Credit: Instagram/Emily Simpson
Emily Simpson spoke of the challenges of parenting her 11-year-old son Luke after last week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County saw her explaining that she had to leave the child home since he didn’t do well in large crowds.
Ever since the child was diagnosed with a number of disorders, including PANDAS, ARFID, OCD, ADHD, and dyslexia, Emily has been struggling to adapt to his specific needs, all while trying to get on the same page with her husband, Shane Simpson, 50, who isn’t always convinced that Luke’s symptoms are legitimate.
“Luke’s very attached to me, and I think he feels like I’m the only person in his corner. Everything with him is big, over the top, and he’s very overstimulated all the time, so I have found, just through all the things I read and going to therapy, that he has to constantly be calmed. And by doing that, you have to be very soft with him. You can’t be harsh. You can’t raise your voice. You really can’t even discipline because he takes that so internally,” Emily explained on the October 1 episode of the RHOC: After Show.
“I constantly am regulating his system by a lot of hugs. He has to be hugged a lot,” she continued.
Meanwhile, the behavior and Emily’s handling of it “doesn’t make sense” to Shane, who feels that Emily coddles Luke when he acts out.
“Shane and I have completely different parenting styles,” Emily noted. “I understand that his brain doesn’t work like the other kids. You cannot get him to, like, brush his teeth, put pajamas on, and go to bed. He shuts down. He covers his ears. He’s not ready. It takes a lot of nurturing.”
While Emily joined a parenting group with moms who have kids that have PANDAS and learned of an infusion of antibiotics and fluids that improved many of their children, Luke had a “severe reaction” to the treatment.
“That night, he woke up in the middle of the night, and he had horrible migraines, and he couldn’t stop throwing up,” Emily recalled, noting that it made his eating disorder worse.
“The little foods that he will eat now, he won’t eat those,” she revealed. “He used to eat Oreos … I was, like, so excited that he ate Oreos because at least it’s calories. Also, the Oreos, they had a calming effect. When he would get into an episode, I could get him to lay in my bed, and I’d put covers on him, and I’d tuck him in. I’d give him apple juice, and I’d give him a bowl of Oreos, and he would take the top off and eat the middle. It was a systematic thing for him.”
After Gina Kirschenheiter, 42, mentioned that Luke was “like a toddler” when it came to his needs, Emily confirmed there are times when he is “so mature,” which raises questions for Shane.
“That’s when Shane gets really upset because he thinks he’s faking it,” she shared, “whereas for me, something is happening up [in his mind].”
Emily went on to reveal that she thought she’d have to bring Luke to film the After Show.
“I thought today I would have to bring him with the little snacks that he eats and an iPad, and he’s gonna have to sit over there. It took me probably an hour and a half of just talking to him, laying with him, telling him that I had to go to work today, that everything was going to be okay. I wrote out a checklist for him of everything he needs to do with me gone. I’ve fielded lots of phone calls and texts just to get him to the point where it was okay for me to leave,” she explained.
“I just love him, and I tell him all the time how amazing and great,” she went on. “He’s so smart, how smart he is, and how much I love him, and that his brain just functions differently and that’s okay. We’ll just work with it, and he is with me 24/7. I mean, he sleeps in the bed with me. He is attached to me … It’s exhausting.”
As for how Luke has been doing lately, Emily added, “I think Luke might look like he’s functioning better, but that’s because I’m parenting him better. I would say he’s probably the same.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 20 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Bravo.