hi everybody i am your host jodi told pitts the host of weed to me divorce to core warehouse becomes a home as you guys know that are following weed and me house divorced men women and their children especially that's what we're going to talk about today with my next guest feel comfortable and happy in their space by restoring a sense of permanency and emotional wellbeing through the uplifting positive psychological impact of color design and mentoring today i have a very special guest i'm so excited about this because we both help kids and she helps kids in a really unique way and i'm going to introduce my special guest jod on and try to help people who are listening i'd like to say first of all jody thank you for what you do obviously we've been chatting and we've shared something we're growing something based on our personal experience and a need which is extraordinary  if someone's out there unfortunately i know alice very well have been living with ayla since one nine hundred ninety five one of our our slogan is because if you live with us so does your family it's a family disease demise and it's a progression that is pretty consistent so within one year many patients are in a wheelchair because they can no longer walk within two years many patients need a feeding tube because they can't or maybe they need  assistance with speaking because they can no longer speak and with three or four years many are are noticing that their breathing is impaired and have to think about using a bipap and then ultimately a ventilator which my husband was at the time of his death he was ventilated paralyzed feeding tube and speechless and believable i watched the video first of all i'm going to i probably want to tear up a few times but i watched the video and the documentation of that beautiful man and what an amazing father he was and what how brave you are to document that and how brave of him to allow it and your kids and everything that went that helping children because of me because of this journey and and that's beautiful probably very proud of you and there was a there was a picture that was part of the video i am i look through your whole website and i watched all your videos and i looked at your box and there's this one i don't know which baby he's holding but he you know before he was ill he was holding one of your children and what you could see you could just see all the love and you just knew he was a good daddy a great audience a great people anywhere from i've seen some you know young people in their twenty's to people in their eighty's and it doesn't discriminate in any way like cancer doesn't matter returns and so sad and but what you're doing is making people also we are taking care of the kids today and so i want you to tell people about your amazing camps when you're ready i know you're still explaining but i just want to guide you that way because i want people to know that there's a place for the kids to go to to for a place to have some joy and feel like they're not alone absolutely that's that's great so that's one of the things we do in our probably or minus program but hope of company is the result of a lesson a journey and what happened was kevin was diagnosed at thirty and i only know was two and a half at the time our daughter and he we took care of him and we we did the best we could to have a happy and i didn't want to i did suffer some depression and i didn't want to stay in that place and i knew i had to use that experience because it was filled with so much love to propel me further as a person and to give me purpose and to continue that purpose because i think caring for kevin was a purpose in my life but i witnessed the result of a less when children and i thought when my children become well and the side note is that i worked for the foundation in philadelphia as director of communications and there is where i met my current h we all were sad yeah we doing that initial ten year period we we were grieving differently there was change there was a new house there was  everything new parents new and i different ages the role of different ages so they're all go somewhere hormonal some guy like you they're all your partner all you know different and so i evaluate it and it came to me hopeless company came to me in two thousand and seven in the midst of raising now have we do several things we send care packages to children all over the united states which is a card and a book and a t shirt and a band that says hope loves company and a toy if they're younger retreat for the children and they come and they learn coping skills and they learn that they're not alone there are many other children who are also loving someone with a less and caring for someone with a less or maybe they've lost someone ta r and in most situations when they're in school they they won't know someone else who is in that situ right so this gives them a sense of community and a sense of not being alone and support and  support as well as adults we also invite parents well parents and sick parents to take part the counseling part of it however is individual so the children have the opportunity to speak with counsellors privately right and how it is that relates to them and their family situation and they're sick because everybody's situation is different and at the same time the parents can go in here an inspirational speaker and they can unite and talk about how they're handling it s useless when the radar online are for next summer is that include what iceland like out of nowhere and what it's really not and you know we talked about before the show how things happen for a reason i'm going to tell the people out there i had a different gues and i just enjoy meeting and i said oh my god i have to bring this to an intern and that was six years ago that's wonderful that is so wonderful i'm going to come to your meetings because i love princeton i'm like in my glove with yeah i don't live in your state here are night we have a meeting questions and tell me if i hopefully i didn't interrupt you or not let you explain a l s in the camps if you're ok with that then i want to ask you what are the signs that you noticed when your kids were in distress and really kind spiraling down and needing help and then our next thing alaska is what did you do about it but let's like what can parents out there listening and what not only is this news flash it's not always this obvious surety subtle things like w yes so kids are resilient and kids are also very smart and our three children were all year apart and as a trained teacher and had some idea of child psychology school differently might have different friends so change is one of the big signs anything like any kind of change any kind of change that is not the norm for your child could also be i assume that grief here people think of grief as being one stage at one point grief especially when you're referring to someone whose dying can be ongoing grief could start the day that the message successful if those issues are not addressed however then children might look in other avenues they might look for other ways to cope yes they may self medicate they may cut themselves they may do things for attention they may do things that made a number illegal or there are so many unknowns that could happen and i've seen that in so many situations never not knowing much about their less but i'm learning but in other situations that thought dad was fine and now dad isn't right yesterday i thought mom and dad were married and now they're not going to be yesterday i thought you were let in hearing and now we don't write and that's where i help the living part and where you help them is the living from within and living from within out to help them with the shell you help them with this and it does take a village it takes all of that so when you say tools what are those tools are they other professionals like perhaps of  a therapist that deals specifically with loss of the first thing that i suggest is that anyone who's in that situation you know you have books you can bring into the home you can read them with your children children might know how they're feeling but they know it i don't want to get out of bed because dad already dead already lost mom so how can he deal with me as well right so kids are protective of their parent they are protected so you want to have open conversation that's a huge hole you want to give them resources books and movies and things that will encourage conversation and and allow them to know that however they are feeling is ok there's no reason the feeling it's the exactly let him know that that feeling is ok then you provide an example so having our peers together now they can see how someone else handles it or they can see how someone else has chosen not to him or exactly she's going to say that it's is a learning it's learning on both ends how not to handle on how to handle and again i don't think there's a right maybe there's not exactly a right or wrong it just depends on the  she just graduated from high school she's going to penn state she graduated early so her mom could see the graduation and her mom and the new the same amounts and and she courtney did that independently and and i know she'll be ok and she's a great example for someone else who doesn't know how to get from here to there are you know wants to morehouse mackenzie doing this maybe i can try that wow look what she did and look how she is and yes she's sad but she's still going forward and maybe she's maybe those skills or that personality or that those characteristics are not typical of someone so maybe they'll have to change the way they get there or or use a different route but still seeing her as a survivor and on her way yes she sad yes her life was torn apart yes she misses her mother yes it's very very difficult and in all of that she can still say people are children not just because we're really talking about kids gasp when children have that type of loss it's important for them to know once that parent or grandparent or anybody in the family is gone that there's comfort in knowing that you know what they're proud of me they would what they're proud of me for going on they would want me to be happy it doesn't mean that you're supposed to take away their happiness you know you're not supposed to walk around and feel like gee you know this was so sad and like you said my dad suffering or my mom suffering so i can't burden you know anybody with this but that's exactly what they want you to do burden someone talk to the right people get the books go to camp  reassure parents should look for change consistent depression or or change change in behavior eating any type of eating talking playing going to school the performance in school their performance out of school are they coming out of their room do they have you know what are they doing are they are they just are there with our drawling they would write so your suggestion would be of course you know what would be the what's the first step my gosh my kids just like consistently the process first step is to have an honest conversation and i would say make it a casual you know it's not a public place but make it a casual conversation where they're most comfortable recognize that you're feeling differently how can i help you what can we do what can i do as a parent and also to show our humanity that we feel the same way now we're compassionate we're your parents but we're hum humans to i think that's important for the kids to do is that you know a step it's a first step so let them open up let them know that you're hurting as well and then and there is help yes and then if a if a child is not comfortable sharing with you th son was in distress or had issues a good place to talk was the car because they didn't have to make eye contact with you and you could drive and they could let things out without that that's actually that's a great and i use that example not only if something is going wrong but if you ever want to know how your children are the car and take them with a group of kids where and they talk freely and they actually do not even they're not day i get frustrated i get sad there isn't the time really that i talk about a loss that i don't cry well and that's ok with you that is a part of who i am not but i also will do many many many positive things  celebrate my life and my life with kevin and alina but one of the things that my children el dulce and one of the things i was sharing on friday night with a group of people is that when all of this was and you know i don't drink i don't do any of that stuff so i would come out feeling refreshed that anger part of me would be gone and everything was so you would feel refreshed and it would be you and you'll get it wrong enough to go on and i could go on and it was i'm so happy here and i want to also offer you something if this would help i'm doing this on television i know you've looked at my website and you know that i'm a fine artist and i act as if you guys would like a mural or something that i could do for pitts we'd be divorced decor and if your kids are in distress and they're not comfortable in their new space because they've been uprooted give me a call i can help nine seven three nine eight five four three eight six and the way in which i help is to design and decor and making them feel a sense of permanence again like they're not going to be uprooted and the way jodi helps is she gives them a break and lets them feel like they're not alone by going to her fabulous scale so