This week was such a packed conversation with Joya Van Der Laan. Two of her three children have special needs including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Intermittent Explosive Disoder (IED). We quickly got into a deep conversation centered around guilt/grief, faith, and alternative medicine.
Joya initially describes her feelings of guilt and grief that have riddled her motherhood journey. She goes on to say, its okay to feel how you feel, especially when we aren’t expecting the struggles that are thrown our way. Having a special needs child has really deepened the valleys and heightened the peaks we experience in life.
We talk about loving a child unconditionally, a child who is not how you expected. How loving a that can be difficult to love it so hard!
Joya describes herself as a Granola, natural mom. She says she’s always trying to find more natural ways to come to the roots of her children’s struggles. This is her mission as a functional medicine specialist, to help others beyond her own children. She focuses on integrative and alternative therapies, many you can start at home to come to more conclusions about your children’s struggles,
Joya and her husband now release videos to help overwhelmed parents, a series called Your Autism Game Plan.
There is so much more from Joya and so many insights. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much and we did.
Who is Joya?
Joya Van Der Laan is a wife, mother of 3, family nurse practitioner, functional medicine specialist, and business owner. As if that didn’t make life complicated enough, two of her three children have special needs including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Intermittent Explosive Disoder (IED). After receiving her daughter’s ASD diagnosis in 2014 when she was 3 years old, Joya’s innate curiosity and passion for learning drove her to ask, “am I doing enough to help my children through these diagnoses?” Feeling woefully unprepared, even with her medical training and clinical background, Joya started researching treatments including both traditional and integrative options. It was overwhelming, eye-opening, hopeful, and exhausting all at the same time. “I very clearly remember feeling like I was in over my head, even as a trained medical professional. I wondered, ‘how in the world must parents who have no medical background feel going through this?'” There were (and still are) feelings of guilt, grief, overwhelm, and exhaustion. This is what prompted Joya and her husband, Dave, to start Your Autism Game Plan, an online resource for parents and caregivers of children with ASD. Her goal is to provide a different perspective, including the integrative treatment options that are not generally discussed in the traditional medical and therapy settings. “Parents need to know this stuff because our kids need help beyond what is typically offered, and searching online is just too overwhelming and time-consuming,” Joya says. In addition to all the free videos and other resources on the website, she is coming out with a fully online, self-paced course in the Spring that will offer parents a chance to learn practical and actionable ways that they create their child’s Autism game plan, including safe and effective integrative therapies, and help their child manage many of the bothersome symptoms that so often come along with Autism.
Connect with Joya:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/yourautismgameplan/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeK_KYCsTPhMzxfezM6tTBw(You Autism Game Plan)
FB: https://www.facebook.com/YourAutismGamePlanInc
Website – www.YourAutismGamePlan.com
Connect with Kara:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/Kararyska/
Website: https://www.kararyska.com/
Pathway to Peace Consult: Link Here
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Mentioned in the Episode: The Place We Find Ourselves Podcast and More
