Episode 334-Dr. Ambrose Pass-Turner helps families build critical thinking, problem-solving, and emotional regulation at home and in school

A rainy Saturday, a canceled playground trip, and a child named Logan turn into an unforgettable lesson on resilience. We welcome Dr. Ambrose Pass Turner—counseling psychologist, professor, and longtime clinician—to share how a personal health crisis became the spark for a children’s book that helps families navigate disappointment with calm, creativity, and connection. You’ll hear how simple moments can coach big skills: critical thinking, problem-solving, and emotion regulation that kids can practice at home and carry into the classroom.

We dig into early childhood development and why “connection beats attention” when behavior goes sideways. Dr. Turner walks us through “I Will Play With Me,” showing how a story can model executive function without lectures, and how parents can use questions—What is Logan feeling? What would you try next?—to build empathy and flexible thinking. We then turn to “The ADHD Warrior” and its companion activity book, which help kids see their experiences clearly, strengthen focus through short structured practice, and partner with teachers on small classroom shifts that make a big difference. Whether a family chooses medication or not, practical tools like diet review, focus plans, and predictable routines create a path forward.

Rounding things out, Dr. Turner announces “Parents Talk,” an educational podcast where parents are the featured experts on their children. Bring the hard questions about ADHD, autism, IEPs, and 504 plans; leave with clear next steps, real success stories, and confidence to advocate. If you’re ready to turn tough days into teachable ones—and teach skills that last beyond a single storm—this conversation is your guide. Subscribe, share with a fellow parent, and leave a review with one resilience tip that’s worked for your family.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Guest Reintroduction
• 1:39 Dr. Turner’s Work & Expertise
• 2:45 Health Crisis Sparks New Book
• 5:30 Themes of Disappointment & Resilience
• 8:40 Early Childhood Skills That Matter
• 11:42 Inside “I Will Play With Me”
• 15:00 Connection Over Attention
• 18:10 Where to Find the Books
• 19:40 The ADHD Warrior & Activity Book
• 23:00 Building Community Support for ADHD
• 25:10 Announcing “Parents Talk” Podcast
• 28:00 IEPs, 504s, and Parent Empowerment
• 30:10 Summits, Sharing Resources, Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

The SJ Child Show is backwards. And the SJ Child Show Court of World of Autism and Share Stories of Inspiration. This season, we're excited to bring you more autism summits featuring experts and advocates from around the world. Go to SJchilds.org.

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

Oh yeah, stories of love and could have done.

SPEAKER_02: 0:42

Guest, which I absolutely love because I love, you know, there's one thing about meeting someone, but there is another aspect when you nurture those connections and you stay in touch and you share one another's uh success and celebrate each other. So we're so excited to have Dr. Ambrose Past Turner and excited to hear about the new projects and things that have been going on in your life. So let um any listeners or viewers that haven't or didn't um hear your first episode and please go back and find it so that you can kind of see the contrast of where you know she's been then to hear. So uh, but give an introduction about yourself today. And hello, I'm so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32

Well, thank you, and um, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to come back and to see you and your wonderful audience. Um, my name is Dr. Ambrose Pass Turner. I am a counseling psychologist, a professor, and a scholar practitioner and an author. Um, I'm in private practice, um, the owner of ATT Counseling Service. It's a mental health and behavioral health agency, and I have been in practice for over 20 years. Within my practice, I work with um children, um, adults, family, and also I have a forensic background, so I work also with the criminal justice system. But I I am an expert with working with um emotional, um, emotional behavioral children and things like that. Have a connection, um, work with some school systems also, and I see um a lot of children within the school systems who might be having behavioral issues.

SPEAKER_02: 2:34

Isn't that uh a fascinating topic? I just had this summit. You can see the thing in the background, and in one of those, the there was a research panel, and one of the researchers was from the UK, and so it is based on on UK data rather than the US, but so relevant. He wrote a book. Um, not to diminish this conversation anyway, it's just so relevant to this. It's interesting. Um, and it's something like from the school to prison pipeline. Whoa. Uh, and just to talk, you know, a little bit about how that looks as far as that when the which system begins and which system ends. Uh, I think that that's a huge uh dilemma in our society, in our community, but we're not here to talk about that today. I just wanted to to touch on that. I thought that that just was really interesting.

SPEAKER_04: 3:38

Yeah, I I heard about that. I've read about that also. Very interesting. It's cool when it comes to prison plan. Definitely there.

SPEAKER_02: 3:48

Sad. So sad. But today we're gonna talk about good things. Um, yes. Well, tell us a little bit about kind of what's been going on since we've seen you last and some projects we're going to talk about, and we'll get more into those.

SPEAKER_04: 4:04

Well, I think you know, since you've seen me last, of course, I've been busy. Um, two, three years.

SPEAKER_03: 4:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 4:16

So I I've I've been extremely busy. Um, I also chair the doctoral project for students who's working on their doctor psychology. So I've been pretty extreme, I'm extremely busy, busy with that, um, reading all those papers and all of that, but also just clients and things like that. But I think in the past um probably 10 months, you know, I kind of like had some health challenges. So I kind of I had to take a step back. And um during that time is when um I wrote I Will Play With Me. Yeah. And um that was that was special because I was I was in a lot of pain. I was really sick, actually, to the point where they thought that I was going to die at that point, you know, but I pulled through. But the only thing that would relieve my pain was when I started to write, I would play with me, and it just came to me because I couldn't sleep, and I would be I would stay up 24 hours. I couldn't sleep because I was in so much pain, and no one could get the pain under control. And so when I would write, it took my mind off of it, and I would play with you. I just start writing, it's a different writing style, it's a style that I've never used before, you know, and then the name Logan, it just came to me, it would be Logan, and so that's how the main character became Logan. So, what book is extremely special to me. I love all my books and I put everything into each and everyone, each and every one of them. But Logan is special to me because I feel like that the purpose of Logan was to help me get through difficult times, and I and I think that it was teaching me to never give up because the book is about disappointment, been disappointed and finding a way to get through that disappointment and come out on top. So I believe it was a message because when you're going through things, we all know you get depressed, you get sad. You know, we know we're only human, we have those emotions. And I think for some reason it was teaching me a lesson, it was telling me you have to, you can't give up.

SPEAKER_02: 7:05

I love that, and my mind just wants to tell you from my higher self, right? Wants it is like you know, you had to go through this period of release almost in your body to be able to receive, and there must have been some type of buildup or something that you had to let go of to be able to receive. I don't know why, just uh that's what you know, my uh it what I'm thinking about. So I think that that's and I'm in thinking that because I kind of see that happening um for my husband right now. He's quit smoking after 35 years, and I see this like how he he's going through these ebbs and flows of um like his body's needing to just release and release and release at the same time afterwards, he like gets fueled with these ideas and and energies things. So I I've just been seeing this interesting pattern, and that came to me when you said that a different outlook, I guess.

SPEAKER_03: 8:20

Right?

SPEAKER_02: 8:22

Oh, that's fascinating. Definitely, it was um it was a challenging time, you know. And something good came out of therapists, so I think that the just understanding like how our bodies can, you know, almost break down in times of like they need to take a break and it needs to let go of things and have these times, and sometimes we don't let our minds do that, and so our bodies like uh-uh, we're taking that break for you. You are this is it is time, um, or divine and you know, divine intervention, of course. And we're just what a blessing that it came from that, and and the resiliency, and like you said, the kind of the honor and celebration in putting this book out to help others.

SPEAKER_04: 9:14

Yes, because I have a I like I say I work with adults and children, but I do have a passion for children, and I think that the early childhood development area is so important, and I definitely believe that if we teach them at that early stage, they'll have less issues when they become adults. However, they won't be free from having issues, but they'll be better able to cope. So, my focus has always been on trying to develop children early on, at that three, four, five years as they go through that stages of those stages of development because it's so important with that. So, I do have a passion for working with children, you know, and I think that's the reason why when I start going like this, this is a lesson for children. This you'll be disappointed, things are not things in life, are not going to always go as planned, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_02: 10:17

You can recover from it, and there's so many great ways that I love that you have a book working on that because it's hard to teach your children about disappointment, but it usually happens during disappointment, and then you know, and uh and often maybe even watching you and and how you uh model your behavior when you go through specific um things like that as well. I and I think it is I agree with you, couldn't agree with you more that teaching this early generation is what will shape society's future, and it's so important that they have these built-up skills, especially in the realm of emotions and um dealing with conflicts, resolving uh their own you know processes. I think it's it's just imperative that that that should be like first, second, and third grade.

SPEAKER_04: 11:33

Yeah, we we would think so. And you know what, you know, as we you know to emphasize that I would play with me. Logan did not realize that once he started to once he became disappointed, he started to use critical thinking skills to help him problem solving skill and social emotional regulations to resolve the current situation, but he didn't realize that, and most most children don't. And so when I tell parents, when you see that, their little mind and their thinking, we have to we encourage that, you know, because as you read through the book and you see he's disappointed because he can't go to the playground because it's raining and play with his friends, because that's something that he does every Saturday. My mom takes him there, and um, you know, and he goes around the house. Well, who, you know, who would play with me? And so you see him doing these different going through these different different phases or trying to figure it out, you know. So even at that young age, they are developing it, it is the foundation of critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and social and emotional regulation because he could have become angry, you know, and just but he didn't. He he found a way to make the situation better.

SPEAKER_02: 13:11

I I love when uh early reading to my kids when they were little, um you know, really asking questions as you're going throughout these books, you know, what do you think Logan was feeling? What would you do? How would you feel? What's something that's made you feel disappointed? And the connection you can make then with your kiddo, it's incredible. And I always like to remind parents, you know, kids want connection, not attention. That is what they're craving when you are looking and saying Johnny needs attention, he would like connection. Could you provide him a connecting environment, however, that looks for your family, whatever that means? Um, and it's beautiful. Every family has their own ways of doing that. We've found we go for family drives, and I don't know if there's any other teenagers that are uh ready and excited to leave with their parents every weekend to go on adventures, you know. It's like they want to do things with their friends and things. Nope, they just want to jump in the car and go to the nature, like we were kind of like we were talking about earlier, but yeah, it's it's a that connection time that you make special with them. Um, it's gonna shape so many things for you in the future.

SPEAKER_03: 14:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 14:43

And and like you say, connection it's very important, you know. And because like you said, they want that connection with us, and usually what is a result of that, we see behavior issues or they're doing things that they shouldn't to get our attention, yeah, and plays a very important role with children, definitely.

SPEAKER_02: 15:12

Well, and you know, it's it's so great that you are able to reach the families in such a broad way. I think there's a little delay in our our recording. I apologize for that. Um, but I think that it not only do parents or excuse me, not only do children learn from children's books, but how much do parents learn when they're reading it and they say, Oh my gosh, I need to start doing this in my own life so that I can help this child as well.

SPEAKER_04: 15:54

Yeah, I've I've heard parents say that about some of my books, uh, especially a racist journey, you know, like my I need them myself. So, yes, because even though the the the purpose is a children's book, but it's actually the skills are so significant to our lives that anyone can utilize them. I'm just trying to get the attention of the children thinking, but it's it's a lesson, a lesson for um everyone, really, any age group.

SPEAKER_02: 16:37

I love that about books. Now you can go find the book um on your website, I'm assuming. Where else is it now on Amazon? Things like that.

SPEAKER_04: 16:58

Yeah, um it's on Amazon Um Bars and Nobles, uh, Books a Million. It's at Walmart, and at um the Indie bookstores. Oh, great, yeah. But it's on my website. Um, you can go there and just click on our books, and it'll take you to the book website. I love that.

SPEAKER_02: 17:23

And for those of you who are listening and not watching, it is drambrose pass-turner.com. I'll have that in the show notes. So just in case you want a link to click on directly. Uh, but definitely go there to to find out more about this book. But let's talk about some of the other things. Um, you do have other books and another project I'm excited to talk about soon, too.

SPEAKER_04: 17:54

Yeah. Um I have the ADHD Warrior. Um, and also the ADHD warrior comes with an activity book. And this book is this is a great book, and I'm not just saying this because I wrote it. But when I when I wrote this book, I was thinking about I need for children to be able to see themselves in this book. I need them to see the the symptoms and the behavior which they would HD accomplish. When children, because I use this a lot in my prior practice when I have children who have ADHD and they'll look and uh someone would say, I do that. I can't sit still. I'm always talking with a teacher talking, right? Because I believe in order for a children to get better, they have to be able to acknowledge what's going on. So once I get that child to acknowledge it, do you think that is an issue? Would you like that to be better? Yes. So in the ADHD warrior book, it's the opportunity for children to see actually what they go through with ADHD, or even if you don't have ADHD, just some of the knowing some of the symptoms, it teaches you how to work with that. Because you might even not have the diagnosis of ADHD. But in this book, the parent decided that they don't want to do medication. Okay. So it looks at the things that we need to do. If we don't want to do medication, then maybe let's look at our diet. Okay. And then I had uh parents um in the book to develop a focus plan. And then I break it down how you do that, how you implement that um focus plan, you know, and things like that. I talk about how important it is in the book to collaborate with this the school, the teachers.

SPEAKER_02: 20:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 20:03

That relationship is so important, you know, and making adjustments and in the classroom, like you might have to move Johnny to the front and things like that. So that book is that's a good book. And then I decided, okay, so there's the book. So next I'm gonna develop an activity book and the purpose of a activity book skills to sit, even if it's for five or ten minutes, you know, and just work on those and to just think through things. So yeah, so that's an ADHD warrior, and it it also has a um activity world.

SPEAKER_02: 20:58

Oh, I love that, and that's good for so many, again, so many age groups, and especially for um, like you said, maybe even supporting uh the students around you that if you read this as a non-diagnosed student, you could say, Oh, this is how I might be able to help my friend. I noticed that they lose track of things. Maybe I could help give them reminders or you know, pat them on the shoulder if I notice that something's going on. And what a beautiful way to kind of engage everyone to help one another. Um, community build, right? So important. Right. And that book is also on your website and the workbook. So please um again go to drambrose past hyphen turner.com and make sure that you get those um resources for your family, student, um, you know, whatever individual, however, you're working with that individual client. So um, so important and wonderful resources. Well, I'm excited to talk about the kind of newest thing, and um not that the Logan book isn't the newest thing, right? It's kind of like me. You're just on to the newest, next, the next newest thing. Um, but let's talk about your new podcast coming out.

SPEAKER_04: 22:31

Yes, well, I am in um, I have a new podcast coming out, and the name of the podcast is Parents Talk. And this podcast is geared towards parents because parents, you are the expert of your children. You, the parents, are the guests, will be the guest on my podcast. And what it is is the educational podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 22:55

Parents talk parents, okay. Yes, okay. Let me let me think that okay. I just want to make sure I have that right. There we go.

SPEAKER_04: 23:07

Perfect. Yep, okay. So so what we're so what I want to do, I have this idea is it's an educational podcast where parents can come come on on and ask me questions, nothing's off limit. Okay, if you say, well, my child is having some issues, we explore that. We'll talk about that with you, and let's see what you're doing. And I'm gonna educate you. It's not therapy, it's just education on things that we you can try. Um, again, I want parents to share your success story. If you have a child who has ADHD or autism, tell us what you're doing because parents can learn from each other. So I want it to be like a show, but like a support for parents to know, you know, what I've seen this year and school has just started, is that um parents sometimes have a whole lot of fear about the IEP and the 504. Right. Well, maybe I can educate you on that process.

SPEAKER_02: 24:21

I love that.

SPEAKER_04: 24:22

You know, if you have questions, you have concerns, I can educate you on that. I can talk to you about that. I can help you do the questions that you need to ask when you're sitting in those meetings, you know. So it's all about educating parents and providing, you know, the questions. I the answer. So I I I I wrote it like this on the advertisement advertisement. Um, if the parents, you ask the question, and I'll answer them, you know, and so we can just sit there and have a conversation and just be reliable and just talk about it. I want you to empower and motivate their children. So that's the idea behind the parent talk podcast, strictly for parents and caregiver who cares for children.

SPEAKER_02: 25:20

That's wonderful. Ow, I wish you so much luck with that. It's gonna be amazing. There's so much that can come from parents sharing their stories and experiences, the way that you know, data information versus anecdotal information is I mean, there's a place for everything, but there is so much to be said for living experience and sharing that, especially success stories, can be so helpful to families. So thank you so so much. You're just bringing so many amazing, wonderful, valuable resources to my favorite community, the children. Yes, I love it. Well, it's been so much fun catching up. Sorry about that. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04: 26:23

You know, I know it's it's been great to see you again, you know. I did attend your Achis Summit um a few months ago.

SPEAKER_02: 26:38

Yeah, I know it. Oh, that's wonderful. The one in April, maybe. Yeah, that's wonderful. Thank you so much. What a wonderful support. And hopefully you got some good uh information from it. I remember actually, I remember seeing you. I did.

SPEAKER_04: 26:56

You had yeah, you had some you had some great people in there, and they had some great resources too. I took notes. Oh, wonderful. I love that some of the stuff they had that they had to offer that you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:17

It's the best, it's the best way to share this information is on these through these platforms and these, you know, uh summits and podcasts and books. Take advantage of them, people. They are amazing. Um, again, Dr. Ambrose Past Turner. It's been so much fun having you on today. And please, everyone, go and support her on her website and all social media, of course, and get the book and books, and of course, check out her new podcast coming out so that you can maybe if you're a parent and you would like to ask some questions, please reach out and um myself uh or Dr. Ambrose could get you started. So it was so great to have you on today. Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 28:12

Thank you and appreciate you for having me, and I look forward to having you on my podcast. I love that.

SPEAKER_02: 28:23

Well, I look forward to staying in touch, and we'll um chat after this in just a second. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 28:53

Oh, yeah. Journey we all belong to her eyes, a vision clear, together we ride, shedding fears in every heart. She plants the seed of understanding love dearly meeting the world for you with the heart that is fierce and strong, and both is a melody we all get long.