Welcome to the WIRE Differently podcast where we chat all about how to best support exceptional children.

I'm your host, Holly Blanc Moses, the mom psychologist who gets it.

Today I am talking to the fabulous Tiffany Joy Long about finding your people. So building support systems

for parents and caregivers of differently wired kids. So Tiffany is a mom to a wonderful and

completely adorable little boy named Jackson who has autism. And she enjoys being with her

family and spending time with friends and reading and crocheting. She's incredibly talented.

Her passion is helping mothers of differently wired children connect with others who understand

this special journey. So welcome, Tiffany. I am, oh my gosh, I love talking to you.

I can talk to literally all day. Oh, yeah, we could go all day. We could go all day.

So we're talking about finding your people, okay? First, let's, we're just going to dive right in

because this is not only for moms.

It's not only for dads. It's not only for caregivers. This is for professionals too.

Mm-hmm.

Because I feel like as a professional and a parent, I need this too. Right. So let's get started with why do we even need a support system?

How do we even know we need one? There's so many indicators that we need one and sometimes we don't

recognize them as indicators. We just think it's life, but sometimes like it's a little bit more

than the typical everyday stuff going on. So there's,

there's a bunch of ways, but number one really would probably be your stress level and stress

levels are very high for parents, especially needs children. And there's so much research out there

showing. Yes. Higher cortisol levels, higher stress levels, and really off the

charts. I did my undergraduate honors thesis on parenting stress and differently wired kids,

and it was literally off the chart. Yeah. Yeah, that's big. And I don't think, I don't think we as parents realize that it's

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