Stress-Free IEP® with Frances Shefter, Episode 68
In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Dr. David Palmiter, a licensed and board-certified clinical psychologist and the Clinical Director at the Chesapeake Center, one of the largest ADHD specialty clinics in the country. Dr. Palmiter is also on the Board of Directors for CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), a national support association for ADHD, and is a Professor Emeritus at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. With decades of experience, including past presidency of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, Dr. Palmiter has authored two books on promoting resiliency and has contributed to hundreds of media projects and training workshops for mental health professionals across the country.
Learn more about Dr. David Palmiter:
Episode’s Key takeaways:
- The importance of and strategies for professionals connecting with their young clients
- The top myths and misunderstandings about mental health Dr. Palmiter sees day-to-day
- Understanding ADHD and how the brain works
- The importance of identifying strengths and using them when evaluating for ADHD
- Teachers’ significant impact on their students despite overwhelm and shrinking resources
- The power of gratitude and positive reinforcement — a little goes a long way
- Parenting tips for children with ADHD — “Special Time” and behavioral strategies
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Stress-Free IEP®:
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
Watch more episodes of Stress-Free IEP®:
Connect and learn more from your host, Frances Shefter:
Read the whole transcript:
Voice-Over: Welcome to Stress-Free IEP®. You do not need to do it all alone with your host, Frances Shefter, Principal of Shefter Law. You can get more details and catch prior episodes at www. Shefterlaw. com. The Stress-Free IEP® video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn, and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, and more.
Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Hello everyone. And welcome to the show. Today’s guest is Dr. David Palmiter, who is a licensed and board certified clinical psychologist, and he is the clinical director at the Chesapeake Center, which is one of the largest ADHD specialty clinics in the country.
He’s [00:01:00] on the board of directors for CHADD, C H A D D. which is the National Support Association for ADHD and a professor emeritus at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Um, he’s past president of Pennsylvania Psychological Association and has dozens of publications, including two books on promoting resiliency.
And he’s completed hundreds of media projects from most international news organizations and has given over 200 training workshops for mental health professionals around the country. So if he’s not an expert, I’m not sure who is, but in his personal time, David, David is married for 34 years, has three adult children and is a rabid fan of both the Orioles and the Commanders.
is a magician and enjoys golfing, fishing and low stakes poker. So David, welcome to the show.
Dr. David Palmiter: Thank you, Frances. I’m delighted to be here.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Um, it’s like you say, Orioles fan. My, my in laws used to have season [00:02:00] tickets. Um, so we used to go to the Orioles games a lot with my little ones when they were really little.
Um, so we’d love those.
Dr. David Palmiter: painful experiences those years, but it’s looking better now.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yes, exactly. But it was still fun. It was still fun. My, my, my oldest, um, she was little then, um, would like pretend she was pitching and kiss where we sat. It was so cute. She loved it. Well, I’m in
Dr. David Palmiter: my sixties and I still do that.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Oh, there you go. So it’s all fun.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Um, and then magician, I love that. We just watched, uh, the musicians magicians elephant last night. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. Probably not. If you have adult children, you probably don’t watch the a
Dr. David Palmiter: lot of professional things that I do, including live podcasts. That’s just my with my little bit of money in it.
Um, really is helpful in working with kids and teens, especially.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I’m sure. Cause it’s a way to connect on their level, right? [00:03:00] Which is so important, which I know like that, like it’s so important as professionals to connect with our clients, especially the children and having a way to connect, especially when we’re on the older side, because they think we’re all too old, right?
And we don’t know anything. Um, so to have something cool, that is awesome.
Dr. David Palmiter: Yeah, most kids are neutral or opposed to seeing a mental health professional. So it’s, it’s really helpful to form those initial connections if they’re smiling and laughing.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Exactly. Um, so like going into mental health, cause that’s like such a big thing right now, especially in America and with, you know, post COVID days that it seems like a lot more is coming out.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: What are like some of the top myths and misunderstandings about mental health?
Dr. David Palmiter: So, boy, there’s so many, you know, um, one is I guess that seeing a A therapist suggests someone’s crazy or, or [00:04:00] weak or self indulgent, and we don’t think about that about dentistry or chiropractic treatments, what doctors, but we have this bias against brain, you know, in, in Western cultures where we think that those things are true.
I mean, imagine I had type two diabetes and I thought, well, this is just my body. That’s just how my body is. I mean, not only will the diabetes ravage me, but it’s going to put me in an early grave. As opposed to thinking of it as something inside me that attacks me with a specific attack profile that can absolutely be controlled and sometimes even reverse.
So it’s the same thing with mental health challenges, but we don’t think, we think about them as us. I’m a defect, so I dare not go expose my defect to somebody else unless I’m absolutely at the end of my rope. [00:05:00]
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And it’s, you know, call it often the hidden disability because people don’t understand and don’t see what’s going on with behind, um, because a lot of people with mental health issues have learned to mask in society, in the classrooms, in society and everything else.
And in some cultures, it’s very like taboo. Um, I joke around being a Jewish woman that, you know, we’re, we’re born with the Xanax prescription for anxiety. You know, it’s just, it’s just who we are, you know, like all the, all the time. It’s like, yeah, Jewish women, we, yeah, anxiety, not that we’re the only ones, but like,
Dr. David Palmiter: well, that’s, that’s, that’s related.
I mean, you’re joking. I get it. And that’s connected though, to a serious topic about, uh, the pharmaceutical industry is very good and marketing their products. Very, very good. And so a lot of people who prescribe those products are not familiar with science based treatments, [00:06:00] talking treatments for anxiety and depression and things like that.
So a lot of folks who are currently taking medication for things like anxiety or mood may not need them. Emphasis on the phrase may not. if they got science based talking treatment. But there’s nobody out there marketing that because there’s, there’s no national organization with that kind of budget, or if they have it, it’s really tiny.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. And, and today’s world, unfortunately, is give me, give me a pill to take to fix it all, make it better, you know? And it’s, it’s hard because it’s, it’s something that we, um, you know, it’s mental health. It’s, it’s, it’s part of us and yes, but we’re not broken. It doesn’t need to be fixed.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: It’s just the way we work and we need to understand how our brain works and how to adjust for when things get like, for example, kids with ADHD, I always say ADHD, [00:07:00] autism, anxiety is usually with both of those, you know, um, because the disability causes other issues, which brings on the anxiety.
And if you learn how to address the other issues or, you know, how to desensitize yourself, I don’t want to say desensitize. It’s not the right word, but how to handle when you get overstimulated, then there’s less anxiety because, you know,
Dr. David Palmiter: right. Tricked into, you know, and understanding it. Like if I thought my vision problem was about my effort or about how I was raised or whether I had caffeine today or not or sugar or not.
And I just need to give it a better try. I need to work harder, maybe brighter lights and all that stuff. It’s not going to take me long till I start feeling there’s something seriously wrong with me defect in me because I’ve misunderstood the nature of the, of the problem that this is a physical [00:08:00] problem that can be.
Address quite nicely through a physical intervention. Now, ADHD, of course, is a brain based problem that needs both medical and non medical interventions usually. So in that way, the analogy breaks down. But the idea that there’s something I just need to work harder or my parents need to parent better and the teachers need to teach better as opposed to recognizing with ADHD it’s a biological.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And I see that all the time, especially, you know, with ADHD and, you know, oh, well, they’re just spacing out. They’re not paying attention. It’s like, you know, people don’t realize like, yes, spacing out, you know, we used to call it, oh, they’re a daydreamer. Well, no, it’s that’s a brain issue that that’s there and it’s how their brain works.
And. In some ways it’s good, you know, there are some times that it’s good to have ADHD because there are certain things that kids with, you know, adults and kids with [00:09:00] ADHD can do that neurotypical might not be able to do because of how the brain works. And it’s just, it’s always interesting for me how, how our society looks at things like that.
If you know what I mean, like, you know, if you’re smart in math or not smart in math or smart in English, you’re considered smarter than everybody else. If you, you know, and why. You know what I mean? Like, like with ADHD, it’s like, okay, you can’t pay attention as much, but you’re brilliant at something else.
And the way our society forces everybody into, you need to know this stuff to be considered smart. And if you don’t know this stuff, then you’re not
Dr. David Palmiter: right. We all have top strengths. Frances, and by that I mean, you have to travel far and wide to find some, another human being as good at that thing as you.
One of my mathematician professor friends, when I reviewed the model, why, why I said it’s true of [00:10:00] everybody, at least who doesn’t have serious brain damage, that’s true of everybody. He called it a mathematical surrogate that we all have top of the bell curve strengths. The tragedy is that many of us don’t understand that.
or know what those strengths are, or aren’t using them. So if you put in front of me a human being and you tell me this person knows their top strengths, you know, where you have to travel far and wide to find someone as good at that thing as them, and they’re using them regularly in their professional and vocational life, including at that school, I’ll show you a person who frequently has electricity flowing through their veins in their daily life.
And certainly that’s true of folks who have been diagnosed with ADHD. With proper treatment, there’s no goal in the universe. that someone cannot reach who has um, ADHD. Because of the ADHD.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. Right. Because of the ADHD. [00:11:00] And that, that’s one of the frustrating things with schools. Because again, you’re expected to be, you know, this is how you school.
And this is how you smart. And this is, you know, all of that stuff. And that it’s, um, our society, as good as America is with education, you know, better than some countries, it still has a long way to go when it comes to these things. Other mental health and and look and looking at people’s kids traits because like that’s one of the things I hate on IEP is like you do the present levels of performance technically that should have the child’s strengths often it doesn’t it goes into the weaknesses but you know my thing is that if you have the strengths and the weaknesses to develop your goals your goals should be built on this is the strength and this is the strength that we’re using to bring up the weakness.
Dr. David Palmiter: It’s so important in any, any evaluation I do on a human being across the lifespan or any evaluation I supervise, any folks I’ve trained assessing for [00:12:00] strengths, articulating the strengths, using the strengths as fulcrums for advancement and change is just so, so important. The science of positive psychology needs to be integrated more actively into the science of clinical psychology.
And that’s the science of meaning and joy. And boy, boy, there’s so much that’s known about how to promote meaning and joy across the human condition.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah, it’s you know, I look back at I do a lot of personal stuff and I look back at my um, You know, I was brought up thinking I wasn’t smart because I couldn’t spell and my grammar was iffy.
I remember in um, In high school. Dr. Hudson. I think his name a science teacher biology, I think told me that I that um, My writing was off and I didn’t organize my writing Well, so that’s like I brought up thinking that I couldn’t write well and I couldn’t spell and all that other stuff but meanwhile When I [00:13:00] finally changed careers as a former teacher and went to law school.
I was on Law Review. Well, clearly, I know how to write. Clearly, you know, but the way society brought me up, I didn’t think I could. But my brain worked different in that analytical way that, guess what, spelling doesn’t matter when you can do the analysis, right? Absolutely. And that’s a frustrating thing because I grew up thinking I wasn’t smart enough to go to law school, um, for the longest time.
And I hate, I don’t want that. Like that’s part of where Shefter law started and stress free IEP is. I don’t want other kids to go through that. Like they’re smart in their way. Everybody is smart. Let’s find how to capitalize on that and how to bring it, um, bring it to the forefront so that they know, like, it’s okay that you don’t know this because you know that.
Dr. David Palmiter: Frances, you just articulated one of the things that I use the term living life on the high road that people [00:14:00] living life on the high road do. Um, you know, I mentioned know the top strengths, use them, but also a lot of people wonder like what are kids or teens? What should I do for a vocation? What should I do for a job?
I don’t know. That’s it. You just articulated the formula, figure out your top strengths and then ask yourself, what bugs me about the world? What what’s wrong about the world? And then what vocation will allow you to use your top strengths? to address that. Now you have, you don’t have a J O B where I’m going to just get by 40 hours so I can do what I really want to do on the weekends leading a life of silent desperation.
You’ve got a life where the years whiz by because it’s so filled with meaning and joy and the purpose of your life is so important because you’re using those top straights to address an important problem. As long as people then don’t suffer from [00:15:00] self doubt. I have an acronym and it’s called WAIT, which stands for Who Am I To?
Who am I to take on this problem? So if someone could avoid that, like you seem to be avoiding it. And the outcomes can be
Frances Shefter, Esq.: and avoiding it because I have, my business coach has been amazing for two and a half years, but that’s it. It’s, it’s the mindset because we all have the imposter syndrome, you know, like, why am I any better than anybody else?
And it doesn’t have to be better. I’m not better than anybody else, but I’m really good at what I do. And I have knowledge base that a lot of other attorneys don’t have because of my special ed teaching background and stuff. And, and, I’ve got to remember that I provide a service that can help everybody.
Can I help everybody? No. Some aren’t a good match, but I can get out there and help as many families as possible to help their kids find those straights and to build on them so that they can succeed in the world to the best of their ability. Um, yeah, I’m [00:16:00] sorry,
Dr. David Palmiter: please.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: No, I was just gonna say like, My daughter the other night, actually it was last night, was saying that she wants to be a multi billionaire.
And I’m like, good, go for it kid. And my husband says, Seth says, um, okay, so find something you enjoy doing and figure out how to make money doing it. And that’s exactly what it is, right? That’s how you live your high road.
Dr. David Palmiter: Yeah. I mean, when I get into the weeds of vocational counseling, I follow that script I just mentioned.
And I said, okay, now maybe you have choices. You know, what’s your cost benefit ratio on years of education versus what your income? Unfortunately, though, the income is usually front loaded. Into that deliberation as opposed to being very important, obviously, but you know that the correlation between happiness and income fall levels out once someone’s basic life needs have been met that figure varies last time I looked at the science was about [00:17:00] 75, 000 a year that once you make that amount, there’s really no correlation between income and happiness.
Uh, it’s only when you’re below that threshold. I can’t pay my medical bills or I, I can’t live in a safe community where income is critically important. But yeah, we all like, uh, we all like having money. That’s nice. As long as it’s not, as long as it’s like, sequenced correctly in the vocational deliberation.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Right. Yeah, that’s true. I, I know what my dad used to say all the time. Like, you know, rich or poor, it’s always nicer to, you know, cry in a Mercedes than it is in a Pinto, you know?
Dr. David Palmiter: See, I would say, what are you crying about, dude? Like, maybe you don’t have to be crying so much.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Right. Um, but you know, it’s true.
Like, you know, it’s nice to have comforts in life and you know, that was his thing. He worked hard for his comforts in life and had them. And, um, yeah. So it’s, [00:18:00] so like what, like ADHD, I know it’s so underdiagnosed in girls. Um, because usually girls don’t have the hyperactivity, and almost everybody associates ADD with ADHD, that they have to be bouncing off the wall as hyperactivity and can’t focus on anything.
Um, what are some of the signs, like, that parents could be like, Oh, wait a minute, maybe my, maybe that is the issue of my child. Like, are there signs that they can look for?
Dr. David Palmiter: So the founder of the Chesapeake Center is Dr. Kathleen Nadeau, and she is arguably one of the top international experts in this area that you’re talking about.
So sometime you may want to invite her on to talk about referrals and also she’s developed a special, uh, specialty in ADHD later in the lifespan. Um, I’ll share with you my understanding and of course I, I just want to defer to her wonderful [00:19:00] knowledge on this. I just love listening to her talk about this topic.
Um, the best, the top referral source for mental health problems when you’re a kid is Annoying An Adult. Nothing gets you referred faster than a nominal. So the most prevalent disorder in children is anxiety disorders. They follow a distant third or fourth in referral rates because anxious kids don’t tend to bug adults.
Right? And so girls are much less likely to express their ADHD through overt behaviors that annoy teachers, annoy their parents. They can express, more likely express the, what we think of as hyperactivity in verb, through verbal means. Okay. They’re also much more socialized to at a very young age to not be pushy, you know, to be agreeable in America in Western cultures, girls are conditioned to be small, pretty agreeable.
And so, if that conditioning is successful in girls, they’re, they’re just not going to [00:20:00] bother adults. There’s also problems with how we clinicians sometimes evaluate because, um, put it’s to kind of reduce it to a simple discussion. We say that if a kid has the symptoms more than 93 percent of their peer group.
But that’s probably signaling the diagnosis. But if we, if the peer group is not separated out, boys and girls, it’s going to mean identifying fewer girls. So let’s say we say this is 50th percentile physical activity, you know, across kids. And we say, okay, here’s the 93rd percentile. I’m sorry. Let’s say that’s this 50th percentile activity for boys.
Girls are going to be under that figure are going to be under that. So it’s going to take more of the symptom for a girl to reach that threshold than it will for a boy to reach that threshold. I might be not explaining that very well in the tight time, but [00:21:00] point is that has to be gender, sex based norms when clinicians are doing these evaluations.
And often that makes
Frances Shefter, Esq.: so, I know I was going to say that makes so much sense because a lot of times you know, and I hate the expression, but boys will be boys. Boys are expected to be active and hyperactive and all that other stuff, you know? And, um, I, you know, I remember like people saying when they see a girl that’s more active, Oh, well, she grew up with a lot of brothers, you know, not that maybe there’s something going on, but like that was the, that was the, um, that was her role model as you know, how to behave.
Dr. David Palmiter: And, you know, I think when the clinician is really being exacting and helpful. They’re looking at whether a particular behavior is causing problems in a child’s life, you know, regardless of any judgment of how. Um, normative. It may be, you know, is it causing problems? It’s a key [00:22:00] question,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: right? And that’s where the education department comes in.
Because a lot of times schools like to say, well, there’s no educational impact because the child’s getting straight A’s, but that’s not, That’s not an end all be all, um, right. Like what, what they’re doing at home or what they’re doing in the background and stuff, they’re not available for learning. If their entire body and being is making them sit still, you know, and be focused, right.
Dr. David Palmiter: Several adults who I think are brilliant, they’ve had successful careers, they’re later in life. And they’ve just always wondered if they have ADHD and it’s because of their brilliance that they’ve been able to compensate in various ways. And the cases are just running through my mind of determining, yes, they do, trying medication, and then having a kind of a two pronged reaction.
First, complete euphoria. I had one woman say to me, come in a couple weeks after [00:23:00] starting a stimulant, I was able to sit and read in my bathtub for a half hour. Dr. Dave, you don’t understand. Like I’ve never been able to read for longer than 10 minutes. I could have kept going, but the kids were banging on the bathroom door and I had to get up and take care of them.
Three weeks later, I saw her sadness, existential sadness. What could have been? I wanted to be a nurse. I thought I was stupid. And so I didn’t even go into that. And now I, I don’t feel like I’ve got the time. Give him other commitments in life. But what could have been had this been recognized? And I think one of the reasons why you and I do this kind of public education is we don’t want it.
We want as few children singing that
Frances Shefter, Esq.: song as possible. Exactly, exactly. That’s so true, because that’s what should have could have would have. You know, it’s the same thing as like the older generation that women weren’t allowed to or they couldn’t. And, you know, if they were allowed to, where would they have [00:24:00] been and what would they have been able to do?
Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, and it’s, it’s frustrating. The IEPs, a lot of people think of it as, you know, as you’re stupid or you’re, you know, you need extra help and there’s something wrong with you and all of that when it’s like, no, you know, as adults, we look for support, you know, we don’t know how to, you know, especially attorneys, we don’t know how to do a certain area of practice of law.
We go take an education on it. We go read a book on it, you know? So like having extra support, there’s nothing wrong with it. And we need like society needs to change that mindset. Yeah.
Dr. David Palmiter: Here’s the thing. I love a quote from Stephen King to make this point. It’s in the introduction to The Shining. Ghosts are real.
Monsters are real too. They live inside us and sometimes they win. What I take that to mean is having battles within ourselves is ubiquitous. Everybody who’s walking around getting anything done in life is battling themselves. If you put in [00:25:00] front of me, Frances, someone and guarantee me that person is not battling themselves, I would know they’re in some very dire circumstance.
Anybody who’s getting things done in life, family, work, battling themselves. Now, the nature of those battles number like stars in the sky. You know, gambling or not yelling or being faithful or, you know, anxious ADHD, whatever. We have to stop this thing where we have the public aura, the social media aura of us, and then the truth of us.
The more we can talk about the truth of us, and I can see, you know what, I’ve got, I’ve got three internal battles. I wait, me, David vomiter, the more I talk about them, maybe other people can start to own. They do too. I don’t know. And maybe those who go for treatment are going, Hey, I’m just like every other cat walking around.
I battle myself. Well, yeah, that’s what being human is. And why not get some expert help at making you more [00:26:00] effective at that because there are some lean, mean healing machines out there. Yeah,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: that’s so true. Like, I’m thinking back, like when I went through fertility treatment with my kids, when I found a support group, it was so nice to be able to be like, to get it, somebody else that gets it.
Cause if you haven’t been through fertility treatment, you’re not going to get it because it’s just, you know, it’s just such a different animal. And so like having other people, and then when I was, In my twenties, there was a phenomenal psychologist that did a women’s group and it was she was very particular and it was like eight people and very particular that we didn’t know each other in the outside world.
But it was so amazing for all of us to see all these, these seven other people, professional women in different stages of life. Guess what? They’re not perfect. They’ve got shit going on to,
Dr. David Palmiter: you
Frances Shefter, Esq.: know,
Dr. David Palmiter: anybody who’s showing that snow globe image is, is out to make a point that I would suggest that them is meaningless [00:27:00] to make.
And my wife and I went through three years of infertility too. So I, I know what you’re talking about, 20 percent of couples go through that, but everybody’s going through something. And instead of, you know, trying to project the snow globe image. You know what Clark Griswold would pursue in the, in the Lampoon Family Vacation movies.
Let’s, let’s let that go. And realize that considered chaos is a part of anybody’s life who’s living, uh, who’s living well. Show me a life where the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted and I will show you someone. likely not living life on the high road. Anybody who is, it’s a bumbling and tumbling concophony of joy, mess, tears, inspiration, and exhaustion.
That’s what high road living is. And that means I’ve got internal battles to wage and how am I doing with those is an important question.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And the internal battles are a lot easier with, with [00:28:00] assistance from a therapist, right?
Dr. David Palmiter: There’s so much science, you know, that’s, that’s why you and I invest this time in public education.
To try to light a candle in the darkness because there’s so much science. It’s so helpful. We just don’t have the marketing dollars anybody’s invested to make it available to the public. The amount of needless suffering, I mean, I could go to tears over it. It’s just ridiculous.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And this is, I mean, for adults and kids, I know a lot of people that as adults found out they had ADHD and it was just like, they went, Oh my God, like everything went, like their life just made sense.
It’s You know, while,
Dr. David Palmiter: yeah, one of my clients talked about she felt like a horse. The blinders were off. And now she saw a totally different reality.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah, like especially the 2E, like now that’s, that’s the biggest [00:29:00] thing now that Twice Exceptional is that a lot of our very, very bright kids, kids and adults have an extra like ADHD or something.
And I know like I’ve heard people say like, I thought something was wrong with me because it took me twice as long to get to the same place as other people. And they never had the answers. And then when the ADHD got diagnosed, it was like, okay, that makes sense.
Dr. David Palmiter: And for any teachers watching, I find that a lot of in services for teachers over the years, um, they’re overwhelmed with what they’re asked to do with shrinking resources.
And many I found have forgotten their power. They have tremendous power to make a difference in this area. And it needn’t take a lot of time. In one study looking at adult ADHD who are surviving as adults, they asked them, what, what, what do you think? [00:30:00] Talk to the tribe on the short list was some teacher believed in me and they couldn’t say what the teacher taught.
Some of them didn’t even remember what the class was, but they remembered the impact. And if anyone who’s watching wants to see more on that, there’s a wonderful YouTube video. If you just search Mr. Jenkins drummer, there’s a story of a boy whose life was changed by a few minutes with a teacher, a positive comment.
My son, I’ve got 2 daughters and a son in the middle. They’re all in their 20s. My son’s named after a teacher who did that for me for just a little bit of time, but that little bit of time changed the course of my life.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: That’s amazing. We’ll probably have the link to the show, um, in the show notes. Um, but yeah, it’s so true how I think back to teaching and I remember if I could make a difference.
I used to say if I could make a difference in one kid’s life. Then I’ve done [00:31:00] my purpose. Um, and thinking back, I think I did. I think there was, there was one child in an alternative school and I fought to get him back. The, the, so he was sent to the alternative school and he did his time and trying to put him back into the regular school and the regular school was trying to not let him back in.
Um, and I fought hard for him because I’m like, no, this kid, this kid doesn’t belong in this alternative school. Not that any kid does. But it was just this kid needs to. And I remember he came back and visited me and he was like an A B student and he was going to go be a physical therapist. And it was just like, that’s why I taught, you know, to help those kids do the difference.
And why I went to law school was I felt like I couldn’t do that anymore because society, the red tape administration, central office, all that other putting on us as a teacher is that we had to be in such little boxes of what we can and can’t do. It wasn’t making a difference in kids lives anymore.
Dr. David Palmiter: I bet you too, with the firearm film coming off [00:32:00] you, that you, you had that kind of difference in more than one kid’s life.
They just haven’t thrilled you. They’re out there.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah, probably. And it’s, you know, I had a friend of mine, um, I’m gonna give a shout out to her, Julie Hart, who was like my first friend when I started teaching. Um, she used to put hearts everywhere. And she said to me one time, um, she just wanted the hearts out there and the kids to associate with hearts because if, cause we taught in the inner city.
So if the kids went on the wrong path and they thought a heart. They saw a heart that they would think of me and hopefully go on the right path, which I thought was so amazing. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and that’s the thing. It’s like little things like that that teachers could do. It wasn’t anything extra that she did, but she just made her hearts were everywhere.
Right. It,
Dr. David Palmiter: it really, it’s amazing how brief it can. When I think of Father Gannon’s and I try to think, gimme his massive, how many minutes did you really spend? One on one with me. It wasn’t a lot. [00:33:00]
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. It’s just taking that extra minute and not, I mean, anybody that watches my show or any of my videos, like I say, I get it, teachers have too much on their plate.
I get it a hundred percent, but it’s remember why you went into teaching as we all, you know, we all joke around. It’s not for the summer’s off and the money, you know, like, but it’s, it’s. Because we want to help and make a difference in children’s lives. So take that step back and look at how you can do that.
Right.
Dr. David Palmiter: You know, one of the aspirations I always, I try to have in my life is to not keep any positive thought I have about a person living only in my head and to just give voice to it and the more of us that do that, especially in this case, teachers, the more we’re going to have that kind of influence that we’re hoping.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah, that’s so true. It’s just, and I heard something similar. I don’t remember where it was, but like, I try to make it a point. Like if I see a woman wearing a really nice dress, I’ll, [00:34:00] I’ll say like, I love your dress, you know, like just little things like that. You don’t know how that little comment can make such a difference potentially in that child’s life.
You know, or that adult’s life or anything. I wrote
Dr. David Palmiter: a brief story about, because I refer to this as a superpower, male of a superpower. So I had a, in a former phase of my career, I directed doctoral internships in the Chicago area. And that means you’re, you’re working 50 to 60 hours a week for grocery money.
So it’s hard. And I had four of these supervisees early in the year. I wrote on a little sticky note, uh, Peter, good job, good report. Keep it up. Put hardly any effort into it. Didn’t really think about it. Much several months later Peter’s out sick, and I need something in his desk So I reached I said is it okay with you if I go into your desk for the researcher go ahead I opened up the desk.
There’s my little sticky note laminated right and the visual image I had in my head was I’m I felt like I was [00:35:00] Superman and I barely get out of my Clark Kent outfit Like, I don’t use my power. The power of gratitude, the power of appreciation of each other. It is a major superpower. And we can all have that Superman, Superwoman experience by using it more often.
Write a gratitude letter. Pick someone you have some gratitude for. Write 300 words, handwritten, it’s more intimate. Schedule an appointment and read it to them. If that doesn’t feel like you’re just injecting joy juice into your veins, I don’t know what would.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I like that, that gratitude letter. It reminds me of, and I don’t remember, a story or something with the teachers did that.
Like at the end of the school year, have everybody Every student write something nice about one of the other students, about all of the other students, and then the kids got like their bag of things at the end of the year, which is so nice because like giving them like, [00:36:00] and I remember like them telling stories about like one kid was like, wow, I didn’t even know that made a difference to other kids.
But several kids had said something that he did all of us. I just had to be careful and
Dr. David Palmiter: disguise this. But I just recently had a highly accomplished, highly educated adult. Tell me about how his work, they did a version of that and how impactful the set the 2 sentence note he got from 1 of his colleagues was.
So we’re all like that. We don’t need that.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: We don’t need that.
Dr. David Palmiter: We don’t need that. Yeah. Let’s try to be the change. We want in the world. You know, and express gratitude, let people know about the positive thoughts we have.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And that’s something in supplementary aides on all IEPs that I try to get put in there is like they always, you know, they like praise often, but what I always put in there in the clarify locational manner is what does that look like?
[00:37:00] Like how? Because some kids just given a thumbs up work. Some kids need to hear the words, great job. Some kids need a sticker. Like it’s different for everyone. But everybody wants praise, and everybody does better with praise.
Dr. David Palmiter: Robert Brooks, from Harvard, he’s retired now. He had a great idea that I used. On my school staffings, this idea was let’s put the kid on display for a unique and positive contribution to the school.
The kid takes, you know, opens and closes the door when the kids come in. The kid that reads the announcement. I had one principal buy a hamster just so that the kid I was serving could take care of her. A lot of these kids are already on display who aren’t being treated. They’re on display for a unique and negative contribution.
So let’s put them on display for a unique and positive one. I had one boy I was treating probably six months. And this, the school doing this did him more good than I did in probably ten visits. He got to carry, this is a parochial school. [00:38:00] He got to carry in the baby Jesus at the Christmas. So I mean, it’s it’s hard to lose track of how it’s easy to lose track.
I mean, of how impactful putting someone on display for a positive contribution.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah, I didn’t even think about that. That makes so much sense. And every child, if you can’t find good in every single child, I don’t want to say there’s something wrong with you because I don’t like using that word, but like there’s good and there’s good in everybody.
I always say that. Like, my dad said both color glasses, but yeah,
Dr. David Palmiter: there’s a lack of information or distortion of the truth 100 percent of the time, if we had more time, I could prove that like someone proves the math equation I do with my clients, whether I’m directing harshness towards myself or someone else 100 percent of the time, it represents it.
Either a distortion of the truth or a lack of [00:39:00] information. That’s so true. We should think of it like psychological body odor, harshness. Like any of us. If we get the sense that we smell, we leap into action. That’s, we don’t go, I stink, that’s okay. We should think of harshness in the same way. Like if I have it towards myself or others, let’s, let’s do some work so that I can see the capital T truth of this, of myself or this other person and disempower the harshness.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: It’s just like, everybody’s going through something. It makes me think about like when somebody, you know, does something nasty for, you know, it’s like who peed in his weenies to date myself, who he used to say, you know, um, but like things like that, but it’s like, you know what, but that’s. There’s truth to that.
Like that person is not naturally a mean obnoxious person. They’re having a bad day. You don’t know what struggles they’re having behind that. Right.
Dr. David Palmiter: One phase of my [00:40:00] career, I was getting on planes a couple of times a month flying coach. And when you fly that much, you really hate flying. And I’m checking at the airport.
I’m in Scranton going now and then to Chicago. And the guy’s explaining to me as I’m checking and we’ve had to cancel. the first leg of your flight for lack of passengers. Don’t worry. We’re going to drive you to Allentown. You’re still going to make your flight. As he’s explaining all this about six stations down, there’s this woman in a, in a business suit screaming at the top of her lungs and that this, I’m going to take this and stick it up that.
And me and my guy could hardly get our business done because she was so loud and obnoxious. So we’re done. I said, wait, you’re driving us. Well, how many of us are there? Well, there’s just two of you. I said, well, who’s the other person? He does that. Now it’s my turn to curse, right? But I figure, okay, I’m going to get in the car and I’m not going to be paying attention to this person.
I’m not on the clock. I don’t need to deal with this. By the [00:41:00] time we got halfway through our trip, I hear this story about how five years earlier, she and her husband had purchased a honeymoon for her daughter and their new son in law. This was in Thailand. It was the wedding was on the beach. Her daughter and their new son in law got into a raft to the honeymoon They had paid for were never heard from again.
They couldn’t even find the bodies They invested every psychological and monetary resource to try to at least figure out what happened It broke them up as a couple and I’m and she’s explained to me. She’s on her way to Chicago. Also She’s a lawyer. She’s going to give a presentation at a workshop and I’m there thinking, I don’t think I could be functioning nearly as well as you if that happened to me.
And I felt deep embarrassment for the thoughts I had in my head in the airport about her. That was a, that was a turning moment.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the truth. It’s like, you don’t know what struggles other [00:42:00] people have been through. And what, you know, you know, and they’re like the triggering, uh, you don’t know what triggers and why, you know, some people like a certain dress might trigger something.
And why does that trigger something? Because it’s something that happened in childhood or something else. But that’s so true of looking at. Yeah, I’m sorry. I was thinking.
Dr. David Palmiter: Yeah, that’s exactly what you said. I agree.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Um, so 80, I’m going to bring us back a little bit for ADHD. What, do you have anything like tips for parents on what, um, what to do at home?
Because like one of the things, so my youngest has ADHD, um, and it’s so frustrating because like Esther go upstairs and brush your teeth. Two minutes later, she’s playing with the dog. Esther, did you go upstairs and brush your teeth? Oh, [00:43:00] yeah. Two minutes later, she’s in her room with her Barbie dolls. Like she just, oh yeah, wait, there’s something over there.
Like, do you have pointers of like, what do you do at home when you have like a kid that just like that, because she’s young, you know, how do you help them get to doing what they need to be doing?
Dr. David Palmiter: So a good behavioral program can do that. That’s akin to saying, you know, a good bicycle can help with transportation.
You know, there’s so many different kinds of bikes and sizes, fanciness of them, and so too is with behavioral programs, but I find that that can be a big help. One thing that I can say, and I say for every parent through the door, certainly would be the case with ADHD, to do an hour a week of special where a parent is only given undivided attention.
Giving specific proportion and authentic praise. Those three verbs, [00:44:00] subdivisions are each important. Specific, proportion, authentic praise, and expression of affection. So it’s not quality time. Quality time is a good thing. If we had more of it in America, we probably would have fewer prisons. It’s a good thing.
But special time is much more intense in its focus. I have a 11 to 13 ish minute video on YouTube. If folks just enter my name and special time, there’s an instruction on how to do it. I’ve made it a sub specialty area of mine is what, what parenting practices promote resilience in kids. And this is the most important of the 10 that I list in my parenting book, Special Time.
It’s incredible how sort of non dramatic it is when you’re doing it, but how incredibly powerful it is, uh, impact on the child. One brief story, I had a dad once, this was in the eighties. And he was He was paid half a million a year in the 80s to solve his company’s problems, and he couldn’t get [00:45:00] his 13 year old ADHD to do her homework.
He was a single dad, so the first intervention I did was his special time, and he did it on faith. He’s like, kind of like, we look forward to talking about the homework, but fine, I’ll do it. It came back the following week, and I asked him what it was like. Oh, it’s fine, it’s good, you know, but we’re looking forward to talking about the homework.
So I asked the 13 year old what it was like for her, and like a lot of teens, she said, I don’t know. So I asked the 13 year old what it was like for her, and like a lot of teens, she said, I don’t know. So I said, well, and this was, this was in the heyday of Michael Jackson and she was obsessed with him before all Michael Jackson’s troubles.
Um, so I said, sit in front, front row of the Michael Jackson concert as a 10 and eating a warm cupcake as a one. What was this like with your dad? Well, tearfully 10. It was a 10. Now this man was already doing plenty of quality time, taking their extracurriculars, family vacations. But this mere introduction of special time made her feel like she was in the front row of a Michael Jackson concert.
And he said to me later, I could [00:46:00] not see that on her face. I could not see it in her manner. But it’s just the top resilience promotion, promoting parenting strategy we have, I think.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: No, and I, and I’ve heard that for behavior also, and my husband and I need to get back to it, but we call it me time, where you spend 15 minutes each of us, one-on-one with the child, with each kid, and they get to do whatever they want.
Our phones are away. They get our full attention. And even if you do it twice a week, unbelievable the difference in behavior because kids want attention, good or bad. And if they’re not getting it good, they’re gonna get it from the, from the bad way.
Dr. David Palmiter: And they prescribe an hour, an hour a week. Um, because it, the myth that many of we parents suffer from, or we tell ourselves, is I’m going to do my self care, I’m going to do my relationship care with my partner, and my kid care, you know, relationship kid care, after my life’s obligations have been met.
But in most of the households I work with, where there’s working [00:47:00] parents, At times as mythical as the unicorn. There is no time left over. And so any relationship maintenance and self care maintenance that’s based on unicorn time is destined to have all kinds of problems with it. So you and your husband have discovered that by the investment of the time you’re giving.
Where you’re not falling prey to unicorn time, and I’m sure that means that some weeks there’s something very important that just is not getting done, but it’s not going to be the care of your child that’s in the not getting done category,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: right? And the mental health of our child, which is I say all the time is I, I don’t care about.
I mean, I do. But education, all that other stuff, school, everything else, the mental health of my child is what’s most important. If you don’t have good mental health and a good self worth, all the education in the world is not going to help you. We’re so crushed for time. I mean, it’s just crazy. Always.
Yeah. That’s one of our other things with [00:48:00] society. Like we’re praised for being like, Oh my God, I’m so busy. Oh my God, I’m so busy. You know, when somebody asks how you’re doing and it’s just, why is it not okay to be like, you know what, I’m chilling today. You know, like I, I, I’m, I’m good taking that mental break of not, I have this, this, this, this, this to do.
Right. Cause we need it too. So I’m sure it’s mental health help that helps us to take that hour a week. I’d love it. You know, an hour a week that we’re just focusing on our child and our family. And that gives us what we need to
Dr. David Palmiter: date night a week
Frances Shefter, Esq.: makes divorce obsolete. Interesting. I have to tell my husband that that makes sense.
It does. It does though. When my kids go to Hebrew school during the school year, we were for a while doing Sundays was like our time together because the kids were at Hebrew school and then we had, you know, two hours. That we could just do, you know, whether we go for a walk, whether we watch a movie, whatever it is, clean out [00:49:00] the garage, whatever, we have a garage, but the basement, you know, whatever it is, the two of us do something together.
And that, that, that makes sense though. Let me start doing that more. This has been so awesome. I just realized the time I’m like, I could keep, I could talk with you all day, like all day, right. This has been so awesome. I think, yeah. And I think so helpful. So if people, Want to get in touch with you or the Chesapeake Center.
Like, what’s the best way? And when we
Dr. David Palmiter: have our CEO has, uh, her husband has done such a tremendous job with our website. It’s ChesapeakeADD. com. You can reach any of us through that vehicle. And I’m happy to give my cell phone number too. It’s, should I put it in the chat? Is that best thing to do? Does everybody see that?
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Sure. You want to put it? Yeah, go ahead. Well, no, everybody not see the chat, but we’ll, we’ll get it posted with our, when we post, like we’re live now, but when we [00:50:00] post it on everything else, we’ll put it in there.
Dr. David Palmiter: Yeah. It’s part of my meaning making folks can feel free to reach out to that number too.
Awesome.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. And then, and you provide, I think you said you do assessments also in therapy. So you do the test
Dr. David Palmiter: before you try to be a one stop shop for ADHD. So testing, coaching, therapy, medication, all of it all in one house. And if I don’t mind, we have offices in Bethesda, Fulton, and, and just very recently down in Florida where I know you have offices too, uh, and that location in Florida is Ponte Vedra. I don’t have offices there. I’m just licensed there. I’m barred there. That’s why we provide, yeah, that’s why we can provide legal services. We just, we just have a lot of office in Rockville now, but with everything being virtual these days, I can practice nationwide for the most part. Right, right, right.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Um, Yeah, so that is awesome. Um, we will put all that in the show notes. This has been so [00:51:00] amazing. Thank you so much for being on the show and sharing all of your wisdom with us.
Dr. David Palmiter: Thank you for being such a wonderful host, Frances. It’s good to meet you.
Voice-Over: You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP® with your host, Frances Shefter. Remember, you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through ShefterLaw. com, where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments, and sharing the show with others through YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, and more.