#29 - Symone Wheatley-Hey's Lived Experience - 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.
Our guest today is SymoneWheatley-Hey you might already
know of Symone, through heradvocacy work for Square Peg
Round Whole, who are focusing oncentring neurodivergent voices
in a fight for neuro affirmingeducation.
Or perhaps you saw Symone andher two boys on the Four Corners
TV episode called Kids Who Can'tGo To School.

(00:47):
Symone is joining us today toshare her personal story of
School Can't and some of whatshe's learned along the way.
Now, everyone's lived experienceof School Can't is different, so
a reminder that Symone's pathwaywas just the right one for her
family and the best path foryour family might be quite
different.
The takeaway should be thatthere are ways through this

(01:07):
difficult time and our livedexperience stories, hopefully
give you some ideas and someencouragement along the way.
I hope you enjoy hearingSymone's story.
Well, Symone, thank you so muchfor joining us on our podcast.
So great to have you here.

Symone Wheatley-Hey (01:22):
I'm really excited to be here.
It's my first podcast interviewfor a while, and it's also my
first kind of public facingthing in the School Can't space
since the Four Corners episodethat my family was in.
So I'm hoping I can give alittle bit of hope to people who
reached out to me saying, we arethere.
We see you.
I'm so grateful that you'veinvited me and allowed me to

(01:44):
come along.

Oh, fantastic.
That's so great.
We might talk a tiny bit aboutFour Corners in a minute as
well, but before we do tell us alittle bit about you and your
family and, what we need toknow?

My name is Symone Wheatley-Hey.
I am a sole parent.
I am a neurodivergent parent andI have two neurodivergent young
people.
So I have Henry who is myoldest, and he is in year seven.
First year of high school thisyear.
And then I have my youngerchild, Freddie, who is eight, so
he's year three.

(02:16):
We have had years and years andyears of School Can't.
Both of my children areneurodivergent.
They're both autistic, they'reboth ADHD.
We've got some other thingsgoing on there as well.
Quite relevantly for our SchoolCan't experience, they are both
PDA.
So for those people listeningthat don't know what that is,

(02:36):
that is Pathological DemandAvoidance, which is a nervous
system condition where ordinarydemands are seen as giant
threats.
Someone once described it to meas the toaster setting off the
fire alarm, and I think that'spretty accurate.

Let's talk a tiny bit about what PDA at
school looks like.

It's difficult to specify
specifically because it'sfluctuating.
So some days my children havegot a much wider window of
tolerance and they can cope withdemands a lot more, and they can
engage with the expectations andauthority figures that just
exist in the world and societyand in school better.
And then other days, theslightest demand can set off the

(03:20):
fire alarm.
What a lot of people perhapsmiss about PDA is it can be
absolutely debilitating forthese young people.
And it can be very, verydistressing for them.
And it's not only externallyimposed demands as well.
I remember vividly my eldestbeing given this money and he

(03:40):
had planned out, he was gonna gobuy an action figure.
Super excited about it, had thisplan.
The plan became the demand.
So when it came time to actuallygo and buy this figure that he'd
been so excited about gettingand so looking forward to, he
couldn't actually do that.
He couldn't do it, literallycould not leave the house to go
get it.
He was avoiding his own demand,and the demand was something he

(04:03):
actually wanted to do.
And so that creates a shame anda self guilt and it's a really
nasty experience for them.
And it unfortunately thenaggravates the avoidance to the
demand, and it becomes a really,really tricky situation.
When we look at a traditionalschool environment and we look
at our system and we look at theway it's set up, and we look at

(04:25):
many classrooms, they are notlow demand environments.
PDAers don't do great with"because I said so", or"because
I'm the adult" or"because I'mthe teacher" or"because I'm in
charge".
And those things are reallyinnate to most school
environments.
And so the fire alarm goes offusually expressed as
dysregulated behaviour or whatis perceived as non-compliance.

(04:48):
Consequences get imposed, whichis unfair.
PDAers can have a really strongsense of justice, so that then
aggravates it.
And yeah, it's difficult for, Iwould argue for all children in
our school system.
I think there's very few whofind the traditional school
model easy these days.
It's particularly difficult formany neurodivergent and disabled

(05:10):
young people because they're notaccessibly designed systems.
And it's particularly difficultfor PDAers because not only is
it inaccessible, it is alsoincompatible with their nervous
systems.
Yeah, it seems to be almostevery parent of a PDA child I
know of, that I've spoken to hasa child who experiences School

(05:30):
Can't.

Symone, I just wanna circle back to something
that you said earlier'cause it'ssomething that I haven't
considered about PDA in thepast, which is that variability
in the sensitivity to demands.
Some days, you know, you've gotthe capacity for other days you
don't.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Like do we know what it is thatmakes some days less demand

(05:53):
avoidant than others?

I suppose, and I don't know if this is
something that your listenersare familiar with, but Spoon
Theory is my favourite conceptbecause I relate to it really
heavily.
I don't think I'm a PDAer, but Iam autistic and I know that some
days I have far less capacityfor others.
Some days I can get up and I cando the paperwork and I can wipe
off my kitchen benches and packthe lunches.

(06:16):
And then other days there's apiece of pasta in the sink and
some water has gotten to it andit's all soggy and it's all over
for the day and I just can't.
It's fluctuating capacity andsometimes also, precedents.
like how has the week been?
How has the month been?
There are things we can do toextend that window of tolerance.
Things like providing thesupports, providing the
accommodations, making theenvironment accessible, building

(06:39):
in downtime, and they help.
But it's a dynamic disability, Isuppose, or it's a profile of
autism specifically.
And autism is a dynamicdisability, but the demand
avoidance is dynamic in my homeas well.

So overly simplify it, it would be the PDA
behaviours gonna increase whenthe spoons are running out.

Absolutely.
It's something to be mindful ofand to try and understand in
terms of things like, what doesmy child's nervous system need?
What sort of demands escalatethem?
What are the strategies,supports, accommodations I can
provide to help extend or buildor recoup that window of
tolerance and those spoons?
We're talking about the SchoolCan't space, PDA is particularly

(07:22):
sticky because PDA parenting isa whole different kettle of fish
and there's a lot of judgmentattached to that because it can
come across as very indulgent,very weak, very passive, very,
"that child gets what theywant".
The reality is it's actuallyprobably the opposite.
I think like many of us, wespend so much time, energy,
effort parenting and doingthings differently.

(07:45):
And then when you add in thejudgment that comes with School
Can't, and the public shame andstigma that comes around that as
well, it can be really, reallydifficult for parents of PDAers
who also experience SchoolCan't.
Not that it's easy for any ofus.

Alright, let's talk a little bit about
Freddie's story.
Shall we?
I would love for you to sort ofgo back, like if you look in
retrospect for the signs thatFreddie's experience was gonna
be what it was.
Can you see anything inretrospect that you didn't
notice at the time?

Freddie, when he was in daycare, there
were indicators.
And so we had a lot ofreluctance to attend, like even
daycare when we're talking aboutearly childhood and daycare.
And that's a very differentenvironment to a school.
Kindy, we started seeing that Idon't wanna go, the phone calls
from school.
The behavioural incidents thatwere handled as some schools

(08:38):
handle behavioural incidents,which then make it even more
difficult for our young peopleto go.
He really struggled.
So, when Freddie is experiencingdysregulated distress, he lashes
out in what schools perceive asviolent and aggressive
behaviour.
It is not necessarily directedpurposefully at anyone.
It tends to be either safepeople.

(08:59):
So who do I feel safe expressingthese feelings to?
Or people who insert themselfinto his kind of space when
he's, when he's, having a trickytime.
They're of course not seenparticularly empathetically,
generally.
Not always, but generallythey're perceived as tantrums,
as aggression, I've heard themdescribed as an assault on

(09:20):
staff.
and certainly I'm sure like anassault to the staff member, but
there is certainly not thatintention, that deliberate
malice or anything down there.
It's perceived as behaviouraly,when really I personally feel is
a communication of a child'sdistress or that there's
something happening that is notworking for that child or that
they're struggling with or needsupport with or something

(09:42):
missing in their environment,things like that.
It's behaviour is communication,Yeah.
So we had kindie and then westarted pre-primary.
And then amongst all this ofcourse is COVID,'cause we're
talking 2021.
So these poor young people, likeall of our young people that was
there was enough happening tothrow them right off and to, to

(10:03):
mix everything up and makeeverything harder for them.
And then on top of that, Freddiehad a very traumatised and
distressed brother who washaving severe mental health
challenges, and expressing thattrauma and distress in
externalised ways.
So poor Fred.
It was a tricky year for him.
And then he would go to schooland then he behaved that, yeah,

(10:24):
he couldn't cop a break thatyear, bless him.
And it was a lot for him.
that was really hard for all ofus, but it was particularly hard
for Freddie.
And as a sole parent, youtriage, right?
When you have two children withsupport needs you kind of have
to fight the fire that's gonnaget outta control and burn the
house down first.
So.
Poor Freddie often got next inline in terms of triaging and it

(10:51):
was really difficult.
Ironically it wasn'tspecifically the school or the
teacher I genuinely believe theywere doing the very best they
could with what they had, withthe knowledge, the support, the
system, the policies, all thethings that they were working
with.
I don't think it was a schoolteacher staff issue.
I think it was Freddie wasexperiencing something that made

(11:17):
the school system even moreinaccessible for him.
And the way things were then theschool couldn't change enough to
make it accessible for him.
We couldn't remove thosebarriers.
And so we went in homeschooling.

That must have been a very, very difficult time
for you, Symone.

So difficult to describe looking
back because to a degree, Idon't actually remember so much
of it.
We were complete survival mode.
It was at the point wherekeeping everybody safe was
enough.
On a good day, I keep everybodysafe.
Everything else came after that.
And it was also at a stage whereit was brand new.

(11:56):
I didn't know how to handlethem.
We'd never seen it before and itwas from zero to a hundred
overnight.
And it was just that we didn'tknow what to do.
There were no servicesavailable.
There was no one helping me.
I was here with these two kidswith their very, very extreme
support needs and everythinggoing on at the time.

(12:17):
Just me.
Obviously I was autistic too,didn't know I was autistic.
That probably played into it alot as well, my own support
needs.
It was really, really hard.
I'm incredibly proud of my youngpeople and my family that we got
ourselves through that and thatit has actually probably made us
stronger as a result.

What were you telling yourself about...?

What did I do wrong?
And I was so, so scared aboutwhat came next.
Is he going to be okay?
What's his future gonna hold?
Will it be like this forever?
Will we always be survivingevery day?
Will it always be this hard?
Will it always be this sad?
Will it always be such a fight,such a struggle?
When will I have a day whereit's not even good, but just

(13:03):
okay?
It was very, very difficult andyou can't see an end in sight.
You don't know when it's gonnastop.
There is no, just get throughthis month and then it gets
easier.
It felt like it would be likethat forever and I felt lost.
And I also felt terrible that Icouldn't help my child, who was
going through so much pain anddistress and struggling and
suffering so much witheverything that was happening

(13:25):
for him.
I didn't know how to help him.
I didn't know how to soothe himeven.
Most of all, I didn't know atwhat point, what exactly have I
done to let things get this bad?
Where should I have donesomething differently?
Where could I have stopped thishappening?
What if it keeps happening?
What if it happens again?
What if it gets worse?

It's a really tough place to be, isn't it?

A very hopeless and despairing place
when you're in it.
My heart just goes out toeverybody who's still there
because I vividly remember it.
And it's a very, very dark placeto be, and it's a very difficult
place to be.
Oh, and so lonely.

Very lonely until you realize how many of us
are actually going through it.
Right.

That's why I think spaces like the School
Can't community are so, so, soimportant.
Particularly carefully managedsafe spaces where there isn't as
much of a risk as secondarytrauma or trauma dumping, but
there is also access to thatsupport and that experience and
that sense of shared experienceand understanding.

So how long were you in that dark place and what
did you do to realise that homeeducation was the next thing for
you

I remember I was on a video call or a phone
call.
I can't remember Janelle Fraserof Aurora Learning, who is a
neurodiversity educationadvocate here in WA.
She supported me prior to mykids going into homeschooling.
And she also supported usthrough our homeschool journey.
And I remember at school, Ican't remember the specific

(14:57):
incident but I was on the phoneto her and I was.
despairing and struggling somuch.
Not because I was fighting withthe school, but because I
couldn't find the answers withthe school.
And it was so, so, so hard.
I was battling incredibly hardand doing so much work to get my
kids to school and have it lastfor 45 minutes, an hour, if
that.

(15:18):
Or, end in a suspension and mykid sent home.
I just remember Janelle turningaround and saying, you know,
there are options.
This is not your only choice.
We went into homeschoolingknowing from the start, this is
not our end destination.
This is not our path forever.
Or that was at least my hope atthe time, I had no idea whether
it would be or not when we wentinto it.

(15:38):
But the intention was alwaysgive ourselves a year or two of
grace and then transition backinto the system.

Why was that your hope?

I didn't want to homeschool my children.
I struggle in terms of my ownregulation.
I need a lot of time and spaceto myself.
And quiet.
I wanted to get my life ontrack.
Sole parent so I needed to workfinancially.
Homeschooling was never achoice.
It was always a least worstoption at the time.
And so I pulled the kids outtaschool for those two years and

(16:08):
we went into homeschooling withthe intention of focusing less
on the schooling part and morefocus on the things we need to
be able to go back to schooleventually.
So things like helping mychildren heal trauma, accessing
neurodiversity affirmingtherapies, working with speech
pathologists, occupationaltherapists.

(16:28):
Someone explained it to me asyou don't learn to swim in a
whirlpool, and it felt like wehad turned off the whirlpool so
we could learn how to swim forthose couple of years and give
ourselves space and time andreconnect as well as a family.

So for context, you are in WA just because
everybody's home educationexperience is different
depending on where they'relocated, I think, how easy was
it for you to juggle that wholedemands of the state with

So I have a

the whirlpool?

of help from Janelle to do that.
So Jill Janelle's background isin education and she's also an
ex educator, and she's alsovery, very PDA aware and
autistic herself.
So she was invaluable for mebecause she could help me design
learning experiences.
But it wouldn't be sitting downdoing a worksheet, like now
we're gonna read this chapterand answer these comprehensive

(17:20):
questions.
It was kind of like incidentallearning but structured and
deliberate and targeted.
And she helped me design thosedoing things that brought my
kids joy and that they werenaturally drawn to and that were
within their areas of interest.
So both my children have,passionate interests, like
dinosaurs, paleontology, nature,science, all that sort of thing.

(17:42):
And so using those interests tomeet those targets and report
against them in a way that wouldmeet the requirements of the
education department, but alsonot be just a classroom
transferred to my home.
And that was achievable for metoo, as a parent, doing it all
by myself with two kids, withtwo very different learning
needs and ages.

(18:03):
Freddie was year one.
Henry at the time would've beenyear three, year four when we
started.
That's miles apart.
I think one of the things thattends to happen in this space is
there can be so much focus onthe child's needs, on the child
support needs, what does thischild need?
How can we make this child okay?

(18:24):
And for me, it's not okay unlesseveryone in the home is okay.
Everyone in the family is okay.
Its not that we're all okay atthe same time.
And sometimes like I did, youhave to put your thing back, but
everybody gets what they need tobe.
Okay.
Is sort of mantra in terms ofsetting things up for us.

You talked about the kids and their passionate
interests.
At the time that you were takingthem out of school and bringing
them into home ed, did theystill have those passionate
interests or were they so.

old he wanted to do was game.
and we had a solid few monthsbefore he could engage in any
meaningful way.
But I did try really hard andthose opportunities were there
and I did the best I could withwhat I had.
My little one was very, verylittle at that age, so luckily
it was a little bit easier forme with him because he could do
things like we could baketogether or we could play board

(19:17):
games together.
And we did a lot of that.
I used Twinkl a lot.
They've got these interactivegames on there As long as they
didn't click that it was alearning game.
But the focus was very much onbuilding capacity.
For my youngest Freddie,building his communication
skills, building hisself-advocacy skills, uh,

(19:38):
building his access toalternative communication.
So Freddie at the time wassituationally non-speaking.
At the time he had quite asignificant stutter that meant
that he was more frequentlynon-speaking than he was
speaking, particularly when hewas in distress.
He really struggled toarticulate or communicate in any

(19:58):
form, what he needed, what hewas feeling, what he was
experiencing.
So building self-advocacy skillswas a big one.
I wanted my children to go backinto the system knowing how to
ask for what they needed, how totell me what's happened, how to
identify when their needs werenot being met or when something
wasn't right.

How did you do that, Symone?
How you help build your child'sself-advocacy skills?

We did some work with the OT and it's kind
of become intuitive with Fred.
We talk about it through aparadigm of human rights, like
fundamental human rights.
What are these things that Ihave?
you have, he has, she has, thateveryone has, that everyone
deserves that everyone isentitled to purely because they

(20:43):
are human beings.
They have them from the minutethey're born.
They can't be taken, they can'tbe traded in theory, like we're
talking from an 8-year-oldFreddie lens.
We're not talking about areality lens.
'cause sadly, not everyone doeshave their human rights upheld.
So we were reading Diary OfWimpy Kid at the time, and it
was, I feel really bad for GregHeffley because of X, Y, Z.
It doesn't feel fair that he'snot getting it.

(21:04):
Like that modeling, but it wasalmost conversational modeling.
And I tried really hard to getbetter at recognising my own
needs and my own rights.
And modeling them, when my needsweren't being met, when my
boundaries were beingoverstepped.
And that's certainly a work inprogress and it's something that
I try and be really mindful of.
This has been a really helpfulthing in my family because not

(21:25):
only does it help me approachthings like why certain
environments have rules andboundaries there has to be rules
and boundaries around thingslike safety and respect.
But also from a framework thateveryone has them.
There is no, you have morebecause you were the adult.
I have less because I'm thechild.
It's a fundamental, innateright.

(21:46):
And everyone gets those needsmet and everyone has those
rights to have those needs met.

The thing that I am wrestling with a little bit
is just, I think as, a parent,as a mother in this situation
with your two kiddos and theirPDA and all of the needs that
they have.
It feels to me very optimisticto think that you're gonna get
your needs met all the time.

That is absolutely it.
There are times when we triage,and I'm gonna be really honest
here.
My baseline of expectations formyself is pretty damn low.
So I'm not gonna turn my cameraaround, but my kitchen is trash.
I don't do laundry very often.
There's a giant pile of washingin my lounge room.
Dinner is more often than notsnack plates, which is just like

(22:33):
picky dinner.
Is everyone getting their basicneeds?
Is everyone okay?
And then that's it.
I don't really clean.
I go for good enough and a lotof people, like, I can't
remember the last time I satdown and made a proper dinner
meal with, a traditional familymeal.
I don't do those things.
I just don't.

(22:54):
Because they're the things thatare less important to me than
the other things.
And sometimes I don't get myneeds met.
It's things like, I don't doreally well with loud noise, so
I need quiet time.
I struggle with crowds, so Iavoid crowds generally.
Those kind of needs, not thefancy ones

Yeah.
Well, Symone, I feel as thoughthere's probably a lot of people
who are nodding their heads likemad at the life that you've just
described.
A load of people are in very,very similar situations, but I
think also a lot of us beingpretty harsh judges on ourselves
for all of those things as well,so.

I'm really, really passionate about treading
gently with ourselves.
I always think, and I have totell this to myself as well,
because as mothers, as anyparents, I think we are really
harsh judges on ourselves.
And the world loves to tell usall the things we're doing
wrong.
And if your child isn't doingall the things that society says
they should, like go to schoolevery day and listen to the

(23:47):
teacher and follow the rules andraise their hand and blah, blah,
blah.
It can be really, really easy toblame yourself.
And if you don't blame yourself,they'll do it for you.
Certainly.
I try very hard to think when Iget stuck in that pattern.
If I was my best friend talkingabout themself like this, how
would I speak to them and tryingto give myself that too.

Alright, so two years of home education, and
then what?

So in those two years, particularly the
second year I started doingconsulting work.
Within certain areas of thedepartment and specifically the
School of Special EducationalNeeds Disability, which is the
specialised consultants that goout to schools.
And I also advocate throughSquare Peg Round Whole.

(24:34):
So we sit on committees and Iwas privileged enough to see
that there was movementhappening.
Last year there was a real senseof things are happening, things
are different.
It's a different system now.
I'm a different parentadvocating differently now.
I know now more than I knewthen, and I would've done things
differently then.
And my kids had come so far.

(24:56):
We'd healed.
Everyone was doing better.
The capacity was there.
My children were starting toexpress an interest in going
back to school.
Like we wanted to go back toschool'cause that was really
important to me.
I wasn't gonna drag them there.
And so we have gone back to theschool system this year.
It has gone a million timesbetter than I expected it to.
Freddie, he's thriving.

(25:16):
And it's the same school.
Okay?
So this is what tends to getpeople.
Fred has gone back to the sameschool.
Now he has gone back to aspecialised program within that
school.
He's not gone into a mainstreamclassroom.
But, it's the same school.
I think his experience in thatschool now with the journey that
they've been on and the changesthat they've made.
There's been a real lens shiftin leadership and that's been

(25:38):
transformative for the school.
I tried always to recognise thisis a school that is doing the
best they can in a very stressedsystem that is not designed for
my kids versus this is theschool's fault.

So you said the school has also been on a really
transformational journey.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat's different at that school
now compared to what it was likebefore?

There has been a shift in terms of policy
and procedure and things likethat, we're in a different
landscape now.
And this school has particularlyembraced it.
So the program that Freddie isin only opened this year.
And they only found out thatthey were getting one of these
programs last year.
And when the principal agreed totake on the program, she was all

(26:18):
in.
She was right.
The whole school is gonna go onthis journey.
This isn't going to be aseparate classroom.
We are going to make this aschool that accommodates,
accepts, includes these kids andthis program.
And so all the staff didtraining, not just the classroom
teachers of that program.
It was a school-wide thing.
They looked at what they coulddo at a school-wide level to

(26:39):
make these activities moreneurodiversity accessible.
For example, assemblies.
I get the heebie-jeebiesthinking about assemblies as an
adult because it's crowded, it'sbusy.
I can't hear.
There's static from themicrophone and it's too long and
uncomfortable.
And there's too many people.
They're not an accessible thing.
The school has taken away thewhole school assemblies and

(26:59):
turned them into, I think it'stwo classrooms and they rotate.
And it's like a, kind of like acommunity meeting assembly.
Much smaller, much moreaccessible, much less sensory,
much less scary, much less of abig dramatic thing.
I think its the understanding,because they've done the
training and the commitment isthere.
The leadership has committed toit.

(27:21):
We are going to be inclusive, weare gonna be accessible, let's
make it happen.
And it's either get on the trainor go away and find another
station.

Feels like a massive culture shift just
across the entire school.

I'm a huge believer that the culture of the
leadership is what sets theculture of the school, which is
what sets the culture of theclassroom, which is what sets
the teaching culture.
it's kinda like a fish, like iteither rots from the head or it
swims from the head.
And a principal and schoolleadership that is really on
that train a really powerfulthing and it's also a really big

(27:55):
barrier to progress, change,access, if that isn't the case.

So we talked before, when Fred was in kindy
or very early in school, that hewould get dysregulated, have
dysregulated behaviours, andthen that would be treated, as
aggressive or as an assault onstaff.
How is that handled now in theschool?

I overheard a conversation between my two
kids the other day they weretalking about what happens when
someone is, and I'm usingquotation marks here, naughty at
school, and Henry goes to Fred.
They just get helped.
So when kids are naughty at hisschool, his perception is those
kids just get helped.

(28:34):
And that's certainly been myexperience in terms of Fred.
Certainly there are boundaries.
Everyone gets to be safe.
I'm sure there are children whoare still experiencing the, the
school discipline, thedepartment discipline policy.
But in terms of Fred'sexperience now, his
dysregulation is handled asdysregulated distress as opposed

(28:56):
to misbehaviour.
And it's also very proactivelyaddressed.
So in terms of things like,okay, so what's happening for
Fred here?
How can we prevent this?
How can we set him up to succeedin terms of meeting all his
needs?
And because Fred has anenvironment and a school
experience where he's feltsafety and his relationships

(29:17):
with the adults around him arerock solid priorities,
everything else is easier.

Okay.
I would love to hear a littlebit about Four Corners.
Tell us a little bit about thatexperience.

Something I've only seen it once.
Um, I watched it to make surethere was nothing in there that
I needed to worry about in termsof how my kids were represented.
I got someone else who I trustedto watch it first and make sure
I was gonna be okay to watch it.
It was a really confronting andchallenging experience, but it
was also an enormous privilege.

(29:53):
Before we did it, I sat downwith my kids and said to them,
look, we've been approached,we've been asked to do this.
This is what it's gonna involve.
This is what the outcomes mightbe in terms of this is worst
case scenario.
And this is what I hope will bethe best case scenario, which is
raising awareness,understanding, building that
compassion, making otherfamilies like ours feel seen and

(30:14):
understood, and maybe evencreating a wider narrative as we
raise awareness of School Can't.
And so when my kids agreed toit, I agreed.
And so we had a producer flyover from, I think she was
Sydney, and spend three days,three full days with us, which
was hectic.
I'm I'm little bit of a hermitand I'm a, I'm a solo person.

(30:37):
I need a lot of time and space.
And having someone in yourpersonal space, good and bad for
every single minute of that wasa lot.
But I'm really glad we did itand I'm really proud that we
were able to take part insomething so meaningful.
I've spoken to a few of theother families that were in it,
and I'm proud to be associatedwith them and with their voices

(31:01):
and their experiences.
And I had so many people reachout to me afterwards, some
people saying really unkindthings, but the vast, vast
majority saying I saw myself inyour family or this made me feel
this, or this impacted me thisway.
But what really surprised me wasthe huge number of teachers and

(31:23):
educators and school staffreaching out saying, you are
doing an amazing job.
There's a scene in it where I'm,like, what if I'm effing this
up?
I'm scared.
I'm effing this up.
And the number of people whoreached out to me with that hat
on saying, we worry about thattoo, it will be okay.
It was really, yeah.

(31:44):
I'm getting a little bit tearythinking about it actually,
because it was one of those.
The good bits of humanitymoments.
yeah.

Yeah.
Well I know there will be a lotof people who are listening to
this who have seen that FourCorners episode, and we will pop
a link to it in the, show notesfor folks who haven't seen it
yet.
Thank you for doing that I knowa lot of people would want me to
say thank you for doing itbecause a lot of us did see
ourselves in that experience.
And to have that validated and,normalised a little bit, I think

(32:15):
is just so important for folkswho have felt very alone in this
and very judged for such a longtime.
So thank you for your bravery indoing it.

Thank you to everybody in the community,
not only the School Can'tcommunity, but in the other peer
space communities.
Because if I hadn't felt likethere were all those other
people who had my back and whowere lifting me up and who were
kind of handing me themicrophone and saying, it's
okay, it's not scary.
You can do this.
Would never have been able to doit.

(32:45):
So I think I often say that Ifound my home in this space in
terms of the neurodivergentcommunity and the advocacy
community, and particularly theparent peer community.
And it's something that I'meternally grateful for.
So thank you to you all as well.

Oh, that's lovely.
Let's move on to our closingquestions, shall we?
If you could go back in time,Symone, with all of the
knowledge that you have now, andyou could go back earlier in
your parenting journey and tellyourself something.
Where would you go to, do youthink, and what would you say?

I could tell me back then to trust
myself more, because I thinkthat was one of the biggest
things coming to trust my owninstincts and my own sort of
feelings and yeah, as a parent,I feel like our gut knows the
right thing to do so often atthe time in this space.
And I feel like when you can letgo of the"I should be", or"this

(33:45):
is what parents do" and you justgo with what you feel your child
needs and what's right for yourfamily.
I would also tell myself that Icouldn't tell you how, I
couldn't tell you when, but itwill be okay.
Nothing will last forever.
And your okay might lookdifferent to my okay.

(34:06):
And your end of the journeymight be different to mine.
And some families never returnto the school system.
Others return and it doesn'twork out and others return.
It's amazing.
And that's fine.
We all have our own paths and itwill not always be this hard.
There will come a point where itis easier and life is ordinary.

(34:27):
Your ordinary, It will notalways be a crisis.

And in terms of resources, if there's a resource
that you think everybody who'slistening might find valuable on
their School Can't journey, whatwould you like people to know
about?

Thinking about this'cause there's all the
ones, and I'm not gonna listthem all off, but we've got Mona
Delahooke and Ross Greenethey're on various School Can't
resource lists.
And of course Lou, who startedSquare Pegs work.
I also think that when I wasthat parent at rock bottom, what
I needed most wasn't a resourcetelling me all the things I was

(35:05):
doing wrong and all the thingsthat I should do that I wasn't
doing.
I needed things that gave me amoment that just gave me a tiny
glimmer or gave me that secondwhere it was easier to breathe.
There were two poems that got methrough when I was at that
they've got nothing to do withSchool Can't, but they were
just, life is good andeventually it will be good

(35:26):
again.
I think most people have heardof Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.
I printed it off.
There's also the other one, LoveAfter Love by Derek Walcott.
And so my advice, my resourcewould be whatever gives you that
moment of"my heart just feelsbetter for a second".

(35:46):
And it's only a second andyou've gotta take it where you
can get it.
But whatever brings you, that isthe resource that I recommend.
Whatever just lifts your heartis what I recommend for parents.
And if there's educatorslistening to this, there is, Dr.
Natalie Thompson at CSU is theperson who I'm directing
everybody towards her trainingat, at the moment.

(36:07):
She has an onlinemicro-credential called
Disability Affirming Classrooms.
It's short, super affordable,and it's really, really
affirming and that's my numberone recommendation at the moment
in terms of professionals.

Fantastic.
That is wonderful.
Well, we'll put links to all ofthat in the notes so that people
can get to them.
Any other things that you wantedto say, Symone, before we wrap?

Thank you very much for having me and
thank you very much to everybodywho's listening but especially
to the forward facing leadershipof School Can't Australia, but I
also imagine that there's lotsof people who never get named or
seen to every single person whois lifting up and holding up
other parents who are strugglingin it.

(36:51):
I'm enormously grateful to youand you are doing something
really, really important and youshould be really, really proud
of it.
I'm grateful for you.
So thank you.

Well, yeah, I echo those sentiments
wholeheartedly as well.
Thank you so much, SymoneWheatley-Hey for joining us.
An absolute pleasure to chat toyou today.
Well, Symone has sent me througha whole raft of her recommended
resources for parents andeducators.
So I really encourage you tocheck those out in the episode
notes.
And if you've not alreadywatched the kids Who Can't Go To
School For Corners episode,that's also linked in the notes

(37:22):
and you should check that out.
If you found this podcasthelpful, please do take a moment
to subscribe or give us a ratingor review.
This really does help us get thepodcast in front of more people
who have School Can't kids, andwho haven't found our community
and the information that weshare.
If you have some feedback for usor a suggestion for a future
guest, or if you've beeninspired to share your own lived

(37:43):
experience, please drop me anemail to
schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com.
I would love to hear from you.
If you're a parent or carer inAustralia and you're feeling
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'll talk again soon.

(38:03):
Take care.

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#29 - Symone Wheatley-Hey's Lived Experience

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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;}#29 - Symone Wheatley-Hey's Lived Experience