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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.

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Speaker 2: Now we know school belonging is extremely important for mental

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Speaker 2: health and their well being and also for successful school outcomes.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum

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Speaker 1: and Dad.

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Speaker 3: This is doctor Justin Colson, the author of six books

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Speaker 3: about raising happy families and the founder of happy families

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Speaker 3: dot com dot are you. Normally I would be here

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Speaker 3: with Kylie, wife mum to our six kids and podcast

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Speaker 3: co host, but unfortunately Kylie couldn't be with us for

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Speaker 3: this conversation.

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Speaker 4: Kylie just had some other things that she had to

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Speaker 4: be doing.

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Speaker 3: But I am, however, with somebody that I'm really excited

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Speaker 3: to have a chat to about something that I find

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Speaker 3: absolutely intriguing. You know how, sometimes kids just belong at school.

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Speaker 3: They've found their fit, they've found their friends, the philosophies right,

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Speaker 3: everything's working for them, and they really relish school. Now,

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Speaker 3: if you're listening to me, give that summary in thinking

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Speaker 3: that's not my kids, it's probably not the highest percentage

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Speaker 3: of kids that have that kind of experience where they

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Speaker 3: really want to be at school every day because they

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Speaker 3: feel that they belong, a lot of children don't belong.

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Speaker 4: And my guest today is doctor Kelly and Allen.

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Speaker 3: Kelly is a Senior lecturer at the School of Education

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Speaker 3: at Monash University and also a Senior Honorary Fellow where

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Speaker 3: I am at the Center for Well Being Science in

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Speaker 3: the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne.

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Speaker 3: Highly qualified and Kelly's area of interest is school belonging. Kelly,

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Speaker 3: thanks for joining me on the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: Absolute pleasure to be here with you.

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Speaker 3: Justin So, we've had lots of conversations over the years,

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Speaker 3: Kelly and talked about school belonging many times, but it's

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Speaker 3: not a concept that a lot of people would automatically

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Speaker 3: relate to or would have heard of.

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Speaker 4: So let's break it up. First of all, what's belonging?

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Speaker 1: All right?

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Speaker 2: Well, let's start off with in the most simplest form,

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Speaker 2: it's a universe us all fundamental human need. That means

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Speaker 2: it's something that most of us really seek to find

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Speaker 2: and something that we all share universally, no matter where

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Speaker 2: we are, or who we are or where we live.

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Speaker 2: The definition is an interesting one and it can get

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Speaker 2: a little bit murky depending on who is defining it.

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Speaker 3: You're sounding so much like an academic right now, Kylie

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Speaker 3: gets mentrol I do this all the time. I'm like, Kylie,

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Speaker 3: the definitions matter, and Kylie bere like no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: just tell me what it is that I don't need anyway.

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Speaker 3: So where's the murkiness here? How do you how do

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Speaker 3: you define belonging from a from an academic point of view?

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Speaker 2: Well, let me break it down and I'll try and

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Speaker 2: be a little bit more playing language. It is about

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Speaker 2: a feeling that you might have towards particular systems or

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Speaker 2: families or friends. It might be school, it might be

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Speaker 2: work environments.

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Speaker 4: It might be.

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Speaker 2: Communities, cultural group or physical spaces, like sense of belonging

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Speaker 2: to land. So when I said before, it depends who

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Speaker 2: you talk to. Some people really see sense of belonging

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Speaker 2: as being a really relational thing in that it is

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Speaker 2: about other people. Whereas I feel, particularly having being in

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Speaker 2: Australia and having indigenous culture all around us, that's the

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Speaker 2: sense of belonging to kinship, but to land also really

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Speaker 2: needs to be acknowledged, I think, in how we define belonging.

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Speaker 2: So that sense of place I see is a really

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Speaker 2: important part of how belongings defined.

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Speaker 3: I really relate to that because well, for the first

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Speaker 3: forty plus years of my life, I didn't It didn't

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Speaker 3: make any sense to me at all. But when my

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Speaker 3: family left the Illawarra region, we left Woollongong and moved

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Speaker 3: to Brisbane, I felt lost.

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Speaker 4: I felt like I'd come adrift.

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Speaker 3: My anchor had been ripped off the bottom of the

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Speaker 3: ocean and I was just floating out there. And I remember,

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Speaker 3: in the couple of years following move, every now and

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Speaker 3: again i'd catch a flight from say Sydney to Canberra,

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Speaker 3: or i'd fly across the Woollongong region, or even just

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Speaker 3: flying into Sydney and we'd go over the Royal National

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Speaker 3: Park at the northern end of that Illahora and I

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Speaker 3: would look out the window down into Woollongong with this yearning, like,

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Speaker 3: but I belong there. I don't belong in Brisbane. I

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Speaker 3: belong in Wollongong. So I guess that's what you're kind

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Speaker 3: of saying. There's that sense of that feeling, that sense

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Speaker 3: of affiliation, that the yearning to be a part of something.

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Speaker 4: That's how you define it belonging.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting that you say that because

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Speaker 2: My background is well, I used to be a school psychologist,

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Speaker 2: and so one of the really common issues that students

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Speaker 2: would come to me about is their sense of belonging

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Speaker 2: to the school. They might have moved schools or changed schools,

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Speaker 2: and exactly what you're describing is what they would say

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Speaker 2: that they don't feel like they belong here. And I

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Speaker 2: had a supervisor at the time, because psychologists get supervision,

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Speaker 2: and you know, she would use a plant analogy that

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Speaker 2: you know, a plant has these deep roots that go

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Speaker 2: into the soil, and you know they're ingrained and entwined,

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Speaker 2: and they take time to grow and really establish themselves.

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Speaker 2: But when you move, you are actually pulling that plant up,

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Speaker 2: and you know when you do that, you know how

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Speaker 2: the little roots kind of stay behind in the soil,

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Speaker 2: they don't all come out, and then you have kind

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Speaker 2: of less roots, and then you plant that plant again,

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Speaker 2: and it takes time for those roots to regrow again.

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Speaker 2: And I thought that there's such a beautiful metaphor for

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Speaker 2: explaining to students and people that you know, that sense

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Speaker 2: of belonging can sometimes take time, particularly when you've transitioned

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Speaker 2: to a new school or a new workplace, or you've

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Speaker 2: you've physically moved.

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Speaker 3: Let's talk about the positive side of things here. If

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Speaker 3: you look at why school belonging is important, what does

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Speaker 3: your research show, like, what are the key findings about

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Speaker 3: kids who do feel like they.

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Speaker 2: Belong It's we know school belonging is extremely important for

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Speaker 2: mental health and their well being and also for successful

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Speaker 2: school outcomes. Some exciting stuff though, has looked at what

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Speaker 2: it has meant for people to belong at school and

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Speaker 2: then tracked them fifteen years down the track into adulthood,

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Speaker 2: and that research there has found some really compelling findings

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Speaker 2: to say that if you felt belonging at school, you

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Speaker 2: are more likely to have better mental health outcomes as

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Speaker 2: an adult and also be more willing to engage in

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Speaker 2: further education and training and employment. So there's some really

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Speaker 2: exciting research happening there that shows longitudinal benefits as well

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Speaker 2: long term benefits.

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Speaker 4: Kelly, thanks for sharing that.

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Speaker 3: We're going to come right back after the break and

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Speaker 3: have a conversation about what research tells us parents can

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Speaker 3: do if their kids don't feel that sense of school belonging.

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Speaker 4: That's next it on the Happy Families Podcast. It's the

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Speaker 4: Happy Families Podcast.

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Speaker 5: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having

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Speaker 5: to feel bad or in trouble. The Do's and don'ts

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Speaker 5: of Discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits

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Speaker 5: with love, compassion and humanity. Find it now at happy

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Speaker 5: families dot com dot au slash shop.

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Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast, The podcast for the time

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Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers. Now, well, let's time

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Speaker 3: for some answers. I'm talking with doctor Kelly Ann Allen.

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Speaker 3: Kelly is a Senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education

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Speaker 3: at Monash University and also a Senior Honorary Fellow at

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Speaker 3: the Center for Wellbeing Science in the Graduate School of

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Speaker 3: Education at the University of Melbourne.

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Speaker 4: We've been talking about what.

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Speaker 3: School belonging is and why it's so important that our

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Speaker 3: kids feel that sense of affiliation, closeness and belonging, feeling

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Speaker 3: like they matter, that they're accepted where they are at school.

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Speaker 3: The reality is, though, Kelly, some kids really don't like school.

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Speaker 3: They don't feel like they fit in, they feel like

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Speaker 3: they actually don't even belong. So other than sending them

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Speaker 3: to school, which is kind of important, what can we

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Speaker 3: do to help them to build a healthy sense of

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Speaker 3: school belonging.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Well, look, I do need to say that

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Speaker 2: there is not one single intervention or one single fix

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Speaker 2: that can increase school belonging. This is a multi pronged approach,

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Speaker 2: and there are things that schools can be doing, particularly

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Speaker 2: teachers can be doing that aren't necessarily add on to

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Speaker 2: the curriculum or their day to day, But from a

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Speaker 2: parent perspective, there's also things that they can do as well.

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Speaker 2: So you know, the first one is you know, showing

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Speaker 2: an interest in their academic showing an interest in their

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Speaker 2: school work being around and I know it can be

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Speaker 2: so hard with our busy lives and different responsibilities that

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Speaker 2: we have, but you know, making sure that we've got

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Speaker 2: some time to listen to them read or listen to

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Speaker 2: you know, how their school day was, or see you know,

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Speaker 2: what work they're working on at the moment. So that

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Speaker 2: interest is really important as well. That also feeds into

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Speaker 2: attitude towards school and having a positive attitude towards school.

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Speaker 2: Because as parents, some of us haven't had positive school

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Speaker 2: experiences ourselves. We have to be really careful not to

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Speaker 2: overlay negative attitudes towards school, you know, onto our children.

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Speaker 2: We wanted to try and create a positive foundation for them.

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Speaker 2: I know myself, I have to catch myself from and

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Speaker 2: stop myself from saying, Yay, there's no school today, because

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Speaker 2: I really want to try and make school the icing

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Speaker 2: on the cake, the best place that my kids could

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Speaker 2: possibly be at any one time, even though I personally

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Speaker 2: love not packing the lunches and staying in pajamas all day.

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Speaker 2: So that's probably the second one is just to be

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Speaker 2: mindful of attitudes that you might could tray about school just.

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Speaker 3: Before you go onto the third one. Kelly, I just

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Speaker 3: want to jump in on both of those if I can.

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Speaker 3: In terms of the first idea, that involvement the asking questions,

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Speaker 3: I'm right there with you, and it's wonderful when your

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Speaker 3: children want to talk to you about it. But what

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Speaker 3: I have found is that when the kids don't feel

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Speaker 3: like they really belong, when the kids aren't really enjoying

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Speaker 3: their school experience, our conversations with them like hey, how

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Speaker 3: was school today, or what was hard or what was good?

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Speaker 3: Or what do you enjoy or what did you learn,

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Speaker 3: they tend to be met with monosyllabic responses that kilds say,

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Speaker 3: find nothing whatever, And that doesn't really matter whether the

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Speaker 3: kids are six or sixteen, there's a real, a real

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Speaker 3: reluctance to talk about things when things just aren't that great.

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Speaker 3: How do you obviously you've got a school psychology background

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Speaker 3: as well as doing all this great research on school belonging,

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Speaker 3: how do parents get around that?

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Speaker 4: How do you grapple with that? From your perspective?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think it's being available and around. Letting

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Speaker 2: the kids know that you are actually there and you're

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Speaker 2: interested is the first step, and perhaps even letting them

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Speaker 2: come to things you know they're in their own way,

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Speaker 2: on their own terms. I think that's really important. I

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Speaker 2: have always found that actually physically doing something with kids

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Speaker 2: can sometimes be a helpful prompt for conversation. It's a

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Speaker 2: little bit more natural, so those drives to and from school,

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Speaker 2: or doing the dishes together, or you know. Sometimes I

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Speaker 2: find that that you know, physically doing something. I don't

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Speaker 2: know how you go about that justin but sometimes I

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Speaker 2: feel that that can be a helpful way of drawing

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Speaker 2: out information.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for that, Kelly.

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Speaker 3: I find that sitting down with the kids and saying

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Speaker 3: you seem to be having a tough time, that simple

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Speaker 3: yes statement seems to open things up for them so much.

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Speaker 3: The second common that you've made, the second idea to

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Speaker 3: promote school belonging is to be positive. And I have

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Speaker 3: to be honest, I feel a little bit indicted by

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Speaker 3: your statement because.

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Speaker 4: I had an awful school experience.

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Speaker 3: My years in high school particularly were primarily negative.

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Speaker 4: My attitude towards school.

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Speaker 3: Even now, I value education so much and we certainly

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Speaker 3: encourage that with our kids. But from time to time,

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Speaker 3: I find myself saying, only four more years to go, kiddo,

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Speaker 3: You're only you're almost through grade eight.

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Speaker 4: Now you're four and a half years, You're nearly there.

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Speaker 3: And I love the fact that you've said that it's

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Speaker 3: important to be positive, but I also I kind of

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Speaker 3: want to challenge it, just lightly if I can. I

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Speaker 3: know that this is your area of expertise, so I

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Speaker 3: want to be very gentle with my gentle challenge. But

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Speaker 3: surely if we're not excited about it, our positivity comes

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Speaker 3: across as false positivity.

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Speaker 4: Like the kids are going to see through.

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Speaker 2: That, right, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's going to be your

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Speaker 2: cientic It's going to be genuine and everything in balance.

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Speaker 2: So you know, if you are waking up every morning

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Speaker 2: as a parent, you're during the school lunch fox and

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Speaker 2: nagging kids to get dressed, and the only messages that

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Speaker 2: they're getting around school is that going to school is

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Speaker 2: a drag, not just for them but for you as well.

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Speaker 2: That's probably, you know, we need to take that. We

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Speaker 2: need to balance that out perhaps and think about the

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Speaker 2: what kind of messages we're sending kids, so there's they're

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Speaker 2: not just only hearing negative Yeah, it.

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Speaker 4: Makes sense, makes sense.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And what's the third tip for helping kids to

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Speaker 3: feel a sense of school belonging other than us being

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Speaker 3: involved in their schooling and us being positive about the

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Speaker 3: fact that they're going.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about I guess, being available to be supportive

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Speaker 2: not only just academically, but also emotionally when they when

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Speaker 2: they need someone to talk. So you've got, you know,

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Speaker 2: showing an interest in school, you've got the positive attitude

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Speaker 2: towards school. But then it's also being available to show

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Speaker 2: support for them learning if they're struggling in particular, because

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Speaker 2: that can result in negative school experiences as well.

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Speaker 3: So my last question and our time is well and

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Speaker 3: truly gone, but I think it's an important one that

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Speaker 3: we need to address before we wrap things up. Sometimes

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Speaker 3: kids just don't fit in, and it might not be

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Speaker 3: the child, It might be the school, or it might

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Speaker 3: be the child.

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Speaker 4: How does a parent know.

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Speaker 3: When school belonging has become such an issue that it's

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Speaker 3: time to find out if they might belong somewhere else

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Speaker 3: ruther than where they are.

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Speaker 2: I think, you know, I think at that point it's

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Speaker 2: worth having a conversation with the school if parents are

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Speaker 2: really concerned, because some of those feelings can be preliminary

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Speaker 2: signs of things that are that can cause more trouble

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Speaker 2: down the track, like school refusal for instance. So I

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Speaker 2: think that's one part of it. The other part of

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Speaker 2: it is that there are multiple spheres or places, multiple

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Speaker 2: places that we can belong. You know, there might be

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Speaker 2: other groups or other activities or friendship groups or family

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Speaker 2: groups where students might find that sense of belonging as well.

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Speaker 2: So thinking if parents could think about the opportunities to

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Speaker 2: belong that their child might have, that could be another

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Speaker 2: helpful way of thinking about belonging.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that thought.

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Speaker 3: Doctor Kelly and Allen from Monash University School of Education,

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for talking to us about school belonging.

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Speaker 2: My pleasure justin.

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Speaker 3: I think the take home message is be as positive

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Speaker 3: about school as you can, and make sure that you're

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Speaker 3: involved and that you're there to listen. It sounds like

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Speaker 3: that's going to make a huge difference for parents at home.

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Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from

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Speaker 3: Bridge Media.

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Speaker 4: And Craig Bruce is our executive producer.

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Speaker 3: If you enjoy the podcast, we love it when you

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Speaker 3: can find out about the good stuff we talk about

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Speaker 3: and help make their families happier. Oh and if you'd

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Speaker 3: the podcast, you can find it all at happy families

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