December 1, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode, host Leisa Reichelt is joined by Tanya Valentin, a neuro-affirming family coach from New Zealand.
Tanya shares her journey of discovering her neurodivergence and her family's experiences with school burnout and autism. They discuss the challenges, grief, and shame faced by parents, and the transformative power of finding new paths to education and parenting.
Tanya also talks about the resources and support available for families dealing with similar issues. Tune in to hear insights on breaking societal norms and fostering genuine connections with your children.
00:00 Welcome to the School Can't Experience Podcast
00:28 Meet Tanya Valentin: A Journey Through Burnout and Neurodivergence
02:53 Understanding Burnout: A Family's Struggle and Discovery
05:29 Navigating Parenting Challenges and Professional Advice
12:53 The Emotional Toll: Grief, Shame, and Transformation
41:34 Finding Support and Resources for Parents
45:57 Closing Thoughts and Resources
Tanya’s Resources
Tanya has a holiday support menu for parents, centred on the grief and emotional weight that can surface at this time of year. The supports range from free to paid and are designed to meet parents across different needs and capacity levels.
You can find that here: https://tanyavalentin.co/holiday-support-menu/
And here is the link for parents who may wish to join From Burnout to Balance: https://tanyavalentin.co/parent-community/
People & resources mentioned in this episode:
- Dr Anna Neff: https://neurodivergentinsights.com/
- Dr Francis Weller: https://www.francisweller.net/
- Dr Emmi Pickler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmi_Pikler
- Kristi Forbes: https://www.kristyforbes.com.au/
- Dr Naomi Fisher:https://naomifisher.co.uk/
- School Can’t Australia Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolphobiaschoolrefusalaustralia
- Make a donation to School Can’t Australia - https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist, or other qualified professional.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leisa Reichelt (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the School Can't
Experience Podcast.
I'm Leisa Reichelt and thispodcast is brought to you by the
School Can't Australiacommunity.
Caring for a young person who'sstruggling to attend school can
be a stressful and isolatingexperience, but you are not
alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every
(00:26):
day.
Today we are joined by TanyaValentin, who is a New Zealand
based, neuro affirming familycoach, and whose program From
Burnout to Balance has helpedsupport many families through
difficult times.
Tanya is going to take us on adeep dive into the parenting
experience of School Can't andburnout, and all of the grief
(00:47):
and shame that can be part ofthat experience, but also the
transformation that can comefrom it as well.
I hope you enjoy ourconversation.
Tanya Valentin, thank you somuch for joining us on our
podcast today.
It's such a pleasure to have youhere.
Tanya Valentin (01:00):
Thank you so much for having me, Leisa.
Leisa Reichelt (01:03):
I would love it if we could start by getting to
know you a little bit, Tanya.
Can you tell us about yourselfand what's your story?
Tanya Valentin (01:12):
So, late diagnosed AuDHD person.
Discovered that I wasneurodivergent after my children
found out, like a lot of mums.
Only found out after my daughterwent into burnout for the first
time.
We've had a few burnouts.
It was such an eye-openingexperience for our whole family
(01:35):
because before that we didn'teven know that there was any
neurodivergence in our family.
For us it started with mychildren having a tricky
childhood, but nothing overtlyeye-opening.
But looking back through aneurodivergent lens, it was
(01:55):
probably just me having a verysimilar experience to them as a
child that made me just think,oh yeah, that's just normal.
Leisa Reichelt (02:04):
This is just what happens.
Tanya Valentin (02:05):
This is just what happens.
Then when we got to the teenageyears, I noticed that things
just started to crumble.
So my children are all bornfemale, although, some of them
have transitioned into othergenders.
I think there wasn't a lot ofunderstanding at that time about
(02:26):
girls who could possibly beautistic.
Leisa Reichelt (02:29):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (02:30):
So what we saw was a lot of mental health
stuff.
A lot of anxiety, depression.
Seeing things like self-harming,lots of worrying behaviour We
tried all different types oftherapies and counselors and
everything to help them andnothing seemed to be working.
(02:53):
Eventually we hit COVID and Ithink this was a huge, for a lot
of people I speak to, this hasbeen a huge sort of catalyst for
them.
When we started coming out ofisolation the wheels just fell
off, especially for one of mychildren.
And then we ended up with ahospitalisation.
(03:15):
Still didn't know that anybodywas autistic.
And eventually after we triedall the medications and
therapies.
A female psychologist in mydaughter's CAMHS team said, Hey,
maybe we should test for autism.
And yeah.
And then went through thetesting process, which wasn't
(03:37):
easy because my daughter was avery high masker, appeared to be
very social, very high achieverat school and, what we've
discovered since is, would fitinto that twice exceptional
place.
And yeah, she just reached thepoint where she just could not
(03:58):
go to school anymore, eventhough being incredibly bright
and really loving learning, butjust, just couldn't.
So two years of being at home,eventually dropping out of
school and us trying to figureout how to help her.
Didn't know anything aboutburnout back then.
(04:19):
Eventually I came across, Ithink it was Dr.
Anna Neff's work around burnoutand started piecing bits
together.
And then once we had thelanguage of burnout and low
demand parenting and just beingable to support her in a
different way, we started to seesome recovery happening.
(04:44):
Ultimately, she never actuallywent back to school, but this
year she has finished her firstyear of university.
Leisa Reichelt (04:51):
wow..
Tanya Valentin (04:51):
So that is amazing.
And I discovered along the waythat there is just so many other
different paths to education,right.
We're brought up to believethere's just this one path that
all children have to walk down.
But there's been so manydifferent ways that she's still
been able to learn and doeducation and to ultimately be
(05:13):
in a program that reallystimulates her and to be able to
study in the way that she wouldlike to.
Leisa Reichelt (05:19):
What's she studying?
Tanya Valentin (05:19):
Astrophysics.
Leisa Reichelt (05:22):
Oh my God,
Tanya Valentin (05:22):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (05:25):
That's incredible.
Go her.
That's amazing.
Tanya, when you tell this story,it sounds to me as though you
had lots of professional peoplearound you trying to help
Tanya Valentin (05:38):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (05:38):
and getting you the autism diagnosis, which is
good,
Tanya Valentin (05:41):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (05:42):
in terms of understanding the burnout side
of things and what to do, thatfeels as though that landed a
lot with you to find theresources and gain the
understanding.
Is that your experience?
Tanya Valentin (05:58):
Absolutely None of the professionals knew about
burnout.
They all looked at us throughthe anxiety and depression lens.
Their approach was, let's justget her back to school as quick
as possible.
Nobody was saying, Hey, she'sjust really exhausted.
Her system is burnt out.
This is a nervous system thing,not a mental health thing.
(06:23):
And I know that they canoverlap, SSRIs that we, give
kids for depression or anxiety,none of them had an impact.
They actually made things worse.
Leisa Reichelt (06:36):
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Valentin (06:38):
yeah, a lot of that was just figuring out, oh,
okay, let's try this.
And going with faith andintuition a lot of the time.
We eventually started piecingtogether and, and figuring
things out.
Leisa Reichelt (06:53):
That must have been quite scary.
Tanya Valentin (06:56):
Definitely was, because a lot of the things that
I had to do as a parent wentagainst my upbringing.
How i'd been taught to parent.
Before all of this, I was ateacher as well.
So, I had the lens of educationthrough that behaviourist lens
(07:16):
and
Leisa Reichelt (07:17):
hmm.
Tanya Valentin (07:17):
I found myself having to confront all of that.
Our family was in a crisispoint.
My relationship with my husbandwas not great.
Our children, they were all at areally low point.
I was faced with like.
What we've been doing hasn'tbeen working, so we have to try
something else.
(07:40):
It was an option that I thinkmany parents are faced with of,
we just have to do somethingdrastically different here, or
we are just going to end uprepeating this cycle again and
again.
Leisa Reichelt (07:54):
Part of the reason that it's scary is
because it doesn't always workquickly.
Like you have to stick with it.
This low demand, all of thisstuff that flies in the face of
what everyone's telling you thatyou should be doing.
You have to stick with it for agood period of time, months
often, before you see any signof it working.
Tanya Valentin (08:18):
Absolutely, and I think this is the hard thing
for a lot of parents.
I find this in my work withfamilies as well, that we as
parents want to fix thebehaviour or we're wanting to
fix the symptom of what we'reseeing.
And a lot of the work isactually about repairing
relationships.
So it's incredibly frustratingand worrying because you're
(08:41):
seeing all this really,sometimes damaging behaviour
like self harm or restrictiveeating or just wanting to go
into their room and not comeout.
And you've been told as aparent, well, you need to go and
fix that behaviour.
And if you're not doingsomething about the behaviour,
(09:02):
you've been neglectful as aparent and you're not doing your
job.
I know for my children, a lot ofwhat I needed to do was just
repair my relationship with thembecause we'd gotten to a point
they saw me as part of theproblem.
Where they felt like theycouldn't trust me because I'd
been listening to everybodyoutside of me and doing all
(09:26):
these things that people weretelling me to do, that my
children just didn't trust meanymore.
They had to feel like we were onthe same team before I was able
to actually help them and for usto actually influence any type
of behaviour that most peopleare concerned about first.
Leisa Reichelt (09:47):
Yeah.
That resonates with me so muchfor probably the last six or
eight months.
That's the main thing I've beenworking on with my son since he
came out of school and startedhome education.
The main thing I had to convincehim was that when he told me he
did not have the energy to dosomething, I would believe him
and I would listen and I wouldnot try to coerce him to do one
(10:11):
more thing or walk home from themovies or to just go and do one
class Because I spent so muchtime just going, okay, we'll
just do one more thing.
You'll be fine.
One more thing.
And that completely destroyedthe trust between us and his
belief that I was doing my jobto look out for him and his
(10:31):
interest.
I had become part of the systemthat was trying to coerce him
into doing things that he didn'tfeel like he had the capacity to
do.
Tanya Valentin (10:40):
Yeah.
And I think the other reallyhard bit, and I dunno if you've
experienced this, is that a lotof times you're having to sit
and listen to your child talkabout how you failed them as a
parent, and do it in a way thatfocuses on actually listening
(11:01):
and validating their experienceand not being on the defensive
because it hurts so much to hearthem talk about the relationship
that way.
Leisa Reichelt (11:13):
Yeah.
I still feel as though my headis in two places when those
conversations happen on the onehand I feel sadness and regret,
for things that I did butthere's still a part of me that
goes, when you are 30, are yougoing to look back and go, why
(11:33):
didn't mum make me go to school?
Why didn't mum make me brush myteeth twice a day?
Why didn't mum force me to eatmore healthy food?
I just wonder in the longer term'cause we get told this, if you
don't do this, you're going toregret it when you're older.
I was told so many things I wasgoing to regret when I was
older.
The tattoos.
I didn't get that.
I probably would never haveregretted.
Tanya Valentin (11:56):
It is so tricky because the truth is we don't
know.
We can only do our best asparents with what we have at the
moment.
Sometimes our children mightlook back at choices that we've
made as parents and go, why didyou make their choice?
Why didn't you do that?
And I suppose if my child saidthat to me, I would validate
(12:21):
that experience and say, well, Icould totally see why you would
think that way.
And maybe even open aconversation about that and
approach it from more of acollaborative way rather than
feeling really defensive,because a lot of defensiveness
comes from us feeling a lot ofshame about our parenting and
(12:48):
how we hoped that we would'vebeen able to, to do things
differently.
Leisa Reichelt (12:53):
Tanya, one of the reasons that I wanted to
talk with you today was becauseof the work that you do with
families.
We spend a lot of time focusingon and talking about our kids,
and rightly so,
Tanya Valentin (13:05):
Hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (13:06):
but it is also a huge experience for the parents
involved as well.
Can you talk a little bit aboutgrief and shame and how that's
experienced, why we'd need to dothe work, to let it go, why that
matters and maybe how we mightstart thinking about going about
(13:28):
that.
Tanya Valentin (13:29):
This is such an important thing to talk about
because in a lot of parentingspaces, we are told we are not
supposed to feel grief.
That if we feel a certain way orwe say, you know, I'm grieving,
people automatically go to,well, you don't love your child,
or you don't accept them for whothey are.
(13:49):
And that's a big social normthat I really want us to push
aside when we start talkingabout grief, because there are
lots of different ways that wecan experience grief, but as a
culture, we are very griefilliterate, we just associate
grief with someone dying.
Leisa Reichelt (14:09):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (14:10):
So we don't have a lot of language to put to our
experience and.
I discovered Dr.
Francis Weller's work quiteearly on in my journey.
And learning to have language toprocess how I was feeling
extremely helpful because thereare lots of different ways that
(14:32):
we can experience grief asparents whose children are in
burnout.
Our experience touches all fivegates of grief that he talks
about.
The first one being thateverything we love ends, which
is our typical way of looking atgrief, but there's also the
grief for the parts of us thatnever received love.
Leisa Reichelt (14:52):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (14:53):
The sorrows of the world and how we experience
just everything that's happeningin our world.
There's also what we expected,but didn't receive, which I
think is a huge one for parents.
And then also our ancestralgrief.
Especially if we come from afamily of undiagnosed neuro
(15:14):
divergent people, and a lot oftimes we have so much
disconnection or dysfunction,addiction, just all these things
happening in our families thatwe are now finding that we have
to heal from as parents.
When I found out that I wasneurodivergent, I thought back
(15:35):
to my grandma who is no longerwith us.
She had what I recognized astimes of burnout herself, but
people just thought, she's had anervous breakdown and then they
would institutionalize her.
I feel a lot of grief for howshe was never understood and
never supported in the rightway.
(15:56):
As we navigate this, it's notjust about how do I support my
child.
Its totally changing yourperspective and bringing up a
lot of your old trauma thatsometimes you feel like you've
healed from and reprocessing itthrough a new lens.
It really changes us.
(16:17):
There's a lot of transformationthat happens for parents during
this time as well.
Leisa Reichelt (16:22):
I wanna dig into transformation very soon, but I
wanna dwell on grief for alittle bit longer because I
would love for us just toarticulate, you know, what are
some of the really typicalthings that parents in this
community are grieving andlegitimately grieving.
Tanya Valentin (16:42):
A lot of us, we grow up seeing all the happy
families on TV or the peoplearound us.
We think, we're going to havesomething just like that.
Especially if your childhoodwasn't the best and you think,
well, I'm going to createsomething different for my
child.
then because of circumstancesyou can't do that.
(17:06):
I know a lot of families wherethey can't even sit down at the
table and eat a meal togetherbecause it's just too
overwhelming for the differentpeople in their families.
Sometimes it feels like a littlething, but for some families
that's a huge, part of grief.
Or, we're coming up to theholidays now and there are lots
of families that one parent hasto take a child to an event and
(17:30):
the other child has to stay homewith the other parent, and they
can't experience that together.
We might have this idea of theexperiences that our children
are going to have in theirschooling, you know, the
milestones they're going to beable to meet or the social
activities they'll be part of.
A lot of it's having to let goof that sort of stuff.
(17:51):
Another one that's that's hugefor a lot of families is when
you go through this experience,you change to such an extent
that the people around you, youfeel like you can't relate to
them anymore.
You can't have a conversation.
Leisa Reichelt (18:09):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (18:09):
You really miss the community that you thought
you would have or just peoplewho could understand or you
could talk to.
If someone hasn't gone throughsomething similar, it's very
hard for you to relate to themand them to relate to you.
You might have family memberswho still believe in the old way
(18:32):
of parenting.
Every time you meet with them,they tell you what a horrible
job you're doing, how you'regoing to ruin your child.
Letting go of thoserelationships can be a huge part
of grief.
Leisa Reichelt (18:46):
I know in the School Can't community, there
are a awful lot of mums who havehad to give up careers that they
really love, jobs that theyreally enjoyed, financial
security that they really wantedto have throughout their life
that has just crumbled in theface of School Can't.
It's not exactly the most joyfulconversation, but I think it is
worth acknowledging that for alot of us, there are a lot of
(19:10):
things to grieve.
Tanya Valentin (19:11):
Yeah.
I found that before my daughterwent into burnout, I had started
a career doing professionaldevelopment for educators.
And it was like my own businessthat I had nurtured from an idea
and I had to give it all up.
I couldn't do any of thatbecause it involved a lot of
(19:34):
time away, a lot of travel, andmy world just got so small.
All I was doing was just at homesupporting my child.
And that was, where I wanted tobe.
But, there is also the grief ofyour own personal identity as a
person.
Leisa Reichelt (19:52):
Tanya, we could disappear into the well of
despair here without too muchtrouble.
Help us understand why we shouldgive this some thought and
consideration.
Why we need to process it and,what are some pointers for how
to move through?
Tanya Valentin (20:10):
I think, why we should take time to process it
is because if we are carryingaround grief that we can't
process it forms a barrier toconnection with the people
around us.
When we are feeling a lot ofunprocessed grief, it shows up
in other ways, like resentmenttowards our child or other
(20:35):
people around us.
It shows up as disconnectionbecause we are just feeling so
numb and disconnected fromourselves because we are just,
we've been told you shouldn'tfeel this way.
So that brings up a lot ofshame.
I'm a bad person.
I'm feeling all these feelings,and I shouldn't be feeling them.
(20:57):
I should be feeling X, Y, Z, orI should be feeling grateful.
All these things that we've beentaught to do to bypass our
feelings.
Or another thing that I hearquite a lot is, well, you just
need to accept it.
And I am a big believer inradical acceptance.
But it's only one part of thegrief process.
(21:20):
You have to experience all theother things and process all the
other things in order to makethat acceptance possible.
Leisa Reichelt (21:29):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (21:30):
Because if you don't, you just end up in what I
like to call'almost acceptancemode', where you're like, oh,
yeah, I accept that my childcan't go to school and that's
fine, but I need for them tostart doing something, right?
Leisa Reichelt (21:43):
Yeah.
Tanya Valentin (21:44):
I accept that they need to be at home and we
need to try all these differenttherapies and things to get them
better so that they can go backto school.
So we're not actually reallyaccepting it.
Leisa Reichelt (21:56):
Tolerating,
Tanya Valentin (21:58):
We haven't really been able to develop that
emotional depth in ourselves tobe able to even hold our own
acceptance.
But it also makes it difficultfor us to hold the emotions of
our children and their grief.
Leisa Reichelt (22:15):
Which is a big part of the job.
Tanya Valentin (22:17):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (22:18):
So where do we get started on this?
If we're kind of blocked on ourown grief.
Tanya Valentin (22:22):
Exploring putting some language to it, and
just having some awareness thatit's there, first.
Awareness is always the firststep.
And just allowing yourself to beable to have an emotion or to
label an emotional, to feelsomething.
We sometimes feel, especially ifyou've been suppressing your
(22:43):
emotions, if I allow myself tofeel this feeling, I'm just
going to be pulled down and I'mnever going to be able to get
back up out of it again.
Leisa Reichelt (22:53):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (22:54):
And we just bottle those feelings up and
then they feel harder and harderfor us to process.
Leisa Reichelt (23:01):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (23:01):
So sometimes it is working with a therapist or
somebody who can be acompassionate witness for you.
I worked through a lot of thisthrough journaling and writing
down what I was feeling at thetime.
There are a lot of differentways that we can do this and
other ways just to embraceself-compassion.
(23:24):
The simple three stepself-compassion break.
This is suffering, this is astruggle, or this is hard and
I'm not the only one who feelsthis way.
And then I always like to do itas if like third person was
talking to me or I was eventalking to my younger self and
(23:45):
say something like, this feelsreally hard and we are going to
get through this together.
Or, this felt really importantto you and nobody acknowledged
that.
Giving yourself a little bit ofkindness and words you would
like others to say to you inthat moment can be incredibly
powerful and healing.
(24:06):
Just to be able to startincorporating that into your own
language, because the firstthing we do when we feel like we
shouldn't experience somethingis we criticise ourselves
Leisa Reichelt (24:15):
The other thing that you mentioned earlier that
I think is related to this, it'slike the grief is the cleansing
process that opens you up to thegreater transformation.
And I have heard a number ofSchool Can't parents say that,
although living through SchoolCan't with their kids and
(24:36):
learning what they needed tolearn and going through that
whole process, is extremelydifficult, and in some ways you
wouldn't wish it on anybody.
At the same time, it does changeyou as a person so dramatically
in a way that you wouldn'tnecessarily wish yourself back
to how you were before.
Tanya Valentin (24:55):
I call it the spiritual awakening that I
wasn't expecting and maybe evendidn't want.
But it definitely is somethingthat I think happens to a lot of
parents, perhaps people don'treally talk about.
What I'm sharing isn't aboutdiminishing the hard or
(25:18):
bypassing how traumatic this canbe.
To me it's kind of like a thisand this sort of situation.
The thing that I did find aboutthis experience was that, first
of all, when it happens and yourworld gets really, really small,
(25:38):
it's really hard.
But I also feel like it has apurpose and I almost look at it
as an intentional separation.
Before our children go intoSchool Can't or into burnout, we
spend a lot of time listening toother people, doing all the
(26:00):
things that people tell us weshould be doing, and then we
need time for that noise to diedown.
And for us to be able to starthearing our own internal
dialogue, and for us to starttrusting ourselves again through
trial and error.
And we can't do that when wehave lots of people talking in
(26:21):
our ear.
Leisa Reichelt (26:22):
You need to create the space, don't you?
For new ideas to come in.
Tanya Valentin (26:26):
We've got into a place in our society where we've
stopped trusting ourselves.
Leisa Reichelt (26:32):
Yes.
Tanya Valentin (26:34):
Even before we had AI, I would find myself just
faced with a situation that Iactually knew the answer to as a
parent, but instead I wouldGoogle it.
What should I decide to do aboutsuch and such?
So allowing yourself a bit ofspace to start trying things.
(26:59):
Giving yourself a whole lot ofcompassion and approaching
things from a beginner's mind isreally important.
And as we do things like, I'm abig believer in, if you walk on
the path, the path will openitself in front of you.
(27:22):
As we do things, as we start tosee results.
Like almost like even know ifyou're a scientist and you're
sort of just looking at thesituation and gathering data
about, oh, I did this, or, Iapproached this situation in a
new way and this changed.
(27:42):
Just being able to open thatspace and for you to learn to
trust yourself a little bitwithout all the people outside
of you trying to give you inputthe whole time an important
first part of thattransformation process.
Leisa Reichelt (27:58):
I think I'm hearing a couple of things in
there.
I'm hearing one thing, which isthat you learn to let go of any
idea of certainty as to what thefuture's going to hold,
Tanya Valentin (28:10):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (28:11):
I think in the life before School Can't.
We're like, well, of course mykid will go to primary school
and then they'll go to highschool and they'll get their
ATAR I'm speaking Australianhere.
So apologies to people who havegot different processes then
they can do whatever they likeat uni, but as long as they go
to uni and then they'll get ajob and then they'll do this.
And you just have this kind ofsense of certainty of what the
(28:33):
steps of life are.
And that of course, the kids aregoing to follow those steps.
And then that gets blown up.
And then I think you go, okay,well I don't even really know
what's going to happen today orthis week or this month, and I
think that's, learning to livewithout that, that false
(28:54):
certainty for the future is,it's very difficult.
The other thing that you talkedabout that really resonated with
me was getting in touch withyour own sense of what's going
on, whether that's yourintuition or your own beliefs or
your own reading of thesituation.
'cause as a, as a late diagnosedautistic person, I've spent my
(29:18):
entire life looking externallyfor guidance feedback and
validation.
I've never trusted myselfbecause when I did that, things
usually went badly.
Having to flip that around andgoing, maybe, I've got just as
good a chance at getting thisright as anybody else does has
been a, a huge change for mepersonally.
Tanya Valentin (29:38):
Yeah.
And I really just resonate withwhat you're saying about it,
feeling really scary.
Sometimes it really feels likeyou are off grid on this road
where there is no map, there'sno path, and you're having to
create your own path.
(30:00):
And the thing that I alwayscling to was the path that I had
followed that others had put infront of me had gotten us to
this place.
And even before my daughter wentinto burnout, before we found
out that we were autistic, Iremember clearly I went through
(30:23):
a period where I was looking inthe mirror and going, who am I?
Because I, I just spent all mylife listening to other people,
pleasing other people, andprobably masking very heavily to
fit in.
I had no idea who I was as aperson anymore, what I thought,
(30:47):
what I wanted, because I put somuch trust in what other people
said that I should be doing.
Part of the transformation isbeing able to listen to yourself
say, okay, my sense is this iswhat we should be doing.
Nobody else knows our childrenthe way that we know them.
(31:11):
And another huge part of it, Ifeel, is actually just tuning
into your child and their needsand letting go of some of that
narrative that we have aboutchildren always needing to be
controlled.
That they're always trying tomanipulate you, that they've
(31:31):
always got ill intent.
You know, even from littlebabies, I remember people
saying, you can't pick them upwhen they cry'cause they're just
trying to manipulate you And Ialso realized that alot of the
times when I went against what Ithought my child needed and did
(31:52):
something somebody else told meto, I could feel it in my body
that that wasn't the rightchoice.
I'd spent a lot of my life goingagainst my own instincts as a
parent, learning to mistrustthose instincts as you're just
being too soft or you're goingto do harm to your child.
(32:17):
And then realizing, well, Ifollowed all the advice that
I've been given and my child'seven worse off than if I had
listened to myself.
Learning to lean into the actualfeelings in your body and your
own understanding about who yourchild is as a person rather than
(32:39):
the lens that people have triedto make you believe about your
child, is another huge part ofthat.
Leisa Reichelt (32:46):
Once you start doing that, quite often you can
discover that there are a wholerange of people who have been
researching and writing andthinking about this for a long
time.
There's actually a vast resourcethat's available to help support
(33:07):
this different way of thinkingand being in the world that I
was completely unaware of.
So partly it's intuitive and,trusting what you see and know,
but also it's reaching out andlooking for different things
than what people have beenputting in front of you.
Tanya Valentin (33:23):
Oh, 100%.
A huge part for me in thatprocess was, research and the
things that I was, looking intoto back up my new perspective.
Part of this process is you'replanting seeds.
But you actually need thingsaround you to help nurture those
(33:43):
seeds so they can start toflower and bear fruit.
I think for me this reallystarted when, and I was still
the teacher at this stage, therewas this Hungarian pediatrician
called Dr.
Emmi Pikler, and she was allabout seeing infants whole
(34:06):
people worthy of respect and apartnership between that infant
and you as the person takingcare of them.
The way that we are finding moreand more about neuroscience,
about the brain, about thenervous system, those things
(34:28):
back up us actually.
doing the low demand, followingour children's needs, the things
that we've learned about thedifferent parts of the brain how
that influences our children'sbehaviour, was such an
eye-opener for me because itmade me realize that a lot of
(34:49):
times when children are behavingin a certain way, it's not
because they're intentionallytrying to do it, that there is a
deeper need, that there are inperhaps a different part of
their brain or their nervoussystem.
We are just thinking, oh, it'sjust bad behaviour.
But is actually a neurologicalreason behind that, and that was
(35:12):
really eye-opening for me as aparent.
Leisa Reichelt (35:16):
I often say to people, I've learned more in the
past two or three years ofsupporting my son than I did
probably in the 10 years priorto that.
The intensity of the knowledgethat I've gained and how it's
shaped me as a human has beenincredibly intense.
But I dunno what to do with itnecessarily.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, great, now I know allthese things and I still don't
(35:38):
have a job.
Do you have any way of bundlingit up a little bit and going,
this is why it matters.
Tanya Valentin (35:45):
I love to think of things in terms of a metaphor
of what's happening in nature.
We replicate cycles in naturebeing part of the natural world
ourselves.
The metaphor that made the mostsense to me is that of the
caterpillar to the butterfly.
Before we have moments wherethey might stop going to school
(36:05):
or go into burnout we struggle,we're a totally different being.
When we reach this point wherethe crisis happens, we have to
move this space of darkness.
It's almost as if we're goinginto that chrysalis.
So when the caterpillar goesinto the chrysalis, it doesn't
(36:29):
just be a caterpillar that growwings, it actually dissolves.
Like it just turns to goo.
And when you're in thatchrysalis stage, a lot of times
it's just getting through theday.
You know, you're not thinkingabout this on a deeper sort of
(36:49):
level, but through this process,you are changing.
You're evolving all the time.
There's a lot of days like that,just like the caterpillar who's
turned to goo.
And the other part of it too isthat sometimes we have some
ideas of how our future's goingor where we're forming into the
(37:12):
butterfly.
But also what happens in theirchrysalis is that the cells that
will eventually form thebutterfly, they will form, and
then they dissolve again, andthen they form and they dissolve
again.
And it's like that for us too.
We are changing and we'reshaping, and sometimes we just
(37:32):
need to give ourselvescompassion and just be patient
with ourselves because are justdoing the best that we can with
the capacity, the understanding,and what is available to us at
that time.
And then there is a time whereour children come out of
burnout.
The stage that we are in now isnot going to be the stage that
(37:54):
we're in forever, even though itsometimes feels like it's going
on forever.
But as our children grow andmature, they're going to change
their life stage.
It's going to, look different towhat we imagine, but it's not
going to stay the same.
And for us as parents, we'reemerging at that time too.
sometimes with the butterfly,the butterfly doesn't just come
(38:18):
out of the chrysalis and thenflies off.
There is a struggle to come outof the chrysalis.
You have to have time to dryyour wings.
For us as parents, when we arecoming out of this time,
sometimes we have to allowourselves just a bit of time and
(38:39):
space to rediscover who we areas a person.
Now that we're not a full-timearound the clock caregiver of
our child.
Leisa Reichelt (38:50):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (38:50):
Sometimes the things that we really enjoyed as
a child and we thought we woulddo as an adult, and it never
worked out that way.
Sometimes those things come backto us again.
Leisa Reichelt (39:02):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (39:02):
When I was a child, I really wanted to be an
author I never allowed myself todo that.
But because I let go of so muchsocial shoulds and conventions,
I found it was in myself to beable to actually lean into the
thing I really wanted to do.
So I do a lot more writing now.
Leisa Reichelt (39:24):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (39:25):
You know, sometimes it's just figuring out
one little thing that you enjoyor that you know about yourself.
And just taking that first step,like not thinking about the
whole staircase, but justthinking, oh, what is it that
I'm being pulled to do rightnow?
And allowing that to take shape.
Leisa Reichelt (39:44):
And enjoying the fact that you're not locked in
by the conventions that probablyyou were for a lot of your life
beforehand.
Tanya Valentin (39:51):
Absolutely.
Leisa Reichelt (39:52):
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Valentin (39:53):
There is grief in that too because, we've had
to give up a life.
An identity, we've had to giveup a lifestyle.
And there's also the realizationthat that lifestyle or that
identity beforehand wasn'tsustainable for you in the long
(40:13):
run.
And that's why we've enteredinto this process.
And a lot of times you're inthis place of feeling like
you're in a more authenticrelationship with yourself and
with your child.
Leisa Reichelt (40:27):
And that might not sound like a lot, but it
actually really is.
Tanya Valentin (40:30):
Yeah.
I love, there's a quote by, thebook's called The Prophet and he
talks about the storm and hesays when we get to the other
side of the storm, we will notknow how we got through the
storm or even what the storm wasabout, but the truth about that
storm is that it's going to havechanged you.
(40:51):
And that's the whole point ofthe storm.
I resonate with that because,you get to this point, you're
like, I don't know how we gotthrough this.
I don't know what this wasabout.
I'm different.
My child's different.
Our family's different.
Our life is different, that canbe a really amazing thing.
(41:16):
It's really hard and it's a lotof trauma that I'm still having
to work through myself about myexperience.
But as you said, I wouldn't giveany of that back because as a
person, I have learned and grownso much through the process.
Leisa Reichelt (41:34):
Tanya, if we have folk listening to us who
are in the middle of the stormright now and would like some
guidance to make their waythrough the storm, what
resources would you suggest theyconsider?
Tanya Valentin (41:53):
I think the most important thing we can, do here
is if there is a person in yourlife you have a trusting
relationship with, do talk tothat person.
First, look at the resources inyour immediate community.
Sometimes when we're in thesesituations and we are so locked
(42:19):
in shame because we might thinkI'm just a bad parent or I'm
just a bad person, we don'trealize that we can actually ask
for help.
Not everybody in your life isgoing to be like that, but there
might just be that one person.
Trying to find your tribe orcommunity can be incredibly
helpful.
(42:39):
I see this in my community allthe time that I have for parents
Even though the other parentscan't fix their parents'
problem, having someone say,yeah, I really get that.
I really understand that.
I've had times like that too canjust be so healing for us
because, ah.
(43:02):
You know, there's not a lot ofpeople that we can actually talk
to about that or have peopleunderstand.
And I think also knowledge iskey.
So if you do have the capacityfinding truly neuro affirming
resources that'll help you tounderstand your child,
(43:25):
understand yourself andnormalises other ways of doing
things can be really helpfultoo.
Like I learned so much frompeople like Kristi Forbes, Dr.
Naomi Fisher.
Those people who can really justput what we're going through and
those ideas into words beincredibly helpful.
(43:48):
Because we need to haveexamples, we need to have other
people we can look at their workand go, yes, I can, I can see
myself in that and I'm notalone.
And I think, you know, inpartnerships and families, in
your marriage as well,'causethere's usually one parent that
is doing all the research,
Leisa Reichelt (44:08):
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Valentin (44:09):
Sometimes when we are experiencing something
really intimately, it's veryhard for us to put it into words
that doesn't sound like we'rejust trying to lecture somebody
or we're trying to get our pointacross.
So having other resources orknowledge that we can share with
others can be incredibly helpfulin that space as well.
Leisa Reichelt (44:32):
And Tanya, if folks have kids who are
experiencing burnout, you've gotsome services available to help
support there as well.
Tanya Valentin (44:41):
Yes.
So I do have my parent communityFrom Burnout To Balance.
We have a really wonderfulcommunity.
And then part of that is alsoresources and coursework and
things that parents can do ifthat's in the space that they're
in.
And then there's also like agroup coaching once a month
(45:02):
where we discuss things thatmight be going on for people in
real time and.
very low demand as well, soparents can just engage in it
the way that they would like to.
I also have a one-to-one,individualized parent coaching,
And I often see a lot of likeco-parents with that as well.
(45:23):
Which is really lovely becausethis journey can really tear
apart marriages andrelationships and partnerships.
So seeing parents come togetherand learn to understand their
child through a new lens can beincredibly powerful.
Leisa Reichelt (45:43):
We will put a link to all those in the episode
notes for folks who want to findout more.
Thank you so much for the workthat you do, and thank you for
sharing with us today on thepodcast.
Tanya Valentin (45:55):
Thank you so much for having me, Leisa.
Leisa Reichelt (45:57):
Well, I hope something in our conversation
with Tanya resonated with youtoday.
And if you are in the middle ofthe School Can't storm.
Know that you are not alone.
You can reach out to thecommunity and there are people
and resources to support you andhopefully on the other side of
this, we'll all find ourselvesas beautiful butterflies we
never imagined being.
If you have found our podcasthelpful, I would be so grateful
(46:18):
if you could take a moment tosubscribe or maybe give us a
rating or a review.
It does really help us get thepodcast in front of people who
have School Can't kids, and whohaven't yet found our School
Can't community and theinformation that we share.
If you have some feedback for usor perhaps a suggestion for a
future topic or guest, or maybeyou've been inspired to share
(46:39):
your own lived experience story,please drop me an email to
schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com.
I would love to hear from you.
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and you are feeling
distressed, remember you canalways call the Parent helpline
in your State or call Lifelineon 13 11 14 Thank you again for
(46:59):
listening and we will talk againsoon.
Take care.
Hello and welcome to the School Can't
Experience Podcast.
I'm Leisa Reichelt and thispodcast is brought to you by the
School Can't Australiacommunity.
Caring for a young person who'sstruggling to attend school can
be a stressful and isolatingexperience, but you are not
alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every
(00:26):
day.
Today we are joined by TanyaValentin, who is a New Zealand
based, neuro affirming familycoach, and whose program From
Burnout to Balance has helpedsupport many families through
difficult times.
Tanya is going to take us on adeep dive into the parenting
experience of School Can't andburnout, and all of the grief
(00:47):
and shame that can be part ofthat experience, but also the
transformation that can comefrom it as well.
I hope you enjoy ourconversation.
Tanya Valentin, thank you somuch for joining us on our
podcast today.
It's such a pleasure to have youhere.
Tanya Valentin (01:00):
Thank you so much for having me, Leisa.
Leisa Reichelt (01:03):
I would love it if we could start by getting to
know you a little bit, Tanya.
Can you tell us about yourselfand what's your story?
Tanya Valentin (01:12):
So, late diagnosed AuDHD person.
Discovered that I wasneurodivergent after my children
found out, like a lot of mums.
Only found out after my daughterwent into burnout for the first
time.
We've had a few burnouts.
It was such an eye-openingexperience for our whole family
(01:35):
because before that we didn'teven know that there was any
neurodivergence in our family.
For us it started with mychildren having a tricky
childhood, but nothing overtlyeye-opening.
But looking back through aneurodivergent lens, it was
(01:55):
probably just me having a verysimilar experience to them as a
child that made me just think,oh yeah, that's just normal.
Leisa Reichelt (02:04):
This is just what happens.
Tanya Valentin (02:05):
This is just what happens.
Then when we got to the teenageyears, I noticed that things
just started to crumble.
So my children are all bornfemale, although, some of them
have transitioned into othergenders.
I think there wasn't a lot ofunderstanding at that time about
(02:26):
girls who could possibly beautistic.
Leisa Reichelt (02:29):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (02:30):
So what we saw was a lot of mental health
stuff.
A lot of anxiety, depression.
Seeing things like self-harming,lots of worrying behaviour We
tried all different types oftherapies and counselors and
everything to help them andnothing seemed to be working.
(02:53):
Eventually we hit COVID and Ithink this was a huge, for a lot
of people I speak to, this hasbeen a huge sort of catalyst for
them.
When we started coming out ofisolation the wheels just fell
off, especially for one of mychildren.
And then we ended up with ahospitalisation.
(03:15):
Still didn't know that anybodywas autistic.
And eventually after we triedall the medications and
therapies.
A female psychologist in mydaughter's CAMHS team said, Hey,
maybe we should test for autism.
And yeah.
And then went through thetesting process, which wasn't
(03:37):
easy because my daughter was avery high masker, appeared to be
very social, very high achieverat school and, what we've
discovered since is, would fitinto that twice exceptional
place.
And yeah, she just reached thepoint where she just could not
(03:58):
go to school anymore, eventhough being incredibly bright
and really loving learning, butjust, just couldn't.
So two years of being at home,eventually dropping out of
school and us trying to figureout how to help her.
Didn't know anything aboutburnout back then.
(04:19):
Eventually I came across, Ithink it was Dr.
Anna Neff's work around burnoutand started piecing bits
together.
And then once we had thelanguage of burnout and low
demand parenting and just beingable to support her in a
different way, we started to seesome recovery happening.
(04:44):
Ultimately, she never actuallywent back to school, but this
year she has finished her firstyear of university.
Leisa Reichelt (04:51):
wow..
Tanya Valentin (04:51):
So that is amazing.
And I discovered along the waythat there is just so many other
different paths to education,right.
We're brought up to believethere's just this one path that
all children have to walk down.
But there's been so manydifferent ways that she's still
been able to learn and doeducation and to ultimately be
(05:13):
in a program that reallystimulates her and to be able to
study in the way that she wouldlike to.
Leisa Reichelt (05:19):
What's she studying?
Tanya Valentin (05:19):
Astrophysics.
Leisa Reichelt (05:22):
Oh my God,
Tanya Valentin (05:22):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (05:25):
That's incredible.
Go her.
That's amazing.
Tanya, when you tell this story,it sounds to me as though you
had lots of professional peoplearound you trying to help
Tanya Valentin (05:38):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (05:38):
and getting you the autism diagnosis, which is
good,
Tanya Valentin (05:41):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (05:42):
in terms of understanding the burnout side
of things and what to do, thatfeels as though that landed a
lot with you to find theresources and gain the
understanding.
Is that your experience?
Tanya Valentin (05:58):
Absolutely None of the professionals knew about
burnout.
They all looked at us throughthe anxiety and depression lens.
Their approach was, let's justget her back to school as quick
as possible.
Nobody was saying, Hey, she'sjust really exhausted.
Her system is burnt out.
This is a nervous system thing,not a mental health thing.
(06:23):
And I know that they canoverlap, SSRIs that we, give
kids for depression or anxiety,none of them had an impact.
They actually made things worse.
Leisa Reichelt (06:36):
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Valentin (06:38):
yeah, a lot of that was just figuring out, oh,
okay, let's try this.
And going with faith andintuition a lot of the time.
We eventually started piecingtogether and, and figuring
things out.
Leisa Reichelt (06:53):
That must have been quite scary.
Tanya Valentin (06:56):
Definitely was, because a lot of the things that
I had to do as a parent wentagainst my upbringing.
How i'd been taught to parent.
Before all of this, I was ateacher as well.
So, I had the lens of educationthrough that behaviourist lens
(07:16):
and
Leisa Reichelt (07:17):
hmm.
Tanya Valentin (07:17):
I found myself having to confront all of that.
Our family was in a crisispoint.
My relationship with my husbandwas not great.
Our children, they were all at areally low point.
I was faced with like.
What we've been doing hasn'tbeen working, so we have to try
something else.
(07:40):
It was an option that I thinkmany parents are faced with of,
we just have to do somethingdrastically different here, or
we are just going to end uprepeating this cycle again and
again.
Leisa Reichelt (07:54):
Part of the reason that it's scary is
because it doesn't always workquickly.
Like you have to stick with it.
This low demand, all of thisstuff that flies in the face of
what everyone's telling you thatyou should be doing.
You have to stick with it for agood period of time, months
often, before you see any signof it working.
Tanya Valentin (08:18):
Absolutely, and I think this is the hard thing
for a lot of parents.
I find this in my work withfamilies as well, that we as
parents want to fix thebehaviour or we're wanting to
fix the symptom of what we'reseeing.
And a lot of the work isactually about repairing
relationships.
So it's incredibly frustratingand worrying because you're
(08:41):
seeing all this really,sometimes damaging behaviour
like self harm or restrictiveeating or just wanting to go
into their room and not comeout.
And you've been told as aparent, well, you need to go and
fix that behaviour.
And if you're not doingsomething about the behaviour,
(09:02):
you've been neglectful as aparent and you're not doing your
job.
I know for my children, a lot ofwhat I needed to do was just
repair my relationship with thembecause we'd gotten to a point
they saw me as part of theproblem.
Where they felt like theycouldn't trust me because I'd
been listening to everybodyoutside of me and doing all
(09:26):
these things that people weretelling me to do, that my
children just didn't trust meanymore.
They had to feel like we were onthe same team before I was able
to actually help them and for usto actually influence any type
of behaviour that most peopleare concerned about first.
Leisa Reichelt (09:47):
Yeah.
That resonates with me so muchfor probably the last six or
eight months.
That's the main thing I've beenworking on with my son since he
came out of school and startedhome education.
The main thing I had to convincehim was that when he told me he
did not have the energy to dosomething, I would believe him
and I would listen and I wouldnot try to coerce him to do one
(10:11):
more thing or walk home from themovies or to just go and do one
class Because I spent so muchtime just going, okay, we'll
just do one more thing.
You'll be fine.
One more thing.
And that completely destroyedthe trust between us and his
belief that I was doing my jobto look out for him and his
(10:31):
interest.
I had become part of the systemthat was trying to coerce him
into doing things that he didn'tfeel like he had the capacity to
do.
Tanya Valentin (10:40):
Yeah.
And I think the other reallyhard bit, and I dunno if you've
experienced this, is that a lotof times you're having to sit
and listen to your child talkabout how you failed them as a
parent, and do it in a way thatfocuses on actually listening
(11:01):
and validating their experienceand not being on the defensive
because it hurts so much to hearthem talk about the relationship
that way.
Leisa Reichelt (11:13):
Yeah.
I still feel as though my headis in two places when those
conversations happen on the onehand I feel sadness and regret,
for things that I did butthere's still a part of me that
goes, when you are 30, are yougoing to look back and go, why
(11:33):
didn't mum make me go to school?
Why didn't mum make me brush myteeth twice a day?
Why didn't mum force me to eatmore healthy food?
I just wonder in the longer term'cause we get told this, if you
don't do this, you're going toregret it when you're older.
I was told so many things I wasgoing to regret when I was
older.
The tattoos.
I didn't get that.
I probably would never haveregretted.
Tanya Valentin (11:56):
It is so tricky because the truth is we don't
know.
We can only do our best asparents with what we have at the
moment.
Sometimes our children mightlook back at choices that we've
made as parents and go, why didyou make their choice?
Why didn't you do that?
And I suppose if my child saidthat to me, I would validate
(12:21):
that experience and say, well, Icould totally see why you would
think that way.
And maybe even open aconversation about that and
approach it from more of acollaborative way rather than
feeling really defensive,because a lot of defensiveness
comes from us feeling a lot ofshame about our parenting and
(12:48):
how we hoped that we would'vebeen able to, to do things
differently.
Leisa Reichelt (12:53):
Tanya, one of the reasons that I wanted to
talk with you today was becauseof the work that you do with
families.
We spend a lot of time focusingon and talking about our kids,
and rightly so,
Tanya Valentin (13:05):
Hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (13:06):
but it is also a huge experience for the parents
involved as well.
Can you talk a little bit aboutgrief and shame and how that's
experienced, why we'd need to dothe work, to let it go, why that
matters and maybe how we mightstart thinking about going about
(13:28):
that.
Tanya Valentin (13:29):
This is such an important thing to talk about
because in a lot of parentingspaces, we are told we are not
supposed to feel grief.
That if we feel a certain way orwe say, you know, I'm grieving,
people automatically go to,well, you don't love your child,
or you don't accept them for whothey are.
(13:49):
And that's a big social normthat I really want us to push
aside when we start talkingabout grief, because there are
lots of different ways that wecan experience grief, but as a
culture, we are very griefilliterate, we just associate
grief with someone dying.
Leisa Reichelt (14:09):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (14:10):
So we don't have a lot of language to put to our
experience and.
I discovered Dr.
Francis Weller's work quiteearly on in my journey.
And learning to have language toprocess how I was feeling
extremely helpful because thereare lots of different ways that
(14:32):
we can experience grief asparents whose children are in
burnout.
Our experience touches all fivegates of grief that he talks
about.
The first one being thateverything we love ends, which
is our typical way of looking atgrief, but there's also the
grief for the parts of us thatnever received love.
Leisa Reichelt (14:52):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (14:53):
The sorrows of the world and how we experience
just everything that's happeningin our world.
There's also what we expected,but didn't receive, which I
think is a huge one for parents.
And then also our ancestralgrief.
Especially if we come from afamily of undiagnosed neuro
(15:14):
divergent people, and a lot oftimes we have so much
disconnection or dysfunction,addiction, just all these things
happening in our families thatwe are now finding that we have
to heal from as parents.
When I found out that I wasneurodivergent, I thought back
(15:35):
to my grandma who is no longerwith us.
She had what I recognized astimes of burnout herself, but
people just thought, she's had anervous breakdown and then they
would institutionalize her.
I feel a lot of grief for howshe was never understood and
never supported in the rightway.
(15:56):
As we navigate this, it's notjust about how do I support my
child.
Its totally changing yourperspective and bringing up a
lot of your old trauma thatsometimes you feel like you've
healed from and reprocessing itthrough a new lens.
It really changes us.
(16:17):
There's a lot of transformationthat happens for parents during
this time as well.
Leisa Reichelt (16:22):
I wanna dig into transformation very soon, but I
wanna dwell on grief for alittle bit longer because I
would love for us just toarticulate, you know, what are
some of the really typicalthings that parents in this
community are grieving andlegitimately grieving.
Tanya Valentin (16:42):
A lot of us, we grow up seeing all the happy
families on TV or the peoplearound us.
We think, we're going to havesomething just like that.
Especially if your childhoodwasn't the best and you think,
well, I'm going to createsomething different for my
child.
then because of circumstancesyou can't do that.
(17:06):
I know a lot of families wherethey can't even sit down at the
table and eat a meal togetherbecause it's just too
overwhelming for the differentpeople in their families.
Sometimes it feels like a littlething, but for some families
that's a huge, part of grief.
Or, we're coming up to theholidays now and there are lots
of families that one parent hasto take a child to an event and
(17:30):
the other child has to stay homewith the other parent, and they
can't experience that together.
We might have this idea of theexperiences that our children
are going to have in theirschooling, you know, the
milestones they're going to beable to meet or the social
activities they'll be part of.
A lot of it's having to let goof that sort of stuff.
(17:51):
Another one that's that's hugefor a lot of families is when
you go through this experience,you change to such an extent
that the people around you, youfeel like you can't relate to
them anymore.
You can't have a conversation.
Leisa Reichelt (18:09):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (18:09):
You really miss the community that you thought
you would have or just peoplewho could understand or you
could talk to.
If someone hasn't gone throughsomething similar, it's very
hard for you to relate to themand them to relate to you.
You might have family memberswho still believe in the old way
(18:32):
of parenting.
Every time you meet with them,they tell you what a horrible
job you're doing, how you'regoing to ruin your child.
Letting go of thoserelationships can be a huge part
of grief.
Leisa Reichelt (18:46):
I know in the School Can't community, there
are a awful lot of mums who havehad to give up careers that they
really love, jobs that theyreally enjoyed, financial
security that they really wantedto have throughout their life
that has just crumbled in theface of School Can't.
It's not exactly the most joyfulconversation, but I think it is
worth acknowledging that for alot of us, there are a lot of
(19:10):
things to grieve.
Tanya Valentin (19:11):
Yeah.
I found that before my daughterwent into burnout, I had started
a career doing professionaldevelopment for educators.
And it was like my own businessthat I had nurtured from an idea
and I had to give it all up.
I couldn't do any of thatbecause it involved a lot of
(19:34):
time away, a lot of travel, andmy world just got so small.
All I was doing was just at homesupporting my child.
And that was, where I wanted tobe.
But, there is also the grief ofyour own personal identity as a
person.
Leisa Reichelt (19:52):
Tanya, we could disappear into the well of
despair here without too muchtrouble.
Help us understand why we shouldgive this some thought and
consideration.
Why we need to process it and,what are some pointers for how
to move through?
Tanya Valentin (20:10):
I think, why we should take time to process it
is because if we are carryingaround grief that we can't
process it forms a barrier toconnection with the people
around us.
When we are feeling a lot ofunprocessed grief, it shows up
in other ways, like resentmenttowards our child or other
(20:35):
people around us.
It shows up as disconnectionbecause we are just feeling so
numb and disconnected fromourselves because we are just,
we've been told you shouldn'tfeel this way.
So that brings up a lot ofshame.
I'm a bad person.
I'm feeling all these feelings,and I shouldn't be feeling them.
(20:57):
I should be feeling X, Y, Z, orI should be feeling grateful.
All these things that we've beentaught to do to bypass our
feelings.
Or another thing that I hearquite a lot is, well, you just
need to accept it.
And I am a big believer inradical acceptance.
But it's only one part of thegrief process.
(21:20):
You have to experience all theother things and process all the
other things in order to makethat acceptance possible.
Leisa Reichelt (21:29):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (21:30):
Because if you don't, you just end up in what I
like to call'almost acceptancemode', where you're like, oh,
yeah, I accept that my childcan't go to school and that's
fine, but I need for them tostart doing something, right?
Leisa Reichelt (21:43):
Yeah.
Tanya Valentin (21:44):
I accept that they need to be at home and we
need to try all these differenttherapies and things to get them
better so that they can go backto school.
So we're not actually reallyaccepting it.
Leisa Reichelt (21:56):
Tolerating,
Tanya Valentin (21:58):
We haven't really been able to develop that
emotional depth in ourselves tobe able to even hold our own
acceptance.
But it also makes it difficultfor us to hold the emotions of
our children and their grief.
Leisa Reichelt (22:15):
Which is a big part of the job.
Tanya Valentin (22:17):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (22:18):
So where do we get started on this?
If we're kind of blocked on ourown grief.
Tanya Valentin (22:22):
Exploring putting some language to it, and
just having some awareness thatit's there, first.
Awareness is always the firststep.
And just allowing yourself to beable to have an emotion or to
label an emotional, to feelsomething.
We sometimes feel, especially ifyou've been suppressing your
(22:43):
emotions, if I allow myself tofeel this feeling, I'm just
going to be pulled down and I'mnever going to be able to get
back up out of it again.
Leisa Reichelt (22:53):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (22:54):
And we just bottle those feelings up and
then they feel harder and harderfor us to process.
Leisa Reichelt (23:01):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (23:01):
So sometimes it is working with a therapist or
somebody who can be acompassionate witness for you.
I worked through a lot of thisthrough journaling and writing
down what I was feeling at thetime.
There are a lot of differentways that we can do this and
other ways just to embraceself-compassion.
(23:24):
The simple three stepself-compassion break.
This is suffering, this is astruggle, or this is hard and
I'm not the only one who feelsthis way.
And then I always like to do itas if like third person was
talking to me or I was eventalking to my younger self and
(23:45):
say something like, this feelsreally hard and we are going to
get through this together.
Or, this felt really importantto you and nobody acknowledged
that.
Giving yourself a little bit ofkindness and words you would
like others to say to you inthat moment can be incredibly
powerful and healing.
(24:06):
Just to be able to startincorporating that into your own
language, because the firstthing we do when we feel like we
shouldn't experience somethingis we criticise ourselves
Leisa Reichelt (24:15):
The other thing that you mentioned earlier that
I think is related to this, it'slike the grief is the cleansing
process that opens you up to thegreater transformation.
And I have heard a number ofSchool Can't parents say that,
although living through SchoolCan't with their kids and
(24:36):
learning what they needed tolearn and going through that
whole process, is extremelydifficult, and in some ways you
wouldn't wish it on anybody.
At the same time, it does changeyou as a person so dramatically
in a way that you wouldn'tnecessarily wish yourself back
to how you were before.
Tanya Valentin (24:55):
I call it the spiritual awakening that I
wasn't expecting and maybe evendidn't want.
But it definitely is somethingthat I think happens to a lot of
parents, perhaps people don'treally talk about.
What I'm sharing isn't aboutdiminishing the hard or
(25:18):
bypassing how traumatic this canbe.
To me it's kind of like a thisand this sort of situation.
The thing that I did find aboutthis experience was that, first
of all, when it happens and yourworld gets really, really small,
(25:38):
it's really hard.
But I also feel like it has apurpose and I almost look at it
as an intentional separation.
Before our children go intoSchool Can't or into burnout, we
spend a lot of time listening toother people, doing all the
(26:00):
things that people tell us weshould be doing, and then we
need time for that noise to diedown.
And for us to be able to starthearing our own internal
dialogue, and for us to starttrusting ourselves again through
trial and error.
And we can't do that when wehave lots of people talking in
(26:21):
our ear.
Leisa Reichelt (26:22):
You need to create the space, don't you?
For new ideas to come in.
Tanya Valentin (26:26):
We've got into a place in our society where we've
stopped trusting ourselves.
Leisa Reichelt (26:32):
Yes.
Tanya Valentin (26:34):
Even before we had AI, I would find myself just
faced with a situation that Iactually knew the answer to as a
parent, but instead I wouldGoogle it.
What should I decide to do aboutsuch and such?
So allowing yourself a bit ofspace to start trying things.
(26:59):
Giving yourself a whole lot ofcompassion and approaching
things from a beginner's mind isreally important.
And as we do things like, I'm abig believer in, if you walk on
the path, the path will openitself in front of you.
(27:22):
As we do things, as we start tosee results.
Like almost like even know ifyou're a scientist and you're
sort of just looking at thesituation and gathering data
about, oh, I did this, or, Iapproached this situation in a
new way and this changed.
(27:42):
Just being able to open thatspace and for you to learn to
trust yourself a little bitwithout all the people outside
of you trying to give you inputthe whole time an important
first part of thattransformation process.
Leisa Reichelt (27:58):
I think I'm hearing a couple of things in
there.
I'm hearing one thing, which isthat you learn to let go of any
idea of certainty as to what thefuture's going to hold,
Tanya Valentin (28:10):
Mm-hmm.
Leisa Reichelt (28:11):
I think in the life before School Can't.
We're like, well, of course mykid will go to primary school
and then they'll go to highschool and they'll get their
ATAR I'm speaking Australianhere.
So apologies to people who havegot different processes then
they can do whatever they likeat uni, but as long as they go
to uni and then they'll get ajob and then they'll do this.
And you just have this kind ofsense of certainty of what the
(28:33):
steps of life are.
And that of course, the kids aregoing to follow those steps.
And then that gets blown up.
And then I think you go, okay,well I don't even really know
what's going to happen today orthis week or this month, and I
think that's, learning to livewithout that, that false
(28:54):
certainty for the future is,it's very difficult.
The other thing that you talkedabout that really resonated with
me was getting in touch withyour own sense of what's going
on, whether that's yourintuition or your own beliefs or
your own reading of thesituation.
'cause as a, as a late diagnosedautistic person, I've spent my
(29:18):
entire life looking externallyfor guidance feedback and
validation.
I've never trusted myselfbecause when I did that, things
usually went badly.
Having to flip that around andgoing, maybe, I've got just as
good a chance at getting thisright as anybody else does has
been a, a huge change for mepersonally.
Tanya Valentin (29:38):
Yeah.
And I really just resonate withwhat you're saying about it,
feeling really scary.
Sometimes it really feels likeyou are off grid on this road
where there is no map, there'sno path, and you're having to
create your own path.
(30:00):
And the thing that I alwayscling to was the path that I had
followed that others had put infront of me had gotten us to
this place.
And even before my daughter wentinto burnout, before we found
out that we were autistic, Iremember clearly I went through
(30:23):
a period where I was looking inthe mirror and going, who am I?
Because I, I just spent all mylife listening to other people,
pleasing other people, andprobably masking very heavily to
fit in.
I had no idea who I was as aperson anymore, what I thought,
(30:47):
what I wanted, because I put somuch trust in what other people
said that I should be doing.
Part of the transformation isbeing able to listen to yourself
say, okay, my sense is this iswhat we should be doing.
Nobody else knows our childrenthe way that we know them.
(31:11):
And another huge part of it, Ifeel, is actually just tuning
into your child and their needsand letting go of some of that
narrative that we have aboutchildren always needing to be
controlled.
That they're always trying tomanipulate you, that they've
(31:31):
always got ill intent.
You know, even from littlebabies, I remember people
saying, you can't pick them upwhen they cry'cause they're just
trying to manipulate you And Ialso realized that alot of the
times when I went against what Ithought my child needed and did
(31:52):
something somebody else told meto, I could feel it in my body
that that wasn't the rightchoice.
I'd spent a lot of my life goingagainst my own instincts as a
parent, learning to mistrustthose instincts as you're just
being too soft or you're goingto do harm to your child.
(32:17):
And then realizing, well, Ifollowed all the advice that
I've been given and my child'seven worse off than if I had
listened to myself.
Learning to lean into the actualfeelings in your body and your
own understanding about who yourchild is as a person rather than
(32:39):
the lens that people have triedto make you believe about your
child, is another huge part ofthat.
Leisa Reichelt (32:46):
Once you start doing that, quite often you can
discover that there are a wholerange of people who have been
researching and writing andthinking about this for a long
time.
There's actually a vast resourcethat's available to help support
(33:07):
this different way of thinkingand being in the world that I
was completely unaware of.
So partly it's intuitive and,trusting what you see and know,
but also it's reaching out andlooking for different things
than what people have beenputting in front of you.
Tanya Valentin (33:23):
Oh, 100%.
A huge part for me in thatprocess was, research and the
things that I was, looking intoto back up my new perspective.
Part of this process is you'replanting seeds.
But you actually need thingsaround you to help nurture those
(33:43):
seeds so they can start toflower and bear fruit.
I think for me this reallystarted when, and I was still
the teacher at this stage, therewas this Hungarian pediatrician
called Dr.
Emmi Pikler, and she was allabout seeing infants whole
(34:06):
people worthy of respect and apartnership between that infant
and you as the person takingcare of them.
The way that we are finding moreand more about neuroscience,
about the brain, about thenervous system, those things
(34:28):
back up us actually.
doing the low demand, followingour children's needs, the things
that we've learned about thedifferent parts of the brain how
that influences our children'sbehaviour, was such an
eye-opener for me because itmade me realize that a lot of
(34:49):
times when children are behavingin a certain way, it's not
because they're intentionallytrying to do it, that there is a
deeper need, that there are inperhaps a different part of
their brain or their nervoussystem.
We are just thinking, oh, it'sjust bad behaviour.
But is actually a neurologicalreason behind that, and that was
(35:12):
really eye-opening for me as aparent.
Leisa Reichelt (35:16):
I often say to people, I've learned more in the
past two or three years ofsupporting my son than I did
probably in the 10 years priorto that.
The intensity of the knowledgethat I've gained and how it's
shaped me as a human has beenincredibly intense.
But I dunno what to do with itnecessarily.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, great, now I know allthese things and I still don't
(35:38):
have a job.
Do you have any way of bundlingit up a little bit and going,
this is why it matters.
Tanya Valentin (35:45):
I love to think of things in terms of a metaphor
of what's happening in nature.
We replicate cycles in naturebeing part of the natural world
ourselves.
The metaphor that made the mostsense to me is that of the
caterpillar to the butterfly.
Before we have moments wherethey might stop going to school
(36:05):
or go into burnout we struggle,we're a totally different being.
When we reach this point wherethe crisis happens, we have to
move this space of darkness.
It's almost as if we're goinginto that chrysalis.
So when the caterpillar goesinto the chrysalis, it doesn't
(36:29):
just be a caterpillar that growwings, it actually dissolves.
Like it just turns to goo.
And when you're in thatchrysalis stage, a lot of times
it's just getting through theday.
You know, you're not thinkingabout this on a deeper sort of
(36:49):
level, but through this process,you are changing.
You're evolving all the time.
There's a lot of days like that,just like the caterpillar who's
turned to goo.
And the other part of it too isthat sometimes we have some
ideas of how our future's goingor where we're forming into the
(37:12):
butterfly.
But also what happens in theirchrysalis is that the cells that
will eventually form thebutterfly, they will form, and
then they dissolve again, andthen they form and they dissolve
again.
And it's like that for us too.
We are changing and we'reshaping, and sometimes we just
(37:32):
need to give ourselvescompassion and just be patient
with ourselves because are justdoing the best that we can with
the capacity, the understanding,and what is available to us at
that time.
And then there is a time whereour children come out of
burnout.
The stage that we are in now isnot going to be the stage that
(37:54):
we're in forever, even though itsometimes feels like it's going
on forever.
But as our children grow andmature, they're going to change
their life stage.
It's going to, look different towhat we imagine, but it's not
going to stay the same.
And for us as parents, we'reemerging at that time too.
sometimes with the butterfly,the butterfly doesn't just come
(38:18):
out of the chrysalis and thenflies off.
There is a struggle to come outof the chrysalis.
You have to have time to dryyour wings.
For us as parents, when we arecoming out of this time,
sometimes we have to allowourselves just a bit of time and
(38:39):
space to rediscover who we areas a person.
Now that we're not a full-timearound the clock caregiver of
our child.
Leisa Reichelt (38:50):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (38:50):
Sometimes the things that we really enjoyed as
a child and we thought we woulddo as an adult, and it never
worked out that way.
Sometimes those things come backto us again.
Leisa Reichelt (39:02):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (39:02):
When I was a child, I really wanted to be an
author I never allowed myself todo that.
But because I let go of so muchsocial shoulds and conventions,
I found it was in myself to beable to actually lean into the
thing I really wanted to do.
So I do a lot more writing now.
Leisa Reichelt (39:24):
Hmm.
Tanya Valentin (39:25):
You know, sometimes it's just figuring out
one little thing that you enjoyor that you know about yourself.
And just taking that first step,like not thinking about the
whole staircase, but justthinking, oh, what is it that
I'm being pulled to do rightnow?
And allowing that to take shape.
Leisa Reichelt (39:44):
And enjoying the fact that you're not locked in
by the conventions that probablyyou were for a lot of your life
beforehand.
Tanya Valentin (39:51):
Absolutely.
Leisa Reichelt (39:52):
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Valentin (39:53):
There is grief in that too because, we've had
to give up a life.
An identity, we've had to giveup a lifestyle.
And there's also the realizationthat that lifestyle or that
identity beforehand wasn'tsustainable for you in the long
(40:13):
run.
And that's why we've enteredinto this process.
And a lot of times you're inthis place of feeling like
you're in a more authenticrelationship with yourself and
with your child.
Leisa Reichelt (40:27):
And that might not sound like a lot, but it
actually really is.
Tanya Valentin (40:30):
Yeah.
I love, there's a quote by, thebook's called The Prophet and he
talks about the storm and hesays when we get to the other
side of the storm, we will notknow how we got through the
storm or even what the storm wasabout, but the truth about that
storm is that it's going to havechanged you.
(40:51):
And that's the whole point ofthe storm.
I resonate with that because,you get to this point, you're
like, I don't know how we gotthrough this.
I don't know what this wasabout.
I'm different.
My child's different.
Our family's different.
Our life is different, that canbe a really amazing thing.
(41:16):
It's really hard and it's a lotof trauma that I'm still having
to work through myself about myexperience.
But as you said, I wouldn't giveany of that back because as a
person, I have learned and grownso much through the process.
Leisa Reichelt (41:34):
Tanya, if we have folk listening to us who
are in the middle of the stormright now and would like some
guidance to make their waythrough the storm, what
resources would you suggest theyconsider?
Tanya Valentin (41:53):
I think the most important thing we can, do here
is if there is a person in yourlife you have a trusting
relationship with, do talk tothat person.
First, look at the resources inyour immediate community.
Sometimes when we're in thesesituations and we are so locked
(42:19):
in shame because we might thinkI'm just a bad parent or I'm
just a bad person, we don'trealize that we can actually ask
for help.
Not everybody in your life isgoing to be like that, but there
might just be that one person.
Trying to find your tribe orcommunity can be incredibly
helpful.
(42:39):
I see this in my community allthe time that I have for parents
Even though the other parentscan't fix their parents'
problem, having someone say,yeah, I really get that.
I really understand that.
I've had times like that too canjust be so healing for us
because, ah.
(43:02):
You know, there's not a lot ofpeople that we can actually talk
to about that or have peopleunderstand.
And I think also knowledge iskey.
So if you do have the capacityfinding truly neuro affirming
resources that'll help you tounderstand your child,
(43:25):
understand yourself andnormalises other ways of doing
things can be really helpfultoo.
Like I learned so much frompeople like Kristi Forbes, Dr.
Naomi Fisher.
Those people who can really justput what we're going through and
those ideas into words beincredibly helpful.
(43:48):
Because we need to haveexamples, we need to have other
people we can look at their workand go, yes, I can, I can see
myself in that and I'm notalone.
And I think, you know, inpartnerships and families, in
your marriage as well,'causethere's usually one parent that
is doing all the research,
Leisa Reichelt (44:08):
Mm-hmm.
Tanya Valentin (44:09):
Sometimes when we are experiencing something
really intimately, it's veryhard for us to put it into words
that doesn't sound like we'rejust trying to lecture somebody
or we're trying to get our pointacross.
So having other resources orknowledge that we can share with
others can be incredibly helpfulin that space as well.
Leisa Reichelt (44:32):
And Tanya, if folks have kids who are
experiencing burnout, you've gotsome services available to help
support there as well.
Tanya Valentin (44:41):
Yes.
So I do have my parent communityFrom Burnout To Balance.
We have a really wonderfulcommunity.
And then part of that is alsoresources and coursework and
things that parents can do ifthat's in the space that they're
in.
And then there's also like agroup coaching once a month
(45:02):
where we discuss things thatmight be going on for people in
real time and.
very low demand as well, soparents can just engage in it
the way that they would like to.
I also have a one-to-one,individualized parent coaching,
And I often see a lot of likeco-parents with that as well.
(45:23):
Which is really lovely becausethis journey can really tear
apart marriages andrelationships and partnerships.
So seeing parents come togetherand learn to understand their
child through a new lens can beincredibly powerful.
Leisa Reichelt (45:43):
We will put a link to all those in the episode
notes for folks who want to findout more.
Thank you so much for the workthat you do, and thank you for
sharing with us today on thepodcast.
Tanya Valentin (45:55):
Thank you so much for having me, Leisa.
Leisa Reichelt (45:57):
Well, I hope something in our conversation
with Tanya resonated with youtoday.
And if you are in the middle ofthe School Can't storm.
Know that you are not alone.
You can reach out to thecommunity and there are people
and resources to support you andhopefully on the other side of
this, we'll all find ourselvesas beautiful butterflies we
never imagined being.
If you have found our podcasthelpful, I would be so grateful
(46:18):
if you could take a moment tosubscribe or maybe give us a
rating or a review.
It does really help us get thepodcast in front of people who
have School Can't kids, and whohaven't yet found our School
Can't community and theinformation that we share.
If you have some feedback for usor perhaps a suggestion for a
future topic or guest, or maybeyou've been inspired to share
(46:39):
your own lived experience story,please drop me an email to
schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com.
I would love to hear from you.
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and you are feeling
distressed, remember you canalways call the Parent helpline
in your State or call Lifelineon 13 11 14 Thank you again for
(46:59):
listening and we will talk againsoon.
Take care.
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