February 4, 2025 • 30 mins
In the second episode of the School Can't Experience Podcast, host Leisa Reichelt, joined by Tiffany Westphal and Louise Rogers, explore:
- the critical role parents and carers play in supporting young people struggling with 'School Can't' ,
- recognizing early signs of distress, understanding the importance of the young person's perspective,
- and the pitfalls of dismissing their struggles as phase-based behavior problems,
- the importance of shared language about the nervous system, co-regulation strategies,
- the inadequacy of reward-based systems, and
- a call to prioritize a child's well-being over school attendance metrics.
Useful resources:
- Student Stress Investigation Cards by Tiffany Westphal - https://www.studentstressinvestigation.com.au/
- Lives in the Balance (Dr Ross Greene’s Collaborative and Proactive Solutions) - https://livesinthebalance.org/
- School Can’t Australia Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolphobiaschoolrefusalaustralia
- Make a donation to School Can’t Australia - https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist, or other qualified professional.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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'sstruggling 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
(00:28):
day.
We hope this podcast gives yousome insights into what others
are experiencing and some newways of thinking about how to
understand and support the youngpeople in your life.
This is our second episode, andI'm joined again by two legends
of our School Can't Australiacommunity, Tiffany Westphal and
Louise Rogers.
Tiffany and Louise volunteerhours of their time every week
(00:50):
administering the School Can'tAustralia Facebook community, as
well as doing advocacy work inthe community and in the media
on our behalf.
In our first episode, we lookedat some of the basics of School
Can't and what's going on forour young people when they're
struggling to attend school.
Today we're talking about thecrucial role that parents and
carers can play in supportingour young people once we
recognize that they'reexperiencing School Can't.
(01:13):
I started this discussion byasking Tiffany and Louise how we
know when we need to starttaking action.
Tiffany Westphal (01:18):
Look, it's a bit of a journey, I will say,
and often it takes time torealise that this is what's
going on for your child.
You might notice things andyou're busy and, you can manage
to still get your child toschool, until you can't, and I
think that earlier we noticethat there's something going on,
(01:39):
the easier it is to do somethingabout.
Louise Rogers (01:43):
I think
Tiffany Westphal (01:43):
as well.
Louise Rogers (01:43):
those early signs, they're often dismissed
by the people around you.
So even if you say, hang on, mychild's experiencing reticence
to being at school, you're told,they're fine, and you're given
the anxious mother narrative.
Tiffany Westphal (01:58):
It's so true that we often hear as parents,
'but they're fine at school, youknow, there's nothing to see
here'.
It's really hard then when youhave to, as a parent, convince
somebody else that your child isin distress, and your child's
not being listened to or seen.
You might be inclined to thinkthat those are, you know,
behaviour problems rather thannervous system problems.
(02:20):
And so it's difficult toidentify those early signs.
And then once you identify thoseearly signs, there's a whole lot
of learning that takes place.
And you go, okay, this is what'sgoing on.
We've got School Can't happeninghere.
So what do I need to know as aparent?
Because this is not knowledgethat I have in my toolkit and
(02:42):
often you discover that yourexisting parenting toolkit is
not fit for purpose when you'retackling this problem, there's a
whole lot of learning thathappens, and then you start
building a team of people aroundyou, a team of supports around
You start to look for peersupports because noone in your
immediate circle of, of familyand friends often shares this
experience with you.
(03:03):
But you're also often lookingfor professional supports
Leisa Reichelt (03:06):
Different people can get such dramatically
different pictures of what'sgoing on because of the effort
the kids go to to try to keep ittogether for as long as they
can.
So, taking these signs seriouslywhen we see them, I think, is
what I'm hearing from you, andreally trying to look at it
through the young person's lens,as much as possible, and not
(03:29):
allowing yourself to be sentaway with, it's fine, it's just
a phase.
Be a little bit stricter, try abit harder is kind of step one.
Tiffany Westphal (03:40):
Yeah.
This whole narrative that wecarry as well it's a child's job
to go to school.
This is what you have to do.
It's expected of you that you goto school and it's not optional.
You don't have a choice.
A lot of those things that wesay to children shut them down
from having a pathway tocommunicate with us about their
distress, so we need to becareful about how we respond in
(04:04):
the moment.
Leisa Reichelt (04:04):
What's the pathway if we don't do this?
If this child isn't heard, isn'tlistened to, if their distress
isn't acknowledged?
Tiffany Westphal (04:13):
What happens is that the child assesses that
the adults can't help me.
So they internalize that theproblem is me, I'm a bad kid.
I'm a bad person.
Or they become really angry orhostile, at the world and at you
as a parent, because they're indistress, they're in fight-
flight, they're trying tosurvive what's happening to
(04:35):
them.
The longer it goes on that theyare not getting any kind of
relief from their distress, themore hopeless it can feel to
them and they start to withdraw,and shut down, in order to
survive.
Louise Rogers (04:48):
I think it's important to highlight that
until you address the problem,until you acknowledge what's
going on, you're not addressingthe difficulty that young person
is having.
If they're chronically stressed,they'll continue to experience
chronic stress.
Tiffany Westphal (05:06):
They don't have the skills or resources to
fix the problem.
They are dependent on us asadults to use our power and our
skills and knowledge andresources to try and assist in
identifying what the problem isand how can we create safety for
them.
Leisa Reichelt (05:22):
I think my understanding of this is that,
if it's left unaddressed, youcan get into situations where
self harming and worse canbecome issues that you're
dealing with as well, yeah?
Tiffany Westphal (05:35):
Certainly, yes, we see increased increased
mental health problems,increased anxiety, increased
depression, increased suicideideation,
Leisa Reichelt (05:44):
So at the same time as all of that's going on,
you also have this externalnarrative of, kids should be
going to school, kids should bebehaving this way, that way.
These are formative times inyour child's life, if you don't
do a better job of parentingthem, their future will be
destroyed.' How do we
Tiffany Westphal (06:01):
that's right
Leisa Reichelt (06:02):
two things?
Tiffany Westphal (06:03):
That's really frightening for parents to to
hear, and let's be upfront aboutthis.
A lot of the posters that yousee about attendance and the
stuff that's printed in schoolnewsletters about the importance
of good school attendance pushesthis narrative that your child's
future will be impacted by poorattendance.
And I think sometimes thiscauses parents to push harder
(06:26):
than it's healthy to do soinstead of stopping and pulling
back a minute and going,'hangon, what's going on for my
child' and being curious.
I often find it really helpfulto remind parents that we never
stop learning as humans.
Our brains are always capable oflearning.
There are lots of pathways tofurther study and to learning as
(06:47):
adults if it's not happening inprimary school, if it's not
happening in high school.
The thing is to focus on wellbeing now so that when they're
recovered, when they're feelingokay, when you've found a
solution that works for them,there are options there.
Louise Rogers (07:03):
I liken it to, asking someone to keep going
where they're carrying a wound.
The longer that wound staysthere, it's going to get
infected, it's going to impactthe experience of school and the
experience of life.
It's better to address it now,and do what you can to support a
young person now, than to let itkeep going.
(07:26):
The well being is the mostimportant thing here.
Tiffany Westphal (07:29):
I think it's really helpful to look at this
through a trauma lens too, wouldyou say to somebody who'd
experienced trauma in theworkplace let's say, a policeman
who'd been involved in anincident at work where he'd been
assaulted.
Would you say to that person,'you need to get straight back
on the horse and get back towork straight away in order to
(07:50):
recover from that?' We wouldn't.
We know that that's not safe andyet we say to children, you need
to get straight back to schoolto prove to yourself that
there's nothing to be anxiousabout at school.
Why are the rules pertaining toschool different
Leisa Reichelt (08:05):
that's an excellent question.
It can be tricky for us ascaregivers to understand what it
is about that school experiencethat's causing distress to our
children.
Because if we want to solve theproblem for them, we need to
know what the problem is.
(08:26):
How do we get to that?
When do we get to that?
Tiffany Westphal (08:31):
Takes time and a lot of detective work and a
lot of being curious.
It's taken years for me tounderstand all of the stressors
that my child's experienced atschool.
Sometimes our children are toodistressed to be able to tell
us.
And sometimes, they can't makesense of it themselves.
(08:51):
Sometimes the experiences thatthey have, it's always been like
that for them at school andthey've never known any
different, so it's hard for themto articulate that that's what
the problem is, because it'sjust always been the way it is.
Louise Rogers (09:04):
It's so important to acknowledge that, young
people may have the skills orthe capacity in the moment to
respond to their distress inways that we grown ups think are
socially appropriate.
What happens then when we usethat behavioural lens is we
concentrate on this behaviour,instead of addressing the thing
(09:27):
that came before, which was thedifficulty that our young person
was having.
The young person's been kind offailed on two levels now- we've
got cross with them forexpressing their distress and
that we've also not doneanything about the reason that
they are distressed.
So they can be left feelingquite unsupported and now with
(09:50):
two problems.
Leisa Reichelt (09:51):
So I guess on the, getting to the why thing.
A couple of reflections onthat...
It doesn't necessarily matter ifwe don't understand exactly why
the child isn't able to go toschool.
We just need to accept that itis what it is and that it will
be a process of exploration andpossibly a team process of
exploration to start tounderstand it more.
Tiffany Westphal (10:14):
Yeah.
Look, I think understanding thatit does take time and giving
yourself permission for it totake time too.
There's a narrative that we haveto get our kids back to school
as soon as possible, becauseotherwise it's going to be
harder to get them back toschool.
I'm not sure that that'sactually a causative finding.
Maybe they're taking longer toget back because they've had
(10:35):
more distressing experiences orthey've been distressed for a
longer period of time.
But, so it does take time to dothis work.
It's been important for my childto understand why so, I think
that longer term it's reallyhelpful to have these insights,
but it's a process.
I think it's really important toget the young person's voice,
(10:56):
but also we can get insightsfrom teachers, and from
specialists as well.
So lots of us find ourselvesconsulting pediatricians.
Often the first port of call isthe GP when we start to notice
something's not right with ourchild's mental health.
Many of us try, approaching itfrom a mental health perspective
and going to visit apsychologist, but oftentimes
(11:16):
that's not effective just seeinga psychologist to learn anxiety
management skills or copingstrategies, is is not going to
be effective if we're stillgoing back into this really
stressful environment.
A huge number of our communityis supporting young people who
are neurodivergent.
Children who turn out to beautistic or they're ADHDers, or
(11:41):
they have learning difficultiesor sensory processing issues of
some sort.
It can be really helpful to havethat information about yourself
as a young person but also to beable to share that information
with the people supporting theyoung person as well.
It often takes a long time tonavigate that space.
Wait lists for pediatricians arereally long.
(12:04):
Sometimes people are waiting ayear to see a pediatrician.
And it's expensive.
That is a cost prohibitive thingfor a lot of people.
You can ask your school to dosome initial investigation for
you.
Lots of government schools have,student support services, but
even those services are oftenunder a lot of pressure, and
(12:25):
they triage, responses tostudents through those.
services.
So, if you're noticingdifficulties with attention
reading spelling, socialdifficulties or, the child
feeling like they're in troubleall the time, there's lots of
things then to be curious about.
Leisa Reichelt (12:43):
Separating how their body and their brain works
from who they are as a personand their value as a person, I
think really helps as well.
I've discovered something reallyinteresting with my son which is
that the anxiety or distresswould often build towards the
end of the day, getting closerto going to bed.
And that was also when hisability to make sense of the
(13:03):
world and his emotions wasprobably at its least strong.
Something that we've learnedjust in the last six months or
so is as that builds up, we'vegot that model of the brain that
we use of, the flipping the lidand.
hand model,
Louise Rogers (13:20):
model.
Leisa Reichelt (13:20):
ask me why, but his frontal cortex is called
George.
It's like,'George has gone tosleep now, so he can't help us.
Let's wait for the morning whenGeorge is back.
And then I'm sure he'll help usto understand what's going on
and come up with a solution'.
And it's amazing how often thatworks.
So, you know, we get up in themorning and he wakes up and gets
out of bed and he knows what'sgoing on and what the solution
(13:41):
to the problem is going to be.
All he needed to do was put itaway, get some sleep and then
readdress it in the morningthat's been such a powerful
shift for us rather than tryingto dig into it at night and it
just gets worse and worse
Tiffany Westphal (13:53):
It's interesting, night time is often
the time that our children areseeking out connection with us
to, to try and unpack theirdistress because everything is
slowing down and stopping,there's now space in the brain
to notice I'm distressed aboutthis and I need a calm brain to
be able to go to sleep.
I love the way you've described,let's park this because yes, our
(14:14):
capacity diminishes as the daygoes on.
It's important to have lots ofconversations with our young
people about capacity and aboutthe things that are impacting
their capacity
Leisa Reichelt (14:23):
We talked in episode one about the autonomic
nervous system and how crucialthat is in supporting our
children through the experience,of being able to get back to
some kind of learning or getback to school.
What can we be doing or whatshould we be avoiding to help to
try and keep that autonomicnervous system in that nice,
(14:47):
calm, regulated zone.
What are the things that we canbe doing to help support that?
Tiffany Westphal (14:52):
Firstly, I think it's really important that
we have a shared language withour young person about their
nervous system, I found it quitepowerful to have conversations
with young people about how thenervous system functions, and
about fight, flight and shutdown and what does that look
like and to start to noticethose things.
And, and that makes it so mucheasier, to develop awareness
(15:15):
about what do I look like, whatwhat thoughts am I having, what
feelings and sensations am Ihaving when my nervous system is
starting to, to escalate.
Kids can get quite good atidentifying mum or dad's nervous
system state and providing somefeedback.
So my kids are really good atdetecting changes in my nervous
(15:35):
system state and, and telling meabout it.
So, mum, mum.
You need to calm down a bit,they say to me, because you're
yelling at us, and I'm like, I'mnot yelling, my voice is raised
because I'm excited aboutsomething, but to them, it feels
like I'm yelling.
Learning to communicate witheach other about how things feel
for you, when you'reexperiencing somebody else's
(15:57):
nervous system state.
We learn a lot through co-regulation and experiences of
co- regulating, that livedexperience of having your
nervous system supported to feelsafe when you don't feel safe,
is the most powerful way we canteach our children about
regulation.
Learn about what it feels like,to be supported to feel safe
(16:21):
again and when we feeldistressed, what are the
pathways back to feeling safe?
What, what things work for me tofeel safe?
And it's a lifelong journeylearning about the nervous
system too.
It's not something that, yougraduate primary school and
you've got this fully developedcapacity to manage your own
nervous system.
(16:42):
I'm still learning things as anadult about what works for me
and what doesn't.
Leisa Reichelt (16:49):
We've been using the breathing exercises a lot
lately, which I know feels likesuch a cliche these days, in
terms of really kind of gettingyou back into that regulated
zone, especially for me, if I'mtrying to get myself back into a
calm zone so that I can go andre engage with him when he's
dysregulated, I find, some nicebreathing exercises can do a
(17:11):
massive amount of good.
Tiffany Westphal (17:13):
I found being outside works for me.
I like to go outside and lookfor birds and study changes in
my vegetable garden.
Louise Rogers (17:20):
A big help for me, I love singing.
Absolutely love singing andmusic.
So, if I can put some headphoneson and listen to some music that
I enjoy and sing along to it andmove, that really helps me.
Tiffany Westphal (17:32):
My daughter has a list on the back of her
bedroom door of things that makeme feel good when I'm feeling
distressed.
Things that make her feel goodwhen she's feeling stressed.
And our dog features up the topof that list
Louise Rogers (17:42):
You make a good point there in that, we all have
different things that we need.
we are not all going to respond,same way to the same stimulus.
So
Leisa Reichelt (17:53):
I think it's important for us to remember,
the impact that we can have interms of whether we help the
dysregulation spiral up orspiral down again.
I don't think we put enough,import on the role that we can
play in really trying tostabilize things by having the
ability to stabilize our own,nervous system and sense of
(18:15):
regulation.
That was a super important onefor me.
I hate telling anybody that theyhave to try to be calm because
it can be so hard and feel verysimplistic,
Tiffany Westphal (18:26):
It's important to understand the concept of
co-escalation.
We call that spiraling upwardsco-escalation, and co-escalation
is essentially like throwingfuel on a fire and it gets
worse.
Things get worse.
Louise Rogers (18:39):
So important to recognize that regulation
doesn't necessarily mean calm.
It means having the right energyfor the task ahead of you.
When we're helping a youngperson downregulate, we want to
be in that calm situation, butbeing regulated is not going to
mean calm
Leisa Reichelt (18:59):
That's a good point.
Tiffany Westphal (19:01):
I was just going to say there's a different
energy needed when you'regetting ready for bed coming
home after school or, whenyou're trying to get your day
underway.
That's a really good point,Louise.
Leisa Reichelt (19:13):
At the point where my son was having a lot of
difficulty, we ended up sleepingin the same bed often because I
didn't know why at the time.
It was only later that I learnedthat it was like, you know, he
was kind of like borrowing mynervous system in order to feel
safe enough to be able to go tosleep.
(19:33):
It was like hard to understandat the time, but now it makes
sense.
Tiffany Westphal (19:38):
I used to have to sit in my daughter's room in
the dark until she'd gone tosleep before I was allowed to
leave the room.
Louise Rogers (19:44):
every now and again in our house.
Leisa Reichelt (19:47):
I think there are so many of these things that
go on in the privacy of yourhouse that we don't talk about
and we just think, I couldn'tpossibly tell anybody else that
that's what's going on.
but actually it's surprisinglycommon, isn't it?
In the things that we need to doto help with co- regulation and
the things that we need to do toreduce demands.
Tiffany Westphal (20:09):
You know, it's interesting to me when I reflect
about co- regulation andsupporting our young people to
feel regulated.
When our children are infants wedo this without
questioning
the need to do it, you know, when your baby is
distressed, you pick them up andyou hold them, you might sing to
(20:30):
them, you use movement, allsorts of things to try and help
them feel settled and safe, butsomething happens when our
children go to school that westart to expect they're going to
do all of this themselves.
And I think we need to be awarethat it's okay to provide that
(20:50):
support.
You can't spoil a child byproviding them with emotional
support.
Leisa Reichelt (20:55):
Shall we talk about demand reduction?
What it means to take thepressure and reduce the energy
demands on the child.
What can that look like foryoung people who are
experiencing school can't?
Tiffany Westphal (21:06):
Can we start by saying, how do you know when
you need to reduce demands?
Leisa Reichelt (21:10):
How do you know when
Tiffany Westphal (21:11):
I think,
Leisa Reichelt (21:11):
reduce demands?
Tiffany Westphal (21:12):
Yeah, I think that's a really good thing to
ponder before we talk about whatdoes it look like to reduce
demands?
How do you know when you need toreduce demands?
I think you know when you seesomebody who's in distress that
you need to then reduce demand.
Different people have differentexperiences of what a demand is
(21:34):
and it changes from moment tomoment and from day to day.
Louise Rogers (21:38):
The other thing is, if you've identified that
your young person has a lot ofdifficulties, Dr.
Ross Green he's got an inventoryof lagging skills and unsolved
problems that you can downloadfrom the Lives in the Balance
website.
You can identify that your youngperson has multiple
difficulties, but you only wantto be working through one or two
(22:01):
of those difficulties at a time.
So all the other difficulties,you Plan C those, you put those
aside.
Take the demand of fixing thosethings off the table for now,
just concentrate on one or twothings.
And you remember that all ofthose difficulties are stressors
(22:21):
for that young person.
So every time you solve astressor, you're reducing the
load on that young person.
Supports and accommodations atschool do the same thing.
There's a number of difficultiesa young person has that have
been identified and your IEP isgoing to, put in place supports
(22:45):
for each of those difficulties.
And that is going to reducedemands on that young person to
make, hopefully, the work in theclassroom be within that young
person's window of tolerance formanaging stress.
Tiffany Westphal (23:01):
Demands are, sometimes environment specific,
they're very contextual to aparticular situation.
So if a student's havingdifficulty going to school
because, they are havingdifficulty demonstrating their
knowledge in writing we go,okay, is the difficulty because
the child is having trouble withholding a pen, is it a motor
(23:24):
skill problem?
Or is it a difficulty withspelling or remembering what
they were going to write?
The order of the words, is it adifficulty with summarizing
their thoughts or just puttingsomething into a sentence?
When we understand the nature ofthat difficulty better, then we
can reduce the demands byproviding supports and
accommodations.
(23:44):
For a student who's havingdifficulty with the mechanics of
writing, we're reducing thedemand to do the physical act of
writing by either allowing themto use voice to text or using
touch typing.
Louise Rogers (23:55):
My young person had difficulty getting dressed
in the morning.
In talking, with my young personabout the difficulty, they said
that it was the way the clothesfelt on him and the textures.
We organised an accommodationwith the school in that he was
allowed wear, a t shirt and softshorts that were in the same
(24:17):
colour as the school uniforminstead of the school uniform.
For a while that was great hewas able to go to school,
because he wasn't experiencingthat discomfort anymore.
Leisa Reichelt (24:28):
I think we'll talk more in our next episode
about the kinds ofaccommodations you can get
within a school environment andother ways of approaching
schooling, but that's a reallygood example.
Tiffany Westphal (24:39):
You know, sometimes there's reduction of
demands that are very specificdemands that we've identified.
But then there's also the bigpicture there's this overview of
what's happening for a child.
So sometimes we have a childwho's in a shut down state, the
more escalated the nervoussystem, the more likely we are
to need to reduce demandssubstantially in order to be
(25:04):
able to bring the nervous systemback down, to support
regulation.
Leisa Reichelt (25:09):
You talked a little bit about rewards and the
behavior chart situation in ourfirst episode, can you just
touch on why that's not a goodstrategy to use
Tiffany Westphal (25:20):
Oftentimes, this is one of the first things
that parents do, is try and userewards and consequences.
And sometimes that can get usinitial results of attendance at
school because the child is ableto deliver a little bit for a
little while, in order to getthe reward.
(25:40):
And so parents will say, well,it worked.
Until it stops working.
The problem with rewards andconsequences is that they don't
do anything to address theunderlying difficulty that the
student's having.
Sometimes the student can pushthrough a little bit longer in
order to get a reward, but it'sexhausting and it's not
something that can be sustainedover the long term.
(26:00):
It causes additional stress andit can lead to additional
distress, and worsened mentalhealth.
So we need to be very carefulabout rewards and consequences
because they add a lot ofpressure, to a child and they
don't address the underlyingissues.
Leisa Reichelt (26:17):
Is it that they assume that the problem is a
lack of motivation and actuallyits not a lack
Tiffany Westphal (26:21):
Yeah, that's right.
Leisa Reichelt (26:22):
and so the solution that you're putting in
place doesn't address the actualproblem.
Tiffany Westphal (26:27):
It's about reframing what are we seeing
here?
We go back to that first need toreframe, you know, it's not a
behavior problem.
It's a nervous system responseto something.
Louise Rogers (26:36):
It can be quite shaming too, and it doesn't
acknowledge the effort thatyoung person has put in to
actually do the thing that, youwant them to do
Leisa Reichelt (26:48):
Excellent.
All right.
think it's time for us to wrapup.
When we were approaching thisepisode, it was really, okay,
what are practical things thatwe can do to help support?
It's quite interesting, althoughnot surprising, that we've spent
the vast majority of timethinking about, how we support
the child out of the context ofschool, and not putting that
(27:08):
first priority on, how do weurgently get the child back into
school and get that attendanceup that is probably an
unexpected thing for a lot ofpeople because, your child has
to go to school.
How do you keep yourself focusedon supporting your child's
nervous system and theirwellbeing and reducing their
distress rather than, succumb tothis kind of ongoing pressure of
(27:31):
getting, over 80 percentattendance or whatever the
benchmark is these days.
Tiffany Westphal (27:35):
Well, I've been on this journey for 10
years now, Leisa, and, I'velearned that it's futile not to
put my own child's well beingfront and centre, and to be
responsive to her nervous systemneeds, because it just leads to,
further distress and worsenedmental health.
Louise Rogers (27:56):
And it's also important to support ourselves
in that context too, so that wehave capacity to be there for
our young people.
And that can be really, reallydifficult with our crazy,
chaotic lives.
If our young person can't go toschool, maybe they can't do lots
of other things, maybe we can'tget away from the house, maybe
the most we can do is smallthings like get a cup of coffee
(28:21):
and stand outside in the gardenfor five minutes.
Start small with things you cando to support your own nervous
system.
As you shift, you'll be betterequipped to support your young
person.
Leisa Reichelt (28:35):
And on that reassuring note, we're going to
wrap up this second episode andgive a big thanks again to
Tiffany Westphal and LouiseRogers for joining us.
We'll be back in our thirdepisode to talk again with
Tiffany and Louise this timewe're gonna be talking about
working with schools to try toreduce the stress of school by
understanding and advocating foraccommodations for our young
people.
(28:56):
We've popped a bunch of usefullinks in the show notes,
including links to the SchoolCan't Australia website, the
Facebook community, the Lives inthe Balance website that Louise
mentioned, as well as ways foryou to give us some feedback and
maybe even volunteer to shareyour own School Can't experience
on a future podcast episode.
We would love to hear from you.
And finally, please considerdonating to School Can't
(29:16):
Australia, your tax deductibledonations assist us to raise
community awareness to, partnerwith researchers, to produce
resources like webinars and thisvery podcast which assist people
who are supporting children andyoung people experiencing School
Can't.
Thanks again for listening, andwe'll talk again soon.
Take care.
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'sstruggling 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
(00:28):
day.
We hope this podcast gives yousome insights into what others
are experiencing and some newways of thinking about how to
understand and support the youngpeople in your life.
This is our second episode, andI'm joined again by two legends
of our School Can't Australiacommunity, Tiffany Westphal and
Louise Rogers.
Tiffany and Louise volunteerhours of their time every week
(00:50):
administering the School Can'tAustralia Facebook community, as
well as doing advocacy work inthe community and in the media
on our behalf.
In our first episode, we lookedat some of the basics of School
Can't and what's going on forour young people when they're
struggling to attend school.
Today we're talking about thecrucial role that parents and
carers can play in supportingour young people once we
recognize that they'reexperiencing School Can't.
(01:13):
I started this discussion byasking Tiffany and Louise how we
know when we need to starttaking action.
Tiffany Westphal (01:18):
Look, it's a bit of a journey, I will say,
and often it takes time torealise that this is what's
going on for your child.
You might notice things andyou're busy and, you can manage
to still get your child toschool, until you can't, and I
think that earlier we noticethat there's something going on,
(01:39):
the easier it is to do somethingabout.
Louise Rogers (01:43):
I think
Tiffany Westphal (01:43):
as well.
Louise Rogers (01:43):
those early signs, they're often dismissed
by the people around you.
So even if you say, hang on, mychild's experiencing reticence
to being at school, you're told,they're fine, and you're given
the anxious mother narrative.
Tiffany Westphal (01:58):
It's so true that we often hear as parents,
'but they're fine at school, youknow, there's nothing to see
here'.
It's really hard then when youhave to, as a parent, convince
somebody else that your child isin distress, and your child's
not being listened to or seen.
You might be inclined to thinkthat those are, you know,
behaviour problems rather thannervous system problems.
(02:20):
And so it's difficult toidentify those early signs.
And then once you identify thoseearly signs, there's a whole lot
of learning that takes place.
And you go, okay, this is what'sgoing on.
We've got School Can't happeninghere.
So what do I need to know as aparent?
Because this is not knowledgethat I have in my toolkit and
(02:42):
often you discover that yourexisting parenting toolkit is
not fit for purpose when you'retackling this problem, there's a
whole lot of learning thathappens, and then you start
building a team of people aroundyou, a team of supports around
You start to look for peersupports because noone in your
immediate circle of, of familyand friends often shares this
experience with you.
(03:03):
But you're also often lookingfor professional supports
Leisa Reichelt (03:06):
Different people can get such dramatically
different pictures of what'sgoing on because of the effort
the kids go to to try to keep ittogether for as long as they
can.
So, taking these signs seriouslywhen we see them, I think, is
what I'm hearing from you, andreally trying to look at it
through the young person's lens,as much as possible, and not
(03:29):
allowing yourself to be sentaway with, it's fine, it's just
a phase.
Be a little bit stricter, try abit harder is kind of step one.
Tiffany Westphal (03:40):
Yeah.
This whole narrative that wecarry as well it's a child's job
to go to school.
This is what you have to do.
It's expected of you that you goto school and it's not optional.
You don't have a choice.
A lot of those things that wesay to children shut them down
from having a pathway tocommunicate with us about their
distress, so we need to becareful about how we respond in
(04:04):
the moment.
Leisa Reichelt (04:04):
What's the pathway if we don't do this?
If this child isn't heard, isn'tlistened to, if their distress
isn't acknowledged?
Tiffany Westphal (04:13):
What happens is that the child assesses that
the adults can't help me.
So they internalize that theproblem is me, I'm a bad kid.
I'm a bad person.
Or they become really angry orhostile, at the world and at you
as a parent, because they're indistress, they're in fight-
flight, they're trying tosurvive what's happening to
(04:35):
them.
The longer it goes on that theyare not getting any kind of
relief from their distress, themore hopeless it can feel to
them and they start to withdraw,and shut down, in order to
survive.
Louise Rogers (04:48):
I think it's important to highlight that
until you address the problem,until you acknowledge what's
going on, you're not addressingthe difficulty that young person
is having.
If they're chronically stressed,they'll continue to experience
chronic stress.
Tiffany Westphal (05:06):
They don't have the skills or resources to
fix the problem.
They are dependent on us asadults to use our power and our
skills and knowledge andresources to try and assist in
identifying what the problem isand how can we create safety for
them.
Leisa Reichelt (05:22):
I think my understanding of this is that,
if it's left unaddressed, youcan get into situations where
self harming and worse canbecome issues that you're
dealing with as well, yeah?
Tiffany Westphal (05:35):
Certainly, yes, we see increased increased
mental health problems,increased anxiety, increased
depression, increased suicideideation,
Leisa Reichelt (05:44):
So at the same time as all of that's going on,
you also have this externalnarrative of, kids should be
going to school, kids should bebehaving this way, that way.
These are formative times inyour child's life, if you don't
do a better job of parentingthem, their future will be
destroyed.' How do we
Tiffany Westphal (06:01):
that's right
Leisa Reichelt (06:02):
two things?
Tiffany Westphal (06:03):
That's really frightening for parents to to
hear, and let's be upfront aboutthis.
A lot of the posters that yousee about attendance and the
stuff that's printed in schoolnewsletters about the importance
of good school attendance pushesthis narrative that your child's
future will be impacted by poorattendance.
And I think sometimes thiscauses parents to push harder
(06:26):
than it's healthy to do soinstead of stopping and pulling
back a minute and going,'hangon, what's going on for my
child' and being curious.
I often find it really helpfulto remind parents that we never
stop learning as humans.
Our brains are always capable oflearning.
There are lots of pathways tofurther study and to learning as
(06:47):
adults if it's not happening inprimary school, if it's not
happening in high school.
The thing is to focus on wellbeing now so that when they're
recovered, when they're feelingokay, when you've found a
solution that works for them,there are options there.
Louise Rogers (07:03):
I liken it to, asking someone to keep going
where they're carrying a wound.
The longer that wound staysthere, it's going to get
infected, it's going to impactthe experience of school and the
experience of life.
It's better to address it now,and do what you can to support a
young person now, than to let itkeep going.
(07:26):
The well being is the mostimportant thing here.
Tiffany Westphal (07:29):
I think it's really helpful to look at this
through a trauma lens too, wouldyou say to somebody who'd
experienced trauma in theworkplace let's say, a policeman
who'd been involved in anincident at work where he'd been
assaulted.
Would you say to that person,'you need to get straight back
on the horse and get back towork straight away in order to
(07:50):
recover from that?' We wouldn't.
We know that that's not safe andyet we say to children, you need
to get straight back to schoolto prove to yourself that
there's nothing to be anxiousabout at school.
Why are the rules pertaining toschool different
Leisa Reichelt (08:05):
that's an excellent question.
It can be tricky for us ascaregivers to understand what it
is about that school experiencethat's causing distress to our
children.
Because if we want to solve theproblem for them, we need to
know what the problem is.
(08:26):
How do we get to that?
When do we get to that?
Tiffany Westphal (08:31):
Takes time and a lot of detective work and a
lot of being curious.
It's taken years for me tounderstand all of the stressors
that my child's experienced atschool.
Sometimes our children are toodistressed to be able to tell
us.
And sometimes, they can't makesense of it themselves.
(08:51):
Sometimes the experiences thatthey have, it's always been like
that for them at school andthey've never known any
different, so it's hard for themto articulate that that's what
the problem is, because it'sjust always been the way it is.
Louise Rogers (09:04):
It's so important to acknowledge that, young
people may have the skills orthe capacity in the moment to
respond to their distress inways that we grown ups think are
socially appropriate.
What happens then when we usethat behavioural lens is we
concentrate on this behaviour,instead of addressing the thing
(09:27):
that came before, which was thedifficulty that our young person
was having.
The young person's been kind offailed on two levels now- we've
got cross with them forexpressing their distress and
that we've also not doneanything about the reason that
they are distressed.
So they can be left feelingquite unsupported and now with
(09:50):
two problems.
Leisa Reichelt (09:51):
So I guess on the, getting to the why thing.
A couple of reflections onthat...
It doesn't necessarily matter ifwe don't understand exactly why
the child isn't able to go toschool.
We just need to accept that itis what it is and that it will
be a process of exploration andpossibly a team process of
exploration to start tounderstand it more.
Tiffany Westphal (10:14):
Yeah.
Look, I think understanding thatit does take time and giving
yourself permission for it totake time too.
There's a narrative that we haveto get our kids back to school
as soon as possible, becauseotherwise it's going to be
harder to get them back toschool.
I'm not sure that that'sactually a causative finding.
Maybe they're taking longer toget back because they've had
(10:35):
more distressing experiences orthey've been distressed for a
longer period of time.
But, so it does take time to dothis work.
It's been important for my childto understand why so, I think
that longer term it's reallyhelpful to have these insights,
but it's a process.
I think it's really important toget the young person's voice,
(10:56):
but also we can get insightsfrom teachers, and from
specialists as well.
So lots of us find ourselvesconsulting pediatricians.
Often the first port of call isthe GP when we start to notice
something's not right with ourchild's mental health.
Many of us try, approaching itfrom a mental health perspective
and going to visit apsychologist, but oftentimes
(11:16):
that's not effective just seeinga psychologist to learn anxiety
management skills or copingstrategies, is is not going to
be effective if we're stillgoing back into this really
stressful environment.
A huge number of our communityis supporting young people who
are neurodivergent.
Children who turn out to beautistic or they're ADHDers, or
(11:41):
they have learning difficultiesor sensory processing issues of
some sort.
It can be really helpful to havethat information about yourself
as a young person but also to beable to share that information
with the people supporting theyoung person as well.
It often takes a long time tonavigate that space.
Wait lists for pediatricians arereally long.
(12:04):
Sometimes people are waiting ayear to see a pediatrician.
And it's expensive.
That is a cost prohibitive thingfor a lot of people.
You can ask your school to dosome initial investigation for
you.
Lots of government schools have,student support services, but
even those services are oftenunder a lot of pressure, and
(12:25):
they triage, responses tostudents through those.
services.
So, if you're noticingdifficulties with attention
reading spelling, socialdifficulties or, the child
feeling like they're in troubleall the time, there's lots of
things then to be curious about.
Leisa Reichelt (12:43):
Separating how their body and their brain works
from who they are as a personand their value as a person, I
think really helps as well.
I've discovered something reallyinteresting with my son which is
that the anxiety or distresswould often build towards the
end of the day, getting closerto going to bed.
And that was also when hisability to make sense of the
(13:03):
world and his emotions wasprobably at its least strong.
Something that we've learnedjust in the last six months or
so is as that builds up, we'vegot that model of the brain that
we use of, the flipping the lidand.
hand model,
Louise Rogers (13:20):
model.
Leisa Reichelt (13:20):
ask me why, but his frontal cortex is called
George.
It's like,'George has gone tosleep now, so he can't help us.
Let's wait for the morning whenGeorge is back.
And then I'm sure he'll help usto understand what's going on
and come up with a solution'.
And it's amazing how often thatworks.
So, you know, we get up in themorning and he wakes up and gets
out of bed and he knows what'sgoing on and what the solution
(13:41):
to the problem is going to be.
All he needed to do was put itaway, get some sleep and then
readdress it in the morningthat's been such a powerful
shift for us rather than tryingto dig into it at night and it
just gets worse and worse
Tiffany Westphal (13:53):
It's interesting, night time is often
the time that our children areseeking out connection with us
to, to try and unpack theirdistress because everything is
slowing down and stopping,there's now space in the brain
to notice I'm distressed aboutthis and I need a calm brain to
be able to go to sleep.
I love the way you've described,let's park this because yes, our
(14:14):
capacity diminishes as the daygoes on.
It's important to have lots ofconversations with our young
people about capacity and aboutthe things that are impacting
their capacity
Leisa Reichelt (14:23):
We talked in episode one about the autonomic
nervous system and how crucialthat is in supporting our
children through the experience,of being able to get back to
some kind of learning or getback to school.
What can we be doing or whatshould we be avoiding to help to
try and keep that autonomicnervous system in that nice,
(14:47):
calm, regulated zone.
What are the things that we canbe doing to help support that?
Tiffany Westphal (14:52):
Firstly, I think it's really important that
we have a shared language withour young person about their
nervous system, I found it quitepowerful to have conversations
with young people about how thenervous system functions, and
about fight, flight and shutdown and what does that look
like and to start to noticethose things.
And, and that makes it so mucheasier, to develop awareness
(15:15):
about what do I look like, whatwhat thoughts am I having, what
feelings and sensations am Ihaving when my nervous system is
starting to, to escalate.
Kids can get quite good atidentifying mum or dad's nervous
system state and providing somefeedback.
So my kids are really good atdetecting changes in my nervous
(15:35):
system state and, and telling meabout it.
So, mum, mum.
You need to calm down a bit,they say to me, because you're
yelling at us, and I'm like, I'mnot yelling, my voice is raised
because I'm excited aboutsomething, but to them, it feels
like I'm yelling.
Learning to communicate witheach other about how things feel
for you, when you'reexperiencing somebody else's
(15:57):
nervous system state.
We learn a lot through co-regulation and experiences of
co- regulating, that livedexperience of having your
nervous system supported to feelsafe when you don't feel safe,
is the most powerful way we canteach our children about
regulation.
Learn about what it feels like,to be supported to feel safe
(16:21):
again and when we feeldistressed, what are the
pathways back to feeling safe?
What, what things work for me tofeel safe?
And it's a lifelong journeylearning about the nervous
system too.
It's not something that, yougraduate primary school and
you've got this fully developedcapacity to manage your own
nervous system.
(16:42):
I'm still learning things as anadult about what works for me
and what doesn't.
Leisa Reichelt (16:49):
We've been using the breathing exercises a lot
lately, which I know feels likesuch a cliche these days, in
terms of really kind of gettingyou back into that regulated
zone, especially for me, if I'mtrying to get myself back into a
calm zone so that I can go andre engage with him when he's
dysregulated, I find, some nicebreathing exercises can do a
(17:11):
massive amount of good.
Tiffany Westphal (17:13):
I found being outside works for me.
I like to go outside and lookfor birds and study changes in
my vegetable garden.
Louise Rogers (17:20):
A big help for me, I love singing.
Absolutely love singing andmusic.
So, if I can put some headphoneson and listen to some music that
I enjoy and sing along to it andmove, that really helps me.
Tiffany Westphal (17:32):
My daughter has a list on the back of her
bedroom door of things that makeme feel good when I'm feeling
distressed.
Things that make her feel goodwhen she's feeling stressed.
And our dog features up the topof that list
Louise Rogers (17:42):
You make a good point there in that, we all have
different things that we need.
we are not all going to respond,same way to the same stimulus.
So
Leisa Reichelt (17:53):
I think it's important for us to remember,
the impact that we can have interms of whether we help the
dysregulation spiral up orspiral down again.
I don't think we put enough,import on the role that we can
play in really trying tostabilize things by having the
ability to stabilize our own,nervous system and sense of
(18:15):
regulation.
That was a super important onefor me.
I hate telling anybody that theyhave to try to be calm because
it can be so hard and feel verysimplistic,
Tiffany Westphal (18:26):
It's important to understand the concept of
co-escalation.
We call that spiraling upwardsco-escalation, and co-escalation
is essentially like throwingfuel on a fire and it gets
worse.
Things get worse.
Louise Rogers (18:39):
So important to recognize that regulation
doesn't necessarily mean calm.
It means having the right energyfor the task ahead of you.
When we're helping a youngperson downregulate, we want to
be in that calm situation, butbeing regulated is not going to
mean calm
Leisa Reichelt (18:59):
That's a good point.
Tiffany Westphal (19:01):
I was just going to say there's a different
energy needed when you'regetting ready for bed coming
home after school or, whenyou're trying to get your day
underway.
That's a really good point,Louise.
Leisa Reichelt (19:13):
At the point where my son was having a lot of
difficulty, we ended up sleepingin the same bed often because I
didn't know why at the time.
It was only later that I learnedthat it was like, you know, he
was kind of like borrowing mynervous system in order to feel
safe enough to be able to go tosleep.
(19:33):
It was like hard to understandat the time, but now it makes
sense.
Tiffany Westphal (19:38):
I used to have to sit in my daughter's room in
the dark until she'd gone tosleep before I was allowed to
leave the room.
Louise Rogers (19:44):
every now and again in our house.
Leisa Reichelt (19:47):
I think there are so many of these things that
go on in the privacy of yourhouse that we don't talk about
and we just think, I couldn'tpossibly tell anybody else that
that's what's going on.
but actually it's surprisinglycommon, isn't it?
In the things that we need to doto help with co- regulation and
the things that we need to do toreduce demands.
Tiffany Westphal (20:09):
You know, it's interesting to me when I reflect
about co- regulation andsupporting our young people to
feel regulated.
When our children are infants wedo this without
questioning
the need to do it, you know, when your baby is
distressed, you pick them up andyou hold them, you might sing to
(20:30):
them, you use movement, allsorts of things to try and help
them feel settled and safe, butsomething happens when our
children go to school that westart to expect they're going to
do all of this themselves.
And I think we need to be awarethat it's okay to provide that
(20:50):
support.
You can't spoil a child byproviding them with emotional
support.
Leisa Reichelt (20:55):
Shall we talk about demand reduction?
What it means to take thepressure and reduce the energy
demands on the child.
What can that look like foryoung people who are
experiencing school can't?
Tiffany Westphal (21:06):
Can we start by saying, how do you know when
you need to reduce demands?
Leisa Reichelt (21:10):
How do you know when
Tiffany Westphal (21:11):
I think,
Leisa Reichelt (21:11):
reduce demands?
Tiffany Westphal (21:12):
Yeah, I think that's a really good thing to
ponder before we talk about whatdoes it look like to reduce
demands?
How do you know when you need toreduce demands?
I think you know when you seesomebody who's in distress that
you need to then reduce demand.
Different people have differentexperiences of what a demand is
(21:34):
and it changes from moment tomoment and from day to day.
Louise Rogers (21:38):
The other thing is, if you've identified that
your young person has a lot ofdifficulties, Dr.
Ross Green he's got an inventoryof lagging skills and unsolved
problems that you can downloadfrom the Lives in the Balance
website.
You can identify that your youngperson has multiple
difficulties, but you only wantto be working through one or two
(22:01):
of those difficulties at a time.
So all the other difficulties,you Plan C those, you put those
aside.
Take the demand of fixing thosethings off the table for now,
just concentrate on one or twothings.
And you remember that all ofthose difficulties are stressors
(22:21):
for that young person.
So every time you solve astressor, you're reducing the
load on that young person.
Supports and accommodations atschool do the same thing.
There's a number of difficultiesa young person has that have
been identified and your IEP isgoing to, put in place supports
(22:45):
for each of those difficulties.
And that is going to reducedemands on that young person to
make, hopefully, the work in theclassroom be within that young
person's window of tolerance formanaging stress.
Tiffany Westphal (23:01):
Demands are, sometimes environment specific,
they're very contextual to aparticular situation.
So if a student's havingdifficulty going to school
because, they are havingdifficulty demonstrating their
knowledge in writing we go,okay, is the difficulty because
the child is having trouble withholding a pen, is it a motor
(23:24):
skill problem?
Or is it a difficulty withspelling or remembering what
they were going to write?
The order of the words, is it adifficulty with summarizing
their thoughts or just puttingsomething into a sentence?
When we understand the nature ofthat difficulty better, then we
can reduce the demands byproviding supports and
accommodations.
(23:44):
For a student who's havingdifficulty with the mechanics of
writing, we're reducing thedemand to do the physical act of
writing by either allowing themto use voice to text or using
touch typing.
Louise Rogers (23:55):
My young person had difficulty getting dressed
in the morning.
In talking, with my young personabout the difficulty, they said
that it was the way the clothesfelt on him and the textures.
We organised an accommodationwith the school in that he was
allowed wear, a t shirt and softshorts that were in the same
(24:17):
colour as the school uniforminstead of the school uniform.
For a while that was great hewas able to go to school,
because he wasn't experiencingthat discomfort anymore.
Leisa Reichelt (24:28):
I think we'll talk more in our next episode
about the kinds ofaccommodations you can get
within a school environment andother ways of approaching
schooling, but that's a reallygood example.
Tiffany Westphal (24:39):
You know, sometimes there's reduction of
demands that are very specificdemands that we've identified.
But then there's also the bigpicture there's this overview of
what's happening for a child.
So sometimes we have a childwho's in a shut down state, the
more escalated the nervoussystem, the more likely we are
to need to reduce demandssubstantially in order to be
(25:04):
able to bring the nervous systemback down, to support
regulation.
Leisa Reichelt (25:09):
You talked a little bit about rewards and the
behavior chart situation in ourfirst episode, can you just
touch on why that's not a goodstrategy to use
Tiffany Westphal (25:20):
Oftentimes, this is one of the first things
that parents do, is try and userewards and consequences.
And sometimes that can get usinitial results of attendance at
school because the child is ableto deliver a little bit for a
little while, in order to getthe reward.
(25:40):
And so parents will say, well,it worked.
Until it stops working.
The problem with rewards andconsequences is that they don't
do anything to address theunderlying difficulty that the
student's having.
Sometimes the student can pushthrough a little bit longer in
order to get a reward, but it'sexhausting and it's not
something that can be sustainedover the long term.
(26:00):
It causes additional stress andit can lead to additional
distress, and worsened mentalhealth.
So we need to be very carefulabout rewards and consequences
because they add a lot ofpressure, to a child and they
don't address the underlyingissues.
Leisa Reichelt (26:17):
Is it that they assume that the problem is a
lack of motivation and actuallyits not a lack
Tiffany Westphal (26:21):
Yeah, that's right.
Leisa Reichelt (26:22):
and so the solution that you're putting in
place doesn't address the actualproblem.
Tiffany Westphal (26:27):
It's about reframing what are we seeing
here?
We go back to that first need toreframe, you know, it's not a
behavior problem.
It's a nervous system responseto something.
Louise Rogers (26:36):
It can be quite shaming too, and it doesn't
acknowledge the effort thatyoung person has put in to
actually do the thing that, youwant them to do
Leisa Reichelt (26:48):
Excellent.
All right.
think it's time for us to wrapup.
When we were approaching thisepisode, it was really, okay,
what are practical things thatwe can do to help support?
It's quite interesting, althoughnot surprising, that we've spent
the vast majority of timethinking about, how we support
the child out of the context ofschool, and not putting that
(27:08):
first priority on, how do weurgently get the child back into
school and get that attendanceup that is probably an
unexpected thing for a lot ofpeople because, your child has
to go to school.
How do you keep yourself focusedon supporting your child's
nervous system and theirwellbeing and reducing their
distress rather than, succumb tothis kind of ongoing pressure of
(27:31):
getting, over 80 percentattendance or whatever the
benchmark is these days.
Tiffany Westphal (27:35):
Well, I've been on this journey for 10
years now, Leisa, and, I'velearned that it's futile not to
put my own child's well beingfront and centre, and to be
responsive to her nervous systemneeds, because it just leads to,
further distress and worsenedmental health.
Louise Rogers (27:56):
And it's also important to support ourselves
in that context too, so that wehave capacity to be there for
our young people.
And that can be really, reallydifficult with our crazy,
chaotic lives.
If our young person can't go toschool, maybe they can't do lots
of other things, maybe we can'tget away from the house, maybe
the most we can do is smallthings like get a cup of coffee
(28:21):
and stand outside in the gardenfor five minutes.
Start small with things you cando to support your own nervous
system.
As you shift, you'll be betterequipped to support your young
person.
Leisa Reichelt (28:35):
And on that reassuring note, we're going to
wrap up this second episode andgive a big thanks again to
Tiffany Westphal and LouiseRogers for joining us.
We'll be back in our thirdepisode to talk again with
Tiffany and Louise this timewe're gonna be talking about
working with schools to try toreduce the stress of school by
understanding and advocating foraccommodations for our young
people.
(28:56):
We've popped a bunch of usefullinks in the show notes,
including links to the SchoolCan't Australia website, the
Facebook community, the Lives inthe Balance website that Louise
mentioned, as well as ways foryou to give us some feedback and
maybe even volunteer to shareyour own School Can't experience
on a future podcast episode.
We would love to hear from you.
And finally, please considerdonating to School Can't
(29:16):
Australia, your tax deductibledonations assist us to raise
community awareness to, partnerwith researchers, to produce
resources like webinars and thisvery podcast which assist people
who are supporting children andyoung people experiencing School
Can't.
Thanks again for listening, andwe'll talk again soon.
Take care.
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