot of it through bibliotherapy, personally—reading a lot and playing video games. And I went through one year of my life where I watched 100 movies in one year. Um, but absorbing all of that information—eventually something clicked. I think that it'll be a different magic thing for everyone—for every individual.

Yael Valek:

Kimberly, did you want to ask one?

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Yes. Hi, everyone. Um, I have a question here from someone in the audience, and it is something that resonates for us at home as well. Um, so the question is: "I'm curious what you think about age-inappropriate interests. I know plenty of neurotypical adults who love Disney and other age-inappropriate things, so it's not exclusive to neurodiverse people. Um, and personally—this must be a teacher—I don't care if, um, if my students do, but it makes it hard for them to develop friendships at a high school age level. Do you think we should be pushing kids towards age-appropriate interests so that they can be more accepted by their peers, or should we be pushing the societal change and accepting kids and their interests?"

Amy Faigin:

I vote for the societal change, to be honest. I know it's not a small task, but I spent a lot of time in middle school and high school denying the things that I loved in order to try and fit in. I know a lot of neurodivergent people mask, and it is part of that existential wound that I described—to not be able to be your authentic self in the world and vulnerable and to be embraced.

I love anime, and I love video games, and that is not necessarily an age-appropriate thing for an adult woman. But those things bring me joy. I have found other adults that enjoy those things with me, and we have formed communities where we are able to be our authentic selves with each other. And I found it helps me to connect authentically with my students.

So I say: Let your kids love what they love. Embrace them for who they are. Their passions will grow and evolve as they do at whatever rate is right for them. And in the meantime, Disney songs are excellent. Like, I still have "Shiny" stuck in my head from Moana.

Yael Valek:

Oh, great. Now that's gonna get stuck in my head.

Amy Faigin:

I had one kid who was singing the "You're Welcome" song all of spring break every time we went to break, and it was beautiful. Okay, someone asks: "Finding connections in college seems to be an essential piece to gaining confidence that can help lead to success in other areas. Without this piece, it seems that nothing else follows. How can students find their people? I've heard this saying for years, and I don't believe my daughter has ever experienced this."

Amy Faigin:

I did not find my people in college. Um, just so you know. That's—that's one of those timelines that people are told: "You need to make these social connections in college." They can come afterwards. I found a lot of my people on the internet, and I found most of my people through my special interests—which is where you find those most meaningful connections. So video games and anime made me friends.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Okay, we have another question from the chat: "At any point, did you try to suppress your autism to be able to fit in? My daughter and other young autistics I work with often try to ignore their disability, and as a result may ignore other peers with disabilities."

Amy Faigin:

Oh, 150 percent. I—I used to—first of all, cry and say, "I wish I was normal," a lot. And I spent most of my teen years and early to mid-20s thinking, "If I can just fake being social good enough, nobody will notice that I'm autistic, and then I won't be autistic anymore because clearly autism is only how other people seem to experience." Um, this proved to be false.

It just left me feeling really detached from myself, and it—it made it harder for me to seek out the accommodations that would have made my life easier. Um, and by the way, I wasn't able to, like, fake my way out of autism. I'm still autistic. But the difference is now that I love myself, and I love my brain and my life, and being autistic is wonderful. And you can rip it out of my cold, dead hands now. Like, I wouldn't trade my brain for a "normal" brain for all of the money in the world.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Amy, can you share some, um, ideas for families—um, maybe parents that have not yet, um, been able to connect to their child and their work to their young adult and wondering how to be assured that things are going to be okay? Because for a parent, I think that's the biggest fear. You know, I think it's wonderful that we're hearing your lived experience, um, but—but for families that are not actually having a communication with—with their—with their kids, do you have comments on that?

Amy Faigin:

Do you mean as in an individual is not verbal, or the individual's not emotionally connecting?

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Um, either—emotionally or actually, there's not a lot of—there's not a lot of communication between the—the—the individual and—and their family.

Amy Faigin:

I think that that can come on a delayed timeline. I also want to remind people that neurodivergent people sometimes experience and express affection differently and intimacy differently.

I did not give my mother a full-body hug until I was 16 years old because hugging was just way too much sensory information. It's like taking in an entire novel in 10 seconds as far as content, and I just couldn't handle it until my brain had developed to a certain point.

People are going to have different timelines. So it might be that this happens in late teens. It might be that it happens in the 20s. It might be that it happens in adulthood. Um, it might be that the specific form of connection that an individual wants isn't how that child communicates.

It might be that I could have maybe never hugged my mom, but that doesn't mean I don't love and connect with my mother in other ways that are my personal love language. I still don't hug her that often—I should after this. But, um, we communicate in other manners that are more naturalistic to me. And we have found a way to bridge that language gap, so to speak, and connect with each other.

It didn't happen early. The real communication—like I said—didn't happen until my brain started to solidify at like 26, 27. Um, for every person, it's going to be a different timeline, and it's going to be a different end result. But connection is very possible.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Thank you for assuring us of that. Um, another question: "Is there a right age to tell your child—um, to tell their child about their diagnosis?"

Amy Faigin:

Um, I think it depends on the kid to an extent and to the family to an extent. Some kids are going to take that diagnosis better than others. Um, and I also think that it depends a lot on the context and how it's addressed in the family.

When I learned that I was autistic, it was in an admittedly confrontational and contentious manner, and it didn't make me feel very excited about being an autistic person. I think that if you introduce the idea to children that neurodiversity exists—that everybody has a different brain, and that those different brains are what make us different, beautiful people—and, "This is the name that we call the shape of your brain," and don't attach a value judgment to it—but that can happen relatively early in development.

I—I mean, I plan to tell my kids as soon as they can have a conversation—so like six or seven. I hope my kids are autistic. I expect them to be.

Yael Valek:

So Amy, you're so inspiring. I'm wondering if you feel like—you know, this is just my own question—but, um, why it is that you ended up in such a different place from some of the statistics that you described in your presentation?

Amy Faigin:

Um, because I had the good fortune of implementing some of those solutions in my life. I had the good fortune of being surrounded by an education system at Bridges Academy and a community through my friends and family that understood me to the best extent at the time and were willing to embrace me.

So I had opportunities to grow at a delayed rate. My family—my mother wasn't thrilled about it, I'm sure—but she allowed it to happen. So I was able to grow up in a manner that was naturalistic—with patience and support. And I had educators that let that happen. And I had people who taught me that my autism wasn't something that made me less of a person, even though that was the external narrative.

And I was able to sit there and live in my own brain and go, "Wait a minute, I'm a whole person. I'm gonna go tell the world about this."

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Okay, I have another question: "At what age—um, at what age were you able to figure out what kind of support you needed to be successful?"

Amy Faigin:

Unfortunately, I was delayed on that front because I didn't like my diagnosis, and I thought I was gonna cure myself by just dressing cute enough and flirting with boys and making friends with popular girls. Um, I don't even know what "popular" means anymore. But so I didn't figure that out until maybe my late teens or early 20s.

What I will tell you is that my students have it figured out. I have 12-year-olds who say, "I need time and a half on this test because this subject gives me anxiety, and anxiety makes me work more slowly." Cool. Um, so I think that's part of the reason I encourage giving a diagnosis early—because a diagnosis is not a value judgment. It's a tool and an identifier.

This is how you can say, "Here's my brain shape, and this is what I need." And I find that very valuable. My kids know their brain shape, and they can tell me what they need. Um, maybe from the age of 12 or older.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Right. And here's a follow-on: "Kind of how—how were—how you were able to to discern what kinds of supports you needed, and then maybe if there were a few key events that you could recall that impacted your path?"

Amy Faigin:

The biggest asset for me was my community and finding other neurodivergent people to talk to and to ask questions and to share memes with. We communicate a lot via memes. There's a photo that says, "Autism is like a sundae bar," and it has all these different toppings for things like gastric issues or anxiety or dyspraxia or dyslexia or obsessive-compulsive disorder or high attention to detail. And every autistic person has a different combination.

And just to see it laid out like that—we're constantly sharing information like that within our community. In addition to resources like, "This accommodation worked for me." Um, so I do feel like finding the tribe, so to speak, is enormously valuable—not just in terms of feeling connected, but in terms of figuring out, "How do I navigate a world that wasn't made for me?" If other people have navigated it, we can share the map.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Great. There's a question in the chat that, um, and it's related to college, and it asks which colleges you attended and what you'd recommend—but maybe also for other autistics—but maybe also what are the qualities of, um, of, uh, higher education that people should be thinking about?

Amy Faigin:

I went to Otis College of Art and Design on a dare because I was a hyper-competitive person who was planning on going to med school. I didn't get into med school, but my art teacher dared me to apply to art school, and I pivoted, um, very abruptly.

And I like Otis College of Art and Design, and I think that they have—since I graduated—become better equipped to deal with neurodivergent individuals and embrace them and give them a more valuable learning experience. It was a hard experience for me, but not one I regret.

I have heard good things about Landmark College—specifically for neurodivergent individuals—as a really welcoming space and one of those semi-transitional colleges. And I think it's CIP in Long Beach, um, also has a transitional program for neurodivergent students.

Um, there's also a link from Callie in the chat for Thrive College Counseling, where Dr. Marcy Schwartz has advice on that front, um, because it's been admittedly a hot minute since I was in college or looking at colleges.

Callie Turk:

Yes. And Marcy—she was part of the K-12 team for the Stanford Neurodiversity Summit, so we got to know her really well. And she specializes in helping families with children with learning differences think about college and what will work best for their children.

Amy Faigin:

Lynn, you asked me a really tricky question: "How can parents figure out which autistic-related groups out there are promoting your viewpoint when there are so many out there with different viewpoints?"

I think the biggest indicator for whether an advocacy group is a good one or maybe a less trustworthy one is whether they are elevating and engaging with the voices that they are claiming to protect. I think that if you are looking for a group to support your autistic child, do they have autistic people that they are communicating with to guide them? Do they have autistic speakers? Do they have autistic people on their staff?

I think that that's one of the biggest indicators, um, which is why I'm so happy to be with REELand CAC as an autistic and neurodivergent person and have my voice be elevated.

Yael Valek:

We love hearing your voice. So I know you touched on this in your presentation, but someone asked: "What are the most useful and important life skills for transitioning to adulthood?"

Amy Faigin:

Executive function is a big one, and that sometimes can be one that's slow to grow—especially that's one of the ones that we tend to get hit with delays. But the ability to hold multiple tasks in your mind at the same time and navigate them effectively—how many times are you driving home from work and you're thinking, "I need to stop by the grocery store. The grocery list is on my phone. I need to make sure I stop by the bank and get cash first."

All of those steps can be more difficult for a neurodivergent person to hold in their brain at one time. And that's a skill that we need to work to develop. And that sort of ties into economic management—remembering to do things like get quarters for the laundry machine and pay your water bill and pay your rent and make sure your credit card doesn't go into default. Holding all of those tasks in mind.

So I think economic management and executive function in general would be my two biggest ones.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

So, Amy, you talked about, um, about encouraging families to decouple timeline, right, from from their, um, from their child's experience. Can you describe for us, um, you know, what was that like as it clicked for those those particular life skills that you talked about?

You know, I mean, I think we will often look at that, uh, at others and say, "Oh, they've already got it," and they don't. And and it's hard to—it's hard to wrestle with, um, seeing your your adult child—adult child—like, "I don't think they get it yet," but and then you're wondering, "Will it ever come?" So since you've kind of you're on the other side of that now and that's that has, um, you know, you've you've developed that maturity—can you explain what that's like? Is that just like an aha moment, or, um—

Amy Faigin

See, I don't—I don't think I'm 100% on the other side of it is the thing. I think that adulthood is like an asymptote in math. It's a point that we are constantly getting closer to but never actually can touch—that platonic ideal of the grown-up who has everything together. I don't think they exist.

I think that every once in a while, you spill coffee on your socks, and life just gets in the way. But I think that we gain more experience, and the days that we drop everything and lose our minds and can't get it done become fewer and fewer—hopefully. And we also can not only internally manage but create our own adult networks that help us externally manage as well—because you're not really an adult on your own. You're an adult within a community.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

How can neurodiverse people build a life in their passion areas?"

Amy Faigin:

They say that if you get work at what you love, then you'll never work a day in your life. But that's not true. You will just work much harder and take it much more personally. Um, but build—build well. Recognize need.

I don't think that anybody is going to necessarily make a living braiding horsehair. Um, maybe—maybe somebody. But if you find a job at the racetrack, maybe the horses need their manes braided. So find somebody who's willing to pay you to do what you already like doing.

Callie Turk:

Did anyone ask you yet to put up the references and resources because Kim Vargas was asking for—oh, let me—what I'll do is I will grab—let me find it real quick. And then—and then Lynn has another question, and, um, I'm just going to pick a couple more from the pre-submitted questions and put them in the chat for you, Ellen, Kimberly, to sort through.

Amy Faigin:

So real quickly, this is a link to the slideshow, and in the speaker notes, there are links to all of my sources. Oh, I just sent it to share to Sherry privately instead of the whole chat. There we go. Now everyone can see. That's the presentation link.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

Okay. So Lynn's question is: "Are there any tools—tools, strategies, or technologies—that you've been that you found to be helpful to help you to scaffold the executive functioning?"

Amy Faigin:

My phone. Oh my god, phones are amazing. I grew up in the paper planner days when they would hand you that, um, schedule—you had that little book. I can't even remember what it's called. Oh my gosh. And it had all of the dates, and you were supposed to write down every single homework assignment. And I was so excited about it, and I would fill out two days worth of pages, and then a half page—oh, and then it was lost at the bottom of my backpack forever.

My phone vibrates. So my, uh, my schedule vibrates and gets my attention, and that's great. Um, and it also has maps.

An agenda—that's what it's called. They still hand them out every school year.

And if I were still getting them, they would still be at the bottom of my purse

Oh, 100%. And all my homework assignments ended up there too. What's wonderful about technology is when I was in high school, I would do my homework on my computer and email it to my teachers. It never got lost in the bottom of my backpack. If anything, it just get lost in my files, but then my teacher would scold me, and it was still there. It wasn't a crumpled pile.

Yael Valek:

Yes. All the Schoology kind of systems have helped with that a lot.

So somebody now asks: "What advice do you have for how to handle the anxiety of the environment and sensory challenges?"

Amy Faigin:

I do a couple of things for that. I, um, first of all, brace myself for the day. Um, I—I say that I'm putting on my war paint when I put on my makeup and my armor when I'm putting on my clothes. And I make sure that I am specifically choosing clothes and to do my hair in such a way that it will leave me physically comfortable for the whole day.

So I don't wear like a nice button-down blouse if I know that I have to look presentable for more than an hour. I'll wear like a soft fabric dress because I know that the sensory issue is going to distract me. So I plan in advance. It's sort of how people do "phone, wallet, keys." I do a sensory check.

The other thing I do is I make sure that the people in the space that I'm going to know that I am neurodivergent as often as that is safe. It's not always safe. But that way, if I escape into the back room because I need to get away from noise, or if I disappear on a walk to go around the block to get away from people, that isn't a surprising thing. It's how I am managing so that I can participate fully.

Callie Turk:

So, Amy, I'm sorry—I forgot to put with that question that it was also in the specific context of college. I mean, you're those are all great, and those might all apply to college, but, um, we did put in our Q&A for the pre-, um, submitted questions—I don't know if you saw this—I think you did—was the panel they did at the UC Davis Mind Institute that was the five women who attended or were alumni of UC Davis.

And I thought they had some really great suggestions about how to think through college and how you're, you know, like, going and doing the path ahead of time—like, no, looking for sensory-safe spaces along the path, you know, packing their own lunch so they didn't have to go into crowded cafeterias. And I—I thought that was a great presentation, and I put the link in in that other document. I'll repost that link.

But I'm curious—when you were in college, where there are specific things beyond what you've already shared, which was more than enough, but if there were is anything specific about the college environment—because that was the original question.

Amy Faigin:

I—I honestly had a rough time in college because I didn't think to do those things for the most part. It was, um—you sort of pick them up as you go along. You realize that, "Oh, I have snacks in my bag, and I had a less terrible day. I should pack snacks more often."

Um, I would also say bring an escape. Sometimes you just have to pull the emotional fire alarm, and it's great to have a book or a Game Boy—or, I guess, Nintendo Switch—and just kind of find a quiet corner. And when the teacher calls a 10-minute break, take an actual break from the class mentally and exit that space and go into a book or a game or a video just for those 10 minutes before returning.

I find that those breaks—the internal ones—are very valuable.

Yael Valek:

I see we have a question here that says, um, "Did you accept your diagnosis early? Sorry, was diagnosed with autism in March but till now he's still refusing to accept it. He's afraid of others looking differently at him and hated that I persuaded him to get a diagnosis. He felt his life changed because he now has a burden."

Amy Faigin:

I know that feeling. Um, I really do. When I got diagnosed, uh, the first thing I did was I asked my mom, "Does this mean that I'm stupid?" And she goes, "You're in your head. You know you're not stupid."

I don't think of the autism diagnosis as a burden. It's a lens through which you can understand yourself. And with clarity comes power. So when you get the autism diagnosis or the ADHD diagnosis or the bipolar diagnosis, the truth is you haven't changed. You are the exact same person you were 45 minutes before the medical appointment where they handed you the name of your brain shape.

All they did was describe who you were before you walked into the office in an admittedly medical term. That term is now your sword through which you can cut the brush, so to speak, that has been inhibiting your life. You can explain it. You can now find accommodations and get them.

Okay. But no, I didn't accept it at first. I did not like it at all.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

There's another question that came in advance says: "My 18-year-old takes so long to make social connections and gives up too soon in new situations. He won't go to therapy or coaching, believing that nobody can teach him these skills. The result is he hasn't made even one friend in college this semester. Do I force him to get help or just watch him flounder? Does he have to hit bottom before he'll accept help? What do parents see us—I think seek for help understanding their young adults—who do parents seek help from to understand their young adults?"

Amy Faigin:

I—I think I'd have to know the individual in question before I could really make a call like where is therapy the ideal line. I think therapy is great. I think everyone should go to therapy, but not everyone feels that way.

I don't think that it's fair to force somebody necessarily to get the help. And I don't think that that's how you get consent in help. Maybe instead of saying, "You need to go to therapy," or, "You need to get coaching or counseling," find therapeutic environments that you can participate with your son in.

Go places with him. Meet people with him. Find special interests—are gonna are like my favorite thing to gravitate to. Find what he's interested in, and rather than worrying about getting him into a social group for people that have his neurology, get him into a social group for people who like the same things he likes.

If he likes anime, go to anime conventions with him. I've seen people do parent-child cosplays. They're cool. People are going to come up and want to take photos. You'll get interactions. You'll trade business cards. You'll buy comics.

If he's really into biology, go to the aquarium. If he's really into space, take him to the observatory. So let the interest guide rather than the disability or diagnosis.

Yael Valek:

Um, I have another question here: "How do you help someone who is very easily overwhelmed with anxiety on even small tasks to even begin to think about the future, let alone approach or begin a long-term plan?"

Amy Faigin:

Bring the anxiety down first before you try and accomplish anything. You're not going to get any kind of cognitive function while a person is in fight-or-flight mode. So put any choices aside for a minute until the emotional status is such that you can engage.

Um, as far as thinking future-wise in a manner that's not so anxiety-inducing, my mom teaches me to start at the end and work backwards. So to set—what is my goal for the end product? Now, what is the halfway mark? Now, what is the halfway mark? Until you've gotten to, "Well, if I'm going to be president of the United States in 30 years, I guess I need to brush my teeth tonight." And you've pulled the goal backwards until it's something that's manageable.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

That's great. That sounds familiar. Um, so, uh, another question: "Besides the special school like Bridges, are there other types of experiences or family habits that can help autistic students to develop that powerful sense of ability and ambition?"

Amy Faigin:

I think it starts at home. I think it starts with embracing the child fully—and the parent and the siblings and the rest of the family members really looking at the kid and not seeing something wrong with them. I think that that's square one.

Because if you start from that point—"This is who my child is, and they are okay, and who they are is okay"—then every interaction you have with them and every choice you make on their behalf comes from a place of not trying to correct your child but rather trying to uplift and embrace them more fully.

And I think that when you let that guide your relationship with them and how you help them navigate the world, they will pick up on it. And if you don't see anything wrong with them, they don't see anything wrong with themselves. Then they will not let anybody else act as if there's something wrong with them.

Yael Valek:

It's beautiful. Um, I did have a question, uh, related to that. This my question is, um, so—we don't have a Bridges up here. We keep talking about, uh, trying to get them to expand up here. Um, but what can we do in, um, the schools that our children are in here—um, minor in just you know, public, local public school?

Um, I assume—did you start out going to local public school before you transferred to Bridges? And, um, do you have any recommendations on what we can do to support our kids there?

Amy Faigin:

I think our schools need more money—teacher doesn't say that. And I think that we need a curriculum overhaul that allows for differentiation because I see differentiation as curriculum of curriculum as one of those cognitive foundations that allows people to be different from one another.

When we divide students into traditional education, gifted education, special education, 2e education, they start to apply value judgments early on. And I think that giving students opportunities to remain together and have their education differentiated within the classroom—so I'm more of a visual learner, I'm going to go to the visual learning corner; I'm more of an auditory learner, I want to listen to the lecture—and make those resources available.

Then kids see each other being different, and they stop applying value judgments to those differences. It becomes their norm.

Callie Turk:

I love that. I was saying I was going to take advantage of the fact that we're co-hosting also to ask Amy a question, which is—I think most—I think I think a big—I think it's a big mind shift for parents to say, "I'm going to try not to pay attention to the timeline." And this is hard, especially in our family because, you know, as you know, my 2e daughter—my, my autistic daughter—has a twin. So, you know, it's very tricky because one is on—they're on different paths.

I—I feel like—and I'm totally comfortable with that, but they're not. I don't think they would be. So I guess I'm looking, you know—I also—this is kind of a big question. I also think so many parents think about the regular timeline, and it's it's a fear thing, right? Like, I think in parenting, you can always sort of look at how you're behaving and say, "Am I—am I acting out of love for this child, or I'm acting—am I acting out of fear for their future?"

And the fear is usually rooted in love as well, right? It's like, "I—I'm worried." So which which one is driving my choices? And I feel like I'm—I'm coming to be very comfortable with, "Hey, everyone's on their own path, and it's great, and we'll get there. We'll all get to where we need to be, and wherever that is—wherever that is."

But I do wonder if you have any words of wisdom: A, for when kids are having a hard time accepting that—like, especially like twins, so you can compare yourself so easily to a sibling—but kids in our area compare themselves to their peers a lot—a lot, right? Yeah. I'd like to hear a little bit about any advice for helping our children accept maybe that it's all right to have their own timeline.

But the other one would be advice you have for parents to help them get out of that fear mindset.

Amy Faigin:

Um, for the parents' fear or the child's fear?

Callie Turk:

Their own fear is okay, right? Um, I think the question is, "Am I doing this out of love, or am I doing this out of fear?"

Amy Faigin:

It's also, "Why is this important?" When you are tearing your hair out because your child refuses to enroll in college or refuses to learn how to drive or refuses to go out with friends—um, why? Why—why am I tearing my hair out over this? What is my fear?

I name the fear. "I'm afraid that my child will never learn how to drive. I'm afraid that my child will never, you know, live independently. Will never have friends." And and pull back. "Is this realistic? Do I really think that my child is going to be 60 years old and incapable of sleeping without the lights on?" And chances are, no.

So would it be the end of the world if they were 58 years old and still needed a nightlight and figured it out at 59? And it wouldn't. So they're going to get there.

My younger brother used to have to sleep in my parents' room, and he did this until an age that would embarrass him if I revealed it. And people used to ask my mother, "Aren't you worried? You know, he's getting a little old to be sleeping in your bedroom." And he would show up every night with a pillow and a blanket, and he would like kind of salute my folks and then lay down at the foot of their bed on the floor.

And my mom said, "I have a feeling by the time he goes to college, he'll have figured out the night fears. It's gonna happen."

And the thing that makes us afraid, I think so often, is that other people tell us, "You have to graduate high school at 18. You have to finish college at 22. You need to finish graduate school or your trade school by 25. Own a house by 30." I don't know anybody my age who owns a house. Um, these are stories that are told to us from outside—from older generations that lived in different economic circumstances. They're from the media. They're from fiction, to be honest, a lot of the time.

So instead of worrying about, "This is how it should be,"—"How will it make my child healthy? How will it make my child safe?" They're gonna get there. Growth doesn't stop in the human brain. Like, it—it doesn't until you reach the end of your life. That's when myelinogenesis ceases.

Yael Valek:

So to what extent would you say to parents to nudge toward some of these goals while still being supportive and caring? What is the balance?

Amy Faigin:

I tell my students that I'm like—when they're when I'm bothering them, I say, "I'm the most singular annoying adult in your life right now." Um, and I can nudge pretty hard. I don't know—it's one of those like it's not baking where there's exact ingredient lists. It's more like a sauté where it's to your taste and to your kid.

Every kid has a different stress—stress threshold, and you want to make sure that you are pushing them to the point where their stress that encourages growth—the good stress, the motivation—but not to the point where it shuts them down emotionally and impairs their cognitive function. When people are stressed to the point of fight-or-flight, they cease growing altogether.

Yael Valek:

And how did you know that some of the school environments you were in were not the right ones for you? When should parents look to make a change?

Amy Faigin:

I had reached a point in my depression when I—before I went to Bridges—where I was running away from home very frequently, and the police were bringing me back. They told my parents that if they had to bring me back again that I would be put into the foster care system.

I had, um, very erratic behaviors. I was engaging in self-destructive habits, um, because a lot—I hadn't developed any impulse control, and I had so much anger and so much pain that I was lashing out at really everyone around me.

And I think the breaking point—I am like the second or third time I ran away from home, and my brother had snuck a cell phone in my bag because, um, he wanted me to be able to call home. And I did end up calling home, but by then the police were already there to pick me up.

And I think my mom just realized this wasn't how she wanted her family to work and that something was very wrong with the system that I was currently in—that this wasn't who I was to be acting out so severely, um—and she started to really actively find solutions for me.

Don't let it get to that point, though. Like, there was—there was no information out there when I was that young. People were like, "Girls aren't autistic, so we don't know what your daughter is." And, um, also, "Traditional child-rearing won't work on autistic kids, but we don't know what does work," was basically the advice she got at first.

Create a space where your child feels safe communicating with you so that they can tell you when they're having a hard time. And when they tell you they're having a hard time, believe them.

Callie Turk:

Your mom really does sound like a superhero.

Amy Faigin:

Oh, she's my champion. I—favorite human. I think she may be on here. So thank you—that's why I'm asking my—that's why I'm watching what I say about her and not talking too much trash.

No, she—she really ended up blazing a trail where there wasn't one when it came to bringing me up.

Callie Turk:

Yeah. I think we have time for one more question, and there's one here from Mahala: "How do you know when the goal set for yourself or your kids is manageable or not? Because when they are not manageable, then the failure follows, and it can be very traumatizing. I'm talking about goals like career, college choices, or even smaller like everyday stuff."

Amy Faigin:

I think that that kind of comes back to modeling humanity and humility in your own life. Failure is normal and inevitable, and it's about how we respond to it and how we make choices to try and avoid it and accept that we made the best choices we could at the time and things sometimes don't work out.

Um, and to recognize—sometimes I—I—I mean, I think I'm—I'm the best adult in the room. I passed the DBBST with the highest score ever, and I still make mistakes sometimes. And I sometimes overexert myself and think I can pull something off and absolutely cannot.

And you just kind of sometimes you have to have a bad day and accept it and move through it and listen to like a sad album on repeat three times and have a bowl of ice cream and go to bed a little early and then wake up in the face the next day.

Kimberly Eb:

Great. Well, um, Amy, we've—we've come to the close of our time, and we could really listen to you, um, forever. Um, and it's just been such a privilege to, um, you know, to hear a real lived experience.

Um, you know, I think on behalf of of, um, the Palo Alto CAC and REEL, and more importantly, I think each of the parents, um, and community members that are that are on this call—you know, we, um, we just thank you that you have modeled for us vulnerability, you know, and, um, and just showed us your bravery in, um, in in being yourself and and and sharing that with us.

So, um, you know, we—we can't thank you enough for that. It's—it's a—it's unfortunately a a rare occasion that we, um, can see someone as and hear from someone as real as you. And I think what you're doing is you're actually showing us that this is the kind of, um, um, relationship that we want—that you're encouraging us to build with our own, um, in our own family and with our own—with our own children.

Um, I just—speaking as a as a parent, you know, I think what you said about, um, asking whether or not this is something that we're doing or wondering or, um, out of love or out of fear—um, just as as a parent—that is, uh, myself—uh, just having that—asking myself that question all the time and and not and like you said, naming it, um, and then going in and embracing—embracing my kid.

Um, so we really, really thank you for your time tonight, and, um, thank you again for—like I said—giving me a space to have this voice.

Amy Faigin:

I appreciate it. I think that this is how we build that brighter future—is by listening to each other and communicating. Thank you.

Kimberly Eng Lee:

You're precious. Thank you. Calile's on—you're on mute, Callie.

Callie Turk:

Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful night. Love your kids. We hope to see you at another event soon.

Amy Faigin:

Love yourselves as well.

Yael Valek:

Thank you, Amy. That was truly inspirational. Good night, everyone. Have a good evening.

Amy Faigin:

Thank you so much again for giving me your time in your ears. See you soon.