Sara Olsher on Walking Children Through Hard Seasons of Life

Debbie:

Hey Sarah, welcome to the podcast.

Sara Olsher:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Debbie:

Yeah, I’m looking forward to having yet another kind of fresh conversation for this show. I haven’t specifically explored the kind of things we’re going to be discussing today. So I’m really grateful you reached out to me. I’m really grateful for your patience as my response time can be rather lengthy, depending on what’s happening in my life. So thanks for your patience. But I, you know, I’ve read your bio, but I would love it if you could tell us a bit about your story. It’s so tied to everything that you do today. So would you kind of walk us through your personal story?

Sara Olsher:

Absolutely. Yeah, so I basically had a really bad last decade. My daughter was 18 months old and I went through a really bad divorce and she started to show signs of anxiety and I could not figure out what to do to help her. Like when I talk about anxiety, I mean severe like she was afraid of shadows on the ground and sand and other kids like anything That was even a little bit different She was terrified to be separated from me and it was really awful to watch It just broke my heart and it was also just like I don’t know what to do to like make our lives easier and so she was two and I started researching how to find a therapist for a toddler. My ex -husband was like, I don’t understand what you think a therapist is going to do for a toddler. Like they don’t understand anything. Like this is a waste of money. And I was like, well, listen, I don’t know what else to do. If you got any better ideas. And I did end up finding a really incredible therapist for her. And the therapist basically taught me some skills and basically introduced me to child development because I studied psychology, but I studied adults. And I really did not know how much little kids can understand about the world around them, even if they can’t verbalize it. 

And so it really just kind of cracked open this like fascinating topic for me and I went down a rabbit hole of trying to understand, you know, where I had gone wrong. Like basically I didn’t explain to my 18 month old that her dad and I were separating and I had no idea that we needed to do that first off because I thought she wasn’t going to understand. But then the real thing that changed everything for us was ironically, not even about my daughter’s anxiety, the therapist was going on vacation and she created this construction paper calendar using stickers and markers and basically showed my daughter this calendar and said, usually you see me on this day, but you’re going to see me on this day instead. And I said to the therapist, why are you doing this? She doesn’t understand the concept of time. She doesn’t know what tomorrow and yesterday are, let alone that you’re going to miss something a week from now. She just, I don’t get it. And the therapist said they actually do understand. They just need to be shown using visuals. And it can really disrupt the trust between a therapist and a child if a change happens and nobody says anything.

And the whole way home, the wheels are turning in my head. And I’m thinking, if she misses one weekly appointment with a therapist at a Rhodes Trust, what is it doing to her that she doesn’t know which day she’s going to daycare, that she doesn’t know when she’s going to be seeing her dad for dinner, that she doesn’t know when she’s going to be going to the doctor? Like all these things, I’m just thinking, huh, why did nobody say anything? And I got on Google and I’m researching it and no one was talking about visual schedules for kids. There’s a lot of things about making sure you put the kids first in any kind of stressful situation that you stick to a routine. But when I got into the research about how kids actually developmentally learn things, it was all about visuals. I was an illustrator for six years. I had already illustrated these, you know, little drawings of our family and I made these really janky looking magnets and created this whole calendar on our wall to show her what to expect. And I started using terminology with her, like three sleeps until school day or, you know, two sleeps until you see daddy. And when I tell you her anxiety transformed overnight, I am not exaggerating. It was an absolute game changer and I could not believe that we had spent six months in therapy, had learned all of these things about how to validate her, you know, little emotions and talk to her about things and what really changed everything for us was kind of an accident. So that was kind of the beginning of everything for me. I started making these calendars because I thought, know, if nobody else is talking about, you know, how you can visually show your kids their co -parenting schedule, how many other parents could benefit from this? How many other kids’ lives would be changed by something so simple? And so I just started, you know, hand making these things sort of like an Etsy shop almost and selling them, you know, on a website.

And I just did it part time because it was something I was passionate about. And I had a day job. It was like not something I took super seriously. And then when my daughter was six, I was 34 and I was diagnosed with cancer. And that was, you know, I thought to myself, I remember I said to my mom, I just don’t want this to be as hard as my divorce. And then I burst into tears because I was like, this is already way worse than the divorce, which I thought was the worst thing that could ever happen. And literally everything changed overnight. You know, I took a leave of absence from my job. My mom flew down and basically moved in with us. Like our lives were complete chaos for a whole year. And I knew from all of the research that I had done, around these co -parenting calendars that kids understand what’s going on and it is absolutely vital that you are honest with them and explain to them what’s going on because if something is happening in the family, the kids can sense a change in the air almost, like they know something is not right. And developmentally, the whole world revolves around that. So if you don’t talk to them about it, they are going to invent a story in their head and they are going to be the center of it like it’s going to be their fault. So I knew that I had to explain to my daughter what was happening. And I, I always reach for children’s books and to help with hard conversations or with things that I’m not really sure how to approach. And so I ordered a bunch of books on Amazon. I went to the library, had a whole stack. And the one thing that I saw was that no one actually said what cancer was. It was a lot of analogies or like mommy has a boo boo or, you know, mommy’s going to lose her hair. It was all mothers. It was all, you know, focused on hair loss, on ouchies or sick. All of these things that I knew were not good because they leave a lot of open -ended things where, you know, sick, maybe the kid is gonna think that they can catch it. You know, it’s a boo -boo. That’s like not actually what is happening. And so I ended up not using any of the books and I came up with my own explanation, which we can get into later if you’re interested. And it was all science -based. And then, you know, I thought my daughter was going to freak out. And but the explanation really helped us serve as a foundation. She asked me a few questions and then she was actually OK. And then we’re, you know, changing our calendar to incorporate, you know, who’s going to do school drop off, who’s going to do school pick up. All these things made her anxiety level, you know, lower, it made me feel more in control. And it made it so that I could focus on my own healing because I wasn’t panicking that she was going to be scarred for life by what we were going through. And so now I have turned that explanation into five different children’s books about cancer. And I have charts and calendars for kids who are trying to understand difficult things like, you know, anything from just everyday life to things like, you know, parents’ chronic illness or military life or foster care. And it’s expanded into resources for neurodivergent kids and adults. So it’s really just been a complete game changer for a lot of different types of people, a lot of different types of families. So going through all of this, you know, kind of has definitely turned into something that is why I’m alive, I think.

Debbie:

Wow, what an incredible story. I, before we kind of, I have lots of questions, but how, just want to ask how you’re doing. How is your health these days? How are you feeling?

Sara Olsher:

It’s great. I am six years without cancer now. So yeah, it’s great. Thank you.

Debbie:

That’s wonderful. Yeah, that’s awesome. So, gosh, okay, I just have to go back to, you know, you said a lot of parents don’t talk about this kind of stuff. And I’ve definitely heard that from friends and relatives and people who are going through stuff, there is so much fear around bringing kids into the inner circle of what’s going on, especially a child who might have, you know, who might be already predisposed to anxiety and fear and panic and these kinds of things. So could you talk a little bit more about what you’ve learned over the years and working with families and about why it is so important for kids to, or excuse me, about why it is so important for parents to be open. I’m sure there’s age -appropriateness in the way that it’s discussed, but not really dumbing it down and really kind of giving the real information.

Sara Olsher:

Absolutely. Yeah, I think parents are really scared to have these conversations. Number one, because they don’t know how to answer really hard questions that they’re afraid their kids are going to ask. Also, they may be afraid that they’re going to do it wrong. And they’re putting a lot of pressure on themselves to have this like perfect conversation and to make sure that they’re doing it, know, quote, right. And what I would say is that this is not a one and done conversation. It’s not something that you need to put all this pressure on yourself to do perfectly because a good, open communication is ongoing. It’s not perfect. You can come back later and say, you know, I wish that I would have said this or, know, hey, I said something this way and I think it might be easier for you to understand if I say it this way instead. You always have the freedom to come back and do it later differently. You want your kids to feel like they can ask you questions ongoing, that you’re not just like, okay, we’ve had this conversation and now it’s over. But the number one thing that I am seeing with parents not wanting to have these conversations is that they don’t know how. And when you are Googling, you know, how to talk to your kids about cancer, there’s a lot more resources out there now than there were before. But I still think it’s true with things like divorce or other illnesses, you know, you Google it and they say, make sure the conversation’s age- appropriate. And then they don’t tell you what age appropriate is.

So, you know, how are you supposed to how are you supposed to have this conversation and especially if it’s a big emotional thing that’s happening to you You know, your brain is not able to come up with creative ways to like say things so it just it Defaults to not having the conversation at al. And so that is the reason why I have written so many different books. The most recent one I co -wrote with a child life specialist at the Mayo Clinic. And the topic of that one is hospice. And the title of it is what happens when someone I love can’t get better. Because this is, you know, for a family where someone that this child loves is going to die, like imminently. And parents don’t know how to say this to their kids. And so they just don’t. And then the kid is like, what is happening? And the parents don’t know what to say. And so they say nothing. And so this child life specialist basically reached out to me and said, do you have resources for this? Could we create one? Because I’m having kids that are coming in here and because they are not having this conversation with their parents, they are traumatized by what’s happening. So my passion is creating these resources because if there is no resource, there is no conversation. So when we talk about age appropriateness, it’s not necessarily like they can’t handle the information. It’s just that you can’t get too complicated with it. So the way that I explain what cancer is, for example, is I am actually talking about science and I’m just saying, you know, our bodies are made up of all these tiny little things called cells and they’re basically like building blocks, but they’re really cool because they’re like Lego, but they can make new ones anytime they want to. So it’s like building and building and building and building and never running out of blocks. But each one of those guys has its own job in the body. like they make hearts pump blood. make you know, your legs run, they do all these different jobs, but sometimes a broken cell gets made.

But sometimes a broken cell gets made and it doesn’t remember how to do its job. It just remembers to make more and more and more of itself. So before long, there’s just a big old clump of guys and they’re not doing anything except making it hard for everybody else to do their job. It’s like if you were drawing and somebody kept hitting your pen out of the way, you’d get really frustrated. And so it’s really important that all these different body parts are able to do their jobs. And so when that happens, when a little like group of cells are broken like that, we want to get them out and they have a name and that name is cancer. And so this is how we’re going to get them out of the body. So it’s just really simple, but it’s honest and it’s scientific and it gives you a foundation for being able to have conversations as time goes on. When I first had the conversation with my daughter, speaking of ongoing conversations, they told me that my cancer was really early stage. And so when I had this explanation for my daughter, I said, so the way that they’re gonna get these out of my body is they’re gonna remove my breast. And so I’m not going to have breasts anymore, but there won’t be any cancer anymore either. And I said, the other thing that I wanted to make sure that I said to her was I wanted to use the word cancer because she was going to hear that word. And I wanted to prepare her for other people’s reactions because I said cancer is a really big word and it usually happens to much older people. And so, and it can mean a whole bunch of different things. It can mean the kind of cancer I have. Or it can mean a really big kind of cancer that’s all over somebody’s body and then their body isn’t going to be able to work anymore. So when someone comes up to me and says, my gosh, I heard you had cancer and they’re freaking out. I want you to remember they don’t know what kind of cancer I have. And so you and I have already had this conversation. You and I know what kind of cancer I have. So I don’t want you to worry because of how other people are acting. But that foundation gave, when I woke up from my surgery, I found out that it actually spread to my lymph nodes and I did have to have chemo. So then I was able to go back to her and I say, know, remember how we talked about how there was only one little clump of guys? Well, they actually did, you know, get ready to go to other parts of my body. So I do have to have a different kind of medicine and this is what’s gonna happen with that. So you just wanna make sure, and, I’m not expecting everybody to be able to say that in this really comprehensive, quick way. I have six years of experience explaining this. This is the point of children’s books, right? If you can find this explanation, that is a tool that you as a family can go through together. You can read it first so you know what to expect. We have parent guides at the back of every book so that you’re ready to have that conversation. But the book is a tool so that you don’t have to remember it because you’re stressed. So.

Debbie:

Yeah. That’s great. Such a great explanation and what an incredible resource that you’ve made available. I’m sure it helps so many families. So I have a question and I don’t even know exactly how I’m going to word it, but I’m going to try. I guess I’m wondering how this communication with your daughter and, you know, having gone through this divorce and having worked so hard to address her anxiety before the cancer diagnosis and then navigating all of this with your daughter, how did that support you or how did that impact you? Because we’ve talked about how you really wanted to support your daughter throughout this process so that she could feel informed and not scared and have the right information. But I’m just wondering from a personal point of view, how did it help you navigate what you were going through?

Sara Olsher:

I think for me, she’s the most important person in my world. My whole world has always just, you know, rotated around her with her as the center of the universe. And I could not have focused on my own healing if I didn’t know she was okay. And I would have been losing so much more sleep, you know, over if I had thought that she wasn’t coping. Already, you know, I have an anxiety disorder, so I’m already awake at three o ‘clock in the morning convincing myself that she’s scarred for life by something, you know, even without her having to actually be anxious. And I think that was part of what made those first years of my divorce so difficult was worrying so much about her and whether she was gonna be okay. So to have found these solutions that really made things so much better for her, I was able to kind of relax and be able to focus on myself a little bit more.

Debbie:

Okay, thank you. for answering that. And I guess I’m just wondering, so I know that you have the What Happens When books that you’ve already talked about. And so when we think about the kind of big hard things that families could be navigating, illness, you mentioned hospice or when someone you love won’t survive, divorce. I’m wondering what you hear from parents, like what are the biggest concerns when there’s something really big happening in their life? I think that default could be, my gosh, this is going to ruin my kid’s life. This is something that isn’t recoverable. This is, and so, you know, I don’t know if you work directly with families, but how do you kind of talk to parents or what would you want them to know if they’ve got the really, really big stuff and just so they can feel more at peace with what they’re going through.

Sara Olsher:

Yeah, I think I did a podcast with an actress like three years ago and something that she said really has just stuck with me as a story. You know, as parents, we want to keep our kids safe. We want them to have these childhoods where, you know, it serves as a foundation for the rest of their lives. And it was this perfect experience. And and when something terrible happens, you know, we’re like, no, we’ve taken their childhood away. This is ruining everything. Like I have done everything to keep my child safe. And now this is ruining everything. And I don’t know what to do about it. And I always go back to this story that this woman told me that she had this perfect, idyllic childhood. And then she went to college in New York City and three weeks later, 9 -11 happened and she had no coping skills and she talked to her dad on the phone and he was like, I thought I did it. 18 years, I protected you and now look, three weeks out of the nest and the whole world’s falling apart. it just made me realize, no matter what happens in their childhood. None of us gets out of this life unscathed. Every single one of us, this is just the nature of life, is going to deal with something that is awful. And we don’t want that to happen to our kids, but it is the truth. We cannot get away from it. And when something like this happens in childhood, at least they have you there holding their hand. You have an opportunity to teach them coping skills, to teach them not to be afraid of things. My daughter is 14 now, and when I see the maturity in that child, she’s not traumatized by my getting cancer. She barely remembers it. But what happened to her when she was six was she learned how to live with uncertainty and that her mother would be there as a solid person who was honest with her.

The thing that has been lasting is the trust that she has in me that if something goes wrong, I’m going to talk to her about it. And you compare that to previous generations where my aunt died of breast cancer when she was 42. She initially had it. She and my uncle didn’t tell their three children that anything was going on. Then she had a recurrence. She knew she was terminal. Again, they did not tell the kids and they’re still angry about it and it has been 40 years. 40 years. They wish that their parents would have handled that completely differently. And I think that really informed for me just like, this is so important. If it’s been, you know, 40 years and these kids are so upset that their parents weren’t honest with them, like combine that with the research I’ve done and this is an open and shut case. Like this has to be done. And it’s really, you don’t want to break their heart. You don’t want to, you know, be the person that gives them news and you watch their face crumble. Like nobody wants to do that, but it doesn’t have to be that bad. And, you know, I do a lot of public speaking about this specifically about cancer and parents come up to me afterward and they’re like, I honestly didn’t think I could do this. I really didn’t. And now I feel like I can, and I also feel like I can actually use the word cancer. And that to me is like, thank you, that you are why I am put here.

Debbie:

The way that you explain that really gift of raising a child who knows how to live with uncertainty is so powerful. And then that trust that just really landed with me so hard. I think about that story you told about family members being upset about how something was handled so many years ago. It really is and you know, it’s a generational thing, right? There. It is an opportunity for for today’s parents to kind of heal, to do differently, to heal their own trauma that they might have from the way things were not discussed, which also, you know, just kind of side note that also runs rampant in the disability space of disability is something that just was not talked about. So it is, you know, just hearing you describe what it, how it actually has created a deeper connection, a deeper trust between you and your child has, you know, supported your daughter in being more resilient. It sounds like there are so many wonderful opportunities in going through such difficult things.

Debbie:

So you have multiple resources for families and you mentioned that you speak, which is great. And you’re kind of such a leader in this space and kind of opening doors for conversations about really hard things, which is wonderful. So you want to tell us, I’d like to know a little bit more about your books that you’re writing. You mentioned you’re an author illustrator and I love it when all of those pieces come together mixed with the passion and what you can do with that. So would you tell us a little bit more about the books that you’ve written?

Sara Olsher:

Yeah, so the first one was What Happens When Someone I Love Has Cancer. And that one turned into something that is used in children’s hospitals all over the country. And I had different child life specialists and people that work with kids in hospitals to help them understand medical care and medical treatment reach out with requests. So I now have books for pediatric cancer, for the siblings of pediatric patients, and I have all those books available in Spanish also. But then I started to realize, you know, their coping piece is really important, and kids just struggle with change in general. So the next one that I wrote was called Nothing Stays the Same, and That’s Okay. And that applies to all kinds of changes, because my daughter always struggled whether she was getting a new teacher at school or any kind of change she really struggled with. So I wrote that book. And then I wrote a series of books about emotions. So one for little kids called No Feeling Lasts Forever and that one kind of introduces the concept of emotions and reading them on people’s Next one was up and down round and round that one is about how our emotions just go up and down all day long and Then the bear is not there which explains the science of our nervous system And basically how we might freak out but there’s actually not a bear there, it’s just a little stuffed bear, but our body is acting as if there is a bear there. And then the next one was Don’t Believe Everything You Think, which is about how our brains can lie to us and the number of adults that have reached out to me and said that they bought this book for their kids. And it was like, I had a light bulb moment myself. This book should be for adults. That was kind of hilarious. And then the two most recent books were co-written with the Child Life Therapist at the Mayo Clinic. One is for chronic and terminal illness. So that one is, you know, what happens when an adult has a disability where they, you know, I don’t know if you’ve covered spoon theory as part of your conversations here, but basically the idea that you only have so much energy in the day. How do you manage your kids’ expectations when you maybe don’t have as much energy as other parents do? And it doesn’t really go into what exactly is wrong. We have a parent guide in the back where it’s like, okay, this is how you explain, you know, stage four cancer. This is how you explain ALS. This is how you explain the science of depression. All these different things can impact, you know, how a child experiences your parenting. And so this basically just helps them understand what’s going on and cope with different energy levels and expectations of like, hey, we were gonna go to the park, but now we’re not going to the park anymore. I’m really upset. And then the last one, as we mentioned, is about end of life and hospice.

Debbie:

So many great topics. I kind of want to have all of those books and not just for my family. But I especially love Nothing Stays the Same, and That’s Okay. That really resonated because change is hard as someone who’s gone through a lot of big changes in the past year. I can attest to that. So I just love your focus and that you’re offering again these helpful resources for parents so they don’t feel like they have to have those steer and headlights moments where they’re like, my gosh, how am I going to navigate this? So I love that. And then I also, before we wrap up, I know that you talked about this very early in our conversation about the importance of these visual schedules. And I’ve spent a lot of time on your website and just seeing the kind of resources that you offer. So could you talk a little bit more about that role of visual schedules and tools for kids who are navigating really hard stuff. Talk more about how those are married together and what you offer for families.

Sara Olsher:

Absolutely. Yeah, I think the number one thing that every therapist and doctor seems to say when something is hard that’s going on is stick to a routine as much as possible, no matter what the kid’s age is. But the way that kids’ brains develop developmentally function is like with a lack of executive functioning skills, you know, like, that your words go in one ear and out the other. And so to be able to show that routine visually, where they see that every day literally begins and ends the same, it helps them to really absorb the fact that like, yeah, all the stuff in the middle might be different now, but I can see that the day begins and ends the same. And that just somehow resonates in their brains and can calm them down, but then to take it a step further and to give them their own weekly calendar where they can see what to expect each day. It really gives them a sense of control, a sense of empowerment. You know, when we, when things get crazy in our own lives as adults, we try to organize, you know, we’re making lists, we’re trying to feel some sense of control over our lives. And kids can’t do that. So they rely on us to help them. And so each one of these charts, I designed it so that the kids can actually participate in putting it together, no matter how old they are. They come with these reusable cling stickers. So the kids, I mean, what kid doesn’t love stickers? What adult doesn’t love stickers? Let’s be honest. They peel these stickers off.

And they put them on these magnets and, you know, because they’re reusable, if they put them on crooked, you know, you can just redo it later. And you can actually have them participate in building it and talk to them about, you know, these are the things that I think you need to do in the morning. You get to choose the order in which you do it. And it also, you know, for the weekly calendar, for example, you can give them an option of things to look forward to. So you can show them a whole bunch of activities and just say, you know, hey, you know, which one of these things would you like to look forward to this weekend? We have a sticker sheet for chronic illness too, just to go back for that, like literally a plan A and a plan B. So you can show them on the calendar, you know, this is what we’re planning to do, but if that doesn’t work out, we will do this instead. And it just makes their lives make sense. And it really gives them a sense of security that they are absolutely craving and needing. And so many kids, even if they’re not going through something that’s majorly traumatic, life is just hard for a lot of kids. So we have a lot of neurodivergent kiddos. have this bracelet. It’s a slap bracelet. We call it the stay on task bracelet, where it really helps kids who are neurodivergent and they’re like, you know, doing their tasks and then they just wander off and forget what they were supposed to be doing. They can stick this magnet directly on the bracelet and it helps them to feel like they’re not constantly getting in trouble because they have something to reference, you know, a tool that belongs to them. And they’re more able to be set up for success and not feel like they’re constantly failing, which is just such a bad feeling. And then we have a whole thing for division of labor, for adults, for being able to handle your own chores around the house. And then as the kids get older, you can delegate some of those things to them. So it’s like a whole thing for the whole household that really gets all of those demands that are floating around in your brain, constantly stressing you out like into a physical, tangible thing that you’re able to physically manipulate and see, you know, you know, there’s only 15 spaces on this calendar. And I have put 37 tasks on it. No wonder I’m going crazy. I don’t have an unlimited amount of time. It really just helps with just a whole host of things. It’s kind of a game changer.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it sounds like so good for anyone with executive function challenges who, you know, of all ages and, and then I love the specificity of, you know, having it for, you know, chronic illness and these other other kind of life circumstances, it just makes so much sense. So as a way to wrap up, could you let listeners know where they can connect with you? And I will have links in the show notes, but I just love to hear where you would want direct listeners who want to learn more about your work.

Sara Olsher:

Absolutely. My Mighty and Bright website is mightyandbright.com and we’re on TikTok and Instagram at Mighty and Bright Co. And then I personally am at saraholsher.com and on Instagram @SaraOlsher.

Debbie:

Okay, awesome. So listeners, again, I will have links in the show notes page, excuse me. I will have links in the show notes page as well as to those resources as well as to all of Sarah’s books that she told us about. Definitely check those out. And yeah, I just wanna say thank you. This has been such an interesting conversation and I always get so excited when I get to talk with people who have turned their personal journey into, just an incredibly powerful resource for others as a way to give back, but I’m sure that it feeds you as well. And so it’s just really inspirational. So thank you so much.

Sara Olsher:

Thank you.