264 – Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmunsson of Akranes, Iceland A Father Of Five Including Four With Special Needs

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers 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.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: It’s very important to know that you’re not alone, to have some place, some time, once a month, every two weeks. Advice is very important to give and also get.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson, a healthcare professional and father of five children, four of whom have special needs. We’ll hear the story of Siggi and his family who live in Iceland this week on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and the host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast presented by the Special Fathers Network, a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Thank you to those who supported the 21st Century Dads Dads Honor Ride 2023 campaign, which was a 3000+ mile bicycle race from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland. I was one of the four racers and it took us seven days, 19 hours, and 10 minutes to go from coast to coast. Special thanks to the following donors for contributing $1,000 or more. In alphabetical order they are: Ina Burd, Kim Duchossois, Jim Duran, Chaz Ebert, John Guido, Horizon Therapeutics, Scott Marcotte, Damien Navarro, Dick Reck, Barbara & Glenn Reed, Rotary Club of Chicago, Don Stadler, Nick Topicha-Dolny, and UBS Financial Services. If you’ve not yet contributed, please do so by visiting 21stCenturyDads.org. Your tax-deductible contribution will help keep our programs free to all concerned. I would really appreciate your support.

Tom Couch: So now let’s listen in to this conversation between Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I am thrilled to be talking today with Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson of Akranes, Iceland, who is a healthcare professional and father of five, including four with special needs. Siggi, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

David Hirsch: You and your wife, Fridur, have known each other since you were 15 years old and have been married for eight years. You’re the proud parents of five children, starting with your youngest: Sittimfia who is 7 who has ADHD, Gudmuntuk who is 12 who is autistic and nonverbal, Kolbrun 14 who has Prader-Willi syndrome and autism, and Matthias who has ADHD. And very sadly, you lost your oldest child, your first child, Oscar, at 24-weeks gestation. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: So my beginning was in Sweden, and the first memories was there. So it was a strange upbringing because I’m raised in two countries. So I think it put a mark on both my education and many other things. Like when I moved to Iceland, I had to learn to speak Icelandic. I didn’t read Icelandic. So I fell a little bit behind in the school environment here.

David Hirsch: Thank you for emphasizing growing up in two countries, Sweden for the first 10 years or so of your life, and then to Iceland. And did you have siblings when you were growing up?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah, I have twin brother that most often get along, but we are twins, so [David chuckling] it’s not all the time. Then I had a younger sister. She’s not young anymore, but she looks young.

David Hirsch: Okay. It is unique to have a twin brother and if I remember correctly from a prior conversation, an identical twin brother.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. Yeah.

David Hirsch: I’ve always thought it would be fun to have twins. My wife’s like, that’s the last thing I want. I don’t want to have two babies at once, so I can only imagine how much fun it was. Anyway, I’m curious to know is your dad still alive and what did he do for a living?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. My father’s still alive. He’s working at the museum here containing the old houses in the museum here in Akranes, and he’s also dedicated a part of his life to bowling and many other hobbies.

David Hirsch: So if I understood what you said your dad renovates houses and he works in the museum preserving houses.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: So I’m sort of curious to know how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: It’s been good and bad through the years. He was very involved the first year in Sweden. He got parental leave and was with us when we were young at the age that we don’t remember now. But I have more memories of him from Sweden than I had when we moved to Iceland. After he moved to Iceland, he had to work much more to provide. It came a care without connection through the years. But through my son, we have connected more through the years. Yeah.

David Hirsch: So if I can paraphrase what you’ve said, early on you had a lot more contact with your dad while you were living in Sweden. Not so much so once the family moved to Iceland. And then as a result of you becoming a dad, your dad, now a grandfather, has been more involved, right? You’ve gotten closer to him.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: [laughing] Yeah.

David Hirsch: Well, that’s one of the silver linings of having children, is grandpa is getting more involved and you’re closer to him. I’m glad to hear that. Are there any important lessons, maybe takeaways that you’ve learned from your dad, that you’ve tried to incorporate into your own parenting?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. For me, it’s not do the same mistakes. I try to cherish. I try to give much of the memories. When people talk about the marathon, the final charge to the lines, I’ve often been very tired, but that’s the time where you have to remember the children. You have to take the extra 10 minutes in the garden before you come in and to try to give back these moments to my kids.

David Hirsch: Thank you for mentioning that. I appreciate your authenticity. I’m not proud of this, but I was not close to my dad and we butted heads a lot. I know that my dad set a lot of good examples. He had a great work ethic, but there were a lot of lessons I learned what not to do and I heard you saying the same thing. So the way I think about it overall is that you want to emulate the people that are getting it right, and you wanna live vicariously so you don’t make some of the same mistakes that other people make. And you want to be there as a good role model for your own children.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. Yeah.

David Hirsch: So hopefully they’ll have that as a lesson so that they can pass that down as well.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah, for when my kids were younger, I was going to the same direction. I was always working. So my oldest, he doesn’t remember when I was working too much. Reminds me of it. I think if you said it in perspective if I have to work 10 weekends to go to [a destination] for one weekend, if you ask your child, what do you want? Do you want 10 weekends with me or one in [a destination]? I think most of the kids would say, I want you the 10 weekends.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Very insightful. Thank you for sharing. From an educational perspective, I know that you’ve had some challenges and I’m wondering how you’d describe those.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: I have very, very much ADHD and dyslexia, so my mind is unique in some senses because I don’t see the world in the same way. The hardest things for me is getting things on paper. And reading. But if I listen to podcasts is no problem. Listen to books, no problem. But communicating back. Because the writing, I write like thing sounds. So if I would write for me, I write wrong for me because I’m going to read it. But what it was also like when I, for me to learn the languages, it was very easy because I didn’t have the speed to read the English. So I had to listen to it and get it. So other languages came very quick because I didn’t have the speed of reading the text. And also I think looking at the bright side is also probably the same thing.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I really admire your persistence because it sounds like you might have struggled in the traditional academic environment where you’re expected to read and write. And if your mind is wired differently, if you have dyslexia, you process information differently. And if you didn’t get the right services, the right intervention, the right therapy as a young person, you’ve had to adapt as best you can. And you’ve found that you’re more of a verbal auditory learner than somebody who might learn by reading and writing and that makes things harder. Just gonna take longer. And you have to have a certain level of persistence.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: Again, I admire your conviction and commitment to overcoming these obstacles and just playing to your strengths. We all have strengths and weaknesses and I think the last thing you said is you have to look at the bright side. Look at what you have or what you can do. Not what you can’t do.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. For me, the blessing part of that is when I have been teaching people in my work environment I’ve been a very good mentor and coach because that’s all verbal. When I took my bowling coaching license at the the European Institute, I spoke. It was no written exam, so I aced it because I was speaking and showing. So it was no problem, but if I had to write everything down, I think I wouldn’t have passed.

David Hirsch: [laughing] Yeah. I’m hoping that you’ll be able to continue to play to your strengths and that if it’s meant to be, you’ll improve your writing and reading skills, right?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: You’ve got a long life ahead of you. My recollection was that you were in construction when you were a teenager. And then you operated cranes and forklifts for a good part of your work experience.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And then in the last few years, you’ve been in the healthcare. And I’m wondering what is it that you learned from your different work experiences that has made you a better healthcare worker?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: I think, when I was working in the aluminum factory, sometimes I had to just watch a screen for 12 hours. You couldn’t use your phone because of security. So I got used to sitting for 12 hours doing nothing. So now if I’m working in the home I work with today, some of the people who live there, they don’t want interaction. They are shy, but they like the aura, the feeling of someone just sitting on the couch, having someone there. So now when I can sit down at work and watch television instead of watching a screen with nothing on it, it gets much more easier. Yeah. One of the attendants who has special needs, we got a great bond because she trusts me just because I am there. I’m not a new face every week. I am there. So she had just leaps forward the past year because of just my experience as a father. And also it’s much more fun just to be sitting, talking to someone or at least just waving and trying to get the comfort and being just general, nice you and me. It’s much more fun than driving a forklift.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. I think if I can paraphrase what you’ve said you’re used to sitting for long periods of time, which is like endurance, right? You build up your endurance, your ability to do something that’s repetitive and maybe mind numbing. And that you can relate to others who are sedentary, who are sitting for long periods of time, maybe immobile or not able to move themselves. And I think that’s important because you have the compassion and empathy for their situation.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: I think I also heard you say that by being there week after week, month after month, perhaps year after year, that continuity puts people at ease and allows them to flourish and to have a better experience themselves.

So let’s switch gears and talk about special needs on a personal basis. You already made reference to your own dyslexia and ADHD. You and Fridur have been parents to five children. Your first in birth order, Oscar, sadly passed away at 24 weeks. Did you understand what the challenge was beforehand or how did that transpire?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: The night before we went to the cabin, me and my wife with her other friends, then she felt strange and so we decided to go to the hospital. Then when we come to the hospital, they asked us to wait, and we was waiting for probably an hour. But after that, they had the ultrasound and noticed that he was gone. Because we live in a small town, it was no staff to put on the birth because he had gotten that big. So she had to birth him. And it was a very hard experience because my wife, though she got more painkillers and things for that, she did not remember very much of it and it didn’t go very well.

So I had to sit with Oscar then for it could be an hour, could be two hours, for a very long time. And I was just left in the room when he was born and hold him. So I cherish that moment now because I could hold him, but sadly my wife did not get the same opportunity. We were very young, so we didn’t get any help at the time.

So for me, I just had to continue work. She had sick leave, but… We had every right to more specialty helping or psychology or something, but somewhere down the line, they forgot to tell us about it. So we just continued life with the tragedy. But when we continue life it’s also been a small blessing because when I got the diagnosis for the other children, it didn’t matter as much because though they had disabilities, I had them. I could still hug them, they could still hug me back. That’s a remarkable thing to have and help me in a lot of ways to continue life with the diagnosis of the other children when things start tough.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thank you for sharing. It gives me chills to have you recall the story that you just did about this stillbirth of your firstborn child, Oscar, and the trauma that you described. In today’s way of describing things, it sounds equivalent to a PTSD experience.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: Something that you just can’t erase from your mind. It’s there permanently.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. I still can’t watch births on television. It still freaks me out.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I can only imagine. So thank you again for sharing, and so sorry for your loss. But, you did say something very profound, which is as a result of the loss, you’ve been able to put your other children’s disabilities in perspective.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: You can hug them. They can hug you. And that’s not a perspective that every parent has, or every parent who has a child with special needs has.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And I think that you telling your story, you sharing your story, you being the example that you are, hopefully gives strength to others to put their circumstance in perspective as well. So thanks again for sharing. So let’s switch gears and talk about Matthias, who’s your oldest living child who is now 16. What is his situation and how has it transpired?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. He ADHD, but with more, not the physical. The hyperactive, his mind is hyperactive, I would say. And he got into a bowling, I think we have pictures from him from two years old in the bowling alley. Very cute then.

David Hirsch: Oh, wow.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: And we have one picture of him when he was six. He couldn’t compete. The rules in Iceland was you had to be 8 to 10 to compete in 8 to 10 years category. So we enlisted him when he was six in the Icelandic Handicap tournament just to let him compete in bowling. And he won. [David laughing] He started winning very young. And when he was 10, I wanted to let him compete in Ireland. So I went with him to the Youth European tournament in bowling and I was trying to see how he would do and how he would take losses. And he won.

David Hirsch: Huh!

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: And so for me, the praises I gave him. When he won, he went to the other place and said, better luck next time. You played great. And tried to encourage them when they were crying because he cut them to the shoulder and they was much higher and older. So maybe they have been in second or third place the year before. And then now the guy who won, last year wasn’t competing. So they were not expecting a 10 year old from Iceland to win the under 14 category [chuckling], so he was competing four years up and won still.

But the thing I was telling him that was good was how he won, how he came, how he said, better luck next time, and those sort of things. I gave the praise not winning. I was raised to always win and I always want to win, but now I see I want you to compete for the fun of it. It’s so small margin of people who get to be the elite in the sports and so many people who stopped playing sports like me. Now I’m 36, overweight, because I stopped exercising because all the fun exercise was competitive and I would think if I could just continue playing basketball.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. It sounds like he’s very athletic. That’s what I heard you say. And he is competitive. It’s hard to teach somebody how to be competitive.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: You have that drive, striving for perfection, it’s an asset. But if it’s not managed, like you were saying, it can be a liability. Because if winning is the most important thing, that if you’re not looking at things from a proper perspective, how to be a good winner, how to be a good loser, how to accept defeat, people will still want to be around you. These are really important characteristics. So thank you for emphasizing. I’m hoping he continues to learn about life through the various sports that you were talking about. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned. And you were talking about sports that are more individual, right?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: If you’re bowling, you could be on a team, but for the most part, you have to perfect your own skills. As opposed to a team sport where you’ve gotta work in a small group to get the ball in the goal or across the goal line, that type of thing.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a Great Dad Coin. Thank you. Now back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: So let’s talk about your daughter Kolbrun who is 14. What is her diagnosis and how did it come about?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: She has Prader-Willi, and we didn’t get… We got a late diagnosis. She was, when we look back, she had, she should be a very easy thing to find and it should have been a very straightforward diagnosis and do the gene testing and everything. But, yes, she has Prader-Willi. Could you put… Should I talk more about? I’m not very good in talking about in English. The difficulties that are with that are, we got very much praise, at least when she finally got diagnosed because she was much better off though that she didn’t have the medicine and it was very a hard thing to hear. You did so great that we missed it. It’s a sentence I hope no parent has to hear from the doctors again. That’s a terrible sentence to hear. It’s a praise, but it doesn’t feel like it.

David Hirsch: So what age was she diagnosed at?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Nine.

David Hirsch: Nine years old. And what were the symptoms? What were the challenges that she had faced before the diagnosis? What was it that you were experiencing?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: It was overweight and the cravings for food she has. When they put it on the medicine, a child with Prader-Willi needs much less calories to survive. And at the same time, they’re always thirsty and always hungry and we try to do our best. It was a great thing and she’s always hungry. That’s just her lifestyle. We try to minimize the effect of seeing food. And we have a, just a kitchen with the door.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. That’s one of the challenges with Prader-Willi is that there’s this insatiable desire for food, right? It’s not a logical situation and there’s not one way to resolve that. But I think what you were emphasizing is there’s habits, right? There’s certain routines. And one of them is just not seeing food. Not knowing it’s there and it’s not top of mind. It sounds like you’re in a better place today…

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah!

David Hirsch: …based on the medications and her sleeping longer and maybe a little less focused on the insatiable desire that she has to eat. Okay. Let’s talk about your son Gudmuntuk who is 12. He is autistic and non-verbal. And I’m wondering how did his diagnosis come about?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Well, he was born. His sister was in the diagnosis state, so we could see much more straight away. We knew it when he was very young, just an infant. He didn’t want to be cuddled. He didn’t want any contact. He has even less need for sleep. His sleep base until he was two was probably about four or five hours. Five max. When from he was young until he was I think three, we slept in shifts for many, yeah, three or four years. But slowly the meds and the understanding of the triggers of his lack of sleep. If we go away from his routine, he doesn’t need to sleep as much. So we moved this now first April, and it has been… I think I have a sleep apnea. So I have a machine on the nightstand. So every night I’m reminded of how little sleep I had the last week, and it’s gone up to six hours now. So it’s great. It’s getting better. [laughing]

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for emphasizing. If I understood what you said, his need for a lack of sleep puts a lot of pressure on you and Fridur…

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: …for a lot of sleepless nights yourself, if you have to be up and monitoring the situation. And it’s good that you have the flexibility from a work standpoint where you can work four days a week and have Fridays where if you need to, you can catch up on your sleep and be more cognizant of your own self-care. Because if you’re not getting rest, you’re not healthy. It’s really difficult to, A, do your job and then B, be the best parent, be the best husband you can be as well.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: So if he is nonverbal, how does he communicate?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: He has… He used a few words, or for me, I see what he wants. I think other parents of nonverbal kids, I think you just see it. He’s good on his iPad. He can control the remote to the television. He grabs his own food now, but it was much harder when he didn’t have. He’s 12 now, and for me it’s so easy because he can do so many things. We have tried to get him to use pictures and things and he doesn’t see the meaning. Why should I get a picture to show you when I can just drag you outside? It’s been very tough.

David Hirsch: I was wondering you mentioned he has an iPad. And can he communicate with the written word? Or how is he making use of his iPad to communicate?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: It’s been very hard to turn it over from the schooling system to home because they are so smart. So if we put an app that’s for communication, they just learn to go around it. They are very smart and he is very smart, and I can see it in the math. He just says numbers. He watches math on his iPad and it just says the right things. And maybe so it’s algebra and everything and he just, ah, just okay! That’s it! Yeah. Yeah. It’s very fun to work because you see how smart he is. Yeah, he does math for fun. We’re getting a few extra math books for the summer so he can have at home.

David Hirsch: So is the iPad something he just uses in school or do you have an iPad for him at home as well?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah, he has an iPad in school and the… Yeah, he has a different one in every environment. And I would say he uses it as a safety blanket. He puts songs with you with some noises or something. So he always hears something. Because sounds freak him out and things coming. If he has something going on, he’s more calm. He’s often doing something, but the iPad just beside him playing something. So he’s not always on it, but he always has it.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. And your fifth child, your daughter Sittiffia, she’s seven. And I’m wondering what is her situation?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Just ADHD. And happy! She’s very active and sometimes the favorite of her siblings and sometimes the nightmare. She wants her attention and she knows how to get it, if it’s good or bad. So it’s a hard time sometimes for her. But we try to engage and do as many things with her as we possibly can. But yeah, she’s very quick to grab the iPad or come and slam the door for her sister or just having fun. Just trying to see, get the reaction. And so we have to be constant thinking about how also to give her attention on the right way before she slams door, takes the iPad. And so that’s challenging, but it is also so much fun to have a toddler. Yeah, I think it’s very selfish for me to say, but I’m very glad to have more possibilities of being a grandfather, because being a father is also fun. But in the future, maybe I could just be almost a dad or grandfather with not the responsibilities sometimes.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks. That’s a very interesting insight that she may be a mother someday and that by definition that would make you a grandfather as well. I think being the youngest, just my experience has been that they grow up a little faster.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: They’re trying to keep up with their older siblings and they just pick up on things that you wouldn’t pick up on if you were the only child or the oldest child for that matter.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. [laughing]

David Hirsch: And it creates a challenge. They’re usually talking back at you faster. Rolling their eyes faster, they can be a handful. But she’s your baby. And you love each of your kids and you have a different relationship with each of them. I’m hoping that she’ll continue to develop and challenge you, but not in a [Siggi laughs] heavy lifting way. I’m wondering what impact all these special needs have had on your marriage or your extended family for that matter.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Oh [big laugh] yeah, it’s been tough. I think it’s been very hard. When we started together, she was living at her brothers, so I often went to him and we had a much more connection, but through the years, people fade away. It’s the sad thing about not knowing how to help, I think. And also when you have the responsibility of being a parent with special kids’ needs, it’s every year you lose someone that would help you or has less time. It’s very hard.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like it would be a very big challenge with all that you have going on that you’ve described to find time for yourself, let alone to invest in your marriage. And you have to be very intentional about making the time and just having some time – a couple hours here, an evening there – just to have some respite and to recharge your battery I think is really important.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: So I’m thinking about supporting organizations and I’m wondering what activities, supporting organizations you’ve relied on for your family.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah, we have IA where I’m coaching and it’s a umbrella of all the sports in our town. It’s all for my children. They have a Special Olympics division. They have swimming, aerobics in water and many other. Mainly most daughters in the swimming and water aerobics to keep the body healthy. And she has very, she likes that a lot to have that.

And also, yeah, then I had talked about the boxing and the bowling from Mathias. And the youngest, Sittimfia, she’s with music, she will start on the piano and she has been swimming the last year and next year she will go to gymnastics, I think.

David Hirsch: It sounds like you’re keeping your kids busy and engaged. That’s really important.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: So I’m thinking about advice and I’m wondering beyond what we’ve already discussed, if there’s any advice that you can offer a young dad, maybe dads there in Iceland or beyond, who are feeling isolated or disconnected.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: It’s very important to know that you’re not alone. I was so glad when ours started. That’s in…. And the hard thing there is it’s for us as special rare disease fathers. So to have some place sometime once a month, every two weeks. If it’s every two weeks, you can always go maybe a third of the times. And you’ll always have someone going also. And advice is very important to give and also get. Because I have tools. You have tools, but they work much better if you have more. It’s always something with the wrong… You always lose the 17 or… and I don’t know the inches, but it is always some tools you don’t have and it’s very important to get more. And no, you don’t have ’em all, I think.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. What I heard you say was reach out, find somebody, somebodys. Realize you’re not alone. And we’re better together, right? Because of the different resources that we each have.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And why is it that you’ve agreed to be a mentor father to other dads? Special Fathers Network mentor father?

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: For me, it is very important to help others and also it’s never a one way street. If I give advice, I always get feedback. And I think it’s never a mentor who doesn’t learn something. For me, I think you can learn it in both ways. You always get more, always. If it’s just confidence you get from teaching, that’s also just great. But often or not you can get something better also.

David Hirsch: So let’s give a special shout out to August Christmans for helping connect us and encouraging you to attend the May 20th, 2023 Special Fathers Network Dads Virtual Conference.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. Thank you.

David Hirsch: We’ll be sure to include your email and maybe your Facebook page in the show notes, so it’ll make it as easy as possible for somebody to reach you. Siggi, thank you for taking the time and many insights. As a reminder, Siggi is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising children 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 21stCenturyDads.org.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax-deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support. Siggi, thanks again.

Siggi Thorseinn-Gudmundsson: Yeah. Thank you. I’m proud to be a part of it. It’s a great thing you have.

David Hirsch: Thank you.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. 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 match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.” Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to David@21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

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, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at HorizonTherapeutics.com.