1. Welcome to Neurodivergence, Family and Faith - Our Journey Begins!

Hi, I'm Kate Morris.

And I'm Dave Whittingham. On today's episode, we'll be introducing the show and talking about the great comfort that God gives us as parents of neurodiverse children.G' day and welcome to Neurodivergence, Family and Faith. I'm Dave Whittingham and I have my co host here, Kate Morris. G', day, Kate.

Hello. How exciting that we're kicking off our first episode.

Oh, it is, it is super exciting. We've been planning, we've been thinking and we're really excited to be getting into this.Kate, can you kick off just by telling us a little bit about yourself? Who are you sure?

I am the mother of three children. Two of them are neurodivergent, which is one reason I'm interested in this area. So I've done some extra study, some postgraduate study in this area.I completed a fellowship last year researching in this area. Very passionate about all of this. And Dave, how about you?

Yes. So I am, Dave, I am the parent of four children with some neurodivergence in them and some neurotypical.And through that process of having them diagnosed, I discovered that I am neurodivergent as well. Autism and adhd. And I've been a church minister, I've. I'm a podcaster.I tell Bible stories on podcasts, which I'm sure I'll talk about at some stage and, and also a primary school teacher at various stages in my life, so doing lots of different things. But today we are talking about this brand new podcast. And what are we aiming to do here?What, why, why do we think this would be a good idea to start the podcast? What do you reckon?

Yeah, well, we were talking together about how there's a need for something that gives bite size moments to think through neurodivergence and parenting and thinking about these things in a way that's rooted in the Bible and with real life experience in there as well. But also latest research, up to date ways of thinking about these things and practical tips, things that we can use today.

Yeah, absolutely. I was so excited when I met you and found out about all the research you were doing.Not just about all the secular things that are out there, but thinking about them from a Bible perspective. And I figured, hey, the freest way to get counseling about my neurodivergence is to put on a podcast with you. So you.

I'm not qualified for that, dad.

Well, you fell for it, so you're locked in now.

I love it.I just think when we first started out understanding about all of this in our children, I asked friends, could you recommend books, videos, anything where it's a Christian view on all of this? And just person after person was saying, oh, there's not much. There's not a whole lot. So I'm just really excited.I've loved having my head in this space. I'm really excited to be making this podcast to think it through.

Yeah, awesome. One of the great things in thinking about it Christianly is when it's great to remember we're not doing this alone.We're actually doing this with a wonderful, wonderful God, actually. He knows so much more about this than us. And so we're going to be practical. We're going to be thinking about sort of things.We're not a theology podcast, but we are going to be bringing the Bible in and saying, hey, this is a great blessing for us. So I thought it'd be great to kick off with a couple of Bible passages, one of them being Psalm 139.Kate, do you want to just read a bit of Psalm 139 for us?

Yeah, how about I do the first five verses there? Lord, you have searched me and known me.You know, when I sit down and when I stand up, you understand my thoughts from far away, you observe my travels and my rest. You are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it. Lord, you have enriched me. You have placed your hand on me.

How good is it? I mean, you don't need to explain it. It speaks for itself. But as I was looking at this Bible passage, it just really struck me a couple of things.One, God knows our kids really well, and we're on a learning journey with our kids, but God knows them perfectly, better than they know themselves and better than we know them. But he also knows us as parents. So I think for both you and I and for lots of parents out there, this is a brand new world. It's like, whoa, hang on.There's something in my child, in my children, that I'm not fully grasping here. And yet God knows them and he knows me perfectly and he's with me, and it's. That's such a comfort and a blessing.And we know that as we walk through this learning journey, we have the perfect guide along the way. Wonderful news.

It's wonderful, isn't it? It's comfort to the heart. And then I look ahead to verses 13 and 14. I might read those ones, too. Hey, it was you who created My inward parts.You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous. And I know this very well. Aren't they great verses?

Fantastic. I mean, the whole Bible is great, but as you read any particular part, you know, it does just warm the heart, doesn't it?And I think for these verses, they're really significant when we come to thinking about neurodivergence, because. And the question that runs around our mind is, you know, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? What can we fix?But actually, these verses remind us that even though some things can be hard and there are challenges along the way, and don't want to deny that we're going to be talking a lot about that. There is a God who has shaped and formed every cell in my child's body.He has knit them together in their mother's womb, and he understands them, and he is committed to them. There is a love there that goes far beyond my love as a parent.And our job is not to somehow overturn God's creation of them, but rather to understand them as God's made them and work with them and learn to enjoy his creation in them. And I think that takes away from some of that burden.We sometimes feel that actually there is a joyful discovery here, even though there are challenges along the way, I think.

Yeah, that's right. As a parent, I'm so often approaching things as a parent, and how do I read this for my children? How do I present this to my children?But I am God's child. And so I read these. And as well as everything you've said, I remember that I was knit together in my mother's womb. That God knows me, Kate.You know, he knows. He knows my faults and my foibles. He knows kind of the things that I struggle with and that I find challenging.And the things that people would look at me and say, oh, goodness, that must be hard to live with. And God has made me, and I can depend on him. I'm his creature. He is my creator.And to be able to turn to this loving God who knit me, it's just such a precious, delicate words, isn't it? He knit me together. He didn't throw me together or pump lots of me out. It was me, and he knit me.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so helpful, because I think there have been times in my parenting journey where I feel like there are no answers here, and I'm all alone.But that's actually not true. I am never alone. God is with me. And yeah, I like you picking up on the detail of that language and the details there, because that is who God is.And so as we look at all the practical things related to this topic and helping us as parents move forward, we want to remember that we are not alone, that we're not unloved. We actually have a caring God who cares for us, he cares for our children and there is joy to be discovered in him and through him, for our families.And that's a really exciting prospect as we move forward into the podcast.

I think that's exactly right.And this also makes me think of the next passage, which, you know, is there in the show notes, so it's probably helpful that I'm thinking of that next. But it's right, isn't it?

We're about to randomly came to you.

Yeah, just then. That just came to me. 1 Corinthians 12, where we hear about the beautiful picture of the body of Christ, the community of Christians.And we're not alone because we have God, but we're also not alone because he's gifted us to each other. Dave, you've got the Shaynaes too. Would you like to read the next section?

Yeah, I'd love to. The body is not one part, but many.If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body, it's not for that reason any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body, it's not for that reason any less a part of the body.Then further down says, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable. And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honour.And our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need.

Isn't that a great way of putting it?I really, I love this because when you read it out loud, it is so clear, isn't it, that a body has many parts and that the foot shouldn't say, because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body. Can you imagine if the whole body was a hand? You know, it's not how we a body to be. We want all these different parts.And yet I think sometimes people, and I think the church is guilty of this too. We think that people should look a particular way in order to be of value, or we Work out how.Yes, they might look a little bit different, but mostly they're the same. But actually, Christianity has been way ahead of human understanding.God has been telling us right here in the Bible that we are all valuable, we're all made to be different, that our difference is actually a blessing. It's not a shame, but that's okay. Difference is a blessing. And that together we operate in this body of Christ.

Yeah, I love that phrase. Difference is a blessing because again, it gives us rest and it overturns the burden that sometimes we feel, just puts it in a different light.Saying, no, no, there is something really, really good here. And there's something that I would be missing out on if it wasn't here.So there's something in someone else that I am lacking, and I need that person. I love that.

Me too.It's a great reminder to me that not only does it remind me that as I look at others, they valuable as they are, but I'm often pretty hard on myself or pretty hard on the way that my family needs to operate. We don't operate like other people. For example, in church, we're not achieving the same things other kids these ages will be achieving.It's easy for me to be hard on myself and to say, what a shame we're not contributing as other people do. What a shame we don't look like other people. But this flip side on its head, actually, what a joy that I am in Christ.What a joy that the way we are operating doesn't work as a detriment to others, but actually in Christ, he can be using us where we are, with the way that we're operating, with our needs, with our strengths to contribute to the functioning of this whole body in mutual love and support. It's.

It's fantastic. It's so good. Just like so many other areas where the Bible turns the world on its head.

Yeah.

As we get into this, we. We probably should talk about language a little bit. Um, do you want to.I mean, you've been doing a lot of thinking about language, and we're using the word neurodivergent. I just want to clarify what. What do we mean by that?

Yeah, Dave, you should learn all this before we start a podcast on it, I think.

Well, as I said, this is why I'm doing it with you, because you know everything.

Well, look, neurodivergence is a. Is a funny term. In some ways. Neuro means brain, divergent means different, and so it's brain difference.But I think, personally, I have a Little bit of a problem with defining this whole group of people by what they're not. You can throw around other words like neurospicy, but I've heard people say, don't call me spicy. I'm not hot. There's neurosparkly.But then does that mean other people aren't also sparkly and glorious in their neurodifferences? And I think it's really complicated.And I love looking back the last 10 years and seeing how language has changed, because I'm expecting that as we look forward, language is going to keep changing.The trouble with something like a podcast is we hopefully are speaking into different cultures, different countries, different experiences, different backgrounds, different thoughts on all of this. And we're going to need to choose language in order to communicate these ideas.And so I hope that as people listen, they'll give us some grace, that if we are using words that they personally wouldn't choose, that hopefully we can still be working together in order to be sharing these ideas.I want to assure people that even though I poked some fun at Dave then, we have actually spent a long time thinking about what language we will use, particularly listening to members of the neurodivergent community.I spent a long time last year researching both interviewing people, but also looking into research of neurodivergent people to understand what language we should use. So I can assure you we've done some big thinking about this.The thing is, we need to be just asking people how they would like to be referred to, and we'll just be keeping that in mind as we speak.

Yeah, and it's also worth keeping in mind that there is a book series and a movie series out there called the Divergent Series. And in that the Divergent people are the superior beings. I think that's right.We're not working to label people or lock people into boxes or anything like that, are we? But we are trying to use language to communicate, and that'll shift and change over time as we work through that.

I would hope so. Yeah, that's right.Isn't it great being part of this conversation right now in this moment, where people are starting to grow in their understanding of this whole area, but Christian circles are starting to grow in understanding as well. It's a really exciting topic to be speaking about and moment in time, I think, to be thinking through all of this.

That's right. And as Christians, we have so much to say both within our own community, because we have a God who teaches us how to love.And so we need to be thinking about that and we need to be enjoying that.But also we have so much to say to the world and say, come back to this God who loves us and who cares for us and who has been aware of this long before anyone was doing any sort of research or asking any of these sort of questions or giving anyone the cane for being a little bit different to anyone else. That love of God is something to come back to. And so what a privilege we have to be doing that.We're going to be covering a whole bunch of different topics next week. We're going to be covering something called Spoon Theory, which, yeah, it's going to be really interesting, but one sentence takeaway.Kay, what are we going to be looking at next week?

Oh, next week.The energy bank, I reckon, is another way to put it, because we're looking at how we can make deposits of energy replenishers in our lives, but also some things will take energy away. So this is such an important topic to understand when we come to neurodivergence, when energy out and energy in can be a different sort of balance.So we're going to get really practical. We're going to, um. I think it's going to be a really good episode.

Absolutely. And as parents, we all know what it looks like in our neurodivergent children when the energy is completely gone.And so we want to be thinking about that very much.Hey, if you are enjoying this, if you want to find out about all these different topics that we're going to be looking at, if you want to be thinking about this more, hit follow on your app so that you know when the next episode comes out. We're going to be going weekly and we're hoping that you'll join us on this wonderful journey.But for now, Kate, I think that's about it for our first episode. So thank you very much and we look forward to next time.

Yeah, very much. See you then.

See you. Okay, I'll kick off. What's our name again? You.

Divergence. Write it down.