Speaker A [00:00:00]:
Again, depending on the age of your kids as well. Sometimes when we're constantly like, what's wrong? Tell me what's happening, and our kids are shutting down, we need to back, back a bit around all the questions and just come in with being with them, playing a game they want to play, having some special time with them where for 20 minutes all we do is just love on them and laugh and fill up their cup and just be present with them. We don't look at our phone, we don't make a cup of tea. You're just present with your kiddos. Because that presence and that connection, and particularly that beautiful laughter, if it's possible, is what creates the safety for kids to open up a little bit more.
Speaker B [00:00:34]:
Welcome to the ADHD Families podcast. I'm your host, Sharon Collin, an award winning credentialed ADHD coach and consultant and mama and wife to a very ADHD family. I am seriously obsessed with making life easier for people with ADHD and those that support them. My business, the functional family, provides life changing support and strategies for ADHD. I particularly love anything that saves time, decreases conflict, and creates space for fun. Do you want a life with your beautiful family that is more functional, fun and full of joy? Let's explore together the wonderful and sometimes wacky world of family life with ADHD.
Speaker A [00:01:16]:
In the mixed.
Speaker B [00:01:21]:
Welcome to another episode of the ADHD Families podcast. I am your host, Sharon Collin. I am an ADHD coach, consultant and parenting expert and I am so happy you are here. Today we are chatting with the incredible Lael Stone now. She's a renowned australian speaker, author and educator with a passion for improving the lives of children, parents, and educators. She is known for her work in trauma informed education, parenting and the emotional wellbeing of children. Today we chat about how to support our beautiful humans emotionally. We talk about woodline primary, her beautiful school, and we also talk about aggression and how we can support our kids that have some of those more intense emotional responses.
Speaker B [00:02:08]:
It is a cracker of an interview and she gives so many beautiful tips to help support your wonderful family. Let's get to it.
Speaker A [00:02:18]:
Welcome, Lael.
Speaker B [00:02:19]:
It is so exciting to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker A [00:02:23]:
I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Sharon.
Speaker B [00:02:26]:
Oh, now I've got so many questions and I think that our beautiful listeners are going to love this interview. But for those who perhaps don't know you, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey?
Speaker A [00:02:41]:
So I often say that I am a speaker, an educator and an author. As my kind of three little words. Describe yourself. I mean, it's a bit tricky to just describe yourself in three words, isn't it? They're the titles we like to use. I probably say more than anything, I have been working with families for over 20 years now. Started working in birth over 20 years ago as a childbirth educator and a doula, and worked a lot in the postnatal trauma space. I was working with helping, you know, parents become parents for the first time and hopefully helping them have positive experiences and then doing a lot of work with families, particularly if they had tricky birth experiences. And just that entry into parenthood, as we know, which is always full on with your first.
Speaker A [00:03:23]:
That moved into working with aware parenting, which is the work of Doctor Aletha Salter. I worked with her philosophy of work for quite a few years, which was running workshops and working one on one with families and parents, then that moved into working with teenagers. I spent five years teaching sex ed to teens in secondary schools all over Victoria, which was a very, very fun job, which for some people sounds like their idea of the worst job in the world. But I found it very fun. I often joke and say nothing will ever surprise me ever again after working with teenagers. So I did that for many years. And then I also co created Woodline primary school. So a school here in Victoria, which is all based around emotional awareness and trauma informed education.
Speaker A [00:04:08]:
I spent three years building that school with my lovely partner Mel when she came to me and said, hey, let's build something, you know. Then we kind of moved into creating woodline, which opened four years ago now. So we're in our fourth year, which is very beautiful. These days I help and consult with others wanting to build similar schools, which is a really privileged position to be in. And what else do I do? I've written a book. I've got another book coming out. These days I spend. I spend a lot of time travelling all over Australia, speaking.
Speaker A [00:04:37]:
So I do a lot of talks in corporate spaces, but also within education and to parents all around, I think emotional awareness and knowing our stories better. A lot of my work these days really focuses on understanding our own imprints. So what happened to us as kids and then how that impacts how we parent, how we turn up with our work colleagues, how we turn up with our partners. So I guess understanding ourselves a bit more. And probably my most important job is I'm a mama to three beautiful children. I have a 24 year old son, a 21 year old daughter and a 16 year old daughter. And I think no matter what I've studied or learned or worked in those spaces out in the world. It has been from raising my kids that I think has taught me the most, has been the most humbling experience, as any parent will tell you.
Speaker A [00:05:22]:
I often say I have messed up in all the ways you possibly can. I've also done some really great stuff, and I think everything I've ever learned I've just tried to put into practice with my kids. So they've been my beautiful little test cases to really have to do the work and, you know, not just speak it, but actually live it and do it. And, you know, they are my best work in the world. I say that for sure. You know, they're amazing, beautiful humans. My three kiddos. So, yeah, so that's it.
Speaker A [00:05:48]:
That's me. That was not very succinct answer, but that's the journey. Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker B [00:05:53]:
So, tell me a little bit about emotional intelligence. What does that term mean? And what does it mean mean for you in terms of your current work?
Speaker A [00:06:02]:
Yeah. So I view emotional intelligence, this is probably not the description you'll get in the dictionary if you look it up, but for me, emotional intelligence is our ability to be attuned to what we are feeling in any situation. To be attuned enough to be aware of when we're having a reaction to something and not necessarily acting on it straight away. It's also the ability to tune into others to. To read what might be happening in their bodies, read might be happening for them to then be able to check in, show empathy, compassion, have those beautiful elements of connection that helps us understand how humans work and understand how we work as well. So, for me, it is the awareness of understanding what's going on inside of us and then what's going on around us as well.
Speaker B [00:06:54]:
And so how do you help people develop emotional intelligence?
Speaker A [00:06:59]:
So, for me, it, I think, comes back to modeling a lot. So a lot of the work I do these days is helping adults, I think, understand their children and kind of looking behind the behaviour a lot to kind of get clear on some of the cues and. And things that we're. That our children are trying to express to us. You know, I. I often kind of tell a story, you know, a little five year old can and have a massive meltdown because you gave him the wrong colored cup or because his sister has more ice cream than him. And straightaway we can get into reacting like, why are you being like that? And just tell me what's wrong. And really what we haven't seen is the whole day that's led up to that moment when we give them the wrong color cup and they've had a big reaction or they've had a big response and it's accumulation of those stresses that might have gone on in their day.
Speaker A [00:07:53]:
And all of a sudden, this one thing where I, we give them the wrong colored cup or cut their sandwich the wrong way and then they have this big explosion. Now, in that moment, I think our job and what I often talk to parents about is being able to be aware of what is happening, keeping ourselves as calm and connected and as anchored as possible to help that little person process that storm that they're in now. For me, when we were growing up as children, we were often shamed or told, don't be stupid or you're too much, or sent to our rooms. And when we had all those big feelings, there was, there was no often safe avenue for us to express them, but also we had to just stick with our feelings and learn how to bury them or push them down and didn't necessarily develop the tools to be able to process feelings in a healthy way. I'm getting to the point now of how we actually teach this, and so much of it is really around how we model to our children, how we respond to them, because they are always watching. Children are always watching everything going on in their environment. So when we're talking about something like emotional intelligence, on one level, children are often watching us. So when we get angry, they're watching what we do with that anger.
Speaker A [00:09:03]:
Do we start yelling? Do we slam doors? Do we start projecting onto everyone else? And they go, that's what you do with anger. Or do they see, oh, gosh, mum's angry. She's standing in the kitchen and she's giving her body a good shake, or she's going outside and all of a sudden she's yelling at the trees, or maybe she's getting some pillows and slamming them on the floor and I. And kind of going, ah, I need to get my feelings out. Or perhaps she's, um, you know, she says, I'm going to go for a run because I need to move my body because I can feel angry. Or perhaps when she feels sad, she models to us, you know what? I'm going to call a friend because I feel better when I speak to someone or I'm going to write in my journal, or I'm going to do some really gentle stretching on the floor because that helps me. So. So what's happening in those moments is our kids are watching us do something with those feelings.
Speaker A [00:09:48]:
And what's even better is if we can talk about them and say, I feel really sad at the moment. And so what do I need? I need a cuddle. And what I need is I need to go and talk to a friend because I feel better when I have a cry and have a chat to someone. So we're modeling what that looks like. So on one level, our children are witnessing the expression of healthy feelings. They're watching us. There's a language around what we're feeling. And then the second part, I think, on helping our children develop.
Speaker A [00:10:14]:
This is how we respond to them when they have big feelings. So when they're angry, when they're sad, when they're frustrated, can we come in and create a really safe space to help them process those feelings in the way they process them best? Most of us, because of what we learn, jump into fixing straight away, or we jump into avoiding the feelings, or we jump into shaming the feelings and shutting them down or power over ing them. And therefore, the child is not able to express the feelings in a healthy way in the way they need to, which is what contributes to developing that emotion, emotional awareness. So, you know, on one level, they're watching their environment, watching the words we use, how we process it. On another level, they're integrating what that feels like in their bodies by how we respond to them. And then the third thing is also lots of beautiful conversations about feelings. It's the books we read. It's sometimes stuff we do in school that talks about what happens when we feel frustrated or when we feel jealous or when we feel sad or when we feel excited.
Speaker A [00:11:13]:
And we start putting language to our feelings and understand it so that we then develop those beautiful, I think, pathways in our brain, in our body to be able to identify, gosh, I'm feeling something at the moment. What do I need to do to support myself within this feeling?
Speaker B [00:11:29]:
I love that so much. And, you know, I think one of the things that commonly comes up when I'm working with parents of our beautiful community with ADHD is that they see a behavior. The behavior is distressing. They get triggered then, because they're like they've become emotionally dysregulated. We then aren't able to help the child regulate, or perhaps we model something, or we default back to how we were parented because we're not sure what to do when we heightened ourselves. So, really, this is a beautiful flow on effect for all the generations, for everyone, 100%.
Speaker A [00:12:05]:
And I think the thing is, I always love to start with parents with the biggest dose of compassion, because most of us were not taught how to be with our feelings. And our, and our parents were doing the best job. They knew how, as was our grandparents. I mean, they were probably doing better than what was done to them. And so I think where parents find this very challenging, or when they get really reactive or they, they want to shut stuff down or they get angry and then they beat themselves up. What I love to start with is just please take a big dose of compassion here, that you were never modeled a healthy way to express feelings. Most of us weren't. I mean, I can do a workshop or do a talk where there's 450 people in the room, and I will say to them, could you please put up your hand? If when you were a child and you are angry or you're upset, your parent took a deep breath, they came over, they sat down with you, they held a really safe space, and they said, tell me more.
Speaker A [00:13:01]:
Let it out. You're doing a really good job here. And they could meet you in those feelings and hold the space for it with real anchoredness so that you could process how you were feeling, let it go in a healthy way, and then come back to balance. And it's rare that anyone puts up their hand, right? And that is not a criticism to our parents. Our parents were just doing what was done to them. And particularly our parents grew up in a time where behaviorism, which is all about you, must be good, and if you're not good, I'll punish you or take something away from you. That was the message that was sprouted everywhere, is children must be good all the time, and they must be compliant, and if they're not, then they're a naughty child, right? So, of course, that feels full on. Who wants to have a kid that's, you know, a naughty child? So we're going to do whatever we can to try and keep them good.
Speaker A [00:13:47]:
Now, that, that was kind of the really simplified message that was out there for a long time. Yet. How beautiful that we have. We have the Internet and we have research and we have science, and we have all these amazing things that has helped us to understand more about the brain and the body and emotional awareness and connection and regulation, as you say, and all those beautiful things that actually then help us understand what it is to be a human. And then when we have any form of neurodivergency, how beautiful. Now that we've got more understanding to know, hey, this can be a beautiful way to help people when they're navigating something that feels tricky. And so I love that. Now we are this generation of parents who are being exposed to this information to begin to change the pattern and the story that has been there for a long time.
Speaker A [00:14:38]:
But what I want to offer to that is it is not easy, because when you are the first generation of doing this work, it is clunky, and we get it wrong a lot. And it feels messy, and it brings up all our own stories and grief around what we never got. But I absolutely so believe in this, that as we shift and change and do our own work, then the next generation that comes through are so well versed in emotional awareness, and they're able to articulate how they feel, and they know it is safe to feel their feelings. That's who we have coming through, and that is a very, very powerful thing.
Speaker B [00:15:13]:
I wanted to ask you some questions about woodline primary. What led you to create that school?
Speaker A [00:15:19]:
Yeah, well, I often say I never set out to build a school. Like, I often joke I didn't even like education. It was never on my radar to do something like this. It came about one of my clients, Mel, she had been coming to see me for a little while about her children. So she had, you know, six kids, three step kids, three of her own kids. And, you know, I was working in the parenting space for a long time, so we would have sessions, often weekly. And what happened was her son was starting school, and she was just like, he's hating it. You know, he has to sit on the floor all the time and can't move his body when he needs to, and his name's being put up on the board, and he's let her eat when he wants to.
Speaker A [00:15:59]:
And she was just like, is this what school is? And I was like, yeah, pretty much. And she's like, this is not going to work. Like, he is struggling. And she at the time just said to me, what would it be like if we created a school based on all the things that you've taught me, based on this choice in autonomy and non punitive discipline and meeting children where they're at and understanding, you know, that they all learn differently? What if we built a school? So, you know, I kind of laughed and joked. So I was like, yeah, that sounds great, but, you know, I have no idea about building a school. And she was very serious. She's like, I'll fund it. I will create the infrastructure.
Speaker A [00:16:34]:
You just build the school that you think should exist. So it's very rare that someone comes along and says, hey, here's an opportunity to do something that could be really powerful. And I had heaps of doubt in the beginning because I was like, I know nothing about building the school. You know, all three of my kids had struggled in the school system. I look back and think, I hated the school system. You know, I was like, this, you know, I'm not doing it from a place of, you know, wow, this will be really healing for me. Which it ended up being, of course, so. But I just kind of kept thinking, you know what? Here's an incredible opportunity to create something new and powerful based on so much of what I had learned over the years.
Speaker A [00:17:12]:
And my lens firstly was really from a trauma informed perspective, because I'd worked with thousands of adults and I'd heard so many stories about school trauma and all sorts of stuff. And so much of the same stories come back to this place of the. It's very hard to learn when we don't feel safe, when we're sending kids off to school every day and they're having to armor up and protect themselves and the fear of getting in trouble or doing the wrong thing. You know, their brains are not open to learn and take in information when they're sitting in that space. So here was a beautiful opportunity to create something with that understanding about how children are and also how our environment. Environments matter a lot. So it took nearly three years, Mel and I, working away on this school. And, you know, we.
Speaker A [00:17:58]:
Yeah, we opened, as I said, nearly four years ago. And you know, what I. What is so. One of the most amazing things now for me around woodline is that it is far better than what I ever dreamed it to be from that initial dream of, what if we had a place that looked like this and we could do that? You know, the team there, our principal Clare and our executive team and all the guides that we have there have taken it, and they've just created even more magic. And it is one of the most powerful, beautiful things in my life. Whenever I go back to woodline and I see the magic of what's happening there, I just. I feel incredibly privileged to be a part of bringing that to life and then seeing it be out in the world is amazing. And, you know, I think, really, for us, the philosophy of our school comes back to that.
Speaker A [00:18:42]:
Children can't learn if they don't feel seen and acknowledged and feel safe in their learning environments. So, you know, there's a few things that we do that I think are a bit different to the mainstream system. We have really small class sizes compared to most mainstream schools. So we have between 16 to 18 kids in a class, depending on the year level. We have a guide, which is a teacher, and then we also have an assistant guide in every class. And the assistant guide's job is just to tune into the children emotionally to see if something's feeling big, to be connected enough to them so that, you know, if one kiddo is just sitting there and they're wriggling heaps and there's a whole lot of stuff going on, they might just say, do you need to go move your body before we can learn? Do you need to go jump on the trampoline? Do you need to go have a swing? Do you need to go run around the oval for a bit? Do you want to go visit some of our animals? Or what is it that you need to help yourself find your centre? So our assistants are really there to hold the space emotionally for where kids are at. You know, we really welcome crying, we welcome anger, we welcome all the feelings because we know that they are just part of being a human. And when we can express those feelings and get them out, then usually we come back into balance and we're much more ready to learn.
Speaker A [00:19:45]:
We also really look at through the lens of, we're a play based learning school, so we follow a lot of the Reggio Melia philosophy and what we do at our school. And so many of our spaces are set up in the ways that are really about creating that curiosity and the invitation for children to be like, oh, what about this? And one of the things that we really do, I mean, we follow the australian curriculum, but one of the things that we do is we really try to follow children's interests because we know that when a child's passionate about something, then the learning that's going to come from that is amazing. So, you know, the way that our philosophy, our curriculum is set up is, you know, we tick all the boxes that we have to, but the way we deliver it, I think, is pretty unique, which is through that play based learning lens, it's through a lot of choice and autonomy. So whatever it is that we are learning, there's different ways that the children can choose to learn about it. Whether that's with their hands, whether it's painting, whether it's talking about it, whether it's documenting it in some other way. We really try to give children choice around how they do learn, knowing that all children learn differently. And I think more than anything, we just come back to the basics, which I think are important around children can eat when they want to eat. They don't have to wear shoes.
Speaker A [00:20:55]:
If they don't want to wear shoes, they can learn laying on the ground or sitting up on the couch or on a wiggle, you know, swivel chair. Or they can, you know, they can tune into themselves to go, I feel like I've got all this energy in my body. I need to move it first before I can concentrate. And we go, excellent. How wonderful that you know what your body needs. Let's do this. So we are also really, really big on connecting to nature because we know that nature is just one of the most beautiful things for children, to help them be in their bodies and stay connected. So we try and do our learning outside as much as possible.
Speaker A [00:21:26]:
You know, there's. And look, and there's so many other magical things I think about what we do, which have kind of become a bit normalized now to me, compared to, I think, what other schools sometimes do. And I always say this whenever I talk about the school. You know, we are very fortunate that we can do this at our school because we've set up the school in the way to be able to do this. I know a lot of systems, and particularly school systems. It's very tricky to bring in some of the things that we do because they do just have one teacher and 26 kids, and they. They have got a tighter schedule of what needs to be happening now, and it's very tricky. The learning spaces aren't conducive to having either quiet spaces or sensory spaces or places where the kids can move their bodies or they don't have access to nature.
Speaker A [00:22:08]:
You know, a lot of the stuff that we do, I absolutely appreciate that a lot of schools would be very hard for them to implement in what they're doing. So, you know, again, I always sit with woodline and come back to going. I hope that we are an example of what is possible for education for children. It really, my number one philosophy of this is that we want children to want to come to school because it's fun and it's exciting and it's playful, and they get really excited about learning. And I know with my own children that that was kind of the opposite of their experience of schooling. It was a bit of a chore. You know, they felt like they had to go. You know, they felt that they didn't have those connections, which is what they really deeply wanted with some of the adults there.
Speaker A [00:22:51]:
So our philosophy really is about coming back to seeing the whole child and the uniqueness of every child so that we can work with them and can go, how do we get the best out of you so you can thrive?
Speaker B [00:23:03]:
Well, thinking about, you know, some of the adults that I work with, you know, they describe school as the hardest time in their lives. You know, it has, you know, not everyone's story, but for a lot of people, it can be a really traumatic experience. Thinking about some of the beautiful kids that you guys have at align with ADHD. How, what sort of accommodations have been made to really support people with ADHD at the school?
Speaker A [00:23:33]:
I think it's really about each child is unique and individual. So our Yden guides, you know, we'll work with getting to know the children. Like, for me, it is all about connection and what do they need to learn best? So I think there's many different things that are set up in the different learning spaces, and it varies across all the different year levels, depending on the children. So I think just different ways to learn is important. The constant connection in what does your body need now? You know, we have some children that wear headphones in classes, in class just because it's too noisy. So, you know, they. That sensory overload is too big for them. So they often need to have quiet spaces.
Speaker A [00:24:10]:
We have lots of quiet spaces to learn as well, and we invite the children to go into the quiet spaces if they need to. I think, you know, what we do look at is really around, who is this beautiful human in front of us and how do we get the best out of them? So we love to consult with parents to say, what is your child's magic? What do you know about them? How do you get the best out of them? And then obviously building that relationship with that child to be able to work with what feels good for you, how do you learn best? And then there's also the edges of having to work with how we push and stretch a little bit, you know, because that can be tricky. But building that trust with the guides and the children so that when a guide is stretching them a little bit or that they're asking something of them, that that child's like, I trust you enough to know that you've got me, that we can. We can work through some of those things. So, I mean, lots of things, like, we do lots and lots of movement breaks, you know, again, where children can eat when they need to eat, they can toilet when they need to go to the toilet, you know, they, they've got the freedom to move around, wear what they want to wear, you know, don't have to wear shoes all the time, sit in different places. Just the basics, I think, of being a human are really important for our kiddos. And I think, I mean, for me, I think one of the things we do the best is continually trying to build connection and communication between the guide and the child so that a child can go to a guide and say, this is what I need, or I am feeling like this. We say beautiful, what do you think you need? You know, how can we help you and how can we support you in those ways? So, you know, there's some of the beautiful things that we do see.
Speaker A [00:25:42]:
You know, I'm. Look, our guides could probably list off another 20 things around what we actually do because they're the ones in the beautiful learning spaces supporting them. But I think it is. It's. We're coming back, you know, to looking at. There's not a problem with the child. Every child is unique to. And so how do we get the best out of you? And some learn this way and some learn that way and both of them are okay.
Speaker A [00:26:03]:
You know, there is no, this is what we must do to conform. You know, we have, we have, we have guidelines and rules at our school, like, you know, every school. And we often say to the kids, well, we can give you choice, we always will. But sometimes we have to move as a group and sometimes this is a non negotiable. And because I think we do give children lots of choice in autonomy, they're often more willing to move with the things that we need to as a group because they also know that they get lots of choice as well.
Speaker B [00:26:29]:
Oh, I love that so much. And you said so much gold in there, especially the connection. Like, that's why we're going go back to connection any day of the week for our beautiful kids. So tell me, how can you. Can you share perhaps some practical tips for the parents at home to create supportive and understanding environments in their home for their beautiful kids?
Speaker A [00:26:53]:
Well, I think the thing again I want to start with is that every child is unique. And what I say to parents is, you know your child better than anyone. So whenever I do a parenting talk, I always say, please listen to everything I say and run it through a filter of, does this resonate for me? Just because someone's like, you should do this does not mean that it's right. Because as I say to parents all the time, you are the authority on your child. You know them better than anyone. You know what they like, what they don't. You know when it's going to be too noisy, you know, when we've just pushed it too far. We've done too many things.
Speaker A [00:27:23]:
So you know them better than anyone. So I. My biggest invitation always is to come in, is to come back to trusting your intuition about you as a parent and your child, but also coming back to attunement, which is in every moment, if we can, we're tuning into our kids going, where are they at the moment? Are they in balance or are they out of balance? And that achievement is kind of one of the most important things that we can do, because in that moment, if we are calm and anchored enough in ourselves, we can tune into our kids and we can see, oh, I can see something starting to hum there, which means I can see them starting to get frustrated. Odds are they're going to pick a fight with their brother in a minute. I can just. I can sense it. We know it. And in those moments, what can we do to come over and bring some connection? Does my child need a cuddle in this moment? Do they need food? Do they need a little bit of playfulness and connection? Because we haven't seen each other all day, and that playfulness and connection just helps them kind of feel safe again? Or do I need to come and set a beautiful limit here that they can push up against and hold space for their feelings if there's something going on? Because I can see there's some frustration building in them and it's like they need to get it out, and I can be a safer place for them to bring it instead of, you know, projecting it all onto their brother.
Speaker A [00:28:37]:
So, you know, what we're looking at, I always come back to, is going, are we attuned and connected to our kiddos? Now that, that, for me, even though it sounds really simple, is one of the hardest things to do because we are busy and we are stressed and we have got all our own crap going on, right? So a lot of the time, it is really tricky to be tuned into our kids because we're like, oh, we've got to get to the dentist and we've got to make dinner and we've got to do all the things. And I think my invitation is always, can we slow it down a little bit so we can tune into our kids to start with? Because our energy matters so much. It's one of the most powerful things that we have when we come to children with is where is our energy in this moment. So for me, firstly, it's attunement, tuning in. And then secondly, what is the energy we're bringing to aikidos? So that when we do see that our child's a bit out of balance, we can see that something's brewing. Do we come up to them with a bit of a thought in our head of, oh, what now? Like, what's he about to do? Right? Are we already entering into this space with bracing ourselves or just like, what's going to happen? I so know that from experience. I'm just telling you, like, I get that it's human or are we late? Are we coming over to our child and we being curious and playful and are we all like, hey, what's going on, mate? I can see there's something brewing. What do you need? And we're coming in on their level.
Speaker A [00:29:57]:
We're not making them wrong, but we're like, hey, I'm here to help you if you need something in this moment. And whether that's some connection and playfulness or whether it's. We're actually like, you know, mate, I'm going to say no to going and riding your bike outside now. And then we just hold that beautiful space for them to get angry and push up against it, but we still hold it and we allow them to move the feelings that are sitting there that might be contributing to their big frustrated feelings. So I think, you know, those two pieces of being attuned and then also being calm in ourselves are one of the most important things that we can do. Now. That sounds really easy when we're talking about it, but it's not easy in the moment because our kids are the most beautiful triggers for all our own stuff. And also when we are tired and we are stressed and we've got all our own stuff going on, it's really hard to turn up in those calm, anchored spaces for our kiddos.
Speaker A [00:30:45]:
And we get reactive and, you know, we. We respond in ways we don't want to. But I often invite parents to remember that it is our job to be the calm amongst whatever storm is standing there. You know, it's never a child's job to be emotionally responsible for us. It's our job to bring that calm and that connectedness as much as we possibly can to our kids, because that brings safety to them. It brings an emotional safety that says, hey, I can be who I need to be and you still love me. Now. It doesn't mean that we don't set boundaries and limits.
Speaker A [00:31:18]:
That's really, really important as well. But what the message we want to convey to our kids is, I love all of you. The messy bits, the angry bits, the sad bits, the happy bits, the joyous bits, the generous bits. All of you, I love. And it's my godparents my job to guide you how to navigate through that, through life. But I think one of the most important pieces is that beautiful, unconditional love that says, hey, I am here and I can hold this space for you and I love and accept you. Because when children feel that, then often they are more willing to just allow whatever is there to move and hopefully find their way back into balance so we can stay connected to each other. And that's what sets up that beautiful, I guess, long lifetime of connection for a child, knowing that, hey, I felt deeply loved by my parents for all of who I was, not just the parts that were good.
Speaker B [00:32:10]:
I love so much of that now, I know that there's someone listening to this going, but my child is aggressive. Right? So I would love for you to perhaps tell us about, you know, how we hold that beautiful space but also keep ourselves safe, because I know this is a big topic for our community.
Speaker A [00:32:29]:
Yeah. So the first thing I want to say to this is just a lot of love and compassion to parents if you have an aggressive child and, you know, it is such a tender space to sit in because we can feel a lot of shame around that as a parent. We can feel guilt around stuff that comes up around it. We can feel embarrassed around it. It's really big when our kids have got big, big, angry, aggressive feelings coming out. And whenever I worked with parents, I would always look at two places. I'd firstly look, we'd look at what's going on for the child and what they need, but I'd always also look at the parent and say, okay, what do you need? Because often, sometimes our reaction is going to fire up from where our kids are. And then it's just this dance that has going on.
Speaker A [00:33:14]:
The first thing I want to say is this, if you do have a child that's angry and aggressive, I'm just sending you a lot of compassion and love for how hard and big that feels to hold that space. And my first suggestion would be, we, as adults, need our own safe place to take the feelings of what it feels like holding that for our kids. I have a bit of a saying that we can only often take someone as far as we're willing to go ourselves. And what I mean by that is, it's very hard to meet a child who's sitting in a lot of anger and rage and aggression if that is a part of us that we don't own or that feels very, very painful or feels dangerous for us. We will often try and stop it as quickly as we can, which means we often will power over a child and try and be bigger than them to stop the aggression, or we'll give in to them so that they stop in some way. And I'll get to what we often need to do for our kids with aggression in a minute. But my invitation for any parents I've ever worked with is that if you have got a child that's got really big feelings, then it's so vital for you to get some listening time about how that feels for you, and that listening time can be a therapist. It could be someone like you, Sharon.
Speaker A [00:34:27]:
It can even be just a listening partner, which is another parent who you can just voice message and go, ah, it's so hard today. And they got so angry, and they had a meltdown for half an hour, and they threw the pillows or the chair, and it's really big, and we need a place to take it so we can get it off our chairs. We can have a cry. We can move the feelings so that we've got enough space to come back to our kids. Now that the idea of a listening partner is not to fix you and not to give you suggestions about what to do, but just to acknowledge that sounds really hard, and you're doing an incredible job, and this is really big, and you're allowed to feel angry and frustrated. So the first thing for me is just have a space where you can take those messy, politically incorrect feelings, right. I think it's really important that we have a space to take them, a safe space so we can get it out, so that we can come back, because all of us feel better when we get it off our chest. So that's the first thing.
Speaker A [00:35:23]:
The second thing, too, is, you know, when our kids are angry and aggressive, of course, we absolutely need to keep ourselves safe. And depending on the age of your child, depending how big and strong they are. You know, when my kids were little and they were really angry, I'd always take them into the bedroom if I could so that, you know, they could throw themselves around on the bed and they. And throw pillows and. And it was just a bit safer than being in the other spaces for them to move their big, angry feelings when they needed to. I also absolutely believe, you know, our job is to make sure that everyone is safe. And I would often say to my kids, I'm not willing for you to hurt me. I'm here to keep everybody safe.
Speaker A [00:35:58]:
So sometimes I'd be picking up a pillow just to, you know, block those hands or, you know, those big feelings that come towards you. You know, my. My learning over the years around anger is particularly that anger often needs movement, which means it often comes out in bodies. We sometimes want to throw something or rip something or break something or. And we can find things that we can do that are not destructive. You know, we can snap sticks, we can rip paper, we can throw pillows, we can push against stuff hard. I really do often think that we. Anger needs movement.
Speaker A [00:36:32]:
So how can we make it safe enough for our kids to move that anger through their bodies without hurting us or hurting someone else? Now, that sometimes takes practice, because in the moment of an angry rage, you know, you're not going to say to your seven year old, how about you rip some paper? They're going to look at you and go, yeah, nah, just like that's not happening, right? We often need to look at those teachable times when our kids are angry to have conversations around what can we do when our body gets so angry and we have. We can play with it to work through things that we can do. We model what we do with our own anger as well. So they're seeing that this is something we can do. When I'm really angry, I'm going to go outside, I'm going to yell at the trees, or I'm going to put on music, and I'm going to do angry dancing, and I'm going to break sticks. I mean, breaking sticks can feel so good when you're really mad, right? So we want to find ways to keep modeling it in times where our children are connected to us, you know, in the moment when they're angry and aggressive is not the time to do that. So we used to have, in our room, in our lounge room, we had a basket that had all the random, odd software that your washing machine eats, and we'd make them into little balls. And when our kids would get really angry, I'd be like, let's throw socks.
Speaker A [00:37:40]:
And we would make a target on the wall, and we would throw these socks as hard as we could at the wall. Again, that movement of something often would help them move some of the frustration and anger. Then sometimes it would move into laughter, and then sometimes it would move into tears. And. And I think for me, you know, one of the things that often causes a lot of anger and aggression is one, is when our boundaries are being crossed. And, you know, so for a child, if someone is crossing their boundaries, they're not listening to what they're doing, you know, that angry response is them protecting themselves on some level. The second reason we can feel really angry and passionate is often because we are, you know, we're passionate about something. We see an injustice in the world, and we're like, this doesn't feel good.
Speaker A [00:38:21]:
And I. And I'm telling you about how unfair that feels. And kids can be pretty good about that, you know, because it's very unfair around something that they deem to be really important, which is, again, really important to listen to for them. And then the third reason I often see there's a lot of anger and aggression can be because there's a lot of hurt feelings that actually sit under the surface. And anger is often a bit more of a defensive mask than feeling the hurt and the upset. And I think we are a culture that has been conditioned that when we feel a lot of upset, to protect ourselves with anger and then project it onto everybody else. And that is often what we're taught to do. And so I think that's why modeling healthy anger is really, really important.
Speaker A [00:39:03]:
Creating safe spaces for our children to express their feelings is very important. And that when there is a lot of anger and aggression often behind that, there can be a lot of upset. And our job, if we can, is to hold enough safety so it moves past the anger into the upset, because the tears in the upset is usually the healing that, you know, is often can be moved through the body so we don't have to keep reacting, you know, in angry ways. I mean, the other thing, too, is we have to tune into our beautiful kiddos and go, what are the things that are firing them off? You know, what are the things? Is school really, really stimulating? Or when they get home from school, do we need, like, a full hour outside for them to decompress, where they get to jump and move their bodies or do they need food or do they need quiet or do I need to wrap them up in a blanket? I mean, again, everybody is very, very different around what they need. But are we looking at the environment? Is the environment, you know, firing up all this anger and aggression that's sitting there? Is it what's happening in our family dynamic where, you know, that child is not really feeling heard around what's going on? And do we need to create more connections so they can feel heard? You know, what is it that is when we watch our kiddos, that really fires them up and creates those big feelings. And sometimes that's just life. Sometimes there's deeper hurts that are sitting there, you know, shame and pain and worry and anxiety can be such massive triggers for aggression and anger, you know, because it really is a way where we're trying to find control again. We're trying to move all that stuff sitting in our bodies.
Speaker A [00:40:35]:
So I think it's really multi layered. And I. And I just always come back again to parents saying, it is not easy sitting in the fire with our kiddos. Our job is always to keep ourselves safe, and I. And to keep coming back and going. What helps my child in those moments? You would know them better than anyone. And it's taking the little tips and looking at it going, okay, what works best for us here within these moments? So, you know, it's big, it's. It's not easy, and there's not a.
Speaker A [00:41:02]:
As you would know, not a one, two, three, magic. Do this, and it'll be fine. Right. It's some really tough stuff. And. And at the end of the day, you know, we also have things like, you know, I'm sure you're aware of the impact of diet, the impact of all the toxins in our environment, the impact of being in spaces that are too stimulating. Like, we've got all the different factors that contribute to our beautiful children, to having those big feelings as well. And I think it is a bit of a map sometimes to try and figure out what it is and how we can work with them, and then, hopefully, how we can teach them to move their feelings in healthy ways so it isn't projected onto us or other family members or onto furniture and all those kind of things.
Speaker A [00:41:43]:
So we can teach them healthy ways to move their feelings, because that is a gift as they move into adulthood, to be able to identify, oh, this is going on for me. I feel this. I need to do this now instead of projecting it onto someone else.
Speaker B [00:41:56]:
Well, so much like, you know, for when you touched on that shame component there, you know, sometimes that. Those big outward expressions of anger that. Cause that's one expression, but other kids just shut down, and it's equally as damaging. Right? Like, you know, it's funny that one draws such shame, but the other one doesn't.
Speaker A [00:42:15]:
Yeah, and it's a really interesting point you bring up there, Sharon, because I often say that as kids, we either learn three things with feelings. We either learn to repress them, which means we go into shutdown and dissociation. We move into aggression, which is where we project onto everyone else, or we have expression, which is the healthy expression of the feelings. It's the crying and the laughing and the talking and the shaking. And all the things that we get to move it in a healthy way. And that's ideally what we want. But you are right, the repression is actually can be as dangerous, because what's happening is we are just numbing. We're going into big disassociation, and then we look for tools to numb ourselves.
Speaker A [00:42:53]:
So that's the iPad. We want to be on the iPad all the time, or we want to eat all the time, or we're so busy that we can't actually stop. And as adults, you know, we can do similar things with repression as well. Yet you're right, repression isn't as labeled in that way. But I often, again, when I see angry or upset kids, part of me is like, okay, they're moving it, they're trying to get it out. Whereas repression is a bit of a shutdown. And and for any parents that do have kids that kind of shut down. The antidote to that repression is connection.
Speaker A [00:43:23]:
And that connection, one of the best ways in, is usually through play. So it doesn't matter how many times you sit there and go, what's wrong? Tell me what you're thinking. All that kind of stuff. If they're in that repression, then they're often probably not going to share those words and what's going on. One of the best ways we can work with that is through laughter and playfulness. It's just playing a game together, creating that safety. Lots of laughter, lots of connection. That's when they go, is it okay to share a bit more about what's going on here? And we start to see some movement with it.
Speaker B [00:43:52]:
I am so happy you just said that, because I think a lot of people, they say, I try and talk to my kids about it, but they say, I don't know, and they get shut down. But that it's really about going back to that connection and that play and being lighthearted, establishing that relationship a bit more on that. On those terms.
Speaker A [00:44:08]:
Yeah, totally. And there's lots of beautiful things you can do. Books are brilliant at reading about feelings, emotions. There's some beautiful card decks out there. We often use the emotionology cards at our school at Woodline, which have got all these beautiful illustrations. And I feel scared, or I want to go home or I'm frustrated today, or I'm angry, or, you know, and it's all these beautiful cards that we always have over our school that kids can go and pick one and go, this is how I'm feeling as we're learning how to express what's going on. And I really think again. Depending on the age of your kids as well.
Speaker A [00:44:39]:
Sometimes when we're constantly like, what's wrong? Tell me what's happening? And our kids are shutting down. We need to back, back a bit around all the questions and just come in with being with them, playing a game they want to play, having some special time with them, where for 20 minutes all we do is just love on them and laugh and fill up their cup and just be present with them. We don't look at our phone, we don't make a cup of tea. You're just present with your kiddos. Because that presence and that connection, and particularly that beautiful laughter, if it's possible, is what creates the safety for kids to open up a little bit more. And then when they do maybe open up, we don't jump on and go, okay, yeah, now tell me more. And then what else? Right? We just are like, ah, thanks for telling me. And we just, we be the beautiful, anchored listener.
Speaker A [00:45:21]:
Because I think that is, again, one of the most important tools in our parenting toolkit is to learn to listen well, because most of us listen to fix. We don't actually listen to hear about what's really going on. We're straight away jumping into how we can make it better for them. But really, when a child is sharing something with us, it kind of, you know, what we need to do is this. We need to go, hmm. Ah. Yep. Okay.
Speaker A [00:45:49]:
Ah, right. Gee, that sounds hard. Thanks for sharing with me. And that's it. That's it. Even though that's going to feel torturous because you're going to be like, now, this is what you should do. And I always say to parents is if you can listen without fixing, then you might offer them at the end. Would you like a suggestion or did you want me to just listen? Now, if they say, I want you to just listen, you don't then say, okay, but here's what I think you should do.
Speaker A [00:46:16]:
You know, what you're doing is you're just like, okay, well, I'm here if you need some help. That's a really hard thing to do because when we're watching our kiddos struggle, every single part of us wants to jump in and make it all right for them, you know, because we love them and we're like, I need, I don't want you to go through what I can see is maybe going to happen. So we want to jump into fix. But I think one of the important things is not, is helping our kids know that we are right beside them. We are walking beside them and that we are there no matter what, when things are tricky and hard. And the more that we can listen, the more we're going to build up that trust so that they know when things are hard, that you are the person they will come to because you will listen, you will hold that space for them.
Speaker B [00:46:55]:
Love that so much. I had to have a giggle in there because when I actually had this conversation with my husband, just where whenever I talk about anything that's bothering me, he now has a script which he goes, he says, that's s h I t, right? He says that. He says that and I go, yes. And that's like, that's our little way of him not fixing it. And I was like, that is so true that we do need that reminder that we don't. It's so hard when we're watching someone struggle. We so want to make it better for them because we love them so much. But that's not what they're there asking for.
Speaker A [00:47:29]:
It's not. And I, you know, other things often say, particularly when I'm talking to. To parents, that we want to raise teenagers, that when they are at a party and something bad's going down, their first thought is, I'll ring my mum and dad. They'll know what to do or they'll come get us or they'll come help, as opposed to, I hope my parents don't find out. And a lot of the times that comes from us having created enough safety for them to tell us the really hard things and us being cool and calm and not reacting in those big ways and just being like, yep, there's nothing you can't tell me, you know, there's nothing that's not going to make me love you. I'm here. I've got you. So keep going.
Speaker A [00:48:09]:
Keep telling me, and then we'll figure out a way how to move with it together. But a lot of that comes from us doing a lot of nodding, a lot of sitting on our hands and not doing anything and just listening and then checking back in, you know. You know, what you talked about the other day? How you feeling about that now? And would you like some help with it or, you know, and just, again, just tuning in, constantly tuning in. How's it feeling? Because again, when kids are repressing, one of the things we want to look at is, is it actually safe enough for them to tell us what's going on? If they do tell us something, do we have a big reaction? And we're like, oh, my God, I've got to ring the school tomorrow. And this is outrageous. And we have this huge reaction and then our kids are like, oh, God, you can't handle this. So I won't tell you that again. Like, our job is to be really anchored and calm.
Speaker A [00:48:55]:
If we can do a lot of nodding and listening, you can be freaking out internally. Like, there's been many times where I'm like, oh, my goodness. And I've had to take that somewhere else and freak out over there and then come back to my kids and go, aha. So tell me. Tell me more. You know, I'm listening. And that, again, is what builds that safety that they then know I can open up and I can trust you with what, what's going on in my heart.
Speaker B [00:49:20]:
So much gold. I want to thank you so much for sharing that with us today because it's a lovely, lovely, beautiful approach for our gorgeous parents and a lovely way of supporting our gorgeous kids with these big feelings. I often say that ADHD is parenting in the extremes where high lows and high high highs and low lows and everywhere, you know, all in between. So it's just a lovely way of supporting them where they're at and really showing them that we're here for them with that unconditional regard.
Speaker A [00:49:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, again, parenting is tough. It's one of the toughest things we do. And I think if we have children who got neurodiversity or, I mean, look, I think, again, every child is unique in their own ways. Right? And. But I think when we are sometimes parenting in a system that doesn't support our children and their uniqueness, it is so hard. It is an extra, it's an extra challenge on top of it.
Speaker A [00:50:22]:
And that's why we have to be so kind. We have to take care of our own needs. We need listening time to talk about how hard it is because it's, it's such a, it's just one of the most trickiest jobs that we do as humans. I mean, I often joke going to work is easy, getting to work is hard, but going to work is easy. But, you know, being at home with our kiddos and navigating all the big stuff that is happening for them and in their world, it requires so much patience and anchoredness and calm. And particularly when we're in life where we're juggling work and other kiddos and parents and all the things, it's really tricky. And it's, we just have to be so kind to ourselves as part of this process. It really is pretty extraordinary what we're doing.
Speaker B [00:51:07]:
And we don't have to be perfect. Like, we can stuff up and we can say to our kids, oh, my goodness. Like, I did not handle that how I wanted to. And, yeah, it's okay. You know, that's, like, beautiful compassion for ourselves as well.
Speaker A [00:51:22]:
Totally. And, you know, I often say that, too, where there is no perfect, everyone messes up. Like, I've messed up so much. And yet what I also have made sure I've done is always repaired and that we are going to have rupture and we're going to have repair. And repair really is our ability to have that emotional awareness to be able to say, I am so sorry. That big angry response I had was all me, and I've got some feelings going on, and I'm going to work through them. And how can I repair with you, my love? How can this feel better for us? What do you need? And they might need a hug. They might need, I want you to play cards with me, or I want you to do this when you do that and you're like, yep, do that.
Speaker A [00:52:00]:
And I think it's actually really important for our kids to see that we mess up, you know, so that they know, hey, we all mess up as humans. There is no perfect. And. And I, you know, I love that you brought that up because we have to take the pressure off. We're going to take the pressure off ourselves of thinking it's all going to look a certain way. Because as soon as we do that, I can guarantee kids are going to go, oh, really? Okay. Just challenge that narrative for you.
Speaker B [00:52:23]:
Thank you so much for your time today. It's been an incredible chat, and I'm so grateful for you to come on for coming on this podcast.
Speaker A [00:52:31]:
Oh, my pleasure. I hope it's been of some benefit for your listeners. You know, I mean, mainly, I think my message is always be so kind to ourselves. You know, parenting is such a big gig, and. And we have this, so much pressure out there from online and people and in laws and parents and the school community and all the things, and. And we just have to come back to our hearts and compassion for ourselves and. And remember to look at those beautiful little kiddos in front of us who are our bestest teachers. You know, they're the ones that are so teaching us about ourselves and that deep, beautiful level of acceptance and compassion for who they are in the world as well.
Speaker A [00:53:10]:
Amazing.
Speaker B [00:53:11]:
Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the ADHD Families podcast. If you loved it, please share it on your socials. I want this to start a conversation about ADHD. If you want to make this mum do a little happy dance, please leave a review on iTunes. If you would like to know more about what we do, check out thefunctionalfamily.com. i truly hope that you enjoyed this podcast and you use it to create a wonderful, effective, joyful life with your beautiful children.
