S2 EP 16 - Emotional Safety: Time After Time
1/20/202618 min
Ever wonder why your child completely melts down the second they walk through the door after school? In this episode, veteran middle school teacher and child therapist Suzanne M. Swain, EdS LMSW breaks down what’s really going on in neurodivergent brains—and why it’s not defiance, manipulation, or “bad behavior.” It’s exhaustion.
Suzanne connects the dots between ADHD, autism, sensory overload, food struggles, anxiety, and emotional regulation, all while explaining why routines feel calming (not rigid), why the safest parent often gets the biggest emotional release, and how the senses—especially smell and taste—play...
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSuzanne M. Swain· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hey, y'all. It's a beautiful day to bust some cognitive distortions. My name is Suzanne M. Swain, EDS, LMSW, and I am a veteran middle school teacher as well as a kid therapist. So today, I wanna talk to you a little bit about being neurodivergent and figuring out what your baseline is, how to feel safe, and what makes us feel safe. So let's try something. Think about a time when you felt your most safe. Okay? So take a second, think about that, but let's add an addendum to that. Let's add something. All right, everybody, now ask yourself a few questions. One, does it involve food? Hmm, did you get a yes on that? Did it involve it smelled really good? Are you catching on? Because it's about the senses. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the senses and how that affects memory, but basically how we can get overstimulated and how neurodivergent folks have a different way of expressing their burnout. So we wanna recognize some of those signs, and especially in kiddos, I see it all the time. Kids are burnt out, and I wanna explain to you a little bit of brain science as to why they may act the way that they do, so