October 27, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode of the School Can't Experience Podcast, host Leisa Reichelt is joined by Pavlina McMaster and Heidi Ryan from the Home Education Network (HEN) to discuss the challenges and benefits of home education for neurodivergent children & young people.
Pavlina and Heidi share their personal experiences, highlighting how home education caters to the unique needs of these children, fosters motivation, and supports mental health.
The conversation also touches on the initial fears parents might have, the organic learning process, and the critical importance of creating a safe and supportive learning environment. Both parents of young children as well as teens transitioning to home education will gain valuable insights into the practicalities and emotional journey of home educating.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:54 Meet Pavlina and Heidi
01:39 The Journey to Home Education
03:16 Benefits of Home Education for Neurodivergent Kids
05:14 Challenges and Misconceptions
08:34 Motivation and Learning
13:29 Early Signs and Decisions
16:46 Organic Learning and Community Support
20:03 Addressing Fears and Expectations
21:33 Realizations and Accommodations
22:44 Understanding Student Engagement and Coping Mechanisms
24:31 The Role of YouTube in Modern Education
28:01 Parental Support and Home Education
30:23 Addressing Teen Burnout and Mental Health
39:01 The Importance of Community Support
41:07 Conclusion and Resources
Recommended Resources
- Home Education Network (Australia) - https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/
- Save Victorian Parent Helpline Petition: https://www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/save-parentline
- 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.
(00:05):
Hello and welcome to the SchoolCan'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't be a stressful andisolating experience, but you
are not alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every
(00:25):
day.
Today's conversation is withfriends of the Pod Pavlina
McMaster and Heidi Ryan, whojoin us from the Home Education
Network or HEN.
We talk about the differentexperiences of parents who have
young kids who need to learn howto read and write, as well as
those of us who have teens whomight be experiencing a mental
health crisis and burnout.
Pav and Heidi have a wealth ofexperience and knowledge that
(00:48):
they're sharing with us today,and I really hope you enjoyed
this conversation.
Leisa Reichelt (00:52):
Let's get started.
Okay.
Well, Pavlina and Heidi, thankyou so much for joining us again
for our podcast.
Really appreciate you comingback and having more talks.
Pavlina (01:02):
Thank you for having us.
We're always happy to be hereand we're always happy to talk.
Leisa Reichelt (01:06):
I would love just to get a little bit of
context for each of you.
What's your life story thatbrings you to be here, having
this chat with us today?
Pavlina (01:13):
Okay.
We have lived experience.
Everybody in our family isneurodivergent.
Multiply neurodivergent, I say.
So personally, I'm autistic,ADHD, and also PDA and how that
expresses itself varies a lot inour family from individual to
individual.
But what it means is that we allvalue our autonomy and that led
(01:38):
us into home education.
My eldest started at school fora very short period in prep and
quickly became clear that itwasn't working for him.
So we pulled him out, startedhome educating, and here we are.
He's now 18 and he's about tofinish his home ed journey,
officially, his official home edjourney.
But you know, never stops.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (01:59):
Yeah, so also like Pav, our family is
completely neurodivergent.
A lot of this for us wasdiscovered later, not in those
early primary or early schoolyears.
So it's shaped a lot of howwe've made shifts in our life
and how we've changed the thingsthat we've done, including
moving towards home education.
(02:19):
My eldest child went throughhigh school up until year 11 and
had lots of issues with school.
So they were the catalyst for uslooking for other ways to do
things and looking into home edand other options or other
pathways.
And once we discovered what itreally could look like, we
(02:42):
realized that for our family andthe way that all of our brains
work, that it was actuallyperfect for everybody in the
family.
Leisa Reichelt (02:49):
I think we hear so many stories from parents who
come to home education as anabsolute last resort, that
they've tried so many differentthings in schools,
accommodations in schools,different kinds of schools.
Tried and tried and tried.
Nothing's worked.
And with no other options, theycome to home education.
So I think we hear that storyreally regularly, but I wonder
(03:13):
if we can kind of flip that onits head a little bit.
I'm thinking through the lens ofneurodiverse kids, what is it
about home education thatactually really suits a lot of
our neurodiverse kiddos?
Why is it potentially a greatfirst choice?
Pavlina (03:29):
Yeah, that's a great question.
And we find that, because it'sindividually tailored to each
child, you can so specificallycater to their interests and
needs and the way they love tolearn and how much they love to
move their body.
And you know what they need tofeel good in themselves and feel
(03:49):
like they are worthy.
You can give them so much spaceto figure out who they are.
And that's really hard, whenyou're having to mask day after
day after day in school andpretend to be someone you are
not, just so that you eitherdon't get into trouble or don't
stick out or get bullied.
Or just to feel safe.
(04:09):
It's really hard to know who youare, and a lot of parents report
that.
You know that when they finallypull their kid outta school,
this kid will actually say, Idon't know who I am.
I don't know what I love.
When you think back to theirearly childhood before school,
they've got very definiteinterests.
You know, very definite passionsand things that they love to do.
And the great thing about homeed is that it allows them to
(04:33):
explore those and either delvedeeper and deeper into the one
thing that they've always lovedor expand on that or move into
something else that they love.
So it gives them that space.
And you know, we find that kidswho have that opportunity, even
if they are feeling when theycome outta school like they
(04:54):
don't know who they are and theydon't know what they love.
Given the space and time torecover and to reduce that
anxiety and the distress ofSchool Can't, they rediscover
that love and joy.
So they get the opportunity tolive it the way that works for
them.
Leisa Reichelt (05:11):
Yeah.
Heidi, what are your thoughts?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (05:14):
So Leisa, I just wanted to talk about
terminology.
So when we say neurodiverse,neurodiverse relates to a group
of people.
So a single person can't beneurodiverse.
So it throws me a little bitwhen I hear it said, you know,
our neurodiverse children, whatI think you're meaning is our
neurodivergent kids
Leisa Reichelt (05:35):
I get that wrong, all the time.
All the time.
Yeah.
People who listen to thispodcast probably know I get that
wrong all the time and peoplecorrect me all the time it still
doesn't stay in my brain forsome reason.
Pavlina (05:47):
It'll happen eventually.
Leisa Reichelt (05:48):
I don't know..
I don't know, Pav
Pavlina (05:50):
It's like 300 times or something, isn't it?
That a human needs, yeah, threehundred times or something, you
need a correction for thosesorts of things to stick.
Leisa Reichelt (05:57):
I hope not.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (05:58):
That's a lot
Leisa Reichelt (05:58):
I hope not.
feel free, don't hesitate if Isay something a bit dumb or get
my words wrong or anything.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (06:05):
no, not what I mean.
Leisa Reichelt (06:07):
Okay,
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (06:08):
So can I have a go at answering that
question a little bit as wellabout why home ed would be a
great first choice for ourneurodivergent kids?
Leisa Reichelt (06:17):
What's your perspective on that?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (06:18):
Yeah, so I think it's really important to
acknowledge that learningdoesn't happen in a brain that's
activated in that fight flightmode.
A brain that's not able toaccess all those executive
functions and that prefrontalcortex.
If we're in an environment wherewe are spending all of our
(06:40):
energy just surviving and beinghypervigilant and hyper aware of
the other humans around us, thesensory space around us, all the
things that go on, that we takefor granted if that's not an
impact for us individually.
These young people are reallyexperiencing a lot of that and
their brains just don't have thecapacity to lay new neural
(07:03):
pathways.
You're not actually able tobuild authentic, really decent
learning on top of a brainthat's in that kind of stressed
state.
So I think it's really good toconsider that that's a huge
benefit of learning in anenvironment that's meeting your
needs.
Not everybody has the perfectenvironment immediately.
(07:24):
We don't necessarily know whatworks for us immediately, but we
have the capacity, the space,the time, the ability to explore
what that is, find what that is.
And a bit like Pav was saying,you know, about finding what are
the things that spark yourinterest?
What are the things that youlike to learn about?
What are the ways that you liketo learn?
(07:44):
What do I need to shift in ourenvironment here?
Or what sort of sensory space dowe need?
I think the benefit is thatwe're working with brains that
are less stressed, and I thinkthat, that is in itself is a
really big positive for why thisshould be something we come at
earlier rather than as a lastresort.
So I guess that's why I wouldsay it would be a good a good
(08:04):
choice as early as we can,rather than expending all that
time and energy trying to fitinto a system that doesn't fit
us.
Trying to fit the mold or dowhat everybody else does.
It would be great if there werethings that worked, but we see
time and time again fromfamilies that end up coming to
us in burnout and end upreaching out for supports.
(08:28):
We see it that even the bestintentions are still not meeting
the needs of a lot of thesekids.
Leisa Reichelt (08:34):
Heidi, by the time I pulled my son outta
school and brought him to dohome education, really the thing
that motivated me to do that wasthat I realized he was starting
to be completely turned off theidea of learning at all.
Like all of his associationswith learning were just so
negative, right?
And so I'm like, if I keep thiskid at school, he's gonna stop
(08:57):
wanting to learn full stop.
Right?
Pavlina (09:00):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (09:00):
what, what worst way to set yourself up for life
than to kill your love oflearning when you are 14, right?
Like, that
Pavlina (09:08):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (09:09):
And so, yeah, a big part for me was like, bring
him home, get him out of theschool environment so that I can
reactivate his love of learningagain, which just, you know,
it's ridiculous thing to have todo, isn't it?
To pull them out of school, tomake them love to learn.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (09:25):
I can relate to that as an adult
learner, right?
So I'm really fascinated in lotsof things and I'm really
interested in learning aboutlots of things.
But doing a uni course onsomething, removes the joy.
When I have to analyze it in areally specific way, based on
one particular person'sexpectations about how I prove
to them that I've learned thatthing, it just removes the joy
(09:48):
and it makes it a chore andmakes it really unenjoyable,
right?
It's more painful than it needsto be.
Even though the topic might besuper interesting and super
exciting, and I'm highlymotivated.
But if I was doing it with nopressure, no assessment, with no
reason to, prove myself otherthan, Hey, I've learned this
(10:09):
really cool stuff and I canshare that with other people in
the ways that work for me.
I would be way more keen tolearn more stuff at uni, but I
don't wanna do the homework, Ijust want, be able to learn it
at my pace in my own way.
And I don't think that'snecessarily a neurodivergent
brain thing.
I think it's a human experiencethat it would be much nicer to
(10:30):
learn things in the way thatwork for us individually.
Leisa Reichelt (10:32):
I have a house full of folks with dysgraphia.
They set out to engage withareas of education that they
really, really enjoy.
So that might be Englishliterature, might be drama.
One of them started a graddiploma in counseling.
Loved it.
But there comes a point whereyou have to write an essay to be
assessed.
None of them can do that.
(10:54):
It just shuts the whole processdown cold.
It's so upsetting to see thelack of access that they have,
to have that knowledge formallyrecognized.
Because if you can't write anacademic essay, your knowledge
doesn't count.
It makes me really furious.
Pavlina (11:10):
Well, while you were talking and Heidi was talking, I
was thinking about motivation aswell, because people a lot of
the time say, oh, thesechildren, they won't be
motivated to do anything whenyou bring them home.
They won't be motivated unless,you are there with a carrot or
the stick saying, if you do thisthen I'll give you this, or,
you've gotta do this or else I'mgoing to take this thing off
(11:31):
you.
Right.
So people worry so much aboutmotivation in kids instead of
understanding like, okay, soMaslow who was around in the
forties and fifties, heunderstood the hierarchy of
needs that humans have.
And he talks about motivation interms of fulfilling different
(11:52):
hierarchies of needs.
So your most basic need is forair, right?
Water, food.
You've got your physiologicalneeds of safety, shelter.
If you can't meet those needs,then you cannot move up that
hierarchy towardsself-actualization.
(12:13):
Unfortunately, school does notfeel safe for so many of our
children.
It comes back to safety, itcomes back to belonging.
And if you don't feel thosethings, you cannot worry about a
person's motivation to learncalculus.
It's ridiculous to be talkingabout being motivated to learn
those things when that person isnot feeling safe.
(12:35):
And what coming home means isthat person can start to feel
safe again.
And when they're feeling safe,they're going to venture out
themselves.
Humans are by nature curiouscreatures.
We love learning.
We're wired to learn.
You cannot stop human beingsfrom learning.
And what they learn is going todepend on their environment,
(12:56):
their interests, and all thosethings.
But if you can meet that safety,then motivation is actually not
an issue.
You know, I went to teacherschool and they talked all the
time about intrinsic versusextrinsic motivation and which
one's better, and blah, blah,blah, blah.
Extrinsic motivation's notneeded when you have safety and
you have autonomy, you don'tneed extrinsic motivation.
Leisa Reichelt (13:21):
In our podcast that we do here, we talk to
people about their livedexperience of School Can't with
their family.
And a lot of the time, theearliest clues come from
daycare.
they're trying to drop theirkids off at daycare.
It's not going well.
There's a lot of separationanxiety.
There are a lot of clues reallyearly on that things with school
(13:42):
are not going to be easy forthese kids.
And there are a lot of parents,I think these days who have got
really young kids, you know, 5,6, 7 years old, and they're
like, this school thing is justnot flying with my kid at all.
How should parents with thosereally young kids thinking about
(14:03):
home education and contemplatingthat as a decision.
Particularly these are like kidswho read and can't spell and
can't add up.
They haven't got that sort ofbasic numeracy and literacy
that, you know, when you've gota burnt out teen, they at least
have that from school most ofthe time.
What's, the thought process anddecision process, like for
(14:25):
parents with really young kidswho are hitting a bit of a wall
with school?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (14:30):
So I think one of the first things to
consider is that there's not awindow, you're not gonna miss a
window.
If you don't know how to spellyour name by prep, because
you're heading into a schoolenvironment and need to spell
your name for prep, if you'rehome educating, if you are doing
a different pathway that doesn'tinvolve a classroom where you
have to be.
And you have to learn how towrite your name so that you can
(14:52):
differentiate your work from theperson next to you.
There will be another experienceor reason or need for you to be
able to know how to write yourname and it will be meaningful
for you at the time.
And it might be signing yourname on a birthday card, for
someone that you love.
Then they're curious, it'smeaningful to them, and they can
(15:13):
learn those skills with reallyminimal support.
Kids ask for what they need.
How do I spell Heidi, mum?
How do I spell it?
You start with an H.
Okay, how do I do an H?
Show me how to do an H, youknow?
And so we just naturally workthrough those things with our
kids.
That's not to say that teachersdon't have skills, but teachers'
skills are in teaching a bunchof 30 kids these skills all at
(15:35):
once.
You know, we all have an abilityto teach our young people the
things they need or to help themfind the ways to learn the
things they need.
We can learn alongside them.
We learn alongside our teenagersand young adults, or we send
them in the right directionbecause I don't wanna do
calculus and I don't knowanything about that, but my kid
might, and I can show them whereto find what they need and who
(15:57):
to ask for help when they needhelp, and how to find the
supports that will actuallybuild those skills for them.
The first thing I would say istake away the worry that if
we're not being taught by ateacher at school, then we need
to be taught in the same way bya parent at home.
We learn those things.
They do happen.
And a lot of it happensorganically and authentically.
(16:17):
We can teach, we absolutely can.
There's so many resourcesavailable to us.
And there's community to ask,Hey, what did you guys do when
your kid was really wanting todo this?
I'm having a lot of troublefinding an activity or a way to
build that skill with my kid.
What did you guys do?
So, you know, coming back toasking our communities for
(16:37):
support and building that sharedenvironment where people are
learning together and alongsideeach other and it's not
competitive.
Leisa Reichelt (16:46):
On the motivation to learn thing, my
youngest son was never reallydown for reading or spelling at
all.
We were living in London at thetime, and I think he realized
that the squiggles on the frontof the bus told you where the
bus was going.
And he was very into publictransport.
And he's like, right, I need toknow what the front of the bus
says.
And it was almost like within aweek he'd learned to read.
(17:08):
I didn't teach him how to read.
It just like magically happened.
All of a sudden he could justread.
I don't know how he went fromzero to a hundred on reading,
but I do know it was completelybecause he was very motivated to
know the destination of thebuses.
Pavlina (17:25):
and it became relevant to him.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (17:27):
For a lot of our younger kids, it's
playing on Minecraft and theyneed to be able to read the
chat, you know,'cause they'reconstantly saying'mum, can you
read this for me?
mum, can you read this for me?'And then they start to see the
pattern of some of the thingsthat are, you know, it's just
immersion.
Its immersion in language.
Pavlina (17:43):
And in whatever they're interested in, it could be,
loving boats and, wanting toread the signs at the boat ramp.
It could be loving cats andwanting to read books about
cats, or wanting to be able towrite your cat's name down.
It could be any of those thingsthat lead to, Hey, how do you
(18:04):
spell, or how do you write?
What does this say?
What shape is this letter?
It's building on those littleskills and learning is not
linear.
This is the issue we also havefor a lot of kids at school,
especially neurodivergent kids.
Learning is not linear.
You do a bit over here and a bitover there, and then all of a
sudden you're connecting dotsthat seemingly disparate things
(18:27):
and you know, big aha moments.
And then, long, slow periodswhere it looks like nothing's
happening.
And then these massiveaccelerations, It's stop and
start.
It's bits here and bits there.
And then they all kind of meldinto this thing.
And because we are there for ourkids so much of the time, we can
help them draw those parallels.
(18:47):
And so it's about exploring andasking questions and talking.
A lot of learning is incidentallearning and conversational
learning and you know, there's alot of resources on our website
about that.
And I would encourage people toexplore those ideas because they
are the foundations of learningfor humans.
(19:07):
Learning is social and that'swhy home ed works so well,
because home ed is social,
Leisa Reichelt (19:13):
Its going to look very different to how we've
been socialized to expecteducation to look like.
There's not gonna be the sheetsof paper writing A 50 times.
Pavlina (19:23):
Precisely.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (19:24):
You can do that, but you'll also notice how
quickly they get bored of thatand
Pavlina (19:28):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (19:29):
that in my house.
That would never happen.
Pavlina (19:33):
So true for so many PDA kids, right?
Some kids might like it.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (19:36):
And that's what we talk about different
brains needing different things.
And you might have three kids inthe same family who all look for
different ways of learning thatlanguage and learning how to
read and might have completelydifferent timelines and
trajectories.
And it's not necessarily aboutbeing behind or being ahead or
anything like that.
It's just about, this is yourpathway, this is your
(20:00):
development.
This is where you are headed atthat particular time.
We had a great webinar the otherday with Peter Gray about
non-traditional ways of learningto read and write.
So I really encourage anyone tohave a listen to that because it
does allay a lot of the fearsand a lot of our concerns and
our anxieties about this sort ofstuff are fear-based because we
(20:20):
have these outside expectationsplaced on us.
And that's okay to acknowledge.
Yeah, I am scared, I'm scaredthat my, my kid might get to 30
and not be able to fill out aform because they haven't
learned how to hold their pencorrectly or answer questions
with the exact right, response.
But they will learn these thingswhen they're meaningful and
relevant.
(20:41):
Part of the beauty of home ed isthat we are there with them.
It's cooperative.
We are engaged and engaging,doing stuff with them.
We are not just at home going,here's your worksheets.
Go do that over there.
I'll see you at three o'clockkind of thing.
Leisa Reichelt (20:56):
By all accounts, There are plenty of kids, I
think, who get all the waythrough high school without
being able to fill in a form aswell, right?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (21:02):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (21:03):
there's no guarantee
Pavlina (21:04):
Absolutely.
Leisa Reichelt (21:04):
to school brings you literacy.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (21:05):
Oh.
But we assume they can becausethat's what school's for.
So we make an assumption, andthis is one of the things about
regulations in home ed.
We make an assumption that achild in school is actually
learning the things that arebeing presented to them.
Our families know that a lot ofthe times they're not.
What happened in COVID wasreally interesting for a lot of
families because they had theirkids at home and saw one-on-one
(21:28):
what their kid wasn't learningor wasn't picking up from the
teaching that was happening.
I learned when I took my14-year-old out of school, we
learned then that she wasdyslexic.
That wasn't something that hadcome up throughout any of her
schooling years.
But when I was sitting with herand listening to the way she was
doing things, I was like.
(21:48):
this makes so much more sense.
Now we acknowledge and workaround that and have
accommodations for that.
She knows how her brain worksbest and we know how to make
that work for her.
The expectation that justbecause they're in a school
classroom that they're learningall the things that are being
presented is quite fallible,even though they're being
ridiculously over tested andover assessed.
And I think that takes away fromactual teaching.
Leisa Reichelt (22:09):
Wow.
my son's just about to
Pavlina (22:10):
Also,
Leisa Reichelt (22:11):
and
Pavlina (22:12):
yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (22:12):
the same English teacher for the last three
years.
And because of me earlier thisyear we finally got him a
dysgraphia diagnosis, like areally, he's like significantly
impacted by written expressionlearning disability.
He's 17, he's just about to dohis last exams to finish school.
(22:32):
He had a really significantmental health moment and
actually it was from talking tosomebody on this podcast, I was
able to put two and two togetherand go, I think maybe he has
dysgraphia,
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (22:44):
Yeah,
Leisa Reichelt (22:44):
He's an engaged, very interested English student
the whole way through.
How did he get that far?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (22:49):
Well there's also a lot of additional
coping mechanisms, so there's alot of getting by and a lot of
ways of coping and pushingthrough.
Leisa Reichelt (22:56):
And blaming.
They just assumed that theiranswer to him was, you have to
try harder.
Pavlina (23:00):
And we say this to children all the time, and
they're putting in maximumeffort.
It's not won't, it's can't.
And if they can't do it, why?
Why can't they do it?
Is there a blocker in theirpath?
Is it completely uninteresting?
I mean, that's a blocker, likeI'm not motivated to do so many
(23:23):
things like fill in Centrelinkforms, for example.
I have to do them.
Someone's got the carrot or thestick for me to fill in forms.
But you know, what is stoppingour kids engaging with
something?
Are they just not ready for it?
Because developmental readiness,being actually ready for
something is a big factor.
(23:45):
You know, like I have a kidwho's hyperlexic and learned to
read at three, and I've gotanother kid who's dyslexic and
wasn't reading independentlyuntil 12, but, come 16, 18, you
can't tell the difference.
You can't tell which one's whichbecause they've both had what
they need to become functionalreaders and engage with texts.
(24:11):
One is more comfortable withtexts than the other, and that's
fine.
The one who's dyslexic engageswith texts in a very different
way, but still gets what theyneed out of it.
So, it's about adaptation andadapting our views of what the
expectations should be..
Leisa Reichelt (24:31):
My son who's at home homeschooling at the
moment, I think his primaryeducator right now is YouTube,
which at first I found veryconcerning.
But the longer it goes on themore I applaud all the YouTubers
who are putting all that effortinto educating my son.
Because by golly, they puttogether some engaging, engaging
(24:52):
content.
Pavlina (24:54):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (24:54):
Driving with my son the other day and he's like,
I'm gonna give you a quiz onspace Mum.
Fantastic.
Nothing.
I love more than a quiz onspace.
And he's going, okay, so whatwould happen if the sun
disappeared?
we got into this bigconversation around, the speed
of light.
And you know how the magneticpull operates at the same rate
(25:15):
as the speed of light.
All the, all of this, all ofthis stuff.
So much of it, right.
And I'm like, he finds thisreally interesting because it's
all framed around the cataclysm.
It's, it's like a spacecataclysm and like that is
engaging stuff, right?
Whereas you can imagine inclass, a science teacher up the
front going, right class todaywe gonna learn about
gravitational force, you know,like go to sleep.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (25:36):
That might work at a certain time, right?
But if he's not interested, thenhe's not engaging with that.
Then at school, but also onYouTube.
if that wasn't something thatgrabbed his interest, he would
just scroll past, right?
So it is of interest to him atthat time.
Therefore it's hitting him atthe right spot.
Often it's a bit short form andit's almost a taster, right?
Like oh, great, I learned thisstuff, and hey, I might have to
(25:57):
learn more about that otherthing you said about
gravitational pull.
I'm interested in that now.
So, you know, I learned so muchI know how to change my tap
washers I've fixed my carheadlight on my own and saved
myself hundreds of dollars andI've fixed my dryer.
You know, I look up YouTube.
We do learn on YouTube.
Why is that not okay for ourkids too?
This is what I do,
Leisa Reichelt (26:16):
And the algorithm is amazing, right?
He watches a lot of stuff aboutscience.
It just gives him more and morescience stuff, which feeds that
interest even more.
Nice.
Pavlina (26:23):
YouTubers by definition have to be interesting, right?
Because if they're not, peoplearen't gonna subscribe to their
channel.
They often present things inways that are really memorable
to people So that contentbecomes fascinating and they
wanna know more about it.
That's when they start doingthose deep dives, and that's
when they really start expandingtheir knowledge and
(26:45):
understanding.
that's when they also startdoing critical thinking because,
you know, they've watched 10videos on the gravitational
pull, and then all of a suddenthere's one that says something
completely different.
And so all of a sudden they'relike, huh, I wonder if that is
correct, Or is that one correct?
You know, and how do I find out?
(27:06):
That's when you really startgetting development of
metacognitive skills, becausethat's when they start exploring
what it means to thinkcritically.
Leisa Reichelt (27:17):
I feel like my biggest job is to try to support
him in developing medialiteracy.
Pavlina (27:22):
exactly.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (27:23):
my teenager still or young adult
now still comes to me and says,Hey, I learned this thing on
TikTok.
And I say, oh yeah, on TikTok,right?
Pavlina (27:31):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (27:33):
It's just like, should we fact check that?
could we find more informationabout it?
that sounds really interesting,and I'll add some information
and knowledge that I have tothat conversation.
This is the part about beingthere and being present because
if they were just consuming ontheir own, its harder to develop
that critical thinking and thosemetacognitive skills.
Leisa Reichelt (27:53):
The thing that I had to really get my head around
is that YouTube is like anamazing place for kids to, to
teach themself what they'reinterested in.
Going back to those folk whohave got the young kids who are
starting out on this journey, Ithink, you know, we want to
reassure folks that even thoughtheir kids are preliterate and
prenumerate in a lot of cases,the fact that they don't have an
(28:16):
educational background, thatthey haven't taught somebody how
to read or write,
Pavlina (28:19):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (28:19):
or add up in the past, doesn't mean that they
won't do a great job ofsupporting their child that
journey
Pavlina (28:26):
Yes.
Leisa Reichelt (28:27):
They won't be negatively impacting their
child's learning and lifeopportunities because they're
not sending them into aclassroom with an educator.
Pavlina (28:36):
And I think too, you know, we see a lot of parents
who perhaps have left schoolearly themselves, lack
confidence in their abilitiesand feel like they are not
capable of doing these thingsbecause they feel like, well, I
couldn't stay at school and Icouldn't stay that course, and
(28:58):
therefore how am I going to helpmy child, you know, stay the
course with their education.
But home ed looks very differentto school.
It's a very different learningparadigm.
And also, we're not teachers.
We don't have to be the sage onthe stage.
We don't have to know all thethings.
We just have to facilitate theireducation.
We just help them figure outwhere to find information,
(29:21):
resources, mentors, whatever itis that kid is seeking next.
And kids will ask for thingswhen they are ready for them.
They will ask you to name items,when they're little, starting to
explore and see the worldoutside and they're asking
questions about the outsideworld.
That's exactly how home edcontinues to work.
(29:43):
You know, it just becomes moreabstract as they get older.
It's more abstract rather thanconcrete information, and we are
perfectly capable offacilitating that because,
nobody has their interests atheart better than us.
No one cares about that kid morethan we do.
Nobody's more invested in thatchild's education.
And we do it naturally asparents, you know, we just gotta
(30:03):
tap back into that intuitionthat we've put aside because a
lot of the time we've been toldthat we are not doing the right
thing as parents, and have toignore our instincts.
We've just gotta tap back intothose and figure out what does
that kid need and listen to whatthat child needs and just help
facilitate and provide that.
Leisa Reichelt (30:23):
Heidi, I want you to tell us a little bit
about how the experience differswhen you've got a teenager who
is burning out, not coping.
And so you're pulling them intohome ed because you've got no
other option.
What's the home ed onboardingexperience typically like then
what can parents expect?
(30:43):
When do we start to panic?
How does that typically playout?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (30:48):
So, when do you actually start to panic
or when should you start topanic?
Because you will start to panicimmediately.
That's a guarantee, right?
You'll panic, you'll worry,you'll think, what am I doing?
Have I ruined theiropportunities in life?
These are all really normalthoughts because what we're
doing is stepping away from amajority or a mainstream way of
educating.
(31:08):
And although it's just as valid,it's not what everybody else is
doing.
So it's natural to feel fear,anxiety, concern about taking
those big leaps.
But ultimately, our kids' mentalhealth comes first.
Right?
From experience, kids whosemental health is significantly
impacted at school will taketime.
(31:30):
Even when that's been removed,they will take time to return to
a place of stasis, a place of,calm and regulated.
It's not something that happensovernight and often, people are
scared when I say that it cantake years, it actually can take
years.
But we have to be realisticbecause there's no point in me
saying they'll be great in threemonths and then you'll be so
(31:52):
thankful that you did it andeverything's gonna be fine.
Because if that's theexpectation, then when that
doesn't happen, we do the bigpanic and we push them back into
other places.
We push them back into schooland we put pressures on them to
do things and get up and moveand do all the stuff that they
might not be ready for yet.
I understand the concern and Iunderstand the worry that my
(32:15):
kids' in their room, all they'redoing is gaming.
They haven't seen sunlight inmonths.
It's actually really scary as aparent to think that that's your
future.
We project, we catastrophize, Weare looking far too far ahead
when what we need to do is sitin the here and now and go,
they're safe and they know thatI'm trying to keep them safe.
(32:36):
And they weren't safe where theywere, or we wouldn't be in this
place right now.
There's been some significantworries about where they were
and where they mentally wereoften for lots of our kids, and
I think if they had a physicalillness or something that was
really obvious to everybodyaround them that this kid was
(32:56):
that sick and needed that levelof support and care, everyone
would drop everything and beinvolved and support.
What happens when our kids comeout of school in that mental
state of unwell is that it'sonly us.
We don't actually get a lot ofthat community support other
than reaching out and findingpeople who have been there or
(33:17):
who understand on a deep, deeplevel what that means for you
and your kid.
So acknowledging that this is astage that this will pass, but
that even when it's hard andeven when they seem to,
sometimes what happens isthey've been holding it together
for so long, so when they comehome and there's no pressure and
(33:38):
everything's taken away, theymight seem even more unwell and
not okay with the world.
And they might be more angry atyou.
They might be mad upset andscared about what the future is.
So, our role there is lots ofreassurance.
Reassurance that you're okay.
It's gonna be okay.
This isn't forever.
I know that this feels crap.
It feels crap for me.
(33:59):
It feels crap for you.
It's, how it's gonna feel untilit doesn't.
But we are here to build thatand make that better.
And we're changing theexpectations so that you won't
have to feel that crap again.
that's our role here, you know?
And learning, learning can go onthe back burner.
Remember what I said at thebeginning, safety, right.
If your brain's not safe, you'renot learning anyway.
(34:22):
They're gonna learn when theyneed to learn, even if they miss
two whole years just trying torecover.
What they're doing in that timeis also learning about
themselves, about how theirbrain works, how their body
works, what things they need,what kind of recovery they need
from things.
what things build them up, whatthings crash them back down
again.
You know, what are the thingsthat support them?
(34:43):
What people work best for them.
You know, there's so muchself-learning that happens in
that time, even when it lookslike they're just vegetating.
But that's so important.
That's so much more importantfor the adults and the humans
that they're going to grow up tobe than, you know, year 11 or 12
(35:05):
maths, which they can learnlater.
My kids did have that struggleabout, well, everybody else is
doing that at school, and I'mnot keeping up.
I'm not keeping up andtherefore, you know, I'm a
failure.
And so, we're working withrebuilding over time.
That self-doubt and thatself-image and that self
understanding.
We are talking home education,but we are talking human
(35:27):
education.
Right.
I think that's a bigger picture.
Leisa Reichelt (35:31):
I think what you mentioned about comparing,
mental wellbeing to physicalwellbeing.
A lot of people when they aremaking this decision to bring
their kids home from school.
Those kids' lives are, I think,often meaningfully in danger.
Pavlina (35:48):
We speak to hundreds of people who are in that
situation.
Hundreds.
You know, it's not just a personhere or there.
It's hundreds of people who arein the same situation.
And it's not something thatwe're even talking about.
And when we talk about SchoolCan't in the media, it's like
that doesn't exist.
It's that whole cohort of kidswho are struggling so deeply.
(36:14):
If they could only just liftthemselves up by their
bootstraps and get their heiniesto school, everything would be
fine.
And we keep forgetting if theycould, they would.
Right.
And we keep forgetting that ifthey don't have their mental
health, what have they got?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (36:31):
The media portrays it as, these kids don't
wanna be at school.
Pavlina (36:34):
Yep.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (36:34):
That's right.
They don't.
But it's because there's anissue with the mismatch of these
kids and the schools.
I think it's brave for people totake these alternate pathways
because for every one personthat takes a kid out of school
and tries to do things that workwell for them and their family,
there's bound to be several oftheir family members and
(36:57):
friendship circles who arequestioning them and who are
saying, oh, I don't know thatthat's a great choice.
Or, are you qualified to dothat?
Pavlina (37:05):
Heidi was talking before, you know, if you had a
kid with cancer, everyone wouldbe around you supporting you.
Unfortunately, for a lot ofparents who choose to home
educate their kid, when thatkid's in a mental health crisis,
the opposite is true.
They get blamed, told they'redoing the wrong thing,
unsupported.
The very professionals who aresupposed to be supporting them
(37:27):
are often the ones questioningit saying, you're just not
trying hard enough.
Have you tried taking thingsaway?
Yeah, you are too soft.
You know, you're not puttingyour foot down enough.
Those sorts of messages arereally damaging, and they're
really, really hard for a parentwho's just trying to support
that child in the way that childneeds.
We keep taking the focus awayfrom being child centered and
(37:49):
thinking about the individualchild and what does that child
need right now.
We make it society centered.
We make it curriculum centered.
We make it professionalcentered.
We make it court centered.
We make it adult centered.
You know, what do the adultsneed?
They want this problem just togo away and this problem isn't
going away because we're notmeeting the needs of an
(38:12):
individual human being.
Leisa Reichelt (38:15):
A lot of individual human beings.
Pavlina (38:17):
Yes.
Leisa Reichelt (38:17):
Tens of thousands of individual human
beings.
Pavlina (38:20):
Yes.
Yeah.
There was a figure quoted todayon the radio, something like 1.3
or 1.6 million kids in Australiais the estimate that are
affected by School Can't.
Leisa Reichelt (38:31):
Wow.
That's intense.
Pavlina (38:32):
that's a massive figure.
That's kids who are strugglingto go to school.
Leisa Reichelt (38:36):
Might this not be a parenting problem and
actually be something moresystemic?
Pavlina (38:40):
These guys are the canaries in the coal mine.
Leisa Reichelt (38:42):
Yeah,
Pavlina (38:43):
And at the end of the day, that's what our
neurodivergent kids are.
Canaries in the coal mine.
Leisa Reichelt (38:48):
On that note, it is a challenging journey.
There are lots of anxious,panicky moments along the way.
It can feel very lonely andisolating.
Thank goodness we have the HomeEducation Network to help us.
Can you give us a quick rundown,on what is Home Education
Network?
Why do people need to know aboutit?
Tell us a little bit about thesupport that's available.
Pavlina (39:09):
Well, we're a completely volunteer run,
not-for-profit organization.
We're entirely non-commercial,so we have no vested interest in
anything.
We don't gain any money fromsuggesting or recommending
things.
So you can trust that we arecompletely unbiased.
We are a peer supportorganization.
We have lots of publications andinformation for free on our
(39:31):
website, but we've also got moreinformation available for our
members.
Membership's$25 a year, for awhole family.
And that gives access to allsorts of webinars from experts
that we've recorded.
It gives, publications, we'vegot a magazine that comes out.
We've got a monthly supportgroup for parents of
(39:51):
neurodivergent kids and kidswith disabilities.
We've also got a monthlyworkshop series for our members.
We run camps, excursions, a lotof'em are online.
We're now able to provide ourmembers with access to really
good online groups that areneurodivergent friendly.
Leisa Reichelt (40:09):
I would say, even if it's just for those once
a month, Wednesday evening onthe Zoom with the other parents
who are,
Pavlina (40:16):
yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (40:17):
home education of neurodivergent kiddos I've
dialed into that one a number oftimes myself.
It's been such a huge support.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (40:26):
There's a lot of information on the
website for people new to homeed as well.
So there's a lot of startinginformation'cause it can be
quite overwhelming when youdon't know where to look or when
you're also being bombarded byproviders wanting to sell you
something.
We've got information for peoplewho don't know where to start.
Leisa Reichelt (40:42):
Super.
Well, thank you.
I do wanna mention the fact thatwe have not talked about
anything logistical here at all.
We haven't talked about thefinancial and work implications,
the time implications.
There's a whole logistical thing
Pavlina (40:55):
Yes,
Leisa Reichelt (40:55):
but we'll come back and talk about that again
some more in the future.
Thank you Heidi.
Thank you, Pavlina.
I really, really appreciate youspending the time with us.
Pavlina (41:03):
No trouble at all.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (41:05):
Thank you.
Leisa Reichelt (41:05):
See you again soon..
Pavlina (41:06):
Thank you for having us.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (41:07):
Thanks.
Leisa Reichelt (41:07):
I loved that conversation with Pav and Heidi,
and there were so many othertopics that we could have dived
into further, but hopefullyyou've taken some inspiration or
some encouragement from whatthey've shared with us today.
I put links to the HomeEducation Network website in the
episode notes with all of thegreat resources that Pav and
Heidi told us about, as well aslinks to School Can't
Australia's website where you'llfind lots more helpful
(41:30):
information.
If you found our podcasthelpful, please do take a moment
to subscribe or give us ourrating or our review.
This really makes a hugedifference in helping us get the
podcast in front of more peoplewho have School Can't kids, and
who haven't yet found thecommunity and the information
that we share.
If you have some feedback for usor maybe a suggestion for a
(41:50):
future topic or guest, orperhaps you've been inspired to
share your own lived experiencestory, please drop me an email
to schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com Iwould love to hear from you.
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and you are feeling
distressed, please remember youcan always call the Parent
Helpline in your state.
A link with the number to callis in the episode notes.
(42:13):
Sadly, on the 31st of October,which is mere days away, the
Victorian government is shuttingdown their Parent Line, which is
a very disappointing.
I have put a link to sign thepetition to protest this in the
episode notes if you areinclined to do that as a last
ditch effort.
Thank you again for listening,and we will talk again soon.
Take care.
Hello and welcome to the SchoolCan'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't be a stressful andisolating experience, but you
are not alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every
(00:25):
day.
Today's conversation is withfriends of the Pod Pavlina
McMaster and Heidi Ryan, whojoin us from the Home Education
Network or HEN.
We talk about the differentexperiences of parents who have
young kids who need to learn howto read and write, as well as
those of us who have teens whomight be experiencing a mental
health crisis and burnout.
Pav and Heidi have a wealth ofexperience and knowledge that
(00:48):
they're sharing with us today,and I really hope you enjoyed
this conversation.
Leisa Reichelt (00:52):
Let's get started.
Okay.
Well, Pavlina and Heidi, thankyou so much for joining us again
for our podcast.
Really appreciate you comingback and having more talks.
Pavlina (01:02):
Thank you for having us.
We're always happy to be hereand we're always happy to talk.
Leisa Reichelt (01:06):
I would love just to get a little bit of
context for each of you.
What's your life story thatbrings you to be here, having
this chat with us today?
Pavlina (01:13):
Okay.
We have lived experience.
Everybody in our family isneurodivergent.
Multiply neurodivergent, I say.
So personally, I'm autistic,ADHD, and also PDA and how that
expresses itself varies a lot inour family from individual to
individual.
But what it means is that we allvalue our autonomy and that led
(01:38):
us into home education.
My eldest started at school fora very short period in prep and
quickly became clear that itwasn't working for him.
So we pulled him out, startedhome educating, and here we are.
He's now 18 and he's about tofinish his home ed journey,
officially, his official home edjourney.
But you know, never stops.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (01:59):
Yeah, so also like Pav, our family is
completely neurodivergent.
A lot of this for us wasdiscovered later, not in those
early primary or early schoolyears.
So it's shaped a lot of howwe've made shifts in our life
and how we've changed the thingsthat we've done, including
moving towards home education.
(02:19):
My eldest child went throughhigh school up until year 11 and
had lots of issues with school.
So they were the catalyst for uslooking for other ways to do
things and looking into home edand other options or other
pathways.
And once we discovered what itreally could look like, we
(02:42):
realized that for our family andthe way that all of our brains
work, that it was actuallyperfect for everybody in the
family.
Leisa Reichelt (02:49):
I think we hear so many stories from parents who
come to home education as anabsolute last resort, that
they've tried so many differentthings in schools,
accommodations in schools,different kinds of schools.
Tried and tried and tried.
Nothing's worked.
And with no other options, theycome to home education.
So I think we hear that storyreally regularly, but I wonder
(03:13):
if we can kind of flip that onits head a little bit.
I'm thinking through the lens ofneurodiverse kids, what is it
about home education thatactually really suits a lot of
our neurodiverse kiddos?
Why is it potentially a greatfirst choice?
Pavlina (03:29):
Yeah, that's a great question.
And we find that, because it'sindividually tailored to each
child, you can so specificallycater to their interests and
needs and the way they love tolearn and how much they love to
move their body.
And you know what they need tofeel good in themselves and feel
(03:49):
like they are worthy.
You can give them so much spaceto figure out who they are.
And that's really hard, whenyou're having to mask day after
day after day in school andpretend to be someone you are
not, just so that you eitherdon't get into trouble or don't
stick out or get bullied.
Or just to feel safe.
(04:09):
It's really hard to know who youare, and a lot of parents report
that.
You know that when they finallypull their kid outta school,
this kid will actually say, Idon't know who I am.
I don't know what I love.
When you think back to theirearly childhood before school,
they've got very definiteinterests.
You know, very definite passionsand things that they love to do.
And the great thing about homeed is that it allows them to
(04:33):
explore those and either delvedeeper and deeper into the one
thing that they've always lovedor expand on that or move into
something else that they love.
So it gives them that space.
And you know, we find that kidswho have that opportunity, even
if they are feeling when theycome outta school like they
(04:54):
don't know who they are and theydon't know what they love.
Given the space and time torecover and to reduce that
anxiety and the distress ofSchool Can't, they rediscover
that love and joy.
So they get the opportunity tolive it the way that works for
them.
Leisa Reichelt (05:11):
Yeah.
Heidi, what are your thoughts?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (05:14):
So Leisa, I just wanted to talk about
terminology.
So when we say neurodiverse,neurodiverse relates to a group
of people.
So a single person can't beneurodiverse.
So it throws me a little bitwhen I hear it said, you know,
our neurodiverse children, whatI think you're meaning is our
neurodivergent kids
Leisa Reichelt (05:35):
I get that wrong, all the time.
All the time.
Yeah.
People who listen to thispodcast probably know I get that
wrong all the time and peoplecorrect me all the time it still
doesn't stay in my brain forsome reason.
Pavlina (05:47):
It'll happen eventually.
Leisa Reichelt (05:48):
I don't know..
I don't know, Pav
Pavlina (05:50):
It's like 300 times or something, isn't it?
That a human needs, yeah, threehundred times or something, you
need a correction for thosesorts of things to stick.
Leisa Reichelt (05:57):
I hope not.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (05:58):
That's a lot
Leisa Reichelt (05:58):
I hope not.
feel free, don't hesitate if Isay something a bit dumb or get
my words wrong or anything.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (06:05):
no, not what I mean.
Leisa Reichelt (06:07):
Okay,
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (06:08):
So can I have a go at answering that
question a little bit as wellabout why home ed would be a
great first choice for ourneurodivergent kids?
Leisa Reichelt (06:17):
What's your perspective on that?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (06:18):
Yeah, so I think it's really important to
acknowledge that learningdoesn't happen in a brain that's
activated in that fight flightmode.
A brain that's not able toaccess all those executive
functions and that prefrontalcortex.
If we're in an environment wherewe are spending all of our
(06:40):
energy just surviving and beinghypervigilant and hyper aware of
the other humans around us, thesensory space around us, all the
things that go on, that we takefor granted if that's not an
impact for us individually.
These young people are reallyexperiencing a lot of that and
their brains just don't have thecapacity to lay new neural
(07:03):
pathways.
You're not actually able tobuild authentic, really decent
learning on top of a brainthat's in that kind of stressed
state.
So I think it's really good toconsider that that's a huge
benefit of learning in anenvironment that's meeting your
needs.
Not everybody has the perfectenvironment immediately.
(07:24):
We don't necessarily know whatworks for us immediately, but we
have the capacity, the space,the time, the ability to explore
what that is, find what that is.
And a bit like Pav was saying,you know, about finding what are
the things that spark yourinterest?
What are the things that youlike to learn about?
What are the ways that you liketo learn?
(07:44):
What do I need to shift in ourenvironment here?
Or what sort of sensory space dowe need?
I think the benefit is thatwe're working with brains that
are less stressed, and I thinkthat, that is in itself is a
really big positive for why thisshould be something we come at
earlier rather than as a lastresort.
So I guess that's why I wouldsay it would be a good a good
(08:04):
choice as early as we can,rather than expending all that
time and energy trying to fitinto a system that doesn't fit
us.
Trying to fit the mold or dowhat everybody else does.
It would be great if there werethings that worked, but we see
time and time again fromfamilies that end up coming to
us in burnout and end upreaching out for supports.
(08:28):
We see it that even the bestintentions are still not meeting
the needs of a lot of thesekids.
Leisa Reichelt (08:34):
Heidi, by the time I pulled my son outta
school and brought him to dohome education, really the thing
that motivated me to do that wasthat I realized he was starting
to be completely turned off theidea of learning at all.
Like all of his associationswith learning were just so
negative, right?
And so I'm like, if I keep thiskid at school, he's gonna stop
(08:57):
wanting to learn full stop.
Right?
Pavlina (09:00):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (09:00):
what, what worst way to set yourself up for life
than to kill your love oflearning when you are 14, right?
Like, that
Pavlina (09:08):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (09:09):
And so, yeah, a big part for me was like, bring
him home, get him out of theschool environment so that I can
reactivate his love of learningagain, which just, you know,
it's ridiculous thing to have todo, isn't it?
To pull them out of school, tomake them love to learn.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (09:25):
I can relate to that as an adult
learner, right?
So I'm really fascinated in lotsof things and I'm really
interested in learning aboutlots of things.
But doing a uni course onsomething, removes the joy.
When I have to analyze it in areally specific way, based on
one particular person'sexpectations about how I prove
to them that I've learned thatthing, it just removes the joy
(09:48):
and it makes it a chore andmakes it really unenjoyable,
right?
It's more painful than it needsto be.
Even though the topic might besuper interesting and super
exciting, and I'm highlymotivated.
But if I was doing it with nopressure, no assessment, with no
reason to, prove myself otherthan, Hey, I've learned this
(10:09):
really cool stuff and I canshare that with other people in
the ways that work for me.
I would be way more keen tolearn more stuff at uni, but I
don't wanna do the homework, Ijust want, be able to learn it
at my pace in my own way.
And I don't think that'snecessarily a neurodivergent
brain thing.
I think it's a human experiencethat it would be much nicer to
(10:30):
learn things in the way thatwork for us individually.
Leisa Reichelt (10:32):
I have a house full of folks with dysgraphia.
They set out to engage withareas of education that they
really, really enjoy.
So that might be Englishliterature, might be drama.
One of them started a graddiploma in counseling.
Loved it.
But there comes a point whereyou have to write an essay to be
assessed.
None of them can do that.
(10:54):
It just shuts the whole processdown cold.
It's so upsetting to see thelack of access that they have,
to have that knowledge formallyrecognized.
Because if you can't write anacademic essay, your knowledge
doesn't count.
It makes me really furious.
Pavlina (11:10):
Well, while you were talking and Heidi was talking, I
was thinking about motivation aswell, because people a lot of
the time say, oh, thesechildren, they won't be
motivated to do anything whenyou bring them home.
They won't be motivated unless,you are there with a carrot or
the stick saying, if you do thisthen I'll give you this, or,
you've gotta do this or else I'mgoing to take this thing off
(11:31):
you.
Right.
So people worry so much aboutmotivation in kids instead of
understanding like, okay, soMaslow who was around in the
forties and fifties, heunderstood the hierarchy of
needs that humans have.
And he talks about motivation interms of fulfilling different
(11:52):
hierarchies of needs.
So your most basic need is forair, right?
Water, food.
You've got your physiologicalneeds of safety, shelter.
If you can't meet those needs,then you cannot move up that
hierarchy towardsself-actualization.
(12:13):
Unfortunately, school does notfeel safe for so many of our
children.
It comes back to safety, itcomes back to belonging.
And if you don't feel thosethings, you cannot worry about a
person's motivation to learncalculus.
It's ridiculous to be talkingabout being motivated to learn
those things when that person isnot feeling safe.
(12:35):
And what coming home means isthat person can start to feel
safe again.
And when they're feeling safe,they're going to venture out
themselves.
Humans are by nature curiouscreatures.
We love learning.
We're wired to learn.
You cannot stop human beingsfrom learning.
And what they learn is going todepend on their environment,
(12:56):
their interests, and all thosethings.
But if you can meet that safety,then motivation is actually not
an issue.
You know, I went to teacherschool and they talked all the
time about intrinsic versusextrinsic motivation and which
one's better, and blah, blah,blah, blah.
Extrinsic motivation's notneeded when you have safety and
you have autonomy, you don'tneed extrinsic motivation.
Leisa Reichelt (13:21):
In our podcast that we do here, we talk to
people about their livedexperience of School Can't with
their family.
And a lot of the time, theearliest clues come from
daycare.
they're trying to drop theirkids off at daycare.
It's not going well.
There's a lot of separationanxiety.
There are a lot of clues reallyearly on that things with school
(13:42):
are not going to be easy forthese kids.
And there are a lot of parents,I think these days who have got
really young kids, you know, 5,6, 7 years old, and they're
like, this school thing is justnot flying with my kid at all.
How should parents with thosereally young kids thinking about
(14:03):
home education and contemplatingthat as a decision.
Particularly these are like kidswho read and can't spell and
can't add up.
They haven't got that sort ofbasic numeracy and literacy
that, you know, when you've gota burnt out teen, they at least
have that from school most ofthe time.
What's, the thought process anddecision process, like for
(14:25):
parents with really young kidswho are hitting a bit of a wall
with school?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (14:30):
So I think one of the first things to
consider is that there's not awindow, you're not gonna miss a
window.
If you don't know how to spellyour name by prep, because
you're heading into a schoolenvironment and need to spell
your name for prep, if you'rehome educating, if you are doing
a different pathway that doesn'tinvolve a classroom where you
have to be.
And you have to learn how towrite your name so that you can
(14:52):
differentiate your work from theperson next to you.
There will be another experienceor reason or need for you to be
able to know how to write yourname and it will be meaningful
for you at the time.
And it might be signing yourname on a birthday card, for
someone that you love.
Then they're curious, it'smeaningful to them, and they can
(15:13):
learn those skills with reallyminimal support.
Kids ask for what they need.
How do I spell Heidi, mum?
How do I spell it?
You start with an H.
Okay, how do I do an H?
Show me how to do an H, youknow?
And so we just naturally workthrough those things with our
kids.
That's not to say that teachersdon't have skills, but teachers'
skills are in teaching a bunchof 30 kids these skills all at
(15:35):
once.
You know, we all have an abilityto teach our young people the
things they need or to help themfind the ways to learn the
things they need.
We can learn alongside them.
We learn alongside our teenagersand young adults, or we send
them in the right directionbecause I don't wanna do
calculus and I don't knowanything about that, but my kid
might, and I can show them whereto find what they need and who
(15:57):
to ask for help when they needhelp, and how to find the
supports that will actuallybuild those skills for them.
The first thing I would say istake away the worry that if
we're not being taught by ateacher at school, then we need
to be taught in the same way bya parent at home.
We learn those things.
They do happen.
And a lot of it happensorganically and authentically.
(16:17):
We can teach, we absolutely can.
There's so many resourcesavailable to us.
And there's community to ask,Hey, what did you guys do when
your kid was really wanting todo this?
I'm having a lot of troublefinding an activity or a way to
build that skill with my kid.
What did you guys do?
So, you know, coming back toasking our communities for
(16:37):
support and building that sharedenvironment where people are
learning together and alongsideeach other and it's not
competitive.
Leisa Reichelt (16:46):
On the motivation to learn thing, my
youngest son was never reallydown for reading or spelling at
all.
We were living in London at thetime, and I think he realized
that the squiggles on the frontof the bus told you where the
bus was going.
And he was very into publictransport.
And he's like, right, I need toknow what the front of the bus
says.
And it was almost like within aweek he'd learned to read.
(17:08):
I didn't teach him how to read.
It just like magically happened.
All of a sudden he could justread.
I don't know how he went fromzero to a hundred on reading,
but I do know it was completelybecause he was very motivated to
know the destination of thebuses.
Pavlina (17:25):
and it became relevant to him.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (17:27):
For a lot of our younger kids, it's
playing on Minecraft and theyneed to be able to read the
chat, you know,'cause they'reconstantly saying'mum, can you
read this for me?
mum, can you read this for me?'And then they start to see the
pattern of some of the thingsthat are, you know, it's just
immersion.
Its immersion in language.
Pavlina (17:43):
And in whatever they're interested in, it could be,
loving boats and, wanting toread the signs at the boat ramp.
It could be loving cats andwanting to read books about
cats, or wanting to be able towrite your cat's name down.
It could be any of those thingsthat lead to, Hey, how do you
(18:04):
spell, or how do you write?
What does this say?
What shape is this letter?
It's building on those littleskills and learning is not
linear.
This is the issue we also havefor a lot of kids at school,
especially neurodivergent kids.
Learning is not linear.
You do a bit over here and a bitover there, and then all of a
sudden you're connecting dotsthat seemingly disparate things
(18:27):
and you know, big aha moments.
And then, long, slow periodswhere it looks like nothing's
happening.
And then these massiveaccelerations, It's stop and
start.
It's bits here and bits there.
And then they all kind of meldinto this thing.
And because we are there for ourkids so much of the time, we can
help them draw those parallels.
(18:47):
And so it's about exploring andasking questions and talking.
A lot of learning is incidentallearning and conversational
learning and you know, there's alot of resources on our website
about that.
And I would encourage people toexplore those ideas because they
are the foundations of learningfor humans.
(19:07):
Learning is social and that'swhy home ed works so well,
because home ed is social,
Leisa Reichelt (19:13):
Its going to look very different to how we've
been socialized to expecteducation to look like.
There's not gonna be the sheetsof paper writing A 50 times.
Pavlina (19:23):
Precisely.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (19:24):
You can do that, but you'll also notice how
quickly they get bored of thatand
Pavlina (19:28):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (19:29):
that in my house.
That would never happen.
Pavlina (19:33):
So true for so many PDA kids, right?
Some kids might like it.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (19:36):
And that's what we talk about different
brains needing different things.
And you might have three kids inthe same family who all look for
different ways of learning thatlanguage and learning how to
read and might have completelydifferent timelines and
trajectories.
And it's not necessarily aboutbeing behind or being ahead or
anything like that.
It's just about, this is yourpathway, this is your
(20:00):
development.
This is where you are headed atthat particular time.
We had a great webinar the otherday with Peter Gray about
non-traditional ways of learningto read and write.
So I really encourage anyone tohave a listen to that because it
does allay a lot of the fearsand a lot of our concerns and
our anxieties about this sort ofstuff are fear-based because we
(20:20):
have these outside expectationsplaced on us.
And that's okay to acknowledge.
Yeah, I am scared, I'm scaredthat my, my kid might get to 30
and not be able to fill out aform because they haven't
learned how to hold their pencorrectly or answer questions
with the exact right, response.
But they will learn these thingswhen they're meaningful and
relevant.
(20:41):
Part of the beauty of home ed isthat we are there with them.
It's cooperative.
We are engaged and engaging,doing stuff with them.
We are not just at home going,here's your worksheets.
Go do that over there.
I'll see you at three o'clockkind of thing.
Leisa Reichelt (20:56):
By all accounts, There are plenty of kids, I
think, who get all the waythrough high school without
being able to fill in a form aswell, right?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (21:02):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (21:03):
there's no guarantee
Pavlina (21:04):
Absolutely.
Leisa Reichelt (21:04):
to school brings you literacy.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (21:05):
Oh.
But we assume they can becausethat's what school's for.
So we make an assumption, andthis is one of the things about
regulations in home ed.
We make an assumption that achild in school is actually
learning the things that arebeing presented to them.
Our families know that a lot ofthe times they're not.
What happened in COVID wasreally interesting for a lot of
families because they had theirkids at home and saw one-on-one
(21:28):
what their kid wasn't learningor wasn't picking up from the
teaching that was happening.
I learned when I took my14-year-old out of school, we
learned then that she wasdyslexic.
That wasn't something that hadcome up throughout any of her
schooling years.
But when I was sitting with herand listening to the way she was
doing things, I was like.
(21:48):
this makes so much more sense.
Now we acknowledge and workaround that and have
accommodations for that.
She knows how her brain worksbest and we know how to make
that work for her.
The expectation that justbecause they're in a school
classroom that they're learningall the things that are being
presented is quite fallible,even though they're being
ridiculously over tested andover assessed.
And I think that takes away fromactual teaching.
Leisa Reichelt (22:09):
Wow.
my son's just about to
Pavlina (22:10):
Also,
Leisa Reichelt (22:11):
and
Pavlina (22:12):
yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (22:12):
the same English teacher for the last three
years.
And because of me earlier thisyear we finally got him a
dysgraphia diagnosis, like areally, he's like significantly
impacted by written expressionlearning disability.
He's 17, he's just about to dohis last exams to finish school.
(22:32):
He had a really significantmental health moment and
actually it was from talking tosomebody on this podcast, I was
able to put two and two togetherand go, I think maybe he has
dysgraphia,
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (22:44):
Yeah,
Leisa Reichelt (22:44):
He's an engaged, very interested English student
the whole way through.
How did he get that far?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (22:49):
Well there's also a lot of additional
coping mechanisms, so there's alot of getting by and a lot of
ways of coping and pushingthrough.
Leisa Reichelt (22:56):
And blaming.
They just assumed that theiranswer to him was, you have to
try harder.
Pavlina (23:00):
And we say this to children all the time, and
they're putting in maximumeffort.
It's not won't, it's can't.
And if they can't do it, why?
Why can't they do it?
Is there a blocker in theirpath?
Is it completely uninteresting?
I mean, that's a blocker, likeI'm not motivated to do so many
(23:23):
things like fill in Centrelinkforms, for example.
I have to do them.
Someone's got the carrot or thestick for me to fill in forms.
But you know, what is stoppingour kids engaging with
something?
Are they just not ready for it?
Because developmental readiness,being actually ready for
something is a big factor.
(23:45):
You know, like I have a kidwho's hyperlexic and learned to
read at three, and I've gotanother kid who's dyslexic and
wasn't reading independentlyuntil 12, but, come 16, 18, you
can't tell the difference.
You can't tell which one's whichbecause they've both had what
they need to become functionalreaders and engage with texts.
(24:11):
One is more comfortable withtexts than the other, and that's
fine.
The one who's dyslexic engageswith texts in a very different
way, but still gets what theyneed out of it.
So, it's about adaptation andadapting our views of what the
expectations should be..
Leisa Reichelt (24:31):
My son who's at home homeschooling at the
moment, I think his primaryeducator right now is YouTube,
which at first I found veryconcerning.
But the longer it goes on themore I applaud all the YouTubers
who are putting all that effortinto educating my son.
Because by golly, they puttogether some engaging, engaging
(24:52):
content.
Pavlina (24:54):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (24:54):
Driving with my son the other day and he's like,
I'm gonna give you a quiz onspace Mum.
Fantastic.
Nothing.
I love more than a quiz onspace.
And he's going, okay, so whatwould happen if the sun
disappeared?
we got into this bigconversation around, the speed
of light.
And you know how the magneticpull operates at the same rate
(25:15):
as the speed of light.
All the, all of this, all ofthis stuff.
So much of it, right.
And I'm like, he finds thisreally interesting because it's
all framed around the cataclysm.
It's, it's like a spacecataclysm and like that is
engaging stuff, right?
Whereas you can imagine inclass, a science teacher up the
front going, right class todaywe gonna learn about
gravitational force, you know,like go to sleep.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (25:36):
That might work at a certain time, right?
But if he's not interested, thenhe's not engaging with that.
Then at school, but also onYouTube.
if that wasn't something thatgrabbed his interest, he would
just scroll past, right?
So it is of interest to him atthat time.
Therefore it's hitting him atthe right spot.
Often it's a bit short form andit's almost a taster, right?
Like oh, great, I learned thisstuff, and hey, I might have to
(25:57):
learn more about that otherthing you said about
gravitational pull.
I'm interested in that now.
So, you know, I learned so muchI know how to change my tap
washers I've fixed my carheadlight on my own and saved
myself hundreds of dollars andI've fixed my dryer.
You know, I look up YouTube.
We do learn on YouTube.
Why is that not okay for ourkids too?
This is what I do,
Leisa Reichelt (26:16):
And the algorithm is amazing, right?
He watches a lot of stuff aboutscience.
It just gives him more and morescience stuff, which feeds that
interest even more.
Nice.
Pavlina (26:23):
YouTubers by definition have to be interesting, right?
Because if they're not, peoplearen't gonna subscribe to their
channel.
They often present things inways that are really memorable
to people So that contentbecomes fascinating and they
wanna know more about it.
That's when they start doingthose deep dives, and that's
when they really start expandingtheir knowledge and
(26:45):
understanding.
that's when they also startdoing critical thinking because,
you know, they've watched 10videos on the gravitational
pull, and then all of a suddenthere's one that says something
completely different.
And so all of a sudden they'relike, huh, I wonder if that is
correct, Or is that one correct?
You know, and how do I find out?
(27:06):
That's when you really startgetting development of
metacognitive skills, becausethat's when they start exploring
what it means to thinkcritically.
Leisa Reichelt (27:17):
I feel like my biggest job is to try to support
him in developing medialiteracy.
Pavlina (27:22):
exactly.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (27:23):
my teenager still or young adult
now still comes to me and says,Hey, I learned this thing on
TikTok.
And I say, oh yeah, on TikTok,right?
Pavlina (27:31):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (27:33):
It's just like, should we fact check that?
could we find more informationabout it?
that sounds really interesting,and I'll add some information
and knowledge that I have tothat conversation.
This is the part about beingthere and being present because
if they were just consuming ontheir own, its harder to develop
that critical thinking and thosemetacognitive skills.
Leisa Reichelt (27:53):
The thing that I had to really get my head around
is that YouTube is like anamazing place for kids to, to
teach themself what they'reinterested in.
Going back to those folk whohave got the young kids who are
starting out on this journey, Ithink, you know, we want to
reassure folks that even thoughtheir kids are preliterate and
prenumerate in a lot of cases,the fact that they don't have an
(28:16):
educational background, thatthey haven't taught somebody how
to read or write,
Pavlina (28:19):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (28:19):
or add up in the past, doesn't mean that they
won't do a great job ofsupporting their child that
journey
Pavlina (28:26):
Yes.
Leisa Reichelt (28:27):
They won't be negatively impacting their
child's learning and lifeopportunities because they're
not sending them into aclassroom with an educator.
Pavlina (28:36):
And I think too, you know, we see a lot of parents
who perhaps have left schoolearly themselves, lack
confidence in their abilitiesand feel like they are not
capable of doing these thingsbecause they feel like, well, I
couldn't stay at school and Icouldn't stay that course, and
(28:58):
therefore how am I going to helpmy child, you know, stay the
course with their education.
But home ed looks very differentto school.
It's a very different learningparadigm.
And also, we're not teachers.
We don't have to be the sage onthe stage.
We don't have to know all thethings.
We just have to facilitate theireducation.
We just help them figure outwhere to find information,
(29:21):
resources, mentors, whatever itis that kid is seeking next.
And kids will ask for thingswhen they are ready for them.
They will ask you to name items,when they're little, starting to
explore and see the worldoutside and they're asking
questions about the outsideworld.
That's exactly how home edcontinues to work.
(29:43):
You know, it just becomes moreabstract as they get older.
It's more abstract rather thanconcrete information, and we are
perfectly capable offacilitating that because,
nobody has their interests atheart better than us.
No one cares about that kid morethan we do.
Nobody's more invested in thatchild's education.
And we do it naturally asparents, you know, we just gotta
(30:03):
tap back into that intuitionthat we've put aside because a
lot of the time we've been toldthat we are not doing the right
thing as parents, and have toignore our instincts.
We've just gotta tap back intothose and figure out what does
that kid need and listen to whatthat child needs and just help
facilitate and provide that.
Leisa Reichelt (30:23):
Heidi, I want you to tell us a little bit
about how the experience differswhen you've got a teenager who
is burning out, not coping.
And so you're pulling them intohome ed because you've got no
other option.
What's the home ed onboardingexperience typically like then
what can parents expect?
(30:43):
When do we start to panic?
How does that typically playout?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (30:48):
So, when do you actually start to panic
or when should you start topanic?
Because you will start to panicimmediately.
That's a guarantee, right?
You'll panic, you'll worry,you'll think, what am I doing?
Have I ruined theiropportunities in life?
These are all really normalthoughts because what we're
doing is stepping away from amajority or a mainstream way of
educating.
(31:08):
And although it's just as valid,it's not what everybody else is
doing.
So it's natural to feel fear,anxiety, concern about taking
those big leaps.
But ultimately, our kids' mentalhealth comes first.
Right?
From experience, kids whosemental health is significantly
impacted at school will taketime.
(31:30):
Even when that's been removed,they will take time to return to
a place of stasis, a place of,calm and regulated.
It's not something that happensovernight and often, people are
scared when I say that it cantake years, it actually can take
years.
But we have to be realisticbecause there's no point in me
saying they'll be great in threemonths and then you'll be so
(31:52):
thankful that you did it andeverything's gonna be fine.
Because if that's theexpectation, then when that
doesn't happen, we do the bigpanic and we push them back into
other places.
We push them back into schooland we put pressures on them to
do things and get up and moveand do all the stuff that they
might not be ready for yet.
I understand the concern and Iunderstand the worry that my
(32:15):
kids' in their room, all they'redoing is gaming.
They haven't seen sunlight inmonths.
It's actually really scary as aparent to think that that's your
future.
We project, we catastrophize, Weare looking far too far ahead
when what we need to do is sitin the here and now and go,
they're safe and they know thatI'm trying to keep them safe.
(32:36):
And they weren't safe where theywere, or we wouldn't be in this
place right now.
There's been some significantworries about where they were
and where they mentally wereoften for lots of our kids, and
I think if they had a physicalillness or something that was
really obvious to everybodyaround them that this kid was
(32:56):
that sick and needed that levelof support and care, everyone
would drop everything and beinvolved and support.
What happens when our kids comeout of school in that mental
state of unwell is that it'sonly us.
We don't actually get a lot ofthat community support other
than reaching out and findingpeople who have been there or
(33:17):
who understand on a deep, deeplevel what that means for you
and your kid.
So acknowledging that this is astage that this will pass, but
that even when it's hard andeven when they seem to,
sometimes what happens isthey've been holding it together
for so long, so when they comehome and there's no pressure and
(33:38):
everything's taken away, theymight seem even more unwell and
not okay with the world.
And they might be more angry atyou.
They might be mad upset andscared about what the future is.
So, our role there is lots ofreassurance.
Reassurance that you're okay.
It's gonna be okay.
This isn't forever.
I know that this feels crap.
It feels crap for me.
(33:59):
It feels crap for you.
It's, how it's gonna feel untilit doesn't.
But we are here to build thatand make that better.
And we're changing theexpectations so that you won't
have to feel that crap again.
that's our role here, you know?
And learning, learning can go onthe back burner.
Remember what I said at thebeginning, safety, right.
If your brain's not safe, you'renot learning anyway.
(34:22):
They're gonna learn when theyneed to learn, even if they miss
two whole years just trying torecover.
What they're doing in that timeis also learning about
themselves, about how theirbrain works, how their body
works, what things they need,what kind of recovery they need
from things.
what things build them up, whatthings crash them back down
again.
You know, what are the thingsthat support them?
(34:43):
What people work best for them.
You know, there's so muchself-learning that happens in
that time, even when it lookslike they're just vegetating.
But that's so important.
That's so much more importantfor the adults and the humans
that they're going to grow up tobe than, you know, year 11 or 12
(35:05):
maths, which they can learnlater.
My kids did have that struggleabout, well, everybody else is
doing that at school, and I'mnot keeping up.
I'm not keeping up andtherefore, you know, I'm a
failure.
And so, we're working withrebuilding over time.
That self-doubt and thatself-image and that self
understanding.
We are talking home education,but we are talking human
(35:27):
education.
Right.
I think that's a bigger picture.
Leisa Reichelt (35:31):
I think what you mentioned about comparing,
mental wellbeing to physicalwellbeing.
A lot of people when they aremaking this decision to bring
their kids home from school.
Those kids' lives are, I think,often meaningfully in danger.
Pavlina (35:48):
We speak to hundreds of people who are in that
situation.
Hundreds.
You know, it's not just a personhere or there.
It's hundreds of people who arein the same situation.
And it's not something thatwe're even talking about.
And when we talk about SchoolCan't in the media, it's like
that doesn't exist.
It's that whole cohort of kidswho are struggling so deeply.
(36:14):
If they could only just liftthemselves up by their
bootstraps and get their heiniesto school, everything would be
fine.
And we keep forgetting if theycould, they would.
Right.
And we keep forgetting that ifthey don't have their mental
health, what have they got?
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (36:31):
The media portrays it as, these kids don't
wanna be at school.
Pavlina (36:34):
Yep.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (36:34):
That's right.
They don't.
But it's because there's anissue with the mismatch of these
kids and the schools.
I think it's brave for people totake these alternate pathways
because for every one personthat takes a kid out of school
and tries to do things that workwell for them and their family,
there's bound to be several oftheir family members and
(36:57):
friendship circles who arequestioning them and who are
saying, oh, I don't know thatthat's a great choice.
Or, are you qualified to dothat?
Pavlina (37:05):
Heidi was talking before, you know, if you had a
kid with cancer, everyone wouldbe around you supporting you.
Unfortunately, for a lot ofparents who choose to home
educate their kid, when thatkid's in a mental health crisis,
the opposite is true.
They get blamed, told they'redoing the wrong thing,
unsupported.
The very professionals who aresupposed to be supporting them
(37:27):
are often the ones questioningit saying, you're just not
trying hard enough.
Have you tried taking thingsaway?
Yeah, you are too soft.
You know, you're not puttingyour foot down enough.
Those sorts of messages arereally damaging, and they're
really, really hard for a parentwho's just trying to support
that child in the way that childneeds.
We keep taking the focus awayfrom being child centered and
(37:49):
thinking about the individualchild and what does that child
need right now.
We make it society centered.
We make it curriculum centered.
We make it professionalcentered.
We make it court centered.
We make it adult centered.
You know, what do the adultsneed?
They want this problem just togo away and this problem isn't
going away because we're notmeeting the needs of an
(38:12):
individual human being.
Leisa Reichelt (38:15):
A lot of individual human beings.
Pavlina (38:17):
Yes.
Leisa Reichelt (38:17):
Tens of thousands of individual human
beings.
Pavlina (38:20):
Yes.
Yeah.
There was a figure quoted todayon the radio, something like 1.3
or 1.6 million kids in Australiais the estimate that are
affected by School Can't.
Leisa Reichelt (38:31):
Wow.
That's intense.
Pavlina (38:32):
that's a massive figure.
That's kids who are strugglingto go to school.
Leisa Reichelt (38:36):
Might this not be a parenting problem and
actually be something moresystemic?
Pavlina (38:40):
These guys are the canaries in the coal mine.
Leisa Reichelt (38:42):
Yeah,
Pavlina (38:43):
And at the end of the day, that's what our
neurodivergent kids are.
Canaries in the coal mine.
Leisa Reichelt (38:48):
On that note, it is a challenging journey.
There are lots of anxious,panicky moments along the way.
It can feel very lonely andisolating.
Thank goodness we have the HomeEducation Network to help us.
Can you give us a quick rundown,on what is Home Education
Network?
Why do people need to know aboutit?
Tell us a little bit about thesupport that's available.
Pavlina (39:09):
Well, we're a completely volunteer run,
not-for-profit organization.
We're entirely non-commercial,so we have no vested interest in
anything.
We don't gain any money fromsuggesting or recommending
things.
So you can trust that we arecompletely unbiased.
We are a peer supportorganization.
We have lots of publications andinformation for free on our
(39:31):
website, but we've also got moreinformation available for our
members.
Membership's$25 a year, for awhole family.
And that gives access to allsorts of webinars from experts
that we've recorded.
It gives, publications, we'vegot a magazine that comes out.
We've got a monthly supportgroup for parents of
(39:51):
neurodivergent kids and kidswith disabilities.
We've also got a monthlyworkshop series for our members.
We run camps, excursions, a lotof'em are online.
We're now able to provide ourmembers with access to really
good online groups that areneurodivergent friendly.
Leisa Reichelt (40:09):
I would say, even if it's just for those once
a month, Wednesday evening onthe Zoom with the other parents
who are,
Pavlina (40:16):
yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (40:17):
home education of neurodivergent kiddos I've
dialed into that one a number oftimes myself.
It's been such a huge support.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (40:26):
There's a lot of information on the
website for people new to homeed as well.
So there's a lot of startinginformation'cause it can be
quite overwhelming when youdon't know where to look or when
you're also being bombarded byproviders wanting to sell you
something.
We've got information for peoplewho don't know where to start.
Leisa Reichelt (40:42):
Super.
Well, thank you.
I do wanna mention the fact thatwe have not talked about
anything logistical here at all.
We haven't talked about thefinancial and work implications,
the time implications.
There's a whole logistical thing
Pavlina (40:55):
Yes,
Leisa Reichelt (40:55):
but we'll come back and talk about that again
some more in the future.
Thank you Heidi.
Thank you, Pavlina.
I really, really appreciate youspending the time with us.
Pavlina (41:03):
No trouble at all.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (41:05):
Thank you.
Leisa Reichelt (41:05):
See you again soon..
Pavlina (41:06):
Thank you for having us.
Heidi Ryan (she/her) (41:07):
Thanks.
Leisa Reichelt (41:07):
I loved that conversation with Pav and Heidi,
and there were so many othertopics that we could have dived
into further, but hopefullyyou've taken some inspiration or
some encouragement from whatthey've shared with us today.
I put links to the HomeEducation Network website in the
episode notes with all of thegreat resources that Pav and
Heidi told us about, as well aslinks to School Can't
Australia's website where you'llfind lots more helpful
(41:30):
information.
If you found our podcasthelpful, please do take a moment
to subscribe or give us ourrating or our review.
This really makes a hugedifference in helping us get the
podcast in front of more peoplewho have School Can't kids, and
who haven't yet found thecommunity and the information
that we share.
If you have some feedback for usor maybe a suggestion for a
(41:50):
future topic or guest, orperhaps you've been inspired to
share your own lived experiencestory, please drop me an email
to schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com Iwould love to hear from you.
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and you are feeling
distressed, please remember youcan always call the Parent
Helpline in your state.
A link with the number to callis in the episode notes.
(42:13):
Sadly, on the 31st of October,which is mere days away, the
Victorian government is shuttingdown their Parent Line, which is
a very disappointing.
I have put a link to sign thepetition to protest this in the
episode notes if you areinclined to do that as a last
ditch effort.
Thank you again for listening,and we will talk again soon.
Take care.
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