What If The Problem Is The System Not The Child

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's podcast.
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And I'm delighted to be joined by Sally Michaels.
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Sally's going to tell you all about her story, how she's ended up, where she's ended up, and the amazing things she can do and help you with around working with your teenagers, especially if they've got neurodiversity.
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So, Sally, very welcome to the podcast today.
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Delighted to have you here.
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Please tell us who you are, what you do, and we'll take it from there.
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Thanks, Nicky.
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Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm Sally Michaels, and I run what is called a non-school alternative provision called Blue Squid, which means it's not a registered school.
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And we support young people from the ages of nine to 16 who are struggling to attend school full-time, whether that whatever sorts of settings, whether it's a specialist setting or a mainstream setting that they're on roll at.
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And we are a part-time provision.
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And so we sort of we bridge children who've been out of school for quite a long time, often, back into leaving the house again, being around people of their own age again, and then bridging into doing a bit of learning and being ready to move back into a setting, again, whatever sort of setting that is, whether that's back into mainstream, whether it's back into specialist setting, whether it's into a package that is bespoke for that child.
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So we're we are that sort of first step back out of the house through usually a very low mental health period.
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So that's what we do.
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Yeah, so we have primary children in the morning and secondary children in the afternoon.
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So it's quite a wide range.
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And our morning's very play-based therapeutic, it's all social skills, and our afternoons tend towards a little bit more towards the academic and getting our learners back on their pathway because all of our learners are academically able and and want to be learning and have huge aspirations.
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They want to go to university, they want to do things, but school's just not working for them at the moment.
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So that is what we do at Blue Squid.
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Love that.
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Thank you.
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Now, the reason I'm so interested in this at the moment is because a lot of my friends with younger people in their life are struggling with the mainstream school system.
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So I've obviously met you before, and I was like, oh, that's very interesting.
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And also we've got this amazing positive parenting summit coming out next May, 15th of May 2027.
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And I'm delighted to say that you're going to be there and running a workshop.
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How did this all start?
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Well, I am a mainstream teacher by background.
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So I'm a primary school teacher.
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I've been doing that for two decades.
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And I have been a SENCO special educational needs coordinator for the majority of that time as well.
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So it's always been an interest of mine.
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I've been a school leader, deputy head, interim headship, but I found that mainstream education was going in a direction that didn't make me very comfortable anymore.
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Lot of pressure for academics and forgetting, I felt that we were educating young people, not robots.
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And the the pressure is just all about outcomes.
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And actually, it just doesn't, it didn't, it didn't fit with my ethics and values, and I didn't feel I could continue to work in mainstream.
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So actually, my wife Sue, who you also know and I think will also be at the summit, she runs a holistic tutoring company called Redbird Tutoring.
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And so initially I sort of stepped back from teaching and actually took about 18 months to recover from being in the system, actually, for my own nervous system to reset and to recover from that high stress environment, especially post-COVID.
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And uh so I joined her with the tutoring, but then we started tutoring children at our small group tutoring center who were being funded by the schools after the COVID school shutdowns.
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And she we found that the children who we were supporting were often finding it difficult to go back to school, or when they were in school, finding it difficult to attend lessons, finding it harder and harder to engage with their learning, and yet they were able to engage with their learning when they were with us.
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And so we had a conversation with them about that and said, What is it that means that you can engage with your learning here?
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Some children were coming most of the day, English, maths, science, 90 minutes of each, in small groups.
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And they said something very, very simple.
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They said, You're nice to us.
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That's it.
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That's how easy it is, right?
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And and they said actually, that's that's just not true in schools, and and not all schools, of course, but their experience was the pressure that schools were put back under after COVID to catch children back up.
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Schools were given a year and a half to catch up, and after that, there'd be no leeway for the fact that schools had been closed for so long and online learning had been so patchy for although schools were deliver lots of schools were delivering excellent online learning, not all children were accessing it.
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And that put enormous pressure on the system.
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And I think when anybody is under pressure, you look for the highest level of control.
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And that's you know, when when you feel like you under immense pressure to deliver an outcome, you you go down a high control route.
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And I think that's what happened in schools, that we weren't allowed to settle back in.
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It very much became about right, I just need you to be quiet and sit down and do what you're told because I haven't got time for you to be you, for you to have difficulties, for you to find this tricky.
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I haven't got time for you to get dysregulated, I haven't got time for you to have a friendship issue because we've got to get through this at an even faster rate than we normally do.
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And that's really, really difficult for the children, or for a lot of children, and most children, I would say, I would say coping was was the majority of children after COVID in schools, very few were thriving.
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But you know, we're now back on a more even keel, but that legacy is still there for some children, and uh the the knock-on effect has is that so many secondary schools are uh are using this high control approach, and that is really, really difficult for some children, particularly teenagers, and particularly neurodivergent teenagers, because autonomy is so so important for neurodivergent teenagers to feel seen and heard and understood when you feel different is so important.
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And and for somebody not to just say, Well, just tough luck, get on with it.
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I don't care if it's making you uncomfortable, I don't care if it's making you very anxious.
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That's just the way we do it here.
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And if you can't do it here, then maybe you need to look at a different school.
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Well, for somebody who already feels slightly different, that rejection is is really, really difficult to take.
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Makes you feel even more of an outsider.
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Anyway, so working with those children is how we ended up saying actually we do we need to provide somewhere for these children where they can feel that they're getting what they need.
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And so we are registered with Cambridgeshire and Northamptons here.
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Local authorities is an alternative provision, and we take referrals from schools and the local authority and private referrals, and and this the stories that we hear are just heartbreaking.
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You know, some of our students have been out of school for five or six years, and to to break down that lack of confidence and to rebuild somebody's ability to believe they can do it, they they can learn, is an incredibly rewarding thing to do.
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And, you know, we we've got a girl who's been with us a year and a half, who's who has been out, had been out of school since year four.
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Wow, came to us in year nine, just finished year 10, and is going back into school for year 11.
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And she's absolutely going to smash her GCSEs.
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And to see their child through that journey is just incredible because much as I hate the fact that this, you know, core GCSEs is the gateway to the rest of your adult life, the fact is that that is the case.
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That these very high-pressure exams at the year end of year 11, where you must get your English and your maths and a few others, and you know, your five GCSEs, including English and maths, absolutely unlocked doors.
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And not getting it absolutely closes doors.
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And much as I don't like the system, that doesn't stop it being true.
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And and so our aim with our teenagers is let's get them to the point where that's a possibility for them, where they're back on track for that, and and that is genuinely then life-changing opportunities because they're all really smart kids and they deserve to take their GCSEs and go on and do A-Libles and go to university and do amazing things in the world, and they will, but also accepting that sometimes there's a slightly different timeline, you know.
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Maybe it takes you another couple of years to get your GCSEs, maybe it does.
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No one cares.
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No one in when you're 43, no one's gonna say, Well, hang on, you got your maths a year later.
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You know, it's not how it works, but it does feel like it when you're in year 10 and 11 or secondary schools because it matters to the schools that you get them in year 11, because that's where the schools are judged on it.
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But actually, some of our students that we have here are spreading their GCSCs out.
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So they might take ones that they're really passionate about at the end of year nine and take some more at the end of year 10 and take some more at the end of year 11.
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Then I've got my five or six by the end of year 11.
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No one's gonna care in the future how you did it.
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The way that worked for you is what works for you.
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And I think one of the problems is that families feel really alone and they don't realise that there is flex in the system if you know where to push, if that makes sense.
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Yeah, that makes sense.
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Because schools do what they do, and actually, schools don't always know what the flex in the system is, particularly younger children.
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If you've still got children in primary school, it's still relatively rare for children to experience difficulties attending school in primary schools, and quite often our students who are coming here, it's the first time that schools have have dealt with referring to alternative provisions or having children out of school.
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And and part of what we offer is training to schools to say, actually, these are some things you can do here that that actually will help.
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And it is all it is is being a bit flexible and you know, maybe relaxing your rules about black socks because those ones are just genuinely too sensory problematic for this child, you know, and just having a little bit of understanding of children as individuals and and how neurodivergent minds work.
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I was listening to a great podcast the other day where Kathy Wassel, who runs uh Autistic Girls Network, which is an amazing support charity for autistic girls, uh, they've got a great website and loads of stuff on there, resources for parents.
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And and, you know, she was saying actually that schools spend so much time explaining to neurodivergent children how they have to fit in and why the rules apply to them as well, and little to no time trying to understand why that child thinks that way and how they can help them understand what neurotypical people are thinking, but also how they can say to their friends, look, this is how it's happened because that's how he thinks or she thinks.
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That's how, you know, and and doing both sides of the coin, it's very much about, well, this is how you fit in, this is how you meet our school expectations, this is how you need to change to meet our guidelines, and very little about actually what could we flex on because that's not how you think.
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You know, intense feelings of social justice are really, really common in neurodivergent people, and you know, that falling out over football on the playground or friendship issues because of that can and actually having a conversation where you explain those understood rules, you know, it's okay to cheat playing football on the playground, but it's not okay to cheat in an exam.
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Actually, that's that's the same scenario for some neurodivergent people.
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And and to to uh to explain, actually, there are unwritten social rules around when you're playing with your friends, you can cheat and people will let you off it, and that's okay.
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But in this situation, it isn't okay.
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And where do you draw that line?
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And and having those conversations and explaining to their friends, well, this is why they're getting upset, because well, you think you can see the comparison with you don't cheat.
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You're always telling you not to cheat, so and this is what they're thinking.
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But actually, schools don't do that either because they don't have the time or they don't have the knowledge or they don't have the training or they don't have the special specialisms, and so it can be a frustrating place for neurodivergent children to be because things, especially if you're in a strict school and they've got very strict rules, but then sometimes not those rules because of those unspoken dietal rules that we all innately follow and understand, but not not if you're neuro some neurodivergent people don't pick those up.
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That can be very confusing and frustrating.
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Um and incredibly stressful, I should imagine, Sally, if you're thinking and feeling that way when you go to school.
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Yes.
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And I'm fascinated at the moment doing a lot of reading around the overlap between neurodivergence and trauma, because we have students here, vast majority of our students who come here are neurodivergent.
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Vast majority of our students have a diagnosis of autism, often also a diagnosis of ADHD, maybe a PDA profile.
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It's quite a common Can you just sorry, can you just explain PDA for the audience?
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PDA, yes.
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PDA is pathological demand avoidance or pervasive drive for autonomy, depending on who you talk to.
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But the idea is the same where any request, perceived or otherwise, is interpreted by the brain as a demand and it invokes a fight or flight response.
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So even something that you want to do creates refusal and or a fight or flight response.
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So, for example, with our our primary children here, we are we use a method called plaioneering, which is about a play-centered therapeutic approach.
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But when we put out a range of activities, we know we have to leave it out for several weeks.
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Even if it's the most tempting-looking activity, our children with a PDA profile cannot approach it because the fact that it has been put out creates a demand, right?
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And therefore, their brain says, Hold on, someone wants something from you.
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Let's step back, let's let's, you know, we have to think about this, we have to investigate it, we have to check it's safe.
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Is the demand is what happens in your brain.
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And again, incredibly frustrating for those children, but they they just genuinely cannot engage in things that are interpreted by their brain as a demand.
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So gosh, I've I'm just gonna hold you there because I've never heard of that, and I can I can imagine also I've heard of PDA, but never really understood it.
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But I can also imagine how tiring that is to live in fight and flight for the majority of your life.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And you often find this with with neurodivergent young people because so this overlap between neurodivergence and trauma is we have we most of our children are students are neurodivergent, but then we also have a very small cohort of children who've been through some adverse childhood experiences, who maybe care experienced, who have had traumatic events in their childhood.
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And the way that their brain reacts to school is almost identical.
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Those demands of school, their presentation to us is identical.
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The things they find difficult is are identical.
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And I'm really interested in the fact that that actually a large portion of everyday life is actually quite traumatic for people who are neurodivergent because the world is built for them, people don't understand.
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And I don't I don't know why we, you know, that it's just a different way of looking at the world, a different way of processing the world around you, and the different different way of approaching problems and thinking about things, but we don't really talk about it, and we don't people don't seek to understand it, and therefore the world is for you know a a quarter to a third of people, you know, are thought to be neurodivergent.
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It's a large portion of the population, it's not in a tiny portion, yet the world is built for the majority, and and with very little regard actually for people who do think differently.
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And I think one of the issues is that neurodivergence doesn't look one way, it's a it's a range of things, and different people have different things that they find difficult, you know, sensory difficulties or demand difficulties, or uh because PDA is a subset of of autism, so it always comes along with an autistic diagnosis.
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So it's it is incredibly stressful, and and in many ways, elements of it are do cause trauma in the brain.
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We spend a lot of time with our children talking about brains, how they work.
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Okay, and particularly around uh we we break it down into sort of the brain has three states.
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You've got your executive, we have got them on the wall.
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I'm literally I'm looking at them, we've got them all over the place.
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Your brain has an executive state, your prefrontal cortex.
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I'm sure you know this, and many people will, but you can only access that's your thinking, logical, reasoning part of the brain, but you can only access it when you're calm.
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Then you have your emotional state, and when your brain perceives threat, you you go back into your emotional, your brain comes out of your executive state, into emotional state, and you have an emotional response.
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Anger, fear, disgust, embarrassment, shame, whatever that is, you have an emotional response.
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And then your third, if you go far, if if the trauma continues or you're in a persistent state of that, then you go back into survival state.
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And so we also look at it as a graph with our children with executive state in the middle, and we're trying to stay within that.
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But you can go up into an emotional state where you might have anger or you might have frustration, or you can go down into an emotional state where you might have anxiety and shame where you withdraw.
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And you can go up into a survival state, which looks like a mania, or you can go down into a survival state, which looks like a disassociation, which you know some of our students may get so low that they go into a dissociative state, which which sort of looks a little bit like they've a bit comatosed for a while and they have to come out of it.
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So it both of those states go up or down, and some people tend more towards the up or the down, but everybody can go either way.
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Um and and talking to our students about what that feels like when they start to like what are your triggers, what your signs in your body that you're starting to dysregulate are up or down, which is easier to come back from?
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Is there anything that works?
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What could we try?
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What are your signs that actually you might be heading towards a survival state, which most people won't in their daily lives don't get to that sort of survival state?
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But if you, you know, if you have certain experiences, etc., in your life, you you may things, things may get there.
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And if you spend enough time in your emotional state, enough time dysregulated, your cortisol levels are higher.
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And that will trigger that fight or flight response at a much lower level of experience.
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So for our children who have been in a highly anxious state for a long time, they will they will tip over into emotional and survival states much easier and at a much lower threshold than people who are generally calmer all the time.
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So coming back to your question from a long time ago, what can parents what can parents look for?
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It's that it's that emotional state, tipping into that emotional state a lot.
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And and this is tricky because teenagers they're in that emotional state a lot, uh generally because their executive state, their prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until they're sort of you know 25 or so.
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So it's developing rapidly and and but often, particularly with girls, you'll see that they cope at school, and then when they come home, they release the pressure, is released, the valve is released, and um.
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Um, home will get will see that emotional state.
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And school might say, Well, they're fine in school.
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Yeah.
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And you're what you're seeing is when your child gets home, they are not fine.
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They're not just tired, they're not just, you know, but they are exhausted or they are angry or frustrated or anxious or sad or full of shame.
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Shame is such a big emotion, interestingly, that we see with our young people being made to feel like there's something wrong with them.
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Not by somebody saying there's something wrong with you necessarily, but because they look around and they see what they perceive is other people coping, other people understanding the world, other people getting it, and they don't feel that they do.
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And that really does cause shame and trying to undo that in our young people's some of our biggest sets of work because if you can overcome that, if you can accept who you are and how you think and what you believe, you know, some of our young people who have managed to overcome that sense of okay, I am good as I am, my goodness me, are they gonna go on and change the world?
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Because they're like, I've got all these skills that other people don't have.
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I see things like this, I get that, I work in this way, and they will be massively useful to what whichever industry they join because they will bring a different perspective to things and they will work differently, which will bring on innovation and things like that.
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Um I I've I firmly believe a really good mix of of uh neuro brains generally in an organization is is a really healthy, healthy thing because if everybody thinks the same, you'll only ever get one outcome.
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You'll get what you've always got.
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There's a oh there's a great book called Rebel, Rebel Ideas.
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Yeah.
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Matthew Simon.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Brilliant book, brilliant book about, you know, if you uh when they when the the England football team were were trying to turn their luck around, they decided that having a room full of football managers wasn't going to change things.
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:40.559
And so they had a board full of people from all different areas of industry and and really brought their thinking from everybody like this to this, and and it did make a massive difference bringing this experience from a wide range of things.
00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:45.680
And I I I think that that is a really important thing to remember.
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:48.160
Everybody brings something unique to the table.
00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:49.519
Yeah.
00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:55.920
I'd give you a break there, Sally, because what you've said has been amazing, and for a couple of reasons.
00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:08.240
Number one, I think there'll be some people who are listening to this podcast who have young people in their life who are doing exactly what you're saying, and nobody's ever said to them there's a good reason for this.
00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:14.880
And so if you're listening, we'll leave all of your details at the bottom as well, and that website that you mentioned as well.
00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:20.880
We'll we'll leave those for people to go to in the notes at the end of this podcast.
00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:39.359
Also, I'm sitting here as an adult having just recently been diagnosed with ADHD, listening to what you're saying about young people at school and thinking it's hard at school because I don't really fit and I don't really understand why I fit, and I do my best at school, and actually the teachers are all pretty okay with me at school.
00:25:39.359 --> 00:25:41.440
Some subjects are better than others, obviously.
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:57.359
Then I go home and I'm a nightmare, and my poor old mum gets all the emotions thrown at her from a very young age to probably when I left home, and definitely when I I worked away from home for a period of time and just came back and nobody could tell me what to do.
00:25:57.359 --> 00:25:58.960
So sorry about that, mum.
00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.359
I think we're all learning together as we go, as we go through.
00:26:03.359 --> 00:26:08.720
So there'll be some adults that are listening to this and going, Oh my word, that's me.
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:10.400
That's okay.
00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:13.599
It's been eye-opening for myself as well.
00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:17.119
You know, when I was younger, I went through a period of not going to school.
00:26:17.119 --> 00:26:22.240
I had a traumatic school experience, which meant I stopped going to school for a period of time.
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:31.279
So you carry that, even though it was a relatively short period of time, it does affect that, you know, that intense fear feeling of shame.
00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:36.240
And I I we talk to our kids a lot about that because I don't think we talk about shame enough.
00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:42.559
And yet everybody feels it, and it's massive, it's a massive emotion, if not the biggest emotion.
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:47.680
Yeah, um, and it affects so many areas of your life.
00:26:47.680 --> 00:27:09.680
And actually, most of our internalized shame is absolute rubbish, you know, absolute nonsense based off one comment of somebody that actually, if you genuinely think about it, was nonsense, you know, and yet we've built our entire personalities around this incredible feeling of I can't do that, because one teacher one day said, Really?
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:10.319
You got that on?
00:27:10.319 --> 00:27:11.440
So, how'd you do that?
00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:17.359
And you know, for the next 20 years you thought you were terrible at maths and or English or whatever it was.
00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:21.519
And actually, when when you unpick it, it's it's just not there.
00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:25.200
But I've forgotten what I was saying.
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:50.640
What was it we we were talking about like the school experience, and you said that you'd had some difficulty at school, and and I just want to come back to that powerfulness of shame because I've met a lot of people in my world as a hostage and crisis negotiator who are experiencing shame and it's brought them to that point of crisis, and you can you can see that because it's never been dealt with and it's never been discussed, and there's never been a safe place to go.
00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:57.519
You know, this it's okay to feel like this, and let's talk about that and let's let's have this open and honest conversation.
00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:03.759
And people get to that level where they they feel suicidal and and that they can't move forward and they can't go on.
00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:11.680
So, yeah, I mean, shame all the emotions are incredibly powerful, but but shame is a particularly powerful one, and I see that a lot.
00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:14.079
And it's a particularly destructive one as well.
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:29.119
Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of our teenage girls have had a history of self-harm or suicidal thoughts because they have a period of very, very low mental health, and you know, so we often work alongside therapists and they're often having you know various therapies, etc.
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:34.960
And you know, we try and implement strategies that parents pass on to us from that.
00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:50.319
But I I think one of the biggest things that we found is that every time I speak to an a new family who contacts us, that they say, gosh, I read your website and I thought, oh, it's not just us.
00:28:51.119 --> 00:28:51.440
Yeah.
00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:54.480
It's it's happening to other people.
00:28:54.480 --> 00:28:59.359
It's happening to other people enough that there are services for children like mine, you know?
00:28:59.359 --> 00:29:07.839
And and it can feel so incredibly lonely because quite often you might be the only one of their friendship group.
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:14.240
You might not have friends as a parent whose child has gone through this, you might not, your child might not have friends who's experienced it.
00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:19.839
The school may not have had much experience working with young people who are fighting having difficulty attending school.
00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:24.240
And certainly most secondary schools' policies are well, you just need to come in.
00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:24.559
Yeah.
00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:28.559
And if you don't feel you can come in, you have to come to the door and say hello.
00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:36.240
And the analogy I always say is, you know, you can tell someone to put their hand in the fire for 30 seconds, it's still gonna hurt.
00:29:36.240 --> 00:29:48.880
Coming to the school door to say hello to the receptionist is still adding trauma to a child who finds the school premises traumatic, if they've had traumatic experiences there.
00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:55.440
So let's reduce your timetable, let's just do two hours a day.
00:29:55.440 --> 00:30:06.079
It's not gonna help if a child is genuinely struggling with with going to school, if if all that stuff has built up, it's not gonna help.
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:11.119
Specialist specialist provisions are out there, few and far between.
00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:18.160
But the SENCO school are always the first bet, you know, and that but they may or may not know about these things.
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:28.000
It it depends on which county you're in, and it depends on the training that your SENCO has had and the meetings that they go to and the things they've heard about.
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:35.759
And the, you know, the government has got some reforms underway which may or may not improve things, may or may not make them worse.
00:30:35.759 --> 00:30:41.680
We can always find out when it comes to government reforms what they look like on paper isn't always what they look like in reality, is it?
00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:43.119
We shall see on that one.
00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:51.039
But at least it's bringing attention to the fact that the CEN system, special educational needs uh system, needs reforming.
00:30:51.039 --> 00:30:53.039
One thing it needs is absolutely reforming.
00:30:53.039 --> 00:31:00.079
There aren't enough resources, there isn't enough funding, there isn't enough specialist knowledge in schools to support students.
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:07.839
And therefore schools are inadvertently uh making situations worse rather than better.
00:31:07.839 --> 00:31:14.559
Which just means the recovery time will be longer.
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:18.480
And quite often I speak to parents and they think they say, Why doesn't the school know this?
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:19.759
Why why didn't they tell us this?
00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:22.640
Why didn't they well they they don't know?
00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:23.680
You know, they don't know.
00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:27.359
I only know because I've been immersed in this world for the last few years.
00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:29.359
I didn't know it when I was a school SENCO.
00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:31.279
I would have let you down as a school SENCO.
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:32.960
I didn't know it then.
00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:50.319
So, you know, uh it it is is quite specialist, and therefore you do feel very alone, but there are some great Facebook groups and there are some great charities doing this work, and I can give you some links for that to put in there in the note as well.
00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:55.119
That would be amazing because um I think parenting is hard and lonely as it is.
00:31:55.119 --> 00:32:02.559
Um, I go into a lot of teenage forums around how to how like to have conversations with your teenager.
00:32:02.559 --> 00:32:06.880
You know, a lot of people are really struggling, they feel isolated, they feel alone.
00:32:06.880 --> 00:32:11.359
There's no manual you can pick up that goes, This is what you need to do as a parent.
00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:14.079
Um, I'm definitely not telling people how to parent.
00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:29.119
What I enjoy doing, and what I hope really helps people, it is to open up the conversation, to keep the connection, to help them to understand better what's happening to their young person and to come out the other end still connected to their young person.
00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:31.119
That is so difficult though, isn't it?
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:35.759
Yeah, it's so difficult because by default we all parent the way we were parented.
00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:36.079
Yeah.
00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:41.279
And or we leave the bad bits that we think were bad and then take the good bits.
00:32:41.279 --> 00:32:41.759
But yes.
00:32:41.759 --> 00:32:44.160
Yeah, I get what you're saying with the belief system.
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:44.640
Yeah.
00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:47.279
Our instinct is to parent that way.
00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:52.799
And you you only perhaps parent slightly differently if you think about it and you think actually maybe I don't want to replicate this.
00:32:52.799 --> 00:32:59.599
But the more it in the same way as schools under stress reach for high control techniques.
00:32:59.599 --> 00:33:02.160
I think you know that happens in families as well.
00:33:02.160 --> 00:33:07.519
The more stress, the more the stress level goes up in a family, the more I just need you to do it.
00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:14.079
Yeah, it's and the more we look for the control, like, okay, we set higher boundaries now because you're breaking all my boundaries.
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:18.319
So so now I need to set some higher boundaries because I feel like I'm losing control of you.
00:33:18.319 --> 00:33:22.559
Yeah, and that's going to lead me to grief and pain and shame.
00:33:22.559 --> 00:33:26.880
Of I'm not a good parent, everyone's judging me, all those sorts of things.
00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:33.759
So you're that those high stakes, those emotional conversations that become more about control because we're looking to control.
00:33:33.759 --> 00:33:42.000
If we have some sort of control, and actually we don't need to be with them 24-7, they are fighting for independence.
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:43.599
That's what they're designed to do.
00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:46.960
Biologically designed, teenagers.
00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:47.599
Yeah.
00:33:47.599 --> 00:33:55.519
I I'm always saying this to our kids, and actually, it sometimes does help their relationship with parents that you know, our brains haven't evolved.
00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:56.640
It hasn't been long enough.
00:33:56.640 --> 00:33:58.400
We haven't been around long enough as a species.
00:33:58.400 --> 00:34:06.079
Our brains are still living in small groups wandering the savannas, you know, grazing berries and occasionally killing antelope.
00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:10.000
That's where our brains evolutionarily are, right?
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.000
Culturally, we've evolved beyond that, but biologically we haven't.
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.079
It takes millions of years to evolve.
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:17.840
We haven't been around that long.
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:20.480
And so our brains are still there.
00:34:20.480 --> 00:34:25.599
And you know, you had to grow as an into a young adult.
00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:30.719
And at that point, because groups were small, you had to leave the group.
00:34:30.719 --> 00:34:34.159
You had to go off, you had to find other people, you had to reproduce.
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:38.719
You can't reproduce within a small group, you have all sorts of genetic things, and biologically we know that.
00:34:38.719 --> 00:34:45.920
So our children have to leave when they get to that age, and parents have to be able to let them leave.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:50.559
And I I genuinely believe that's what the teenage angster years are about.
00:34:50.559 --> 00:34:54.719
They're about a parent just being able to go, do you know what?
00:34:54.719 --> 00:34:55.760
Go.
00:34:55.760 --> 00:34:57.760
I've had it.
00:34:57.760 --> 00:34:58.960
Go.
00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:02.079
If you think you can do better, crack on.
00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:05.679
I'll see you in a few years when you come back and say sorry, you were right, mum.
00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:06.800
Yeah, all that.
00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:15.119
But you have to break with the family, and and if you don't, we don't continue as a species.
00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:15.599
Yeah.
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:20.880
So I but culturally, our age of being an adult has gone up and up and up and up.
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:27.760
So at the moment, we've got this problem of biologically, I feel like I'm ready to move out on my own.
00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:36.159
I want to find my people, I want to, I'm interested in, you know, sex and reproduction and all that sort of those drives are kicking in.
00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:41.599
I feel like I'm ready to go off, but you're still not old enough legally to leave home.
00:35:41.599 --> 00:35:43.920
You've still got your GCSEs in the middle of all that.
00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:44.719
What a terrible time.
00:35:44.719 --> 00:35:52.320
16 years is a terrible time to put high-stakes exams in front of teenagers because their brains are not there at all.
00:35:52.320 --> 00:36:12.559
Um, and so there's those years between sort of, you know, 14/15 and 18/19, where your biology and your cultural things, they just don't, they're not in the same place, and and it causes all sorts of problems and difficulties and confusions and parents saying you living under my roof, you've got to do follow my role.
00:36:12.559 --> 00:36:19.360
Yeah, but biologically you're you're ready to move on, but legally you can't.
00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:21.119
So that's tricky, you know.
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:32.159
I'm always saying you'd have been down a mine by now, yeah, you know, 150 years ago, bringing in a wage, you'd have been peeling potatoes at the big house by now, you know, you're 14.
00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:38.480
You're done with school, you'd been off living on wherever, off you go, go find work, bring money in for the house.
00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:39.039
Yep.
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:40.159
Not that long ago.
00:36:40.159 --> 00:36:46.159
My grandmother was in service in the kitchens at 14, you know, and my granddad was down the mine before then.
00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:47.840
So it's not that long ago.
00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:51.280
But now you've got to stay in school, whether it's right for you or not.
00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:58.079
You've got to stay at home, you've got to, you know, and that is a that's a tricky thing to navigate for kids and for parents.
00:36:58.320 --> 00:36:59.360
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:06.079
And that's what causes the clash and the conflict, and then and it becomes difficult and throw some neurodiversity in there as well.
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:06.960
And 100%.
00:37:06.960 --> 00:37:09.679
And it's really, really difficult and really challenging.
00:37:09.679 --> 00:37:11.760
Sally, I could talk to you all day.
00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:13.760
I've got to be honest around this.
00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:24.159
Maybe it's because I love the topic, but I just when I find people that are very passionate about something and are driven by that passion to make a difference in the world, it inspires me.
00:37:24.159 --> 00:37:26.719
And I have to say that both you and Sue do inspire me.
00:37:26.719 --> 00:37:33.679
And I'm so grateful that you're giving up your time to do the podcast and come along to the positive parenting workshop as well.
00:37:33.679 --> 00:37:34.639
Looking forward to it.
00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:35.599
Yeah, we can't wait.
00:37:35.599 --> 00:37:38.239
I'm sure we'll be talking to you again before then.
00:37:38.239 --> 00:37:41.840
But I think some do you know what I'm really going to take away from today?
00:37:41.840 --> 00:37:47.760
Is the simple thing was what's the difference when you ask the kids, what's the difference between coming here?
00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:49.360
You are kind to me.
00:37:49.599 --> 00:37:50.000
Yeah.
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:51.679
You are nice to me.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:56.000
What a low bar that many schools consistently fail to reach.
00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:56.800
Yeah.
00:37:57.440 --> 00:37:58.639
You're nice to me.
00:37:58.639 --> 00:38:02.000
Guys, so basic, isn't it?
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:02.559
Yeah.
00:38:02.559 --> 00:38:10.639
And I think honestly, in life, if we were all a bit nicer and kinder to each other, it would just be so much easier.
00:38:10.639 --> 00:38:11.679
For sure.
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:21.199
I I'm also an advocate of if you want to run for any kind of political office, you should go through these sorts of therapies, and we would literally stop wars.
00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:22.239
Yeah, I agree.
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:24.079
Just emotional responses.
00:38:24.320 --> 00:38:24.880
Yeah, that's right.
00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:31.280
Yeah, and we'd we'd have proper conversations and we'd be able to see the world from the other person's perspective rather than just going in.
00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:33.599
Anyway, that's a whole other conversation.
00:38:33.599 --> 00:38:35.280
But yes, thank you so much.
00:38:35.280 --> 00:38:36.559
I really appreciate your time.
00:38:36.559 --> 00:38:37.679
Thank you for being here.
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:45.199
I think the people that are listening to this are going to find this incredibly useful, especially if you're struggling as a parent or as a teenager at the moment.
00:38:45.199 --> 00:38:49.039
So, and we'll get all of those details and we'll put those in the notes.
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:51.199
Sally, thank you so much for being here.
00:38:51.199 --> 00:38:53.119
Thank you, Nicky, for having us.
00:38:53.119 --> 00:39:04.559
If you have in any way been affected by today's podcast episode, there are numbers at the end of the transcript which you can contact.
00:39:04.559 --> 00:39:07.519
We'd like to thank you all for listening.
00:39:07.519 --> 00:39:16.159
And if you'd like to join our Facebook group, there is also a link to that in the notes that go with this podcast.
00:39:16.159 --> 00:39:17.920
Have a great day.