Parenting Unique Needs Children & Embracing Individuality

In this episode of the Touched Out podcast, we hear from Kate, a stepmother to three children, including a child with autism and a stepdaughter with an acquired brain injury. Kate shares her experience of co-parenting with her partner and her stepdaughter's biological mother, and how she manages to balance her responsibilities while taking care of herself, her family, and her mental health.

• The challenges of parenting unique needs children and the importance of embracing their individuality.
• Coping with the difficulties of co-parenting and blended families, including managing different sets of rules from each parent.
• The impact of an acquired brain injury on Paige's life and the lives of those around her, as well as the difficulties of coping with loss and caregiving.
• Advice for parents struggling with parenting, including the importance of boundaries, positive relationships, and seeking support when needed.
• Managing mental health struggles while parenting and the challenges of living up to societal expectations of "gentle parenting".
• Exploring the intricacies of step-parenting and co-parenting, including navigating relationships with non-biological parents and the importance of respecting each other's decisions.
• Fostering positive relationships in a blended family, including finding common ground and prioritizing open communication.

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Transcript

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Welcome to episode one of the Touched Out podcast. We are joined today by a very special guest, Kate. Kate is a stepmother to three wonderful children, all with unique personalities and needs. We discuss Kate's two youngest children and the intricacies of their relationship, including step parenting, a child with autism, and the hardships that come with being a step parent in general. Trigger warning. We also discuss Kate's eldest daughter and an injury that occurred as a baby. There is discussion of child abuse in this episode, so please be mindful if this is a topic you do not wish to listen to. That brings me to Kate, who has also been on a personal mental health journey and learning how to navigate the ups and downs of life within an uncommon family dynamic. In today's episode, we'll dive into Kate's experiences as a mother and a co-parent and explore how she manages to balance her responsibilities while taking care of herself, her family and her mental health. So sit back, relax and join us as we learn from Kate's incredible story. All right? So today we have Kate, 30 from Frankston. How are you, Kate? I'm well, thank you. How are you? I'm well, thank you. First of all, thank you for joining us on the podcast today we're going to have a little chat about you and your family. Why don't you start off by telling us a bit about your family? Thanks for having me. I have three stepchildren. I'm engaged to my partner, who is the father of my younger two stepchildren. So Lonnika is seven years old and Nate is five. Lonnika has slight autism and then I've got another stepdaughter to my previous relationship and her name is Paige. She's eleven. She's the apple of my eye. Probably shouldn't say that, but she is. That's all right. We all have favourites. Even if we say we don't. It's a lie if you say you don't. That's it. So Paige is eleven. Now, from what I understand, you share custody with Paige, with Paige's biological mum. Is that correct? Correct. Yes. Okay. We co parent do a pretty good job at it, I think. Yeah. So you were previously dating Paige's biological father and that's how you met Paige. Is that correct? Yeah. Beautiful. Okay, so we'll get further into that because that's obviously quite a different scenario to the regular family dynamic. So, first of all, tell us your experience raising three children with unique needs. First of all, sometimes I think that people just need to embrace that. We need to admit kids are assholes sometimes. It's tough. It's really tough. Some days I feel like I just can't do it anymore. And then the other days, just make it completely worthwhile. So Lonnika is my how can I put it? She is my challenge. We butt heads a lot. She's very independent, very sassy and very short tempered. Okay, so Lonnika and I really struggle. Sometimes I love her to death, but sometimes I really don't like her. And I know that's awful to say, but sometimes I need to walk away from her because parenting isn't this perfect world where it's just love and happy and all the time. It's not. And it's hard for me because sometimes she does come out and tell me, you're not my real mum. I hate you. And that's really tough to hear because I do everything that her mum does for her. I do everything that Kyle, my partner, does for her. I hug her when she's sad, I make sure she's okay when she's sore. I cook for her, I clean, I bath, I do everything a parent does. And so that's really hard to hear sometimes. But then there's Nate, on the other hand, who is just this ball of energy and love and just fun. They're so polar different, but so the same. Parenting Nate is actually really fun. He's the coolest little kid. He loves to show me new tricks, and that's usually just him jumping and going, like, did you see that? And I'm like, yeah, that was sick, dude. My kids are exactly the same. Dad watch my new trick, and they just like, Turn around. Yeah. It's like it's hard raising three kids with three different families, really. We have one set of rules. The two little ones mum have another set of rules, and then Paige's mum's got another set of rules. So it can be really tough trying to incorporate all of that whilst respecting those parents as well, and the things that you might not agree with that they do, is tough to kind of have to incorporate into our lives as well. Yeah, certainly. So it's a big challenge. I don't have any biological children. Yeah. Rough. I mean, as far as being a stepparent goes. Yeah, definitely would be rough. I had a stepfather myself, and I did not like him. I never liked him at all. So I feel like in today's society, step parenting is probably vilified from the views of a child who had a stepparent and not enough recognition given from other parents who have been in that co parenting relationship with someone who isn't the biological parent of their child. So, I mean, I tip my hat to you, mate. That's a hell of a time. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about Paige because, just for full disclosure, Kate and I do know each other outside of this podcast. Kate is previously a friend of mine, who I met through her ex partner, who is Paige's biological father. Now, Paige has an acquired brain injury, is that correct? Correct. Okay. And do you mind telling us a bit about Paige and a bit about how Paige ended up with her injury and how that has affected her life, your life, the lives of everyone around her? Yeah, absolutely. So I met Paige just before she turned three, and at that point, my ex seemed like he was totally interested in getting full custody of her and told me all these horrible things about her mum and what they'd done, and there was a lot of mixed stories. And a few years ago, I decided to kind of just go to Monash Hospital, and I requested a freedom of information to get all Paiges records because I needed to know what happened to her. So she was shaken at eight months old. It's not known whether it was her biological father or whether it was her stepfather at the time, but we believe it was her stepfather at the time, her mum's ex boyfriend. Just because of the timeline, her biological father wasn't really around until she was about one, apparently, so we do believe it was him, but again, I can't pinpoint anyone. Paige? She has an acquired brain injury now. She's unable to regulate her temperature like a regular person would. So it can be 30 degrees outside and she'll walk out in a jumper. It can be minus four degrees outside and she'll go out in shorts and a T shirt and think that the world's great. So that's a lot of monitoring we have to do with her. Like, Paige, you do need to wear pants, you need to wear a jacket. It's cold today. And she's like, oh, is it? Yeah, it is. And she is also partially blind in her right eye, so she can see. But in her right eye, there's just all black dots all the time. Okay. So it's not like it's blurry or anything. It's just always there's always black just in that eye. So I've taken her to the optometrist. I take her every couple of years hoping that something new has come through, but they can't do anything about it. They tried glasses when she was little. It wasn't going to do anything. So she doesn't let it affect her at all, to be honest. She started asking me some questions last year about how it happened and why she had it, and I was honest with her. I told her I don't believe in keeping that sort of stuff a secret from her. And she's at an age now where I think she deserves the truth. I owe that to her. But she doesn't let it affect her. She does everything a regular kid does. It's just the temperature thing, really. That is the one thing we have to monitor. But she's aware of what happened. She's aware of that. Her dad and her mum's ex boyfriend weren't good people when she was little. She has a scar on her chest from where I believe she was pushed into one of those heaters that have. The lines on them. like the radiator heaters? Yeah, they stand up. Yeah, I believe she was pushed onto one of them. Her mother's father took care of her a lot, her grandfather, when she was little and growing up, and I pay a lot of respect to him because I do believe that's why she is so great like she is. She's well managed, she's polite, she does what she's told. I've never had to tell her off in, what, nine years. I've never, ever had to tell her off for anything. She's easy. But unfortunately, her grandfather did pass away, so that hit her a bit hard. But she copes really well. Really well. I'm glad to hear that. That's quite a story. So how long were you with Paige's biological father? Just shy of three years. Okay, so three years. So you met her at three months old, correct? No, I met her just before she turned three years old. Sorry. Okay, my apologies. Once that relationship ended. How did you come to the decision and agreement with Paige's mother that you would continue to be in Paige's life and co parent with her biological mother? That's a task in itself. But her dad isn't around anymore. He hasn't seen her since she was five. I believe he's made contact a couple of times over the years to talk to her, but never anything solid or consistent. So he and I split up when she was five. I didn't see her for a little while, it was about a year because it was really hard for me that I've just helped raise this beautiful little child. And she's called me Mum. Since she met me. She just decided one day that I was mum and that was it. And her mum was totally okay with it. And her mum just differentiated it by saying when you talk about her, it's Mummy Kate. And so that's what she always called me as a kid and now it's just Mum. But I don't know. Her mum was in a bit of a rut at the time. When her, Paige's father and I broke up, he went off and did whatever it is that he did. I don't know. We didn't really have any contact after we split up at all. And my parents kept in contact with Paige's mum because they couldn't let her go. So for about a year I was just seeing her when she was with my parents, which was quite often. And then I just made the decision and went, I miss this kid so much and I can't just be a step in person. I'm not going to be another person that walks out of her life. I contacted her mum, who still had me on, I think it was instagram or something. And I contacted her and I was like, hey, I'd really love to see Paige. Can I come up and take her out for the day? And she was like, I've been waiting twelve months for this message. She's like, yes, come on up. So I went up and that's a whole situation in itself, the situation with her mum. But I got there and the minute I walked in the door she was like, Mommy. And ran at me and just hugged me and I was like, oh my God. And I just burst into tears. Her mum, since that moment, we're fine. Every second weekend she was like, hey, do you want Paige? Do you want to have a sleepover? Do you want to do anything? And then it just went from there. Beautiful. It's easy. That's amazing. Well done, mate. It warms the heart. It really does. To take on a mum responsibility, especially from a relationship that ended and continue that on with Paige's biological mum, it's absolutely great. So how do you coparent with your stepdaughter's and stepson, especially given Paige's needs and the absence of her father? How do we deal as a unit or how do I cope? How do you coparent with your current partner? All three kids? Right, so he's amazing. I say that we're like Ying and Yang. I'm the storm and he's the calm. Like, it just it just works so well. He's so rational and so good with Paige. He tells everyone he's got three kids. He doesn't see her any differently. He loves her so much. When we did home schooling, he'd sit there for 2 hours and do a math work with her. He spreads his time around the three kids really well, makes time for all of them, does special things with each of them. And he works shift work, so that can be really tough. Like tonight, for example. He started at four in the afternoon. He doesn't get home until one in the morning, I think. So I usually have the nights, which is hard because I work all day and then I come home and I do the nights, but in return he gets home at one in the morning and he still gets up and does the early school run because I've got to go to work. So we manage really well. And, you know, it takes a village to raise kids. You couldn't do it on your own. If you tried. You could. I'll take that back. You could do it, but it's certainly tough. Yeah, I've got three myself and my wife and I are pretty cohesive unit and even then, at times it is very tough. So definitely tip my hat very sincerely to all the single parents out there. I don't know how you guys do it. Yes. No, me either. We're really lucky. Kyle's got his mum and stepdad that live in the same street as us, and his sister lives a street across. My parents lived three streets down. His dad and stepmom are only 20 minutes away and whenever we need help, we just put it into a group chat, basically, and someone will jump on board and grab it. It's almost like an uber order, like we're just waiting for someone to take the order. We do really well. Now, you have indicated previously that you've got some mental health struggles and diagnosis of your own. So why don't you run me through what your diagnoses and struggles are and how it affects you and how it affects your life as a parent? My friend, I don't think we have long enough. No. So I've been diagnosed with BPT, borderline personality disorder, ADHD and Gad, which is generalised anxiety disorder. So that's anxiety that affects your day to day life without you realising it's just things that like autopilot for you now. Whereas other people would look at it and go, that's weird. So I'm medicated, I'm on mood stabilisers and I'm also on antidepressants. And I think my life would be completely dismal without them. I honestly think that they saved me from turning into something else. I still have my ups and downs. As with Bpd, you do it's very erratic. It's similar to bipolar, but it is very different in a sense that bipolar, you have a steady pace and then a drop and then a steady pace and then a drop, whereas Bpd is just up and down, up and down, up and down. So little things set me off like mess. If I've just tidied something and then it's all out of place within two minutes, it stresses me out, which is tough having three young kids, because all they do is make mess. But I've tried to deal with that by incorporating a fun cleaning thing for us to do together. We make a game out of it, but sometimes it's not always a game and sometimes it's just clean up your mess and get out of my just for 2 seconds, like, you've been playing up all day, I just need you to go outside and play. And then we'll reassess. So I do struggle, especially. I guess I'll go back to Lonnika. She has an attitude because of that very independent sassy. I can do anything myself. She has a very bad attitude. And growing up, for me, it was always ingrained into me from my parents. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. And I do that with her now and I find myself standing there going, oh my God, I sound like my mum and dad. I'm like, oh, Jesus. But it is. And like the other day I said to her, I'm like, oh, Lonnie, you need to get your shoes on. It's time to go to school. And she's like, dad didn't tell me I had to put my shoes on. And I'm like, well, of course you have to put your shoes on. We're going outside. You're going to school. You're going to go to school with no shoes on. And she was just like, don't tell me what to do, I'm doing it. And I was like, okay, I'll let it go. But she doesn't realise she's doing that either. So that's where we clash a lot because of the attitude. So that does set me off. And then I go into a mood and Kyle will come home and go, Are you okay? And I'll be like, yes, I'm fine. Because it's just completely struck me down. That defiance, is that a part of Lonika's autism diagnosis or is that just who she is as a person? Not that those two things are necessarily separate, of course. I would believe it's part of her autism because when she does it, she ticks and you can see her start to tick her aisle. Go. And then she'll start talking to herself and you go, Monica, what are you saying? She goes, I don't know. She literally doesn't know what she's saying. She's just sitting here mumbling things out of her mouth. So I need to grow with that as well and learn how to deal with that. Because for Kyle, he's had it since she was born, so whenever anything happens with her, I tend to get really upset and I get quite frustrated. And sometimes I yell at her and then I feel bad. I get the guilt. Whereas he can just walk in and go, hey, what's going on, sweetie? Let's talk. And she'll yell at him and scream at him and he'll go, I don't like the way you're talking to me. Whereas I'm in the other room going, oh, my God, this attitude. So we do find that You mentioned before a kind of credo that your parents instilled in you. It's not what you say, it's how you say it, just touching more on that. What was your upbringing like, as far as your parents go, raising you? And do you think that the style of parenting that you've adopted? Do you think it is thanks to your parents or do you think it is in spite of your parents? I'd say it's thanks to my parents. I had a great childhood. I was one of the very lucky kids that my parents stayed together. All my friends parents were breaking up when I was young, it was just seemed to be like a big thing that was happening for me. I was one of the lucky kids. I had both my parents stay together and life was good. There were things that my parents did that I definitely know have affected me now that I've had therapy and stuff like that, and I go, oh, that's why I'm like that. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's what they thought was right at the time. They did the best they could with what they had at the time and they weren't bad by any means, they kept us away from I had a lot of family who were into drugs and heavy drinking and crime and they kept us away from that. They didn't want that for us. By saying us, I mean my sister and I, and they did everything they could to protect us. So there's certain things now, like I have an anxiety attack if I'm out and I don't have my asthma puffer on me and that's because as a kid, my mum, every time I go anywhere, even as an adult, actually, whenever I'd leave the house, have you got your asthma puffer? Do you have your asthma puffer on you? Make sure you've got your asthma puffer, make sure it's always with you. So now, because I had that every single day of my life, I have, like a panic attack if I don't have it and then I think I need it, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to have an asthma attack and die in the street. It's not that at all. But that wasn't her trying to do anything to damage me, that was her making sure that she was just trying to keep me safe. So there's things like that that happened. And my mum was a yeller. She wasn't a come and sit down and calmly talk to me. There was dad, they yelled and that's because of their upbringings. So I do have quite a short fuse and I know it is because of the environment I was raised in and I am trying my best to break that and be the parent that sits down and talks to their kids. And for the most part, I think I do quite well. But in the same sense, I know I'm a good parent. Even if a lot of people out there don't even see me as a parent, because a lot of people don't see stepparents as parents, they just see them as, I don't know, babysitters, I don't know. I've been labelled that a couple of times. Don't worry, mate, me too. Even as a biological father of three, the amount of people that will still come up to me on the street and say, oh, Dad's, babysitting today, it's infuriating, to say the least. Yeah, I was going to say that would be very frustrating. It's just an old way of looking at things. I'm thankful that we are beginning to come along as a society, come around to the fact that there are a lot more dads that are just as hands on as mums are. And with time, it'll change more and more. The old way will die out and the new wave will rain. But, yeah, until then until then, I'm just a babysitter. Which is fine. People can think what they want to think. As long as my kids love me, that's good. And they know. And that's the thing. Your kids know. Correct. As far as being a little bit of a yelly parent and things like that and trying to be calm and being really aware of how you are as a parent. Do you often see videos on TikTok or Instagram or any sort of social media of, like, gentle parenting people and how it's all glitzy and glamorous and does the guilt kick in? Do you start questioning the type of parent you are? Do you start doubting yourself? How do you feel about it? Absolutely. I see it all the time. YouTube, not my space, that's very old. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all of it. And then I sit there and I'm like, oh, shit. Should I be making my kids Bento Boxes every day? I'm like, I should be cooking them a hot meal for school each day. Or I sit there and I go, wow. I feel really bad for yelling at my kids today because they touched that thing seven times after I nicely told them three times. And this parent here just keeps going back and forth. I think some people really want they want to be perceived as this perfect parent, that we don't yell in our house, we only eat healthy. I cook every meal for my kids I take them here and I do this for them. I buy them that. I ordered my kids macas tonight because I didn't want to cook and they like macas. You know what they ate. The way I see it is they've eaten. They don't eat like that all the time. But you do. I get really guilty. Really guilty. And I feel like I should be doing something different. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I feel, oh, God, they're going to hate me when I'm older because I wasn't that parent. I'm not that mum. I don't take them roller skating, whatever. Not everything we do is a paid for event. But then I sit back and I do kind of kick into reality sometimes and I'm like, well, you know what? We went to the botanical gardens and they pointed out seven different plants that they know of because of minecraft or because of some game that they've been playing or some YouTube thing they've been watching. And I'm like, they're learning from what they're doing and we're out for free. Walking around, getting exercise, breathing in fresh air. They don't need to be roller skating or doing something that's paid for. So I kick myself into reality sometimes. But then I see it again, and I'm like, oh, God. The Bento Boxes. Yeah, it really gets me and makes me feel like I should be doing more. And I'm already doing a lot. That's the main reason why I wanted to start this podcast, because I myself am a really hands on father and I love my kids to the ends of the earth and I never, ever in my life thought that I would feel a love like that. And I had my first and I thought, there's no way I'm going to love another human more than this human apart from my wife. And then the second one comes on and comes along. Sorry. And my heart grew and just made room for even more love. And then the third came along and yet again grew. I myself have ADHD and autism, so I get overstimulated pretty easily and I also yell and the TikTok parents and the instagram parents and everything like that, that live by gentle parenting and things like that really gets me down. It really gets to me and it makes me very sad and makes me feel like an absolutely horrible parent. So, yeah, that was the main reason why I wanted to start this podcast. And you obviously are my first guest. I wanted to kind of get out into the world that we aren't all gentle parents and we're all just doing the best we can along with our mental health issues and along with our messy hair and going out with no makeup. But, yeah, I just felt that there wasn't enough really realistic and true to life parenting conversations going on within the social media realm. That's how this has all come about. So moving on anyway. How do you foster a positive relationship and sense of belonging for all your children in your uniquely blended family? So, Nate, I make time for all of them, and I do different things with each of them just the same way my fiance does. So Nate and I'll often take him after school. We go down, we live right next door to a park. We go, we shoot some hoops. I teach him how to play basketball because I used to play when I was younger. We'll kick the soccer ball. He loves doing all that outdoorsy play things. So I feel like that's me giving him the attention that he wants and needs as well. And with Monica, I let her do my makeup reluctantly because my face always breaks out because it's the kids makeup. So I let her do it, though. I'm like, you know what? If she's going to have a great time, let's do it. So I let her do that, and we do the dress up thing, and we play dolls and we play with slime, and she'll want to show me some YouTube video. And I'm like, I don't even know how you know how to use YouTube. I struggle at the best of times. So we do little things like that, and I help her with minecraft, and I read to her every night. That's our thing. I read to her with her reader. She doesn't always love it, but that's our thing. And each night I lay in bed with Nate and I read him a book as well. And then with Paige, I don't know her, and I just have this relationship that it just works. She's like the friend that you can sit alone in a room with and not say a word to. You can just grunt, and you both know what's going on. Silence is golden. But her thing is that she just loves being with me. Beautiful. She just wants to be around me. So for us, it's just embracing those things they want to do, letting them do it, letting kids be kids, but at the same time, making sure that we do have those boundaries of obviously, that you can't go down to the park by yourself and things like that, not letting them rule the house. There's order in the house. But we let them do a lot of things, and our relationships are quite positive. It's just a struggle some days with the whole, you're not my mom, I hate you the other day because I asked her to get her shoes on. This is what I was talking about earlier. I wish you were dead. So for me, the first thing that came to my head with that was go berserk, go mental. And I stood there and I've gone. You really shouldn't wish for things that you don't mean, Monica. And that's really unfortunate because I love you a lot. And I literally walked away from that going like, high five in myself. Like, you handled that like an absolute champ. But inside I was screaming, yeah, definitely. But for the most part, it is positive. I make it sound awful, my relationship with her, but it's not. We do have a good relationship, it's just that's the hardest one. Awesome. Well, before we wrap up, any advice to parents struggling or people considering having children who have mental health struggles. My suggestion to people who have mental health struggles who are thinking of having children will be just to make sure you've prioritised yourself before you go down that route. I guess make sure that you're ready for it and you're never ready for it, but speak to a therapist or if you feel like something's off and you can't talk to someone, call one of the helplines or something. You need to make sure that you are as prepared as you can be going into it, because those little tackers will tear you down. They're ruthless. If they don't get you, the sleep deprivation will. Oh, yeah, sorry. What was the other question? Advice to parents that are currently struggling. Currently struggling really hard on yourself. Don't be hard on yourself. Don't glamorise the TikTok parents, the gentle parenting. If you want to yell, yell. And when you come back from that anger when I yell, I walk away. I come back five minutes later, I'm like, I'm sorry for yelling at you, but this is what happened and you can talk about it afterwards if you need a yellow. You don't have to be a gentle parent just because the world's perceived it that way behind closed doors. They're not like that. We all know that. I haven't seen one gentle parent in my friend group. And it's a hard world out there as it is, man. Give yourself give yourself a break. Well, I think our time is up. Kate, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's been great to get to know you more after not talking for so many years. And keep fighting the good fight, mate. Thanks. You too. It's been great. Thank you so much. Have a good one. Thanks for having me