The Power Transformation Podcast
The Power Transformation Podcast with Alethea Felton is where unstoppable resilience meets life-changing success. This Top 5% ranked show dives deep into the extraordinary journeys of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and visionaries who have shattered obstacles, conquered adversity, and redefined success on their own terms.
Hosted by resilience expert Alethea Felton who has thrived with autoimmune disease since birth, overcome severe stuttering, and turned setbacks into stepping stones, this podcast delivers raw, inspiring conversations packed with actionable strategies for personal and professional growth.
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The Power Transformation Podcast
122. A Mother's Love: Building Strength & Hope in Children's Communication with Jeaneen Tang
What if a mother's love could defy the odds and transform not only the life of her child but the lives of so many others? In this heartwarming episode, Jeaneen Tang, a devoted mother, accomplished author of Play Dumb & Sabotage, and seasoned speech-language pathologist, shares her journey of resilience as she navigated her son Che’s remarkable recovery from a traumatic brain injury and stroke. Blending professional expertise with maternal instinct, she reveals the powerful effect of early intervention, community support, and the healing power of music. With wisdom and warmth, Jeaneen offers invaluable insights for parents and professionals alike, showing how fostering strengths and embracing "ohana" (extended family) can empower children facing communication challenges.
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Episode 122's Affirmation:
My voice and message changes the lives of those around me because it is valuable, uplifting, and empowering.
I invite you to leave a positive message with your insights, feedback, or uplifting message.
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A mother's love is oh so powerful. And although it is not Mother's Day just yet, my guest today is a mother, and her name is Jeaneen Tang. Jeaneen is not only a seasoned speech language pathologist, but she is a devoted mother to her son, whose remarkable journey defied all odds. And Jeaneen's journey is a testament to the strength of belief, early intervention and the effect of how we connect with others, and it also speaks to having unwavering belief when all of the odds are against you. So, with that being said, welcome to the Power Transformation Podcast. I am your host, alethea Felton. I am so honored that you have joined us today for yet another amazing, absolutely fabulous episode, and go ahead and follow the Power Transformation Podcast if you have not done so already. I am grateful for all of the support.
Alethea Felton:I want to jump right into this powerful interview with Jeaneen Tang, and we are going to begin with our affirmation. I will say the affirmation once, and you repeat it. My voice and message changes the lives of those around me because it is valuable, uplifting and empowering. It is valuable, uplifting and empowering. It is my pleasure and my honor to have this guest today, Jeaneen Tang, and what's so amazing about her. Many of you know my story of having lived with stuttering my entire life, and so anytime that I come across someone who is doing work in the realm of speech pathology, I'm immediately intrigued. But there's so much more to her journey that she's going to tell us about, because she has such an incredible story of overcoming challenges and obstacles and really transforming what some people might consider pain. She's transformed that into purpose. So Jeaneen, to the Power Transformation Podcast. I'm so happy to have you.
Jeaneen Tang:Thank you so much for having me this morning. Thank you.
Alethea Felton:Thank you again, and so let's just jump right on into this. I am the type of host where I like to learn more about people, and so this is just a fun, lighthearted icebreaker question. But my question for you is, janine. Here in the States, we're about to celebrate. By the time that we're recording this Now, when it airs it'll be gone, but we are coming up on Thanksgiving. So my question to you is does your family celebrate Thanksgiving and, if so, how do you celebrate? And if not, what do you do instead?
Jeaneen Tang:We absolutely celebrate Thanksgiving, right, we all love to get together and have a meal, but we don't necessarily always have turkey. We are going to have turkey this year, but we are going to order it from this barbecue place and it's going to be deep fried.
Alethea Felton:Oh, that sounds so good.
Jeaneen Tang:I'm in Los Angeles and there's this great place called Blood so so my son's dad plans to order everything from there, all of the trimmings, whatever they're providing. When I'm in Hawaii and we do Thanksgiving, we have some turkey, but we also have prime rib, we do shrimp, my cousin loves to bring king crab legs, we have a salad and we have a whole bunch of other stuff. So we have our Thanksgiving dinner, but we don't necessarily need to keep it as traditional, as you might think back to where people usually do is so wonderful.
Alethea Felton:I grew up on the East Coast but I'm from Southeastern Virginia originally. My house is in DC but I grew up about four hours South, so I grew up in the Virginia Beach area, so seafood ruled. So I grew up eating a lot of seafood still love seafood to this day, and so just to hear about shrimp and crab and everything else. But it's just wonderful that you can come together with your loved ones and give thanks and celebrating each other Maybe not the historical way of what happened back then in our country, but just the fact you can come together and formally give thanks, and I share that, because so much of the work you do in my opinion definitely brings out gratitude in so many people off of the lives you change. So, before we dig deeply into that aspect, if someone were to ask you how would you describe
Alethea Felton:Tang? What would you say?
Jeaneen Tang:Oh, there's so many different sides to me, but most people that know me really well they know that I'm always busy. They always know that I am trying to do way too many things, whether it be speech therapy, whether it's coaching my son's basketball team at the YMCA, whether it's helping a friend do something or playing pickleball at the Y or playing volleyball or doing all kinds of things. I think they would say I'm busy but also very helpful and nurturing and always trying to think of others first and I'm a problem solver. So if you come to vent to me about a problem, I'm going to already be trying to solve it for you in my mind and how to connect you with somebody that could help you get your solution done.
Alethea Felton:Wow, and out of my own curiosity, would you say that you've always typically had a heart like that, even when you were growing up, even prior to you being a mom? Tell us a bit about how that nurturing and compassion and looking out for others even showed early on in your younger years growing up.
Jeaneen Tang:Absolutely, I can definitely track it back to when I was younger. My mom has always been, you know, we would go to the mall or something and she would see a baby. She'd always want to talk to the baby and try to play with the baby, and I think I get that from her. But also, you know, thinking back also, people ask me why did you start speech therapy? And I thought, you know the spark of helping and wanting to help people and the need to help people and be nurturing kind of stemmed from when my grandfather was ill and he passed away from lung cancer when I was eight years old old, and the need for wanting to have been able to help him but couldn't because I was so young.
Jeaneen Tang:I think that's part of it as well. And just being surrounded by great teachers and everybody who really taught me how to do certain things in my life, I kind of internalized that, subconsciously, I think, and just wanting to be helpful to other people, you know someone says, oh, do you, does anybody have a bandaid? I'm like I do, you know, but that's something I would have had before I had my son. I just have this maternal kind of compass that's like always kind of been there, I feel. So I was kind of a mom before I was a mom.
Alethea Felton:Wow, I absolutely love that. And I don't know you well yet or anything like that. We've had a screening but just in listening to you, I can already tell that while you help people, there's a difference between being a people pleaser versus genuinely helping people. And you're not a people pleaser. It is sincerely coming from a place in space, because you know your place in the world, you know your giftings and you want to be able to give back, and I think that's so honorable and much needed in this day and age. I just personally wanted to say that and it leads me to wondering. When I said earlier about speech pathology and of course you by profession, part of that is being a speech therapist. Will you put in layman's terms exactly what that is? I know, but sometimes people can just think, oh, if a person has a lisp or if a person stutters, they go to a speech therapist. But it's far more complex than that. Explain to us what exactly do you do as a speech therapist?
Jeaneen Tang:Absolutely. So I really didn't know what a speech therapist was until I was about to apply to the program because I thought I was going to go into physical therapy and then, you know, someone had mentioned speech therapy and I was like what is that? And so I didn't know about speech therapy really until I was about to go into grad school and, to break it down in layman's terms, like speech therapy, there's so many different aspects to it. But when you think about speech therapy, I think about communication, so understanding and being able to express. So a speech therapist really helps someone.
Jeaneen Tang:Maybe they're not able, the client is not able to understand, maybe their receptive language or understanding is not very developed, or they might have had a stroke or something that impacted their cognitive ability and they're not able to understand. And then the other aspect of speech therapy is expression right, whether it's using language to communicate or misarticulations or stuttering, something that is impacting their ability to communicate successfully to others. So I think about speech therapy as this huge thing right, because there's so many aspects to it. But when you really break it down, if you think about it as communication and the ability, teaching, the ability to understand and express, that's really the gist of it all and makes it more, I guess, relatable and understandable to most people.
Alethea Felton:Indeed, and I must attest to the fact that, with my mom having a background in it, she saw early on my speech impediment, and so therefore, when my I think my kindergarten teacher noticed it first, so when it was brought up for me to go into speech, I didn't have parents who gave pushback. And so also, I want to make it clear to the audience that not all speech therapists work in schools. There are also private firms as well, and I didn't ask you this in our screening, but it's my understanding. You don't necessarily work for a school system per se, right? You're independent contractors, so to speak, or am I correct?
Jeaneen Tang:Right now I don't work in the school system per se. I worked when I first started doing speech therapy. I worked in the school system in Hawaii in the Department of Education there for four years. When I moved to Los Angeles I worked. I was contracted to the Department of Education here, the Los Angeles Unified School District which is gigantic.
Alethea Felton:It's huge.
Jeaneen Tang:I worked in the school district for four years and then I kind of switched over to early intervention, which is typically zero to three years old, and I still have some private clients that I do that are a little bit more old, like older school age. So second grade, fifth grade and high school, but I also work with adults, so speech therapy can go from birth all the way to geriatrics, right.
Jeaneen Tang:So, I really like all populations and I didn't want to also lose the skill set to work with adults. So I work two days a week in the hospital with adults and that could be also understanding and expression of speech. It could also be swallowing what we call dysphagia the difficulty with swallowing, which could happen after a stroke. It could happen from something else, like they might have multiple sclerosis.
Alethea Felton:They might have.
Jeaneen Tang:Parkinson's, they might have dementia and forget what they're doing and kind of lose that attention to eating. So there's a whole gamut of things you could work, areas you could work in for speech therapy, and the schools is just one of them. Yeah, you could absolutely do early intervention, which is amazing. That's what I love, that's what you know. I wrote my book about early language development because I think that's the key to develop confident and successful communicators is getting them when they're young and then also promoting it as they get a little bit older.
Jeaneen Tang:So yeah, you could. You know, when I talk to students that are going to be speech therapists, I say there are so many different places you could work. The school is one, a private clinic is one.
Alethea Felton:You could be an independent contractor and do your own thing. You could own your own business, you could work in the hospitals, you could work in an acute rehab setting. There's just so the speaking and coaching and podcasting. I was a public school educator for 20 years, so I know exactly how the systems work, from teaching, from school leadership into HR are. And so, even with this discussion about speech therapy, there's such a multi-layered story behind it, and I want to transition into the crux and the heart of your journey of transformation, specifically due to something personal that happened to you that you did say, that you are comfortable speaking about. But I would say that this person is probably the light of your life, the favorite person in your world, and that is your beloved son, che. And so let's kind of take a step back here in talking about Che. Who is Che, and how did your life change for the better when you became Che's mom?
Jeaneen Tang:Oh, absolutely. He is definitely the light of my life. You know, he is 12 years old now and when I think of him, I think of dancing and singing and Michael Jackson, because that's like his big thing right now. And he also just discovered Milli Vanilli, really. So he's been playing Milli Vanilli like every day, nonstop. It's crazy, but he's, you know, he loves sports, so he loves basketball and he loves he used to do Taekwondo, he used to do Cub Scouts. There's all these different things about him and he is just. You know, he's five foot three now and I'm five foot four and before my next birthday he will be taller than me. Yes, he will, but he's such an amazing child with the biggest heart and he's so empathetic.
Jeaneen Tang:And you know, going back, you know if I could go back, I've been a speech therapist for 23 years now and when I was a young speech therapist, I loved working with children with special needs. I loved working with them and I appreciated them. I knew how much work it took to just teach them and I thought, well, I'm glad I'm not a parent of a child with special needs, because I just knew it would be so much work to be one. And then fast forward to 2012, my son was born Che and he's amazing and 2013, when he was 13 months old.
Jeaneen Tang:Unfortunately, he had a fall from our bed and he hit his head just the right way and had a large brain bleed. He had a traumatic brain injury and it required an emergency craniotomy. So they had to open up his skull to stop the bleeding. Then they had to, you know, close it all back up and a few days later the swelling caused a stroke, which a stroke is like a loss of blood loss, a loss of blood flow to an area of the brain, and that happened on the same side as his bleed. So it happened on the left side, which is our language center, and the left side of our brain controls the right side of our body. So he could not use the right side of his body. It was paralyzed per se right.
Jeaneen Tang:So they thought he might never walk or talk because he was 13 months old. This was a huge injury and you know he proved everybody wrong. You know he is very verbal. He might not be on par with children his age but he's in a regular education setting. Wow, he is. You know, he gets resource, special education and everything like that. He still has to get speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, adaptive PE all these therapies right. And then he developed seizures a few years ago. So there's all these things stacked up against him but he is doing amazingly. You know, he tried out for the school basketball team yesterday and and although you know he's definitely not at that level where other kids are, he still wanted to try and I love that.
Jeaneen Tang:I love that resilience about him and you know everybody was cheering him on, which was very. I said, how does that feel when they were cheering you on? He's like that was great. And then one of his classmates well, actually one of his schoolmates who's two years older picked him for the team because they were doing a scrimmage and like how did you feel, when Zeke picked you for his team, he goes that was exciting, mom.
Jeaneen Tang:So you know he's the light of my life and you know, after I had him, you know it really made me the different side of being a parent and a therapist.
Jeaneen Tang:But when he became disabled it really kind of almost gave me a superpower as a therapist because now I understood what parents were going through in a greater light.
Jeaneen Tang:I could see 360, rather than as a therapist I could see one point of view. I'm like this is what you should do, because I'm the therapist and I think you should do this X, y and Z. But now I'm a mother of a child with a disability and I've experienced everything that most of these parents are going through. And now I can come from, I can approach therapy and the way I work with parents in a way of a larger, different, a bigger way, because now I have greater empathy, I have greater perspective and they have a greater trust in me as well. They have this kind of a wall right, a wall of protection, because they think that a therapist is attacking their ego or they're attacking their parenting skills, where now that I have this superpower I can break down those walls and they're not so defensive and they really are more teammates in the whole picture rather than parent and therapist.
Alethea Felton:Wow, thank you for sharing it with such depth. I really appreciate that, because I can only imagine someone listening or watching this, who may be a parent and may have some challenges with their children, or could be even holding on to something themselves. And my question for you is you said something so key here and the strength you exude is just remarkable is that he had a fall. It was by no one's fault of anyone's doing baby's fall all the time. It's just a common thing. But my question for you is in that moment of when all of this was happening, how did you manage to keep putting one foot in front of the other? Because I won't speak for you, I know that for me, if that had happened to me, I would be thinking what could I have done? How did you walk in freedom during that time, knowing that it wasn't your fault, you didn't do anything wrong and you had to be all in for Che? How did you navigate that time while handling all of these changes?
Jeaneen Tang:Oh yeah, that was probably the most difficult point in my life because, even though I knew I wasn't at fault, people on the outside they obviously were like well, you must've done something.
Alethea Felton:You must have always have a credit. Yeah, so it was.
Jeaneen Tang:It was a very dark point in my life as far as, like this outside criticism that was going on. But I think the way that I got through it was focusing on Che, because you need to focus on what's really important in that moment, and it was my son. And how are we going to get him better, because we can't take that accident away. But thinking about him really got me through that moment and it continues to get me through that moment, because there's always going to be a little bit of guilt. You know, like, oh, what if I had, you know, been watching him better? Or what if I had done this or that? But you know he's the most resilient person I know and he's the bravest person. I know that, like, if he can keep going forward, I have to be able to as well.
Alethea Felton:That's right, and, and you know, you've answered in terms of what's giving you that strength, determination to keep moving forward, and I love the fact that it sounds to me, without even knowing Che is that, despite what people might see as this condition, he seems to have a heart of gold, and the outlook that he has on life, in my perspective, is purer than a lot of able-bodied people. And so you know, I'm thinking about the fact that you were already a speech pathologist for many years leading up to this, and so how did even your background in speech pathology influence the way that you approach Chase recovery and development?
Jeaneen Tang:Yeah, absolutely.
Jeaneen Tang:I'm very glad that I was a speech therapist beforehand, because I knew what kind of services he was going to need, right, and how to get that in place.
Jeaneen Tang:And because he was 13 months old, he was in that early intervention range, right so zero to three years old, and so I knew I was already working in early intervention at the time, and so I was able to put the dots together and be like I need to contact this organization in order to get all the evaluations in place so that when we went home, the therapies could start right away, because we lived in the hospital for three months Between 2013 to 2014,. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's in the hospital, and so he was getting the services there and as soon as we got home, we had the rest of the services in place. So that was really critical and I think if I wasn't a speech therapist working in early intervention especially if I was just a regular, normal parent I might've been too overwhelmed or I might have not even had the awareness of what would be available to my son.
Alethea Felton:In particular, although you knew what interventions needed to be done, is there anything that you can think of that's really been transformative for him over the years in his language development?
Jeaneen Tang:I think his love for music has been really helpful. Okay, he loves music and when I do therapy I also love. I do a lot of nursery rhymes and I'll put different sentences and words to different nursery rhymes. I'll kind of mix them up because the music center of our brain is on the right side of our brain and the language is on the left side of the brain, so it kind of melds those together and he's learned, you know, through rhythm and music and words. He's able to learn how to dance, he's learned how to sing, he has very good rhythm, for some reason, very good rhythm, and it also, you know, because he loves to sing and he loves watching music videos. He will watch the music videos with the words, the subtitles on them.
Jeaneen Tang:Oh, yes, so it really it really helps him with his reading as well, because now he's so motivated by the song, he's motivated by the words, that he wants to read the words. We saw a huge jump in his literacy when he started watching music videos with words on it. It was kind of in the middle of third grade where he was like his literacy level was going up and up and up. And now you know he's not reading at grade level because he's sixth grade, but he is. He loves reading, he reads every night with me whether it's him reading, or I'm reading, every night without fail.
Jeaneen Tang:We read a book.
Alethea Felton:And that makes a difference.
Alethea Felton:That makes a world of difference, and so I just appreciate how, how involved you are as a parent. I have very active parents too, and that's helped a lot, and so you are showing how early interaction can shape a child's development. And so in this case, Janine, and thinking about although you had the background prior to you being a mom how has being a mother who is giving your child that care and what they need for their language development specifically, how has that changed or even maybe refined your approach to how you help parents and clients?
Jeaneen Tang:Absolutely. I definitely stress more often now that parents learn how to interact and play and get down to their child's level. And you know I had one mom who I was working with her daughter on speech therapy because her daughter was already two years old and not really talking. And once we started working together and I started giving them strategies, you know she was very forthcoming and was like I didn't know I had to interact with her that much because as a parent, you know they wanted to make sure the child was warm, right and not wet, and that make sure the child was fed and not crying or uncomfortable. So they were just, they were taking care of the child like great parents, you know. They were making sure the child was comfortable and fed and warm and all this stuff and that they had toys around them. But they didn't know that you should be singing with them, that you should be reading to them all the time.
Jeaneen Tang:You should be face to face and playing with them and touching their face, having them touch your face, doing all sorts of little nuanced things. That you know is an exchange of energy and communication. They didn't realize that that was so important because they were so in the mindset of, as long as they are dry and fed and warm, that the baby was fine.
Alethea Felton:That's so eye-opening what you say, because a person like me, coming from a background of having interactive parents and things of that nature I don't have children of my own. However, having worked with kids, of course, over the years I grew the philosophy that parents are doing the best they can with the capabilities and the capacity that they have. That's what I wholeheartedly believe. Some might argue that, but I really think so, and so I think that it is quite a blessing that they have someone like you who can give them more tips and strategies, and that you make parents feel comfortable enough to say, hey, I didn't know that I was supposed to do this. But knowledge certainly is power, because once they do know it, then they can change.
Alethea Felton:But what I find amazing about your story is that you decided to take what you knew to an even higher level and just not keeping everything you knew for your clients, but you actually decided to write a book so that the world could know more strategies and tips. So take us on that journey of you raising your child, having your own personal life, being active with all this Girl. When did you have time to write a book and when did that idea come for you to even say I need to write this book. Take us on that author journey.
Jeaneen Tang:Oh my gosh. So I've you know, I thought about writing like worksheets and all these things and I would write little like little, little bullet point papers to send home with parents, like this is what you should do. But I started seeing so many kids in early intervention that were actually normal developing otherwise. They're physically sound, cognitively sound, but they were just late talkers. If we could really increase the parent training across the board, we could actually decrease the number of kids that needed speech therapy that's what my theory is right and also these other parents that have a child with a disability. They could get some strategies as well.
Jeaneen Tang:So it was really creating a greater outreach, because I'm only one person and I can't duplicate myself, but I can put my information down on paper or in a book and have it be very simple. I wrote it as a conversational piece rather than a textbook, right, so anybody can pick it up. I've had, you know, friends who they're like. I read your book and they don't even have kids they're like. But I can use it with my niece or nephew and one of my friends he's like my niece is a speech therapist. I sent it to her as well because you know, we know my old, when I was a graduate student or when I graduated, my colleagues were in their thirties, forties, so they were much older and now they're retired.
Jeaneen Tang:And they read my book and they're like every new speech therapist needs to read it because it is super conversational. It's not, it doesn't, it doesn't says this is what you're going to have to know, but it's very, very short and after every chapter there's a worksheet or there's an exercise where you can apply what is talked about in the chapter and apply it. So, like one chapter is don't ask a yes, no question unless you're ready to honor the no which we all ask. Kids yes, no questions Are you ready to work?
Jeaneen Tang:no, which we all ask kids. Yes, no questions. Are you ready to work? Are you ready to clean up? Are you ready to have dinner? Are you ready to brush your teeth? And if they say no, then we need to really honor that. No, because otherwise, you know, it becomes this like, oh, you're not really listening to what I'm saying because I'm saying no, but you're still telling me I still need to clean up, I still need to have dinner.
Jeaneen Tang:I still need to do these things. So it's approaching it where you might ask a yes, you might ask a question where there's choices. So you know, what do you want to do first? Do you want to read a book or do a puzzle? What do you want to do first? Do you want to brush your teeth or change into pajamas? You know we're going to do these two things. Which one do you want to do first? Or what do you want to eat? I'm sure we've all gone down that rabbit hole of what do you want to eat. Do you want to have an apple? And they go no. Do you want to have a banana? No. Do you want a cookie? No. Do you want this? And you go no, no, no, no, a choice. And you hold it about shoulder width apart. Then, as long as they're looking towards one of them, even if they can't speak, you can speak for them and say oh yeah, let's have an apple. I love apples. They're so crunchy.
Jeaneen Tang:Or when I used to dress my son in the morning. You know, when you kids don't know vocabulary until they're introduced to it, right?
Jeaneen Tang:Yeah so if you're just saying like, do you want to wear the green shirt, do you want to wear the red shirt or whatever it is, then they don't know what it is really. But if I hold it up and say, do you want to wear the green shirt or the red shirt? And even if he can't speak, he can look at one of them, right, like, yeah, let's wear the green shirt, I love green. You know that grass is green and grasshoppers are green, and you know you can just continue what we call language bombardment. So you have a topic and you continue to talk about that topic in different ways as well.
Alethea Felton:Wow, wow. Where can people purchase your book? Is it on Amazon?
Jeaneen Tang:It is on Amazon, it's where you can, on every online book seller.
Alethea Felton:Oh okay, oh great, oh wonderful, Okay. So I'll be sure to put that in the show notes. And so I like how you've taken these strategies and you've turned them into a book, and so when you do podcast interviews or you speak, you can talk about how you implement those strategies. But I want to go back to Che for a second. And what has your son taught you, , about perseverance, strength and also the power of the human spirit that you now also pass on to the families that you work with in your practice?
Jeaneen Tang:Yeah, so Che he has the biggest heart, right.
Alethea Felton:And.
Jeaneen Tang:I say that he's the most resilient person because things, like I said, are stacked so high against him. But he's still trying out for basketball at school. I was like, are you sure? These kids are 12 to 14 years old, they're very fast and he goes. I want to do it, mom. They're very fast and he goes, I want to do it, mom.
Jeaneen Tang:So it kind of gives me that courage to try things that I think are too, maybe too difficult or you know that I think I might not be good at. He's like well, I want to try it and let me, you know, let's, I can still do it. You know he wants to give it a try, even though the you know he might not succeed per se. You know he's not afraid of failure.
Jeaneen Tang:And, um, or when I, when I approach my parents that I work with, um, you know a lot of the strategies I work with them on are things I worked with Che on. You know like I'm saying, like you know when I, so I can have that kind of mirrored kind of example of, oh, when Che was learning this, this is what I did with him, and so they're like oh, it worked with him, so I think it'll work with my child as well, so it kind of gives them an understanding to see, because a lot of the kids I work with are little. You know, they're so young and Che's already been there and he has a disability on top of that. A lot of these kids don't necessarily have a disability, but they are just late talkers and if it can work for him, it can work for them as well.
Alethea Felton:And just in you sharing all of this and and I'm by no means taking away the seriousness of the condition or what you have to go through on a day-to-day but I feel so light and free in this interview because, although you know what has happened to your son, what I love about you, janine, is that doesn't have to be his entire existence and being, meaning that he is still breathing, he's still alive, he's still here, he's still present. So why not give him the gift of life? Because he has it. And I'm just saying I think that sometimes people can see their conditions, and I'm not saying you don't have your private times when it can feel heavy. That's not what I'm saying.
Alethea Felton:But what I'm saying is you've literally taken this concept of taking what a person might view as lemons, and you've not only made lemonade, but you've made lemon cake and lemon iced tea and lemon popsicles. I mean everything that you can imagine from it. And I just had this aha moment that, while we don't know the what ifs, it's almost like wow, if this accident hadn't happened, then Janine might not have written the book, she might not have been able to affect people. So it's just so amazing how blessings can come. But then, more importantly, che has friends and people that like him, and he is creating a life for himself. And so that leads me to ask what words of wisdom would you give to a parent that may be having a child that has a physical or a learning disability particularly, and they may feel overwhelmed at times, but yet they know they want to be all in for their child? What would you say to them so that they can just keep going another day to put one foot in front of the other?
Jeaneen Tang:Oh, yeah, there's. You know there are days where you're just like, oh, this is very overwhelming. But I think, when you think about, when I think about my child Che, I always look at what his strengths are, what his little superpower is. Right, he might be behind academically, he might not be on par with other kids, but he has his own little superpower that nobody else has. Right, he has his ability to be empathetic, to love music, to dance, to be able to do his Michael Jackson moves. And for every parent who has a child with a disability, or even not a disability, they need to find the gems within that child and let those gems shine, because they're so important.
Jeaneen Tang:To find a strength in kids rather than to look at what the kid needs to improve on per se right, there's always going to be something to improve on whether it's in ourselves or our children, but when we think about what our strengths are and how we can promote those and develop those, I think that's what's really important. And so to just get from today to tomorrow, it's like what are you grateful for Coming up with our Thanksgiving here, which is it's going to be passed by the time this is out? But thinking about what you're grateful for, I think, is way more important than to be critical about what you need to improve on.
Alethea Felton:That's right, that is so true. And in going back to the idea of giving thanks and looking at the strengths as opposed to what could be considered deficits, and actually turning them into something positive, share briefly with us the power of community and a support system. How has that helped you over the years in raising Che?
Jeaneen Tang:Oh yeah, you know it takes a tribe right to raise a child. That's right and it does. And you know I moved here from Hawaii. So To raise a child, that's right and it does. And you know I moved here from Hawaii. So my immediate family, they're all in Hawaii or Northern California but not in Los Angeles.
Alethea Felton:Hundreds of miles away, yes, yes, miles away. It's far Across an ocean.
Jeaneen Tang:So you know, we have my son's father is here. We're not married, but we are, we co-parent.
Jeaneen Tang:Well, so we've taken on his, his, uh, best friend I call her my sister-in-law and, um, she's one of my best friends as well and to build a tribe around you with supportive people. That's so important. And you know little things. Like you know, we go to the local ymca here and you know little things. Like you know, we go to the local YMCA here and you know everybody knows Che there, whether you know whether they really know him or not. He's been around for so long. He goes to camp there, day camp in the summertime he plays basketball there. So that community has really helped us out as far as like having the inclusion for him to be a part of an organization. And I play pickleball there and Chase learned how to play pickleball and he loves it. You know he'll come with me to pickleball and everybody at pickleball knows Che.
Jeaneen Tang:So it's like when you talk about community, it's like there is a support system, whether it's in our immediate circle, family, you know, with his dad and our friends, or if it's even at the YMCA or my other friends, that everybody knows him.
Jeaneen Tang:And you know we don't shy away that he, that he has a disability, everybody knows he has a disability, everybody knows his struggles, but they also know his heart and they've. You know, even though sometimes it might feel like there's so much, it's overwhelming If I just reach out and say like, hey, I need a little bit of help. You know, can you help me watch him? Or can you? You know we're going to be doing this activity, can you join in with us? There are people, are right on top of it. They're like yeah, we'll help you out, whatever you need. And when we do activities at the Y, it's like they expect him to be there because he's just a part of that community and it's, you know, for him to. You know, in Hawaii we call everybody aunties and uncles, whether they're related to us or not. So in a sense he has so many aunties and uncles and so many cousins, even though they're not actually blood related.
Jeaneen Tang:In a sense we call it ohana in Hawaii, which means family right.
Alethea Felton:So he has a big, big extended ohana, or big extended family, with all these people that we have in our different communities. Wow, and thank you for educating me on the fact that your culture says aunts and uncles, because I'm a Southerner and I'm Black and also Hispanic and even in those cultures aunts and uncles. So I might say this is aunt, so-and-so, and it's my mom's best friend and it's not really my aunt, but she is my aunt.
Alethea Felton:So yeah, exactly, exactly I understand and that makes family it does yeah, it really does. And my heart is just so full that you have such a support system and you. I always think, especially when you make yourself friendly, then it gravitates, people will gravitate, and the fact you had to just have the courage at times to even say I need help Can you help me? And I think sometimes people would be surprised at the amount of people that would help if they said that they needed the help. And I know I had to in my own personal life, break through those barriers at times in the past when I was really really sick and I knew that I needed extra help and people will come to the rescue.
Alethea Felton:As I bring this to a close, I just have a couple of more questions. One is more of a technical question, going back to the work that you do, and the last will be more heart-centered. But in thinking about the work that you do, what's a message or a strategy from your work that you would encourage every parent or caregiver or even educator to walk away with? When it comes to working with children that have learning learning no, no, no, language, I'm sorry, language disabilities, what's one message or strategy you would give them?
Jeaneen Tang:Slow down your speech just a little bit, right? So I think that that's one of the biggest things is that as adults, we tend to speak so quickly, right? So if we're having this huge conversation and the words are just going past these kids' ears, it's almost like learning a foreign language, right? So if you just slow your speech down just a little bit and have that eye contact and use like whole body talking right, we talk with our hands, we talk with our expressions, our facial expressions, our body, so kind of using that as one of the key things and just slow your speech down, be more expressive and then really don't make the child feel that you're rushing through the communication. Let them feel that they are the center of that communication and they will understand and be able to express so much more they will understand and be able to express so much more.
Alethea Felton:Thank you for that. And if people wanted to connect with you or just learn more about you, how can they find you?
Jeaneen Tang:They can go to my website it's playdumbandsabotagecom, and there they can download a free PDF on how to apply some of the play, dumb and sabotage strategies into their daily life. And then also I'll be posting all the podcasts that I've been on there and then any like web webinars or workshops that I'll be hosting or teaching, and also they can just reach out with any questions that they might have.
Alethea Felton:Thank you. Thank you so much for that. And, janine, as we wrap this up, my question for you is this in looking at your life from way back, all the way until now, what have you learned yourself?
Jeaneen Tang:I would say that I think my understanding rooted and I have a hard time saying no If someone asks for help. I'm like, yeah, I'll help you, and sometimes that's a fault of mine. I say yes too much, but I really do want to help people and whether it's my son's dad is like people, and whether it's you know, my son's dad is like you know, he donates blood because I donate blood and he's like I don't you know.
Jeaneen Tang:You know like I'll do something, I'll lead by example rather than you know telling people that they should be doing X, y and Z. I try to lead by example. So, whether it's donating blood or volunteering my time someplace, or you know like I'm coaching basketball for my son's team, volunteering- yeah volunteering. There's a lot of things that are going on, but I feel like there is that if we can do something, we should do something to help somebody. We should.
Alethea Felton:And I did say that was the last question, but this came to me and I'm going to say something lighthearted, but you probably have a super woman cape under your clothes somewhere because of everything that you do, because I forgot to bring up the fact that you're the coach for the basketball team and I'm like what that's. So I love it, I absolutely love that. But my last question is if you were to say something to Che about how he's made your life better, what would you say?
Jeaneen Tang:about how he's made your life better. What would you say? Oh, I probably tell it to him all the time. I tell him that you know you're the best person I know and you want me to, you want me, you sorry, you make me want to be a better person every day a better person every day.
Alethea Felton:What a gift it is for you to be Che's mom and for Che to be your son, and that is definitely, definitely light in human form from how you describe Che and I continue to hope nothing but the best for you, for Che, for Che's father and your entire village, and that Che will grow, continue to beat and defy every odd that people may want to set against him, and that he lives a long, thriving and prosperous life, and that you do the same prosperous life and that you do the same.
Alethea Felton:Thank you, janine Tang, for not only gracing us with your presence here on the Power Transformation Podcast, but for sincerely making a difference in this world and helping people transform beyond what they could ever imagine. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Power Transformation Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe, leave a five-star rating and write a review. It helps us inspire even more listeners and don't keep it to yourself. Share it with someone who could use a little power in their transformation. Until next time, keep bouncing back, keep rising and be good to yourself and to others.
