Interview with Lisa McCarty, and Colleen Tralongo 8-13-2020

Sounds good.

Hello, I'm Lois Letchford.

Cardi.

And we are talking about When Learning Is Trauma. These are our trial runs for when our guests join us from 10 weeks from the 31st of August to the 2nd of November. I have now put out invitations on Facebook and I've set up an Eventbrite so people can register for the event.

Good, sounds good. We're getting there.

Yeah, so we're hoping that Colleen Trilongo is going to join us today, but we're not sure. I've sent her an email and we'll see. She's from California, so she's about 3 hours ahead of us, and she has an interesting story and was very keen to talk to us. I know her son struggled with reading. Yes, We are.

No, you're not.

Ah, why not? Because you need to go live on YouTube first. Oh, you need to go live on YouTube first. I've done the wrong thing, so I'll have to start again.

So we're not live.

Am I live now?

How does he know that? Because because the brains behind the operation. But what is he looking at? He can see.

One minute seven seconds. We've been talking.

So ten minutes.

We have been live. That's very good to know. Now I've got to click on me because I then forget these things. So, so Colleen was really keen to talk to us because she's been a mother in this situation and her son is now in college and doing okay, but I think there's still— there are still issues there.

Right. Now, how many kids does she have?

I think she has a girl and a boy. But, um, yeah.

And just her son was— it was just her son that was struggling?

I couldn't be 100% sure of that. But she works in, uh, in the tech valley in, in outside of San Francisco. What do we call that? Silicon Valley. So she deals with the whole range of people, you know, who are neurodiverse and Knows lots of things. So I'm keen for her to join us and for her to share her knowledge. She wants to try this out to see how it works, so we'll see how it goes. But anyway, Lisa, otherwise, there's an Eventbrite now for our When Learning Is Trauma, so please click on it and register, and that will let us know how many people we can expect.

Oh, that sounds good.

And connect.

Yeah.

So your, your video stops every now and then. Is mine doing that?

Yeah, I think it might.

So my web connection, and I have all— so I wasn't sure if your video stopping has something to do with Or it's something on your end.

I can only talk. I don't deal with the technical.

Can the— are the boys watching in the other room?

Yes, they are.

Can they see that that's happening, or am I the only one?

I'll see if I can send them a message. Now I'll send the message and See what happens because then you've got to go back to message. He's coming now. Is there a problem, Isaac?

Yours does.

Yours blows up occasionally.

Hers freezes.

It's not any problem. It's the internet that right. You cannot fix it unless you upgrade. Simple as that. Okay. Here we cannot fix anything unless we upgrade. No, no.

We're fine.

We're fine. We've upgraded our internet, but there's not a lot we can do. Yeah. So what it is is what it is.

I just wanted to make sure I didn't do anything, if it was just something that I— my computer's going in and out.

It's our internet connections.

Okay.

So anyway, what were we talking about? We were talking about Colleen.

Colleen.

Then we were talking about the Eventbrite.

The Eventbrite, yes. So, you know, we're just spreading the word, letting people know what's available and who's talking. And I have my list here of people, of our speakers, and I have been watching a number of them on their longer videos so we have an idea of what to talk about. And, and get the best out of our guests, I think.

Yeah. Let me ask you, is Colleen's story similar to Ashley's?

Do you know? It, it— well, Colleen's further along in the journey because her, her boy now, Colin, is in college and he has written a children's book. about his experiences of being dyslexic and growing up non-reading.

What's that called? I'm gonna look that up, actually. If you have the name, I would be interested in it. But that just shows how long this has been going on. This has been a nightmare for people for decades.

Well, she was the one that said to me, Lois, it's like being in a jungle because there are no roadmaps, there are no signposts. There's no— and your getting out of it is dependent, purely dependent, on the people you happen to meet along the journey.

A lot of luck to this.

A lot. A lot of luck to it. And it shouldn't be like that.

Right.

But it is.

Right.

It was frustrating when I was going through this to connect with other parents in my The same thing, and what I found was that a lot of parents didn't really know this was going on. They knew that their kids were having trouble, but they didn't know why. And the thoughts while driving—that silly thing I do on Facebook—because I was trying to bring awareness, reduce some of that luck of being able to find out. It shouldn't be a luck game. We should have the knowledge. People and support them.

And I don't think when you say, Pete, your child's not picking it up, you know, generally you get the answers that placate you. Oh, that's not uncommon, or this or that or the other happens, you know. But no one really has an awareness of how it affects the child. That the children cannot say, look, this class, this is not good for me. The child doesn't have that language inside of them. And you're not aware of the depth of the struggles that there are. I've got phone calls coming on. And you're not aware of the depth and how you get out of it. Everyone gives you the normal when our children are not fitting normal. So, you know, and I think that's a problem, but you're right, it's all happened by chance.

Right, because I think I met with one of my sons, I knew that there was something wrong, and I brought it up to one of the teachers, brushed it off and said, oh, he's just a messy boy. Yeah. Um, and I, and I didn't know, and I thought, well, that's pretty messy. Like, I think there's some On here, but I had no idea what. Yeah. And no idea what to do.

Yeah, that's right.

And I think I, I can understand her jungle analogy. That's what— yeah. And we touched on feeling like you're the only one trying to stand in a room full of teachers that are all saying something else. And some of the teachers just don't care. They're not living up to their potential. And other teachers are just saying, oh, don't worry. You know, they're just messy, or they'll get it, or whatever. And it's, it's none of those things.

Yeah, yeah. And you're right, that's a total lack of awareness across the board, isn't it? That of what has to be done, that the teaching is absolutely critical, and they have to have more knowledge. But, you know, I feel for teachers because a lot of the problems in the classroom, the whole time they're after is control. They want conformity and control.

So, but that's part of— have the kids who are not able to keep up in the classroom, and oftentimes they're the kids causing chaos in the classroom. So with some knowledge of all this, for the teachers, how much better would it be for the teachers?

I can only nod. I can only nod.

I hear my son in the background yelling at my other son, trying to get him. It sounds like he's coming up with excuses. He doesn't want to go. So if you're yelling, that's what's going on. It's not yelling, but he's sternly talking to him. He's giving— when you make a commitment speech, you know.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to, um, see if we've heard back from from, uh, Colleen yet, but I should have. I, I forgot. I should have sent her an email. So what we'll do is set up another time for next week, but you're busy on Monday and Tuesday, aren't you?

Uh, wait, so Monday and— wait a second. Yeah, Monday and Tuesday I'm busy. Yeah. And, um, so I'm, uh, so, so Wednesday I'm I think we were going to talk with Martin.

We were going to try to. Martin can't change that.

On Wednesday?

Yeah, he can't change that, so I'll talk to him on Thursday.

So maybe Colleen wants to shoot for Wednesday?

Wednesday, yeah.

And then Wednesday next week is the only day that I have.

Sorry?

Then Thursday— Wednesday, the only day I have.

We're talking to Lenore. On Wednesday morning. Tuesday night, aren't we? Is that right?

Let's see now. I thought we were talking to her time, 7 PM on Tuesday.

That's right. Tuesday night our time.

Wednesday morning for her.

Yes. After your day of work.

Yes. So that's okay. We'll talk to Colleen and see. Yeah. See what tomorrow—

look at this. Oh, who's there? It's Colleen, and I'm so sorry, I'm not turning my camera on. You don't want to see this.

Colleen, welcome. I'm glad you can join us. That's fine. I'd have to see you.

So I'm so sorry, I was on a call with a salesperson, and do I need to say more?

Now you're doing perfectly fine.

Okay. Yay! Hello, ladies.

Welcome, Colleen. Delighted you can join us.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Lisa was asking about your story. Fill us in on a little bit of the background again.

Oh my goodness. Well, I have a business finance degree. I went and got an MBA and Started out in corporate finance, didn't really love it, went into nonprofit, did 5 years of that, came out. People said, go to sales, go to recruiting, go somewhere with people. I did. Went to go take a company public. That was pre-dot-com. Hired 250 people in 9 months and then laid myself off. So after that, I started a consulting practice and was intent on being home with my babies for, you know, maybe 3 years, and then heading back out into the workforce. And lo and behold, I found out that I had one of them that had a problem called dyslexia. In preschool, the preschool director said, your kid is going to have a really hard time reading, and he's gonna have a super hard time in school. And I did— that was— I didn't even know what dyslexia was, and it took me 3 years and 3 IEPs to figure it out. And then going to a, you know, professional tester and then finding out, no, it wasn't mild, it was profound, which means nothing really works well for him. So there began our journey into the world of dyslexia, brain wiring, neurodiversity. Education, advocacy, you know, all of it. It's the same story of a lot of people. Um, we kept Colin in private schools, which were not equipped to teach him but were equipped to protect him. He was protected from being bullied, which I feel to this day was a really important decision that we made. And, you know, he spent a good deal of his Time in up until 7th grade going to tutoring 3 days a week.

After school?

After school. So the kid would go drag his ass to school. You know how it is in the classroom. It's not easy. Nobody knew what was going on. The teachers didn't get it. And it— I was getting ready to pull him out the summer of between 6th and 7th grade because he really wanted to try to go to a college prep high school, and he was not— he wasn't going to do it. And there was a resource specialist that came in that summer, and I, in addition to that, had taken him to a real professional educational therapist. And between the two of them, you know, we had a— I called it the come-to-Jesus meeting, literally in the Catholic school. And we had the principal and the teachers, and little Colin led the whole damn meeting. And he Was coached to do it and created an advocacy plan for himself, got everybody on board, educated him, rallied the troops, and he like— it turned around.

Wow.

It was a miracle. And he ended up getting into— which, like, I, you know, even after all the hard work in 7th and 8th grade, we still didn't know whether he was going to get into this, this high school, and he did. And, you know, then began yet another 4 years of, you know, fighting and advocating and, you know, just working his tail off 3 times harder to, you know, get through it. And so he graduated. I think he graduated with like a 3.2 or 3.3. And, you know, he got into mid-tier colleges, and he's, he's in Austin, Texas now, rising junior in business finance. And, you know, right around the time that he got into Bellarmine, the 5,000 pounds that I was carrying lifted. I was advocating for all of those years. I was fighting. And that's when I went out and started my edtech startup for a multitude of reasons. And, you know, I've been in talent and HR for 18 years in Silicon Valley. So I have a really good lay of the land in regards to jobs, the dysfunction in hiring, and diversity and inclusion challenges. Really challenged in the area of neurodiversity, that's for sure. So that's kind of my story. You know, Colin is— I think we're always— yeah, well, Colin wrote a book. It took him 4 years.

What's the name of it? What's the name of it?

It's called I'm Just Different. And it's a children's book, and he started it his senior year in high school, and he started it with a graphic artist that was referred to us that was non-binary. So it was so funny to have both of them working together on that. And it just took, you know, it was— it just took a while because he went to college and, you know. We were scrappy and didn't know what we were doing. And anyways, it's out on Amazon. His goal is to raise enough money to send many books off to as many resource specialists as he can.

So, yeah.

So he's been, you know, I feel like he'll figure out his own career path, you know, as he moves forward. He cares deeply about the social injustice of dyslexia. He understands it inherently because we've talked about it ad nauseam. And, you know, I think he'll, in his own way, make an impact. I don't know how. Yeah, but he gets, you know, he gets real riled up about— he was lucky. Yeah. Yeah.

He was lucky.

He was, he was very, very lucky, and he gets very upset when, you know, we talk about prison population and, you know, the loss of really bright, amazing humans to— that's this, that's like just criminal. It's just maddening. So that's my story.

That is fantastic, Colleen. You You know what, I'm really pleased we're practising these things. So we hope to have your picture next time when you're coming on, which is October 26th.

Okay.

Colleen, what I want you to think about is what would you like parents to take away from your session, the importance of advocacy to avoid trauma in education? Think about the 3 things you want people to take away.

For, you know, for every parent it's different. For my son, I think one of the most important decisions we made was we gave him an extra year in kindergarten. That was a bloody difficult decision. Um, I think that for him and for us, allowing him to choose whether he wanted to be in the closet or out was really important because he learned Early on that he was unique. He was just different. And, you know, he was in a safe environment to do that. I never would— I don't know if I would have allowed him to do that in the public school. Um, he was protected in that parochial school environment, you know.

Yeah.

Um, but that self-advocacy started— starting at such a young age is critical. Critical. So many parents live in fear.

Yeah.

That's just not how the Trolongos operated. And so I think that's a really— that's a valid and important point to discuss and figure out whether that's, you know, right for each family.

Yeah.

But for us, it was— it has served Colin well. He knows how to fix problems now. He knows what the ADA is. He knows how to self-advocate. Somebody, you know, isn't cooperating and he's not getting his accommodations, he knows how to resolve it.

Yeah, that's huge. So, yeah, so that's what— that's one of the things we're thinking about in these pre-calls is, you know, what are we really aiming to get across to the families and the parents when they listen to the series live? You know, just think about that. But that's one big point is, so Self-advocacy.

You've got to get them help.

Yeah. Appropriate help.

Appropriate help for each individual child. So we found a woman here in Campbell who'd been a resource specialist, who's been in, you know, the system, and she started her practice. And she used, she used a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And she didn't go with one consistent program, but she tailored it to these kids. You know, and that for Colin was good, you know. He's still catching up. He is still catching up to this day in terms of lost content, lost— you know, they're just— they're surviving, right?

Yeah.

So he, I'm proud to say, is a— he's a young man that is a fiend with documentaries. And You know, any, any time he can listen to a book, you know, he's— I think he should personally, I think he should be a lawyer. He's— he can get— he's— he has a very strong— he has strong opinions.

Yeah.

And, you know, working with the right tutor is important. I couldn't do it. I tried for a year. I ran him through Susan Barton and It wasn't— it's not productive for a parent, for this parent. For Lois, it was great. For Colin and I, it just was— it was too much, you know. He was— it was— I'm not a teacher.

Yeah. But also, Colleen, you know, the situation I was in was really quite unusual. But if I had to work with Nicholas after school, it would have been a different story.

Yeah, I mean, you— I was getting Colin up at 6 AM.

To work with you?

When else was I gonna do it? I mean, it was my only choice. And, you know, it was— poor little guy.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I just close my eyes and remember it, and we just, we just knew we couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't fair for him, and You know, he, he, you know, for 6 years he was telling his classmates, his classmates were like, where are you going? Why aren't you doing this after school? You know, and he's, you know, having to navigate all of that.

Yeah.

We tried to give him as normal a childhood as we could. You know, he did Boy Scouts for many years with my husband. He, you know, tried sports. He's not the most coordinated kid out there, but that's okay. But we exposed him to a lot of things.

That's part of it though, is coordination is a problem.

Oh yeah, he's not— he's not your— I think it's Michael Phelps who is dyslexic, the swimmer, the Olympian, like 7 times. Michael Phelps.

Yes, you're right.

Yeah, Michael Phelps. Yeah, yeah, he's not Michael Phelps. Yeah, yeah, um, he's definitely not athletically gifted. Um, so that's, you know, that's important is you need, you need to have that. So you need to be a self-advocate, but you need to have a parent advocate. You do. You've got to have somebody who's a warrior.

Yeah, but families are tired, right? I mean, it's such a shame that, that you have to fight like this, especially if you're fighting by yourself.

I, I had no— I mean, I didn't know, you know, there were parent groups. There's a really slippery slope with the whole parent group thing. So this is how I felt, you know, we had chosen to mainstream him despite all odds. And every time I went to some of those parent groups, and I appreciate them and respect them, but I felt like I'm swimming in the pool of people who are all the same. And Collin didn't like it either. You know, he fought, he wanted to be part, he wanted to be mainstreamed, even though it was super difficult. So as it is hard, and it's not fair because It's— I mean, I gave up my career trajectory for my son.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why I've been consulting for 18 years. And I would do it again.

Yes.

You know, I, I did not trust anybody else with him.

Yes.

In regards to advocacy, I, I just didn't, you know. So I did a, I did a LinkedIn post recently on You know, dear working parents, you know, COVID-19 for you, dyslexia for me.

Yeah, I, you know, the interesting part about LinkedIn is I don't always see the posts. I haven't seen anything, so I've got to go and search for them.

So just look under my LinkedIn name and then you can see articles, but the analytics on LinkedIn are whack. They're, you know, you got— if there's a like There's a madness. There's a way to figure it out, but I just, I haven't had the energy to do that. So, um, you know, I'm just posting. I'm just writing and I'm posting. And I'm— anybody that asks me about neurodiversity, I engage with. This is the first year I've had 3 actual candidates talk about the fact that they were dyslexic to me.

Wow.

In the interview. Yeah. And that's because we somehow wove ourselves to talk about, you know, it's very easy for me to pick up on things. Yeah. So, you know, autistic people are a lot easier because there's more, there's more visual things to pick up on. Dyslexics are a little harder, but I'm pretty good at picking up on things. So, you know, I think that's ground— for me, that was groundbreaking, is to have somebody trust in me enough to actually openly disclose. One of them went to Charles Armstrong, so I knew that was a pretty easy shot. And, but, you know, through the network, you know, I want to be seen as Switzerland.

No.

You know, that's— so, so self-advocacy, parent advocacy, and you really have to figure out how to navigate the educational system with the, you know, accommodations. And I guess that falls under advocacy, but, you know, continuing to educate people is like It's a necessity, right?

Like, the education system and going through it, you know, like Ashley Roberts, you end up in this battle, you know, never-ending battle. I can't comprehend what she has been through. Lisa, what's your experience?

Well, as we're talking, I'm thinking about all these times that I've, you know, fought for my son and the times that we've shown up to fight to fight for other kids. And I keep thinking about how important it is for, as Colleen was saying, to get the knowledge out there.

Yeah.

Because these teachers really need to know what they're dealing with with this type of learner. Because one of the things I found was every year it would be a fresh batch of, you know, heck that we'd have to go through with different teachers. And then as they got older, you know, when they would switch semesters, it would be a new batch of teachers that I'd have to go through the same battle with. But then what I found was, like, some of the teachers, they almost looked at you as though you were making this up, you know, and then you'd have to go through the whole thing and explain the whole thing and basically prove your case. But then what sometimes would happen is the kids didn't want to be seen as different. So some of these accommodations that everybody agreed on, the kids may—

I'm sorry.

We didn't want to use and say, well, see, you know, they're not, they're not cooperating, or they don't want to be different. So it's super hard for these kids to be in an environment where people don't understand them and they feel different and they're not able to keep up with the work. And it is, it is a nightmare. So, you know, I think it's really important for them to learn those self-advocacy skills. But as we talked about yesterday, what kid is going to raise his hand in the middle of his peers and, you know, and say, this is what I need, because, A, they might not know. And that's one thing that you want to teach them, but they're not going to make you feel comfortable doing that because nobody really knows what this is. So I think that goes back to Colleen's point. We've got to keep getting that information out there because it's a nightmare.

Yeah. It's astounding to me that in this day and age, People don't know what this thing is. I just, you know, it's the NIMBY, right? It's not in my backyard, and therefore it's not applicable to me. And I too, you know, can't tell you, like, it's heartbreaking as a parent to go to the back-to-school night and not see your kid's art on the wall.

Yeah. Well, in our experience, the special education department admitted that they didn't have a clue what dyslexia was. And I saw Lois's eyes get a little bit bigger, I think.

They did.

Honest to God. I mean, can you imagine my surprise when we found this out? My jaw hit the floor, I'm sure. But what was even worse was they didn't see any need to know about this. I don't wanna get myself in trouble, and I'm certainly not giving any names. I can, if anybody wants to privately talk about this someday, when my son graduates from high school, we can. for legal reasons. But yeah, they didn't really— they didn't know what it was. They didn't really care to know what it was. And then an entire year went by, and we showed up at another kid's IEP meeting, and the same person sitting across the table from me from the special education department— I won't say which position— and still didn't know what dyslexia was. Had an entire year to delve into this. You know, in the meantime, we were— we were— I was working with groups like Decoding Dyslexia and the PBIDA. But I Backed off from this legal battle with them. So I didn't want to, you know, continue to try to educate them at this point. I figured I would do that through the back door. But when we showed up the next year at another kid's, as I mentioned, IEP meeting, they still didn't know what it was. I said, you've had a year to look this up. And we're having the same conversation over and over again. So yeah. I have a lot more stories.

It was, I mean, stories and stories and stories and stories, and a lot of similar stories. But this is the problem. So there's a school here in Palo Alto, it's called Sand Hill School. It's associated with the Children's Health Council, which is a very well-known Silicon Valley organization that helps families and children who are neurodivergent. And I met with the principal because I knew that Colin was going to do this book. And so I met with him. He was so kind. And we had a very frank conversation. And he, he had been working up and down the state of California at all these different schools and dealt with all these parents in the same type of situation. And he— and I said, how do you think it is here in the Valley? Like, you know, what's, what's really going on? And he said, This place has more parents who live in fear every damn day of their kids being exposed. You want to talk about messing up your own kid's head? Yeah, like you're you're living as like you don't. Your kid has this horrible thing they're dealing with, and yet nobody knows. Yeah, crazy.

Which is why we've named this series When Learning is Trauma, because when these conditions come up, we are actually traumatising our children and it impacts the brain and impacts their ability to learn.

Mm-hmm.

So the whole, you know, there's a whole cycle going here. The children are not learning, no one knows about it, we're sweeping it under the carpet and telling the child, there's something wrong with you, or not wrong with you, and we're all You know, fish swimming around in a bowl wondering how to get out.

So what is the solution? I mean, to, you know, stop the trauma from happening?

I would say continuing to do what we're doing with advocating and bringing awareness and things like what Lois has put together here to show parents and teachers, educators, whoever, this is what it looks like. And, you know, I think that there's a lot of groups that are coming up with some solutions too, but it really is going to require that everybody is on the same page to understand what this is. You know, it's so frustrating to have the knowledge of all this, and then you go to the school and they look at you like you've made it up.

Yeah.

So I think Things are starting to turn a little. I think things are getting a little bit better now that these groups are coming together and really making an effort to get the information out there. So we just have to keep doing that. I mean, it's frustrating and it's unreal that we've been going through this for decades, but that's just what we have to keep. We have to keep doing that. Like your son, you know, writing that book—that's fantastic. I actually just looked that up while we were online here, so I'm gonna I'm gonna get that book in in helping the kids understand what it is too. They don't know. The parents don't know, the educators don't know, the special educators don't know. Yeah, but the more we get this information, uh, to realize that it isn't some terrible thing that they have, you know, it isn't. And, and people don't know what it is. So I—

Listen, I look at it from a job standpoint. Yeah, a lot of these kids are freaking brilliant. Thank you. Can we talk about like—

I missed that actually.

They're brilliant. Not all of them.

They are.

A lot of them are crazy freaking smart. There's a lot of them here in Silicon Valley running VC firms, leading companies, doing their own businesses. Um, you know, they are— they're creative in the way they think. Some of them are engineering, some of them are in, you know, um, PR and advertising, some of them are in marketing. Some of them are like VPs of whatever, you know, they— the way their brains are, the way they organize information, the way they think is amazing from an employment standpoint. And we're not talking about that. Yeah, they might need some accommodations. Yeah, they— oh my God, look at that kitty. Um, but they're, they're brilliant.

Yes.

Sometimes they're just flat out creative, you know.

They're there. What they come up with is very different. Yeah. You know, so from a, from a building a company standpoint, I'm like, listen, you know, dyslexics, they're the ones that could change the world. They can come up with these creative ideas. They can press the envelope in different ways of thinking. So from an employment standpoint, I— it's a lost hidden talent pool.

Yeah. You know, that goes back to my philosophy and one that I think I'm going to have to say every week when we talk, and that comes from Curt Dudley Marling, and it's learning and learning problems dwell in activities and cultural practices and not in the heads of individuals. And so we have to put the focus on the learning and how we are teaching. Rather than, you know, the emphasis on what the child can do and can't do and the strengths and weaknesses, you know, which drives me nuts. And the second thing is that instead of seeing these children as a trouble, a problem, we need to see them as future rocket scientists because our language matters. And if we see them as future rocket scientists, we have a greater chance of teaching them.

I agree.

So that's my conclusion.

Yeah, I, I'm— you know what, education sucks. Yeah, right now the way we're teaching the masses, whether you're neurodiverse or neurotypical, we need to mix it up. Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's a mess. Yeah, it's not working. No, it's not right for anybody. Employment area, I'm speaking to you as somebody who hires people for a living.

Yeah.

And you know, you can hire brilliant technical people, but they usually get fired because they don't have the EQ.

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. And that we have to teach as well. Well, look, our time is up. Colleen, we look forward to talking to you on the 26th of October.

Wonderful. How long will the interview be?

We're aiming for 30 minutes, but I suppose I suppose we can do 45 if you want to.

Okay.

But really to think about what points do we want to get across all the time, you know, and then to repeat them and focus with them.

Sure.

So parents are not just listening to us question-answer, but saying, this is what we want to take away.

Right.

You know, teach your children to advocate, and this is how I did it, or, you know, a few little pointers.

Got it.

So I'm glad you could join us today. It's wonderful.

Yes, thank you for, um, asking me to participate. I am very, very passionate about changing this dialogue. I'm just sick of it.

Yes.

Do you have a copy of your son's book?

Do I?

Yeah.

Oh, we have lots of them.

I would hope, I would hope, because maybe we could, you know, show that, what that looks like, because I would be interested in other People knowing that those things are out there.

So it's, you know, it's basically the story of Billy and his journey from kindergarten through getting into college. It's just his little story. I mean, it's his truth, and it's very simple and meant to just help. There was no book like that. Yeah, there was.

Yeah. Excellent.

Yeah, we didn't have anything.

I'm gonna check it out.

And, and have a copy for us on the day when you're talking so that we can hold it up and people can see it and we can promote it.

And, um, yeah, I mean, you know what, the other thing I think that's— that is super interesting is to actually get people to come out of the closet. People who've made it through the educational system. Yeah. People who can own their truth and be okay with that. And I mean, that is another way to help change the conversation. Yeah. Because it's not just the moms. It's like they, you know, have to own who they are too, without being afraid.

Yeah. Yeah. So Okay, well, I've got to go.

Lois, do your, um, do your, your speech at the end. Practice your speech at the end.

Thank you. I think you're right. Thank you for joining us today. Colleen, thank you for being here. And we take away that, you know, we want our children to advocate for our children. Forgot the other 2 things that I will talk about. And join us next week, and it'll be Dr. Alexander Passane.

Oh, I love it.

And thank you, thank you. So you're right, we've got to practice our introduction and our conclusion and— oh, thank you— and, and clicking on the right thing.

Yes, and then stop streaming.

Then stop streaming.

I'll keep the group together.

And I've got someone trying to talk to me on the other line.

Okay, it was nice meeting you, Colleen.

Thank you, Colleen, and we'll be in touch.

All right, you take care, guys.

Okay, thank you, thank you, Lisa.

Goodbye.

Bye.