February 5, 2025 • 19 mins
In this episode of the School Can't Experience Podcast, hosted by Leisa Reichelt and featuring Tiffany Westphal and Louise Rogers from School Can't Australia, we discuss:
- Taking the lead and leaning on supporters when engaging with schools,
- Optimistic stories of alternative schools that cater well to children with School Can't,
- Understanding the need for psychological safety and what creates or destroys safety at school.
- School Can’t Australia Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolphobiaschoolrefusalaustralia
- Make a donation to School Can’t Australia - https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist, or other qualified professional.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leisa Reichelt (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the School Can't
Experience Podcast.
I am Leisa Reichelt, and thispodcast is brought to you by the
School Can't Australiacommunity.
Caring for a young person who isstruggling to attend school can
be a stressful and isolatingexperience, but you are not
alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every
(00:26):
day.
we hope this podcast gives yousome new insight into what
others are experiencing and somenew ways of thinking about how
to understand and support theyoung people in your life.
We try to keep these podcastsfairly short to respect your
precious time, but that doesn'tmean we don't have lots to talk
about when we're recordingsometimes.
So this episode joins togethersome of the great conversations
(00:46):
we have recorded earlier, but wehaven't been able to squeeze
into an episode so far.
Once again, I'm joined byTiffany Westphal and Louise
Rogers from School Can'tAustralia.
And in this episode we are goingto talk about how Tiffany and
Lou manage to remain so calmwhen they talk about strategies
for dealing with School Can't.
We're going to talk about someinspiring and positive
experiences we've had with somealternative schools who really
(01:10):
seem to understand our SchoolCan't young people.
And we'll dig into what wereally mean when we talk about
feeling safe at school.
But let's start off by trying tounderstand exactly how Tiffany
sounds so much calmer than mewhen she talks about dealing
with School Can't.
The question that I have, Tiffis that when you were talking
about it, it all soundedextremely calm and rational.
(01:32):
When I look back, I just think,I learned so much on the go and
I was in such a panic the wholetime I was doing it.
And I had an terriblepsychologist multiple times,
took me ages to find a good onewho could actually help.
OTs were like, honestly not thathelpful either.
None of them ever talked aboutaccommodations at school, ever.
The school treated us like wewere the first people they'd
(01:53):
ever come across whose kid washaving trouble going to school.
That was clearly our problemthat we needed to fix.
My son was getting more and moredistressed all the time.
And honestly, partly what Iwanted to know was should I
literally be forcing him to goto school every day.
Or like, what if I just gave himtime off?
Like what would happen?
Would I be doing the wrongthing?
Would I be being bad if I justhad a little circuit breaker in
(02:17):
there.
I mean, it got to the pointwhere I really had no choice.
Like there's no way that I couldforce him in the back of the car
and get him to school.
But I think that's part of it aswell is there's so much distress
that you're dealing with thatyou're just like, the child
can't sit down and brainstormwith you what the problems are
because they're just....
Tiffany Westphal (02:34):
It's incredibly stressful for both
parent and child.
And I think that's reflected inwhat you've just shared there,
Leisa, how incredibly stressful.
I remember feeling like I washaving a nervous breakdown one
weekend, dealing with this stuffreally early on in the piece.
Because the school was tellingme that we needed to do one
thing and I'm like, no, but thatthing's going to escalate my
(02:55):
child and make things worse.
We can't do that thing.
And so the ball was back in mycourt to try and figure out a
solution, because the solutionthey were proposing was going to
make things worse for mydaughter.
It's really, really stressful.
And I think those earlyexperiences of extreme distress
have resulted in me being muchmore controlling of situations,
(03:18):
and taking the lead.
That's just come fromexperience.
I go into meetings with schoolssupporting other people now and
because I've got that, that pastexperience in what's helpful and
what's not helpful and how tomanage people I'm able to go
into a meeting and, keep somekind of control over when a
school is making suggestions tojust be able to say, actually,
(03:42):
that's not going to be helpful.
That's likely to make thingsworse in my experience.
And the, the family issuggesting this other thing here
might be helpful, and I can saythen in my experience, that's
been helpful for other kids too,and it's worth considering.
So it's certainly really helpfulto have somebody who's got some,
some lived experience or somepast experience in supporting
(04:03):
people in this space.
Because as parents, we aresupporting our children, we are
managing our own demands andneeds to try and manage the rest
of the family's needs.
Siblings who have been late toschool because you can't get
your child out the door toschool in the morning.
Difficulties getting to work inthe morning, the difficulties
(04:24):
with having to cancelappointments that you're not
able to attend.
There's so many challengingthings about this situation, and
I think, sometimes we need tolook after our own nervous
systems as parents.
Because when you are in thethick of it and you are in
distress, you are not able tothink straight anymore either.
(04:44):
You know, uh, your nervoussystem becomes really heightened
and we end up joining ourchildren in their distress.
Then we can't co-regulate withthem and we begin to risk
communicating that things aregood and, and they start to
panic too.
Oh mom's really distressed, sowhat hope have I got?
Who's going to help me calm andfeel better?
(05:06):
There are no solutions if Mum orDad can't figure this out, or
the school can't figure thisout.
It escalates the child'sdistress.
We need to think about theparent child unit as a unit.
and sometimes we do need to takea circuit breaker.
Sometimes we do need some timejust to calm everybody's nervous
systems down so we can think!Nobody can make decisions in
(05:29):
meetings when people aredistressed.
When I'm giving advice toschools, I'm saying you need to
be conscious of the family'snervous system in those meetings
and how you can help them feelsafe and calm and able to
participate and contribute incollaborative discussions.
So you need to think aboutsafety in meetings.
(05:52):
You need to think about, what'sthe exit plan?
If somebody needs to leave theroom, how many people are they
going to have to crawl over toget to the door?
Do they know where they can goif they feel they need to leave
the room?
Do they have a way ofcommunicating that they're
starting to feel distressed andneed some time?
Is it necessary for everybody tobe in that room for that
meeting?
I know I've gone way off whatyour original question was
Leisa Reichelt (06:14):
Yeah, you're giving me flashbacks to all the
school meetings that I've beento and how different they were
from what you're describing.
Louise Roger (06:21):
Can I add something from before?
Leisa Reichelt (06:23):
Hmm
Louise Roger (06:24):
We, um, my child tried school again last year.
Leisa Reichelt (06:27):
mm-hmm
Louise Roger (06:27):
went to a specialist, uh, school, for
children and young people who'dhad difficulty in their
mainstream environments.
We only did the trial at thebeginning of the year.
But one thing that happened inthe context of that is they sat
down with all the parents andtalked us through.
By the end of that discussion, Ifelt a really big shift inside
(06:51):
my body.
And that was, a recognition thatI could trust these people I had
a good cry about it when I wenthome.
I didn't know I was carryingthat fear and, uncertainty.
It was really quite a, a shiftin myself to know that I could
(07:12):
trust these people after ourexperiences.
Leisa Reichelt (07:15):
My son did a three week trial at the end of
last year with a specialistschool that supports kids who
can't deal in mainstream schooland similar kind of thing, that
trust building process.
The very first thing they didwas hand us a clipboard with a
whole bunch of accommodationsand said, tick the ones that you
think would really help yourson.
We went through it together andI'm just like, oh my God, where
(07:36):
has this been forever?
It was incredible.
But then there were other thingstoo during that, during that
trial where they were able toreally show him that they took
his concerns seriously.
And, if he said he wasdistressed, they were like,
okay, fine.
Well you go over here and havesome time out and it's fine.
There was none of this coercingto encourage him to participate
in things that made him feelreally uncomfortable.
(07:58):
If he needed to take a break, hewas able to take a break without
being pulled back in.
And when he had, situationswhere he was overwhelmed by
stimulus or whatever it could bethey sat down with him in a
quiet place and helped him workthrough what was going on and
helped him understand, you know,how could he cope with those
sort of situations when theycame up at school without having
to go away from school, that wasa pretty incredible experience
(08:21):
for both of us.
He's starting full-time at thatschool, at the beginning of this
next school year, so we have allof our fingers and toes crossed
that, that, that, that, thatworks out.
But just so, so, so like theprevious school that he went to
when he went there in yearseven.
Year seven was a real wheelsfalling off moment for us
because it's such a change fromprimary school to high school.
(08:43):
The head of year seven, she wasa wonderful woman, who tried
really, really hard with him andhelped shape his school
experience quite a lot, it wasvery much like, I'll be waiting
out the front of the school foryou.
If you can just get him toschool, I'll take it from there.
And even though it was with theabsolute best of intentions, he
learned pretty quickly that whenhe went to that school, the
(09:06):
teachers, even the counselors,the main thing they were trying
to do was get him back into thatclassroom.
That was their main goal.
They would give him 10 minutetimeout, but that was only
because then you go back intothe classroom the lack of
understanding of what wascausing the problem, just meant
that we were never going to getto a resolution there.
Louise Roger (09:25):
I think the big shift I noticed at this other
school was, that they seem to bebuilding a young person's
awareness of self and what theycould manage and what they can't
manage, and helping them todevelop strategies when they
were feeling overwhelmed.
But of course, this requires notonly the young person to be
(09:49):
aware of those strategies and tobe aware of how they're feeling
themselves.
It also needs the adults aroundthem to be receptive to that,
Tiffany Westphal (09:58):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (09:59):
To take them seriously.
Louise Roger (10:00):
to take them seriously and not say just try
harder.
Tiffany Westphal (10:04):
Or just to be simply attuned.
so I'm just reflecting back on,you know, those Top 10
school-based stresses impactingSchool Can't from our, survey in
December, 2022.
And, um, the one at the very topwas about safe people, having,
uh, having safe people at schoolAnd then the next one was about
(10:25):
people who could identify signsof distress.
The next one was about theability to communicate distress
to the teacher.
And the next one after is about,masking not feeling safe to
share what's going on, or nothaving capacity to connect with
my internal nervous system stateand, and what my needs are as
(10:48):
well.
So masking can be a, product ofnot feeling safe, but it can
also be a product of not havingthe skills to manage the
situation any other way.
Leisa Reichelt (10:57):
Can we unpack this idea of safety?
We keep talking about how kidsneed to feel safe at school.
They're almost never going tocome to physical harm at school.
When we talk about this feelingsafe at school, what actually do
we mean?
Tiffany Westphal (11:10):
I'm so glad you asked.
I wrote, something about this onLinkedIn yeah.
So what, what's safety about Ilove the way Louise often says,
safety is much more than a softfall mulch.
Often we think about physicalsafety, but we also need to
think about psychologicalsafety.
We need to think about safety ina really broad sense.
For me, safety at school isabout, you know, it's about
(11:32):
relationships, relationshipsbetween peers.
it's about relationships betweenstudents and staff.
about feeling competent andcapable and able to do the work.
Being able to access thecurriculum, being able to
demonstrate knowledge, beyourself and not having to mask
or pretend.
It's about having your supportneeds identified and responded
(11:55):
to.
Not being shamed for yourdifficulties, for any
difficulties that youexperienced due to your
disability.
It's about being met where youwere at rather than where people
wish you were at.
It's about not having to workharder because of your
disability.
It's about being celebrated forwho you are.
It's about feeling like you'll,you know, what's going to happen
(12:16):
next.
So we know the predictability,feeling like things are
predictable is important forfeeling safe.
It's about having enough energyavailable to meet the demands of
the day.
So knowing that, you know, I'mnot going to be asked to do,
many things that are beyond mycapacity to manage for that day,
that helps contribute to feelingsafe.
(12:38):
We know that sensory experiencesthat feel just right contribute
to feeling safe.
In actual fact, I was talking toProfessor Dawn Adams about
feeling safe and sensoryexperiences.
And she was saying that there'ssome research that indicates
that sensory experiences thatare quite taxing are very
difficult to bounce back from,to recover from, uh, compared to
(13:00):
other stressful experiences.
So that's really interesting.
Being listened to, uh, havingagency over things that cause
you stress, that helpscontribute to safety.
Feeling okay about using thetoilet or eating, you know,
being able to tend to yourphysical needs at school.
Being given enough time to shareyour ideas or complete work.
(13:22):
So if you've got slow processingspeed being able to manage those
things.
Being able to complete work inthe same amount of time that it
takes peers and not having towork longer and harder because
of your disability to completework.
There are so many things.
Little things like when theteacher says, can you get into
groups to do this activity, andyou're are left out all the
(13:44):
time, that makes someone feelnot safe.
I can remember my daughter'sfirst experience of not feeling
safe at school had to do withreading.
And she had a lot of difficultylearning to read.
And the routine in the morning,every school day started the
same where you came in, you gotyour readers out and the parent
helpers in the room and you hadto read to a parent helper and
(14:04):
she felt really unsafe readingto people other than me or the
teacher.
That was a great source of, ofstress for her that we had to
manage.
Can I just say safety atschool's also about feeling like
there are other people who getyou and think you're awesome you
know, lots of neurodivergentkids in particular tell me, but
there's no one at school whogets me, or there's no one at
(14:27):
school who shares my interest.
There's no one at school atrecess that I can talk about the
history of, basketball orwhatever.
Leisa Reichelt (14:35):
Yeah.
When we think about physicalsafety, we think about being,
you know, safe from physicalharm.
You've done a wonderful job ofjust unpacking all of the things
that contribute to a sense ofsafety or lack of safety.
But is there a way that we cantalk about what psychological
safety keeps you safe from?
Tiffany Westphal (14:54):
Safety is very diverse experience for people.
My assessment of whethersomething's safe or not, whether
something feels safe, doesn'tmatter.
What matters is the individualsexperience, their, their felt
safety and whether they feelsafe
Leisa Reichelt (15:10):
just trying to think about how, how do we help
people to empathize with this alittle more because like a
broken leg is a broken leg andeveryone's like, yep, that's
definitely a broken leg.
That definitely hurts, thatneeds this kind of treatment and
to be taken with this amount ofseriousness.
Whereas I think every humanbeing feels unsafe at some
point, right?
You're going to go do somethingthat you've not done before.
(15:31):
Most of us, we have to stand upin front of people and talk,
don't feel particularly safe.
Like so that feeling of lack ofsafety emotionally and
psychologically is somethingthat's quite familiar to us all.
But I don't know whether we'veexperienced the equivalent of a
psychological broken leg in thesame way that a lot of these
kids do.
How do I differentiate betweenthe impact of a lack of safety
(15:52):
on a child who can't go toschool compared to when I think
about, you know, I might thinkabout my past history.
I go, well, I did something thatwasn't comfortable, but I like
screwed up my courage and I didit anyway and then I felt better
afterwards.
A lot of people experience thatand they're like, well, well if,
if you could just push throughit and do it, you'll feel better
on the other side.
And actually that's not theexperience for these kids in all
of the cases.
Tiffany Westphal (16:13):
yeah.
So what you're talking about isthe difference between, an
experience of not feeling safethat spurs some kind of action
in order to resolve a situation.
Stress is normal.
We all experience stressfulsituations and have capacity to
respond to them, but healthyamounts of stress are when
you're able to resolve thosesituations relatively quickly,
(16:35):
and they're not persistent.
And I think what happens forlots of our young people in
schools number one, they don'thave agency to just decide not
to go.
So if they're experiencingchronic stress, they've often
got no escape from it.
They might have barriers tocommunicating about the
experience of not feeling safe,or it might have always felt
(16:57):
unsafe for them.
And so, what we're seeing isstudents who are experiencing
chronic states of feelingstressed at school or feeling
unsafe at school.
And they don't have the skillsthemselves or the resources
themselves or the power oragency or capacity themselves to
resolve those situations suchthat they feel safe or they're
(17:18):
having to manage so manydifferent stresses that their
system becomes overwhelmed withthe effort and it impacts their
mental health, and theirphysical health in the, the
labour of having to deal withsuch a significant stress load.
Leisa Reichelt (17:36):
So if you were somebody who was nervous about
public speaking, it would belike having to public speak all
day every day and it neverfeeling better.
Tiffany Westphal (17:43):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (17:44):
Lou's not convinced by my analogy.
That's fine.
Louise Roger (17:47):
Yeah, public speaking not my favorite thing.
Tiffany Westphal (17:50):
you just hit a nerve with Lou
Louise Roger (17:53):
I prefer public singing.
Leisa Reichelt (17:55):
So we're going to somewhat awkwardly wrap up
there.
I hope there was somethinghelpful or perhaps hopeful for
you in today's conversation.
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and are feeling
distressed, remember you cancall the Parent Helpline in your
state.
A link with the number to callis in the show notes.
Also in the show notes, you'llfind a link to the School Can't
Australia community.
You'll find a place to shareyour feedback with us and
(18:17):
perhaps even volunteer to shareyour own School Can't experience
with us on a future podcast.
We would love to hear from you.
And finally, please considerdonating to School Can't
Australia, your tax deductibledonations assist us to raise
community awareness, to partnerwith researchers, to produce
resources like webinars and thisvery podcast which assist people
(18:38):
who are supporting children andyoung people experiencing School
Can't.
Thanks again for listening, andwe'll talk again soon.
Take care.
Hello and welcome to the School Can't
Experience Podcast.
I am Leisa Reichelt, and thispodcast is brought to you by the
School Can't Australiacommunity.
Caring for a young person who isstruggling to attend school can
be a stressful and isolatingexperience, but you are not
alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every
(00:26):
day.
we hope this podcast gives yousome new insight into what
others are experiencing and somenew ways of thinking about how
to understand and support theyoung people in your life.
We try to keep these podcastsfairly short to respect your
precious time, but that doesn'tmean we don't have lots to talk
about when we're recordingsometimes.
So this episode joins togethersome of the great conversations
(00:46):
we have recorded earlier, but wehaven't been able to squeeze
into an episode so far.
Once again, I'm joined byTiffany Westphal and Louise
Rogers from School Can'tAustralia.
And in this episode we are goingto talk about how Tiffany and
Lou manage to remain so calmwhen they talk about strategies
for dealing with School Can't.
We're going to talk about someinspiring and positive
experiences we've had with somealternative schools who really
(01:10):
seem to understand our SchoolCan't young people.
And we'll dig into what wereally mean when we talk about
feeling safe at school.
But let's start off by trying tounderstand exactly how Tiffany
sounds so much calmer than mewhen she talks about dealing
with School Can't.
The question that I have, Tiffis that when you were talking
about it, it all soundedextremely calm and rational.
(01:32):
When I look back, I just think,I learned so much on the go and
I was in such a panic the wholetime I was doing it.
And I had an terriblepsychologist multiple times,
took me ages to find a good onewho could actually help.
OTs were like, honestly not thathelpful either.
None of them ever talked aboutaccommodations at school, ever.
The school treated us like wewere the first people they'd
(01:53):
ever come across whose kid washaving trouble going to school.
That was clearly our problemthat we needed to fix.
My son was getting more and moredistressed all the time.
And honestly, partly what Iwanted to know was should I
literally be forcing him to goto school every day.
Or like, what if I just gave himtime off?
Like what would happen?
Would I be doing the wrongthing?
Would I be being bad if I justhad a little circuit breaker in
(02:17):
there.
I mean, it got to the pointwhere I really had no choice.
Like there's no way that I couldforce him in the back of the car
and get him to school.
But I think that's part of it aswell is there's so much distress
that you're dealing with thatyou're just like, the child
can't sit down and brainstormwith you what the problems are
because they're just....
Tiffany Westphal (02:34):
It's incredibly stressful for both
parent and child.
And I think that's reflected inwhat you've just shared there,
Leisa, how incredibly stressful.
I remember feeling like I washaving a nervous breakdown one
weekend, dealing with this stuffreally early on in the piece.
Because the school was tellingme that we needed to do one
thing and I'm like, no, but thatthing's going to escalate my
(02:55):
child and make things worse.
We can't do that thing.
And so the ball was back in mycourt to try and figure out a
solution, because the solutionthey were proposing was going to
make things worse for mydaughter.
It's really, really stressful.
And I think those earlyexperiences of extreme distress
have resulted in me being muchmore controlling of situations,
(03:18):
and taking the lead.
That's just come fromexperience.
I go into meetings with schoolssupporting other people now and
because I've got that, that pastexperience in what's helpful and
what's not helpful and how tomanage people I'm able to go
into a meeting and, keep somekind of control over when a
school is making suggestions tojust be able to say, actually,
(03:42):
that's not going to be helpful.
That's likely to make thingsworse in my experience.
And the, the family issuggesting this other thing here
might be helpful, and I can saythen in my experience, that's
been helpful for other kids too,and it's worth considering.
So it's certainly really helpfulto have somebody who's got some,
some lived experience or somepast experience in supporting
(04:03):
people in this space.
Because as parents, we aresupporting our children, we are
managing our own demands andneeds to try and manage the rest
of the family's needs.
Siblings who have been late toschool because you can't get
your child out the door toschool in the morning.
Difficulties getting to work inthe morning, the difficulties
(04:24):
with having to cancelappointments that you're not
able to attend.
There's so many challengingthings about this situation, and
I think, sometimes we need tolook after our own nervous
systems as parents.
Because when you are in thethick of it and you are in
distress, you are not able tothink straight anymore either.
(04:44):
You know, uh, your nervoussystem becomes really heightened
and we end up joining ourchildren in their distress.
Then we can't co-regulate withthem and we begin to risk
communicating that things aregood and, and they start to
panic too.
Oh mom's really distressed, sowhat hope have I got?
Who's going to help me calm andfeel better?
(05:06):
There are no solutions if Mum orDad can't figure this out, or
the school can't figure thisout.
It escalates the child'sdistress.
We need to think about theparent child unit as a unit.
and sometimes we do need to takea circuit breaker.
Sometimes we do need some timejust to calm everybody's nervous
systems down so we can think!Nobody can make decisions in
(05:29):
meetings when people aredistressed.
When I'm giving advice toschools, I'm saying you need to
be conscious of the family'snervous system in those meetings
and how you can help them feelsafe and calm and able to
participate and contribute incollaborative discussions.
So you need to think aboutsafety in meetings.
(05:52):
You need to think about, what'sthe exit plan?
If somebody needs to leave theroom, how many people are they
going to have to crawl over toget to the door?
Do they know where they can goif they feel they need to leave
the room?
Do they have a way ofcommunicating that they're
starting to feel distressed andneed some time?
Is it necessary for everybody tobe in that room for that
meeting?
I know I've gone way off whatyour original question was
Leisa Reichelt (06:14):
Yeah, you're giving me flashbacks to all the
school meetings that I've beento and how different they were
from what you're describing.
Louise Roger (06:21):
Can I add something from before?
Leisa Reichelt (06:23):
Hmm
Louise Roger (06:24):
We, um, my child tried school again last year.
Leisa Reichelt (06:27):
mm-hmm
Louise Roger (06:27):
went to a specialist, uh, school, for
children and young people who'dhad difficulty in their
mainstream environments.
We only did the trial at thebeginning of the year.
But one thing that happened inthe context of that is they sat
down with all the parents andtalked us through.
By the end of that discussion, Ifelt a really big shift inside
(06:51):
my body.
And that was, a recognition thatI could trust these people I had
a good cry about it when I wenthome.
I didn't know I was carryingthat fear and, uncertainty.
It was really quite a, a shiftin myself to know that I could
(07:12):
trust these people after ourexperiences.
Leisa Reichelt (07:15):
My son did a three week trial at the end of
last year with a specialistschool that supports kids who
can't deal in mainstream schooland similar kind of thing, that
trust building process.
The very first thing they didwas hand us a clipboard with a
whole bunch of accommodationsand said, tick the ones that you
think would really help yourson.
We went through it together andI'm just like, oh my God, where
(07:36):
has this been forever?
It was incredible.
But then there were other thingstoo during that, during that
trial where they were able toreally show him that they took
his concerns seriously.
And, if he said he wasdistressed, they were like,
okay, fine.
Well you go over here and havesome time out and it's fine.
There was none of this coercingto encourage him to participate
in things that made him feelreally uncomfortable.
(07:58):
If he needed to take a break, hewas able to take a break without
being pulled back in.
And when he had, situationswhere he was overwhelmed by
stimulus or whatever it could bethey sat down with him in a
quiet place and helped him workthrough what was going on and
helped him understand, you know,how could he cope with those
sort of situations when theycame up at school without having
to go away from school, that wasa pretty incredible experience
(08:21):
for both of us.
He's starting full-time at thatschool, at the beginning of this
next school year, so we have allof our fingers and toes crossed
that, that, that, that, thatworks out.
But just so, so, so like theprevious school that he went to
when he went there in yearseven.
Year seven was a real wheelsfalling off moment for us
because it's such a change fromprimary school to high school.
(08:43):
The head of year seven, she wasa wonderful woman, who tried
really, really hard with him andhelped shape his school
experience quite a lot, it wasvery much like, I'll be waiting
out the front of the school foryou.
If you can just get him toschool, I'll take it from there.
And even though it was with theabsolute best of intentions, he
learned pretty quickly that whenhe went to that school, the
(09:06):
teachers, even the counselors,the main thing they were trying
to do was get him back into thatclassroom.
That was their main goal.
They would give him 10 minutetimeout, but that was only
because then you go back intothe classroom the lack of
understanding of what wascausing the problem, just meant
that we were never going to getto a resolution there.
Louise Roger (09:25):
I think the big shift I noticed at this other
school was, that they seem to bebuilding a young person's
awareness of self and what theycould manage and what they can't
manage, and helping them todevelop strategies when they
were feeling overwhelmed.
But of course, this requires notonly the young person to be
(09:49):
aware of those strategies and tobe aware of how they're feeling
themselves.
It also needs the adults aroundthem to be receptive to that,
Tiffany Westphal (09:58):
Yeah.
Leisa Reichelt (09:59):
To take them seriously.
Louise Roger (10:00):
to take them seriously and not say just try
harder.
Tiffany Westphal (10:04):
Or just to be simply attuned.
so I'm just reflecting back on,you know, those Top 10
school-based stresses impactingSchool Can't from our, survey in
December, 2022.
And, um, the one at the very topwas about safe people, having,
uh, having safe people at schoolAnd then the next one was about
(10:25):
people who could identify signsof distress.
The next one was about theability to communicate distress
to the teacher.
And the next one after is about,masking not feeling safe to
share what's going on, or nothaving capacity to connect with
my internal nervous system stateand, and what my needs are as
(10:48):
well.
So masking can be a, product ofnot feeling safe, but it can
also be a product of not havingthe skills to manage the
situation any other way.
Leisa Reichelt (10:57):
Can we unpack this idea of safety?
We keep talking about how kidsneed to feel safe at school.
They're almost never going tocome to physical harm at school.
When we talk about this feelingsafe at school, what actually do
we mean?
Tiffany Westphal (11:10):
I'm so glad you asked.
I wrote, something about this onLinkedIn yeah.
So what, what's safety about Ilove the way Louise often says,
safety is much more than a softfall mulch.
Often we think about physicalsafety, but we also need to
think about psychologicalsafety.
We need to think about safety ina really broad sense.
For me, safety at school isabout, you know, it's about
(11:32):
relationships, relationshipsbetween peers.
it's about relationships betweenstudents and staff.
about feeling competent andcapable and able to do the work.
Being able to access thecurriculum, being able to
demonstrate knowledge, beyourself and not having to mask
or pretend.
It's about having your supportneeds identified and responded
(11:55):
to.
Not being shamed for yourdifficulties, for any
difficulties that youexperienced due to your
disability.
It's about being met where youwere at rather than where people
wish you were at.
It's about not having to workharder because of your
disability.
It's about being celebrated forwho you are.
It's about feeling like you'll,you know, what's going to happen
(12:16):
next.
So we know the predictability,feeling like things are
predictable is important forfeeling safe.
It's about having enough energyavailable to meet the demands of
the day.
So knowing that, you know, I'mnot going to be asked to do,
many things that are beyond mycapacity to manage for that day,
that helps contribute to feelingsafe.
(12:38):
We know that sensory experiencesthat feel just right contribute
to feeling safe.
In actual fact, I was talking toProfessor Dawn Adams about
feeling safe and sensoryexperiences.
And she was saying that there'ssome research that indicates
that sensory experiences thatare quite taxing are very
difficult to bounce back from,to recover from, uh, compared to
(13:00):
other stressful experiences.
So that's really interesting.
Being listened to, uh, havingagency over things that cause
you stress, that helpscontribute to safety.
Feeling okay about using thetoilet or eating, you know,
being able to tend to yourphysical needs at school.
Being given enough time to shareyour ideas or complete work.
(13:22):
So if you've got slow processingspeed being able to manage those
things.
Being able to complete work inthe same amount of time that it
takes peers and not having towork longer and harder because
of your disability to completework.
There are so many things.
Little things like when theteacher says, can you get into
groups to do this activity, andyou're are left out all the
(13:44):
time, that makes someone feelnot safe.
I can remember my daughter'sfirst experience of not feeling
safe at school had to do withreading.
And she had a lot of difficultylearning to read.
And the routine in the morning,every school day started the
same where you came in, you gotyour readers out and the parent
helpers in the room and you hadto read to a parent helper and
(14:04):
she felt really unsafe readingto people other than me or the
teacher.
That was a great source of, ofstress for her that we had to
manage.
Can I just say safety atschool's also about feeling like
there are other people who getyou and think you're awesome you
know, lots of neurodivergentkids in particular tell me, but
there's no one at school whogets me, or there's no one at
(14:27):
school who shares my interest.
There's no one at school atrecess that I can talk about the
history of, basketball orwhatever.
Leisa Reichelt (14:35):
Yeah.
When we think about physicalsafety, we think about being,
you know, safe from physicalharm.
You've done a wonderful job ofjust unpacking all of the things
that contribute to a sense ofsafety or lack of safety.
But is there a way that we cantalk about what psychological
safety keeps you safe from?
Tiffany Westphal (14:54):
Safety is very diverse experience for people.
My assessment of whethersomething's safe or not, whether
something feels safe, doesn'tmatter.
What matters is the individualsexperience, their, their felt
safety and whether they feelsafe
Leisa Reichelt (15:10):
just trying to think about how, how do we help
people to empathize with this alittle more because like a
broken leg is a broken leg andeveryone's like, yep, that's
definitely a broken leg.
That definitely hurts, thatneeds this kind of treatment and
to be taken with this amount ofseriousness.
Whereas I think every humanbeing feels unsafe at some
point, right?
You're going to go do somethingthat you've not done before.
(15:31):
Most of us, we have to stand upin front of people and talk,
don't feel particularly safe.
Like so that feeling of lack ofsafety emotionally and
psychologically is somethingthat's quite familiar to us all.
But I don't know whether we'veexperienced the equivalent of a
psychological broken leg in thesame way that a lot of these
kids do.
How do I differentiate betweenthe impact of a lack of safety
(15:52):
on a child who can't go toschool compared to when I think
about, you know, I might thinkabout my past history.
I go, well, I did something thatwasn't comfortable, but I like
screwed up my courage and I didit anyway and then I felt better
afterwards.
A lot of people experience thatand they're like, well, well if,
if you could just push throughit and do it, you'll feel better
on the other side.
And actually that's not theexperience for these kids in all
of the cases.
Tiffany Westphal (16:13):
yeah.
So what you're talking about isthe difference between, an
experience of not feeling safethat spurs some kind of action
in order to resolve a situation.
Stress is normal.
We all experience stressfulsituations and have capacity to
respond to them, but healthyamounts of stress are when
you're able to resolve thosesituations relatively quickly,
(16:35):
and they're not persistent.
And I think what happens forlots of our young people in
schools number one, they don'thave agency to just decide not
to go.
So if they're experiencingchronic stress, they've often
got no escape from it.
They might have barriers tocommunicating about the
experience of not feeling safe,or it might have always felt
(16:57):
unsafe for them.
And so, what we're seeing isstudents who are experiencing
chronic states of feelingstressed at school or feeling
unsafe at school.
And they don't have the skillsthemselves or the resources
themselves or the power oragency or capacity themselves to
resolve those situations suchthat they feel safe or they're
(17:18):
having to manage so manydifferent stresses that their
system becomes overwhelmed withthe effort and it impacts their
mental health, and theirphysical health in the, the
labour of having to deal withsuch a significant stress load.
Leisa Reichelt (17:36):
So if you were somebody who was nervous about
public speaking, it would belike having to public speak all
day every day and it neverfeeling better.
Tiffany Westphal (17:43):
Yep.
Leisa Reichelt (17:44):
Lou's not convinced by my analogy.
That's fine.
Louise Roger (17:47):
Yeah, public speaking not my favorite thing.
Tiffany Westphal (17:50):
you just hit a nerve with Lou
Louise Roger (17:53):
I prefer public singing.
Leisa Reichelt (17:55):
So we're going to somewhat awkwardly wrap up
there.
I hope there was somethinghelpful or perhaps hopeful for
you in today's conversation.
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and are feeling
distressed, remember you cancall the Parent Helpline in your
state.
A link with the number to callis in the show notes.
Also in the show notes, you'llfind a link to the School Can't
Australia community.
You'll find a place to shareyour feedback with us and
(18:17):
perhaps even volunteer to shareyour own School Can't experience
with us on a future podcast.
We would love to hear from you.
And finally, please considerdonating to School Can't
Australia, your tax deductibledonations assist us to raise
community awareness, to partnerwith researchers, to produce
resources like webinars and thisvery podcast which assist people
(18:38):
who are supporting children andyoung people experiencing School
Can't.
Thanks again for listening, andwe'll talk again soon.
Take care.
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