Speaker 1: I'll get a doctor. Sam. Welcome back to you project.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 2: Thanks? Great? Good? How are you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm good. How's so you're on the other side
Speaker 1: of the continent. I'm right, you're in Perth.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm in Karatha, which is WA so yeah close.
Speaker 1: So how I think I asked you this? I should
Speaker 1: have remembered. But what is that? Like? Eight hundred kilometers?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not really good with mouth. It's about it's
Speaker 2: like a two hour flight.
Speaker 1: So all right, So it's it's far. It's far. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like Melbourne to Brisbane far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pie country living really but Kraft is a city,
Speaker 2: so it's yeah, the mix of the country and the
Speaker 2: and the city life.
Speaker 1: How many? How many? How many people? This is not
Speaker 1: really our topic, but fuck it, it doesn't matter. How
Speaker 1: many people live in Karatha, give or tape.
Speaker 2: She tested me today. I'm guessing like twenty thousand. But
Speaker 2: that's honestly just off the top of my head. I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not familiar with the stat and.
Speaker 1: It's primarily a this is it not your field of expertise,
Speaker 1: but it's primarily a mining town, right it is?
Speaker 2: Well, the family's here, right, Yeah, either way. Yeah, for
Speaker 2: one of the big mining companies though.
Speaker 1: And is it?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Sorry? Everyone, I'm just interested in this. Is it? Like,
Speaker 1: what's the typical temperature?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: It's hot all year?
Speaker 2: Right? It is so hot? Oh yeah, yeah, you'd have
Speaker 2: like a good maybe like month of winter or two.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's like pretty hot all year. And it's
Speaker 2: humid as well. So I think we're in the early
Speaker 2: forties today, so it's yeah, so long. Wow.
Speaker 1: And what's like a winter like a cold winterday is
Speaker 1: probably like twenty two or something.
Speaker 2: Oh well, it goes really cold, like yeah, for a
Speaker 2: month or two. But yeah, generally speaking, even our winters
Speaker 2: stone Yeah, it kind of feels a bit like springs.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow. Now just tell my audience who haven't met you yet,
Speaker 1: just give them a quick snapshot of the doctor Sam
Speaker 1: Casey kind of vibe as in your career, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm a pissys looking club. I mean that, I mean
Speaker 1: your career, what you do, the work that you do
Speaker 1: to give them context before we step off.
Speaker 2: Yeap. So I'm a therapist. I trained as a child
Speaker 2: therapist and then moved on to working more with parents
Speaker 2: and professionals, so teaching them about play therapies. I'm also
Speaker 2: interested plate therapists as well. And yeah, I created a
Speaker 2: play prescription which is trying to take the power of
Speaker 2: therapytic play outside the therapy room. So really just teaching
Speaker 2: practical tools to be able to clean in on that.
Speaker 1: And how many people like even have an awareness Like
Speaker 1: like when I heard about play therapy as in like
Speaker 1: a almost like a clinical thing that you can do
Speaker 1: to create mental health outcomes and address mental health issues
Speaker 1: among behavioral issues, I didn't mean. I'm literally doing a
Speaker 1: PhD in psychology and I'd never heard of it. So
Speaker 1: it is there's not that much awareness around it.
Speaker 2: There isn't, to be honest, Like in America it's quite big,
Speaker 2: but in Australia it's still really new. And when I
Speaker 2: first came across it, I mean I was fifteen, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it was really unheard off here in Australia and there's
Speaker 2: still like you said that, there's just not enough awareness
Speaker 2: around it. But you know, from a I guess the
Speaker 2: developmental point of view, it makes complete sense. You know,
Speaker 2: kids don't use words to express how they feel they play,
Speaker 2: So I am, you know, really passionate about creating more
Speaker 2: awareness around that therapeutic value of play and just the
Speaker 2: different ways that we can use that obviously, which is very,
Speaker 2: you know, very different to how people see therapy for kids.
Speaker 1: How do we know? I mean, I know there's no
Speaker 1: probably absolute answer to this, but yeah, like kids, don't
Speaker 1: you know, if kids are feeling a certain way, they're
Speaker 1: not gone. You know what, Mum look, or you know what, teacher,
Speaker 1: or you know what Dad look. I'm really struggling emotionally today.
Speaker 1: I'm just feeling a little bit. I ain't got some
Speaker 1: low level anings diety. I'm worried about a few things.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure about Kinder. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: heading off to Kinder and John I looked at me
Speaker 1: and poked my sandwich yesterday, you know, I mean they
Speaker 1: don't do that, right of course, So how do we
Speaker 1: know that we're interpreting their behavior? Because their behavior I
Speaker 1: mean other than play, but the way that they behave
Speaker 1: and act is a pretty good insight into at least
Speaker 1: how they're feeling. How do we become better at reading that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's really difficult, right because Yeah, in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways, right, I mean, behavior is communications. A
Speaker 2: lot of the ways you can see when a child
Speaker 2: is acting out there, struggling with something or yeah, behaviorally,
Speaker 2: you know, if they're having a bit of a meltdown
Speaker 2: or a chantrum or anything. You know that there is
Speaker 2: something underneath it. But like you said, it's also having
Speaker 2: to decode it because how it comes out isn't necessarily
Speaker 2: how it is. So for example, a child seeking connection
Speaker 2: can do so and really, you know, kind of the
Speaker 2: opposite ways. They could be pushing people away. They could
Speaker 2: be you know, the behavior kind of issues, and a
Speaker 2: lot of parents will be like, well, no, they don't
Speaker 2: really want my connection, just pushing me away. And I
Speaker 2: offered that and they said, no, go away, I don't
Speaker 2: like you. But for a lot of kids, they just
Speaker 2: you know, in those moments, they don't feel likable, and
Speaker 2: so they do push people away to kind of almost
Speaker 2: get that connection in any attention is good attention in
Speaker 2: a child's mind when they're struggling with that. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is really difficult to decode it. I think when
Speaker 2: parents are struggling to decode their own emotions, and I
Speaker 2: think it's really trying to understand that behind every behavior
Speaker 2: there's an unmet need and a lot of the time's
Speaker 2: behavior is really a stress response for a child. So
Speaker 2: really understanding what actually stresses out a child and what
Speaker 2: really depletes their carp and actually what fills up their cup.
Speaker 2: And I think gaining more understanding of that really comes
Speaker 2: down to actually connecting with ourselves and understanding our own needs,
Speaker 2: unmet needs behind our behavior and our inner child kind
Speaker 2: of stuff as well.
Speaker 1: Wow wow, So do we project our own shit onto
Speaker 1: our kids? Well? I mean, of course we do. That's
Speaker 1: a dumb question. But it's like we like where always
Speaker 1: So for example, I don't have kids, but let's pretend
Speaker 1: I've got a kid. So I always look at everything
Speaker 1: through the Craig window, because that's, you know, the Craig
Speaker 1: filter is the world that I have, you know, and
Speaker 1: you look through, you know, and all your education and
Speaker 1: information and awareness and knowledge, you're still looking through the
Speaker 1: sam lens, right, And so which can be I guess
Speaker 1: a positive and a negative? But you know, I think
Speaker 1: there are times when there's probably a question coming stand
Speaker 1: by who the fuck knows? It's me? But all right,
Speaker 1: here's what I want to say. This is what I've
Speaker 1: seen a fair bit of because over the years, as
Speaker 1: you may or may not know, I had multiple personal
Speaker 1: training centers. So we used to work with I would
Speaker 1: start working with a mum, and then five or ten
Speaker 1: years later, I'm working with the daughter, and then maybe
Speaker 1: another ten years later, I'm working with a granddaughter. I
Speaker 1: would work with multiple generations, and sometimes I need to
Speaker 1: be careful how I word this. But I've seen issues
Speaker 1: handed down, you know, and liviting beliefs and like even
Speaker 1: to the point with some things like with eating issues
Speaker 1: and eating disorders that almost well didn't almost they become
Speaker 1: intergenerational because one of the parents just handed down their
Speaker 1: own body dysmorphia stuff or eating issues stuff. It got
Speaker 1: obviously unintentionally but inadvertently past a lung.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a really tricky bit, right because
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of parents then get really fearful
Speaker 2: of this, and then they try and be perfect around
Speaker 2: it or try and hide it, and that in itself
Speaker 2: becomes an issue. So, for example, if a parent's got anxiety, right,
Speaker 2: and they start to see some kind of anxious tendencies
Speaker 2: with their child because they see that as a reflection
Speaker 2: of them, like, oh my gosh, I'm passing it down.
Speaker 2: I know I struggle with this, and my child's struggling
Speaker 2: with that, what they're going to do is they're going
Speaker 2: to again ignore it. They're going to try and act
Speaker 2: like it's not there. They're going to try and band
Speaker 2: aid fix it because they see a child's anxiety as
Speaker 2: a failure on their part, and so they'll continue to
Speaker 2: kind of mask their own in order to you know,
Speaker 2: project I mean, they'll project it on their child as
Speaker 2: well so that everyone's okay. And what I say is
Speaker 2: that there's obviously biological stuff that comes into this two
Speaker 2: nature essusn't iture. There's always going to be different elements.
Speaker 2: But when we try and put a mask on and
Speaker 2: hide the fact that we're struggling with something, kids actually
Speaker 2: struggle more because they also feel that, and then they
Speaker 2: don't really know how to put words to it. I
Speaker 2: think the best thing in those circumstance is seeing it
Speaker 2: as a bit of a superpower and going actually, I
Speaker 2: struggle with anxiety, and if my child struggles with anxiety,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have that empathy. But also I actually
Speaker 2: need to really roll model that my anxiety is really
Speaker 2: my responsibility and I'm going to get to know myself
Speaker 2: and my triggers. And so then you're role modeling that
Speaker 2: to your child. You're not trying to fix it for them.
Speaker 2: You're not trying to act like they can't be anxious
Speaker 2: or express how they feel because you keep seeing it
Speaker 2: as a reflection if you. But rather it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is something I struggle with. They're going to potentially
Speaker 2: be struggling with this. But yeah, how can I kind
Speaker 2: of role model how we manage in a really healthy way.
Speaker 2: And that's really hard because ye parents see their children
Speaker 2: as reflections of themselves.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a parent the other day and
Speaker 1: they said to me, my kid is a nightmare in
Speaker 1: kinder Right. The tea not a nightmare, like a cute kid,
Speaker 1: but mayhem like chaos. Right. And the teacher, I don't
Speaker 1: know what do you call them the teacher? Do you
Speaker 1: call them teacher in kinder? I guess so can't it's
Speaker 1: a little boy. Can't get him to sit still. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, so he has like sitting still issues when
Speaker 1: everyone's sitting still, he's like a maniac. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: how old is he? And she goes three. I'm like,
Speaker 1: he's a three year old boy. I mean, what do
Speaker 1: you think he's three? It's like sit down, Nah, fuck off?
Speaker 1: I'm not sitting down. Look at that thing over there,
Speaker 1: or look at that dinosaur on the wall, or I'm
Speaker 1: going to climb up. I mean, do we have do
Speaker 1: we have silly expectations of like is it some three
Speaker 1: year olds will sit there with their legs and arms
Speaker 1: crossed and have a little nap and do a little
Speaker 1: quiet time and close their eyes, and I'm sure they'll
Speaker 1: be you know, dream students. But we can't expect the
Speaker 1: same thing from different children, can we exactly?
Speaker 2: And that's what the really hard been is it's almost
Speaker 2: like the kids that are creative and they're just really curious,
Speaker 2: they're the ones that kind of get shut down or
Speaker 2: labeled as the naughty kid at school. It's just and
Speaker 2: I think for parents to really separate that and going
Speaker 2: this environment it's just really not bringing out the best
Speaker 2: of my child or this environment is it really suited
Speaker 2: to my child, and so being able to work around
Speaker 2: that rather than see that as a reflection of their
Speaker 2: child's limitations or you know, getting too caught up in
Speaker 2: that because you're right, like a three year old's is
Speaker 2: not going to want to sit down. I mean, like
Speaker 2: I don't want to sit down for a song. And
Speaker 2: they make kids sit down in class. It's just it's
Speaker 2: a bit unrealistic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like that the you know, that's
Speaker 1: just them, like there's no intention to be a bad kid.
Speaker 1: I was just looking up. There's there's a guy that
Speaker 1: I follow. His name's Tim Kennedy, and that's what it's called.
Speaker 1: It's Apage. He created these schools in the States. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's other schools like them. It's called Apage Strong
Speaker 1: and they created this school like it's a regular school.
Speaker 1: Kids do maths and all the stuff that they do,
Speaker 1: but it's a very different style of learning. Like they
Speaker 1: do a lot of outdoor stuff. And the schools are
Speaker 1: set up on these properties, like with animals and trees
Speaker 1: and nature, and so they do very little traditional sitting
Speaker 1: on a sitting at a desk, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: all And I mean, I'm sure for some people that
Speaker 1: that model would be a nightmare. But if I reckon,
Speaker 1: I would have actually been quite a good student if
Speaker 1: I grew up in that, because for me, the tradition,
Speaker 1: the traditional model for me. And you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying school was the problem. I was equally the problem.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about that. But I reckon if I had
Speaker 1: been in a different model and a different environment with
Speaker 1: a different style of teaching, where you know, I wasn't
Speaker 1: forced to sit for six or eight hours a day
Speaker 1: at a desk, you know, and behave a certain way
Speaker 1: and focus on shit that didn't interest me. Yeah maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I wasn't a terrible student, but
Speaker 1: I definitely wasn't a good student, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that there are so many different
Speaker 2: ways that parents can foster this, even if they're not,
Speaker 2: you know, regardless of what decision they make about what
Speaker 2: school their child goes to. I think when you have
Speaker 2: that mindset, you can really help a child put the
Speaker 2: grades into perspective, but you can also put that environment
Speaker 2: into perspective where you're like, okay, we go to school,
Speaker 2: but then outside that, what are you interested in? Like,
Speaker 2: let's point in on this, let's find different ways to
Speaker 2: actually support their way of learning and their interests and
Speaker 2: their curiosity. So I think that you know, when we
Speaker 2: do that for our sales, right, we get to know
Speaker 2: our own brain and we can support children to do
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 1: And yeah, is perfection is I mean, I'm not a parent,
Speaker 1: you're a parent, But is there pressure. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's real pressure or perceived pressure. If you're a parent,
Speaker 1: the other parents judge, You're like, oh, look at it,
Speaker 1: look at it. And that must be worse for you
Speaker 1: because you're a fucking doctor of this, Like this is
Speaker 1: You're meant to be the high water mark. It's like
Speaker 1: when I go out, When I go out and I'm
Speaker 1: at a restaurant and somebody that knows who I am,
Speaker 1: Not that I'm anyone, but so many people are fascinated with, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's Craig Harper eating? Right? Yeah, well you know whatever,
Speaker 1: But yeah, people are really interested in what I eat.
Speaker 1: Some people send me messages and go, can you tell
Speaker 1: me what you eat in a typical day. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that is definitely not exciting. But I imagine
Speaker 1: for you you would be being observed your parenting style
Speaker 1: and your skills and your approach more than.
Speaker 2: The average definitely. And I think in general though, parents
Speaker 2: always judge on the parents, but you're right, and almost
Speaker 2: like they kind of see that as not the standard.
Speaker 2: But you know, everything gets picked apart. And I was
Speaker 2: really conscious of that because I actually, to be honest,
Speaker 2: came to parenting with that mindset of like I am
Speaker 2: so prepared, like I've read all the things, I know
Speaker 2: exactly how I want a parent, like this is awesome.
Speaker 2: And it was early until I became a parent that
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I don't want to be like this.
Speaker 2: I don't want to feel like my child needs to
Speaker 2: be perfect so that I feel like a perfect parent,
Speaker 2: Like it's actually not working out for either one of us.
Speaker 2: And that really set me in my own personal, you know,
Speaker 2: development kind of journey because I realized actually a lot
Speaker 2: of what is preached as perfect parenting really doesn't say
Speaker 2: as a child or the parent, And I think being
Speaker 2: able to mute out that noise is really difficult. But
Speaker 2: often when you do what's right for you and your child,
Speaker 2: everyone's got something to say. And I do say this
Speaker 2: to parents. Often there is no parenting decision that is
Speaker 2: free of scrutiny. Everyone's going to be like you're too soft,
Speaker 2: you're too hard, you're too strict, you're not strict enough.
Speaker 2: Like there's always going to be those judgments out there,
Speaker 2: and so how do you start trusting your own intuition
Speaker 2: or your own judgment around those things that you are
Speaker 2: figuring it out? I mean you've never lived this life before.
Speaker 2: I neither has your child. And so I think when
Speaker 2: I've taken that approach of like that experimentation, I'm still
Speaker 2: learning about my children as they're learning about themselves, as
Speaker 2: I'm learning about myself. Like it takes the pressure of
Speaker 2: them to be kids, and also for me, like it's
Speaker 2: way more enjoyable to live life without that, you know,
Speaker 2: pressure to be perfect. But definitely, I definitely have felt
Speaker 2: those situations constantly in my parenting. Genie and I have
Speaker 2: to actively have strategies to actually block out and mute
Speaker 2: out that the noise and the judgment.
Speaker 1: What's something Sam that as a mum, right as a
Speaker 1: parent that you got wrong that you went, oh, you
Speaker 1: maybe did a one ad on your thinking or your
Speaker 1: operating system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that was that. The behavioral Yeah, the
Speaker 2: behavioral stuff, the strategies. I thought a well behaved child
Speaker 2: was the standard, and I thought I had to be
Speaker 2: perfect and always have the perfect responses. And I've completely
Speaker 2: done one eighty of that because, to be honest, a
Speaker 2: child that looked well behaved often is a child that's
Speaker 2: suppressing stuff. Often is a child that feels like they
Speaker 2: need to be good. So that their parents can feel okay,
Speaker 2: often is a child that feels like they need to
Speaker 2: be mature beyond their years, because again, a parent seeds
Speaker 2: their child's reflections of them. So I completely did a
Speaker 2: one eighty with that and going, you know, that's not
Speaker 2: a bed and I want my child to bear like
Speaker 2: they're their own person and they're on their own journey.
Speaker 2: And I'm also on my own journey. So I think
Speaker 2: I was trying to do everything righted it's almost like
Speaker 2: that good kill condition and coming out and yeah, I
Speaker 2: completely did it one eighty and going, Actually, I want
Speaker 2: to be the opposite. I want children to know that
Speaker 2: I'm still trying to figure this out and I'm not perfect,
Speaker 2: and I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: be true to myself and I'm sure learning about myself,
Speaker 2: and I want them to have the freedom to do
Speaker 2: that too. So that's really what prompted me in going
Speaker 2: on my own journey, like I can't. I can't put
Speaker 2: all my hopes and dreams onto them. I have to
Speaker 2: live my own life and that takes a lot of
Speaker 2: contention to be like, Okay, that's something I want to do,
Speaker 2: not necessarily maybe what they want to do and that's okay.
Speaker 2: I can go with my own goals and they can
Speaker 2: have their own.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's really interesting. That's really interesting because you
Speaker 1: would have to be I think, I mean, there are
Speaker 1: certain careers and professions and directions that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of parents would like their kid to take. You know,
Speaker 1: like nobody's going to be mad when the kid becomes
Speaker 1: a doctor or very few or what. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that's the you know, or they like you.
Speaker 2: They people see that as a standard, right.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm just saying, you know, but when the
Speaker 1: kid come home and goes, you know, like for example,
Speaker 1: and this so a mentor and coach a young kid
Speaker 1: who's his goal is to be the best surfer in
Speaker 1: the world. His name's Ozzie triggwell right, shout out to
Speaker 1: oz And he's got a great mom and dad. But
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking too many mum and dads who go
Speaker 1: their kid goes when he's fifteen and they're gone. So
Speaker 1: what are you thinking about career? He goes, I want
Speaker 1: to be a professional surfer like my mum and dad
Speaker 1: would have gone. No next, you know, to be able
Speaker 1: to be well, what if your kids dream is your
Speaker 1: fucking nightmare. I mean that's and you've still got to
Speaker 1: be or you think and you think you're smarter than them,
Speaker 1: and you think, you know, you've got the wisdom. They
Speaker 1: don't have the wisdom. And they're like, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: just want to go to I want to go to
Speaker 1: Nider or whatever it's called, or Nada or Wada, whatever
Speaker 1: it's called. And I want to be and I want
Speaker 1: to in an oscar one day. I want to act
Speaker 1: in and they like, yeah, statistically fucking no chance. But
Speaker 1: I mean those things, I would imagine that's challenging when
Speaker 1: your kid wants something that you don't think is a
Speaker 1: good idea.
Speaker 2: Oh and that's really like the difficult bit, right because
Speaker 2: of course you know that's the instinct right of trying
Speaker 2: to protect your child from harm or go no, like
Speaker 2: this is you don't see this bit and trying to
Speaker 2: give all that advice. But I feel like from living
Speaker 2: my own life in such a well I would say
Speaker 2: courageous way, like really having to do things differently to
Speaker 2: what I thought I would do, I realized the power
Speaker 2: of experience. No matter how much someone told me something,
Speaker 2: I actually have to go through my own experiences and
Speaker 2: figure it out for myself. And so I see that
Speaker 2: as that goal. Like, for example, when I wanted to
Speaker 2: leave school at fifteen, you know my parents, I mean
Speaker 2: they said yes to that, and they signed off on it.
Speaker 2: But if I did if they said no, I would
Speaker 2: have been resentful. I would have pepsley, probably continued to
Speaker 2: do about it school. I would have acted out all
Speaker 2: of that stuff. But because they said yes, I was
Speaker 2: able to actually try out hairdressing, which I realized wasn't
Speaker 2: my thing, and then I was able to kind of
Speaker 2: figure out a way right where this led me to,
Speaker 2: you know, my really fulfilling career in play therapy. So
Speaker 2: I realized that no one could have told me that
Speaker 2: or tried to steam me away from that. I really
Speaker 2: wanted to go through my own experiences. And so I
Speaker 2: think when I have, you know, my children reached out stage,
Speaker 2: it's going to have to be this balance of being
Speaker 2: really authentic and honest about maybe how I feel about it,
Speaker 2: but then also going ultimately this is your life, like Noah,
Speaker 2: like You're going to have to make these decisions and
Speaker 2: not be there to say I told you so, but
Speaker 2: rather help them navigate that. When inevitably things don't really
Speaker 2: work out how you know we've planned out. But it's
Speaker 2: that that's part of human nature.
Speaker 1: Right, I reckon you are a unicorn, But I love
Speaker 1: I love that, Like how many kids went to their
Speaker 1: mum and dad or how many girls, well boys, I
Speaker 1: guess boys can go to be hairdressers, but how many
Speaker 1: kids at fifteen when I want to leave school and
Speaker 1: I'm going to go be a hairdresser and the mum
Speaker 1: and dad go okay, And then you do that and
Speaker 1: then eventually you end up being a PhD graduate and
Speaker 1: your doctor Sam Casey, and you're talking to on a
Speaker 1: podcast to people all over the world and you're now
Speaker 1: an expert in if it's like, oh, she just ended
Speaker 1: up in the right place anyway, And if, like you said,
Speaker 1: if mom and dad had to or try to suppress that,
Speaker 1: it might have you might not have ended up where
Speaker 1: you ended up. It would have been a terrible outcome, but.
Speaker 2: With good intentions. And that's why I kind of realized
Speaker 2: at school, right, it's all the external reinforcement like get
Speaker 2: the grades, or teachers telling you should be doing this
Speaker 2: and this is what's wrong with you, and this is
Speaker 2: what and It's almost like I couldn't hear my own voice,
Speaker 2: and when I was left to, I would say, my
Speaker 2: own device is of having to figure it out. That's
Speaker 2: where that internal reinforcement came in, and I was able
Speaker 2: to develop that self discipline because there was no one
Speaker 2: else telling me I had to do this right. No
Speaker 2: one else was telling me this is signing STUW and
Speaker 2: you're going to like I had to figure this out
Speaker 2: for myself. So I feel like we're so scared to
Speaker 2: kind of let the penny drop or to let things
Speaker 2: fall into place by natural fact, children will never develop
Speaker 2: their own resources and their own strengths and their own
Speaker 2: internal compass if we don't do that. So it is
Speaker 2: this really tricky balance, right, And a lot of our
Speaker 2: fears and a lot of our projections are coming out
Speaker 2: because all we see from our own conditioning, our own
Speaker 2: childhood conditioning, is what could go wrong. We really don't
Speaker 2: see what could go right, and that's the problem. We're
Speaker 2: waiting for things to go wrong and be like I
Speaker 2: told you, so, I saw this kind of thing. I
Speaker 2: knew this was going to happen, and then the child
Speaker 2: starts to feel really crap about themselves because they didn't
Speaker 2: see that rather than going this is actually just part
Speaker 2: of the process. Cool, that didn't work, all right, what
Speaker 2: are we going to do now? Like, let's keep going?
Speaker 2: And so the issue never really is sometimes that first decision.
Speaker 2: It's the fact that children will a decision against their
Speaker 2: parents maybe you know, decision or whatever they think, and
Speaker 2: then it won't go right, and then the parents are like, see,
Speaker 2: I told you now, I should be the one making decisions,
Speaker 2: and this is what then kind of chips them away.
Speaker 2: So I feel like the more that we can normalize
Speaker 2: this journey of life of just figuring it out, the
Speaker 2: more kids will be able to get back on track quicker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real interesting what's the word balancing act?
Speaker 1: I think in terms of how much do we let
Speaker 1: our kids get their hands dirty? I guess there's a
Speaker 1: lot of variables. What age, you know, are they four,
Speaker 1: are they fourteen? It's different how much uncertainty do we
Speaker 1: let them be in the middle of discomfort? Like when
Speaker 1: do we intervene? When do we stand back? Because you know,
Speaker 1: all of us, nobody wants weak kids. Nobody wants kids
Speaker 1: who can't cope, Nobody wants kids who can't deal with
Speaker 1: life of course, of course, so in an ideal world,
Speaker 1: we'd go, wou do you want your kids to be
Speaker 1: mentally and emotionally sound and resilient and able to deal
Speaker 1: with hard stuff and the messiness and unfairness of life
Speaker 1: because it's coming right And then they most people would go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want them to be resilient and capable. But then
Speaker 1: in order to build resilience and capability and adaptability and
Speaker 1: competence and confidence, we can't put them in fucking cotton
Speaker 1: wool for twenty years.
Speaker 2: That's the hardest fit, right, And also what is our
Speaker 2: definition of resilience? Because a lot of the time as well,
Speaker 2: you know, we could see resiliences as showing up and
Speaker 2: continue to do the thing. But the moment that said
Speaker 2: the child is struggling with something, parents like, see, you're
Speaker 2: not resilient, like so I think it's also us getting
Speaker 2: in check with Okay, how resilient are we when our
Speaker 2: child doesn't do what we want or isn't showing the
Speaker 2: attributes that we like in the traits that we like? Like,
Speaker 2: how do we manage that? And I think the more
Speaker 2: that we can see ourselves as we're actually really fully
Speaker 2: only responsible for our steps. I mean, of course we're
Speaker 2: responsible for our child, but in that moment, we don't
Speaker 2: control their responses. And so for us to really get
Speaker 2: clear and are we doing great things with our life,
Speaker 2: so we, you know, are being able to practice that resilience.
Speaker 2: And I think the more that we realize again we
Speaker 2: can internally kind of like cultivate this, the more I
Speaker 2: think it will give them the examples to be able
Speaker 2: to do that for themselves.
Speaker 1: What do you think are the biggest fears that parents
Speaker 1: have about all their kids? Other than physical safety, let's
Speaker 1: take that off the table, but like, what are the
Speaker 1: things that parents really worry about about their children? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know the I don't even have a clue
Speaker 1: to the answer to this.
Speaker 2: Trauma. I would say that they're going to mess up
Speaker 2: their child, that they're going to traumatize their child, that
Speaker 2: they're going to repeat generational patterns.
Speaker 1: Right, So you think that Okay, So if I was
Speaker 1: a nightmare with something, or I had trauma, or I
Speaker 1: had certain issues that I'm going to say, how hand
Speaker 1: that down to my kid or kids?
Speaker 2: I think that could well. I feel like that's one
Speaker 2: of the biggest fears that parents have, that anything they
Speaker 2: do is going to mess up their child or that
Speaker 2: they're going to traumatize their child, and so they kind
Speaker 2: of overthink everything right and try and be perfect because
Speaker 2: they don't want to harm their child emotionally.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you have a daughter?
Speaker 2: Right? Yes?
Speaker 1: How old is she? Now?
Speaker 2: She's seven?
Speaker 1: So this is very difficult, but can you compare seven
Speaker 1: year old you to seven year old her? Like what's
Speaker 1: similar and what's totally dissimilar? Like can you see anything?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny actually because my dad, you know, comments
Speaker 2: on that. He was like, before the world got to you,
Speaker 2: you were exactly like her. So my daughter's very I
Speaker 2: would say, strong will. She knows what she wants. She
Speaker 2: you know, definitely kind of goes to the own beat
Speaker 2: of her own drums. Like she is the opposite I
Speaker 2: guess for people pleaser, right, she says, but she's on
Speaker 2: her mind. She says what she thinks. And when I
Speaker 2: look back at how I was at seven, it was
Speaker 2: definitely a part of me where I was like that,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't like that as often. I very much
Speaker 2: had that good girl conditioning where my parents were out
Speaker 2: at that time. You know, they were in that too,
Speaker 2: you know, my dad was trying to be the perfect dad,
Speaker 2: so you know, I was again being that perfect child.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's definitely similarities if I feel like that
Speaker 2: that power that you know, that her knowing who she
Speaker 2: is and what she wants and not afraid to say it,
Speaker 2: and that perseverance and the determination. But the difference is
Speaker 2: is the parenting too, because I didn't have you know,
Speaker 2: the Yeah, I guse my parents weren't really aware of
Speaker 2: that at that time, right, Oh, this is something we
Speaker 2: want to foster, and it was about back then.
Speaker 1: Either I feel sometimes I was talking to someone I
Speaker 1: won't say his name, but a guess that was on
Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, let's just say in the last year, right,
Speaker 1: a guy and we're talking off air, and he was
Speaker 1: telling me about his childhood and he was raised by
Speaker 1: i'll just say a parent. The other parent was out
Speaker 1: of the picture quite early, and the one parent that
Speaker 1: raised him was quite mentally unwell, and so by the
Speaker 1: time he was twelve, it was like he was the parent, right,
Speaker 1: he was protective of his parent, but he was he
Speaker 1: was like the man of the house and you know,
Speaker 1: doing everything from shopping and washing and dishes to getting
Speaker 1: his parent their medication and some days the parent would
Speaker 1: be flying and amazing, and then they wouldn't get out
Speaker 1: of bed for three days. And so like a very
Speaker 1: difficult situation, a genuinely difficult situation. But like, tell me
Speaker 1: about that, Tell me about kids who shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: but I mean, situationally, it seems like they have to
Speaker 1: be older than their years. Sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so this is you know, there's always dynamics
Speaker 2: in every family, and sometimes, like you said, you know,
Speaker 2: they could be a parent with the chronic illness, and
Speaker 2: so children are having to take on a lot more
Speaker 2: of a load than they normally would. And I think
Speaker 2: what's really more common and probably harder to see is
Speaker 2: taking on the emotional load more than they should around
Speaker 2: parents that you know, again see their children's reflection of them,
Speaker 2: or really rely on their children emotionally because they feel
Speaker 2: like they're giving everything and they don't really have other
Speaker 2: sources to get that back. So for example, they a
Speaker 2: child picks up on when their parents falls apart, when
Speaker 2: they when the child has a bad day or they're struggling,
Speaker 2: or they're anxious. And so children then learn to be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well I'll be good and I'll be easy and I
Speaker 2: will be you know, still with the flow and I'm okay,
Speaker 2: I'm okay because they want you to be okay. And
Speaker 2: so that I feel like is actually more common and
Speaker 2: happens a lot more undetected because you know, parents praise
Speaker 2: that my child's so easy going, like literally like they're
Speaker 2: so chill and it's great, Like they're so mature, and
Speaker 2: they expect children at a young age to not be
Speaker 2: you know, immature, and to be able to follow instructions
Speaker 2: and to do all the things and to have really
Speaker 2: appropriate emotional responses to things, and they don't really realize
Speaker 2: that children, I mean, their brains are still forming. But
Speaker 2: children are very good at doing what they need to
Speaker 2: do to survive. And when I say to survive, it's
Speaker 2: to get the love and the praise and the exceptions
Speaker 2: that they need. And so a lot of the time
Speaker 2: children will play that role of being responsible and mature
Speaker 2: and all of that in order to get that praise
Speaker 2: and that love and exceptions for their parents. But once
Speaker 2: it ends up happening is that they've actually missed some
Speaker 2: really crucial developmental stages being a child right and having
Speaker 2: that load, and that does impact them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do you think that I think in the
Speaker 1: other day that kids and I could be wrong on this,
Speaker 1: but I feel like kids are more scared now than
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Like there's a lot more
Speaker 1: fear about a million things now. Admitted I grew up
Speaker 1: in the country. Life was pretty simple. Life was pretty easy.
Speaker 1: It's like it wasn't a complicated existence. There are so
Speaker 1: many move It seems like there are so many moving
Speaker 1: parts in a ten year old's life now. Like in mind,
Speaker 1: it was like, hey, is there food good? I love food.
Speaker 1: Let's eat that in school and let's kick a footy
Speaker 1: and let's ride my bike. Yeah, and let's be home
Speaker 1: by dark the end. Right, It seemed like and maybe
Speaker 1: this is an old fuck with reflecting, but it seemed
Speaker 1: like a really a much simpler time. And it seems
Speaker 1: like to me and I could be wrong, but there
Speaker 1: was just a lot less things to worry about. Do
Speaker 1: you think kids are more fifful now than they were
Speaker 1: a generation or two go or it's just me.
Speaker 2: But so when you think about it too, right, a
Speaker 2: lot of like you know, a lot of parents and
Speaker 2: stain how the villageous support like they did a few
Speaker 2: generations back. Everything feels like there it's on their shoulders,
Speaker 2: and so they're trying to be all the all the
Speaker 2: things all the time, right to their children. So I
Speaker 2: think you know that anxiety is all around. It's the parents,
Speaker 2: the kids. It's the pressure as well that anything that
Speaker 2: they do can come back on them and it's their fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, wow, And just with your own stuff.
Speaker 1: Like you know, so you you left school early, you
Speaker 1: went on this journey, you ended up in academia. Do
Speaker 1: you do you still like how do you stay how
Speaker 1: do you stay up front of what's happening in the space,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you did your degree, you got your doctorate,
Speaker 1: you've got your PhD. Are you still researching? Are you
Speaker 1: still studying? I don't mean formally, but you must. You
Speaker 1: must need to kind of keep up with what is
Speaker 1: happening in the space so you can do exactly what
Speaker 1: you're doing right now rightly.
Speaker 2: And I yeah, I'm always going to be like that
Speaker 2: because I'm always so curious. But I think for me
Speaker 2: what the key is is most general articles I read
Speaker 2: I do not understand, like first go, I just think
Speaker 2: it's so worthy and so in like a different language.
Speaker 2: And so what I try and do is do I
Speaker 2: how would I simplify this, How would I explain this
Speaker 2: in like one sentence, or how would I explain this
Speaker 2: in such an easier way? And so for me, I
Speaker 2: really challenge you rights to continue to be up to
Speaker 2: date with research, but also to be like, how can
Speaker 2: this info get out? Because a lot of the time,
Speaker 2: right university is are pumping out research, but it never
Speaker 2: really you know, everything kind of looks really good on paper,
Speaker 2: but I feel like we kind of missed that gap
Speaker 2: between research and the practical application of it. And that's
Speaker 2: what I really try and do with paprescription. It's like,
Speaker 2: how do we take research and actually put it into
Speaker 2: practice and make this really easy to access because yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of the time we just don't have that
Speaker 2: in the in the middle there one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent agree. It's like with my research, and I mean,
Speaker 1: we need research, we need science course And I always
Speaker 1: say to people like my my research is like studying
Speaker 1: a drop of water for five years in an ocean
Speaker 1: of human behavior, Right, it's such a specific thing. But
Speaker 1: the chasm between theoretical human behavior and psychology and understanding
Speaker 1: certain whatever habits, behaviors, traits, actions, and then life at
Speaker 1: the coal face with humans. You know, my job has
Speaker 1: been for decades working with humans one on one in
Speaker 1: a three D kind of space, not a virtual space
Speaker 1: where you're looking at you're looking at someone's face and
Speaker 1: body and body language and movement and biomechanics, and you're
Speaker 1: feeling their emotions in their mind and you're it's like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't always cross over like the research
Speaker 1: and the outcomes in inverted commas, and the alleged science
Speaker 1: doesn't or isn't always supported in the real world, especially
Speaker 1: with psychology.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely. And I see this all the time, to
Speaker 2: be honest, when I work with schools and they've got
Speaker 2: these perfect plans, behavior management plans in place, and it's
Speaker 2: all research based and based on some training that they did,
Speaker 2: but so unpractical and it doesn't often really survive first
Speaker 2: contact with the child. And so I just don't think
Speaker 2: that there is enough processes and plates to then go
Speaker 2: we need to reflect on this and what is not working.
Speaker 2: Can we actually be honest about how this is not
Speaker 2: translating into practice and what our own barriers are around that,
Speaker 2: and then how do we readjust to reassess and keep
Speaker 2: tweaking it to be able to continue right, to make
Speaker 2: propriss on that track. And I feel like it's missing
Speaker 2: a lot because we kind of think, oh, no, this
Speaker 2: is research based, and you know, this has got all
Speaker 2: the things that should and then it should work, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw this thing the other day that somebody said,
Speaker 1: somebody was on banging on about Oh they did this
Speaker 1: research with it doesn't matter why it was about, but
Speaker 1: it was about women and weight loss or women and
Speaker 1: body composition, you know. I went, oh, that doesn't really
Speaker 1: sound legitimate. And they were talking about this research, this research.
Speaker 1: So I did a I'm like, where's the I want
Speaker 1: to see the research. I want to see the paper.
Speaker 1: I want to see the abstract. I want to see
Speaker 1: the discussion. I want to see you know what they did, right,
Speaker 1: there was fourteen people in the study. I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is not science, this is not indicative. This is and
Speaker 1: it went for eight weeks, eight weeks, fourteen people. I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous, you know, and then they're so then
Speaker 1: they're taking this very small, very limited, very high risk
Speaker 1: of bias. The highest risk, right, generally risk of bias
Speaker 1: is even anything under one hundred is like, a's no
Speaker 1: good right, Well, it's not regarded right, So this is
Speaker 1: fourteen people, and I'm like, oh, well, and then people
Speaker 1: get on and go this research was done with women, no,
Speaker 1: not concerned nevatively four million women at billion women in
Speaker 1: the world, give all take, and you did something with
Speaker 1: fourteen and then you're trying to generalize that two billions
Speaker 1: of people. It's so fucking misleading and untrue and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, what's the word inappropriate? What's the word unethical? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And how often does that happen? And I think then
Speaker 2: we overrely on research without also then actually going is
Speaker 2: this working for me? Like I feel like this we've
Speaker 2: said mindful drawing, right, and I'm sure there's research around
Speaker 2: the mindfulness stuff, and you know, when you're stressed, I've
Speaker 2: never found that word for me, to be honest. If anything,
Speaker 2: I will trip up the paper and throw it away
Speaker 2: and go do some exercise. So I feel like we
Speaker 2: also then when we catch onto things, but it's research base,
Speaker 2: we don't actually look at our own kind of like
Speaker 2: what's our own feedback kind of loop around this and
Speaker 2: how do we see if it works for us? Because
Speaker 2: a lot of the time you can find conflicting research
Speaker 2: too you know, this is how you should parent, but
Speaker 2: also this is how you can pare it. And so
Speaker 2: when you get caught up on that, it's like, ultimately
Speaker 2: you still have to make the decision. We can try
Speaker 2: and understand what the research says about it, but we
Speaker 2: need to figure out all works for us too.
Speaker 1: Oh and also yeah, one hundred percent. But your body
Speaker 1: is its own intelligence. Your brain, your nervous system, you're
Speaker 1: around all the bio feedback, all of that, everything that
Speaker 1: your body is telling you and your subconscious mind is
Speaker 1: pretty fucking smart. And you know, it's like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of data that we have access to constantly that
Speaker 1: we do not really we don't pay attention to or
Speaker 1: we don't understand it, you know. And I think it's
Speaker 1: like when people talk to me about food or exercise
Speaker 1: or sleeper that I go, what's your body telling you?
Speaker 1: And they're like what, I go, what's your body saying?
Speaker 1: And then I asked them and they're like, oh, I go. Like,
Speaker 1: all the information or a lot of the information you need,
Speaker 1: you already have. And it's not because you heard it
Speaker 1: or read it. It's because your body's telling you that
Speaker 1: you're dehydrated or you're under slept or you don't need
Speaker 1: enough fiber, or you don't move enough, or you sit
Speaker 1: too much, or you know that that kiphosis, that chaithhotic posture,
Speaker 1: that you've got, that hunchy back, those rolling forward shoulders,
Speaker 1: that those chronic headaches. It's like, yeah, there's lots of
Speaker 1: signs that lots of stuff could be going on.
Speaker 2: That was a perfect example about the dehydration. Because of that,
Speaker 2: you can riddle the research around. We need to drink
Speaker 2: water and stay hydrated, but if we don't understand or
Speaker 2: in queues around, you know, when we're not, it's really hard.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, did you we look like Passiona? You
Speaker 1: probably need some water.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sorry to wind you up, but we've got to go.
Speaker 1: But tell people how they can connect with you, find you,
Speaker 1: follow you and reach out.
Speaker 2: Yep, I'm on Instagram's where I'm am most so Dr
Speaker 2: Sam Casey or my website which is www dot dottor
Speaker 2: samcc dot com.
Speaker 1: You're the best and we'll see you in a month.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Good, no worry. Thanks great