Friday Live: How Therapy Should be and Why Your Child Isn't Enjoying it

All right, it's turned on. Good morning, everyone. So today it's just going to be a very short live, all right? And I'm here to talk about how therapy should be. And the reason why I want to talk about this is basically. Excuse me, there's a little echo. But anyways, why I want to talk about this in particular is because yesterday I sent out an email about therapy in general, why I hate it here, especially in Indonesia or Southeast Asia or maybe sometimes in Asia, maybe actually in the whole world. I wouldn't know. Right? And the reason why I want to do this kind of thing is because why I want to talk about this is because, you know, a lot of parents actually replied me back around, like, four to five, actually replied me back and said, hey, yeah, I've actually had this bad experience too. And some of them actually went ahead and said, like, they don't know what's happening inside the therapy room. Right. And I want to make this to tell you about, like, how I feel and how it should be in therapy. Okay. How it should be in therapy is that if you are in ABA therapy, most of the times, you won't be able to go in to the therapy room. Okay? It's just impossible. And there's reasons behind it. Okay? First of all, you're. You're there. It adds another layer of complexity, and the therapist doesn't know whether the behavior is happening because you're there or because they just want to do it. So in the beginning, a lot of times, aba, they don't allow parents to go in. Is that a good thing? Yes and no. It depends on the kid. If the kid is extra okay with you around, then I think it's fine. And it's actually a good way to see how they interact. The kid interacts with you as a parent. But a lot of the times, right, A lot of times, when we see therapy, how it should be, how it shouldn't be, the parents have a lot of opinions, and sometimes those opinions, the professionals don't like it. So therefore, to stop all the potential discussions that might happen between the parent and professional, the professional will choose to actually to not let you in. Right? It's just the easiest way to avoid any conflict. And at the same time, therapists aren't good salespeople. They aren't very good at talking to parents. So if you come up with, like, objection or, like, a concern, they don't know what to say. Sometimes it comes off as they're blaming you. Okay? So because a lot of therapists feel like, oh, you don't know anything, therefore I'm gonna say something that will blame you. And the parents might take even harder into the heart because they don't really understand what's going on. So there's actually a problem with communication. Now, I'm not even talking about the misconduct within therapy. I'm not even talking about your child crying for 45 minutes straight or, like, your child manhandling your child. The therapist manhandling your child, like. Like being rough with him or her. Right? So what I'm trying to say is, first of all, you have to choose a place where it's, like, it's more reputable, right? You know, the therapist. You're able to talk to the therapist. You're able to understand where the therapist is coming from, right? So can you find this kind of person around you? I'm not talking about myself. Right. There's a lot of parents that come to me where I've said something that has upset them, you know, and they have left. But at the very least, I do let them in. And if worse comes worse, I do tell them to go out for a little while. But at the end of the day, have I ever blamed a parent? No. Have. Has a parent thought that, like, in their minds, they think that I'm blaming them? Yes. And the reason is because sometimes they tell. Like when I talk to parents, they think that something should be done this way, right? And I tell them that, oh, just listen to me, just do it first and then see the results, and they cannot wait. Then, of course, when I say it, it comes off as a little bit impolite. You know, as I grew more mature as a therapist, I understand how to tell them about this in a better way. Right? But the thing is. The thing is, when therapists tell you that something's not working and it's because of you inside the clinic room, that's all bullcrap. That's really just not cool. If something's not happening, right. Inside a clinic room, in the therapy room, and they say that it's you as the parent who has spoiled your child, that's always the wrong response. Because inside the clinic room, if your child cannot do it and is very unhappy about it, then it's the therapist fault. 100%, 150%, right? You, the therapist, should be the person who makes it happen. The reason why people should listen to you as a therapist, listen to therapists is because the mother, the father, the caregiver, see that you can handle the child with ease. Therefore, they want Some piece of that. They want to understand how you do it and when. You cannot demonstrate that, it's very easy for the parents to lose confidence. Right? So how therapy should be, should be like the first four or five sessions. If your child is one of those anxious, nervous types, it should be just play. Yes, it looks like you're wasting a lot of money, especially if you're Asian, you see, and you're like, dude, I came here for therapy. I didn't come here for like a. Like a playgroup or something. Get on with it and teach my child. Right? And as much as I like, I'm also that mindset. I want to get you out of my clinic room. You know, I don't want to see you. The reason why you're seeing me is because you've got a. Your child is delayed. I don't want that. Don't come to me. I don't want to see you. Right. But if you come to me, I'm going to make sure that your child is comfortable with me. Right? Your child is okay to do things with me. So that in the future, when I tackle some really hard problems, the stuff that makes the child scream and shout, they're going to be more willing to let me try. Okay. I've got this child who actually in Indonesia, one of my clients, when he used to go to a hospital for therapy. I won't tell where, but he would just like keep on telling to go and go and go and go until like, it was time up. So it was like that for like two or three times a week. It was devastating. So they came to me and I started just playing with him and getting him to talk a little bit. Now I'm not selling my service or anything. I'm not saying that I'm a lot better than anyone. I'm just telling you how I would approach and what I think therapy should be. So the first three or four sessions, we basically just played and I was checking up on his speech sounds and once I knew, had a good idea. I've collected enough data to think that, okay, so these are the things that are missing because it was impossible for him to answer from flashcards or like from pictures because the previous therapist has thrown that down the sewer. You know, she's basically, you know, made it very difficult for me to do any type of table task. So therefore the first three or four sessions is just building a relationship, talking to the kid, playing with him, understanding what sounds are missing. And then when it came to, like, the next month, I started to Tackle the hard stuff? Yes. Did he like try to run away? Yeah, of course he did. It's hard. It's hard. But is he willing to do it also? Yes. Right. He sees an end to my methods. He knows that after five times of trying he gets to play again and that's why he's willing. Does he get angry sometimes when he can't do it? Yeah, of course. But along the way the parent is inside the clinical room, the clinic room. The parent knows what's happening. I tell the parent to try certain things in front of me so that she can do it at home. And any questions I get to answer as well. Right. Should everyone do therapy like that? No, I don't think so. A lot of junior therapists, they cannot handle the parent inside because they get very scared. And if you are someone who has been doing therapy with me, you know that I will make you do it in front of me. Right. If you're a parent or like send me a video and you know how nerve wracking, how like nervous you get if you, if you know that you're being watched doing something you're not very good at. So therefore this is where I'm asking parents to have a little empathy on like newer therapists to let them understand, hey, it's okay to be looked at and evaluated and to put on a, on a, you know, on a spotlight to see what you're doing but at the same time accept the, the responsibility. I'm talking to the therapist now. I'm sorry, I'm talking to like therapists have to recept, accept the responsibility to do the work and not blame other people for it. And whilst going at it, they need to make therapy fun. They cannot think that it's like when a child cannot do something or a child is very angry all the time, it's your problem, it's not the child's problem. They don't owe you anything. They didn't ask to be put in therapy. They didn't ask to be like speech delayed. They didn't ask to do anything at all. They're pretty happy themselves. As I was talking in my online course, you know, one of the mindset shifts is that your child doesn't owe you anything. They're much happier if you just leave them alone. You know, they could just be in the corner doing their own thing. They can flap their hands for the whole day. They're happy, they don't need you, they don't need to talk. It's only our standards, the society's standards that are putting onto them and making them like, let them understand that, hey, you got to talk or else you won't get anything in life because you know other people have what you want. That's why they're communicating. They don't know that. They don't care. They don't even know if they wanted. They even, they. They didn't even know they wanted YouTube videos until you introduced it to them, right? They didn't even know that chocolate was nice until you introduced it to them. So at the end of the day, it's our desire to make a child go in a certain way, right? So therefore, it's our responsibility to make the child okay with it. And why a lot of times therapy sucks, right? It really does suck, man. I mean, like if you drive like an hour to see a therapist and then they cry for a whole hour and then you drive another hour back, that's three hours wasted of their whole life, you know, Within a day. That's a lot of time. So when you ask me, what should you do? First of all, you may understand there's only two reasons why a child can't do something. Number one, they're not willing. They don't want to. Right? Number two, they can't do it. Both reasons. Both reasons is up to the therapist and yourself as a parent. So if the therapist cannot show you the way to make them willing to do it, that's the number one thing, then you better believe that you should find another one, right? You have to find another therapist that can do it, right? Not every client that comes my way are willing to do the stuff I tell him to or her to, right? It's just like basic human stuff. Like I'm able to talk to and play nicely and have good rapport with some clients. Some of them, they cannot. They leave, they go somewhere else. I'm totally fine with it because I haven't done the responsibility as a therapist, right? I haven't been able to make them willing, wanting to talk to me, okay? So that is always the number one thing. Is your child willing and wanting to, to play with, to interact with that therapist? If not, then leave. Find someone else. All right? Even if you're in Indonesia or where I am right now, where, you know, therapy services are like scarce, right? You can still find someone else. You can still find someone else. I'm pretty sure about it. Alright? And even if back in Hong Kong, I remember there was a parent, you know, like Hong Kong people, like Chinese people are super smart about like finding the best deal Right. So basically there was a client of mine who did like three assessments with three different therapists. And you know how much assessment is right around Hong Kong? It's pretty expensive. So they did three just to choose one good therapist. And that's how they went about it. And somehow they chose me. Right. I don't even know why. They went with pretty famous therapists who have like 20 plus years, but in the end they chose me, who I have a lot less experience than they did. And the reason behind it was because I connected with the kid. I knew how to make the child want to do something. We had a good rapport. And of course, my skill level of teaching, like the two things, right? Willingness and don't know and knowing what to do. Right. That's the two reasons why children and just people in general, they don't. They cannot do something. Right. Number one is the motivation, the willingness, and number two is the competency. They don't know how to do it. Obviously me as a therapist of the junior one back then, my ability to teach something, to teach the child the competencies is much lower. But I'm able to motivate them a little more just because we had that, a little more connection. So even if it means that you're going for a therapist that is like lower experience, that's still fine. All right. That's how therapy should be. Finding someone. Finding someone who can help you. Finding someone who can help you to push your child to, like, be happy. Push your child to do things and be happy with. Whilst being at it. Yeah. So at the end of the day, this is what I would like. I would say. I know it's a. It's a rant. It's a rant. It's just all about, like, how I think it should be. If right now your child's being forced to sit down without any type of reward, to be honest, then you're in the wrong room. You know, the very first thing a therapy therapist should do is to entice a child to come to the therapist. Right. Are there any rewards? Is it fun? Is the therapist trying different ways? Is the tone changing? Do you like, physically see that they are changing the tones? Right. I know it's very difficult because sometimes around the world, the parents aren't allowed inside the clinic room, even with speech therapy. Even in the Western countries, sometimes. But you can always hear them outside. Right. And excuse me. So that's what you should do. And how should you find a therapist? Well, go to mom groups, right? Go to mom groups, ask for referrals, find a teacher who might know a therapist and just look around, look around until you find someone who can motivate your child and give you a peace of mind that your child is in good hands. Because, hey, the reason why I'm ranting about this and I wrote the email yesterday, if you haven't joined our awesome email newsletter, you should go to agentsofspeech.com to sign up. It's pretty cool. I talk about a whole load of stuff, including this kind of rants that I talk about. And you should really, what you should really do is find someone to like, I don't know, search online, do everything you need to do. Obviously, yeah, you have to try different kind of therapists to see. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the degree doesn't matter of the, of the therapist, right? The experience doesn't matter about your therapist. Therapists, like, who have a good mindset will learn if it's something that your. They don't know, they don't understand about teaching your kid. They will find a way to learn it all right? They will find a way to find, to find out. And the reason I know this is because I've been one of them. I've been the one without the degree, the one without the specialty, right? The one without the experience. But at the same time, you better believe that I don't. If you put your child with me, right, I will make sure that will happen. And the reason, because the reason behind why this is my mindset is because I've been surrounded with people like that in Hong Kong, my very first job, everyone there wanted the best for the kid. And it's an expensive place. And if we don't create results asap, the clients leave. And what happens when the clients leave? We lose our jobs. And that's an economical side of things, right? The other side of it, of it is that we see excellence when our supervisors do work. We see that it works. It's our fault when it doesn't happen, right? When, when the supervisors show us with their hands that they can actually teach something that simple to a child who knows nothing. And when you try, you fail. Like a, you know, you fail and it feels bad. So you have to find a clinic that strives for excellence, that someone there can show someone how to do something. And that's why I'm on this path, is because to be honest, I was looking to do something very different from my profession right now. I mean, look at me, I love them very different from the typical male inside my industry or just anyone, right? I'm speaking English. Most of the people who do speech therapy who speak English are white flags, females, Caucasians, not being, like, racist or anything. But I do get looked down on because of my race and my gender. And I wouldn't have put myself in this position. I mean, I could have went for an industry that suits me much better as a person. More stereotypical, where I can, like, speak English, speak Cantonese speech, speak Mandarin. I. And then do something about it. Right? I've got a lot of edge when it comes to working, but, you know, I chose something that is actually against it, and that's because I found a clinic that helped me develop the skills and showed me that, you know, actually it's kind of hard. This is hard work, man. So you gotta find a clinic like that. Is there a clinic there where there's this. Not just one person. You cannot, like, there's a lot of clinics out there who has one person really pro. Really good, but they're not there 80% of the time. Excuse me for my cat. And I have, like, three minutes left to, like, rant a little bit more, right. I know a lot of you are going overseas to seek for therapy, to seek for help, and a lot of you are looking for different ways to help your child. Okay? But at the same time, you have to find a clinic or like, a therapist that is always trying to learn more, right? Sometimes. I'm not saying that I'm not pooping on them. I'm not saying that they're bad, is that sometimes. That's my experience. All the therapists tend to stop. They become like a teacher level, and they don't think about other ways of doing stuff. Right? They don't think about, what if I tried this? And they would say, I've done that before, it doesn't work. Well, the thing is, sometimes you do it one way with the kid, it doesn't work, you do it another way, it works. So at the end of the day, it's a balance, right? You need to find someone who has a good attitude is what I mean. And that's why therapy sucks. A lot of them when they do the work, they're thinking about how to sound professional and put the parents down so that they listen to them. And that's the worst thing that you can do, a therapist can do. Right? It all starts with empathy. If you don't feel the therapist is empathizing with you and understanding the situation, asking correct questions, and then, you know, trying different methods. Even if it doesn't work, the positive attitude is still there. You feel that you're in good hands and you want your child to get more sessions with him or her, then you know you're probably at the wrong place. You're probably with the wrong person, and you know it with your gut. It's just that you needed someone to tell you. And most of the time, parents ask me about that, and I had to tell them, dude, don't go there. And then they're like, oh, yeah. Finally, I'm like, hey, man, you're an adult. You don't need to listen to me. You can just do it. If you feel that something's off, you don't need to listen to some professional advice. And look at me, I'm just a dude with a T shirt in front of a camera nowadays, right. And if you come to my clinic, I'm in shorts and flip flops because I don't care about how I look. But, you know, I'm blessed to have. Oh, Lena. I was just, just about to say I'm blessed to have clients who don't care about my appearance. But yeah, thank you very much, Lena. Means a lot. Yeah. So at the end of the day, you can find these people no matter where. Okay. Doesn't. Doesn't matter. I've seen there are therapists who reach out to me to ask me in Indonesia and like, wherever places that they resonate a lot with the message that I talk about and they want to learn more from me and that kind of stuff. So there must be some people who are not in big institutes in big places like hospitals, like big centers that are very willing to help, but you have to really find them. It might come in the form of a helper. I've seen a few helpers who are excellent. Like in Indonesia, nannies who are excellent. Not to talk about Leena's one, not about your one. There's a few that are very, very, very good. And I want to hire them, you know, I just want to, like, take them. But it was, you know, that it's just stupid taking something like. Just thinking about that. That wouldn't work. But it really comes down to the attitude, right? If they're willing, if they're committed, they'll get creative. Is that what I mean? Right. I remember back then when I looked at my colleagues, they would stay. They were overtime without money. They would. Overtime without money just to understand how to do something. A certain. What? Just one task in the morning, next morning at 8:30am they were still staying back. And that's the person that you want, right? They're searching for stuff to help them understand what's going on. That's a person you want to hire, man. Like, you want to find someone who is willing to go the extra mile just to make sure that the activity next. The next day would work, right? Not the person who would, like, sit in the office and, like, blame you and say that, dude, hey, man, your child is like this because you spoiled them, because you didn't do this certain stuff at home, because you don't let them, because you put them in a stroller when they're 2 years old. That's all just bull crap. Don't listen to those people, right? If they can't control a kid inside a therapy room, they can't show you, then be gone. Like, just go. All right, so that's all I wanted to talk about today, basically. And I gotta go now. So thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening to me rant a little bit. And I hope that if you have any questions about this kind of stuff, do let me know, okay? And I'm always here to listen to your concerns and think about how to serve you guys better. Okay? So with that said, thank you so much. I'll talk to you on Monday. Bye. Bye.