School Avoidance & Anxiety with Dr. Carolyne Keenan

Okay. So today we are honoured and privileged to do a bonus episode with Dr. Caroline Keenan. She is a psychologist, public speaker. Mum. Yeah, Very importantly as we'll come on to that, a regular on BBC1 radio. Life hacks.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah.

Today with everyone getting back in the swing of going back to school

>> Lee Crontpon: Today though with everyone getting back in the swing of going back to school, we are going to talk to you about emotion based school avoidance. Dr. Caroline, how are you?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: I am so well. I'm so pleased to be finally speaking with you as well.

>> Lee Crontpon: Yes, we have been discussing this for a while and we've finally nabbed you.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah, it's good's good to be here.

>> Lee Crontpon: Good. Yeah. No, I thought it would d be timely to have a chat because I know you, you're doing a course on emotion based school avoidance, is that right?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah. So it's launching this week hopefully to support families that are struggling with this in a more sort of self paced way so they can do it on their own time rather than trying to cram therapy in around school hours or work hours and all of those things that make it complicated.

>> Lee Crontpon: Well that's a good point to. We just literally just done the introductions.

>> Lee Crompton: Paul, brilliant. Hi, sorry, sorry about wee problem.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Good to see you.

>> Lee Crompton: Yes, how are you?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Very well thank you. Yeah, good. How are you?

>> Lee Crompton: Good, yeah I've just a bit frazzled. I've been working this morning so I've literally just kind of got back home and run up the stairs and joined the zoom call.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Take a breath, take a minute, take.

>> Lee Crontpon: A moment, take a moment. Yes.

Caroline is running an online course to help parents deal with school avoidance

So we've literally just done the introduction so all I would say is Dr. Caroline, would you mind telling us first of all, I guess well, tell you what. No, I'd ask what the course was. So are you running the course online or is that how or in person. How does, how does that work?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: So it's completely self paced online course that parents can sign up to and I will take them through 12 weeks. The last sort of 10 to 12 weeks are about kind of integrating everything that they've learned and hopefully implementing it so keeping up progress. But from weeks one to ten we'll be thinking about sort of how to recognise your child's emotions, understanding the difference between ebbsa and truancy because they're two things that often get quite misunderstood and it can be quite confusing for parents to know when they're dealing with what. And so Validating emotions and collaborating with school. we do a lot around what a realistic reintegration plan looks like. I think a lot of the time parents are quite focused on getting children back into school. But actually there's quite a lot we need to understand about what's at the root of the avoidance in the first place before we push for return to school. and then a little bit about the legal framework in the uk. I think that can be really anxiety provoking for parents. How does it work? I think people get threatened with things like fines and they worry about what's going to happen to their child's potential outcomes if they miss school. And so that really feeds into how able to support their child they feel. Because a lot of the time I think those arguments are around parents holding a lot of fear about what's going to happen if their child doesn't just get back to school as quickly as possible. And it, you know, really interrupts the relationship. So I hope the course gives parents a lot of hope but really focuses on that team making sure that there's a collaborative approach at home, a collaborative approach with school and allowing children to really trust that the adults have got it together, that they're going to be supportive, understanding, compassionate and that it's okay that this might be a gradual progression. There's nothing about kind of immediate fixes. And so I think hopefully that's reassuring for parents.

So going back to grassroots, I suppose you mentioned again not getting it confused withuancy

>> Lee Crontpon: Cool. Okay. As we've sort of shared messages offline and I have obviously a vested interest in this from my own perspective, my own experiences going to secondary school and now having ah, an 8 year old and a 5 year old who's just literally started primary school.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah.

>> Lee Crontpon: And I had certain emotions when I started secondary school. Didn't really know what was happening, what was going on. Felt very isolated. So going back to grassroots, I suppose you mentioned again not getting it confused withuancy.

Do you want to just explain what emotion based school avoidance is

Do you want to just explain what emotion based school avoidance is?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah. So it is very different to truancy. So it happens when a child is experiencing such sort of intense distress about going to school that it just becomes very hard for them to attend. So it's not about laziness, it's very rarely about them not being interested in education. It's about big emotions. So anxiety, fear, sadness and then avoiding school becomes a way to cope with it. but over time that avoidance makes a problem worse. So anxiety loves avoidance. And in the short term the tricky bit is that it can be quite effective when we're avoiding the problem. The Thing that's making us feel anxious. In the short term, we do tend to feel better because we're not having to worry about it, we're not having to be exposed to it. But over the long term, our brain just builds up a stock of evidence that if we don't do it, we feel okay. And when we do try and do it, we don't feel okay. And our brain'never getting the opportunity to learn that we can do these things and be allgh. And, you know, our brain needs that evidence to learn that we can cope and that's how we build resilience and how we build trust that we can do hard things, ettera, etc. Yeah, okay.

>> Lee Crontpon: yeah, again, I'm going to go off at many tangents, Paul, so please rein me in at some point.

>> Lee Crompton: that's not like you.

>> Lee Crontpon: It's not like me?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: No.

>> Lee Crontpon: You said about. Excuse me, he said about resilience. And there's one thing when I was chatting to my mum about my, my episodes when I was joining secondary, school and she said what? But they stood you in good stead. I mean it's all part of. It's all not toughening up, but it's all good experience and, makes you able to cope with things in later life. I would, Wouldn't necessarily agree with that.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Interesting.

>> Lee Crontpon: because I still get so When I, M. Make it all about me again, Paul. But when I started secondary school. Just put this into context. When I started secondary school, I was very, very ill to the extent that I would make myself. I would get myself so worked, up that I would make myself sick. I don't mean make myself sick as in stick my fingers down my throat. I mean, I be. I would be physically sick and sort of hyperventilating with just, just anxiety. Obvious. Also, I didn't know it was anxiety back then. And yeah, I think this went on for probably a couple of months. to the extent that I was making up stuff at school to mask because I was that embarrassed about the fact that I was like just bursting into tears at school for apparently no apparent reason that I would make stuff up to try and mask that. But also then in later life when you talk about resilience, I still remember. So is that a case of missing my parents? I guess. Is it, you know, is it homesickness? Is it because my parents weren't there? But you know, when I look back now, I still got that if I went on cub camp, those sort of feelings of disassociation and, feelings of disconnection. I would get it on family holidays. Even though my parents were there, I was just in a different asose. It's just change, it's just. And I mean, I still get it. Not to that extent, but I would still get it. Now if I'GO on holiday. I don't know if that's a common thing where the first two or three days on holiday, it takes you that time to sort of find your feet and just get to know your surroundings and feel kind of the first couple of days I'm usually quite foggy because I'm just a bit kind of disconnected. So I guess, yeah. Just talking about your. Is that in your experience, say common, but is that the. How it manifests? Mainly to that extent. And then do you find that people are more resilient later on if they. If they can cope with that?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: So it sounds like what you're describing is a real fear response. So your brain was interpreting the stimulus which was going to school as something to be incredibly frightened about, so a threat. And I think the difficulty we have when children are just left to manage that on their own is that we will tend to choose what we might call maladaptive or unhelpful coping strategies because we're not really sure what else to do. And it sounds like for you, there wasn't a language around it, there wasn't a full understanding of what your body was doing, but essentially your body was every day preparing you to enter a fight or flight state. And what's happening when children become sort of poorly with it, so they start to actually vomit or they' stomach feels all kind of churny, is that your body's preparing you to either fight or run away. And essentially you're offloading anything that's going to make it difficult for that to happen. So a lot of children will need to go to the toilet a lot more in the mornings before school. And it's your body kind of getting rid of anything that's going to weigh you down because it can't tell the difference between school, which is feeling frightening and uncomfortable, and having to go into battle and either leg it, and be able to run as quick as you can or fight and be able to be as agile and light.

>> Lee Crontpon: Yeah.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: So it sounds like you were kind of preparing to do battle every day but not getting the support around it. So you were doing the best you could. And it sounds like that was to try and find ways to avoid it by making up stories to get out of it. So If I don't have to do it, then maybe I'll feel a little bit better. Which is something for parents to kind of look out for if they're noticing that their children are becoming much more upset around school time. Maybe Sunday evening, the mornings. But then once school'been taken away, maybe you've all given up and the child is at home. You notice they start to talk a bit more. Maybe they're coming up their room, they're able to sit and eat lunch, whereas breakfast was a real problem. They couldn't stomach it. It's a sign that actually it's the stimulus of school that's causing the anxiety rather than something actually wrong with the child. And it sounds like maybe that was what you were experiencing.

>> Lee Crontpon: Yeah, I mean I don't remember being any bother after school. Yeah, come I'd come home, I'd be fine. I was home then, and then the next day, you know, it would, it would happen all over again. And it was interesting with, with our kids. So Aaron, who's just started school has kind of gone in.

>> Lee Crompton: Yes.

>> Lee Crontpon: She's been nervous and a little bit kind of anxious and what have you, but has gone in without a backward glance. He's quite happy, goes in every morning. Touchwood. I know this can all change, but she seems to be, she seems to be fine. Whereas I would say Izzy, who's again being Sunday night, last night and having to return back to school even though she's now P4, was maybe a little bit more worried and a little bit more concerned about, about going back. So I mean is there a, I suppose a type why this is t an open ended question. Why do some kids get that and.

There's very little education in how you support children to manage anxiety and feelings

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Other kids have absolutely fine be so many reasons. And I think one of the things for parents to think about is any changes you've experienced, anything within the sort of family system that could be feeling a little bit unsettling. Sometimes there can be neurodiversity at play, of course. So things like adhd, autism, dyslexia, that's actually making the learning element difficult or sensory sensitivities because school is, you know, it's a really overwhelming place actually. It's loud bells. There's lots of people, school uniforms often really uncomfortable actually, you know, unless parents are really thinking about that and searching around for the most comfortable materials, cutting labels out, all of that sort of thing, can be tricky for children to manage and often it's personality type as well. How do we manage the unknown? It's interesting that you're describing experiences now even into adulthood, where if it's an unknown situation, your brain is kind of recalling that need to try and protect you and be hypervigilant. And that's an important word as well. A lot of the time it's our brains really working hard to try and take everything into consideration to make sure we're as safe as possible. And having a language for that at home is really useful because children don't really understand what's going on. They just feel a big mess of things that make their body feel really uncomfortable and strange. And if parents aren't stepping in to try and give them a language, it just leaves them sitting with it and not really knowing what to doah.

>> Lee Crontpon: Yeah, I mean, I can also.

>> Lee Crompton: I was going to say that can be a difficult thing for some parents as well, because they might not have the. The skill or however you would describe it to, have those kind of conversations with their kids. They might not know how to frame that kind of dialogue, which as oppose as where, I guess, links with schools and that kind of education for the parents as well kind of needs to come in a bit stronger.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah, 100%. And parents feeling a bit at a loss in terms of what do I do by the time families come to me, a lot of the time they've tried tough love, they've tried being really nice and compassionate, they've tried forcing the child in, they've tried keeping them off, and they're just not sure what to do next. Because, as you say, there's very little education in how you support children to manage anxiety and those feelings that they bring up. And it, you know, feeds into our own experiences of parenting. You touched on it, Eli, when you were saying about grandparents sharing information with them about how you're feeling and actually then finding that quite hard and then it being shut down. Think if the adults around us can't tolerate us speaking about anxiety and emotions, we tend to get this, well, I was just told to get on with it, and it didn't do me any harm. You know, these kind of tropes. I was just told to go into school, so this is what I want them to do. What T Don't misbehave this idea that it's defiance or misbehaving and you should just get on with it and you'll be fine. I think leaves the child feeling like they're not only battling with their own emotions that don't make any sense, but they're then also battling with school and they're Also battling with parents and the people around them that really they want to feel like they're on the same side as they're on a team as. And so they tend to isolate. And you find children will kind of pick fights in the morning sometimes or they come very upset and you know, ultimately parents will often have lots of other obligations, maybe siblings that they're trying to get out the door or work that they're trying to get to. And it feels like there's no time to manage this inconvenience of these big emotions and you just end up in a massive chaotic row. All that does is inflate the feelings and make it even less likely that your child's going to be able to regulate. So yeah, I totally agree. Parents really need that support. Hopefully that's what I'm offering in the course. Not to bring it back to that, but it's, you know, how do we self regulate in order to co regulate with our children? Because ultimately that's where it starts. Children will look to us for messages about the environment and to help them understand how do I calm my body down. And so what they will tend to do is borrow our regulation. So if we're dysregulated then it all collapses and you know, you're not going to get anywhere.

>> Lee Crompton: I think it's great that the parents can access a course like that. you know, I used to be a teacher, and the way that that kind of information would kind of, you know, filter to the parents, it was usually the teacher would go on a course and then have to use those skills to try and communicate with however many different parents, with however many different situations and it becomes unmanageable rather than the parents having the experience of doing it themselves and then they can then take what they need to, to try and make their family situation, you know, better or whatever. So I think it's a great thing that you're doing that. What just whated to say.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Thank you. Yeah, hopefully. And I think one of the things that parents say to me is that they just don't know where to turn. There's a lot of shame and a lot of embarrassment, particularly if friends, children, are going in without any problems seemingly and your child's not, I think, you know, really being able to understand that this is not a failure as a parent a lot of the time it's either not having the space to take care of yourself in the way that you need to then be able to educate your children to do it, or things that are Just beyond your control. That need this whole team approach, that often we don't feel like there's time for. So yeah, I really hope that it is going to take the pressure off that kind of child because a lot of the time I think the problem is located in the child and like you say, it is about teachers and parents collaborating in order to create a really solid structure around the child so that the child feels safe again.

>> Lee Crontpon: It's interesting that now, you know, with Erion going up to primary school there's I think a lot more in the integration in terms of she'll go in or she's. Excuse me, she's been in and done like a lunch. So she's gone into the primary school and done a lunch and I met her for lunch and we had a lunch together in the canteen and she's done other visits but. But again that said. So things have moved on from, you know, when I went to school. I don't ever remember having a problem. Infant school and junior school. It was only when I went to secondary school school. And I think it was that feeling of being like he s mentioned overwhelmed because I remember going. So we did an integration, I think inteation like afternoon where you went and sat in this in the gym Hal in this massive gym hall and all these male teachers. You't had any male teachers stood at the front. And I remember then I was just welling up and having to try and mask that because I'm around on my pals. That was before we even started was just, it was just that completely overwhelmed by this massive school. which I know sounds ridiculous but like you say it's not ridiculous when you re. When you're in it. And I think you know, now that I'm at the parent stage, I do kind of remember back. I'm saying it's triggering but I do remember back to kind of that feeling now that they're now going in for the first time and you get a pang of what that feels like. But at the same time I'm trying to again emote positivity and not make it. Not make a big.

>> Lee Crompton: You get anxious for the kids even though they're not anxious about.

>> Lee Crontpon: But try not to get anxious because I don't want my anxiety to rub off onto them. And yeah, it it's an interesting, it's an interesting time, it's a big step and it's just, I think it's, you know, you see now we're on week two of you know, the first year of primary on in Scotland and again you stand at the door and there's some kids who are just couldn't give her monkeys and GE straight in and others are, you are not, not coping great at all. And I just, it's just interesting to see, I suppose, that nature or nurture, I suppose, is that as bit as well? Is there a part of them, part of me that's in them that's, you know, is it, Is this just a ticking time bomb that they're gonna.

>> Lee Crompton: Genetic?

>> Lee Crontpon: Yeah. Is it genetic, Dr. C?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: I would say not. Not necessarily at all. I think that's correct. Children are goingna look to you. Yeah. Don't worry, don't panic. But it is interesting. Even the language that you're using now, not to so jump on you, but that idea, is it ridiculous? How do I understand it? I think when you are a teenage boy, there is a lot of pressure, certainly there was historically, I think, a lot of pressure for you to be absolutely fine with these situations. And actually if someone had said to you, this is going to be a big change, it's going to be very different, and you might feel a bit weird at first, you might notice that you don't love it, you know, that you don't want to just launch straight into this massive situation. Especially having gone from being quite a big fish in a small pond to them being the small fish in the big pond. You know, all of those things that in and of themselves are a bit unnerving. I think maybe parents are encouraged to address that with their children more so now than they would have been before. So we're kind of preempting those emotions in some households, but, yeah, not all.

What would be your top tips for parents struggling at the moment

and that awareness, even the fact that you're aware that it might be an issue, I wonder if we spoke to your parents, got them on and said, what do you remember about senior school? Do you remember having a conversation about the fact that, you know, you might feel a bit anxious in the first few weeks and you might not know what's going to happen and that might make you feel a bit uncomfortable. Would they have said, yeah, we were definitely having those conversations. Would they be like, what are you talking about?

>> Lee Crontpon: they would say, sorry, what, what are you talking. I'll cut this bit out because my mum does listen to the podcast, but she would have said, because I spoke to her about it, I told you again, I will cut this out. But she said, well, Iave I gave you a very precious, silver elephant to take with you. Because elephants are supposed to be for good luck and it was my mum's, it was her mums. My granny's still relevant. Yeah, I mean hopefully that helped. And like. Well, it didn't. I mean I don't ever know what happened to that elephant. Which in my terms was. Yeah, and I think you probably lost it. that was it. But anyway, I'll cut all that out. But I, I can't, I can't, I can't say that. But no, there was Hopefully there's, there's more in schools now to prepare kids for. I was going to say school but I guess life and how you manage those emotions. Because like I say again, not to that extent but on some jobs if I start a new job I get, I will get those feelings of disassociation and disconnection and I'm not in it. I'm very, very fuzzy and very kind of, you know, foggy in the, in the brain and yeah, do you feel very disconnected? But so I guess if you wouldn't mind condensing your 12 week course into a few sound bites, what would be your top tips for parents who are struggling at the moment? Or to say parents who are struggling but parents who are struggling to I suppose regulate themselves before they regulate their, the kids.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah. So firstly do that. Learn about what you need to regulate and I think sort of self care and regulations become a bit of a dirty word. And where do you get the time for it? It doesn't have to be spa weekends and expensive days out. I think just stepping outside with a cup of tea on your own and taking some deep breaths in the air. That's what we're talking about. Just real basic level nervous system reset stuff because.

>> Lee Crontpon: Okay, all right, that's enough. It's just'm. I'm going toa call somebody out on this because actually my wife went to a, get this, a sound bath but it was in a swimming pool. So they lay on lilos'and just sent me pictures of this sound bath on presumably like a big waterbed. Right. And listen to gongs and shit. And it looked like because all had these eye masks on. and it all looked like, you know that scene where they've all been plugged into the Matrix. It'like that. But what you're saying is just a cup of tea outside will do. You don't need to go to swimming pool and lollop about on a lilo.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: I mean if you've got time for the lilo. Perfect. It sounds Gorgeous. But I think there's a lot of pressure on parents and it feels a bit like I don't have time for that. This isn't something I need to worry about because actually I've got kids to get to school and I've got to get to work and I've got to put the washing on. What are you talking about? Self regulation, self care. And I think actually it's about, yeah, taking a few deep breaths, framing your day in the morning before you get out of bed, some deep pae breathing before you go to sleep at night, some deep paced breathing and doing it as part of a daily routine so that you're not waiting until you're in absolute crisis ready to blow your lid. But you're doing these smaller things every day. I talk about treat yourself like a baby a lot on social media. How do we do our basic needs stuff? And it's thinking about how do you look after a newborn. You feed them nutritious, good food, you make sure they're hydrated, you get them outside into the fresh air, you make sure they're doing some movement and you get them sleep. But these are the things that as adults and we've got a lot of stuff to be worrying about. And normally the first things to go, you know, we stop eating a whole foods, processed foods come in more because we don't have time and totally understand that. But if we can strip it back. When was the last time I had a glass of water? Am I getting outside and doing, a bit of movement, stretching and things like that? Doing those five things regularly is going to make a huge difference. Much more of a difference than going to a sound bath once a month might make. Although lovely. You know, those things are great, but I would say they're the cherries on the top of the cake. And actually your absolute basics is, are you eating good, nutritious food? Doesn't have to be complicated meals, just fruit, veg, whole foods, not everything out of a packet. Are you getting enough sleep at night? Is your body hydrated? And those things are going to make it a lot easier when your children are struggling to take those breaths and respond rather than react. I think you, the world is so fast paced. We're very reactive to things and it doesn't take much to tip us over the edge. So the more we can lower that baseline anxiety and really have our nervous systems as managed as possible, the better it is when the people around us that need us to be able to support them, you know, need that stuff. From us Co regulation. I think it's a magic word and it's something that can put a lot of pressure on parents but actually it's about being still. It's not always about having an answer. It's just about sitting with your child and being a calm, safe space. M Slower breath, lower voice I'm here. It's okay. We're gonna be allrigh. Hard to do though when you're sleep deprived and stressed and there's not an awful lot of time.

Sleep hdration, exercise, diet and if you can get those plates spinning

>> Lee Crontpon: Yes. we did an episode with A guy on shed was Shed, wasn't it? Shed therapy. So sleep hdration, exercise, diet and like you say, if you can get those four plates spinning again, it's. It's easier said than done but if you can get those four plates spinning then you're probably not doing too bad. But like you say, there's always. You might have a period when you get your. You get your sleep and you get your exercise but you're not maybe hydrated in your diet shit. So u. yeah, trying to get.

>> Lee Crompton: Them recently, I got one of those big bottles that's got the times.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Oh yeah. Down little prompts.

>> Lee Crompton: Yeah. And you know what? It's worked wonders for me. I'm now drinking the right amount of water every day because when I look at the bottom'm like, oh God, I've got two hours to catch up on, you know, like. And it sounds so silly because like I'm a grown up, I should know that I've got to drink a certain amount of water, you know, whatever. But that just works for me. And now you know what? I feel so much better by genuinely.

>> Lee Crontpon: You look better, Paul.

>> Lee Crompton: Thank you.

>> Lee Crontpon: Since the last time I saw you. It's been. It has been a while. It's not been that long actually. You look like you've. Yeah. You regressed 10 years all that water you've been drinking. Now are you one of those, I'm going to say idiots, right? I'm going to say idiots. Are you one of those idiots that insists on having the whole two litre, water. They have to walk around with this like keg of water or are you just a normal person that has the litre bottle and then refills it at lunchtime or do you need to walk around with a keg like an idiot?

>> Lee Crompton: It's well, I suppose ag isn't it? Pa well, it's, it's a keg but it's not two litres, it's somewhere in the middle. However, I don't. I Don't take it. I don't take it. Like, you know, when I'm walking up to the shops or something.

>> Lee Crontpon: He does.

>> Lee Crompton: I mean, he does. It's just not us in the house.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: I'm work while. Are you going?

>> Lee Crompton: Oh, yeah, get a keg in each.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Hand, like a big movement bit.

>> Lee Crompton: No, I have a smaller bottle to go in my bag and I just have to kind of work it out. But yeah, ah, if I'm just working at home. Kearama.

>> Lee Crontpon: I imagine you have one of those, you know, like the hikers have with the strap, with this, with the straw that, the. The camel things like one of those.

>> Lee Crompton: You know, the beer hats, water.

>> Lee Crontpon: S. Just.

>> Lee Crontpon: Am I writing, saying. Well, I am. Right, saying that you. Sorry.

Izzy says her breathing goes funny and she thinks it's anxiety

Let's, let's go back to children because scraped up, we've got 10 minutes left. so sitting down, regulating. So last night, for example, I tried to do. It didn't work. Tried to do aluminate app with Izzy because she, she, she says that a breathing goes funny and I think, again, I think it's anxiety. There's nothing wrong with a breathing. That's not me. Me being a dismissive parent. We've taken to the doctors about it. so I think it's an anxiety thing. So I tried to do breathing on the Luminate app. So we did 10 minutes of flashy lights and whatever and then again that was fine whilst we were doing the 10 minutes. But then, yeah, it didn't kind of help afterwards. So other than sitting down and like you say, talking a. In a soft tone and I suppose sitting in the mud with them rather than prescribing. Well, just go to school. It's what we did.

Is there anything that we should specifically be doing, especially with two children

Is there anything that we should specifically be doing, Doing two children. Should we be doing with children to help them after we've helped ourselves and we've done our shed, what. What do we do to help them?

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Well, one of the things we can do is make sure that they are also engaging in those basic needs things. for a lot of families where there's neurodiversity at play as well. One of the issues is about recognising when we are thirsty, hungry, hot, cold, tired, those sorts of things. I check in with that, make sure there's nothing going on for your child there. But with Izzy, what you're describing, it sounds like it's a lot around building those things into routine. So regularly talking about how are we feeling? What is, going to help your breathing? So it sounds like the app may be A good one. But it might be that actually she benefits from some different strategies. So, you know, one thing isn't going to work for every child and it's about doing it on a regular basis rather than just doing it once and hoping that that's go going toa be the fix and explaining that to your child. It's a bit like building a muscle. This stuff isn't going to just work once and everything'sn toa be okay. But, it's a bit like, you know, putting the washing on. You've got to do it all the time. You can't just do one load and that's it done. unfortunately, it's a real maintenance thing and school is something that's going to happen every day and so there's going to be different feelings that are brought up every day because of that. the breathing stuff. I think for children, there's loads of nice things you can do. hot chocolate breathing, finger breathing. You sort of do an in breath up the finger and then an out breath for down. It's going to find it weird if you can't see what I'm doing, but, you know, so you work your way through your hand and you can encourage your child to do that. And that's something that they can do wherever they are. You know, if they need to go to the toilet in the middle of the school day and just take a bit of a moment to reset, I think them just understanding that maybe they can be more in control of this. And it feels like they are. When they're really heightened and really dysregulated, it can feel like everything's happening to them and there's nothing they can do about it. But this regular practise, I think, really builds confidence that they can take control of this. It's something that they can do something about, but it's going to need to be a collaborative thing initially, where they're really supported to do it and taught to do it. And that happens, I think, from in an ideal situation, from them being really small, you, when you first start having those massive tantrums where your child turns into an absolute gremlin. I've got a five year old as well and it was probably around two and a half to three, I thought, oh, my God, what the hell is going on? The explosions were incredible. And even as a psychologist, I was like, who? I'm gonna have to really dig deep to sit in this. You know that it took a lot of sitting and literally just sitting with him. Yeah, you Crack on and I'll be here. Let me know when you want a cuddle. I'm here. And honestly it took me doing an awful lot of deep breathing myself to not be like, you need to stop now, that's enough. I've had it. You know, this has gone on for long enough but that process of doing it from really small I think is what then helps them recognise that everybody can weather the storm together rather than o. I'm in it on my own and I can't talk about it and no one's going toa listen. Nobody knows what to do really building that trust that the adults around me have got this and that's where the collaboration with school comes in as well.

Paul had guidance responsibility for kids moving from primary to secondary

>> Lee Crontpon: Do you want to speak about that? Paul did. So did you get trained in anything when you were teaching yourself or was it.

>> Lee Crompton: Well, again, we had like I worked in the private sector as well so in. And this, this is where it was quite good. Like the, the parents were always in contact with nearly every member of staff. and I had guidance responsibility for you know, a group of kids U. so you. Over the, over the time of work you got to know the families really well, you got to know about existing things and stuff really well. When it came to training though, we had a couple of great sort of heads of guidance that went to these course but then they would run courses with us. We were kind of getting the information filter to us so then we could try and speak to the parents about things like that. But I would say like in my experience, because there was a primary in a secondary on the same campus, the kids moving from the primary up to secondary there wasn't that same anxiety I think because it was all. They're all used to being in the same place anyway. The transition was much smoother in that respect. It was when new kids came into the school from the outside that you'd see a lot of the anxiety. But we were very open and honest and had really good dialogue with the parents actually and you know, and every situation is different but a lot of the time it just takes A lot of the time the parents would contact us and go so and so is not coming in today but, but they're not ill. We think they're. They're up to something. Can. Is there anything that's been going on? Are they getting a hard time? Are they getting bullied? Which is always the first reaction. It's like they're avoiding school therefore they're getting bullied. It's like, well, no, they're not. So, yeah, I mean, I, guess my experience was fairly straightforward compared to what some teachers and families have to go through.

>> Dr. Caroline Keenan: Yeah. And I think different pressures on different schools play a role as well. How much time there is to have those conversations, whether you're able to have one of calls so you're speaking to one point of contact rather than lots of different people all of the time. I think that's where frustrations and feeling a bit lost can come in for parents, when they're sort of explaining the same story over and over again to different people and potentially getting different responses. then it's about not really being too sure where to turn. You know, their own experiences with school. I speak to a lot of parents who maybe didn't enjoy school, particularly themselves, and just ground their way through it. And they've brought with them a bit of a sense that this is just something that your child has to just get through. and it's not supposed to be great. And I think we can be doing better than that for our children.

>> Lee Crontpon: Yeah. When I spoke to my mum about it, she said.