Speaker 1: We joke about this.
Speaker 2: We kind of had an affair for about three years
Speaker 2: until I fell in love and I was like, I
Speaker 2: can't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: It's either all or nothing.
Speaker 2: I think we always had crazy chemistry, and we like
Speaker 2: to do things, and I think we love a challenge,
Speaker 2: and it was almost like each other was a challenged
Speaker 2: I had never met anyone where I'd had such chemistry
Speaker 2: as I did with Mike.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to separate bathrooms. We would like to
Speaker 3: acknowledge the Gadigor people of the or nation that we
Speaker 3: record this podcast on today and give respect to their elders,
Speaker 3: both past and present. My name's Cam Dado.
Speaker 4: I'm Ali Dado.
Speaker 3: How are you feeling, sweetheart.
Speaker 5: I am under the weather. I'm okay, but just sort
Speaker 5: of muddling.
Speaker 4: Through a bit of a cold.
Speaker 3: Yes, whah yeah, as the Irish or the Gaelic say,
Speaker 3: you are with.
Speaker 5: A cold, correct, which is a lovely way to put it.
Speaker 3: It is very different to go when you see somebody,
Speaker 3: you go, how are you? I'm sick. I am sick.
Speaker 3: I am sick, I'm with.
Speaker 4: I am with sick, I am with Cameron. I am
Speaker 4: with sick.
Speaker 3: You are not. I am no, you're not. You are
Speaker 3: with sick. Yeah, it means you can create a little
Speaker 3: distance between us. Sure, sure, choose not to be with
Speaker 3: sick anymore?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would like to choose that. Like now, thanks
Speaker 4: very much.
Speaker 3: Who are we talking today?
Speaker 5: We are talking to the fabulous layol Stone and her
Speaker 5: amazing husband, Mike. Now I believe it is a first
Speaker 5: time podcast for Mike.
Speaker 4: Laye's done a lot.
Speaker 3: Actually, we're popping his podcast Cherry.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: In fact, Lae is a podcaster as well, amongst many
Speaker 5: other things, she's an Australian speaker. She's an educator and
Speaker 5: an author Our pass quite a line in our in
Speaker 5: our Passions. Currently she's actually educating parents on how to
Speaker 5: talk to their teenagers around sex. But she's been a dueler.
Speaker 5: She's then, she's talked to kids about sex in high schools.
Speaker 5: She's a mum, she's just fat, She's I can't wait
Speaker 5: to talk to her about her whole life history.
Speaker 3: Excellent. I'm I'm sure Mike fits in quite well.
Speaker 4: Oh, no doubt. They've got a great relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he would have absorbed a bunch of things
Speaker 3: yeah from her, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, Okay, Well, let's
Speaker 3: welcome Lee and Mike Stone to the bathroom. Hey, Lee
Speaker 3: and Mike, welcome to separate bathrooms.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5: We have disinfected the bathroom for you so you won't
Speaker 5: catch what I've got in case you're worried.
Speaker 3: You'll catch what she's putting down.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, tell us about your story. How did you meet, proposal,
Speaker 3: how long you have been married, all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: just so just so we can get some context around
Speaker 3: Lael Stone and Mike Goal who we don't understand Mike,
Speaker 3: why you didn't or Lao, why you didn't take Mike's
Speaker 3: name because you would have been a girl Stone?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, true, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 3: I can understand why.
Speaker 1: We actually we actually met.
Speaker 2: We went to the same school and it was our
Speaker 2: It was my year twelve media teacher that set us up,
Speaker 2: which is something that would just not happen these days.
Speaker 2: But Mike was really good friends with my year twelve
Speaker 2: media teacher, so he was three years above me at school,
Speaker 2: and when I was in year twelve doing media, Mike
Speaker 2: used to come back and hang out with a lovely
Speaker 2: Chrissy and then well, I don't know you, it's your story.
Speaker 2: You said that one day you saw me and said,
Speaker 2: who's that girl? And do you reckon you could get
Speaker 2: her number for me?
Speaker 6: A bit like that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And so then the teacher asked me, oh, do you
Speaker 2: mind if I give your number to my friend Mike,
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh yeah, and so she passed
Speaker 2: on my number, and then I think we went out
Speaker 2: on one date we did, which ended up being cup
Speaker 2: Day because I remember that because we went put a
Speaker 2: bet on the hall and we realized that we actually
Speaker 2: had the same birthday, and so then we completely freaked
Speaker 2: out that we had the same birthday. And then I
Speaker 2: went away and traveled for a few years, and then
Speaker 2: I came back and I bumped into the same teacher
Speaker 2: again down in Collingwood in Victoria, and she was still
Speaker 2: friends with Mike, and I gave her my number and
Speaker 2: she saw Mike and said, I bumped into.
Speaker 1: Lael and then he rang me three years later, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of happened from there.
Speaker 3: So rang me three years later. So when you were
Speaker 3: the age that he was when you met.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we kind of, I mean we joke
Speaker 2: about this. We kind of had an affair for about
Speaker 2: three years because well, I'll tell this so Mike was
Speaker 2: not keen on settling down being serious, so you know,
Speaker 2: we were kind of you know, we'd catch up every
Speaker 2: month or so, we'd have a coffee and you know,
Speaker 2: hang out. And we did that for about three years
Speaker 2: until I fell in love and I was like, I
Speaker 2: can't do that anymore. It's either all or nothing. And
Speaker 2: then finally Mike's like, all right, let's do it, and
Speaker 2: then I reckon. A few months later we moved Yeah,
Speaker 2: we moved in together, and then six months later we
Speaker 2: were pregnant with our son. So we're so young, and
Speaker 2: then we didn't get married until a few years after.
Speaker 3: We let me guess three years later.
Speaker 6: Perfect number, Yeah, year and a half.
Speaker 3: So when you visit Crowny Casino in Melbourne, you put
Speaker 3: three on the rulette reel.
Speaker 1: Yeah or eighteen? Yeah?
Speaker 3: You go.
Speaker 5: So what is it do you feel, Lale that kept
Speaker 5: drawing you back to Mike? What was it about about him?
Speaker 2: I think we always had crazy chemistry. I mean, we
Speaker 2: we're both aries.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone's into astrology or not, we're
Speaker 1: both like fiery aries.
Speaker 2: We like action, we like to do things, and I
Speaker 2: think we love a challenge and it was almost like
Speaker 2: each other was a challenge, would you say, story.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I had never met anyone where I'd had such chemistry
Speaker 2: as I did with Mike, and I think we both
Speaker 2: just moved fast. We both just understood each other, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, we just always kept coming back to
Speaker 2: each other, especially in those early years. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: was inevitable. And I mean I look back now and think,
Speaker 2: I'm sure all our friends and family thought we were crazy. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I was twenty four when I got pregnant.
Speaker 2: We was just so young. Yeah, you know, we didn't
Speaker 2: own a single thing that we were both running our
Speaker 2: own businesses. It was all a bit nuts, but we
Speaker 2: were like, hey, let's just have a baby and see
Speaker 2: what happens.
Speaker 1: And we like it work. Yeah, we'll make it work.
Speaker 2: I think our relationship has always been let's just jump
Speaker 2: in and we'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: We've never planned in our lives.
Speaker 6: Have we been giving a little bit too much?
Speaker 3: So? How long? How long?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: How long ago was that that you've set up?
Speaker 2: Twenty four so we've been before, so I think maybe, yeah,
Speaker 2: twenty four to twenty five, I don't know, twenty six
Speaker 2: years ago, really we've been together.
Speaker 5: And how about for you, Mike, what was it about
Speaker 5: Laye that you just knew?
Speaker 6: Yeah, look, it was the fire, I guess there was
Speaker 6: probably there was probably a little bit of power as well,
Speaker 6: just the non committing to a relationship back then. But yeah,
Speaker 6: there was just chemistry. There was, Yeah, immediate love, there was. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it was. It was just on from the beginning. But
Speaker 6: like Lao said, I just didn't want to commit to
Speaker 6: a relationship to anything really. Yeah, so really self centered,
Speaker 6: self motivated to do what I wanted to do. So, yeah,
Speaker 6: relationship was not part of that.
Speaker 5: You both decided, baby, that wasn't an accident, right, you
Speaker 5: both decided let's was an accident.
Speaker 3: That's a big give of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was kind of I remember the day.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking I'm bored, like I traveled, run baby,
Speaker 1: run that business.
Speaker 2: I think we were in this stage where I remember
Speaker 2: thinking what's next, Like, Okay, we're here, we're living together.
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: And then we didn't we didn't say let's not have
Speaker 2: a baby, but we didn't necessarily plan let's have a baby.
Speaker 1: We'll just see what happens.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden we found out we
Speaker 2: were pregnant, and then you know, your world turns upside down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of galvanizes the coupling, doesn't it having
Speaker 3: a baby or either that or explodes it?
Speaker 5: True, you know, but I mean we were exactly the
Speaker 5: same in so many ways. Well we honey, we were
Speaker 5: engaged when I.
Speaker 3: Was twenty one, just twenty one, just.
Speaker 5: Twenty one, And as we always say, you know, we
Speaker 5: couldn't figure out why our families weren't excited for us.
Speaker 4: And we're like about the young bliss of love of like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've known him for two and a half months,
Speaker 5: we're engaged.
Speaker 4: Like they're like, why we can't be happy? Yeah, why
Speaker 4: are you?
Speaker 5: Because as excited as we are. But yeah, so I
Speaker 5: totally get it. You know that, you know, you're in
Speaker 5: your youth. You think that you're invincible and love is
Speaker 5: love and you'll never meet anyone is amazing.
Speaker 4: That's what I felt.
Speaker 5: I still feel that way that, I mean, anyone as
Speaker 5: amazing as cams.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, you do what you do, don't you?
Speaker 5: And then you but look, you guys are still together
Speaker 5: and you've got three kids.
Speaker 4: You've got your son and two daughters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got three kids, so they're now twenty four,
Speaker 2: twenty one, and sixteen. Yeah, and I mean we often
Speaker 2: say it's better now than it ever has been. Yes,
Speaker 2: And you guys will relate to this, like the early
Speaker 2: years of having kids.
Speaker 1: Is really brutal, Like it's hard, and.
Speaker 2: Especially when you're young, and you know, for us, definitely,
Speaker 2: we had a lot of financial stress and we're both
Speaker 2: running our own businesses and we didn't really have any
Speaker 2: friends that had kids either at that age, so it
Speaker 2: was pretty lonely time. It was hard, it was challenging,
Speaker 2: but I really do believe if you can get through that,
Speaker 2: and you know, then as your kids get a bit older,
Speaker 2: and you know, obviously it gets a little less intense
Speaker 2: like labor intensive, sure, emotionally intense as you teen have
Speaker 2: you had as you have teenagers. But I think getting
Speaker 2: through that stage now and you know now having young
Speaker 2: adults for kids and rediscovering each other's really beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's a really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Thing, you know, to be able to have weathered that,
Speaker 2: to come together or so just to be in this
Speaker 2: space that we are in now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure, Now we know a lot about Lale
Speaker 5: and the work that she has done and we're going
Speaker 5: to jump into that for sure.
Speaker 4: But Mike, tell us what you do?
Speaker 6: I support Lale of course.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's the thing.
Speaker 6: Look, I've always been in design, so design, graphics, branding,
Speaker 6: I guess is the primary focus. So yeah, I work
Speaker 6: for myself the whole the whole time, and basically just
Speaker 6: take on creative projects. So whether it's interiors or landscaping
Speaker 6: or websites, just something creative, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Beautiful. Yeah, and that's fun. And I guess we work
Speaker 6: together as well, which is even more unusual in a relationship.
Speaker 3: How let's dive into that. How do you work together?
Speaker 6: And how is it I do all the design work
Speaker 6: behind and layl and prepare the online courses and those things,
Speaker 6: and now they take more of a priority than they
Speaker 6: used to. Yeah, so it's it's everything. It's sort of living, parenting,
Speaker 6: loving working together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and we both work. We work from home.
Speaker 2: I mean I do travel a lot of work, but
Speaker 2: we work from home. So we're together a lot. But
Speaker 2: I think over the years we're really figured out how
Speaker 2: to work well together.
Speaker 1: So, you know, Mike is such.
Speaker 2: A beautiful visionary of bringing I'll have an idea I
Speaker 2: want to create this or do that, and he'll bring
Speaker 2: that to life. And I think we've learned over the
Speaker 2: years how to work together well. I often joke Mike's
Speaker 2: all about detail. I'm all about kind of bigger picture.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, let's do this and do that, and
Speaker 2: then he's like, okay, let's bring it down a bit.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why we work well together.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: True, So I'm and she's floppy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly like someone needs to do the big
Speaker 3: broad strokes though, make the mess, and the other one's
Speaker 3: breaking it up into doable chunks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think do we.
Speaker 4: I think we kind of do make a mess.
Speaker 3: Both of us. Both of us make a mess, and
Speaker 3: then both of us can get detailed. We work best
Speaker 3: when one's sort of doing it the other ones there
Speaker 3: behind going all right, I've got you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Today where your way out the front and I'm just
Speaker 3: behind just go o.
Speaker 4: Is that right.
Speaker 5: We've been together now thirty three years, married for thirty two,
Speaker 5: and I have literally just figured out the way Cam's
Speaker 5: brain works, just figured it out.
Speaker 3: And how is that?
Speaker 4: It's so helpful?
Speaker 3: Because as he crosses his arms and moves into defense, No, no, because.
Speaker 5: We talked about this the other day because Cam's mind,
Speaker 5: he's a speaking of astrology, he's a pissin now, you
Speaker 5: know how.
Speaker 4: They're off with the fairies a lot of the time.
Speaker 4: That is Cam to it.
Speaker 5: I think he's got I think he's got a post
Speaker 5: moon and rising and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3: There's some area's in there though, I've got some fire.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you do have fire.
Speaker 5: But I finally figured out that I just need to
Speaker 5: ask him sometimes what he actually means when he says things,
Speaker 5: and where like the tangents this man takes in conversation
Speaker 5: is so wild, and our son is exactly the same.
Speaker 5: And I just realized that the other day too. I
Speaker 5: was like, oh my god, you two do the same
Speaker 5: thing where you're still thinking about a point five minutes
Speaker 5: ago in the conversation, where the conversation's moved on, and
Speaker 5: then he's lost that five minutes. So when then he'll
Speaker 5: ask a question that's already been explained, and it's like
Speaker 5: that's already been said, and he's back, and so finally
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, I've got you now thirty three years,
Speaker 5: I've figured you out.
Speaker 3: It was quite a moment the other day. It was
Speaker 3: quite a moment. She's like, oh, now I get it.
Speaker 3: But see, I have to put the pieces together. It's
Speaker 3: got to make sense to me in some you know,
Speaker 3: I've got to draw some flow. Maybe it was a
Speaker 3: math class in year ten or something and they're doing
Speaker 3: flow charts, and that's the way I learned what it
Speaker 3: was meant to be. Yeah, yeah, flow it enough about us,
Speaker 3: I want.
Speaker 1: To say we have the equivalent of that.
Speaker 2: Where's Mike's mind works really fast, and I what I've
Speaker 2: learned over the years is that he will say something
Speaker 2: that's already three steps ahead of the conversation, and often
Speaker 2: other people are like, what what do you mean? Whereas
Speaker 2: I already know that he's gone fast. And so it's
Speaker 2: a really great point actually, when you begin to understand
Speaker 2: your partner and how they think and how they process stuff.
Speaker 2: I sometimes interpret for you don't know, because people are
Speaker 2: like what and I'm like, no, he means this because
Speaker 2: he's already like three steps ahead.
Speaker 3: Of what you said.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Ham's three steps behind. So I'm often that way,
Speaker 5: but that's his tangent. I mean, that is the nicest
Speaker 5: way possiblity.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks, sweetheart, Well you've been immersed in the universe
Speaker 3: of children for so many years, from being a dueler
Speaker 3: to creating an online birth education system to your aware
Speaker 3: parenting degree. Now you're educating children in sex education. Where
Speaker 3: did the passion for children begin? When did you sort
Speaker 3: of realize that?
Speaker 2: I actually, I think it really was born because of
Speaker 2: becoming a parent myself.
Speaker 1: So actually, before I even did that.
Speaker 2: Not many people know about this, but my first ever
Speaker 2: company I started when I was twenty twenty was a
Speaker 2: children's entertainment company.
Speaker 1: So I.
Speaker 2: Dress up as fairies and all sorts of stuff, and
Speaker 2: you know, put on big shows and go to kids
Speaker 2: birthday parties. Off and joke, I think I'm on so
Speaker 2: many old home videos when yeah, VHS videos at kids'
Speaker 2: birthday parties when they turned five or six. So I
Speaker 2: did that for many many years, and then when I
Speaker 2: had my when we had our second child, I'd had
Speaker 2: a really rough first birth experience with my first, and
Speaker 2: with my second, we had this really beautiful birth experience,
Speaker 2: and the moment I gave birth to her, I just
Speaker 2: was like, Wow, this is how good it could be,
Speaker 2: and this is amazing, And it just sparked this absolute
Speaker 2: love of birth and wanting to support families to have
Speaker 2: positive experiences. So through that experience, I then moved into
Speaker 2: working in birth and then really that kind of drew
Speaker 2: me to working with trauma around families that had tricky
Speaker 2: birth experiences. And then as my kids grew, you know,
Speaker 2: and I had we had our third child and we
Speaker 2: had a few different challenges with her. It really helped me,
Speaker 2: I think, to understand what I was going through or
Speaker 2: what we were going through as a family with our kids.
Speaker 2: That I began to see that so many more families
Speaker 2: were needing support around that. So I kind of followed
Speaker 2: that journey. And then as our son moved into those
Speaker 2: teenage years, you know, I had this thought of I'm
Speaker 2: my god, he's going through puberty and have we taught
Speaker 2: him enough about sex and all those elements? And that's
Speaker 2: what kind of piqued my interest to then learn a
Speaker 2: bit more about sex education and how we can you know,
Speaker 2: teach our young kids really healthy sex education so that
Speaker 2: they're equipped to navigate this phase of their life. And
Speaker 2: so then I ended up teaching sex ed to teens
Speaker 2: for about five years, and then that eventually then moved
Speaker 2: into building the school that I co created, and so
Speaker 2: it really has been following our children's journey that each
Speaker 2: phase they've gone through, I've had that thought of how
Speaker 2: can I do these better, or how can I be
Speaker 2: a more conscious parent, or how can I equip them
Speaker 2: with the knowledge and the tools to navigate the world.
Speaker 2: So it really has been through the growth of my
Speaker 2: kids that I think has inspired my work.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 5: That's fantastic, that's I mean I got into I was
Speaker 5: a birth assistant in America for a few years, and
Speaker 5: it was a similar sort of spark for me too,
Speaker 5: because when I was pregnant, I was so excited to
Speaker 5: be pregnant, but all I was told was the negative
Speaker 5: stories of birth and how it was going to be
Speaker 5: awful and take all the dry and do all this,
Speaker 5: and it's you know, your life is going to be
Speaker 5: Like there was nothing positive anyone was telling me about it.
Speaker 4: And I was.
Speaker 5: Really shocked because I was I'd been wanting to be
Speaker 5: a mum my whole life, and then it was just
Speaker 5: filled with this doom and gloom, and I was like,
Speaker 5: this is not what parents need to hear. We need
Speaker 5: to know the facts, of course, of what can happen,
Speaker 5: but just to be able to bring a child in
Speaker 5: consciously and understand that you you know, to trust your
Speaker 5: body and to trust what the process is. And so
Speaker 5: I fell in love with it as well. I just
Speaker 5: thought it was every birth was just and no matter
Speaker 5: what I mean, I'm sure you feel this, no matter
Speaker 5: what the birth was, and there was cesareans in hospitals,
Speaker 5: there was everything. There was an adoption, it was a birth,
Speaker 5: and it was everyone was just as special as the last.
Speaker 5: And I remember them so vividly. I loved love that
Speaker 5: part of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really special role to play, to be
Speaker 2: there when people become a family or a child born
Speaker 2: into the world, and.
Speaker 1: It's so raw.
Speaker 2: I loved it because it was real. It kind of
Speaker 2: all the all the crap kind of disappears, you know,
Speaker 2: because these moments of vulnerability and rawness and love and
Speaker 2: emotion and all of it.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you would.
Speaker 2: I used to come home from a berth and I
Speaker 2: would be on the biggest high, especially if it was
Speaker 2: a good berth.
Speaker 1: I'd be all loved up. Would come home. I'd be like, Mike,
Speaker 1: let's make love. I was full of.
Speaker 6: I'm just trying to be helpful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'm here for you.
Speaker 1: And then if it was, if it was a tricky berth,
Speaker 1: you know, I would. It was hard.
Speaker 2: It was child for you know, really learning to take
Speaker 2: care of yourself, as I'm sure you know early within
Speaker 2: that it was really it's such a privilege working in
Speaker 2: that space. I don't work in that space anymore, but
Speaker 2: it was. It was such a such a beautiful learning
Speaker 2: around humans and around holding space for people even in
Speaker 2: their most toughest, roorest moments. So it taught me so much.
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for that for that part of my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike, were you there for the birth of your kids?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: All three?
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: How was that for you?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Life changing really because, like you said, Ali, everything
Speaker 6: that we got told beforehand, especially from friends, was all negative,
Speaker 6: was all fear based, was all your life's going to change. Yeah,
Speaker 6: So to actually be there and see it just naturally
Speaker 6: just yeah, shifted everything every preconceived thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I often joked that when after we had our son,
Speaker 2: Mike being a designer was so I hope it's okay
Speaker 2: to say this was so flown away by the whole
Speaker 2: birth process and seeing our son coming into the world.
Speaker 2: I think nearly everything he designed after that looked like
Speaker 2: a vagina.
Speaker 6: Clients tell me that their brands look like vaginas.
Speaker 5: Okay, that was your.
Speaker 6: Amazing And I consciously do anything but everything subconsciously, so yeah,
Speaker 6: it definitely softened me in.
Speaker 5: And yeah, just getting back to the work that you're
Speaker 5: doing now as well, Lale, what what do you feel
Speaker 5: like the most common misconceptions that teenagers have about sex
Speaker 5: and their sexuality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a big question, I think.
Speaker 2: I think one of the biggest challenges that we have
Speaker 2: with teenagers and particularly around sexuality education comes actually from
Speaker 2: pornography and the damages that that brings, because I think
Speaker 2: and also because we live in a really highly sexualized world,
Speaker 2: so we're exposed to images from a really young age
Speaker 2: as children around sex and sexuality, and then we have
Speaker 2: something like porn which is easily accessible for teens. And
Speaker 2: curiosity is a normal natural thing of being a teenager
Speaker 2: and you and you're curious about what this is, and
Speaker 2: you've got all these beautiful hormones racing through your body
Speaker 2: and the changes in your brain and all those kind
Speaker 2: of things, so curiosity is going to be very normal.
Speaker 2: And of course pornography is so easy to access to
Speaker 2: just open your phone and then you can discover stuff.
Speaker 2: Yet we also know that pornography is not an accurate
Speaker 2: representation of what real sex and intimacy and love making
Speaker 2: and pleasure can look like. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the biggest challenges, so different to what we
Speaker 2: were navigating when we were teenagers, is the impact of
Speaker 2: technology and pornography. And then there's also the impact of
Speaker 2: just comparing themselves to the world. Like often say that
Speaker 2: as teenagers, we used to compare ourselves to you know,
Speaker 2: the people at school or the kids at the bus stop,
Speaker 2: whereas our teens are comparing themselves.
Speaker 1: To the whole world.
Speaker 2: And that's huge, it's huge, it's a massive, it's massive
Speaker 2: for their mental health, for our body image. And then
Speaker 2: we throw sex and discovering what that is on top
Speaker 2: of that is really big. And when I taught in
Speaker 2: sex education to teens, one of my biggest messages was
Speaker 2: really about tuning into what feels a yes and a
Speaker 2: no for us, but also what is what feels good,
Speaker 2: what is our pleasure and that dance between you know,
Speaker 2: particularly to see this lot with young girls is just
Speaker 2: trying to please somebody or I hope they think I'm
Speaker 2: good looking or there's this, you know, and and the
Speaker 2: disconnection from the heart on some level as well. And
Speaker 2: I think there is so much that we can do
Speaker 2: to have real conversations with teens, to help them to
Speaker 2: tune into themselves and to others, and to have healthy experiences,
Speaker 2: because at the moment, the messaging and the information out
Speaker 2: there kind of tells a different story. So it's a
Speaker 2: tricky place to navigate these things.
Speaker 4: I think, Yeah, a great.
Speaker 3: Mike, you've perhaps I missed how many boys do you
Speaker 3: guys have just one? How have you handled that with him?
Speaker 3: Has been a if you've sort of stepped in and
Speaker 3: talked about pornography with him, or how have you handled
Speaker 3: it that?
Speaker 6: It was just just with everything that was sort of
Speaker 6: semi taboo, just to normalize it. So we started talking.
Speaker 6: I'd say Kai was probably eight nine, and started to
Speaker 6: talk in the car together, normalizing sex, your body, how
Speaker 6: things will change. Probably didn't talk a lot about pawn
Speaker 6: so much as just normalizing the actions and the emotions
Speaker 6: and the feelings. It was probably easy as well. I
Speaker 6: don't know if this is a good thing or a
Speaker 6: bad thing, but to have a second child who was
Speaker 6: a daughter that I could actually reference her as a
Speaker 6: way to actually treat a woman, a girl, a female.
Speaker 6: So that was handy, I guess, But yeah, I guess.
Speaker 6: My main thing was just to normalize it, normalize the
Speaker 6: conversation and just be there for any answers, any questions.
Speaker 5: Did you have conversations like around the dinner table, like
Speaker 5: the five of you at some point and talk about
Speaker 5: sex and.
Speaker 4: That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we still do now even as adults.
Speaker 2: And I mean, my poor kids, I often think they're
Speaker 2: probably going to need therapy because I kind of took
Speaker 2: at the next level and then to sex ed to
Speaker 2: teens and even went into their own schools and taught
Speaker 2: all their mates image and having your mom come in
Speaker 2: and do it and my I mean I asked their
Speaker 2: permission and go can I do it? And then my
Speaker 2: daughter once was like, yeah, you can come and teach them,
Speaker 2: but you can't bring like the you can't bring the
Speaker 2: vagina puppet because I had this like topic.
Speaker 1: She's like, you can do everything else but not that.
Speaker 2: But and it's interesting actually because now as adults, they're like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: you were the cool mom.
Speaker 3: You know you probably were the cool mom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they were like.
Speaker 2: And often their friends would come to us when they
Speaker 2: had questions or although, well we're worried about this, or
Speaker 2: you know, and we really wanted to normalize it and
Speaker 2: make it a topic that we could talk about all
Speaker 2: the time, which we have from when they were really
Speaker 2: young and obviously age appropriate conversations. And one of the
Speaker 2: things I do say to parents a lot, though, because
Speaker 2: you know they can feel such awkwardness talking to our
Speaker 2: kids about sex, is that our children and this is
Speaker 2: not just around sex and intimacy, it's around everything.
Speaker 1: Our children and watch what we are doing.
Speaker 2: You know, kids can't be what they can't see, and
Speaker 2: so so often their imprints around sex intimacy relationships. You know,
Speaker 2: their relationship to their bodies happens even before we have
Speaker 2: the conversation because they're watching us. And one of the
Speaker 2: healthiest things we can do for kids is to model
Speaker 2: a healthy intimate relationship where we're kind to each other,
Speaker 2: we're tender to each other, you know, we cut all
Speaker 2: or kiss each other, where we can be playerful with
Speaker 2: each other. So they get this beautiful modeling of what
Speaker 2: a healthy relationship can look like, because that's where a
Speaker 2: lot of it actually starts, is that imprinting of when
Speaker 2: they're young, when they're watching what relationships look like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell me or tell us. What does the role
Speaker 3: of self esteem play in making decisions about relationship and sex.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: I think one of the things that we've always really
Speaker 2: tried to jump home to our kids is that they
Speaker 2: are so worthy of being loved, but they are awesome,
Speaker 2: amazing humans. And one of the things I've definitely spoke
Speaker 2: to our daughters about is, you know, if it's a maybe,
Speaker 2: if you're sitting in a situation where you're unsure whether
Speaker 2: I should do something or not, if it's a maybe,
Speaker 2: it's a no, until it's a full body yes, until
Speaker 2: all of you is like, yes, I want to do this, Yes,
Speaker 2: this feels good. And part of that requires a sense
Speaker 2: of connection to self, but also a sense of confidence
Speaker 2: to be like, hey, I'm going to say no and
Speaker 2: I'm still okay, because our fear is often if I
Speaker 2: say no, maybe they won't like me, maybe they won't
Speaker 2: include me. And so I think that's where self esteem
Speaker 2: comes in and that you know, what we've often said
Speaker 2: to our kids is that you are so worthy of
Speaker 2: being loved in the right way, right and don't put
Speaker 2: up with crappy behavior, because you are more than that.
Speaker 2: And we've had so many conversations around the dinner table
Speaker 2: with our kids where they've had boyfriends or girlfriends or
Speaker 2: stuff and they've been treated badly and all of us
Speaker 2: will be like, hey, remember who you are. Remember you're
Speaker 2: worthy of being treated beautifully. And I think hearing that
Speaker 2: from the family unit has been really powerful for our kids,
Speaker 2: doesn't it.
Speaker 6: That doesn't have to be just in relation to sex. Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's everything. Yeah, true of opportunities, friendships, where you go
Speaker 6: on holidays, who you talk to, what you do, you know,
Speaker 6: it's all the same.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, And I think it's when we can help,
Speaker 2: particularly our teenagers understand that they're not just their bodies,
Speaker 2: and they're not the way they look, and they're not
Speaker 2: the grades they get at school, but they're all parts
Speaker 2: of them are worthy, you're being loved, and that they
Speaker 2: they have that sense of self within them, then of
Speaker 2: course they're going to be less likely to put up
Speaker 2: with crappy behavior or crappy relationships. So, you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's such an important part and teenage. The teenagers
Speaker 2: are so wobbly, Yeah, so many.
Speaker 1: Elements going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, a part of being a human those teenage years,
Speaker 2: and so I think they need a lot of holding
Speaker 2: and grounding and some role models to remind them about
Speaker 2: their magnificence.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, and.
Speaker 5: That kind of rolls into that. I was going to
Speaker 5: ask you a question about consent, but that's really very
Speaker 5: much connected in what you were saying about the self
Speaker 5: esteem and about you know, if it's not one hundred
Speaker 5: percent yes, a full body yes, then it's a no.
Speaker 5: But what do you you know, especially for you as
Speaker 5: a dad, as far as you know, we hear a
Speaker 5: lot about what girls go through. You know, I said no,
Speaker 5: I said no. I said no, and then I felt
Speaker 5: like I had to say yes or there's I said
Speaker 5: no and I was forced upon anyway, Like how what's
Speaker 5: your feeling about that?
Speaker 4: And do you have any advice on that? As a dad?
Speaker 6: Yeah, of course, I think I think that. Look, I
Speaker 6: could be generalizing here and going out on a limb,
Speaker 6: but I think there's so much education about the girl
Speaker 6: and her responsibility. I just don't see the same responsibility
Speaker 6: with guys. So it has to be met both ways.
Speaker 6: There's no way that I can treat my son in
Speaker 6: a certain way and my daughter and another it has
Speaker 6: been equal. So I have to educate my son that
Speaker 6: maybe is it's not just for you made it, it's
Speaker 6: actually maybe for her as well. So you have to
Speaker 6: sit in that balance as well and read the whole thing. So, yeah,
Speaker 6: it's educating your sons that maybe is not a she's
Speaker 6: sort of keen you know. That's a sit back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, such a good point. So true.
Speaker 3: Do you work with parents too, Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of confusion around I think for parents and not knowing
Speaker 3: what to do because I see a lot of parents
Speaker 3: wanting to be liked, and you hear that story of
Speaker 3: wanting to be friends besties with their kids, and it's like, Nate,
Speaker 3: it's done. Not your job here. Your job is to
Speaker 3: be a parent. Doesn't mean that. So they want to
Speaker 3: be liked, so they don't. So what's your feeling about
Speaker 3: all that?
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I don't. I don't work with kids and
Speaker 1: stuff anymore.
Speaker 2: Only work with adults and parents across all ages, from
Speaker 2: like little bubbas all the way.
Speaker 1: Up to teenagers.
Speaker 2: And so much of the work that I do these
Speaker 2: days is helping the adults understand their own stories and
Speaker 2: imprints so they can be the parent they want to
Speaker 2: be so, particularly in regards to something like sex. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean I used to run workshops on how to
Speaker 2: talk to kids about sex, and the first question i'd
Speaker 2: ask is, put your hand up if you got a
Speaker 2: fully comprehensive sex education that taught you about pleasure and
Speaker 2: consent and anatomy and your body and all those things.
Speaker 2: Put your hands up if you receive that from your
Speaker 2: parents when you're a teenager. And I think in all
Speaker 2: the times I did that, I had one guy put
Speaker 2: his hand up and I was like wow, and he psych, oh,
Speaker 2: my mum was a sexual health nurse. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: well you scored, you got the writ info. But pretty
Speaker 2: much nobody else had that right. So then I think
Speaker 2: we have to be compassionate with ourselves because then we
Speaker 2: have our own beautiful kiddos and teenagers, and we know
Speaker 2: we need to have these conversations. But because we don't
Speaker 2: have a lived experience of what it feels like to
Speaker 2: have these conversations, they can feel really awkward, we can
Speaker 2: feel unsure, it can feel really messy. And so you know,
Speaker 2: I say to parents, you want to practice saying these words.
Speaker 2: You want to get more comfortable with it. Because our
Speaker 2: kids are always reading our energy. If we're really awkward
Speaker 2: and uncomfortable, they're going to pick up or this is
Speaker 2: an awkward topic and something we shouldn't talk about, so
Speaker 2: we want to try and find more comfortable, you know,
Speaker 2: states within us. But then also coming back to that
Speaker 2: other part you're talking about, cam of you know, being
Speaker 2: our kids' friends.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the other biggest challenges I see in parenting
Speaker 2: these days is learning to set really healthy boundaries, and
Speaker 2: most of us are not great at it, again because
Speaker 2: we haven't been modeled yet, but also because we're often
Speaker 2: scared about what happens when we say no then the
Speaker 2: feelings that might come up within that. And one of
Speaker 2: our jobs as parents is to learn to sit in
Speaker 2: the uncomfortable with our kids, which means I'm going to
Speaker 2: say no to you going to that party, and it's
Speaker 2: okay if you get mad, and it's okay if you
Speaker 2: get upset, but it's a no, and you can tell
Speaker 2: me how you feel about it, and I can hear
Speaker 2: all the other stuff that's sitting underneath it for you,
Speaker 2: and we'll navigate that together.
Speaker 3: Yeaps, we should.
Speaker 5: It's we've gotten our kids twenty eight twenty four and eighteen,
Speaker 5: and it's so lovely to finally not finally here, but
Speaker 5: it's so lovely now that they can talk to us
Speaker 5: about their childhoods and those times that we drew the
Speaker 5: boundary and they were like so mad at us, And
Speaker 5: now they look back and go, I'm so glad you
Speaker 5: stopped me from doing that. I'm so glad we never
Speaker 5: did that. I'm so glad you gave us a flip phone,
Speaker 5: you know. And it's like, oh my gosh. You know,
Speaker 5: it's really lovely to hear that, you know, when you
Speaker 5: stand by your guns and know that this really is
Speaker 5: the right thing at the time.
Speaker 4: Just to have them look back on that.
Speaker 3: Really tough at the time, isn't it. You're looking at
Speaker 3: this person that you love so much and you want
Speaker 3: them to love you and come to you, and they're screaming, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh that's really hard. I think you said up beautifully
Speaker 3: just a second ago. Use the word uncomfortable, and just
Speaker 3: as a broad broad brushstroke across humanity, we're not very good.
Speaker 3: Most of us are not very good at allowing uncomfortability
Speaker 3: to be part of our daily experience. To do everything
Speaker 3: to not be uncomfortable and not be with our feelings.
Speaker 3: And as an actor or a performer, you know, you
Speaker 3: see some people just leaning on other people to get
Speaker 3: comfort in a situation. It's like, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 3: The best part is watching you be uncomfortable and dealing
Speaker 3: with that. And that's been hard for me, is to
Speaker 3: embrace uncomfortability. And I think as a parent, we get
Speaker 3: it all the time, and it's just you've put it
Speaker 3: so beautifully, and I think we've got to really just
Speaker 3: be with our uncomfortable aspects and go and accept them
Speaker 3: and acknowledge them and go, yeah, right now, I'm uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think I think it's the work of
Speaker 2: I'll say parenting is to learn to be with our
Speaker 2: feelings so we can.
Speaker 1: Be with our kids feeling And I think that's.
Speaker 2: Most of the work I do these days is helping
Speaker 2: adults understand their own childhoods. You know, how they were
Speaker 2: raised and what happened perhaps where they weren't given that modeling,
Speaker 2: or perhaps where they learn it it wasn't safe to
Speaker 2: be angry or be sad or whatever. And so therefore
Speaker 2: until we lean into it and look at it, we
Speaker 2: end up then just carrying the same thing forward. To
Speaker 2: our kids, absolutely, and that's where it becomes challenging. And
Speaker 2: I think the work of parenting is understanding ourselves and
Speaker 2: our feelings so we can be that beautiful, spacious place
Speaker 2: for our kids to bring all their messy stuff, and
Speaker 2: so that we say to them, I can hold this,
Speaker 2: I can meet you here, this is not too big
Speaker 2: for me, and that that's what creates the safety. I
Speaker 2: think in the dynamic of the parent child relationship that
Speaker 2: that's when our kids will bring their big stuff to us.
Speaker 2: It's when they'll sit in those spaces where it's you know,
Speaker 2: they're really sad or they're angry, they're upset, and they'll
Speaker 2: be able to then navigate it and move through it,
Speaker 2: build that resilience so that they can navigate life. But
Speaker 2: so much of it, I think is us as adults
Speaker 2: doing the work so that we can meet our kids
Speaker 2: in those places.
Speaker 6: And hoping that they turn around, like you said, Ali,
Speaker 6: when they're twenty eight, just going thank you, Yes, that
Speaker 6: was really amazing, And I can see it now because
Speaker 6: definitely that in that moment they don't see it, yeah,
Speaker 6: but to appease them in that moment is just a
Speaker 6: momentarily band aid it is a band aid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 6: There's no long term gain there.
Speaker 1: Parenting is a long game.
Speaker 2: We often say, you know, we absolutely use those quick
Speaker 2: punishments and rewards to get our kids to do what
Speaker 2: we want. But actually it's about building connection out of
Speaker 2: the time and and it is. It's the uncomfortable spaces,
Speaker 2: it's spending the time being with them, it's meeting them
Speaker 2: in their worlds. It's I don't mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: any parents who haven't you done this for a long
Speaker 2: time who regret focusing on that connection and.
Speaker 1: The end of time and those places.
Speaker 2: You know, nobody ever regrets that because they're like, I
Speaker 2: see that the relationship we have now with them as
Speaker 2: adults is really.
Speaker 1: Is really beautiful.
Speaker 6: If anything, you actually have the other side, which is
Speaker 6: people who weren't connected with the children turning around going
Speaker 6: I really wish that I didn't work so much, and
Speaker 6: I didn't do this, and I didn't do that, and
Speaker 6: I wish that I spent more time with my kids
Speaker 6: and a relationship with them now.
Speaker 3: So is this a Nate for you guys or did
Speaker 3: you get some help on and tools on how to
Speaker 3: do this?
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't know if it's a nate.
Speaker 2: But I think we've both worked really hard on our
Speaker 2: own stuff. I mean, I think for me, doing the
Speaker 2: work that I've done, it's kind of forced me to
Speaker 2: have to do my own work. I don't think you
Speaker 2: can work in these spaces and support parents if you
Speaker 2: haven't well, I believe, if you haven't embodied it yourself.
Speaker 2: So anything I've taught or done over the years, I've
Speaker 2: had to do myself. So you know, I'm a big
Speaker 2: fan of therapy. I'm a big fan of learning from others,
Speaker 2: and so often I'll go do something and I'll bring
Speaker 2: it home to you and go, oh, this is what
Speaker 2: I that, babe, and then we kind of work it
Speaker 2: out together, don't we. So you know, I think we've
Speaker 2: had we've had our fair shares of butting heads and
Speaker 2: messiness when all our wounds have come up. And I
Speaker 2: think I think the thing that I'm the most proud
Speaker 2: of with us is that we've always been willing to
Speaker 2: go there's stuff here, You own your stuff, I'll own
Speaker 2: my stuff.
Speaker 1: We'll figure out a way together.
Speaker 2: And it's taken time, but I really am proud that
Speaker 2: that we've been willing to lean into our own shadows
Speaker 2: when we've needed to.
Speaker 6: Think it's lazy not to it's not too much lazy,
Speaker 6: I think, I mean, it's just too easy just to
Speaker 6: roll with the way that you've been patterned. You've got
Speaker 6: to question everything, and you've got to look deeper into things.
Speaker 6: And we all know as human beings, when we get
Speaker 6: triggered at something, there's rather than just brush it aside,
Speaker 6: work through it and question why, what it is and
Speaker 6: what is bringing out for you.
Speaker 2: But I also I'm just going to add here, yes,
Speaker 2: I also know trauma plays a big part in this,
Speaker 2: and they're not everybody has the tools, you know, and
Speaker 2: they're not everybody is able to do it because they've
Speaker 2: never been modeled it or they're supported. So I do
Speaker 2: believe you know, again, we're all trying to do the
Speaker 2: best job we know how.
Speaker 1: But I think you're like, this is so us. I'm
Speaker 1: like soft and general. Here's the truth, mate, he's the truth.
Speaker 4: Here it is Mike.
Speaker 5: Did you grow up in a household with parents that
Speaker 5: were communicative with you?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: Is that something that oh that okay?
Speaker 3: Sometimes you learn from people not doing.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, they were communicative European family, very loving, very providing,
Speaker 6: probably emotionally, not massively supportive, and not maybe understanding of individualization.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, clearly you got wisdom from the.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely it was perfect, perfect learning. And you said
Speaker 6: earlier on it was you don't want to do the
Speaker 6: opposite to your parents. You actually want to get the
Speaker 6: good bits and the bits that don't make sense, and
Speaker 6: that's that your wife brings to you, and the bits
Speaker 6: that you see, you know, talking to friends and blah
Speaker 6: blah blah, and mash it all together to see how
Speaker 6: it all works.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sometimes that takes time, you know, I mean not sometimes.
Speaker 3: I think every time. It takes time. You know, you
Speaker 3: can get It's like you take a vitamin pill and
Speaker 3: you're not probably going to feel better that day that
Speaker 3: you take the vitamin pill, and you're probably not going
Speaker 3: to feel that much different a week later, But if
Speaker 3: you do it for a year, you're going to feel better.
Speaker 3: You're going to see, see and feel a change. And
Speaker 3: I think through my example of going through therapy and
Speaker 3: then working out what happened in my childhood, I went
Speaker 3: through a massive sort of like a learning curve about
Speaker 3: looking at how I was parented and probably did what
Speaker 3: you said, Mike was just push thing away and go,
Speaker 3: that's so terrible, you know. But then working more way back,
Speaker 3: so over the course of time, I was able to
Speaker 3: integrate all those amazing things that mum and dad did.
Speaker 3: And then, thankfully my mum and dad are still alive
Speaker 3: and very vibrant. I still go to them for wisdom today,
Speaker 3: you know. And it's been a beautiful coming around, you know.
Speaker 3: But it did take time and patience, That is my point.
Speaker 1: And I think it's I don't know.
Speaker 2: When I work with a lot of adults, when they
Speaker 2: begin to understand what happened to them as kids and
Speaker 2: their imprints, our first default is to get angry and
Speaker 2: upset and you never.
Speaker 1: Did this and you never did that.
Speaker 2: And I always remind people that it's really important that
Speaker 2: we hold both spaces. We hold the space it says,
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for who my parents are and the
Speaker 2: love and what they've done for me, and I also
Speaker 2: have a lot of hurt around, perhaps where I didn't
Speaker 2: get my needs met. And the work is never to
Speaker 2: then take it to our parents and go you didn't
Speaker 2: do this, or write I'm an angry letter. The work
Speaker 2: is do it within ourselves and hear those younger parts
Speaker 2: of us that perhaps didn't get what we needed. And
Speaker 2: then we hable exactly as you say, cam to be
Speaker 2: able to sit in a place where you have deep
Speaker 2: compassion and respect and love for your parents in their imperfectness,
Speaker 2: in all the messiness, and we actually realize everybody's doing
Speaker 2: the best job that they know and perhaps you don't
Speaker 2: need them to be any different, And that's the goal.
Speaker 1: But we have to work through all.
Speaker 2: Our own feelings to get there first, because you can't
Speaker 2: just bypass it and jump straight to yeah, it's all fine,
Speaker 2: it's all fine without dealing with the parts that felt
Speaker 2: hurt or upts it.
Speaker 5: It's all the stuff under the carpet that will come back.
Speaker 5: I know this is probably a very difficult question in
Speaker 5: the sense to narrow it down, but in both of
Speaker 5: your opinions, what's the most important tip in how to
Speaker 5: communicate with your child?
Speaker 1: Do you want to go first?
Speaker 6: My standard one is just to be present, that's it,
Speaker 6: because I haven't done it before. I don't know any answers.
Speaker 6: I've got a lived experience, but I don't know what
Speaker 6: the situation is happening in front of me, So yeah,
Speaker 6: just be present and work with it, work with your children,
Speaker 6: listen to them and just be there in that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think for me, one of the big
Speaker 2: things I always talk about is listening with gentle ears,
Speaker 2: is listening to here, not listening to fix, because so
Speaker 2: often what we do is we jump in to offer
Speaker 2: solutions as they're talking about when they didn't get picked
Speaker 2: in the basketball team or the best friend's not talking
Speaker 2: to them. You know, watching our kids be uncomfortable hurts,
Speaker 2: and so because we love them, every part of us
Speaker 2: wants to fix them, so we jump in with what
Speaker 2: they could do or how they can do it better.
Speaker 2: And actually that's not what we need as humans. We
Speaker 2: don't really want to be fixed. We just want to
Speaker 2: be heard. And I think one of the things I've
Speaker 2: had to work on a lot as a mum is
Speaker 2: just doing a lot of nodding yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing,
Speaker 2: and just sitting on my hand and not saying anything,
Speaker 2: and really just being that safe place to be that
Speaker 2: they can come to us with anything. Because again, when
Speaker 2: people feel heard and they feel that sense of safety,
Speaker 2: they will bring you the big stuff and they'll know
Speaker 2: that's a place to come. And I often say to parents,
Speaker 2: you know, even if you've got like a little four
Speaker 2: year old or a ten year old, and this long
Speaker 2: game of parenting. The more we learn to listen to
Speaker 2: our kids and be present with their feelings and welcome
Speaker 2: them doesn't mean we still don't have boundaries and those
Speaker 2: kind of things, but to be present with their feelings,
Speaker 2: then the more likely they are when they are teenagers,
Speaker 2: when they're at a party and some's going wrong and
Speaker 2: people are in trouble, that their first thought will be
Speaker 2: I'll ring my parents. They'll know what to do, as
Speaker 2: opposed to I hope my parents don't find out.
Speaker 1: And that's all I want.
Speaker 2: We want that long game of them knowing deeply that
Speaker 2: there is nothing too big that you can't bring me.
Speaker 2: You know that I'm here and I will hear and
Speaker 2: love and accept all parts of you.
Speaker 1: And that comes a lot.
Speaker 2: Through just listening and as Mike said, being really present
Speaker 2: with when there's stuff's going on.
Speaker 1: And they sound like two really simple things, but they
Speaker 1: are hard. They are hard to do because we are
Speaker 1: busy humans.
Speaker 2: We've got phones on us all the time, we're thinking
Speaker 2: of the emails, we're juggling everything, and then we also
Speaker 2: don't want to see our kids in pain, so we
Speaker 2: jump to fix and actually those two things which are
Speaker 2: really simple, deeply I think profound tools to have in
Speaker 2: your parenting tool kit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. I know, Lale, you talked
Speaker 5: about you created a school. But my question I was
Speaker 5: going to actually ask you, which I mean maybe this
Speaker 5: is you've already done it, but if you could create
Speaker 5: a program or the perfect school for a child, what
Speaker 5: would it look like?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna have to say it would be based
Speaker 2: on the school that already.
Speaker 5: Built, which is what tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Look, it's a beautiful little primary school just out of
Speaker 2: Geelong here in Victoria, in a little place called the Series.
Speaker 2: It's all like I created with another woman, male Austin,
Speaker 2: who basically came to me because one of her kiddos
Speaker 2: I was. We'd done therapy a lot together for many years.
Speaker 2: I just supported her through raising her kiddos and one
Speaker 2: of her kids has started school and she just she
Speaker 2: was just like, he hates it. His name keeps being
Speaker 2: put on the board and he can't move his body
Speaker 2: when he wants to move, and he was really you know,
Speaker 2: she was just like, is this what school is? And
Speaker 2: I was like pretty much. And then she said to me, well,
Speaker 2: what if we created our own school. What if we
Speaker 2: build a school based on all the things that you've
Speaker 2: taught me? And she had the means to do it financially.
Speaker 2: She was like, you know, old fund it all. Why
Speaker 2: don't you just create the school that you think should exist.
Speaker 2: And so I think, after all those years of working
Speaker 2: with families and you know, doing therapy with them and
Speaker 2: seeing the impact of trauma, I was like, what would.
Speaker 1: Have truly trauma informed school look like?
Speaker 2: With the basics of things like children having choice in autonomy,
Speaker 2: they can move their bodies when they want, they can
Speaker 2: eat when they want, they can go to the toilet,
Speaker 2: they can sit on the couch to learn, they can.
Speaker 1: Lay on the floor.
Speaker 2: Just the basics even to start with around getting kids
Speaker 2: to feel emotionally safe so they can learn because you know,
Speaker 2: I know, and I saw it with my own kids.
Speaker 2: Kids don't learn when they are on high alert, when
Speaker 2: their nervous system is peaking all the time.
Speaker 1: Going am I going to get in trouble?
Speaker 2: You know, children need to feel safe and seen in
Speaker 2: order to learn well. So we wanted to create environments
Speaker 2: that felt safe. So part of that was having small
Speaker 2: class sizes, is calling. We don't call them teachers, we
Speaker 2: call them guides by their first names, you know, having
Speaker 2: that beautiful emphasis on connection and getting to know each
Speaker 2: other so that children feel seen, and then looking at
Speaker 2: the education system and going, well, how do we deliver
Speaker 2: a curriculum that's exciting and that's inspiring and that kids
Speaker 2: get fired up about? And so you know, we're a
Speaker 2: play based learning school, so a lot of what we
Speaker 2: do is through play, but also through following the kids' interests,
Speaker 2: what they're into, you know, what lights them up. And
Speaker 2: we are also lucky enough to be on like a
Speaker 2: twenty acre farm, so we use nature animals. The kids
Speaker 2: do a lot of learning outside. You'll often find the
Speaker 2: kids at our school climbing trees or just.
Speaker 4: So dirty in the fantastic And.
Speaker 2: You know, we've been open for four years now and
Speaker 2: it's not perfect. I don't believe there is any utopian
Speaker 2: school because I think all different systems suit different kids.
Speaker 2: You know, some kids love more structure, they love.
Speaker 1: That rote learning.
Speaker 2: For other kids they've got to learn with their hands.
Speaker 2: Other kids go to learn with their bodies. So we're
Speaker 2: not a perfect one size fits all. But for me,
Speaker 2: I think having created Woodline and then watching the journey
Speaker 2: of it over the last four years, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: I say, is often far better than what I dreamed
Speaker 2: it to be, which is so due to the incredible
Speaker 2: our principle and our leadership team and the people who
Speaker 2: work there are just the most excellent humans who are
Speaker 2: really passionate about this. Yes, what I do see is
Speaker 2: that there is the possibility of a change for education
Speaker 2: because it doesn't suit everybody, and I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of letting kids down a lot at the moment. And
Speaker 2: for me, I would come back to what if we
Speaker 2: put the child at the center for conversation and then
Speaker 2: built a system around that, Whereas I think our system
Speaker 2: is built around data, and it's built around this pressure
Speaker 2: that we have of what we believe successes, you know,
Speaker 2: and I think for a long time, what we've been
Speaker 2: told successes is getting good grades, going through diversity, getting.
Speaker 1: A good job, earning a lot of money. That success.
Speaker 2: But we know that's not the case, you know. To me,
Speaker 2: I think success is a calm, nervous system. Success is
Speaker 2: a person that feels connected to who they are and
Speaker 2: their spirit as success is someone who is kind and
Speaker 2: thinks of others, and the planet, and who also you know,
Speaker 2: has good boundaries and follows their passions of what they
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, what would the world.
Speaker 2: Be if we actually raise kids that stayed innately connected
Speaker 2: to their sense of self? I think we would see
Speaker 2: a bit of a different world than what we're living
Speaker 2: in right now. So as a schooling system, I just
Speaker 2: think there's a lot we can do to shift where
Speaker 2: the focus is and come back to children to help
Speaker 2: them to thrive.
Speaker 1: You know, for me, that is the.
Speaker 3: Goal that I'm thinking that And you could probably validate
Speaker 3: this that in a scenario and environment that you've just
Speaker 3: explained so beautifully, that there's probably a less need for
Speaker 3: discipline because the kids aren't feeling the need to go crazy.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: You know. One of the key things that is the
Speaker 2: main focus of our school we always say to all
Speaker 2: our adults, is we need to keep looking behind the behavior.
Speaker 1: There's always a reason why a child's out of balance.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's because they need to move their body, Maybe
Speaker 2: it's because they're hungry. Maybe it's because they've got a
Speaker 2: new baby at home and they're feeling really left out
Speaker 2: and not seen, And so then they come to school
Speaker 2: and they want to control something and so then they
Speaker 2: control someone else or you know, there's always a reason
Speaker 2: behind the behavior. And our philosophy at our school is
Speaker 2: that when kids are out of balance, the first thing
Speaker 2: is to be curious and to lean in and see
Speaker 2: is there a need that hasn't been met They need
Speaker 2: some info or where is the connection missing to help
Speaker 2: them come back into balance so that they are ready
Speaker 2: to learn or be part of what we're doing.
Speaker 1: So it takes a lot more work.
Speaker 2: It's impossible to do in a system when you've got
Speaker 2: thirty kids and one teacher.
Speaker 1: You can't do it.
Speaker 2: So that's why you need smaller class sizes. You need
Speaker 2: lots of adults around, and you need all the adults
Speaker 2: to be i think regulated and attuned enough to themselves, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: That they're able to tune into them But that, I
Speaker 2: think is where we see the huge shift and change.
Speaker 1: And it's Look, it's not easy, it's messy. It takes
Speaker 1: more time.
Speaker 2: You know, it pushes all the adults buttons. You know,
Speaker 2: that happens so so much of the time. Over these
Speaker 2: years of working with lots of adults at our school,
Speaker 2: what comes up beautifully is what happened to.
Speaker 1: Them when they were at school, and they're like, you.
Speaker 2: Know, that fires up a whold of their own reactions
Speaker 2: and feelings. So we've got to work through that so
Speaker 2: that they can really be that center point for their kids.
Speaker 2: So it's not easy, it's not a quick fix, but
Speaker 2: I see how powerful it is. And you know, we
Speaker 2: have educators come from all over Austraya now to see
Speaker 2: what we're doing at the school, and we've got other
Speaker 2: people who are starting to build their own schools on this,
Speaker 2: which excites me so much because I'm like, if we
Speaker 2: can create more learning systems like this, I think we're
Speaker 2: going to meet so many.
Speaker 1: More children's needs.
Speaker 2: And then I think we're going to we're going to
Speaker 2: see a massive shift in mental health problems. We're going
Speaker 2: to see a massive shift in helping the family unit
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: Guys, it's been an amazing chat. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for being with us today. We are a relationship podcast,
Speaker 3: as you know, so we'll just finished with a quick
Speaker 3: two minute shower, so keep your answers short. Both answer
Speaker 3: the question please, First question, what happens does your partner
Speaker 3: have that you find adorable?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's cute. Okay, I'll answer first.
Speaker 2: Mike laughs a lot, and he's always silly, and he's
Speaker 2: always been an idiot, and it's actually quite adorable. And
Speaker 2: especially when you're doing with the kids and you find
Speaker 2: yourself really hilarious and they don't.
Speaker 1: That's I think that's really quite adorable.
Speaker 3: I love that that's called playing. But I think that's
Speaker 3: what I was going to say. When you're talking about
Speaker 3: the kid, get the kids playing. Adults need to play
Speaker 3: more too. Mike. What you say, Mike, what you say.
Speaker 6: Lalel's heart comes through our eyes. That's that's going to
Speaker 6: be my answer. Okay, that's what I say.
Speaker 4: Beautiful.
Speaker 5: What about your relationship makes you feel the most grateful?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 1: I just think.
Speaker 2: What makes me feel the most grateful is I know
Speaker 2: Mike has my back one hundred oh.
Speaker 1: This is makes me emotional.
Speaker 2: I know that no matter how hard my day's been,
Speaker 2: or what I'm doing out in the world, or when
Speaker 2: I'm trying to be out there and be big or
Speaker 2: do all this stuff, that he is so rock solid.
Speaker 2: I love the fact that when I've been traveling, he'll
Speaker 2: see where I am on my drive back from the
Speaker 2: airport and he will run a bath for me, so
Speaker 2: he knows that it's ready when I get home. Like
Speaker 2: I just I love that you think about how can
Speaker 2: I support And sometimes I've been in the morning Michael
Speaker 2: say to you, how can I support you today?
Speaker 1: And I just go, that is.
Speaker 2: So golden when you're holding a lot, it's yeah.
Speaker 1: It's beyond yeah.
Speaker 6: And my answer is probably the same, which is we're
Speaker 6: a team and we're connected. Yeah. We play together, we
Speaker 6: love together, we live together, we support each other.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Beautiful. All right, guys, last question, one word to describe
Speaker 3: each other?
Speaker 6: How about playful?
Speaker 1: To me? Describe me? Are you? I would say, I
Speaker 1: would say, honest, there you go.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us today. This has
Speaker 3: been really insightful. I'm sure a lot of our listeners
Speaker 3: will get some intel and from this. So thank you
Speaker 3: both so much.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5: I knew I was going to love them. I knew
Speaker 5: it so much. Good info and both on the same page.
Speaker 5: You know, when they were talking about consent and how
Speaker 5: they've taught their kids that you know, maybe's a maybe
Speaker 5: oh that when Lalee talked about, you know, teaching her
Speaker 5: kids it needs to be a full body, yes, and
Speaker 5: if you've got that full body Yes, you know it's
Speaker 5: the right thing to do.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 5: I think that's great for anyone, not just teenagers.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, full body Yes, sounds pretty fancy. Yeah, because you
Speaker 3: know when your body's there, you're feeling it. Yes, like okay,
Speaker 3: I am all in.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's exactly right. I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 4: use that now. Is this a full body?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: For me it is.
Speaker 3: I'm going to see a bit like my Saturday golf.
Speaker 3: If it's a full body yes, or then I'm going in.
Speaker 3: And if it's a bit, I'm still going in and
Speaker 3: I'm dipped the tailing.
Speaker 4: I don't think have you ever had it on golf?
Speaker 3: I think it's yeah, weekdays really yeah, week Saturdays, I
Speaker 3: have a better a better sort of permission is a
Speaker 3: lot stronger on Saturdays because it's Saturday. But a weekday,
Speaker 3: a workday, I'm going, yeah, maybe I should be talking
Speaker 3: to X y Z or are you still writing this?
Speaker 3: And I yea still go you go girl, Thanks for
Speaker 3: tuning in. See you on the next episode.
Speaker 1: All right, see yea