Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2: I'd be good afternoon. Welcome back into the week in Collective.
Speaker 2: Tyler Adams fillnon for Tim Beverage. He is banked tomorrow
Speaker 2: and it is time for the parents Squad. Catherine Burkett
Speaker 2: is a neuroscience trainer at Engaged Training and she joins us. Now.
Speaker 2: Hi are you Katherine? Hi? Really good to chat and
Speaker 2: nice to meet you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: How's your weekend gone so far?
Speaker 1: Ah?
Speaker 3: Well, today was a good one.
Speaker 4: I flew to Blenheim and back from Wellington, so if
Speaker 4: anybody's seen the wind out there.
Speaker 5: Was a good good day for flying.
Speaker 2: Oh, bed, I bet so what was happening in Blenham?
Speaker 3: I had a conference down there, so went down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very good. Lovely part of the country there isn't
Speaker 2: it isn't it? Did you bring home some wine?
Speaker 4: I actually was gifted some fine so yes I did,
Speaker 4: and which.
Speaker 2: Is pretty lucky, fantastic. If you've got a question for Catherine,
Speaker 2: or indeed a bit of advice for our audience, I'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. We'd love to hear from you. Oh,
Speaker 2: eight one hundred and eighty teen eighty is the number
Speaker 2: to call. You can also tech through to nine two
Speaker 2: ninety two and if you want to email, you're more
Speaker 2: than welcome Tyler at news talk zeb dot co dot Nz. Catherine,
Speaker 2: let's start a big story this week about Hagley College
Speaker 2: is offering twenty NCEEA Level two students two days of
Speaker 2: online learning a week. And I do know that there
Speaker 2: are several high schools colleges around New Zealand that are
Speaker 2: starting to look at that model as well, to allow
Speaker 2: some of the senior students a couple of days a
Speaker 2: week to have what they call learning from home, which
Speaker 2: was effectively work from home for adults. Ryan, do you
Speaker 2: see any risks with that approach from some of these
Speaker 2: institutions and colleges or can that be an effective way
Speaker 2: to teach these older children about self management?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like.
Speaker 4: With all things when we're talking about human beings, we
Speaker 4: cannot put us all into one box, even if we're
Speaker 4: the same.
Speaker 5: Age or so.
Speaker 4: And in the article that was quite interesting because they
Speaker 4: said they were trying to cater towards neurodiverse students, but
Speaker 4: actually one of the students was saying that she wants
Speaker 4: to get a part time job so it was going
Speaker 4: to work for her. So she's obviously a very motivated
Speaker 4: young lady and I would guess something like that's going to.
Speaker 5: Work for her.
Speaker 4: But if you have got someone who is finding work
Speaker 4: difficult and that's why they're not doing it, then allowing
Speaker 4: them to work from home is probably not the best option.
Speaker 4: But again, Hagley College themselves have said they're putting in
Speaker 4: lots and lots of thought processes around that and stop gaps.
Speaker 5: But you do need to be careful.
Speaker 4: We're very relational creatures and our brain responds much better
Speaker 4: to humans rather than computers, so it is hard to
Speaker 4: get motivated to do work without humans around to an extent.
Speaker 4: So I would see some risks absolutely, but again it
Speaker 4: would depend on the individual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean on the attendance side of things. And
Speaker 2: just from a neuroscience point of view, you a child's brain,
Speaker 2: is it somewhat more problematic for children while their brain
Speaker 2: is still developing to be able to manage that workload themselves,
Speaker 2: as you say, to distance themselves from distractions. And we
Speaker 2: all get distracted. It's a distracting world at the moment,
Speaker 2: no doubt about it. But at that stage of brain development,
Speaker 2: is there more risk in them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, unless you've got someone like someone an adult who's
Speaker 4: able to sort of keep that motivation going. And you know,
Speaker 4: and again some kids are just incredibly able to do
Speaker 4: that for themselves. But and in generalized sense, our brain
Speaker 4: can't really think forward properly until about fifteen sixteen years old,
Speaker 4: So it's very hard for us to go, you know what,
Speaker 4: if I get this assignment finished, then three weeks time,
Speaker 4: I won't have to do so much work, or in
Speaker 4: ten years I'll have a good job. So that's not
Speaker 4: really the capacity of the brain until we're sort of
Speaker 4: fifteen sixteen. So, like I said, some kids will just
Speaker 4: do it naturally, but for us, we go, Okay, I've
Speaker 4: got to get this stuff done because my pay's got
Speaker 4: to come in. It is hard for a child's brain
Speaker 4: to do that. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And what about for the parents if your child is
Speaker 2: at home for another couple of days a week and
Speaker 2: they are meant to be you know, doing school work
Speaker 2: and learning, I mean, that's got to be hard for
Speaker 2: parents to manage, right. Are there any tricks to you know,
Speaker 2: not bombard them or micro manage them and say, hey,
Speaker 2: make sure you're doing your book work here. You meant
Speaker 2: to be working, not, you know, lounging around at home.
Speaker 2: Is there any tips and tricks for parents if they're
Speaker 2: in that situation?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I guess, you know, we all sort of experienced
Speaker 4: a bit of that of working from home during COVID,
Speaker 4: And I know I learned a really big lesson with
Speaker 4: my son. He was sixteen at the time, and he
Speaker 4: had to get some work done and I looked in
Speaker 4: and he had his phone next to him, he had
Speaker 4: the TV going, and he had the radiot or something,
Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, And I instantly wanted to say,
Speaker 4: turn all that off and get your work done. But
Speaker 4: what I said to him is, can I have a
Speaker 4: look at what you've done so far? And what is
Speaker 4: your goal for today? And he had a quite clear goal,
Speaker 4: and I said, if you can get that done, then
Speaker 4: you can study like this. If you can't get it done,
Speaker 4: then this is not okay. And he got it done beautifully.
Speaker 4: And I think we have to be really careful of
Speaker 4: assuming our kids learn like we do. So I urge
Speaker 4: parents to give them a chance to prove it. If
Speaker 4: they can't, then you sort of take some control.
Speaker 5: But some of our.
Speaker 4: Kids do really well with lots of distractions going on.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, absolutely, Now, if you've got a question for Catherine, Oh,
Speaker 2: eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call.
Speaker 2: All you can teach through on nine two nine two.
Speaker 2: A doozy of a question has come through Catherine, and
Speaker 2: they haven't they haven't put their name, but this is
Speaker 2: a great question. Since Hi, guys, I was hanging out
Speaker 2: with my group of friends today with my son. I'm
Speaker 2: late twenties and first one in the group with a baby,
Speaker 2: and on multiple occasions people turned and shushed my baby
Speaker 2: with their finger on their mouth because he was babbling
Speaker 2: or growling like a baby normally. Does it bothered me?
Speaker 2: Is that weird? Because well, he's a baby and he
Speaker 2: doesn't know any better, even at an age whereas noise
Speaker 2: level is correctable. Advice please, but that felt rude? Or
Speaker 2: should I be doing something to make my baby a
Speaker 2: little bit quieter in public settings?
Speaker 5: Correcky?
Speaker 2: I don't even get any and.
Speaker 3: I'm an adult and I don't have an off switch.
Speaker 4: Our babies are responding absolutely to the feelings inside themselves
Speaker 4: and wanting to get a response from the environment, and
Speaker 4: the biggest thing at this baby's age is working out
Speaker 4: whether the world is safe. We know, trust versus mistrust,
Speaker 4: safety attachment theories. It's the most important thing at the moment.
Speaker 4: And what that little baby is doing is sending a
Speaker 4: message to the environment and seeing if they're going to
Speaker 4: get a positive response to show them that they're safe
Speaker 4: and that they're accepted. So what I'm getting from the
Speaker 4: responses of the other people is not what baby needs.
Speaker 4: Baby is babbling, is checking out their voice, wanting hear
Speaker 4: things and wanting to get a similar response, which would
Speaker 4: be a similar babbel. You know, we go and then
Speaker 4: baby gets it.
Speaker 2: We get it.
Speaker 4: That's what we want to do, and teach them how
Speaker 4: to have a conversation going back and forth, even if
Speaker 4: with sounds. So the parent is one hundred percent right,
Speaker 4: we need to allow baby to do that.
Speaker 3: And they have no.
Speaker 4: Cortex to be able to control behavior. So what we
Speaker 4: would be doing is scaring them almost into not responding,
Speaker 4: not teaching them to be quiet, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4: So no, it's not a good response to a little
Speaker 4: baby to shush them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that would be a you know, a diplomatic
Speaker 2: conversation with their friends to say, hey, you know, I
Speaker 2: know what you're trying to do, but that is not
Speaker 2: how you do it. Just to have that conversation to say,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm the parent here and you know if
Speaker 2: you're having a problem with that, then you can have
Speaker 2: a check to me about it rather than shush my baby.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And the issue is that if we've all got kids,
Speaker 4: we sort of understand it, but what they're saying is
Speaker 4: the only one with a kid, so that other people
Speaker 4: aren't used to it. Whereas if you sit around with
Speaker 4: a bunch of babies and with your friends, we just
Speaker 4: have to raise our voice a little bit louder to
Speaker 4: hear each other, right, and we just know that that's
Speaker 4: what's bub's going to carry on bubbling and bubbling, and
Speaker 4: we'll acknowledge them every now and then.
Speaker 2: So lovely though, it is really nice, particularly when it's
Speaker 2: a happy babbling. I mean, it's a beautiful zeud and
Speaker 2: they're trying.
Speaker 4: To engage themselves in the conversation. So think about having
Speaker 4: a conversation just like everyone else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, another good question here. It says Hi Catherine, my
Speaker 2: ten year old daughter has expressed loneliness at school. My
Speaker 2: daughter has just started a new school. When she got
Speaker 2: home last week, I asked her how her day went.
Speaker 2: She told me she really likes the teacher, but there
Speaker 2: are a lot of popular kids in her class that
Speaker 2: seem to ignore her. She has gone to the school
Speaker 2: for the last week. She expressed to me that she
Speaker 2: is feeling a bit lonely and doesn't know how to
Speaker 2: interact with the other children. The teacher has been really good,
Speaker 2: but I'm really fearful of this should I be?
Speaker 4: I mean loneliness. We feel loneliness, and it is one
Speaker 4: of the emotions that we have to learn to deal with.
Speaker 4: But and it's only been a week, and sometimes we
Speaker 4: take a while to get, you know, sort of into
Speaker 4: the groove of things. What I would be looking at
Speaker 4: is how is she acting? We've sort of got it
Speaker 4: almost model. Just check in to see whether she's got
Speaker 4: ways of introducing yourself to other people. You know, girls,
Speaker 4: let's get real, especially girls, can be pretty cruel when
Speaker 4: a new one comes in. So I mean a week's
Speaker 4: not long, but staying confident in herself, staying and you know,
Speaker 4: not sort of butting in and trying too hard. It's
Speaker 4: highly likely she'll find someone her tribe. But it is
Speaker 4: especially if it's a smaller school, which it could potentially
Speaker 4: be when they're talking about it, and the girls have
Speaker 4: got their cliques already, especially around that age, they can
Speaker 4: really have a clique.
Speaker 5: So it's really hard.
Speaker 4: We want to have a talk with the young girl
Speaker 4: and we want to, you know, give us some advice.
Speaker 4: This happened to me, Being lonely, being on your own
Speaker 4: as a little bit normal, and then try and give
Speaker 4: her a couple of chips of how to engage in
Speaker 4: a conversation. What happened at school today, what were the
Speaker 4: other girls doing. Okay, we might be able to try this.
Speaker 4: So that's some of the things we might be able
Speaker 4: to help with. But this world is a cruel place sometimes,
Speaker 4: and I can give some advice, but I think she
Speaker 4: has to just hope that the girls will warm up.
Speaker 2: Our school can be an incredibly tough place for kids,
Speaker 2: no doubt about that.
Speaker 5: I mean, it.
Speaker 2: Appears to be a good sign that the fact that
Speaker 2: she's talked to her mum and she said, look I
Speaker 2: am feeling a bit lonely. That must be a good sign,
Speaker 2: right that communication is already there.
Speaker 5: She's got someone to talk to and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: So and being lonely for a while is not the
Speaker 4: end of the world, did you know, But if it
Speaker 4: went on for too long, yes, that could start getting
Speaker 4: to be a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hi, Catherine, My sixteen year old daughter text me
Speaker 2: earlier asking if she could go to a party tonight.
Speaker 2: She said, the party starts at ten and if I
Speaker 2: could drop her and her friend off. I know we
Speaker 2: all snuck out and went to parties when we were younger.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that she asked me first instead of lying,
Speaker 2: But I'm just horn on whether I should let her
Speaker 2: go or not. All these thoughts keep popping up on
Speaker 2: my head about what could happen. Advice please, sixteen year
Speaker 2: old just feels a bit young.
Speaker 4: Yes, he's sixteen. You think back to sixteen. I mean,
Speaker 4: sixteen's actually an age that we sort of often were
Speaker 4: already leaving home. You know, in my sort of generation
Speaker 4: a bit older, and our kids in that age, they
Speaker 4: really are trying to separate from the parent. They really
Speaker 4: do need to call it in the adolescent age. Learning
Speaker 4: to apply the brakes. Now, they don't have the best
Speaker 4: brake system, so it is good for a parent to
Speaker 4: put some boundaries around them, but they have to test
Speaker 4: the brakes under good conditions, So if that parent lets
Speaker 4: them go to this party, they know where they are,
Speaker 4: they can set up some things. There's always that phone
Speaker 4: call that they ring up and go, oh have you
Speaker 4: put my purple jumper in the wash? I e come
Speaker 4: and pick me up please?
Speaker 5: Do you know?
Speaker 4: So we've got some really safe boundaries. You know where
Speaker 4: they are, what time they go in that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: It would be better than saying no. Then that young
Speaker 4: person next week decides they want to go to a party,
Speaker 4: so they don't tell their parents. You don't know where
Speaker 4: they are, do you know? If they're going to they're
Speaker 4: going to be wanting to do these things. I want
Speaker 4: to do them when I've got as much protection around
Speaker 4: that child. So that would be my advice than not
Speaker 4: my child. You've got you know, this parent knows their
Speaker 4: child the best. It does feel young. But if they're
Speaker 4: asking to go, they're going to find a way to
Speaker 4: go at some stage. I'd rather be on their side.
Speaker 2: Great advice. And certainly you know I was out at
Speaker 2: parties at sixteen and did some silly things and mum,
Speaker 2: you know, quite rightly said well now you know, but
Speaker 2: you're right. The fact that she's talking to her mum
Speaker 2: and asking and saying, here's where I'm going to be,
Speaker 2: And as you say, the mom said, yep, but here's
Speaker 2: how you can keep yourself safe in that part of
Speaker 2: the conditions. Seems like a great place to be when
Speaker 2: they're sixteen. Hi, Catherine, my fifteen month old throws tantrums
Speaker 2: when he's grabbed something he shouldn't have and I take
Speaker 2: it away, he flips out. I pull him away from
Speaker 2: tearing apart a plant, he flips out. What do I
Speaker 2: do in these situations?
Speaker 4: Know that a kids are learning to activate their calming response,
Speaker 4: and we can't do it until we learn, so it's
Speaker 4: completely well, not completely normal, it's you know, it's quite
Speaker 4: a normal behavior that we would see. And as long
Speaker 4: as they don't last for ages, as long as they
Speaker 4: don't absolutely you know they're doing it consistently, what I
Speaker 4: would potentially say, now you've only given me a tiny
Speaker 4: bit of information. But some of us are born with
Speaker 4: higher personality types in certain areas, and it could be
Speaker 4: that this young person, even at that age, has got
Speaker 4: a higher desire to have control over their own environment,
Speaker 4: which means when you control them, it's even harder for
Speaker 4: them to deal with that. I'm not saying give them
Speaker 4: control in that space. But I would be saying, actually,
Speaker 4: I'm going to take this off you now it's not
Speaker 4: okay to ever and then take it rather than so
Speaker 4: you sort of joining in with them rather than overbearing them.
Speaker 4: So it would be interesting to watch This young person
Speaker 4: might have a you know, a real inclination towards controlling
Speaker 4: their own environment, and when you control them, they find
Speaker 4: it much harder to handle.
Speaker 5: So, but there are little ones.
Speaker 4: We can't have babies that don't have tear potentiums and
Speaker 4: lose the plots. Yeah, talk to your friends and ask
Speaker 4: your friends if you have friends with kids the same age,
Speaker 4: and ask them. It's highly likely they'll say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: my kid does the same thing. See if you're within
Speaker 4: the bounds of normal with your other friends. Is always
Speaker 4: a helpful thing for anyone listening to this. Even with
Speaker 4: whatever age your kids are, try and find someone with
Speaker 4: similar age and say, honestly, tell me how your kids
Speaker 4: are behaving.
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Yeah, great question and great advice. Hi Catherine, my
Speaker 2: daughter is six and we are deciding whether or not
Speaker 2: to continue home school. She hasn't show an interest in
Speaker 2: going to school, but my husband is scared that can
Speaker 2: coninuing to homeschool will stunt her developments? Is there any
Speaker 2: evidence for this? Should we be worried.
Speaker 4: Six six and almost sort of at the end close
Speaker 4: that seven eight year old. Our kids rarely need to
Speaker 4: start to develop another group of people outside of the
Speaker 4: family unit and stuff, so because then when we hear adolescents,
Speaker 4: it becomes even more important for them to have friendship groups.
Speaker 4: And they have to have learned how to do all
Speaker 4: that arguing, fighting, disagreeing when they're before puberty, because once
Speaker 4: they hit that it gets really, really difficult. So allowing
Speaker 4: her to have social situations where she literally has to
Speaker 4: take turns, has to lose, has to do that that's
Speaker 4: really important. Now, if you're homeschooling and ensuring that, I
Speaker 4: don't know, you've got big sports events, you take them
Speaker 4: to church, you're doing lots of things, and that's fine.
Speaker 4: But if she's not getting that, then I would be
Speaker 4: inclined to say she needs to get into a social
Speaker 4: space where she has to negotiate a number of difficult
Speaker 4: friendships because that is a really important thing to learn,
Speaker 4: and you don't want to wait until she hits that
Speaker 4: really difficult puberty time. For her brain to learn those
Speaker 4: negotiations and learnings.
Speaker 2: Yep, really good, really good. Now this is a bit
Speaker 2: of a long text, but again it's another doozy of
Speaker 2: a question. Hi, I'm thirty one years old and I
Speaker 2: have a two year old. I feel I have normal
Speaker 2: expectations on how he behaves. Basically, I understand that there
Speaker 2: is pretty much no impulse control and he has trouble
Speaker 2: regulating emotions. At this age. I really get mad, and
Speaker 2: my approach is usually to explain things to him calmly
Speaker 2: and accept that he will act like a two year old.
Speaker 2: My parents say he needs to learn to sit down
Speaker 2: when they think he should sit at a meal for
Speaker 2: forty five minutes, no screen time, and act like an adult.
Speaker 2: They also say your no should mean no. He still
Speaker 2: sometimes will grab their dog, and of course my parents
Speaker 2: freak out. These are just a few examples, and it's NonStop.
Speaker 2: They make me feel so on edge, and they always
Speaker 2: put the comments about spanking, to which meme doesn't make
Speaker 2: any logical sense for my style of parenting. I'm venting.
Speaker 2: But also am I being strange here?
Speaker 5: Don't we love our parents' desire to help us?
Speaker 4: Now they are just trying to help and I can
Speaker 4: hear that, and I got similar advice from my parents.
Speaker 4: Of course what I want you to do. And absolutely
Speaker 4: our young people have not got a cortex yet at
Speaker 4: two years old. So the prefrontal cortex is the part
Speaker 4: of the brain that makes a conscious decision to do
Speaker 4: something or not. But at two years old, we can
Speaker 4: learn conditioned responses, so we can go, oh, I better
Speaker 4: not do that. Someone's gonna hurt me. You know, it's
Speaker 4: not a conscious thought, it's just a conditioned response. Now
Speaker 4: we do need to have our kids learning some conditioned responses.
Speaker 4: I don't put your hand in the dog's mouth, you know,
Speaker 4: and don't touch the hot things.
Speaker 5: But when we talk about behavior, what.
Speaker 4: I want this person and to consider is do I
Speaker 4: believe my child is reducing that negative behavior so they're
Speaker 4: able to sit for longer at the dinner table. Now
Speaker 4: they are able to control their behavior a little bit
Speaker 4: more than they could till three weeks ago. As long
Speaker 4: as that's happening, they are actually increasing this young two
Speaker 4: year old's ability to physically regulate their stress response system.
Speaker 4: And that can be done without a cortex. It's literally
Speaker 4: learning to breathe, calm down, feel safe, and that's through
Speaker 4: modeling and being with them. So it sounds like the
Speaker 4: parent's way of doing it is absolutely fantastic. That's what
Speaker 4: we want to do. We don't need to hit, we
Speaker 4: don't need to spank, we don't need to yell. Obviously
Speaker 4: sometimes will by the way, I did all of that
Speaker 4: when a parent lost my and yelled. But yes, watch
Speaker 4: the behavior and as long as the behavior is generalizingly
Speaker 4: getting better and they're being able to control themselves more,
Speaker 4: you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: So what is actually going on from a neuroscience point
Speaker 2: of view, because we all know there's a phrase there,
Speaker 2: the terrible twos, is that just the period of development
Speaker 2: where emotions are at all time highs. That's kind of
Speaker 2: a critical part of development and there are a lot
Speaker 2: of things happening in the brain at that point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the terrific twos, and by the way, terrific
Speaker 4: twos usually start about two and a half three years old,
Speaker 4: so it's more likely and that's when the area of
Speaker 4: the brain that we call the limbic area that holds
Speaker 4: all that emotionality, and the way I explain it is
Speaker 4: when our kids learn to walk, is all they wanted
Speaker 4: to do is walk because they were in a sensitive
Speaker 4: period to learn to walk, so you couldn't carry them.
Speaker 4: Then as soon as they learn to walk, they said,
Speaker 4: pick me up. Now they get to the emotional development,
Speaker 4: and the brain says, we need to learn to feel angry, annoyed, stressed, anxious,
Speaker 4: you know, frustrated. But then my body needs to learn
Speaker 4: to calm down, and they're in a sensitive period for that.
Speaker 4: So the brain says, why don't I turn up emotionality?
Speaker 4: So I get frustrated at everything now, I get sad
Speaker 4: at everything. Now, I giggle at everything now. So the
Speaker 4: terrific two's are the brain sort of sand papered emotionally
Speaker 4: so that you can feel more emotions, so that you
Speaker 4: can learn to calm down from these emotions. So, yes,
Speaker 4: it's a sort of a period of time where you'll
Speaker 4: get significantly higher emotions. Possibly night terrors because they're dreams
Speaker 4: before were dreams. Now they're scary because their emotionality is up.
Speaker 4: So it is absolutely a higher level. But it's a
Speaker 4: really positive time, and it's a time we have to
Speaker 4: model calming down, breathing, going for walks, you know, bringing
Speaker 4: that body back down to calm.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Great, Hi, Catherine, my sixteen year old son wants to
Speaker 2: leave school, but he can't give me a plan for
Speaker 2: what he wants to do next. Do I let him
Speaker 2: drop out or encourage him to stay until he has
Speaker 2: a plan.
Speaker 4: Advice please, would definitely depend on how he's doing at school,
Speaker 4: and I can as you say, my sixteen year old
Speaker 4: son was at school was not doing well at all.
Speaker 4: His whole belief in himself, his manner, his behavior was
Speaker 4: right down low because of the way that he was
Speaker 4: being seen at school, so he didn't feel very good. Luckily,
Speaker 4: in Wellington we had this place called the Institute of Sport.
Speaker 4: He could go there and do that and be doing something.
Speaker 4: My advice is if they can do something, it doesn't
Speaker 4: matter what work in a shop, that they're doing something
Speaker 4: each day, they're getting up involving themselves, even if it's voluntary,
Speaker 4: you're better if they're feeling really bad about themselves and
Speaker 4: their whole personality is dropping, my advice is, and remember
Speaker 4: I don't know much about your son, so please just
Speaker 4: this is just advice from a person who doesn't know him.
Speaker 4: If you think it's a good idea out, but yeah,
Speaker 4: they do need to be doing something. He doesn't need
Speaker 4: a plan. We don't have plans at that age, especially
Speaker 4: if you're talking about boys. It's less likely they know.
Speaker 4: But let's get him out doing something feeling good. Even
Speaker 4: if it's only two days a week and three days
Speaker 4: at school or something like that. It's not The school's
Speaker 4: not the be all.
Speaker 5: And end all.
Speaker 4: My son's just actually just got a job as a
Speaker 4: personal trainer after doing a year and a half at
Speaker 4: the institute's sport doing really well. He wou He wouldn't
Speaker 4: have done that if I'd stayed at school. He would
Speaker 4: have been a wreck if I'd stayed.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's something family, you know. I mean, if
Speaker 2: the sixteen year old never thought of polytech or going
Speaker 2: into some of those institutions, and perhaps once they start
Speaker 2: going through what's on off and might start to get
Speaker 2: a bit excited about something that pops up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's take them out and see that there's gateway
Speaker 4: things at school if they can help them with that,
Speaker 4: give them some opportunities, maybe talk to the careers people
Speaker 4: if that's possible. I'm guessing that might have been done.
Speaker 4: But leaving school's okay unless you think staying you know, possible,
Speaker 4: But leaving school's okay as long as we're doing something.
Speaker 4: But we don't need a plan because that's really hard
Speaker 4: for them to have a futuristic plan sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, brilliant. If you've got a question for Catherine, keep
Speaker 2: them coming in on nine two ninety two. That's the
Speaker 2: text number you can email as well. Tyler at Newstalk
Speaker 2: zb dot Co to nz and the phone number is
Speaker 2: O eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Got to take a
Speaker 2: break back very shortly here on the Parent Squad. It
Speaker 2: is half past five. Welcome back into the Weekend Collective
Speaker 2: and the Parents Squad, and we're joined by our expert
Speaker 2: Katherine Burke at Neuroscience trainer at Engage Training. Thank you
Speaker 2: again for your time, Catherine.
Speaker 5: I'm more than welcome now.
Speaker 2: If you've got a question for Catherine, get in quick
Speaker 2: because she's not with us for much longer. Oh eight
Speaker 2: hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call it.
Speaker 2: You can take through on nine to ninety two. Plenty
Speaker 2: of great text questions coming through. And again this one,
Speaker 2: this is clearly a worried parents Catherine. It says, hi,
Speaker 2: I now have a seven seven month old boy. He's
Speaker 2: a really good eater and I started introducing pures at
Speaker 2: five months. I always fed him with a little spoon.
Speaker 2: It just seemed easiest to me. While he gets used
Speaker 2: to tastes, but now he absolutely refuses to eat with
Speaker 2: his hands. He eats from the spoon, but I can't
Speaker 2: put a bowl in front of him and just let
Speaker 2: him messy eat. I thought all babies would just dip
Speaker 2: their hand in and suck on the food. He will
Speaker 2: hold the spoon after I scoop up a bite onto it,
Speaker 2: and he will eventually put it into his mouth, but
Speaker 2: without that help, he absolutely won't eat independently. I'm worried.
Speaker 2: Is there anything I should be doing here?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I mean I can give my advice, but babies,
Speaker 4: babies another complicated we thing. So if you do keep
Speaker 4: being worried, obviously get some pediatric advice. But you know,
Speaker 4: it's seven months. There's all these beautiful things happening in
Speaker 4: the brain. What they work out that they can control
Speaker 4: you to a certain extent, which is, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: not going to do anything unless you help me. So
Speaker 4: it could be a just a It's like when they
Speaker 4: drop the spoon and you pick it up. Drop the spoon,
Speaker 4: pick it up they've worked out that they can control you,
Speaker 4: and that's a really powerful thing. They learning cause and effect,
Speaker 4: which is important with the messy stuff. And again it's
Speaker 4: just a little thought in my head. We do have
Speaker 4: some kids who don't like MESSI. They just literally don't
Speaker 4: like MESSI and they won't ever do messy play. And
Speaker 4: that's fine if they don't want to. The example being
Speaker 4: if we don't let a kid crawl, they can have
Speaker 4: quite bad outcomes they don't do crossing midlines and balancing.
Speaker 4: But if we see a baby who naturally goes from
Speaker 4: bum shuffling to walking and they don't crawl, they don't
Speaker 4: have any negative effects because they didn't need to. Their
Speaker 4: brain didn't need to. So if you allow messy play
Speaker 4: and they don't want to do it, it's likely that
Speaker 4: their brain doesn't need that or doesn't want that to
Speaker 4: choose you what I mean. I don't like people stopping
Speaker 4: kids MESSI playing, But if he really doesn't like it,
Speaker 4: it's possible that he just is going to be one
Speaker 4: of we know those people that just won't allow that
Speaker 4: to happen, But just keep giving them the option. You
Speaker 4: know exactly that it sounds like you're doing, but I
Speaker 4: wouldn't panic too much at this age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, another good question here. Hi guys, I'm a
Speaker 2: thirty three year old mum to a six year old boy.
Speaker 2: I always thought i'd have two kids, but it never
Speaker 2: planned it never planned it out. When my son was
Speaker 2: too we struggled to hold on to our jobs due
Speaker 2: to the pandemic. Later we figured he had a severe
Speaker 2: speech delay, which is getting better now after years of therapy.
Speaker 2: We feel it's time to try for another baby, but
Speaker 2: we are worried about and the age gap between the
Speaker 2: children is a seven or eight year age gap. That bad.
Speaker 4: Oh I would I'd say, if you want to have
Speaker 4: another baby, you go for it.
Speaker 5: That's your desire.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's nothing better is there than becoming a parent,
Speaker 4: And if that's what you are going to try, No,
Speaker 4: But what I'd be making sure is that you have
Speaker 4: kids his age around him for him to be with,
Speaker 4: because what happens when baby comes. His baby gets praised
Speaker 4: for pulling and farting and crying, and he's not going
Speaker 4: to get the attention for that. So making sure we've
Speaker 4: got his tension there. But no, absolutely, we know people
Speaker 4: with lots of age gaps like that, it's it's definitely
Speaker 4: not a negative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would, I would absolutely go for it.
Speaker 2: Fantastic help please. My ten year old refuses to tidy
Speaker 2: her room and her pets items. It's an absolute mess,
Speaker 2: many small things on the floor in the bed. She said,
Speaker 2: it's her room and she likes it the way that
Speaker 2: it is. She had just closed the door. If we
Speaker 2: do not like seeing the mess, I told her she's
Speaker 2: still living with us, so she has to go by
Speaker 2: the rules. What is the correct thing to say in
Speaker 2: these circumstances. It's a great teach.
Speaker 4: Now, this is this is not a neuroscientist's advice. This
Speaker 4: is Catherine the Mother advice. And don't waste your energy. Honestly,
Speaker 4: don't waste your energy. I have exactly the same.
Speaker 3: Thing in my house. My child is not tidy.
Speaker 4: And I close the door and they will eventually get
Speaker 4: sick of it. The ruler is there's no food in
Speaker 4: the room if the room is dirty, you know, like
Speaker 4: there's no food in the room because we don't want
Speaker 4: rats and all that sort of stuff. And if the
Speaker 4: go oh, I haven't got my clothes for whatever, it's
Speaker 4: not my concerns. So there's natural consequences that will come
Speaker 4: out of it. But you know what, if she wants
Speaker 4: to have a messy room, she's exactly right if she
Speaker 4: shut the door. That's my care for and advice because
Speaker 4: you're wasting so much energy you're spending time that you
Speaker 4: can just hang out with them and actually be positive,
Speaker 4: and then eventually she might go, you know what, I
Speaker 4: do want to have a tidy room. I'm sick of
Speaker 4: it being messy. But if she doesn't, cause it's her room, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Ten year olds will be ten year olds, is what
Speaker 2: you're saying, Catherine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she'll change.
Speaker 4: I would say she's more likely to change if you
Speaker 4: just back off and ignore it. But I would have
Speaker 4: some consequences. No, I'm not doing your washing or if
Speaker 4: you need that, I haven't got my sports gear. Well
Speaker 4: that's because your room's are messed, So it's not my biggie.
Speaker 5: Do you see what I mean?
Speaker 4: So there would have some consequences, and so she does
Speaker 4: learn that there's consequence for that, but they would be
Speaker 4: natural consequences and just save your energy.
Speaker 5: That's your energy.
Speaker 2: Be a win win situation, right that. Hey, look, you know,
Speaker 2: if you help pass out, will help you out. And
Speaker 2: that's the strategy you're talking about there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, give us some choice over the matter. But yeah,
Speaker 4: some kids are just missing and that's just the way
Speaker 4: they are.
Speaker 2: Yes, Hi, Catherine. Essentially, we have a beautiful, easy, happy
Speaker 2: baby boy. He is super easy most of the time,
Speaker 2: in just an absolute joy. But man, he hates to sleep.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly when it started, but he's seven
Speaker 2: months old now, and he scream screams and cries, red
Speaker 2: in the face, losing his voice, coughing and gagging type
Speaker 2: screaming every time we try to put him to sleep.
Speaker 2: The only way we've found to do it is by
Speaker 2: doing an activity that makes him sleepy and letting them
Speaker 2: fall to sleep by accident like car rides or watching TV.
Speaker 2: Basically not letting him think or realize he's being put
Speaker 2: to sleep. So my question is, is this Okay? Should
Speaker 2: I not be doing this? I feel like we're tricking
Speaker 2: him into going to sleep? Could this create bad habits?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 4: So, first of all, we're around this age and a
Speaker 4: sort of started to the other seven month old. It's
Speaker 4: called object permanence occurs potentially around this age, and object
Speaker 4: permanence is when before if you put something under a cloth.
Speaker 4: If you show the baby something and then you put
Speaker 4: it under a cloth, they will just think it's gone.
Speaker 5: They can't see it it's gone.
Speaker 4: But then around that age they will notice that it's gone.
Speaker 4: So you could even test your baby and see if
Speaker 4: they've got this, which means now when you leave the room,
Speaker 4: they remember you and they miss you. Whereas before, sorry
Speaker 4: to say, they didn't really care. They sort of as
Speaker 4: long as someone was there to look after them. But
Speaker 4: now they're going to miss that primary person very often.
Speaker 4: So it could be that he's going through object permanence,
Speaker 4: which makes it even more scary to be separated from
Speaker 4: you at the moment, which is why it could be escalating.
Speaker 4: The thing with sleeping is it's a physical practice. So
Speaker 4: the body needs to wind down, it needs to activate malatonin,
Speaker 4: and it needs to go to sleep. It doesn't matter
Speaker 4: how that happens. If you get that happening and he
Speaker 4: goes into a nice sleep and he sleeps and he
Speaker 4: wakes up, you are gone. I want to teach your
Speaker 4: body to start doing that, and then he'll be fitter
Speaker 4: to do that himself. Laying with our babies, singing to
Speaker 4: our babies, helping them go to sleep, is not a problem.
Speaker 5: We've got a.
Speaker 4: Westernized vision of our kids should go to bed and
Speaker 4: sleep by themselves. That's not the way that we've done
Speaker 4: it naturally. I slept with my babies to put them
Speaker 4: to sleep when they were little. I didn't make for
Speaker 4: a rod from home back. They got to sleep by
Speaker 4: themselves because I helped their bodies practice that. And it
Speaker 4: sounds like that's what's happening here. They're practicing go to sleep,
Speaker 4: and then we'll try and do it without the car
Speaker 4: one day and see if it weeks night, let's go
Speaker 4: back to that. So we're sort of like, you know,
Speaker 4: just practicing it in the body and then trying to
Speaker 4: extend it without those tools. But no, our babies sleeping,
Speaker 4: it's hard for them to go to sleep, and they
Speaker 4: are scared without us.
Speaker 5: Know, our babies.
Speaker 4: Shouldn't be sleeping by themselves. I'm not talking about sleeping
Speaker 4: post sleeping. I'm talking about they need to hear us breathing,
Speaker 4: feel safe with us for their bodies to relax and
Speaker 4: get to sleep. And some kids more than others.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that will give that text for a lot
Speaker 2: of comfort. And I mean it is. It is a
Speaker 2: stressful thing. For new parents. Isn't it clearly that all
Speaker 2: these things are happening and you're trying your best to do,
Speaker 2: you know, to be a parent and to look after
Speaker 2: your child, and you're worried about all these things that
Speaker 2: you're doing. Is this going to have an impact down
Speaker 2: the line, And what you're saying is you just got
Speaker 2: to go with it and do what works best for
Speaker 2: you to the best of your ability and it will.
Speaker 4: Work oututely and careful of those social media posts, oh
Speaker 4: my child's sleeping through the night. Yeah, they're probably naturally
Speaker 4: going to do it anyway, but why it's much worse
Speaker 4: now we only get the good news. Honestly, Ask your
Speaker 4: friends are your babies sleeping and they'll be going, oh
Speaker 4: my goodness, or as much. You know, let's be honest
Speaker 4: with each other, which is really helpful as parents. You
Speaker 4: know it's hard, it's hard, but just do the best
Speaker 4: you can as a parent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, brilliant. Catherine, You're great, really good to chat
Speaker 2: with you, and thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 5: No, absolutely my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thanks everyone.
Speaker 2: That is Catherine Burkett, neuroscience trainer at Engage Training. A
Speaker 2: fascinating text that came through so thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Right after the break, we're going to catch up with
Speaker 2: our voice of rugby in South Africa, Elliott Smith. Big
Speaker 2: match on tomorrow morning, three am kickoff All Blacks v
Speaker 2: South Africa. We lost the first one. Can we win
Speaker 2: the second one that's coming up very shortly. It is
Speaker 2: seven minutes to no seventeen minutes to six.
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