161 – Canadian Entrepreneur Chris Jones, Father of Two, Including A Son With Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special, thanks to horizon therapeutics for sponsoring today’s special father’s network, dad to dad podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about horizon therapeutics, mission at horizontherapeutics.com.

Chris Jones: How do I make sure that my wife and I get time to ourselves? You know, as her desire was like, oh, I got to take care of him. I gotta be around him. I’m the only one that fully understands them and can help him. I’m like, he’ll be okay if someone else watches him for a bit, we need to have our relationship as the foundation of this.

And let’s not forget that

Tom Couch: that’s our guests this week. Entrepreneur Chris Jones. Chris has two boys tray and Derek who has DCB, dyspraxia, optic glioma. We’ll hear about Chris, his family and how he loves to coach people on this special. Dan doodad podcast say hello to David Hirsch. Hi,

David Hirsch: and thanks for listening to the dad to dad podcast, fathers, mentoring, fathers of children with special needs presented by the special fathers there’s network.

Tom Couch: The special fathers network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to see. Dads to find out more, go to 21st century dads .org

David Hirsch: and if your dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we’d be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com groups and search dad to dad

Tom Couch: and now let’s hear this fascinating conversation between Chris Jones and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I am thrilled to be talking today with Chris Jones of Calgary, Canada.

Who’s the father of two boys, the successful serial entrepreneur and founder of strategic traction, a coaching business, which is part of the EOS or entrepreneurial operating systems worldwide. Chris, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the special fathers name. Uh, happy

Chris Jones: to be here.

Thanks for having me.

David Hirsch: You and your wife, Yolanda. I’ve been married for 23 years and are the proud parents of two boys, trey 14 and older brother, Derek 17, who was born prematurely. And after some misdiagnosis was diagnosed with DCD developmental coordination disorder. Also known as dyspraxia. Let’s start with some background.

Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Chris Jones: Sure. Calgary boy, born and raised third generation. Actually my fed both my families are from this area. I was the oldest of three boys and we moved to the countryside just outside of Calgary when I was five and grew up there, spent my entire childhood in the country and moved to try to find weed.

We had the, just the gift of living on this acreage. In the Prentice area, that is just the most beautiful area. We had a toboggan hill and Creek running across the property and, you know, we could ski on it and hike on it and, oh, it’s just gorgeous. We were caretakers of a place. I mean, we had a tennis court and paved driveways and it was quite a, an incredible place to grow up on.

David Hirsch: Well, I imagine you and your brothers must have spent a fair amount of time outdoors.

Chris Jones: We did. Yeah, there were big fields, like sports fields, like big six acres of law. And that we, you know, one of our jobs was to cut the lawn, which was great because it gave us a lot of areas to throw a baseball or a football and play soccer and run around and do whatever we wanted to do as amazing build forts in the trees.

And the toboggan hill even had like, A drainage ditch running across the toboggan hill, which created a natural jump. And so, uh, we didn’t even have to dig our, take a shovel out to make a jump.

David Hirsch: So I’m curious to know, what did your dad do for a living?

Chris Jones: He was a teacher and an entrepreneur, and he had a small cabinet making business.

And my mom refinished a antique furniture. She ended the finishing on his new work and did the refinishing on older, older.

David Hirsch: Excellent. So I’m sort of curious now, how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Chris Jones: Oh yeah, really good. I, I was, um, I was always considered a carbon copy of my dad. We looked the same.

We talk the same by the time I was 14, I could pretend I was him on the phone and the family members wouldn’t know the difference and had a lot of similarities in the way we did things and the way we act and stuff. And that was interesting. He coached me in basketball and, uh, taught me in school and had a math course with them.

And we drove to, and from school, which is a half hour drive each way, all through my high school. And so that was quite an amazing experience, challenging at times, because we were very close when he was teaching me, coaching me and driving to, and from we, we managed to survive that pretty well. And we got pretty.

Yeah, pretty good relationship with him, for sure. And then two years ago to the day he had a stroke, uh, 69 years old and you know, he’s in a wheelchair and a long-term care facility. Now he’s got dementia, vascular dementia. So life is short. My friend, it’s a very different relationship. Now that’s been a difficult one to know.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, thanks for sharing. Uh, my first thought was the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree based on all the similarities that you had. And I was very saddened to learn about, uh, your dad’s stroke and the conditions he’s in currently. And 69 seems relatively. Oh, yeah, frighteningly young. So my heart reaches out to you and your family as it relates to, um, what’s going on with your dad.

I’m sort of wondering if, uh, you reflecting on the relationship with your dad and the role model that he has been. If there an important to take away or two that come to mind, a lesson learned or something that you’ve tried to incorporate into your own parenting or fathering? Yeah.

Chris Jones: We had a fairly significant family event when I was 24.

My 19 year old brother passed away in a car accident and obviously pretty traumatic, like not I’m the oldest of 23 cousins, first cousins on my mom’s side. My one grandpa died when I was one and a half. So I didn’t know him, but other than that, no one else in my family had passed away and my youngest brother goes.

And so that was quite the journey as a family that we had to go through. We ultimately came to the point where, you know, it became pretty obvious, pretty fast that things wouldn’t be left on this. A lot more hugs, lot more. I love you’s, you know, life is short and let’s embrace that journey for what it is.

I think that helped, um, all of us get a little bit closer through that journey. And when we’d have challenges, we just speak about them as uncomfortable as it might be.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. And I’m very sorry to hear about your younger brother passing at such a young age as well. So let’s switch gears, talk about special needs.

So I’m sort of curious to know what is Derek’s diagnosis and how did they come about?

Chris Jones: So my wife is a public health nurse and deals with moms and new babies. So you want to talk about armed with tools. She is well armed with that kind of thing. And so she assesses babies right after they go home. And mom’s make sure everything’s okay.

So we had our baby and within hours, she’s like, yeah, this kid’s got delays. And then he had some eye issues and you know, but just the way he is his hands and the way his eye, like he looked and the way he moved his body, there was something that she could tell was delayed right out the gate. So that. The danger of having someone in the medical profession know stuff very quickly.

Anyway. So then, um, the eyes were something very noticeable. They shaped and they, they shifted to the side and the, we go to see some doctors about this and they ask us to come in and they give us a diagnosis that he has optic glioma. Of course I knew nothing what this was, and I should neither did my wife do Yolanda.

But if you’ll add, I mean, who she issues as well, I’m going to go find out what that means. And so she goes and researches it and optic gliomas a thickening of the optic nerve. It typically leads to blindness by the age of 12 and the kids often don’t live beyond 20 something to this nature. So here we are with a brand new baby at home.

He’s five weeks premature. So he spent the first week in the house. In prenatal care. And then we go home and they’re like, well, look, don’t expose your kid to the outside world. Cause he’s, you know, he was born at four pounds, three ounces. He doesn’t have a lot of constitution by the way. You’ve now got this diagnosis.

So we were like, instead of celebrating the birth of our new kid, where we’re almost in a period of mourning and isolated, like I don’t see anybody. And, uh, you know, your kid’s probably going to die before. It was a really strange position to be. And as we came to grips with this on our own, I mean, Skype was barely even a thing.

Is it zoom wasn’t around and FaceTime was, I don’t think we even had an iPhone back then. So we were, you know, phone calls with friends and family, but that got old fast. And so we’re just really the three of us at home dealing with. And we eventually just came to the realization of like, well, you know, this is not great, but this is a wonderful little baby.

He’s super brilliant and tons of fun. And, and we could sit and more mourn what might happen in the future. Or we could just say, you know what, we’re going to embrace every moment for what it is. Life is short. And so we chose that path and, uh, As he grew in his health and constitution increased and everything.

And it’s like, okay, you can go more about being normal as parents. We go to see the doctors again. They’re like, oh, by the way, our diagnosis was wrong. Your kids just got some going to need eye surgery at some point, but he’s going to live a normal, healthy life. We’re like, oh, okay, well, we’re kind of through the hard part of this, but thanks for letting us know.

I wish I want to tell us anything in the first place, you know, sent us on quite the journey of having to deal with grief, you know, needlessly. So, you know, not to mention, you know, first kid, first kids always the most shock to the system. And then you end up with this. It was just a real big punch in the face, but we made it through and we figured our way through it.

And we figured a way how we were going to go forward and it ended up being quite a gift in reality.

David Hirsch: Well, it sounds like, um, it was a very, uh, challenging experience to say the least. And, um, and unintentionally, what I heard you say is that they brought your expectations way down, based on that original misdiagnosis with the benefit of hindsight and, you know, things just got better and better.

It’s not as if they’re typical or normal, if you will, but, uh, they, they were a lot better than what the. Expectations were so what is the diagnosis? Uh, and how did this, uh, DCD diagnosis come about?

Chris Jones: As things progressed as a kid, as he got older, like everything was a little bit delayed and you know, my wife of course knew a lot of this stuff.

And then I knew some child development stuff as well. And I’m like, yeah. Okay. I didn’t know the ages where they were supposed to do stuff. And she knew that really well. So anyways, as we were like, Hey, he’s walking late. He talked, there was no problem with the talking, but walking like you just the way he’d move his body, pick up things, grab stuff, turn his head.

Like all this stuff was delayed. So like, yeah, something’s going on. My wife was like, yeah, definitely. There’s definitely physical delays. So, and then emotionally there was a lot of emotional things that were challenging as well. There seemed to be emotional development delays as well. So continued to see doctors and specialists and explore what was going on.

And eventually by the age of four, he was diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder or D DC in the UK. It’s known as dyspraxia, but everywhere else, DCD relatively unknown. I would say it’s where autism was 30 years ago. So finding gross motor delays the muscles in the body, just imagine that there are 10 extra filters that needs to go from the brain to the hand to write your name.

Where you and I have one filter, they have 10. And so it just is more exhausting for them to do anything. It’s more difficult to teach them. You know, you teach a kid how to swing a bat, pick up a bat, swing it, show them how to transfer a little bit of weight and just get it moving. And you ask one of those kids do that.

And it is the most awkward looking thing. I think we’ve all grown up with kids around, you know, know people in our lives that are. They’re the kids that, you know, they try and catch a ball on in between the eyes, like on far too regular basis. I think Danny athlete happens every now and then when you, we make lose focus, but to them, it happens frequently and they try and do anything and it’s just awkward and difficult and so fine.

Motor gross motor. So they frequently have eye issues. So they almost always wear glasses, sometimes significant corrections. Their heart muscle isn’t as well developed. So they struggle with endurance sports. They struggle with just getting their heart rate off. They get exhausted very, very fast. In addition to the fact they have all these extra filters in anything they’re doing through, whether it’s swinging a bat, kicking a ball or writing their name, it’s just more tiring to do anything physical.

And so they withdraw and they’re like, well, they’re, they’re very aware of what people are doing. And they’re very, they get embarrassed. I think quite easily is what I’ve seen as a general rule of being around a number of these kids now. So they withdraw because they don’t want to be embarrassed and they don’t want to be seen as the person that doesn’t know how to do things.

And so, because they withdraw, they frequently get diagnosed as autistic so that the symptoms are the same. They many of them present similarly, but the root causes is different. And so then there’s commonly misdiagnosis. So he got tested numerous times and they’re like, oh, we think he might be on the spectrum.

And my wife would be like, no, it’s not because of this, this, this, and this reason. Like she was such an incredible advocate for him and understood all these different things. But because of the early diagnosis, they actually didn’t know what to do with a kid with DCD at the age of. Cause they don’t usually get diagnosed till later nine cause each other in the school system and people are started, you know, more experts get their eyes on these kids and they’re like, Hey, something’s up?

But so they actually didn’t know what to do with him at four because of my wife assisted so significantly in the early diagnosis. And then to add their other diagnosis, but you know, learning disabilities and oh, with the D P comes emotional and social delays. Right. So they often really awkward socially.

There’s like an emotional development piece that goes along with it. So, and because of the eye, then he has no at that very little depth perception and very little peripheral vision. So the poor kids got to like ask him to go like downhill. And that’s going to be the most horrifying experience for him.

Like, let’s go somewhere that I can’t tell where I’m going. You know, it’s fast, I’ve gotta be able to respond, which I struggled in communicate with my limbs anyways, you know, it’s, it’s not as favorite sport. Let’s put that way. It’s pretty terrifying for,

David Hirsch: well, thank you. And while it took a while to get the diagnosis, it sounds like getting it presented its own challenges, right?

Like you said, is not typically diagnosed at such an early age and it presented itself from what you said, similar characteristics to autism, even though it’s different than autism. I’m wondering what the solution is or the treatments from. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, et cetera. Is it a different regimen for somebody with DCD or because it presents itself?

Similarly, there are some of the same therapies,

Chris Jones: so I can’t speak intelligently about therapies for autism, but I can speak about what we’ve done with Eric. And so we’ve done social development classes. So through a psychologist and fascinating group that we deal with here in Calgary. And it takes them in groups and videotapes them and teaches them the normal social conventions, because they just don’t get that again often why they’re misdiagnosis autistic.

And so they, they take them through these classes and help them understand. And sometimes as simple as going to a store, buying something at a store, asking for change, communicating with the clerk at the, at the county. So occupational therapy. Yes. We’ve done that as well. Physiotherapy specially designed for this kind of thing has been helpful.

Goodness. You think it’s hard to teach your kid how to ride a bike? You know, some kid dads are really good at teaching their kids and others aren’t and I’ve had pretty good success with my, with my youngest tray. The oldest one is just like brick wall dad. I don’t want. Th he does. Doesn’t want to learn from me a lot of times when it comes to anything physical and a lot of it’s to do with the fact that like on this athlete, everything I do in my life, it’s like a lot of it’s so much around athletics and he’s like, dad, it’s intimidating and I’m not like that.

Right. So. I can say it. I’m just there to support him, but it’s hard for him to accept that help. So you get someone out to teach them. We got someone else taught them how to ride a bike and a physiotherapy group. And they did an amazing job. They understand these kids how to slowly build it up. We’ve envisioned therapy.

So he had to learn how to train his eyes and the muscles in his eyes to, to respond appropriately. He did have surgery at, I think four, three or four on his to. The muscle’s out, so he didn’t turn sideways as much. And so that, that was kind of a crazy thing to put your kid in a surgery that young in age, but he had, yeah, so corrective there, but, and then we seek out like educational assistance to deal with the learning disabilities as well.

You know? So my cousin, Ashley’s a tutor that specializes in executive functioning. And so. I think it’s fantastic learning for me, even as an adult, the way he teaches how to, you know, use the executive functioning parts of our brain better, but he’s phenomenally talented and helping Derek deal with some of the educational challenges and then different programs.

Anxiety often tends to go along with this with, there was eventually an anxiety disorder, which if a kid’s going to learn and they have anxiety, like you can’t learn anything. If you’re in the hippocampus, or if you’re in the lizard brain, like you can’t think if you’re in fight or flight mode. And so if you’re in, if you’re in a high anxiety state, like you can’t learn anything.

And so until the anxiety piece was dealt with his educational experience was super challenging. So eventually we got that diagnosis, which took us a while to figure that out. Again, my wife’s super high obligation on that. ’cause she knew like that was driving so many of us behaviors, like he’s in the 99 percentile anxiety in a school situation, which is like super high.

So for him to learn anything in school, when he’s in that state you’re does not have, it’s not happy. So learned about that. I forgot the question. Repeat for going off on 10.

David Hirsch: Oh no, no, you, you addressed it head on as far as the types of therapies and um, you know, how does that differ for, uh, from autism and, you know, you can only speak to what you know about, which is what I heard you say.

Yes. And it’s frightening. It’s very enlightening. Thank you for sharing Chris. Um, in a prior conversation, you mentioned this a woman who. Um, one of the most well-respected people in north America, perhaps in the world, uh, her name is, uh, Dr. Paula and camps, the psychologist who specializes in DCD and who I did a little homework on is also the author.

A book entitled autism exploring the explosion. So, uh, I’m very curious to know more about her. If you can speak to that and the work that she does.

Chris Jones: Yeah. So Pauline yeah, she’s really focused on this arena and knows the difference, obviously in writing a book about autism, but recognize there, there was a faction that was different.

And so she ran classes as well of getting these kids together. Teaching them how to bowl and teaching them how to talk and socialize together. And she, and then she brought the parents together, which was really cool. We would just drop the kids off at her place and they would do their thing. And then we pick them up and then she culminated in a, a bowling activity together and we all, all the parents joined the kids and we, um, We watched them all bowl together.

And that’s when I was like, just confounded by the similarities in how these kids acted and moved and their bullying. And they had the rails up on the, on the lanes because there, they couldn’t get the ball down in the middle of that. None of them good. So to get the ball down to the pins, it had to have the rails up.

And they were so visibly frustrated with the results that they were getting. They’re throwing their arms and shoot and stomping back to the, off the, off the lane. And so I’m just observing, observing, and I’m like, wow, these kids are acting a lot. Like my son does. And then I’m like, Hey, um, you know, I notice you’re a little frustrated there though.

Like, well, like I know what a ball fairly well, would you like any help? They’re like, Nope, Nope, totally. No, I’m fine. And it was just the same brick wall. I’m like, oh my God, they’re all the same completely frustrated with the outcome and not willing to accept help, I think, because they felt like they’d be showing weakness.

Fascinating.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, Chris, I have to interject because, uh, what comes to mind is this image of men generally being lost in their cars. And, uh, you know, that’s the way. We as a gender have been wired, right. And somehow we need to reprogram ourselves, right. To knowledge that we have a challenge and be willing to accept some advice.

Right. And I joke and they say, thank God for GPS. And that’s probably saved a lot of relationships. It’s not that easy. Right. When you’re talking about, uh, a son or a daughter, right. It’s not gender specific DCD is not something that only affects boys. It affects girls and boys. And one of the things that, um, Like stunned by when I was doing my research in preparation for today’s interview is that, um, there’s been 30 years of research that, uh, Dr.

Camps has done. And one of the things. Again, I’m just repeating what I’m reading, as opposed to, you know, recalling, um, shockingly DCD affects more than one in 20 people, which is actually more common than autism. And everybody thinks that autism is exploding. It affects one in 60 people. So this is three times more prevalent.

Chris Jones: You and I both had kids in our class. They just didn’t know what it was and it

David Hirsch: goes undiagnosed right. Then all the stuff that flows out from that. So you’re at a good place now, but, uh, it’s not without some trials and tribulation, uh, along the way, if I could just summarize what you’ve said.

Chris Jones: Oh yeah. What a gift though, because it’s taught me to just rethink how I approach so many.

Things in life. And as a teacher and as a coach, I have to significantly change my approach with, with someone that’s wired like that, which gives me the opportunity to connect with other people that, you know, in my professional capacity, I can connect with people that are wired differently now, much better because I had to throw it everything that I’d learned as a teacher and as a coach to work with myself.

And just completely think about it differently and talk to my wife. I’m like, I’m stuck. Like now what? Right.

David Hirsch: What I also heard you saying is that, um, in typical situations, or it seems like. The preferred playbook, right? You just do these things and, you know, if it’s, sports-related, there’s a, a plan or a path, right.

For getting stronger and faster and, you know, honing that skill. That’s a typical situation. But if you have an atypical situation, uh, you need to be. Willing to let go of the way we were taught or brought up ourselves and able to adapt to the reality of the situation, if for no other reason, just to avoid some of the frustration that goes on and to be more in tune with, you know, what the person’s capacity and what they’re, if I can use.

Teaching profession, what their style of learning is because we’re all wired differently. Sure. Understanding that allows you to help somebody help themselves for that matter. So,

Chris Jones: yeah. Two more tools in the toolbox as a teacher, right? That’s the goal is not for you to communicate it to them. It’s for them to understand it and be able to use it themselves.

And that takes different approaches to get them. That’s

David Hirsch: pretty profound. Thanks for sharing. So unrelated. I remember you telling me that you rode a bicycle from Jasper to Calgary, which I MapQuested that, which is about 250 miles, which seems pretty extreme. And I’m wondering, what was it that led you to do that or motivated you to do that?

Chris Jones: Well, I was eight and it was through the mountains. So there were like mountain passes in there. So it’s not just a flat. My dad asked me, you know, we rode bikes on the weekend. We had rode bikes as I at a young age. And he said, do you want to do this ride with me? I’m a teacher. And he was a teacher. And he was leading this group, his junior high group on this cycling trip.

I mean, it took me all of a half a second to say yes, he just said, okay, well we’ll have to train together. I’m like, okay, just tell me what I gotta do and we’ll go. Right. So that was. Very cool experience.

David Hirsch: How many days did that take?

Chris Jones: Five days. Okay. Longest day was 64 miles down to Calgary. And how old

David Hirsch: were you again?

Have you done any road biking since then or not?

Chris Jones: Oh yeah. Yeah. I love to road bike.

David Hirsch: Well, thanks for sharing. Um, it’s something that. Both have in common is our interest in or enjoyment from bicycling. I know that you’re going to enjoy reading. Which is a father’s journey to break the cycle of father absence, which is loosely based on a 21 day ride that I did from Santa Monica to Chicago.

And for, you know, Canadians, they might not have an appreciation for the distance, but it was a 2300 plus mile ride in 21 days are averaging a little bit more than a hundred miles a day. I’m thinking about advice now, and I’m wondering beyond what we’ve discussed. If there’s any advice you might share with a dad who finds himself raising a child with different abilities.

Chris Jones: Yeah. I think the importance of taking care of not just the kid with the challenges, but those around them, I’ve had to focus on how do I make sure that my wife and I get time to ourselves. You know, as her desire was like, oh, I gotta take care of him. I gotta be around him. I’m the only one that fully understands them and can help him.

I’m like, he’ll be okay if someone else watches him for a bit, we need to have our relationship as the foundation of this family. And it let’s not forget that. And so I think the importance of taking care of ourself and the other relationships are, are important as well as the need with the individual.

And just, I had to learn a lot of patients. Slow things down and just being creative in how I think about things and really the constant learner, because quote unquote normal doesn’t often work.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. Um, it’s critically important that you look at the big picture right now. Just focus on, uh, immediate needs in this case of your son, but, uh, make sure that your.

Last looking at, uh, the importance of your relationship with your spouse, other family members, and then taking care of yourself, just so you could, like you said earlier, be healthy and show up and, uh, words of wisdom. Thanks. So I’m sort of curious to know why is it that you have agreed to be a mentor father as part of the special fathers now?

Chris Jones: I love to help. There’s a reason I’m a coach professionally and a teacher professionally. I love to help others. And so if something that I can do or say can give, or maybe they can hear their own story and mind, fantastic, uh, experience share, and helps us all understand and all that.

David Hirsch: Well, we’re thrilled to have you.

Thanks for being part of this special father’s network. Let’s give our special shout out to our mutual friend, Phil apartment of Cape town, South Africa, and creator of dedicated.com for helping connect us.

Chris Jones: Absolutely. Phillip’s amazing.

David Hirsch: So if somebody wants to learn more about strategic traction, Vos, worldwide, or contact you, what’s the best way to do that?

Yeah.

Chris Jones: The website, strategic traction dot C. Is my site and EOS worldwide.com is there’s all sorts of free tools on there. And if you want to learn more about that, I’d be happy to chat with you about that. Contact us form on our website. We’ll be

David Hirsch: sure to include that in the show notes. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for taking the time in many insights.

As a reminder, Chris has just one of the dads. Who’s part of the special fathers network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21st century dads dot.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the special fathers network, they had a dad podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did, as you probably know, the 20% your dad’s foundation is a 5 0 1 C3 not-for-profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content freed all concerned.

Would you please consider making a tax deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support, Chris. Thanks

Chris Jones: again. Sorry I made today. I love it. The opportunity to get out and share and great question. Thanks for doing so much homework in advance and you had some great questions as a result of that way.

And

Tom Couch: thank you for listening to the dad to dad podcast presented by the special fathers network. The special father’s network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs through our personalized matching process. New fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation.

It’s a great way for fathers to support fathers, go to 21st century dads dot org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help, or we’d like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com. And search dad to dad also, please be sure to register for the special fathers network.

Bi-week these zoom calls held on the first and third Tuesdays of every month. Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story. No, have a compelling story. Please send an email to David@twentyfirstcenturydads.org.

Tom Couch: But dad to dad podcast was produced by couch audio for the special father’s network.

Thanks again to horizon therapeutics who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research. And bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about horizon therapeutics at horizontherapeutics.com.