Help Kids to Understand their Brains and Assessments with Dr. Liz Angoff: Episode 213

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I speak with Educational Psychologist Liz Angoff. We discuss when and why a child might need an assessment, what information you get from an assessment, how to help children understand their brains and diagnosis, and celebrating neurodiversity.**If you’d like an ad-free version of the podcast, consider becoming a supporter on Substack! > > If you already ARE a supporter, the ad-free version is waiting for you in the Substack app or you can enter the private feed URL in the podcast player of your choice.Know someone who might appreciate this post? Share it with them!We talk about:* 7:00 What are some signs that your child should get an assessment?* 9:00 Getting to the “why” and the “so what”* 10:00 What do you assess for?* 14:00 Why it is important to get an assessment?* 23:00 Should you tell your child about their diagnosis?* 31:00 Scripts and metaphors for talking to your kids about diagnosis* 39:00 Red and Green flags with clinicians* 44:00 Celebrating neurodiversityResources mentioned in this episode:* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player* The Peaceful Parenting Membership* Dr. Liz’s website and booksxx Sarah and CoreyYour peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching sessionVisit our website for free resources, podcast, coaching, membership and more!>> Please support us!!! Please consider becoming a supporter to help support our free content, including The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, our free parenting support Facebook group, and our weekly parenting emails, “Weekend Reflections” and “Weekend Support” - plus our Flourish With Your Complex Child Summit (coming back in the spring for the 3rd year!) All of this free support for you takes a lot of time and energy from me and my team. If it has been helpful or meaningful for you, your support would help us to continue to provide support for free, for you and for others.In addition to knowing you are supporting our mission to support parents and children, you get the podcast ad free and access to a monthly ‘ask me anything’ session.Our sponsors:YOTO is a screen free audio book player that lets your kids listen to audiobooks, music, podcasts and more without screens, and without being connected to the internet. No one listening or watching and they can’t go where you don’t want them to go and they aren’t watching screens. BUT they are being entertained or kept company with audio that you can buy from YOTO or create yourself on one of their blank cards. Check them out HERESarah: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today my guest is Dr. Liz Angoff, who is an educational psychologist. She does testing, looking at helping kids understand how their brain works and helping their adults understand how their children’s brains work. She has loads of wonderful resources, which we will link to in the show notes.I love how Dr. Liz takes this approach. It’s about how our brains can work in different ways, and understanding that really can help our child understand themselves, and help us understand our child in a better way.As you’ll hear in this conversation with Dr. Liz, she really talks about how, if your child is experiencing some challenges or struggles—or you’re experiencing struggles or challenges with them—it can be helpful to get an assessment and possibly a diagnosis to understand exactly what’s going on and how your child’s brain works. Whether it could be anxiety or depression or neurodivergence or learning challenges or any sorts of things that can be uncovered through psychological testing, you can really understand the differences in your child’s brain that could be making life feel more challenging for them and/or for you. And she has a beautifully neurodiversity-affirming lens, where she talks about—you’ll hear her talk about this in the episode—looking at a child’s brain in terms of both the strengths and the challenges.As always, we would love if you would share this episode with anyone you think might find it useful, and leave us a five-star rating on your favorite podcast player app and leave us a review. It really helps us reach more families and therefore help more families.Alright, let’s meet Dr. Liz.Hello, Dr. Liz. Welcome to the podcast.Liz: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here, Sarah.Sarah: Me too. So tell us about who you are and what you do before we dive in.Liz: Right. Well, I go by Dr. Liz, and I am a licensed educational psychologist. I’m in the Bay Area, California, and my focus—my passion—is working with kids to understand how their brains work. I am a testing psychologist, so I do assessment to understand, when things are challenging for kids, why things are challenging and ...