#15 - Unpacking Resilience for Neurodivergent Kids with Monique Mitchelson - The School Can't Experience

Episode Transcript
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Leisa Reichelt (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the School Can't
Experience Podcast.
I'm Leisa Reichelt, and thispodcast is brought to you by the
School Can't Australiacommunity.
Caring for a young person who isstruggling to attend school can
be a stressful and isolatingexperience, but you are not
alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every

(00:26):
day.
Today we are joined by MoniqueMitchelson, who amongst to other
things is a clinicalpsychologist and the co-host of
the Neurodivergent WomanPodcast, of which I am a big
fan.
On a recent episode aboutUnschooling, they included a
brief conversation on a topicthat really resonated with me.
So I am delighted that Moniquehas agreed to join us to dig

(00:48):
into the very misunderstoodconcept of resilience,
particularly for ourneurodivergent young people.
Now, typically this topic willsend a big shiver down the spine
of our School Can't parents, buttoday you'll discover Monique
issues some real challenges tothe educational orthodoxy, and I
hope you find it both validatingand thought provoking.

(01:09):
Quick content warning, we domention suicidality briefly in
the podcast, mostly in astatistical context and not in
any individual detail, butplease take care when listening
and reach out for support if youneed it.
Let's get cracking then.
Monique, thank you for joiningus.
It's an absolute pleasure tohave you talking with us on our
podcast today.

Monique Mitchelson She/He (01:29):
Thank you so much for having me on.
I'm really happy to be here andget to chat about this with you.

Can you just give us a little bit of a, a
story of Monique and how you'vecome to be doing what you're
doing today?

Yeah, absolutely.
so I'm a late diagnosed autisticand ADHD woman and I'm also a
clinical psychologist.
And, yeah, like working inprivate practice in Brisbane,
Australia.
When I went through my diagnosisprocess, and realization process
in my early thirties, I sort ofdecided like, wow, I feel like

(02:04):
there isn't enough informationout there for adults who were
autistic and ADHD, particularlyadult women.
and like specific to ourexperiences and often being late
diagnosed.
so yeah, myself and mycolleague, Dr.
Michelle Livock, who is aneurotypical, clinical
neuropsychologist, we workedtogether at the private

(02:27):
practice, RedlandsPsychologists.
We decided to create a podcastto get some free information out
there that's from aneurodiversity affirming lens.
One other thing I wanted tohighlight for people, to show
some of the positive changesthat are happening, and will
roll out over the next five to10 years, that the Board of

(02:47):
Psychology in Australia hasupdated their competencies for
us.
So from December this yearonwards, all psychologists must
demonstrate competency inworking in a neurodiversity
affirming manner, and working inan affirming way with anyone
with a disability.
a lot of psychologists are goingto have to upskill from older

(03:10):
models of care that were morebehavioral or compliance focused
to strengths based and clientcentered.

So that, as I understand it, that's about
shifting from this idea that youneed to fix the person to being
able to help them understand howthe world could potentially
accommodate them better, orskills that they could use and
learn that will support them inbeing themselves, but maybe more
effectively in the world.
Is that a not too terrible wayof describing it?

Monique Mitchelson She/Her (03:40):
it's a good way of describing it.
the term neurodiversityaffirming therapy, basically
means, rather than trying to fixor cure autism or ADHD because
they are genetic.
you know, autism is 90% genetic.
ADHD is around 70 to 90%genetic.
It runs in families.
and also because as well, likeit's a neurodevelopmental

(04:03):
difference and it's doesn't justmean that your development and
your neurology is different as achild, that actually means that
you develop along a differentpathway or a different
trajectory over your entirelifespan.
People may need some form ofsupport at different parts of
their life or over their entirelifespan, and that's okay.

(04:26):
But yeah, it's not about maybemaking the autistic or ADHD
child or person into aneurotypical person because that
just isn't possible, to behonest.
And it actually can be extremelydraining.
you know, so there's been morerecent research come out around
autistic people and masking.
teaching people how to socializeand appear like a neurotypical

(04:49):
person and talk like aneurotypical person and
interact.
And some of the research hasshowed that that actually
increases stress anxiety inautistic people.
And it actually, uh, is linkedto more fatigue and worsened
wellbeing and even, uh, youknow, trigger warning, uh,

(05:11):
suicidality as well.
And difficulty with identityformation too.
people are told, who you areisn't acceptable or okay.
that message is often reinforcedat school, unfortunately, by the
system or by peers, other kidsand teasing and bullying.
So, yeah, like a lot of peoplelearn to observe others how they

(05:33):
act and behave and mimic them asa survival strategy,
particularly through school,that contributes to, the
overload that the mainstreamschool environment has for many
autistic people.
it can lead to issues withforming a good sense of self and
self-worth as well.

So much to unpack there.

Monique Mitchelson (05:54):
Absolutely.
And you know, the people that Iwork are often people who, some
of them may have made it througha mainstream school to grade 10
or grade 12 and graduated.
Others haven't.
They burned out maybe, or wereunable to keep attending for
various reasons, and did analternative pathway.
A lot of people who make itthrough the 13 years of

(06:17):
mainstream schooling are prettyburned out by the end of it and
often have quite poor mentalhealth.
Around 70% of autistic, peoplehave a co-occurring mental
health condition.
And so the stress of school onthe neurodivergent nervous
system can really take a toll.

(06:38):
And we see people really tryingto push through in adulthood,
and live according toneurotypical expectations such
as attend university full timeor work full time.
And often they end up burningout and maybe not realizing that
it's autistic or ADHD burnout,but that it, you know, maybe
they thought, oh, I'm having adepressive episode, or why can't

(07:00):
I cope and keep getting sick orhaving to take all these sick
days, when people are often intheir twenties, thirties and
forties, they are very burnedout and, finding it hard to
cope.
And that's where they may thengo for a diagnosis and look at,
well, is Neurodivergence maybepart of this?

Yeah, that's a good pivot, back to our
resilience topic, because Ithink this notion of pushing
through hard things is somethingmany of us have been socialized
to believe is a good thing.
Resilience is a word that wehear more now maybe than ever
before, as also a good thing.

(07:43):
I would love to hear from yourperspective, how would you
define resilience as a concept?
and how does that compare to theway it's used a lot in the
world?
That that may be not quiteaccurate to that.

Yeah, so resilience as a concept for
me would be the ability to adaptto your environment and adapt to
stresses in your environment,and to be able to do that in a
way that you are able toregulate your nervous system.

(08:17):
Our body is designed to try tokeep us in a state of
homeostasis.
So homeostasis basically meansbalance.
So for example, if you haven'tdrunk enough water, you have
signals in your body to tell youthat you're getting dehydrated
and make you thirsty so that youdrink more water so that your

(08:38):
body is back in balance againfrom being dehydrated.
So a lot of people misunderstandthe concept of resilience.
As you know, I need to facestress and be resilient to that
stress and not have a stressresponse to whatever that
stressor was, and just keepgoing, even though I'm becoming

(08:59):
more and more stressed.
And resilience really works indifferent performance situations
where perhaps a, you actuallyhave safety in your environment,
you have the resources that youactually need to lean on to be
able to overcome maybe achallenging situation or a

(09:22):
difficult situation, and youhave support that you know that
you can lean on, and youactually have the capacity in
your nervous system and yourcognition to overcome that
challenge and like problem solveand make your way through.
And there'll be challenges thatyou don't have capacity to

(09:43):
overcome or there'll bechallenges where you don't have
that particular skill perhaps,or, maybe you don't have the
support or safety.
people assume you can justovercome things and it not
affect you, but they don'tunderstand, you actually need
all these other building blocksto successfully overcome
challenges and have your nervoussystem to a point where it's

(10:07):
maybe a bit stressed in terms ofit's stretched and it's engaged
in like, you know, say if you gofrom like a walk to a jog,
right?
You can kind of rev up and like.
Increase your performance andmeet that demand, but that
demand's supposed to pass.
You know, the challenge issupposed to be passed and then

(10:28):
you're supposed to be able tokind of go back to a walk and
back to your baseline level ofregulation and energy use.
And yeah, people assume that youcan just meet that challenge and
yeah, overcome it and, and notbe stressed by it.
But that's actually not thecase.
You need all of these buildingblocks first, if that makes

(10:48):
sense.
And if you don't have thosebuilding blocks, and also if the
stressor is ongoing and there'sno relief and no way to overcome
that challenge or problem, itactually just wears people down
and leads eventually to burnout.

I wonder whether if we take all of those ideas
that you're thinking about andput them into the school
environment, because I thinkthere would be very few School
Can't parents who haven't beentold that their job is to keep
pressing the child to get toschool, because that's how you
develop resilience, you know,and you do the hard things.
if you go in enough times it'lleventually be okay and you'll

(11:29):
get used to it, Maybe they thinkyou'll adapt.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on this notion of
resilience and the schoolenvironment for those kids for
whom it is a challenging thing.

Yeah.
So I guess, part of theencouragement to get kids to
keep going to school comes fromsome of the principles in
psychology like behaviorism.
So, you know, back in the day wewould expose an animal like a
rat or something like that in acage, unfortunately, to a

(11:59):
stressful situation.
And, at first there would be astress response, but over time,
if the rat was exposed to thatsame, stimulus or situation it
basically would learn that thatsituation is not going to harm
it or it's not actually athreat.
And the stress responseextinguishes over time.

(12:20):
There's a lot of assumptionwithin psychology and different
therapies for phobias, if youslowly expose yourself to
something you're anxious about,your nervous system will
habituate.
But that's based on theassumption that you have a
neurotypical nervous system,that does habituate.
There's not a lot of research onthis.

(12:40):
So this is more from clinicalobservation and working with a
lot of autistic people over 10years and, you know, being
autistic myself is that therewill be some situations that
maybe exposure therapy actuallyworks.
But there will also besituations where you're actually

(13:02):
stressed about that situation ina way that's not neurotypical.
It's because of your autisticbrain, your autistic nervous
system where you have a lot ofsensory overload when you go
into that situation.
And that is not going tohabituate, you're not actually
going to get used to it.
It's an ongoing stressor.
And actually the more you'reexposed to it, the more it

(13:24):
disregulates you and yournervous system.
It actually is the other way.
It's more and moredysregulating.
Also, situations that you don'thave autonomy or control over,
you don't have a sense of agencyin, like nothing you do will fix
the situation.
You are powerless.
You are helpless.
Things are being done to you.

(13:46):
it's not collaborative, that'snot going to work with exposure
therapy.
'Cause the idea is in exposuretherapy, that we don't want
people to get flooded to thepoint where they're extremely
distressed, especially if theyalready have a trauma
background.
A lot of the kids that are goingto school every day are getting
flooded and their nervous systemisn't able to habituate to that,

(14:09):
or develop resilience to that.
And then there's trauma.
So a lot of the exposuretherapies were designed around a
phobia.
So maybe you have a phobia ofbirds or the dentist if you have
had many years of badexperiences with birds or the
dentist or whatever, and if wetake that to school, you've had

(14:29):
many, many negative experiences.
Just reassuring someone verballyor exposing them to that same
environment is actually notgoing to extinguish that anxiety
and dysregulation becausethey're having a trauma
response.
When you have a history oftrauma, you actually become more
sensitive to stress, moresensitive to threat.

(14:52):
You actually become lessresilient over time as well.
So, you know, working with a lotof adults who have, clinical
PTSD, maybe from workplacetrauma, from being bullied at
work or being in a toxic workenvironment, often they will
actually not be able to returnto that same environment often
they need to, go to a completelydifferent environment, a

(15:15):
completely different way ofworking, even a different
industry.
Going back to the same thingdoesn't work because it
re-triggers their nervous systemand their sense of fight and
flight because their trauma'sbeing re-triggered.
And so like a lot of theexposure therapy, sometimes
isn't done in a trauma informedway and it can cause further

(15:37):
dysregulation and burnout.
I think there's a few differentfactors where a lot of the
practices maybe haven't updatedthemselves with how autistic
brains, and bodies and nervoussystems work.
The other factor that oftenisn't taken into consideration
with, exposure therapy and theidea of resilience is how

(16:01):
information processing works forboth autistic and ADHD people is
quite different.
So for autistic people, whatends up happening in, often in
mainstream school environmentsthere's just so much going on
and autistic brains process 40%more information at rest than
neurotypical brains.
And so if you are processing allof this sensory information, all

(16:25):
of this social information andall of the social interactions
going on and trying to figurethat out.
And then you are trying tolearn, and process all of the
learning information and theexecutive functioning skills.
What ends up happening for a lotof autistic people, is that we
get a traffic jam in the brain.
So it's like, you have acomputer.

(16:46):
And the processing chip in thecomputer is from the nineties,
but the computer itself is likehigh tech and so much input in a
mainstream school with 36 kidsin the class and all these
subjects in high school itactually gets even worse So
often, if you're in a biggerschool with much more students,

(17:09):
there's much more noise.
In high school you don't stay inthe same room, you don't have
the same teacher for the wholeyear or even the same people
sometimes for the whole year inyour class.
You have to move around, andthere's a lot of, change as well
in high school.
And that's the point where a lotof autistic kids drop out of
mainstream school is often ingrade seven, when they're trying

(17:32):
to transition to high school.
And so that's also why exposuretherapy doesn't work for a lot
of autistic people, because noneof the environments are really
designed for us.
You can add in some support, youcan try and add an
accommodation, but it's kind oflike, putting a bandaid on
something when actually you needto go and like, redo the entire

(17:56):
system.
it doesn't resolve any of thatinformation overload.
the processing chip in the brainliterally melting down and not
being able to process anythingmore.
And that's part of why peopleoften, like kids won't make it
through the week.
They might be able to go for aday and then, or like a morning

(18:16):
and then maybe by mid-morning orafter an hour or two.
Their chip has melted and theydon't have any more capacity for
the rest of the day.
And actually just forcing you tostay in that environment will
just lead to worsening distress,autistic burnout, nervous system
dysregulation, and health issuesacross the week or the term,
you'll see people reallystruggle to maintain full-time

(18:39):
attendance.
And the things that often isn'ttalked about with autism, as
well, is basically there's anexpectation, you know, whether
you're autistic level one withlow support needs, which is what
my diagnosis is, or autisticlevel two with moderate support
needs, autistic level three withhigh support needs.

(19:03):
For a lot of the level onepeople, I work with mainly level
one and two people.
so low support needs, moderatesupport needs, but I work with a
lot of high support needspeople, when I worked as a
disability support worker,during, my university degrees in
studying.
a lot of level one people.
often, throughout adulthood,it's better for them to attend

(19:25):
school uni or work four days aweek.
Actually attending five days aweek ends up burning adults out
and you really do need an extraday off a week to rest.
A lot of level two people,people with moderate support
needs their informationprocessing can't process as much
stuff as quickly they needlonger processing time that's

(19:48):
where there ends up being moremeltdowns and shutdowns and high
levels of distress.
So the pattern that I'veobserved clinically is that for
a lot of level two people, whattheir nervous system and
information processing andsensory processing can handle is
two to three days a week.
You know, and that may not be aneight hour day or a six hour

(20:11):
day.
It may be more spread out acrossthe week and then needing the
rest of the week to actuallyrecover your nervous system, to
then be able to have capacity todo things like prepare food and
eat, hydrate, do personalhygiene, be able to engage in
things that you enjoy and that'snot spoken about.

(20:31):
There's this expectation, youknow, if you are autistic, that
you must attend school fulltime, if you attend university
or TAFE afterwards, that has tobe full time and work full time.
And that just doesn't work forus.
And that leads to a lot ofreally poor outcomes.
And it's not talked about.
And I really wanna reassurepeople Talking about this more

(20:52):
openly and about what actuallyworks for us as autistic people
will help you understand whyyour child is really struggling
with full-time schooling, and ina mainstream environment.
And yeah, like the school systemdoesn't allow for going to
school part-time, it's kind oflike you have to attend
mainstream school or not, like,and then go to homeschool or,

(21:17):
unschooling.
There's a lot fewer options thatoffer enough support as well.
Like a lot of autistic people,particularly if they're ADHD as
well, need one-on-one support.
You don't really get that,particularly once you get to
high school.
We see a lot of level twoautistic kids really struggle

(21:38):
and often drop out of mainstreamschool in primary school.
You know, they have tummy aches,headaches, go mute and can't
speak, because of the overload.
Whereas you might see in morelevel one kids, that starts in
high school, if that makessense.

So Monique, a lot of people are in a situation
where they would really liketheir child to go to school
full-time.

Yeah.

Probably their child would like to be able to
go to school as well.
And for it not to be adistressing experience.
And definitely the school wouldlike the child to be there
full-time also.
What I'm hearing you say reallyclearly there is that for a lot
of our neurodivergent kids.
That's probably just not goingto be realistic If we also want

(22:26):
to allow them to have goodmental health and have other
things going on in their lifeother than just trying to get to
school and cope.

it's hard because, there is, a lot of
pressure on parents that if yourchild is not in mainstream
school you need to homeschool,and supervise if that ends up
being what you do, it's actuallyreally, really extremely
difficult to exist on a singleincome in the world right now.
it's tough because it really candepend on a lot of environmental

(23:00):
factors.
So if we're in the rightenvironment, we thrive.
If we're not in the rightenvironment, it's extremely
difficult.
So for example, a smaller schoolwith less students is very
helpful because it means thatthere's less people around,
there's less sensory overload.

(23:20):
One of the things that helped meto go to school as a kid was
growing up in a regional area.
And yeah, like the primaryschool I went to was pretty
small.
Working with a lot of level twopeople.
the best environment, the onethat they were able to succeed
the most in was when they wereworking in small groups of four
to six children with oneteacher.
And so very small class, muchmore time with the teacher, much

(23:44):
more individualization, muchmore sensory breaks, regulation
breaks.
but yeah, like often it's hardbecause it's like parents and
children that need support and adifferent environment and a
learning in a way that suitstheir brain.
A lot of the systems just aren'tset up for that.

(24:07):
And actually, you know, it mightbe looking at your expectations
and going, do I want my child tocome out of school with intact
mental and physical health?
You know, or, or, and what's thealternative?
Like, what is the priority?
And it's remembering too thatfor schools they, you know,

(24:29):
have, try to make sure thatstudents have their wellbeing,
you know, taken care of, butthey're really designed to get
people through the educationsystem.
Like that's what they'redesigned to do.
And that may sometimes conflictwith what is actually in
someone's like wellbeing,physically and mentally.

Yeah, as you were saying that, it really made
me think, you know, just comingback to resilience that again,
particularly for ourneurodivergent kids or
ourselves, a big part of thatresilience is actually trying to
work out how do we choose to dothings in a way that fits to the
capacity that we have

Yes.

instead of constantly stretching,
stretching, stretching until thepoint that we fall in a big
heap.

Yeah, and it might be, you know, it's
hard'cause a lot of parents, ofcourse, really want the best for
their kids.
They want their kids to have thebest life.
They want their kids to have theeasiest, smoothest life.
And being different isn't easyand you know, you want your kids
to be able to be able to beliving a life that's a good

(25:31):
quality of life.
Being able to look afterthemselves and take care of
their needs, for one day whenyou are not there.
that's a big worry for a lot ofparents.
yeah, like I think it'sadvocating and trying to educate
teachers and professionals, wellactually, my child does have a
disability what you're expectingof them is actually, not

(25:54):
acknowledging the fact that youcan build capacity to so far
before it actually then becomesun unhelpful, or, you know,
worsening the person's distressand is that building capacity or
is that actually causing harm?
there's a fine balance with that

Yeah.

there is more education for.
mental health professionalsaround that.
But also there needs to be morereeducation for teachers because
unless you actually do amaster's in special education,
you don't really learn muchabout autism and ADHD and a lot
of teachers are really stressedbecause there's so many more

(26:34):
autistic and ADHD and dyslexickids in class and they don't
have the training and resourcesto support them.
They don't know what theexpectations should be as well,
if that makes sense.
And a lot of them, aren'teducated in trauma, in mental
health and nervous systemregulation as well.
But when you're in fight, flightor freeze, your frontal lobe

(26:57):
turns off and you're notlearning anyway.
So you could be physicallypresent at school in distress,
and not be in School Can't, butnot learning and then your body
is taking the toll and yourmental health is taking the
toll.
So that's why a lot of childrenlearn better the home
environment because your homewhen you're autistic is your

(27:20):
safe place.
You have

control Yeah.

Over your home environment.
You know what to expect in yourhome environment, and that frees
up that information processingto actually focus on learning
and taking in the information.
So then of

Yeah,

you go back to school and you're
overloaded again, your brainshuts down and you can't learn.
The whole education systemreally needs to understand the
nervous system regulation.

I think some people would think that by
switching from a schooleducation to a home-based
education process, that youmight then be undermining the
child's opportunity to buildresilience.
Like, because you've just set upthis environment that totally
caters to what suits them.
So how are they gonna buildresilience, and what would you
say in response to that?

well, I mean like for when, when kids
grow up and become autistic andADHD adults, we get choice and
control over our environmentI'll just give myself as an
example, as an adult now, I workthree days a week in a clinic.
my bosses are neurodivergent.
A lot of the other staff areneurodivergent.

(28:30):
all my clients, you know, aremainly neurodivergent and my
husband is neurodivergent.
My entire family'sneurodivergent.
All my friends are, and I don'tdo anything in a neurotypical
way.
Like I don't go out and doneurotypical things.
You know, if someone asks me, doyou wanna go to a cafe or a
restaurant?
I go, oh, that sounds awful.

(28:52):
Why would I want to do that?
the sensory overload, I wouldn'teven enjoy myself.
So, you know, I think it's againabout thinking about your
expectations of your child andgoing, am I having neurotypical
expectations of them?
And like, is that what they'regoing to want to do once they
have choice and control?
So I have friends now.

(29:13):
It took me until my mid twentiesto make real friends.
I eventually did, and now wehang out online, we chat online,
we do chill activities or visiteach other's houses where it's
lower sensory, I have a verysupportive boss and work, but I
still can only work part-time orI go into burnout.

(29:36):
I don't have any neurotypicalpeople in my life, so I don't
need to mask my autism and ADHD.
Whereas, you know, a lot ofparents are worried like, will
my kid ever make friends?
How are they gonna get alongwith people in the workplace and
neurotypical people you have tofind a way as an autistic and
ADHD person to find the rightpeople in the right environment.

(29:59):
And that works, I was in a lotof different wrong environments,
where it didn't work until Ifound the right one.
sometimes when you hear fromsomeone that has lived
experience as well asprofessional qualifications,
it's a different take becauseyou've lived it yourself, even
though there's a lot ofdiversity in, neurodivergence

(30:21):
and people's personalexperiences, but.
When you've lived it yourselfand you've come through hard
part of life, which often isschool, to be honest.
You've survived school and thenyou're an adult.
you find your own places thatyou feel comfortable in and
again, like developingresilience.

(30:43):
When you are already strugglingday to day in extreme distress,
do you really need to buildresilience?
You actually need to reduce thestressors.

Okay.
Let's try and wrap this up bythinking about how we can give
parents who are trying tosupport their kids through
school stress, to navigate,being told about the importance
of resilience and theseresilience building measures
that schools put in place, andwhich basically means continue

(31:19):
to attend more and more and moreall the time.

Yeah.
So you can refer to theorieslike polyvagal theory.
if you Google Polyvagal theoryyou are referring to a
psychological theory that a lotof trauma therapies are based on
everything we do in thesetherapies and around this theory
is about where is that person atin their nervous system?

(31:43):
Are they in fight?
Are they in flight?
Have they gone down into freezeand shut down?
Are they regulated?
And when you are regulated inpolyvagal theory, it means that
you feel safe, you're safeenough to then connect.
You can actually engage in playand you basically are in the

(32:04):
present moment, You're able topay attention.
I would also look into the workof Ross Greene, Collaborative
and Proactive Solutions, whichis a bit more of a
child-focused, person focusedapproach, rather than the
typical behavioral approach of,let's extinguish this behavior

(32:26):
because this behavior isn'tquote unquote normal.
You can also refer tooccupational therapy.
So for example, it's something Ididn't learn in psychology.
I've done extra training insensory based assessment as part
of my adult autism assessments.
if we think about it, it's likea triangle of learning.

(32:46):
at the bottom is our sensoryregulation.
then things like proprioceptionour emotional and behavioral
regulation, then our executivefunctioning, and right at the
top is learning.

Oh gosh.

Monique Mitchelson She (32:59):
actually have the sensory stuff in our
body regulated.
None of the middle or the top ofthe pyramid actually happens.

Yeah.

if you back yourself up with some
resources like this, you know,you, and you shouldn't have to
be doing all of this backingyourself up, but yeah, you can
actually look this up I'll giveyou a couple of books.
Like, Deb Dana has a great book.
Its very practical and simplepolyvagal exercises.

(33:32):
that you as a parent can lookthrough and even look at,
adapting to do with your child.
but yeah, if you learn thatlanguage and refer to these
concepts, you can kind of backyourself when you are asserting
the boundaries of your child andyour child's disability with
teachers and educating themabout what your child can and

(33:54):
can't actually do.
I know that you want them toattend, school full time.
The sensory environment causesdistress.
How you are approaching thisisn't trauma informed.
It's causing distress to mychild.
it's causing mental ill health.
How can we problem solve thistogether?

(34:15):
So building a collaborativerelationship with the teacher as
well, because they're trying todo the best they can in a system
that's not really.
Working very well.
And that's really reflecting,you know, in a lot of teachers
are leaving the education systembecause

Yeah,

Monique Mitchelson She (34:32):
stressed and it's not working for them
either.
It's not working for them, it'snot working for children, and
it's not working for parents.

someone really needs to redesign this whole
thing, don't they?

Monique Mitchelson She/H (34:43):
pretty much, and you can also
reference.
if you're a child's autistic,the National Autism Strategy, so
it's available, with an easyread section on the, the
Department of Social Serviceswebsite, and it's in place now
and for the next 10 years.
It has specific things around,ensuring that no harm occurs to

(35:06):
autistic students in theeducation system at all levels
of education.
So you can ask the school, haveyou updated your practices to be
in line with the National AutismStrategy and best practice
guidelines.
You can also go and have a lookon Autism CRCs website, and they

(35:26):
have updated, like in the pastyear or two, their guidelines
for professionals working withchildren and families of kids
and carers.
For autistic children, and thattalks about neurodiversity
affirming goals.
Okay.
So that's changed to everythingmust be neurodiversity

(35:48):
affirming.
And it talks about things likenot forcing eye contact,
educating children about autismfrom an affirming lens,
recognizing that autism can bean important identity and not
aiming to cure or fix autism intherapy goals.
So, yeah, I think if youreference, if you go and look
through some of these things, inall the spare time with all

Yeah.

of energy that you have, I'm being
sarcastic,

no.
I hear you.

Well, I don't read sarcasm very
easily, so I like to flag it,

Yeah, no good.

but yeah, you can use these to back
yourself, because people arestill catching up with all the
changes in best practices.

Yeah, and I think one of the things, like
it's that attendance metricthat, schools don't have a lot
of wiggle room on you know, and,we see a lot of stuff coming
outta schools about how, everyhour counts, every day counts.
I think

Mm.

for us then to just go, do you know what, it's
well and good that they havethose goals, but actually I'm
not gonna set that goal for mychild because of the toll that
it will take on them.
I will allow more rest time forthem and not subscribe to this a
hundred percent attendance iswhat we're aiming for.
I think that's a big shift.

It's not trauma informed, it's not
neurodiversity informed, it'scompliance based.
I really do believe that if yourchild has a diagnosis of autism
particularly, or ADHD, that thata hundred percent attendance
mandate should be lifted.
you shouldn't be punished as aparent and stress placed on you

(37:27):
because you have children withneurodevelopmental differences.
That's not fair.
That's having a neurotypicalexpectation.
And that's actually, what wewould call ableist.
there's things like sexism andracism.
what's often not talked about isableism.
ableism is implicit bias insociety towards people with

(37:48):
disabilities.
it's embedded in a lot ofsystems like the workplace where
people with disabilities arepunished or excluded because
they don't fit into thosesystems.
So that's an example of ableismDisability discrimination, I
would argue

Lots to think about.
Then I think the very firstthing we can do is release
ourselves from the shame offeeling like it's our job to get
our child to school a hundredpercent of the time and just go,
actually in not doing that,we're protecting them.
We are looking after them.
we're helping them be well.

the number one job, honestly, is the
child's wellbeing and quality oflife.
Because if you don't havewellbeing and quality of life,
that's where we have extremely,poor outcomes.
And just also trigger warningagain, um, high rates of
unfortunately autistic peoplecommitting suicide and dying
younger.
You actually want your child tobe able to get through, and

(38:43):
survive.
the best outcome would be withintact mental and physical
health.
it's reframing it to, this isactually the goal.
Not necessarily getting throughmainstream school or even
passing school, but gettingthrough alive.
And with okay quality of life,hopefully wellbeing would be

(39:04):
nice.
But the reality is for so manyautistic people, because of all
these systems issues, a lot ofpeople they make it through, but
in severe distress and withphysical health issues,

And I think as you said before, there is
potential pathways that aredifferent to the mainstream
neurotypical pathways that canallow.
a way to a really, happy andfulfilling life.

yeah.

doesn't necessarily mean full-time
school.

That's right.
And every child is different.
There will be absolutely someautistic children that may enjoy
attending school, and maybe domake it through mainstream
schooling, but there are a lotthat don't and won't, and it's
important to speak to thebreadth of diversity here.

Amazing.
Alright, well

well

thank you very much, Monique.
We'll pop all of the great,resources that you've suggested
in, links for people to access,and get more deeper information
on that.
But I really appreciate yourtime and all of your knowledge
today.
Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me on.

Well, I hope you found that conversation as
validating and informative as Idid.
It's so easy for us to makeneurotypical judgements and
place neurotypical expectationson our neurodivergent kids, even
when we ourselves areneurodivergent.
The neurotypical conditioning isreal.
I've added links in the episodenotes to all the wonderful
resources that Monique mentionedin this episode, and I think I'm

(40:30):
going to be printing out a copyof the Sensory Pyramid of
Learning, which she mentionedthat I have never heard of
before, but makes so much sense.
I've also put a link to theSchool Can't Australia website
and a link to donate to SchoolCan't Australia.
Your tax deductible donationsassist us to raise community
awareness, partner withresearchers, produce resources
like webinars, and this podcast,which all assist people who are

(40:52):
supporting children and youngpeople experiencing School
Can't.
If you have another topic youwould like us to cover, or if
you have a School Can't livedexperience that you'd be willing
to share, please email us atschoolcantpodcast@gmail.com We
would very much love to hearfrom you.
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and you are feeling

(41:14):
distressed, remember you canalways call the Parent Helpline
in your state.
A link with the number to callis in the episode notes.
Thank you again for listening,and we will talk again soon.
Take care.

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#15 - Unpacking Resilience for Neurodivergent Kids with Monique Mitchelson

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#15 - Unpacking Resilience for Neurodivergent Kids with Monique Mitchelson