Speaker 1: Hello, smel how are you hope? You're great? So poor
Speaker 1: old Monts has had a bit of a setback with
Speaker 1: the old head situation. I will let her explain all
Speaker 1: that when she's back, which shouldn't be more than a
Speaker 1: week or two. But until then, I was going to
Speaker 1: say I'm a one woman show, but I'm not, because
Speaker 1: today I'm so bloody excited to bring you a conversation
Speaker 1: with an incredible psychologist, certified behavior analyst, and best sister
Speaker 1: in the world that would be mine, my sister Rosina.
Speaker 1: Will just give her one name like Madonna. And I'm
Speaker 1: not just saying that she's the best because she's mine,
Speaker 1: but she is actually the best human being that I know.
Speaker 1: She's also very smart, and very kind and very excellent
Speaker 1: at what she does. And I think that's, of course,
Speaker 1: because she genuinely cares about the kids and the families
Speaker 1: that she works with every day. I'm very proud of her,
Speaker 1: and even though I do take the piss out of
Speaker 1: her once or twice, I was really excited to share
Speaker 1: a bit of her and her brilliance with you guys.
Speaker 1: And finally, just a warning before we kick off, everything
Speaker 1: we talk about is very generalized so if it doesn't
Speaker 1: apply to you or your child specific situation, I get it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to take any of it on board.
Speaker 1: So please enjoy this conversation with my brilliant sister. So
Speaker 1: it's bring your sister to work day today. Imagine you
Speaker 1: had to do that, fuck bring me to work with
Speaker 1: you as a psychologist.
Speaker 2: It would be like everyone told prefer you be there
Speaker 2: because they'd be like, yeah, she's so much more interesting
Speaker 2: than you.
Speaker 1: I doubt it. Remember Dad had that dream of you know,
Speaker 1: me following in your footsteps and us having Natali and
Speaker 1: Natalie psychologists. Imagine the complaints, Oh every time I go
Speaker 1: in and see Melissa, she's running late and she just
Speaker 1: tells us about her.
Speaker 2: Problem is No, that would not be the case at all.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I gave you a glowing intro that you'll be
Speaker 1: able to listen back to. I didn't want to say
Speaker 1: that to your face. That felk awkward, but I thought
Speaker 1: just to set the vibe that today's conversation would start
Speaker 1: with the little game of true or false.
Speaker 2: You could have prepped me for this.
Speaker 1: No, you'd be able to answer these They're easy. They're easy.
Speaker 1: You don't need a degree for these or how many
Speaker 1: degrees have you got?
Speaker 2: Well, they need to know you tree, It's not that many.
Speaker 1: Three just three? Okay? True or false? Is it true
Speaker 1: that back in nineteen seventy nine, when I was a tiny,
Speaker 1: defenseless baby and our mother noticed that I was full
Speaker 1: of bruises that she caught you red handed, let's just say,
Speaker 1: abusing me by pinching me with your big four and
Speaker 1: a half year old hands. Is that true or fulm?
Speaker 2: I can't recall it. This was only a little child.
Speaker 1: Nah, And well I can't recall it because I've blocked
Speaker 1: out the trauma.
Speaker 2: Oh okay number two?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is it true that I, despite not having completed UNI
Speaker 1: too busy having good times, I scored a very impressive
Speaker 1: result on an intelligence test?
Speaker 2: True?
Speaker 1: Could you tell our audience what your ange? Sorry, superior, Superior?
Speaker 1: Does you IQ change with age?
Speaker 2: It should be consistent if it's a true representation of
Speaker 2: your IQ.
Speaker 1: So like once a genius, always a genius, you're saying, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you're saying.
Speaker 2: You're but you can grow because you have such a
Speaker 2: high level of intelligence that it means that your ability
Speaker 2: to garnish more information and new information should really just
Speaker 2: be there for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I can, I can grow, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go down. If you drink too much and
Speaker 1: kill the brain cells, well that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: Is it doesn't work well with my infant moons? And finally,
Speaker 1: is it true that you once asked myself and our
Speaker 1: dad how long the television program sixty minutes goes?
Speaker 2: For you are unbelievable?
Speaker 1: Is it true?
Speaker 2: I'm just setting up some that's true. That's true. I
Speaker 2: did say, yep, whatever.
Speaker 1: Yep, Okay, not sure what this has done for your credibility.
Speaker 2: You're good, got that out of his system.
Speaker 1: Okay, just did that to take you down a peg.
Speaker 1: But you are extremely qualified at what you do, and
Speaker 1: perhaps you can explain exactly what it is that you do.
Speaker 2: So I'm a qualified psychologist, and I've been a psychologist
Speaker 2: for twenty plus years. I don't know, twenty four to
Speaker 2: twenty five years, but since two thousand and eighty I've
Speaker 2: decided to have a little bit more of a specialization
Speaker 2: in the area of behavior. So I've done a master's
Speaker 2: and also a period of supervision you have to do
Speaker 2: of a certain number of hours. And I'm also registered
Speaker 2: now as a certified behavior analyst.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you work with school age kids, we'll say.
Speaker 2: Hinder through till the end of year twelve. Mainstream, special
Speaker 2: settings everything, I'm real, second dream, Yeah, you're a real
Speaker 2: all round up, I really am. Okay, So we've got
Speaker 2: the qualifications down, pat, Maybe a good place to start
Speaker 2: is asking what behavior actually is because despite my incredible IQ, like,
Speaker 2: my simple idea is, if someone says to me, oh,
Speaker 2: what would you say, behavior is?
Speaker 1: I think good or bad? Like compliant or you know,
Speaker 1: fucking annoying? What is exactly is behavior? Well, there's going
Speaker 1: to be different definitions, but basically I would say behavior
Speaker 1: is anything that we say or do that can be
Speaker 1: measured from some degree. So we have, you know, from
Speaker 1: my perspective, from the work that I do, I would
Speaker 1: say that we have a few different types of behavior.
Speaker 1: We have those external behaviors, which are the things that
Speaker 1: we can see, so they're measurable. There are actions that
Speaker 1: you know, me talking to you is a behavior. Me
Speaker 1: picking something up is a behavior. And then we've got
Speaker 1: the things that are internal behaviors, which are more things
Speaker 1: like feelings, thoughts, memories. They're internal behaviors. And they're the
Speaker 1: things that are a little that are harder to access because
Speaker 1: we often rely on somebody being able to tell us
Speaker 1: about those. So do feelings become behaviors?
Speaker 2: So I'm going to give general responses to all of this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, I can't obviously give there's a whole lot
Speaker 2: of you know, different areas, especially if we're talking about
Speaker 2: because even you know certain mental health conditions, we could
Speaker 2: also look at that there are learned components within that
Speaker 2: as well. I would say that feelings are behaviors. When
Speaker 2: we feel a certain way, we only know what that
Speaker 2: is because we have learned. So behavior really is about
Speaker 2: a whole lot of learn processes. So if I was
Speaker 2: really sad when I was little because I was accused
Speaker 2: of pinching my sister and I really felt that I
Speaker 2: hadn't done it, and I started crying and I was upset,
Speaker 2: someone may have come up to me and said, oh, Razina,
Speaker 2: are you okay? You look really sad, and so I
Speaker 2: learned to then label that as sadness. So behavior is
Speaker 2: really about something that we learn. The way we behave
Speaker 2: is we are the product of our environment and those
Speaker 2: around us and our experiences.
Speaker 1: I was I was going to say, well, then, how
Speaker 1: is it that I know everyone has different experiences, but
Speaker 1: let's say you've got siblings brought up by the same parents, Like,
Speaker 1: would their behaviors be similar up until they're sort of
Speaker 1: exposed to more people. But then I thought, you know
Speaker 1: that you know that guy, doctor Gable Matte. Have you
Speaker 1: heard of him?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: He saw this thing on Instagram of him talking and
Speaker 1: he was saying how sometimes when people say, how can
Speaker 1: two siblings be so different? Like you and I are
Speaker 1: really different? Right, But he was saying, I would say
Speaker 1: that you were raised by different parents in that Mum
Speaker 1: and dad were in a certain time of their lives
Speaker 1: when they were raising you, and then different when it
Speaker 1: was me, and then different again when it was Andrew.
Speaker 2: Our experiences are different. So my ability to access, for instance,
Speaker 2: individual attention was probably a lot more available than yours
Speaker 2: was because you had to have shared attention. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: my motivations to do certain things would be different to
Speaker 2: your motivation. So when we talk about behavior and we
Speaker 2: talk about our learned experiences, there's also a whole lot
Speaker 2: of other variables that come into play that determine what
Speaker 2: we learn and how we learn. So we have to
Speaker 2: think about what behaviors are reinforced. So when we engage
Speaker 2: in a behavior, what happens after that? The consequence determines
Speaker 2: the probability of the behavior occurring again. So if I
Speaker 2: put on a certain eyeshadow and the consequence of that
Speaker 2: is I have heaps of people say, oh my god,
Speaker 2: your eyeshadow looks amazing today, my behavior after that is
Speaker 2: going to be to probably where that I shadow every
Speaker 2: damn day, fucking oh yeah. But if I had not
Speaker 2: one person comment, or I had people go sure about
Speaker 2: your eyeshadow choice today, Razina mum would says, probably that
Speaker 2: would change my behavior in then you less likely to
Speaker 2: see me where that eye shadow color again in the future.
Speaker 2: That is a really general way of explaining what would
Speaker 2: happen with all sorts of behaviors.
Speaker 1: So does birth order influence your behavior? You reckon like
Speaker 1: it would, then I think.
Speaker 2: It makes sense that it would because there are different
Speaker 2: variables at play. So, you know, the same as a
Speaker 2: third child, they might not be motivated to fight for
Speaker 2: their parents' attention as much, for instance, because they've got
Speaker 2: the attention of in our situation, to older siblings. Or
Speaker 2: they may be more motivated to escape certain situations. And
Speaker 2: when I say escape, I don't mean oh, get me
Speaker 2: out of this house. I mean avoid a situation. Because,
Speaker 2: for instance, you think about our brother, He's had to
Speaker 2: be exposed to two crazy sisters in a household, and
Speaker 2: so he might want to escape that situation, and so
Speaker 2: his behavior will show that, whereas you, for instance, when
Speaker 2: you were born, you would never want to have wanted
Speaker 2: to escape that situation because you wanted to be around
Speaker 2: me so much.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean true, I can't argue it. I can't
Speaker 1: argue it, even when you're pinching me. So what is
Speaker 1: it you do on the daily with your job or what? Okay,
Speaker 1: so what circumstances would you be asked to work with
Speaker 1: a child? And like what things do you see and
Speaker 1: how do you treat them? And all that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff as a big question?
Speaker 2: Sorry, sor right. So my work is quite diverse in
Speaker 2: that what I do is I do individual work with
Speaker 2: young people, and so that work for me is always
Speaker 2: very inclusive of the child person and the family or
Speaker 2: the caregivers and any external people that might be involved,
Speaker 2: any educators, anybody who's part of that person's life. I
Speaker 2: try and work closely with them to really work from
Speaker 2: a behavior science perspective, where what we do is you
Speaker 2: observe and you collect data and you use that to
Speaker 2: determine what the problem or challenging behavior might be, and
Speaker 2: then you put in place strategies to support that challenging behavior.
Speaker 2: It may be to modify it in some way. It's
Speaker 2: at no point changing what the need of the person is.
Speaker 2: What it's about is helping them still get their need met,
Speaker 2: but teaching them how to make that request for that
Speaker 2: need in a more appropriate way. So, for instance, a
Speaker 2: child who may scream because screaming means they get to
Speaker 2: leave the classroom and they want to break it might
Speaker 2: be about being able to understand that and teaching them
Speaker 2: not saying, well, we don't want them to leave the
Speaker 2: classroom anymore, but teach them how to leave the classroom
Speaker 2: by making a verbal request, which maybe they've not known
Speaker 2: how to do. So there's that perspective from a challenging behavior,
Speaker 2: but then there's also the other behaviors that we want
Speaker 2: to grow more behaviors and build the skill set. So
Speaker 2: any behavior that we're looking at modifying, it's not something
Speaker 2: that's because as a society, it's being decided that, well,
Speaker 2: that's inappropriate. You know, toiling your hair is inappropriate. It's distracting,
Speaker 2: and so we want to change that behavior. The sorts
Speaker 2: of things that I would work with are things that
Speaker 2: are socially significant for that person and their family. So
Speaker 2: if they're engaging in certain behaviors that are going to
Speaker 2: be limiting them in the future or limiting them to
Speaker 2: gain additional skills, I want to work with them understanding
Speaker 2: why they do it, helping to prevent the impact of
Speaker 2: their environment, and also give them the skills that they need.
Speaker 2: So that's if I'm working one on one with child.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I do is that I do
Speaker 2: go in and coach professionals, teaching staff parents how to
Speaker 2: work with the young person because quite often what happens
Speaker 2: is people struggle to separate the behavior from the person
Speaker 2: and they're two very separate things, and so a lot
Speaker 2: of people underestimate the impact that our responses have on
Speaker 2: a child's behavior.
Speaker 1: So is it if I'm understanding it correctly. It's like, say,
Speaker 1: for example, your trial, and like, obviously there are spectrums
Speaker 1: of everything, right, but let's say your kids thing is
Speaker 1: that I don't know every time he sees a book,
Speaker 1: he screams, let's say right, And some people might say, well,
Speaker 1: that's how my child deals with it, and you know
Speaker 1: the world has to make space for him to deal
Speaker 1: with it that way. Would you be saying, Know, what
Speaker 1: we need to do is get him to a place
Speaker 1: where he knows how to appropriately say.
Speaker 2: Which I probably should have said at the stat is
Speaker 2: that anything that we talk about. I'm just mindful that
Speaker 2: anybody who listens in needs to be aware that, as
Speaker 2: I'd said, what we're talking about is general, it's not individual,
Speaker 2: and that everybody has their own experience of certain therapies,
Speaker 2: certain professionals, certain streams of work. I mean, behavior science
Speaker 2: is rooted does come from a ABA therapy, and ABA
Speaker 2: therapy got a really bad name for itself. Was going
Speaker 2: to say historically it did, and it was because it was.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a couple of things. One, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people who don't really have the adequate skill
Speaker 2: in the space. They might do a short course and
Speaker 2: then think that they understand it all and practice. And
Speaker 2: the other thing is that in the past it was
Speaker 2: really about trying to change behaviors and making young people
Speaker 2: and adults for that matter, especially in institutions, just have
Speaker 2: to wait it out until they actually changed their behavior,
Speaker 2: which could become quite traumatizing. Now, when I explain this
Speaker 2: to people with the work that I do, I'm quite
Speaker 2: eclectic in my approach because, as I say, I've been
Speaker 2: a psych for a long time, and so there's lots
Speaker 2: of other things tools that I feel like I bring
Speaker 2: to the work that I do as well. But I mean,
Speaker 2: you don't have to look too far in psychology as
Speaker 2: well to realize that there was some pretty horrendous stuff
Speaker 2: that was done in the past for the sake of learning.
Speaker 2: So whether it's psych or ABA or whatever else, it's
Speaker 2: all had. I mean, the first person who did brain
Speaker 2: surgery or can probably botched it up as well. But
Speaker 2: we get better, we evolve, and you can't be arrogant
Speaker 2: to think you know everything you keeping constantly. So I
Speaker 2: think what I was what I was going to say
Speaker 2: about that is that if we're talking about you know,
Speaker 2: because of the age group of kids that I work with,
Speaker 2: most of them are in some sort of educational setting.
Speaker 2: Schools are pretty inclusive places now. But here's what I say,
Speaker 2: and this is my take on it. Parents want to
Speaker 2: protect their kids parents, caregivers, loved ones. You don't want
Speaker 2: your child to suffer. And so what we do is
Speaker 2: we have a natural tendency to try and put some
Speaker 2: cotton wool around them, protect them, say let's change everything
Speaker 2: around them. The only thing that I say, and you
Speaker 2: know people can challenge me on this, what I say
Speaker 2: is one day we won't be here. And I think
Speaker 2: that all of us. I know for myself, my own children,
Speaker 2: what I want is for them to be happy, fullyfunctioning
Speaker 2: adults in society one day. So I think that the
Speaker 2: work that we do has to be trauma assumed. We
Speaker 2: have to assume thatever we're working with has experienced some
Speaker 2: level of trauma in their life, whether it's trauma of
Speaker 2: not being able to do something in a classroom academically,
Speaker 2: or trauma of a bad therapist, or trauma because something
Speaker 2: we've come from from our family history, cycles of abuse,
Speaker 2: whatever it might be. We have to consider all of
Speaker 2: those things. But we also need to remember that inappropriate behavior,
Speaker 2: or challenging behavior or problematic behavior is just that. So
Speaker 2: if what you do is slap somebody to get attention,
Speaker 2: we have to remember that at some point, maybe we
Speaker 2: accept it a little bit more when they're little, when
Speaker 2: they're really little. But at some point we have to
Speaker 2: understand that that's going to impact their ability to social
Speaker 2: with other kids. It's going to impact their access to
Speaker 2: different settings because people will struggle with having them in
Speaker 2: that setting as they get older. If they don't learn
Speaker 2: another way to socialize or gain attention. If you start
Speaker 2: slapping people as you walk down the street when you're twenty,
Speaker 2: you're probably going to get charged. So we have to
Speaker 2: think about all of those really significant behaviors when we're
Speaker 2: saying but that's just the way my child is. I
Speaker 2: get that, But I think that we also need to
Speaker 2: try and help them build skills. And so if that
Speaker 2: Blue Book is triggering for that child, I would say,
Speaker 2: don't expose them to the Blue Book right now. Find
Speaker 2: out what drives that. What is it about that blue
Speaker 2: Book that does really trigger them, And let's work on
Speaker 2: do they need to be exposed to blue books in
Speaker 2: their life? Is it important? Is it important? Will they
Speaker 2: need to do that? Will they need to be exposed
Speaker 2: to those books to be able to progress and learn more?
Speaker 2: And if if that is the case, then we need
Speaker 2: to work out what's their tolerance for the Blue book,
Speaker 2: and can we in some way motivate them. So the
Speaker 2: issue with this is that when it's not understood fully
Speaker 2: the way it works is a lot of people refer
Speaker 2: to this as bribery and that this is a lot
Speaker 2: of people have an issue with ABA because they say
Speaker 2: it's bribing. It's not bribing, it's what's their currency. How
Speaker 2: do we motivate them? So if they say I actually
Speaker 2: don't want to be looking at that book for ten minutes,
Speaker 2: we want to motivate them by saying, you actually don't
Speaker 2: need to look at the book for ten minutes, but
Speaker 2: at some point that book has got something in it
Speaker 2: that you need. So do you think you could look
Speaker 2: at it for twenty seconds and then we can move on?
Speaker 2: And if they can do that, we support that, We
Speaker 2: reinforce it, we reward it, and we just helped slowly
Speaker 2: build their tolerance for it.
Speaker 1: I mean sounds like a plan that makes me think
Speaker 1: as well about how important schools are and teachers. And
Speaker 1: I do also think though the pressure on teachers having
Speaker 1: to be in a classroom with maybe twenty eight kids
Speaker 1: of varying levels of needs. What's the solution to that
Speaker 1: to help teachers know how to deal with it, but
Speaker 1: also parents knowing when to step in and sort of
Speaker 1: advocate for their child as well, because, like I would say,
Speaker 1: some teachers are amazing, some teachers like some teachers shouldn't
Speaker 1: be teaching.
Speaker 2: Yep, I agree.
Speaker 1: Is there a solution like more LSOs in the classrooms.
Speaker 2: Or always advocate for your kids? No matter what I think,
Speaker 2: be involved, be part of the team. It's not just
Speaker 2: the school team as people who care for You know,
Speaker 2: if we're talking about a student with additional needs of
Speaker 2: some description, you know so much about that child because
Speaker 2: you're with them day in day out. The information you
Speaker 2: have is valuable. You need to share it and that
Speaker 2: information should make up part of the plan. If you're
Speaker 2: working with a good school, with a good teaching team,
Speaker 2: a good leadership team, they should be considering all of
Speaker 2: that when they work on a plan. The student, as
Speaker 2: I said once again, should be part of that plan.
Speaker 2: We should be sitting down and talking to them about
Speaker 2: what their needs are. I think the difficult thing that's
Speaker 2: occurred for teachers is that there have been some allowances
Speaker 2: made and there's been this accidental learning of challenging behavior
Speaker 2: from an early age, and then it's progressed, and it
Speaker 2: gets a lot harder in a classroom. And one of
Speaker 2: the main things that I say when I do go
Speaker 2: into a school is to be mindful that those one, two,
Speaker 2: three students in a classroom, they're not just the responsibility
Speaker 2: of that teacher and that lso in that room, they
Speaker 2: are the responsibility of the entire school. So everybody needs
Speaker 2: to be prepared to step in and support where is needed.
Speaker 2: Some of the stuff that I talked about that I
Speaker 2: do if I go in and do coaching is around
Speaker 2: setting up things in the classroom as well to manage that.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you've got a child who's really
Speaker 2: anxious and wants you to come back to them, it
Speaker 2: might be about setting something up that they can see,
Speaker 2: a structure to say, Okay. You might start off saying
Speaker 2: you're going to you do this for two minutes. Can
Speaker 2: you manage this for two minutes on your own? Yet
Speaker 2: I can, Okay, you do that, and in two minutes
Speaker 2: I come back to you. And so in that time,
Speaker 2: the support person's going off to do something else. But
Speaker 2: when that two minutes is up, they have to honor that.
Speaker 2: We can't go breaking trust. If that student knows you're
Speaker 2: coming back in two minutes. You absolutely have to go
Speaker 2: back in two minutes. Otherwise they won't trust the process.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then that sort of undoes all the work, right.
Speaker 2: Because what it does is it teaches a lot of kids,
Speaker 2: teaches them to be gamblers, like, will they is now
Speaker 2: the time they'll come back when they said they would,
Speaker 2: or maybe they won't. Well, maybe I need to make sure. Well,
Speaker 2: I know, if I turn the room upside down, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure I'm going to get their attention. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to do that. We need to get better at
Speaker 2: understanding that well being and curriculum are not separate. They
Speaker 2: go together. So if you have a student who has
Speaker 2: some specific learning difficulties and you've just said, hey, everybody,
Speaker 2: we're going to do some reading, and you know that
Speaker 2: there is a child in that room who struggles with reading,
Speaker 2: don't put them on the spot because they're going to
Speaker 2: do whatever they can. Yeah, they're going to do whatever
Speaker 2: they can to get out of that environment. And if
Speaker 2: that means they in a way that they get sent
Speaker 2: out of the room, which is often what happens when
Speaker 2: kids are disruptive and they get sent out of the room,
Speaker 2: it's because they don't want to be there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if you know that's an issue, set them
Speaker 2: up for success, pull them aside two days before, a
Speaker 2: week before, give them the passage of reading, and say, hey,
Speaker 2: see these two sentences, we're going to do some reading
Speaker 2: in class. I'm going to call on you to do
Speaker 2: the reading. And you've got a week to practice these
Speaker 2: two lines. But I won't ask you to do anymore.
Speaker 2: Or if they're that nervous about it, don't call on them.
Speaker 2: I find them in some time with them one on one.
Speaker 1: I find that personally a really big thing. Like just
Speaker 1: I'm sure my daughter wouldn't mind me saying like, she's
Speaker 1: not you know, she's your niece. She's not the most
Speaker 1: sort of extroverted kid right in big settings. And like
Speaker 1: every time I have a parent teacher interview, they say
Speaker 1: to me things, great, she's such a great student. We
Speaker 1: just want to push her to contribute more in class,
Speaker 1: to put her hand up more to you know, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, the last one that I did, I said, actually,
Speaker 1: don't care about that. Like, if she's doing well and
Speaker 1: she is learning and she's understanding, part of that confidence
Speaker 1: comes with time. If your kid's not the sort of
Speaker 1: person who just you know, like I know, I know
Speaker 1: the answer will be leave them.
Speaker 2: And is that affecting her learning ability? No, she not
Speaker 2: making gains because she's not questioning things. She's fucking awesome,
Speaker 2: you know is And if she keeps questioning, then you're
Speaker 2: probably gonna They're gonna sit down and say the dominicqu's
Speaker 2: got to learn that other people have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: speak as well. She's sort of got to stop and
Speaker 2: just you know, maybe sit back and let the other
Speaker 2: kids talk more.
Speaker 1: How much was that in my reports? Malice has to
Speaker 1: let other people have a chance to contribute to conversations
Speaker 1: as well. We've been going for a bit. We might
Speaker 1: do a part two. Maybe we'll get some people to
Speaker 1: send in some questions that you could help answer. Again
Speaker 1: very generally, because this work you do is very individualized, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: like it's tailored to every kid. It's not like a
Speaker 1: that's right handbook. But I remember you said to me
Speaker 1: once how important it is. Sometimes with we'll use the
Speaker 1: word tantrum, which I always think of a little kid,
Speaker 1: but even now having teenagers, do you call it emotional dysregulation?
Speaker 1: I don't know what you call it. But you know,
Speaker 1: big feelings, however you want to word it. You said
Speaker 1: to me once one of the keys to managing it
Speaker 1: is sort of paying attention to what sets them off
Speaker 1: and then trying to jump ahead on that. If say,
Speaker 1: the only example I can think of is, say, for example,
Speaker 1: you have to take a kid to the shop, and
Speaker 1: you know that every time you go to target, your
Speaker 1: kid has a meltdown in the toy aisle because they
Speaker 1: on a new truck, and you're like, fuck this, I'm
Speaker 1: not buying the truck. What's a strategy that a parent
Speaker 1: could put in place in that case?
Speaker 2: I think on that the thing is, like you said,
Speaker 2: whether you call it this, regulation, tankering, whatever, the labeling
Speaker 2: of it isn't as important as it is understanding exactly
Speaker 2: what it looks like. So when whoever's working with that
Speaker 2: young person, everybody needs to be on the same page
Speaker 2: so you can be consistent. So if it is that
Speaker 2: the idea of tantrum for this child is that they're
Speaker 2: going to start screaming, crying, drop to the ground, whatever else,
Speaker 2: if you know the situation that always sets that up.
Speaker 2: And so the trigger is when you walk past the
Speaker 2: lego aisle, there's a couple of things that are within
Speaker 2: your control. Firstly, I always say if you can come
Speaker 2: at something preventatively, come at it preventatively. So if there's
Speaker 2: either that you decide if you have the ability to
Speaker 2: not take that child with you shopping on that day,
Speaker 2: don't take them. If you feel that, you still need
Speaker 2: to do some work with them around being able to tolerate
Speaker 2: no not.
Speaker 1: Now say you're a single mum and you've got no
Speaker 1: one to leave your kid with and you're like, I
Speaker 1: have to go to Target.
Speaker 2: The fuck am I going to? Okay, you've got to
Speaker 2: take them with you. If you can avoid that, I'll
Speaker 2: avoid that aisle. If you are going to go past
Speaker 2: that aisle, you might set up a couple of things
Speaker 2: with that trial where you might say, Okay, what I
Speaker 2: needs you to do is sit nicely in the whatever
Speaker 2: and the trolley. I'm going to do this. Once we've
Speaker 2: done this, then you can pick something if it's within
Speaker 2: you know what you can afford, what you've decided, you're
Speaker 2: going to get whatever it might be. The important part
Speaker 2: around that is for the child to understand that today
Speaker 2: we're getting it, but we can't get it every time. Now,
Speaker 2: the worst thing that you can do would be that
Speaker 2: the next time, and you say, yes, we can get
Speaker 2: it another time, but not today. The best thing to
Speaker 2: always do is try and avoid saying no, because once
Speaker 2: I hear know, they hear nothing else after it. But
Speaker 2: you can say yeah, one hundred percent, we can get
Speaker 2: another one, just not today, Yeah, just not today, and
Speaker 2: they start going off. The worst thing you can do
Speaker 2: is because of the sheer embarrassment and stress that you
Speaker 2: are under at that moment and the judging eyes when
Speaker 2: you've got a child that's having a tantrum and people
Speaker 2: are walking past sneering at you, the worst thing you
Speaker 2: can do is get that toy, because unfortunately, what you
Speaker 2: then do is teach that child I've got them every
Speaker 2: time I want that toy, I'm going to put that
Speaker 2: tantrum on and then I'm going to get it. And
Speaker 2: often what I get is people ask me, what's the
Speaker 2: difference between a tantrum and a meltdown? Now, wherever you
Speaker 2: want to go with it, you go with it. For me,
Speaker 2: tantrums often resolve themselves pretty quickly as soon as you go,
Speaker 2: oh was it this toy you wanted? Yeah, and they stop.
Speaker 2: So they were engaging in a behavior to get them.
Speaker 2: A lot of the time, what happens with and once
Speaker 2: again this isn't always, but what happens with the meltdowns
Speaker 2: is usually it's when someone has just become so overwhelmed
Speaker 2: by you know, it might be there sensory integration. There's
Speaker 2: just so much going on and they just actually drop
Speaker 2: the It's not even about going on for them, it's
Speaker 2: not even about the toy. Now I can't cope. I
Speaker 2: absolutely can't cope. Yeah, so they're quite different as well.
Speaker 1: Is it difficult to spot the difference between when your
Speaker 1: kid actually is because I think it can be hard
Speaker 1: to know the difference between when they're really struggling or
Speaker 1: when they are sort of manipulating you a bit. Because
Speaker 1: kids are smart too that maybe they go, oh, I know,
Speaker 1: if I really fucking she's not going to want to
Speaker 1: listen to me going on and on about this, so
Speaker 1: I'm just going to keep pushing it until she gives in.
Speaker 1: Can you is there any things that differentiate between those two?
Speaker 2: I think well, history and we would refer those things.
Speaker 2: We would refer to things as precursor behaviors. So what
Speaker 2: are the things that you see right before the main
Speaker 2: event that indicate to you something's about to happen. That's
Speaker 2: one thing that's an indicator of is this real or not.
Speaker 2: The other thing is there are a whole lot of behaviors.
Speaker 2: If you remember at the start, I said there are
Speaker 2: behaviors that are internal, like feelings, emotions, memories. There are
Speaker 2: a whole lot of behaviors that we can't see. And
Speaker 2: so there are times where we might say she's fine,
Speaker 2: she's killed them, she's anxious, she's coping so well within
Speaker 2: this environment, but on the inside they are at absolutely
Speaker 2: freaking out, or somebody just walked past and they've just
Speaker 2: accessed a memory, because remember we're talking about behaviors being
Speaker 2: things that have learned that someone's learned, so they've been
Speaker 2: able to access a memory where they learn that people
Speaker 2: with beards walk past and yell at you if you
Speaker 2: touch the flower, and maybe you're just going past the
Speaker 2: flower aisle and a child absolutely loses it and you say,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's wrong with my kid. There was
Speaker 2: not even a trigger. There was nothing. I can't identify
Speaker 2: what it was, but there was. But the complication with
Speaker 2: some of our kids who have additional needs is that
Speaker 2: they may have deficits where they can't take you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so that's where it's really important to have a
Speaker 2: whole team of professionals who are working with a child.
Speaker 2: If it's, for instance, that they've got language deficits, you
Speaker 2: need to work on the language deficits. We need to
Speaker 2: find a way. And I'm not talking. It has to
Speaker 2: be vocal language. It could be signing, it could be
Speaker 2: a picture exchange, whatever it is, gesture. But we need
Speaker 2: to give kids a voice in all spaces, not just
Speaker 2: in certain spaces, to be able to tell us what
Speaker 2: they need to tell us so we can support them.
Speaker 1: Fuck, that's hard, isn't it. It's so hard. I'm picking
Speaker 1: all that, but that was very interesting. And also, like,
Speaker 1: how fucking complicated is it raising kids, like teaching kids,
Speaker 1: working with kids, all that stuff. Kids are so they're
Speaker 1: so beautiful, but they're so hard and it's so hard
Speaker 1: for them. It's hard for the parents, it's hard for
Speaker 1: everybody involved because you're.
Speaker 2: Just so much going on in our lives. As I'm
Speaker 2: going to say from a parenting perspective, there is so
Speaker 2: much going on in our lives that makes it so
Speaker 2: hard to I am and you know, I am far
Speaker 2: from the perfect parent. I make plenty of mistakes. There
Speaker 2: are times when I go, why did I do that?
Speaker 2: She shouldn't have done it. I should have I could
Speaker 2: have managed that better. Why did I say no, I
Speaker 2: know that that's going to cause a problem. I should
Speaker 2: have worded that better. But you know what, we have
Speaker 2: so much that's going on in our homes. We've got
Speaker 2: so much that's going on in our lives.
Speaker 1: We've got so.
Speaker 2: Many competing things with you know, other family members, you know,
Speaker 2: more children in the home. There's just a lot. And
Speaker 2: so I think that what a lot of people who
Speaker 2: care for kids need to do is give themselves a
Speaker 2: break and realize, because sometimes you might meet with a
Speaker 2: professional and you know what, some professionals will come off
Speaker 2: judge and say, well, really have you thought about this?
Speaker 2: Or yes, but did you let them sleep in bed
Speaker 2: with you? Well, you know what, I'm surviving, mate, I
Speaker 2: am surviving. And I think that there needs to be
Speaker 2: more acknowledgment of that. And often, as care is, what
Speaker 2: we do is we really judge ourselves and say I
Speaker 2: could have done that better, or I should have done
Speaker 2: that better, or because the way somebody else will, somebody
Speaker 2: else might not have the emotional connection with that child
Speaker 2: to start with. And if we look at we look
Speaker 2: at our situation. For instance, I look at my kids
Speaker 2: they were they're very different with our mum. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: you know what they're in. Our mom's in a very
Speaker 2: different space now, her stress around raising children and running
Speaker 2: a household and working nine to five and all the rest.
Speaker 2: She doesn't have all that animal so she's in a
Speaker 2: very different space to be open and remove some of
Speaker 2: those external variables that impact on us to be able
Speaker 2: to do our job, which is bloody hard.
Speaker 1: I would always say that it's a good if you're
Speaker 1: a parent who does go to bed at night and think, fuck,
Speaker 1: was a bit hard on them? Oh I could have
Speaker 1: done that Differently, means you're a parent who gives a shit,
Speaker 1: Like you've reflected, if you didn't care, you just would
Speaker 1: go to bed and go, oh fuck them, or like
Speaker 1: in our generation and like you.
Speaker 2: Probably wouldn't even think about it when you went to bed.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I know, but think of even like you know,
Speaker 1: you look back now on kids that we went to
Speaker 1: school with and you make all these diagnoses in your
Speaker 1: head and youthing fuck Like the solution back in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties was give them a backhander, like you know,
Speaker 1: it was in your respect. I know, and now imagine
Speaker 1: what sort of adults they are. That's hard, right, That's
Speaker 1: all right, Well, we will come back. I will put
Speaker 1: a call out on Instagram for anyone who has any
Speaker 1: questions for Rasina. If she does, dare come back. But
Speaker 1: until then, thanks for joining me and us, and pleasure.
Speaker 1: We'll see us next time.
Speaker 2: Thanks toodles.
Speaker 1: I told her she was smart. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: that episode. Very different to usual, but you know what
Speaker 1: they say about variety. No pressure. But if you would
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Speaker 1: take care of yourselves. Thank you for listening. I love you,