49: Parenting the Child You Weren’t Expecting with Margaret Webb

“He has been the best teacher because it’s just a matter of noticing and playing around with, what is the feedback that I'm getting from this other human being? And it’s just been absolutely amazing.” -Margaret Webb

In today’s episode, Coach Jill Farmer sits down with Margaret Webb. Margaret is a Life Coach who specializes in coaching parents on ‘Parenting the child they didn’t expect while they were expecting.’ Margaret and her neurosurgeon husband of 25 years have their own story of the unexpected. Tune in to hear this story and find out what led Margaret down the path of Coaching and how she has been helping others to find the freedom in shifting expectations.  

Margaret Webb is a parenting coach who specializes in supporting parents with children who are on their own developmental timeline or who simply march to the beat of their own drum. (ie. Autism, Anxiety, ADHD, ADD, SPD, Apraxic, Dyslexic, Learning Differences, etc.) She and her neurosurgeon husband of 25 years thought that they knew what to expect while they were expecting their now 17 year old son but quickly learned he had other things in store for them. Turned out that the most powerful and helpful lessons for them involved shifting their own expectations and internal rules rather than placing all of the focus on him. 

You can find Margaret Webb on her website, MargaretWebbLifeCoach, you can email her at margaretwebblifecoach@gmail.com or you can find her on Facebook and Instagram.

Excerpts from the show:

 

“So let's talk a little bit about your specific journey. You were working full-time as a busy teacher helping to support your husband. He was on the very long and arduous path of medical training to become a neurosurgeon. So then you guys decided it's getting to be time where you might want to become parents yourselves. Pick up the story there, if you would.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Yeah. We got married when we were 23. So we're about to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. But he was in his research year of his residency and we thought, ‘Ok, this will be an ideal time, because he'll be home more and we're almost at the end stretch of his neurosurgery residency.’ So we decided, ‘Ok, we're almost 30, this will be a great time to get pregnant.’ So we did and from there things got really interesting because things did not go as we expected. We got pregnant and then spent a year in Auckland, New Zealand ...before his chief residency year. He actually had to go to Auckland before I gave birth. I had the choice to either leave my teaching job when I was 30 weeks pregnant so that I could go with him and be over there in time to give birth or I could stay back in the states. So I chose to stay in the states to finish out my teaching year and then have our son at the hospital with the doctors that I knew. So he was not there when I gave birth, which was a very interesting thing because we ended up needing to have an emergency C-section and me not having medical knowledge didn't realize, ‘Like oh, maybe we should just demand to have this sooner than later.’ It ended up that our son had the cord wrapped around his neck, so he was losing oxygen and all sorts of things happened as a result of that. So he was born and things progressed. We went to New Zealand and everything was hunky-dory. Then towards the end of our one year there, it started to become apparent around his one year birthday that things weren't going as planned. He wasn't babbling, he wasn't responding to his name, he wasn't waving bye-bye and so that kind of set up some red flags for us. After the year was up we came back to the states. Then he did his chief residency year and I went back to teaching. Andrew went to daycare and things got even more challenging. He did not want to sit at the table, he didn't want to do certain things that the other kids his chronological age were able to do. So that was the start of our journey.’ -Margaret Webb

“So at that point, obviously, chief residency is not a laid-back year and you're trying to juggle parenting and your own career as a teacher. And feeling like, I know from previous conversations we've had, ‘I am a teacher. I should be able to handle this. We've got this. We've got a teacher and a brain surgeon, we can do this with this kid.’ So what was your behavior like at that time and what were you trying to achieve during that early time of knowing that maybe Andrew was on a different path from at least the other kids in daycare at that point?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer 

“So we definitely had been high-fiving each other beforehand thinking, ‘All right, we got this thing in the bag. We are going to be the best parents possible for this child based on our experience.’ At that time I went into full-blown warrior mode where I was just like, ‘Ok I've got to fix it. I've got to take care of everything.’ We had visited a pediatrician who happened to be one of the parents of the kids that I was teaching and she started asking questions and I got very defensive around anything regarding differences showing up with my child because you know it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is my baby, why are you saying this about my child? Like he's just a late talker, he's just like Einstein. You know, he's brilliant, clearly.’ So there was a lot of defensive warrior energy where I just really wasn't willing to accept that there might be something different. Now I did accept help in the form of a speech pathologist and play therapist who came to our house. We did evaluations, we did the hearing screening, we did all sorts of stuff but at that point in time because he was doing his chief residency year, I felt like I needed to take on everything and make sure that everything was done so that when he came home he got to be ‘park man’. You know, he'd come in and our son would grab him by the hand and take him down to the neighborhood park and they would goof around and swing. So it was very important for me to make sure that they had their relationship and that they maintained that. Looking back now, I realize that it was at the expense of not really bringing him in and allowing his input and support. Like we would go and do MRIs and I would do it by myself. They always ended up being a horrible horrible experience. You know, looking back, I'm like, ‘Ok, he would've been the perfect person to bring. Which I eventually did because I'm like, ‘He would know the language, he would know how to communicate certain things.’ But at that point it was like, ‘Ok I just need to do this all myself,’ which was not good.” -Margaret Webb

“So the final question in this part of the conversation, update us now on how hilarious and funny 17 year old Andrew is doing today.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer

“Yes, he is doing absolutely amazing. He's almost 18, which just blows my mind and he's super excited to become an adult. He thinks something magical is going to happen at 18 to make him suddenly independent, which cracks me up. But he's just kind of like Buddy the Elf. He's just joy and he loves being with other people and doing different things. He went to a social hour the other night with my mother-in-law and there was somebody in the parking lot. As I opened the door, she came over and she said, ‘I just have to say, ‘Do you realize what a joy your child is?’ He's just unapologetic of who he is and will compliment anybody. You know like, ‘Wow you look so beautiful’ or ‘I love your shirt.’ He doesn't have an ego and he doesn't have a social self filter which makes it so fun to be around. Now granted, he's also a teenager for the most part he is who he is and he continues to encourage me to be me unapologetically. I think these kids have a lot to teach us.” -Margaret Webb

 

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