We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Janie Selph a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Janie, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Fun2Go Misters has been an outlet for a SAHM to share mom-life while adding tidbits from our sensory journey with Little Mister. Why Fun2Go Misters? At the time of bringing the concept to virtual life, it was all about exploring with 2 Misters with an age gap of 9 years. (We’ll get into 2 Misters and their sister later.) Sort of a resource to help families navigate the expansive avenues Houston and beyond has to offer with families. However, our content was becoming intertwined with the new journey of neurodivergence with our Little Mister and even ourselves as parents. We didn’t realize our content was catering to a specific audience, which was parents of children with certain sensory diets. There was a thirst for a resource that could offer a point of view of sensory parents; such as a review including expectations and provided notes to properly prepare for future trips of their own. For example, if loud sounds are an issue for a sensory child, then we would advise bringing headphones. There have been multiple times we would plan a day trip to places an hour away, only to pay an entry fee and have to turn around due to a meltdown or unforeseen sensory trigger. Our goal was to share our experiences and hopefully impart either ideas or tips to make outings more manageable with families. Not only is our Fun2Go Misters page slated for special needs families, we implemented sensory processing details because it is a part of our family, but we also enjoy sharing the fun we can find in Humble, Houston, and beyond. We tend to have staycations throughout the year in Houston and surrounding areas because of how much ground there is to cover, but our favorites would be park hopping and indoor play zones. We will fast forward to 2016, that’s when our page then grew to Fun2Go Misters & a Sister. As our knowledge expanded through our sensory journey with Little Mister, we were capable of recognizing cognitive and development challenges early on, however, we were now raising this little girl in a Jurassic World. Little Miss was nearing her first year when she laid eyes on her first dinosaur and ever since, she has become obsessed with the extinct creatures. We then created our sister page on Instagram, Little Miss Jurassic because even at her current age of 5, she still insists she’s a dinosaur. Little Miss Jurassic has expressed her love for dinosaurs through some accessory or fashion piece every day she leaves the house, which is why we created the page, to supply parents with the same obsession and inspire Jurassic fashion in more closets.
If you’re still proceeding to read on, just be advised, ADHD, dyslexia and mom-life took part in writing this infused with anxiety about grammar and incoherent nonsense in storytelling.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
One of the 2 Misters was born early, in fact, he was born on the weekend of his brother’s birthday party. Yes, this mom missed the 9th birthday party of her firstborn because I was in the hospital with Little Mister. Not only are my boys 9 years apart, but they are also only a couple of days apart in their birth month. Joint birthday parties were quite a conundrum for a few years ;P. Little Mister was born early and mostly ill for the first portion of his life due to a milk allergy unbeknownst to us in conjunction, with persistent ear infections. In fact, he lost his hearing and despite every attempt of vocalizing my concerns, the pediatricians would dismiss my suspicions with “he’ll outgrow it or boys develop later”. My mother’s intuition; was relentless and unwilling to surrender, so we proceeded with meeting pediatricians until our concerns were addressed and issued the necessary referral to an ENT. Thereafter, we immediately had ear surgeries and a new set of issues surfaced. Due to this, we encountered speech delay in addition to new behavioral issues when we began a Mother’s Day Out program. Completely unaware our child lacked a sensory diet, we knew we needed more answers. Truly the self-esteem and confidence in parenting kept declining, but we wouldn’t succumb to the sadness and began long hours of research to uncover ways to help our child. Our school system failed us, our first speech therapist basically locked my child in a room, and performed an evaluation as he was having a meltdown which led to a final report of, “His mouth was smarter than his brain!”. That was her laymen’s quote so we’d fully comprehend what she meant. The offense wasn’t the condescending remark, it was in the manner she described our Little Mister when we knew there was more substance to that little brain. Speech assessments 2, 3, and 4 were not any better and they simply wouldn’t take the time to dig into their compassion and offer assistance as needed. There was something positive brewing and our dream team came to fruition when we met our neurologist, phenomenal occupational therapist, and speech therapist number 5! Incredible how the team we built was giving us answers, educating us, and contributing with tools helpful in making the necessary adaptions. Little Mister broke from his shell at age 4 and he began to show us his true colors. Through the initial public and professional advisement, Little Mister was labeled as a child with Autism. In reality, we expected that diagnosis, but by the 4th testing opinion, that was not the case. Several hidden neurological differences and a cascading list of neurodivergent codes, but we didn’t land on the Autism spectrum. Sensory processing isn’t as well known as a diagnosis as other medical conditions, but it was the treatment of the assumption that my child was less than that constantly plagued us as his parents. We realized how cruel the world could be with the dismissive gestures and children asking Little Mister “What was wrong with him?”. Can you believe that we’d encounter parents that would not even redirect the negative approach and would simply remove their child away from mine because he wasn’t capable of producing articulate sentences? One of our diagnoses is also Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder, which is why I began integrating helpful details to support parents raising neurodivergent children. We do not have all of the answers, but we can speak from our experience.
My husband and I had our grieving moments. We wondered where we went wrong and became overwhelmed with the influx of emotion and literature on multiple cognitive, developmental, and speech disorders. There is also the financial aspect that is a stress factor, because genetic testing, certain psychological evaluations, and additional testing are not covered under insurance policies. Be prepared to become fluent in medical terminology plus coding, and familiar with protocol when navigating the waves of documenting your child’s journey. The infamous parenting book, What to expect when Expecting didn’t prepare us at all, but we discovered that even with the challenges, we were able to slow down and embrace the little things. We celebrate the little and big just as much as we can because tiny milestones or not, every obstacle we overcame is worth a reason to celebrate. As we traveled all over Houston, I basically lived in my truck as I chauffeured my Misters to their schools in Humble and Spring Branch with therapies and sports taking us from one side of town to clear across Houston. In the midst of having a moody Big Mister going through teenage struggles at age 15, a six-year-old flourishing beyond his prognosis, we were blessed with the surprise of adding into the mix a Little Miss. Hence the now Fun2Go Misters and their sister. Little Mister was a rainbow baby and there wasn’t a positive outlook on conceiving again. Our attempts with countless shots and numerous visits to doctors exceeded a few years, to no avail. When we least expected it, we had a positive pregnancy test upon us and that presented a new set of health challenges due to a clotting disorder that isn’t very welcoming to babies in the womb. We must have had angels watching us follow through this one because we completed our pregnancy with a few bumps along the way. Once our Little Miss was nearing her first year, she decided that at 10 months old, she was a dinosaur and no one was going to change her mind. She’s a wild one and will absolutely be extra-roar-dinary. If our story is meant to inspire in any way, I would hope that it would in the manner of turning the negative around by digging for the silver linings. I chose to utilize creative ways to persuade my child to eat due to his limited palate, we added daily dancing to shake the wiggles out and brainstormed ways to incorporate fun in all aspects of our day-to-day activities. If your child witnesses you being in a joyful mentality, the vibes will motivate him/her to participate and not object to mundane therapy sessions at home.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Resilience, in our family? Stubbornness isn’t necessarily a trait one would consider a strong characteristic element, but it was a necessity to overcome the many obstacles placed in our paths by the hidden disabilities and professionals unwilling to lend a hand in supplying Little Mister with tools to succeed. Without the tenacity and strong will to fight for our son’s voice and a bright mind, he would have been in more serious developmental stages. If you were to review the initial reports of our son’s evaluations, they would seem as if they belonged to another patient. As parents, we were not accepting the first, second, or even third opinions, only because we knew we had a child that only needed a little more to thrive altogether. This isn’t a story in retaliation to medical practices, it’s about having the courage and trusting your instinct when it pertains to your family. Only a parent truly knows their child, we sought and fought for answers, and through investigative research and finding professionals dedicated to gifting families tools to grow together, we progressed and surpassed the expectations of everyone. Mind you, not only is a diagnosis necessary to coordinate proper therapeutic exercises, you’ll require patience filled with trial and error. A diagnosis code can not be supplemented by a cookie-cutter management plan, strength combined with the will to commit will be a vital element for success. Be your child’s voice!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I have had to unlearn? It’s a matter of how many paragraphs you’re willing to read and delve a little into my psyche., but I won’t take you down a steep rabbit hole. However, just for a bit of an insight, I have had to unlock the mentality of believing books prepared me to raise a family in a positive environment and be the “perfect” parent. I was incredibly wrong and had to unlearn the generational upbringing found in most Hispanic families. By no means am I blaming my parents or unhappy with how they raised me, but I thought I would be able to present my children with a different childhood. I’m still a work in progress, I show the good, the bad, the fun as well as the not-so-fun moments in our “stories”. It is a constant struggle, but I have also learned that I grew up without my sensory diets suiting me through the stages of life. A byproduct of not having proper regulating exercise has caused me to have big emotions take over, but with our sensory journey, I have practiced ways to descend the heavy moments. My Big Mister is now a young adult, he has expressed how much he’s unhappy with me being a “helicopter mom”, so I had to learn to let go a bit more and make sure that I am not suffocating Little Mister and Little Miss. It is a hard pill to swallow when your faults are set on display, but I have also been more open-minded in accepting his feedback as constructive criticism. Does the perfect parent exist? How much does our style of parenting affect our children? The perfect style may exist, but the execution is key. The motto, “It takes a village”, is by far true, we are all just trying to do the best we can in raising our little humans. Neurotypicals or not, we all have our parenting woes mixed with the joys of gifting life.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fun2gomisters
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FallCreeksToddlerFun2Go/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/fun2gomisters
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Fun2goMisters
- Other: Jill B Jarvis, formerly known as Big Kid Small City, is a wonderful resource for family fun in Houston, Texas when wanting to find ideas on how to spend a day with the kids. We often have some of our outings featured, which you can find at the link below. https://www.jillbjarvis.com/ You can also follow us on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRD4bCes/