fabufam

As we wrap up Season 1 YouTube Therapy, we are interviewing members of the FabuFam and FabuArmy. We are excited to dive deep into a discussion regarding their mental health and how each of them has used their hobbies to overcome the many obstacles faced daily.

Today we welcome FabuArmy NOOB and will be discussing in greater detail ADHD. Through open discussion we hope to, educate, inspire and empower others facing the same or similar struggles.

As we wrap up Season 1 YouTube Therapy, we are interviewing members of the FabuFam and FabuArmy. We are excited to dive deep into a discussion regarding their mental health and how each of them has used their hobbies to overcome the many obstacles faced daily.

Today we welcome FabuFam ARROW and will be discussing in greater detail Asperger Syndrome. Through open discussion we hope to, educate, inspire and empower others facing the same or similar struggles.

As we wrap up Season 1 YouTube Therapy, we are interviewing members of the FabuFam and FabuArmy. We are excited to dive deep into a discussion regarding their mental health and how each of them has used their hobbies to overcome the many obstacles faced daily.

Today we welcome FabuFam LexxTv and will be discussing in greater detail DEPRESSION. Through open discussion we hope to, educate, inspire and empower others facing the same or similar struggles.

Within ten months, we had more positive results than all of 2 years of conventional therapy. This was enough validation for us that we had made the right decision as a family for Fabu by dedicating our full attention and time to her. At this point, Fabu was in 2nd grade and showing improvement not only in academics but also socially. She was not yet reading at grade level. Still, her teachers on numerous occasions commented that Fabu was more willing to participate in class and was even chosen to read in front of the whole school a report she had written about Aphrodite.

We were so proud of her accomplishments...

Fabu had not been exposed to gaming on multiple platforms such as Xbox and VR. VR gaming had just come out, and Fabu wanted to play VR games often. These were not only fun for her but all of us as a family.

Our strategy was to expose her to a variety of gaming choices besides pc games like Minecraft and Roblox and app games like plants vs. zombies. We knew that eventually, she would pick the games that she was most comfortable with or piqued her interest the most...

Fabu enjoyed playing Minecraft, Roblox, and other games at that time. We began noticing she was losing attention quicker than we expected. We were hoping she would continue as engaged and motivated to play as she was with Pokémon Go previously. So, we decided at this point to switch up the content again. We put gaming on pause and returned to something she was familiar with and had done before… unboxings. However, this time she was unboxing gaming equipment. We planned to challenge her and take her out of her comfort zone, so she would have the freedom to continue to express herself as she did during gaming and IRL.

We took advantage of having bought a new Xbox, the Oculus Rift, and a new tablet for her to unbox. A new tool used with these videos, which was unique, was to research the item being unboxed and talk about it in her own words. This is something which she currently does until today with each unboxing video. This strategy worked, and the results obtained were exceptional...

We now transitioned to gaming therapy after the Pokémon Go burnout.

At this point, Fabu was reading under grade level. Reading was something that we wanted to include in the new therapeutic content.

We were on the hunt for a game that she liked to play, which would have all of the factors we were looking for. We started with Plants vs. Zombies, which Fabu played on her tablet. This was a game she liked and played often.

Quickly we moved onto Roblox because it had different mini-games that held her interest. We were looking for one that had more reading involved but did not find one on Roblox.
The good thing about Roblox was that it had a big community, and this was when Fabu started playing online with others. She was not in direct communication with anyone, but she liked playing with others even though she was not talking directly to them...

We spent way too much time on Pokémon Go and knew that Fabu would lose interest at one point or another.

Fabu is young, and with ADHD, her attention on something does not last long.

Her interest in Pokémon Go lasted longer than we ever expected.

We knew that her therapy needed to evolve into something new. By this point, we had done DIY, unboxing toys, IRL, Pokémon Go, and learned different things along the way.

DIY was great for Fabu to explain what she was doing; toy unboxing was a success; going to different fun locations and exciting; IRL helped her develop her social skills more than anticipated...

Pokémon Go came out, and we were hooked immediately!!

What we loved the most about this game was that it brought grandparents, parents, and kids out playing the same game. We also loved that we discovered new places, beaches, and parks we had never been to before. Most weekends were spent hanging out with other Pokémon Go trainers and participating in raid events, which helped Fabu be more social...

After doing DIY gummy videos and toy unboxing, we knew the secret to continue obtaining positive results, and having Fabu engaged and excited was to switch up the content. We decided to explore IRL videos using positive reinforcement and fun family activities.
Fabu loved to be outdoors and was open to participating more when she was entertained...

At this point, we had around 15 videos posted on YouTube between the DIY gummies and the toy unboxings. We had believed that having a YouTube channel would be a fantastic way of having an archive where we could see Fabu’s progress throughout time. Her YouTube channel was also a way for family and friends to see her improvement. We soon noticed that random people were following the channel and also making comments on the videos posted. Fabu was the first one to notice that we had reached 100 followers on YouTube.
We were so surprised that our content was being watched and people commenting, but nobody knew what we were doing. Their comments were based on the actual content of the video.

We were not ready to openly speak about Fabu’s speech delay, ADHD, and learning disabilities. Fabu was even less prepared, and we did not want to take away from the positive results we were obtaining.

We knew that with the positive results we were obtaining, we would want to speak with other parents going through the same issues so that we could help. However, at that time, it was too soon, and we were not prepared.

Look at us now; it only took us four years.

So, we now have the equipment and software and are ready to take it to the next level!!

Quickly we found that making DIY gummy videos was taking us too much time. We ended up more stressed than ever before. Fabu would start off very motivated to help but soon would lose interest and leave us making the gummy while she went off to watch TV or play.
The good news was that we were still getting good results but needed to make some changes.

By this point, we knew that the recipe for therapeutic success was creating the YouTube videos, not so much the actual content of the video.
So, we started to look for what content would be next.

We asked Fabu for other things that interested her and what she would like to do for her following videos. At that time, Fabu watched several channels that did toy unboxing videos and excitedly told us that she wanted to do it herself. We watched several of these videos and decided to take a trip to ToysRus. Yes, ToysRUs was still open at that time. We discovered many adorable new collectible toys like the Shopkins, Unicornios, Twozies, Squinkies dew drops, and so many others. What we found the most interesting was that each of the little toys had a specific name. We believed that her ability to pronounce each of the little toys' names would be an excellent therapeutic tool for her to practice and find fun and engaging.

To keep Fabu engaged, we decided to switch up filming from home and go out to a new location.
We knew that recording at home sometimes ended with us being frustrated due to the long hours. We wanted to improve the mood by making it fun and going to different places like the park and Chuck e cheese.

This was when we started making toy unboxing videos.

We now have all the equipment we needed to start, but we missed the software required to edit videos and create graphics for videos and thumbnails properly.  Let’s not forget, our background has nothing to do with graphic design or videography, and we could not afford to pay someone to edit the videos and make the thumbnail art for us.  We ended up doing what we did best… go to YouTube and find videos to educate ourselves on the best video editing and graphic designing software available. 

Our research determined that Sony Vega and Adobe Premier were the best and most complete programs to use.  FabuDad ended up choosing Sony Vega as it was the more user-friendly of them.

For creating thumbnail art, FabuDad found he liked using Photoshop and PicMonkey the best.  He liked how PicMonkey, although not as sophisticated as Photoshop, was very user-friendly and allowed us to make art quickly. 

Little did we know that making and rendering 4k videos were too large for YouTube and needed to be compressed.  We needed to find a program that would compress those videos, which you don’t need now.

Even though we did not know how to do anything, our level of determination was high, and this helped us get through the tons of tutorials that taught us how to do things, so we were able to accomplish our goal.   The bottom line is if we can do it, so can you. 

After making tough family decisions, we decided we were more than all in. 

We now needed to equip ourselves with the proper equipment.  After much research, we quickly found out we had less than the basics.  You may ask, what are the basics?  Well, we had a cheap camera (HD camera), a couple of offices all in one PC and a lot of enthusiasm! 

After watching several channels about making YouTube videos for beginners, we quickly learned that we were in desperate need of a bunch of equipment we had no clue about.  We needed a better quality camera, lights (who knew our home lights would not be enough), a microphone, a recorder (to record the audio from the microphone), a green screen if you want to be more creative, and new a computer that would allow us to edit and render a video on time properly.   Can you believe our all-in-one office PC took 21 hours to render a 6 min video?  Talk about frustrating. 

Some of the strategies we took to get the items we needed was:

1. Looking for the best deal - I went to Best Buy and shopped the open box section.  Found a 4k video camera with a considerable discount.  Mind you, at that time; a 4k video camera was as inexpensive as it is today.  5 years ago, 4k was the latest technology out. Let’s not forget back in the day; our cell phones only recorded in HD. 
2. We needed to educate ourselves with the items we were purchasing - We went to Sam Ash looking for a microphone and recorder.  We went into the store asking for the best microphone and recorder for making videos.  The sales associate asked us if we needed “a dynamic microphone, with phantom power.”  This was when we realized we had no idea what we were doing.  This associate gave us a 2-hour tutorial on the differences between microphones, recorders and which one would most suit our needs.
3. Building our own PC – We found that building our own PC would not only be less expensive but would build it using parts that we could upgrade in the future when needed.
4. Lights and Green Screen – Even though we had no idea how to use the lights and green screen yet, we bought these as these would allow us to get creative to keep making it interesting for Fabu. We even bought a Green Suit that would make Fabu invisible after editing. 

Our home office, little by little, became a mini recording studio. 

After 6 gummy videos, we found that making YouTube videos was no joke!  They were taking a really long time from start to finish; between setting things up, filming, editing, rendering, and uploading so Fabu could see herself later, each video was taking way more time and energy than we ever imagined.

However, the results were great.  Fabu was even more engaged with each new video we made. 

We knew we were getting closer to making some tough family decisions quickly!   The amount of time and effort was taking a toll on us in our daily life.  We were scared to fail because we were not putting in the amount of time needed to succeed. We needed more time, more time to overall get the results we wanted.

FabuMom – At that time, I worked in the social services field and started preparing to open a targeted case management company here in Miami. This was taking up a lot of my time and resources to achieve this goal. 

FabuDad – At that time, he had a private lending company that provided business loans to Hispanic companies in Miami. 

As a family, we were doing well, going on vacations for at least 4 x years.  We had many plans and goals which had nothing to do with making YouTube videos.

We knew, though, that we needed to make some drastic decisions if we were going to have a shot at having great success with Fabu’s therapy. 

So, we did what every family does.  We had a family meeting over dinner and discussed the best decision for Fabu, knowing that each of us needed to compromise.

Filming, editing, rendering, and uploading was what was taking the most time.   Not to mention all the time it took preparing to film.  There were not enough hours in a day for FabuDad to successfully run a private lending business and do all of what we were doing at home with Fabu.  We just needed more time. It was decided for FabuMom to stop pursuing the Case Management agency's opening as we knew that focusing on opening and building a second business would take all the time away from helping Fabu.  She instead found a job that allowed her to work from home, giving her more flexibility and time to dedicate to Fabu. FabuDad would, for liability reasons, close down the business and dedicate his time to helping Fabu. 

We knew these hard decisions needed to be made to help Fabu successfully, but we also knew that our lifestyle would change completely moving forward from that moment.  No more vacations and bootstrapping mode were enabled.

We were certain that the best investment we were making was investing in our daughter and her future. 

After having a rough first day of shooting and not knowing if it was a humungous fail, it was time to look at the footage we had.  FabuDad had never edited a video in his life.  After many tutorials which taught him everything from intro to outro, transitions, overlays, lower thirds, and everything needed for a video to look good, his goal was to create something as cool and fun as what Fabu was already watching on other channels.  He wanted her to feel proud and happy with the results when she saw herself, hoping this would encourage her to make videos.  Not know if this would be the first and only video he would edit after the semi-chaotic first day of shooting.  

FabuDad took several days to edit the first video on our home PC, not a PC designed for editing.  He struggled with rendering the 4k video, so he did as best as he could cut it to the final render.  A 6 min and 42-sec video took nearly all day to render.  Needless to say, FabuDad was beyond frustrated but remain hopeful and somehow proud of what we had just done.

The moment arrived to premiere our first video. We left early from work that day and picked up Fabu from school, rushing home to watch the video.  We sat down as a family to watch our first video together.  We were excited and afraid to watch at the same time.  We were unsure of our results. Unsure of our method and if we had to find alternative methods which would work.  Nevertheless, we were hopeful and determined to help Fabu no matter what.

FabuMom’s reaction – After watching the video, I absolutely loved it.  I was impressed with the quality of the work.  I could not believe FabuDad could make a video so well put together from all the filming we had done.  All the scene transitions looked so cool, and how he incorporated the snapchats for dramatic purpose.  I laughed, seeing myself stirring the gummies remembering how Fabu had totally left us alone in the whole gummy-making process.  The bloopers were so funny.  I loved how the bloopers highlighted Fabu’s fun personality, and you could tell how much fun she was having while filming. 

FabuDad’s reaction – As I went through all the raw footage, I found that Fabu was unable to say many things correctly and often unable to put more than 2 words together.  This made the editing process that much harder.  My goal was to make a 5-minute video, but I did not think I could do it by editing one word here and there.  I quickly noticed that we had plenty of what we called “bloopers” of her goofing around and not saying things correctly.  I decided to add those bloopers because, in reality, it was just her being herself and having fun.  My goal was for Fabu to feel it was a funny and entertaining video enough for her to want to continue doing it again.

Fabu loved the video as well.  We noticed that as she watched, she was correcting herself.  She could say words and phrases after seeing herself in the video that she had been previously unable to.  We could not believe what we were seeing and hearing.  Right before our eyes, she could pronounce, remember and correctly repeat what she was watching. 

The AHA moment realized that the therapy was never in the video's filming; it was in reality after creating the video, her watching herself and then being able to repeat what she had said without skipping a beat correctly. 

Who would have thought the bloopers would be the main factor in Fabu’s therapy.  This is where all her mistakes were highlighted and being presented funnily.  Fabu knew and recognized how to say whatever she had previously been unable to correct.  

Overall, we felt happy and more hopeful than ever now, knowing that we had a bigger success than we ever expected.  We fully embraced doing more late-night gummies for the sake of Fabu’s progress. 

We had a YouTube channel with a channel intro.  Now what?  We knew we needed to integrate her having fun, content she was interested in, and then incorporate therapy. We asked her what she liked the most out of what she was watching on YouTube.  At that time, gummy videos were trending, and Fabu loved watching these, especially those that showed them making gummies. 

She believed these videos were not only fun but wanted us to do these as a family.  We anticipated she would be as engaged as she was previously during the filming of the intro video.  Actually, we were counting on it!

Our gummy-making journey began!  We went all out.  We knew the success of what we were doing depended on setting the stage and creating a magical experience for Fabu.  We went out and got a new 4k video camera, lights, microphone, built a background, and even bought a movie director clapperboard.  As you can see, for us, it was all in!   Mind you, our only experience making videos was shooting clips really quickly on our cell phones.   We had no idea how to use lighting or how to incorporate audio into the camera.  We clearly needed many crash courses on how to make videos for dummies.  YouTube became our academy, and there we found videos that taught us all these things we had no clue how to do.  This may sound like a big investment, but truly knowing what we know today, our initial investment cost us what today we spend in just a single light. 

After going through many YouTube tutorials and receiving all the new equipment, it was time for our first “professional” video.  We were all so excited! We made final decisions about the gummy-making video's content, and we went out and bought all the ingredients so everything would be ready for film day.  Never in our lives had we bought so many packets of gelatin, so much so that we ended up having to go to several different stores to get all the gelatin we needed. It was A LOT!!!

Film day arrived, and we were ready to go!  After all the tutorials we watched, we were pros and knew how to set up everything from the microphone location, the camera's correct angle, where each of the lights needed to be placed to obtain the best lighting and has no shadows.  We felt like true filmmakers.  

And, of course, nothing went as we imagined. Our first video was making a gummy bar-b-que sauce bottle and took forever to make.  Fabu was interested in making the gummy all about 5 min.  She quickly left us in the kitchen making the gummies while she went to watch TV. 

We had written a script for Fabu to use, but she refused to follow the script and instead wanted to use her talking Olaf, a toy that was popular at that time, as her sidekick that she would talk to.  We let her do that so that she would not get upset and lose interest as we were already too far invested in the project and feared she would shut down and not want to participate, as this was her default.

We let her improvise and explain what she was doing and what was going on.  We asked her to express herself as best as she could.  This is where the problems started.  There were certain words unfamiliar to her that took her a long time to learn and remember so she would be able to repeat them.  This triggered her to become frustrated as we would not let her use words that were easy for her to say or things that did not make sense.  We by this point, we're exhausted after working all day and hours spent making several batches of gummies, leaving us with our patience much stretched.  We always tried to keep it fun and turn all of her mistakes into jokes to be a good experience.  The truth was that it was becoming late, we were running low on patience, and neither Fabu nor ourselves could continue, so we ended the filming not knowing if what we had done was a failure or a success.   Not knowing if we would ever do that again. 

From the moment Fabu started vocalizing, she seemed to have her own language, which sometimes only FabuMom would understand.  Fabu has always been a happy kid and expressed herself by hugging people.  She did not often get frustrated when she was not understood.  When asked a question she did not understand, she would answer in her own way, smile, hug you, and you clueless as to what she had just said.

We thought the delay initially was because we are a bilingual family, which not only did we speak to her in both English and Spanish, but so did her grandparents and extended family.  We believed Fabu was just confused by both languages, and it was just taking her a little longer. 

Fabu had reached her walking milestone at an earlier age than most other children.  Her pediatrician had said that oftentimes when this happens, other milestones such as language take a little longer to develop. 

Fabu did not start attending daycare until she was 3 years old.  Fabu’s grandparents spent most of the day with her while FabuParents were at school and work. We believed this also had to do with the delay in speech because they catered to her every need, and she did not need to say much to obtain what she wanted and more.  All she would need to do is point a finger, and she would get whatever she wanted.   We believed that she would immediately catch up to where she needed to be concerning her speech as soon as she started school. 

Despite her lack of vocabulary and speech, which she did not understand, Fabu always made sure you understood her by her gestures and acting out what she wanted to say.

Fabu was formally diagnosed with speech delay at 4 years old.

She started receiving speech therapy 2 x week. 

We were hopeful that with therapy, she would quickly overcome the delay. We knew that therapy needed to be aggressive and agreed to 2 x week.

Her speech therapist was going to Fabu’s daycare 2 x week.  She would get pulled out of her class for each session.  We were hopeful that Fabu would obtain results quickly. 

Fabu went through 3 different therapists within 2 years.  Each of them had the same feedback:  Fabu was a happy and friendly kid who lacked interest during a session, was normally not engaged, did not pay attention, and rejected participating in therapy overall.  Fabu’s improvement was minimal during this time, and we became increasingly more concerned.  

As the first grade was just around the corner, we became worried about all the possible issues that Fabu could face if she did not significantly improve her speech, such as social issues, behavior issues, anxiety, and depression.  This was when we decided to take matters into our own hands. 

Based on the therapists' feedback, our first task was to look for something that she was interested in, wanted to be a part of, and thought was fun.  It was time to get creative!

We tested her level of interest with many things she liked at that time.  We looked for things she found entertaining and was engaged with for long periods of time.  We found that she enjoyed many things but most did not capture her attention for long enough. 

We discovered that her most captured attention was when she watched several kid-friendly YouTube channels and their content.  She kept bugging us about letting her have her own YouTube channel, something we had never even considered.  In a moment of appearing to entertain her idea, we asked her to use her tablet and record herself and make a video of what she would like for us to put on YouTube.  We never imagined she would actually go and do it.  To our surprise, she made several videos which showed her expressing herself better than we had ever seen or heard her before.  This showed us that she had really focused her attention on making those videos, which was something she was interested in and seemed to provide some hope.

We continued to entertain this idea and keep our promise of creating a YouTube channel for her and, with a camera, headed to a park to film her official INTRO video.  After we saw how motivated and engaged she was during filming, we decided to create a YouTube channel for Fabu named FabuRocks.   Fabu, short for Fabulous, has been her nickname since she was born, and Rocks came from her obsession with collecting rocks from wherever we went, where she had a story for each rock she had. 

FabuRocks was created and inspired by our daughter FABU to help her with speech delay, learning disabilities, and ADHD at home.

At the age of 4, FABU was diagnosed with speech delay and immediately started going to speech therapy twice a week. After 2 years and minimal improvements, FABU was in 1st grade and testing 3-grade levels below in speech and reading.

By 2nd grade, FABU showed ADHD and learning disabilities symptoms such as dyslexia and language processing issues. An IEP (Individualized Education Plan) was developed to help meet her needs and goals at school.

We decided to take matters into our own hands as we faced our biggest fear: FABU in 1st grade, with a considerable delay in communication, knowing that this could lead to or trigger further mental health issues later in life we wanted to avoid.

This led us to use gaming, unboxing videos, and live streaming as the main therapeutic tool that produced quicker and more significant improvement than we ever imagined.

Now that FABU is older, she is no longer embarrassed for us, as a family, to openly discuss the obstacles she faces daily. After seeing her significant improvement over the years, she now understands the importance of being verbal about her disabilities, what we do and how we do it to empower others like her.

Currently, FABU is in 6th grade and testing at grade level in reading and vocabulary and getting A’s and B’s in all her classes. She’s social, outspoken, frequently participates in class, and is passionate about Math and literature.

FABU’s accomplishments as a content creator are many, from being the youngest YouTube Gaming Partner at the age of 7 to currently being the Youngest FaceBook Gaming partner and sponsored by several of the biggest name brands in gaming such as Turtle Beach, ROCCAT, and G-Fuel.

She’s the founder and leader of the FabuArmy, a clan that empowers and supports young content creators like herself.

This is why we have decided to create a Podcast, and our goals are to educate parents, create awareness, and for FABU’s voice to be heard as we share our story, how we got here, and where we are headed. We will openly discuss our experiences, methods, techniques, what has worked, what has NOT worked, our frustrations, how we overcome our challenges, and our plans.

We invite you to join us on our daily journey via our YouTube channel, where we post a new video daily, our Twitter updates, our Instagram posts, our website event news, our Discord community, during our FaceBook Gaming live streams, and via our weekly Podcast.

We are excited to announce the launch of Season 1 of the FabuRocks Podcast, on March 22, 2021, exactly 5 years from when we started FabuRocks as a way to help Fabu overcome her speech delay, learning disabilities and ADHD.

We invite you to join us in celebrating this long overdue project that has been created with love in the hopes of providing education, awareness and for Fabu's voice to be heard, as we openly share our story, how we got here and where we are headed.