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.

Welcome, everyone. I am so excited to be talking to John Wilson today. He's the executive director

of SOAR, a nonprofit residential boarding school, GAP program, and adventure summer camp,

serving youth with learning and attention challenges. So he has a master's degree in outdoor

therapeutic recreation. Recreation, that's a mouthful administration, and his certified wilderness first

responder. He's served on the National Board for Chad and is the president of Learning

Disabilities Association of North Carolina. He's led hundreds of adventures, courses with

youth diagnosed with learning disabilities in ADHD.

He actively presents to parents and professionals at local state and national conferences.

So welcome, John. I'm so excited you're here today with us.

It's a pleasure.

So today we're talking about nurturing strengths. And I think that's so important because oftentimes we focus on getting children to

stop or do something different. And we kind of miss the opportunity to see all these beautiful

strengths that they have and how we can support them in those strengths.

So great topic today.

So I'm going to start with, you were talking about my coffee cup, peace love coffee,

but imagine that this coffee cup is half full.

Are you a half full or half empty kind of person, Holly?

You know, it depends on the day, John. It really does. So that's a great, that's a great answer. But imagine that this cup of this cup of coffee isn't a cup of coffee, it's actually a child. All right?

And let's say that you, on this particular day you're a half full person

and the the coffee cup is half full i ask parents all the time what is your job as it relates to

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