30. Becoming an Intentional Autism Parent with Jamie Lin Brown

Apr 8

This week on the podcast Brittyn welcomes a special guest, Jamie Lin Brown. Jamie is an advocate for not only her child who is on the spectrum, Phoenix, but also educates others. She has built a close community of followers where she provides other parents with tools, resources, mentorship, and inspiration about being more intentional with their children on the spectrum!

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IN THIS EPISODE

How diet changes played a vital role in her son’s behavioral patterns
Getting your child involved in the cooking process
Being intentional within not only your child’s life, but in your family’s time also

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Nourishing Autism Podcast where you take a deep dive into the research on autism and dietary changes, nutrition supplements, and lifestyle modifications. Every week, we break down nutrition topics and an easy-to-understand way for you to feel less overwhelmed and feel confident on your nutrition journey with autism.

Becoming an Intentional Autism Parent with Jamie Lin Brown

[00:00:00]

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I'm your host Brittyn Coleman, the autism dietitian. And today I have one of my favorite people as a guest. Her name is Jamie Brown. She is just absolutely a wonderful human being, and I've been so grateful to get to know her over the past few years. We connected on Instagram and Jamie is an autism mama dedicated to supporting her community of fellow autism mamas with tools, resources, inspiration, and mentorship in order to become more intentional in all areas of life.

She has a master's in nonprofit leadership and management. A BA in organizational leadership and certificate in integrative nutrition. She loves pulling from this collective experience along with 20 years, serving in the nonprofit sector to share with others and is always learning more. She has been a guest host for me to talk to my clients all about being an intentional autism parent.

She also hosts the intentional autism mama retreats. And it's happening again this year in just a few weeks, April 22nd through 24th. I'm so honored to be able to be a speaker again this year. I was last fall.

So without further ado here is my interview with Jamie talking all about being an intentional autism parent and learning a little bit more about her retreat and her interesting background.

She is just so easy to talk to, and I hope you enjoy our interview together.

Brittyn: Hi everyone, and thank you so much for joining the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I'm so excited today to have Jamie brown on the podcast. She's been an incredible person to have connected with on Instagram, maybe even two years ago. Jamie, so thank you so much for being here.

Jamie: Of course, thank you for inviting me.

Brittyn: So for people who don't know you, could you share a little bit about yourself and your connection to autism?

Jamie: So I live in Coronado, which is a small island town in San Diego with my husband. We've been there a little over 10 years. And my step son, Sebastian, he is 15 going on 30 of course, teenager learning to drive. So everyone stay off the roads. And then my beautiful son, Phoenix, who is eight years old and he is on the spectrum.

So we've been on this autism journey alongside Phoenix for about five years. Actually a little over five years. He's eight years old. And it's interesting Brittyn because I worked in the nonprofit sector prior to having my son for about 20 years. So I'm a little bit older of a mother. And during that stint, I worked for a group home for adults with disabilities.

And then I also worked for special Olympics and managed the San Diego county branch of Special Olympics. And yet when I was faced with the concept of autism, I really didn't see it. I didn't see that it was happening under my own roof. And it actually took my wonderful sister-in-law, Christine, a little family trip that she was out here with my brother and their children and she was, you know, just kind of hanging out with Phoenix around 18 months. And she noticed, you know, some signals that made her pause and think, well, you know, he's not verbal yet. And he's not making great eye contact. I feel like there's something there. And yet our pediatrician at the time had no concerns.

And so it really took me starting advocacy right out the gate and pushing for some answers. And so he was diagnosed right before his third birthday and it's been a wild ride to say the least, but one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I mean, I actually scratch that the most beautiful experience of my life because he is just, he's everything.

He's, he's the most precious child. So I feel very blessed, very excited to be his mom.

Brittyn: I love seeing videos of Phoenix on Instagram cause he's just the sweetest boy

Jamie: Yeah, he really is.

Brittyn: It always just makes my day seeing videos of him. I love seeing you share those videos.

Jamie: Thank you.

Brittyn: So you have been on the nutrition journey too alongside your autism journey. Would you share a little bit about what that's been like for your family and for Phoenix?

Jamie: So before he was officially diagnosed, I was already diving into the gut-brain connection. I had actually done some studies of my own for my own health and wellness journey because that's a whole nother story. But I immediately decided that we were going to cut out the gluten and caisson, the dairy, in order to just see what happens.

And I'm actually sort of sad that I took them out at the same time, because the response was immediate. He improved in his eye contact almost immediately, and then responding to his name. He wasn't so fixated on the shadows on the wall. That was one of his prime primary stems was to kind of do this, you know, the stereotypical swaying back and forth, looking at his own shadow and you know, slapping up the fingers and into his line of vision. and a lot of that, it didn't go away. I'm not going to say that, but a lot of it dissipated and his connection with us improved almost immediately then from there, as I learned more and studied more, we did put him through the gaps diet. And we actually did that for I want to say close to 18 months, it was a good year.

On that I call it gaps light because while we removed a lot of the inflammatory foods, we did not add the ferments because he was just, you know, in typical picky eating fashion, he was not for the fermented foods. And I was okay with that. I was thinking if we're just doing any type of healing, that's good enough for me.

And then now, You know, five years into this, we really just focus on the whole foods. All organic as zero dyes as low histamine as possible. So cooking fresh daily versus storing foods and you know, using a lot of processed boxed foods and such, and then just really working on prioritizing his health and using herbs and really burying his protein sources and all of those things that I have learned from Brittyn. So, yeah, it's really fun though. We love cooking. My husband is an excellent cook. And so we do, we, this is kind of a family affair at this point. And even Phoenix enjoys cooking.

Brittyn: Oh, that's great. And I mean, I know that Phoenix at this point, really, what does it fall under? Like the picky eater. It looks selective meaning category, but getting kids involved is one way to really help expand their diet and is great for like sensory reasons too. So I love to hear when kids are in on cooking.

That's awesome.

Jamie: really fun.

Brittyn: I love that. So Jamie, you share a lot on Instagram. That's originally how we connected because both of us love Instagram. That's how we share you know, what we do for families and you know, share our passion, for autism and different modalities. But you share a lot about being an intentional autism mom.

What does that mean to you?

Jamie: So it's actually really funny. Speaking of Instagram, I just did a reel about this very, very new at reels, but I felt called to share this We all intuitively know what being intentional is all about. Okay. And moms are no exception. We want to focus on our priorities, which are our family and our children.

We want to practice as much precedence as possible, like being very present with our families and loved ones. I think for autism moms, it is so hard to actually put this into practice. So we're constantly being pulled into different therapies. We always have assessments in our email inboxes that we have to fill out.

We're managing meltdowns, potty training challenges. Communication challenges feelings of isolation from family and friends that just don't seem to get it at the time, you know, and that's why we're called to advocate as well, labs any protocols that we might have our children on not to mention possible picky eating.

Thank goodness were sort of past that at this point. And then hello, academics in school. And then allowing our children to be kids and have family time. And so really when it comes to being intentional, it's prioritizing all of that prioritizing family first, prioritizing your children first, letting them be kids, exploring nature, getting out on nature hikes. And you know, for us being intentional. So I said this in a very roundabout way that for us being intentional is putting our family first. Okay. Dinners for us are sacred. That's sacred, you know, special family time disconnecting and unplugging from social and phones and all of those, those are not allowed at the dinner table and really throughout the evening to be able to be fair and spending as much time outdoors as possible.

And then from the. And only from there come the deadlines and those, we have to remember if you need an extension on a desk. You asked for it because your child is your priority. So being intentional means that if you are under the gun and trying to do so many things and answer to so many phone calls and doctors and therapists and everything, they work for you, they work for your child.

So you need to prioritize your family, be intentional about the time that you spend with them and put everything else in order of importance. And frankly, it's not all that. So that's kind of my premise.

Brittyn: I mean what you said, they work for you and it's not the other way around. I mean, you're exactly right. And to that point, I always encourage people. If, if this isn't working for you, if this is not serving you, whether who, whatever healthcare provider or therapist you can fire. As a parent, too, you have the ability to do that.

If you're not alive, if you don't notice your child is benefiting. And so that's one thing I wanted. You just made me think of that, but I don't think a lot of people realize like, oh, this is not working for me. I'm just going to fire this person, find somebody else who does. So I really like your mentality around all of that.

I think that that's incredibly important. It's so easy to get wrapped up and emails and trying to get back to every single person. That's a full-time job in itself.

Jamie: Exactly. It's more than full time. And so it's no wonder that the moms that I spend my time with feel that they are 24 7 caretaking and that's, that's it. They have no identity outside of that because frankly, that's all.

Brittyn: Yeah, absolutely. Well then how do you support parents? I know that this is your bread and butter and supporting parents and becoming intentional parents and just, you know, helping them in daily life. Well how do you help people?

Jamie: So for now, the intentional autism mama program provides very limited one-on-one coaching because of course I'm putting my family first and then group coaching sessions.

And those are really, really fun for moms to get to know each other. And we go through the same curriculum that I take my one-on-one clients through, but this is a way for. Moms to get to know each other and just, you know, share ideas and resources and really build that connection in that comradery. And then of course, the virtual retreats, the first one was last October and the next one is coming up shortly.

And this is a time for moms to take a break, hopefully with some childcare, but if not, their children are allowed to be on the zooms with us. I love seeing all of their children's faces, but these retreats are virtual they're via zoom. And we. Have guest speakers and presenters such as yourself actually.

And we do a craft project together. We do yoga flows together. We have a pajama party celebration group share. So it's really just a very. Not to overuse the word intentional, but intentional time carved out just for moms to get to know each other and to get some resources and tips And to walk away feeling refreshed, energized, and very inspired.

Brittyn: And I can, I mean, say firsthand, it's incredible. Jamie, what you do. I was so grateful to be a part of the first one and then get to be a part of this one as well. And I'm. I met so many parents and I had so many people reach out to me and just tell me how amazing of a time they had a ton of Michael. Well, I know a good number of my clients did do the retreat last year, too.

And I just heard nonstop about how important it was for them to be able to connect with other parents and to take some time to themselves, because like you said, Feeling like a 24 hour caregiver taking time to yourself is like very few and far between. So just really special time. And your next one is a few weeks from now.

So it's April 22nd through the 24th. Correct?

Jamie: Yes, it's coming up really soon. But yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be incredible.

Brittyn: I can't wait. I'm excited to share and hear more about the other speakers too. And again, I just know that my clients are gonna tell me amazing things about it. So well I know that you can't share all of your intentional mama's secrets, but I would love to hear one thing that you generally recommend are [00:15:00] encourage of all autism.

Jamie: So I gave this. And yeah, you're right. My list is very long on things that I would encourage moms to do. But one thing that I have. That any mom that's listening to this podcast can take away is to discover a passion, a passion that hopefully is outside of the autism sphere. Something that maybe as a child, they were really fascinated with or interested in or something as a young adult, something prior to motherhood, even that really. Just spoke to them and really got them excited about life. And I say it to the point where it's almost something that you can't, you can't not. Does that make sense? So something that is on your heart, something that you're so passionate that you can't avoid, like you have to do this, so it could be painting.

It could be writing. It could be like really taking hiking seriously and going on different trails and pushing your boundaries. You know, taking risks or learning to rock climb, that's on my bucket list. So just really finding something that's outside of the 24 7 care-taking role, something that's outside of spending all of your waking hours doing autism research and something that is so edifying and life-giving to you, something that fills your cup.

Brittyn: I love that. And you talk to some of my group clients about finding that thing and it was beautiful to listen. Painting was one example that someone gave me and they were saying, I, they majored in, in art, in college and they haven't really picked up a paint brush since their son was diagnosed with autism.

And just bringing back those little things. it's so huge and taking that time to yourself. I love that to Jamie. That's amazing.

Jamie: Well, how, how wonderful is it for your child to see their mom filled with. And then the goal and the hope would be to have them come alongside you on this, you know, the journey of passion and see what That's all about. So like for me, outdoor hiking is amazing and I love doing that. And so. Don't you think I bring Phoenix along?

Of course. And we explore everything. Animals, rocks, different plants. I mean, you name it. We will leave no stone unturned. Well it's just, you know, discovery time. So yeah.

Brittyn: That's really a special time to have together to something that means like his way has a deeper meaning to you that you get to share with your son. That's amazing. Well, Jamie, I'm so excited for your retreat. I cannot wait. Again, that's April 22nd through the 24th. I would love for you to share how people can find you, and how they can sign up for your treat.

I'll also link it in the show notes so that people can easily click, but share more about where people can find you.

Jamie: You.

can find me most consistently on Instagram and it's Jamie Lin Brown, all one word. And my middle name is Lin L I N, which is a weird spelling, but nonetheless, Jamie Lin Brown and. I've created a retreat highlight. It's the very first bubble under my highlights. And that's where I shared all of the speakers and a little bit of the behind the scenes of the virtual retreat.

And then of course the registration link is in my bio. And if you have any questions, I'm very quickly. I'm able to respond to the DM. And I have a lot of moms that were weirdly afraid to message me, but please message me because I love chatting in my inbox. I love one-on-one chats with moms. So DME, any questions that you may have?

Brittyn: That's great. I love that. Well, thanks so much again, Jamie. And.

Jamie: Thank you.

Brittyn: Yes.

This podcast is brought to you by the Autism Nutrition Library, a one-stop hub and community for all things autism nutrition created to help you explore evidence-based nutrition approaches that have proved to be effective to help individuals with autism feel their best, do their best, and be their best.

Join now by clicking Autism Nutrition Library or by stopping by my Instagram @AutismDietitian. See you next week.

Transcribed by Descript

ABOUT Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, CLT

I’m a Registered Dietitian, Autism Nutrition Expert, and the Creator of the Autism Nutrition Library.

I work with parents of children with autism to optimize their child’s diet, supplements, and lifestyle based on their unique needs. I help expand accepted foods for picky eaters, improve digestion and gut health, find the root causes of many symptoms, and ultimately help them feel their best so that they can do their best and be their best.

Not only do I relate to families on a professional level, but also on a personal level. I have been a part of the autism community for over 20 years, as my younger brother was diagnosed on the spectrum at a young age.

I look forward to working with you to uncover the root cause of your child’s symptoms and help your child be the best version of themselves!