I originally wrote this piece for my column on Disabled World. I am sharing it here with permission.
Louloua Smadi and Lynette Louise
A few years ago I was taking minutes in an important business meeting for All Brains Grow….
Okay, I will be honest with you. I wasn’t taking minutes exactly; I was taking notes. I wrote “taking minutes” because that asks you to picture me in a specific role; one where I am professional and potentially necessary, but not overly responsible for what is said or done. Taking minutes in a meeting is a requirement of many businesses, whereas taking notes is less professional sounding but a good idea.
In the meeting I was encouraged to be engaged, to include my thoughts and opinions, to recognize areas that were not being addressed or were hard to understand. Mostly, though, during those beginning meetings between Lynette Louise, Louloua Smadi and their team, my action was to take notes while they designed a website and online course meant to share the behavior, bio-play, and neuroplasticity knowledge they teach to families and schools around the globe. Responding techniques and brain science that effectively helps people with special needs and/or traumatized brains. All Brains Grow and they want to share with as many people as they can how to grow them with intention, confidence, and expertise.
I am Lynette’s daughter and personal assistant. I have been her daughter since my birth (unlike several of my siblings who came along at older, sometimes even teen, ages) and her personal assistant fairly consistently since my teen years.
Louloua is not my sibling, and though I feel sometimes like she is I am kind of glad she isn’t. If she were, I might have to be jealous. She is beautiful, multilingual, holistically intelligent, and ever so empathetic. More than that, she is enthusiastic about taking up the torch and partnering with mom while I am enthusiastic about being less hands on and more of a sideline cheerleader. I am not being self-depreciating, I do see my value from the sidelines, but I am also aware that my unwillingness to be in the hands-on position leaves me in a more comfortable less vulnerable space. Hence, I might be a little bit jealous of Louloua if she was my sister. (I recognize this because I am a little bit jealous of Brandessa, my hands-on leadership sister. I am also her enthusiastic cheer leader.)
Being invited to take notes and offer ideas to the All Brains Grow team as they began building an online course for parents around the world, using their combined experience and expertise, their delightfully different styles and cultures, I was full of gratitude.
As neuroplasticians, play therapists, moms, siblings, and individuals these women are aware and experienced in the art of caring about special needs and learning disabilities. They focus on environments and families. Never on a broken child. A broken person.
They teach the science and skills of neurofeedback and bio-play.
Bio-play takes the science of biofeedback, the learning enhancement of play, and the knowledge of everyday living, and brings it together into a lifestyle of easy living while learning.
They are gifted at giving parents and caregivers the understanding and information necessary to become experts in the lives of their children and the home they are building. As I said years ago in my notes: Making bio-play effortless so time at home is easy and everyone grows smarter and healthier. Heaven at home.
And now, Heavenly Home is the name of the course.
And it is names I want most to mention here.
Due to their combined years of making change happen in lives that were desperate for it, making miracles happen with behavior science and persistence, knowing what needed to be taught and exampled in the course they were building wasn’t as hard to hash out as knowing what words to use in their lessons and literature.
And this is the thing: they work and live in different places around the world, languages change and people they work with most often struggle with communication, yet people are easily emotionally charged and ready to react unnecessarily strongly to word choices.
It is not the opinion of thinking people that we should not discuss the power our language has. Indeed, Lynette and Louloua are wonderful at pointing out how the language you use in your home will indicate deeper meaning and influence behaviors. However, whether you use terms like special needs, learning disabled, autistic, brain dysfunction, or neurodiverse, does not mean you are more or less “right” but more likely means you have adopted language based on what you hear and see around you. The names and words we use are worth examining. They are always worth considering, and changes in the way we speak of and to each other do make changes in the way we see ourselves and each other, leading to changes in our ability to gain skills and grow healthy.
But arguing about the words is not the point: considering them is. As I took notes that day, I listened to the women consider and care about the language. Not to pander or push back but as a result of how much they consider and care about people.
This is the part we want to hold onto and take the strongest action on: the people we are talking with while we use our words. The people are the point, the words are our attempt to connect.
Those conversations and my notes are a few years old now. Since then there has been much filming, transcribing, consulting, and teaching. All Brains Grow is now a website with an online course for parents and caregivers of people with special needs that is being utilized by parents around the world. It is a beautiful way to use technology in order to help families in their homes, in the space they spend most of their time and where intentional informed responding most needs to happen.
Heavenly Homes is about creating a heaven at home by knowing what to do to help your family grow healthier and more skilled. Happier.
Heaven at home is knowing when to give attention and when not to give attention, knowing when (and what) to play and when not to play, knowing when to punish and when not to punish; knowing when to be scheduled and strict and when to be free and spontaneous. Heaven at home is being armed with knowledge so you can be a quick effective responder.
The name of the course is Heavenly Home. Heaven is used because that is the feeling they want to create, the feeling the word evokes. It would not be impossible for people to choose to be angry at the heaven inference. They could decide it is blasphemous. Or they could infer that there is religion involved and choose to avoid it. Even scoff at it.
But Heavenly Home got its name on that day I was taking notes when the team talked passionately about wanting to help families create a space at home that was wonderful. Where they knew how to encourage growth, acceptance, and skill acquisition and be their own experts. Where they would know what to do when challenges presented themselves.
Knowing what to do is a heavenly gift.
However you choose to say it.
