No One Is a Perfect Parent, Not Even the Experts with Dr Kim Collett

In this episode of The Untypical Parent Podcast, I’m joined by Dr Kim Collett for a really honest conversation about the reality of parenting, and why knowing the “right” thing doesn’t mean it’s easy to do it.

Kim has a PhD in inclusive education and lectures on special educational needs and disabilities. She also lives in a neurodivergent household. Together, we explore the gap between theory and real life, and why even professionals with years of knowledge and experience still struggle with the day-to-day reality of parenting.

We talk about school experiences, masking, anxiety, and the pressure to “fit in,” as well as the guilt so many parents carry when they feel like they’re getting it wrong.

This episode is not about fixing everything.

It’s about understanding why it feels so hard, and reminding you that you’re not the only one.

A gentle reminder from this episode

There is no perfect way to parent.
 There is no single strategy that works for every child.
And you are not failing because it feels hard.

I mention Brene Brown and empathy vs sympathy here's the link to watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZBTYViDPlQ&list=PLOol2H2m6gNOdrOnWV_lJ3dDslWSqtzqQ&index=1

🔗 Connect with Dr Kim Collett

You can find Kim sharing more about inclusion, neurodivergence and education on:

•  Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr_kim_collett/
•  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kim-collett-fhea-41637537b/

Thank you to this season’s sponsors:

Terri Wyse
👉 https://www.instagram.com/wyseinclusion/

Rachel Helm
👉 https://www.instagram.com/helmeducationconsultancy/

If you’re supporting a child or young person struggling to access school, do reach out to them.

Link below to go straight to Insta

The Untypical Parent Podcast

The Untypical Podcaster

Transcript

Welcome And School Anxiety Support

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Antypical Parent Podcast. It's a podcast of parents in additional needs families, and I'm your host, Liz Evans. This is the place to find your reassurance that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. It's here to make the hard bits feel lighter and the good bits brighter. Just quickly before we get started, are you looking for practical ways to support a child experiencing school anxiety? This season I'm delighted to let you know that the Untypical Parent Podcast is sponsored by Terry Wise from Wise Inclusion and Rachel Helm from Helm Education Consultancy. They are experts in inclusive education and supporting children who struggle to access school. Together they run webinars and workshops to help parents and schools work together and improve outcomes for children experiencing emotionally based school anxiety. If you're supporting a child struggling with school attendance, check the link in the show notes to find out more about how Terry and Rachel can support you. Thanks for being here. Let's get started. I am delighted today to have Dr. Kim Collette join us on the podcast today. Welcome, Kim. Hi, Les. Lovely to have you with you. Us with you. Us with you? You with us. We just know you're in. We leave these things in. At this time of my life, I have all sorts of weird words come out at different times. Word finding, mind blanks, and we just leave it all in because none of us are perfect. Anyway, we have got Kim with us today. Kim, can you tell us a little bit about your background? Because that's probably a really good place for us to start, is to think about your background, and then we're going to go off onto where the podcast is going to go and what we're going to have a chat about.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, of course. So I have a PhD in inclusive education, focusing on special educational needs and disabilities. So that is what I talk about. I work at a university, so my life is about lecturing about inclusion and all sorts of things associated with that. And that is sparked by the fact that I'm neurodivergent and disabled myself. So that sparked my interest. And I just feel how important it is to really talk about making sure that every single person feels included and every single person gets a good education and enjoys their learning as well. I think that's really important. So my whole career has been centred around that side of things. But I'm also a parent living in a neurodiverse household, which means that my uh my experiences are not just limited to the academic textbooks, but my lived experience is being neurodivergent myself. Yeah. Living in a neurodiverse household, yeah. So lots of lots of different things going on.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Did you know you were neurodivergent when you were younger? That kind of led did that lead you into your PhD work, or was that kind of is that kind of a later diagnosis for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:59

So I was diagnosed as neurodivergent when I was 14 after a very long, protracted process of parents trying to get school to believe that I was neurodiverse. So I grew up in a place where they still had grammar schools, so one of the counties that still has grammar schools. So I went to one of those, and it was very much in the 90s where it was you can't be clever and neurodivergent. So, yep. So you can't have both of those things. So why would we bother to look at that kind of thing? Um, so a lot of battles, a lot of sitting there thinking, well, there must isn't anything wrong with me because nobody said there's anything wrong with me, but there is, and I can't do it, and everyone else can do it, and all of that kind of stuff. So um, yeah, so as a teenager, and that is what's inspired me basically to go down the route I have in terms of um the kind of subjects that I study um and things like that. I've always loved learning, um, but had uh difficult experiences at school that's really prompted and inspired me to tackle that um or try to tackle that as an academic as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

And when you say you found things difficult, King, because I mean I've got a son that struggled at school really badly and in the end couldn't manage in school and had to come out, and he's educated at home. Um but I also struggled at school, not knowing I was dyslexic, uh hated school, could not wait to get out of school, absolutely hated it. I suppose I'm just interested how that kind of manifested for you because for me it was it was a lot a lot of anxiety. Didn't want to put my hand up, didn't want to answer things, dread things like reading and that aloud in the classroom. And that had a real impact on my my mental health and my self-esteem. Uh and that continued into my adulthood and in my job, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, and I think it's it's similar, really. So um, yeah, it'd be things like dreading reading aloud in class and that thought of it was coming up to your turn. We had to all read a bit of the Shakespeare play, and then you just sit there the whole lesson. I can't concentrate on anything that's going on because I know it's my turn. And before I'd even start reading, I could hear the sniggers of other children because they knew I wasn't going to be able to do it, um, and I would say weird things because I couldn't, you know, work out what the language was. And that is just one example of many things. I'm dysphoraxic as well as dyslexic, and probably AHD in there too. Um, so you know, anything to do with spelling, reading aloud, sitting there thinking, I have no idea what a noun is. How come everybody else is filling out this worksheet on nouns and verbs? I don't know what that is. Yeah. No, my children come home and go, right, we did proper nouns today, or we did conjunctions. And I'm like, well, that's great, no idea what that is. Well, great. Um, and then in PE, because I was, you know, pretty I'm pretty rubbish at anything to do with sport, um, you know, there were 31 children in our class at secondary school. So when we paired up to do things like tennis, not even my friends wanted to be partners with me because I was so bad. So you just sort of think, you know, you just get left on the sideline. And I think for me, the way I cope with that was to shrink and just try and almost pretend I wasn't there, um, you know, so that nobody would notice. And I think that's how I've done it. And that did go through into my adulthood as well. Very much kind of that masking, that kind of stereotypical pretending to be who you aren't, trying to hide all of that stuff that you think might get judged. Um, and just I was known as a shy person. People didn't really tend to remember who I was because I would just sort of be very quiet and not say anything in the background. Um, and that's really hard, isn't it, on your on your well-being, isn't it? If you can't be your authentic self and you can't get that belonging and you your connections you make with people are just superficial because you're not being you, yeah, it's hard, isn't it? It's taking me a long time to not be that person.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah. And I think you often feel there's something wrong, like you talk about there's something wrong with me. There's a deficit in me somehow. I need to be more outgoing, more fun to be with. Um, you know, every how does it how does everybody get them to everyone to like them?

unknown 6:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Can I be one of the popular kids? Yeah. People probably listening to me talk now and thinking, when I went to school with Liz and I did have a group of friends, but I often people would have probably said to me, Well, you look like you fitted in fine. I didn't feel it. I didn't, it was such hard work. And I remember times when they would invite me out and I would just make an excuse about going because it was just too exhausting to go. And I just spent the whole time anxious, not really knowing kind of how I fitted into that group. But yeah, school was hard, man. Really hard.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, really hard. And I think if anybody I went to school with knew that I stood up and talked in front of loads of people and did a bit of lectures and stuff, they'd be like, What? Like she wouldn't even say anything at school. Yeah, you know.

From Shy Student To Confident Lecturer

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Well I was gonna say to you, Kim, how have you got to this point now? Because you're now on Insta. I see you do your little videos and stuff on Insta, you're now getting up and lecturing and talking there. Did something happen to make that change, or did it just gradually come for you?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Well, I think it was at a point where I was doing quite a lot of work in the charity sector. That's what I did when I first graduated, and then I thought I wanted something different and I loved education, so I went back um and did um sort of postgraduate level study in education. Um, and I wanted to go and do something like be an educational psychologist or something. I didn't have any dreams of being a lecturer. But to do that, I thought, well, I'll get my uh PGC, my teaching qualification first, because that had to like springboard me onto it. And then I started doing that. Um, and I thought, oh, I didn't really want to be a teacher because I have horrible memories about school. But as I started doing it, I s realised that I loved doing it. And if I could talk about something that I was passionate about, that I felt I knew about, I found that actually it came quite naturally that I could stand up in front of people and talk about this stuff. And I think because I had horrible experiences as a like teenage learner, I think it's made me, well, I I hope it has, this is my perception, hopefully my students agree. I think it's made me a better educator because I think I get that actually it's quite difficult for some people. Um, and I got some good feedback um that the way that I explain things and the way I teach things is quite accessible and easy to understand. And I think it's because I do it the way that I would need it. Um, and then that just ignited that passion. And I thought actually, I can do this. I got some good feedback. I enjoy, you know, people I'm close to, I talk all the time. It's just those situations where I feel uncomfortable, and that obviously was the majority of my time at school. But actually, once I started doing it, I realised this is this is just what I love. And I would quite happily stand in front of hundreds of people and talk about something, as long as it was something I knew something about and was passionate about, and yeah, I love it. But it's if you ask my teenage self what I would do or say this is what I was gonna do, they you know, they'd be like, What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

If I went back and said to myself as a teenager, do you know what you're gonna have a podcast? I'd have gone, no way would you have a podcast. Yeah. So the the students that you teach, Kim, are they teachers to be teaching?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

So there's a range of things that I uh teach across. I I love learning, like I said, so I've collected degrees and things, so I've got quite a range of different things uh that I teach across. But the majority of my students want to work in education or they want to work in some capacity with children. So they are uh want to be social workers or work in sort of childcare or youth workers, those kind of things. So all of them really are either education or those other services that kind of link in with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Because I know that teacher, I mean I'm not a teacher myself, but I know my both my parents have been teachers, and I've got quite a lot of friends that are teachers and have been teachers. And actually, the amount of guidance information they get around neurodivergent pupils is really small. So, what you're doing is is bringing up a new generation of teachers, hopefully, with a much better understanding of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

I think obviously there's so much that teachers have got to learn in a short space of time. And if we think about, you know, we've got to know all of the subject, all of the curriculum, all of the policies, safeguard, there's so much, isn't there? Um that actually there is a bit on inclusion, there's a bit on special educational needs and all of that kind of stuff. But unless a teacher goes down the route of being a Senko, the amount that they get is is limited compared to what we realistically would need.

Inclusion As The Foundation In Schools

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I think the way that I try and pitch it is that actually these things should be the foundation. And if we can get these things embedded, then actually it will have a knock-on effect for everything. You know, if we have not just children with special educational needs, not just neurodivergence or anything like that, but every single child potentially could face something that makes school difficult for them, even if it's just something small one day. You know, it might not be a massive thing, but there will be times where all children need a little bit of something. So if we can have that kind of belonging, that connection, that inclusivity just as a foundation, it's going to have such a knock-on effect for everything and every single child, not just those ones that we label as needing the additional help. So I like to try and weave that in to kind of everything. There's there's that lens that we can apply to absolutely everything to do with working with children in education. Um, it's not always easy because you've obviously got a syllabus that you need to do and all of that kind of stuff. Uh, but I truly believe it's one of those core things that actually, if we thought about everything from that starting point, I think it would make things a lot better.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

So, what we need to do then, Kim, is get you in front of the government. Because I truly feel actually teachers a lot of the time want to be able to do these things. They know they're not managing or being able to do everything they can for these kids. But as you say, there's such an amount of I'm using polite words today, rubbish that they have to put up with in the curriculum and all the testing that we have to do and all that kind of stuff, and it being a very narrow curriculum. Um I was talking um on an article that I wrote, just talking about actually being able to play to your strengths, is that a lot of kids dyslexic, you know, if you're not the academic type, you're not really nurtured in those ways to be able to really, you know, excel with those things that you're really great at and where your strengths are because it's not termed as intelligence or you know, what you need to be able to get is you've got to be able to recite information at the drop of a hat in an exam, and that's gonna somehow make you more great at a job than anybody else. Um and teachers have a really tough time of that, and I think you know, and and we know at the moment there's lots going on in the world of SN and what the government are gonna do next. Who knows? With papers that are coming out. So what we need to do, Kim is get you in front of them. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 14:16

I would love that. I mean, I think we need to change uh pretty much everything. I think if we could just start again, um, I think that that is going to be the best option for us. I don't think it's gonna happen, but that's what I would love. Um and I think it's just it's also it's not just the kids that are struggling or the kids that aren't traditionally academic that also find that system difficult. You know, I am an academic person, and I always have been, you know, and I always you know did really well on the SATS, the 11 plus that we had, all of those kind of things. I've got GCSEs are good, but I didn't have a good time at school. And I think what's quite difficult, and I'm going through similar experiences with my kids, is that actually if you are doing okay academically, you're reaching those benchmarks, the other stuff that you're struggling with isn't given a priority, and not because the teachers don't want to, but they've just got limited capacity to do that. And the system is set up in a way that it focuses on those kids that are either um sort of dysregulating that it's that it's disruptive, or they're not meeting those academic benchmarks. If you're meeting those academic benchmarks, you're behaving. I'll do that in advertising commerce because I don't like the behaviour type things that we do. If you're doing all of those things, then that's fine. But it's not necessarily for you. You may feel socially very difficult, you may uh have a really low well-being, you may be masking and all those kind of stuff. So I think it it's a whole range of children, isn't it? That actually the system's not working for.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Yeah, and I think yeah, you often hear, don't you, that people think, or the information that they get is that they can't go for EHCPs because their kids are of a certain academic level, and my son was the same. I mean, my son's got a mental level IQ, he's a bright kid, and even though emotionally he was falling apart, his mental health was in bits, that kid somehow was still achieving at school. So on paper, looked fine, but actually we knew in the background he wasn't, and it took us quite a while to get through that bit of well, he's achieving, yeah, he won't be for long. Yeah, that's it. And at what costs getting into school? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, yeah, that's it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

But at what cost?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah, and that's um, you know, like you can mask all day at school, and then you come home and that mask drops, and then you've got this massive, you know, like after school restraint collapse where all of it comes out, yeah, and you can't cope and everything like that. But school don't see that, that doesn't get written down. Or you know, obviously your parents can present that information to schools, and schools can take that and they can do stuff with that and they can offer support, but it's not as easy to be able to then kind of get that support if at school everything is okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Um, yeah, it's hard. It is hard.

Why Perfect Parenting Does Not Exist

SPEAKER_02 17:07

It's hard, it is. And I think what we were gonna talk about today, because I was just I really wanted people to kind of get to know you, Kim, because I think what people might think is that, well, Kim knows all this information. She goes and she teaches about it, and she must be the perfect parent. She's got to be the perfect parent because she knows all this stuff. So I'm gonna ask you, Kim, are you the perfect parent?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Should I say yes? Yes, I am. No, far from it. I mean, I don't think the perfect parent exists, and I think that's part of the problem, isn't it? That we see all of this stuff and we think, ah, I'm not as good as her, I'm not as good as him, or you know, all of that kind of stuff. I mean, the perfect parent just doesn't exist. I think what I find is exactly that. I mean, you know, I could list my qualifications, I could list what I do as a job, I could talk to you for hours about what all the science says, about what all of this evidence about what makes the best parenting style, teaching style, all of that kind of stuff for children with special educational needs, neurodivergent, and all that kind of stuff. But knowing it is one thing, putting it into practice is something completely different. And yeah, it's just it doesn't happen. You know, I'm very privileged because I have this knowledge, I have this understanding, I've got this experience, which means certain things will be easier for me than someone who doesn't have that. You know, I understand the terminology, I understand how the system works, so I can advocate because I understand what all of that means, and I can go to meetings and I can use words and things that make people think, oh, well, she does know what she's talking about, and so on. And I can recognise certain things that are happening, but not necessarily. Like, for example, with my eldest, I didn't realise that he was neurodivergent until school said I think he's neurodivergent. And I thought, well, how did I not know that? How did I not spot that? I just thought he was quirky.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah, it's like someone said to me when they were working with my son, do you think he might be autistic? And I went, No, do you know what I do as a job?

unknown 19:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

It was essentially that. The head teacher said, you know, he's been having a few problems with this, that, and the other. And I was like, Yeah, okay, well, all children do. And he's like, Well, I think he's neurodivergent. And then you start thinking back and you think, Oh, of course he is, because all of this stuff makes complete sense. But you know, um, so definitely not a perfect parent at all. And I think being neurodivergent myself as well, you throw that into the mix, don't you? And you've got your own overwhelm, your own sensory kind of limits, your own kind of things that you're dealing with. And when you pass all that all into like a Monday morning, for example, you know, everyone's tired because it's the weekend, it's Monday morning, nobody really wants to get out of bed. You've got, you know, pat lunches to do, you've got homework that needs finishing off because you didn't do it at the weekend, you know, uniforms you don't know where they are, all of that kind of stuff. And you think, like, how do I sit there and do exactly what I would preach to do if I was lecturing it? Okay, right, well, let's be calm and co-regulate and take time and ease in. We think, well, I can't do that. I've got 10 minutes before we need to be out of the door. It's not gonna happen. I'm feeling stressed because I'm tired and I know that I've got these meetings and all of this kind of stuff. It's just it's not gonna happen. And I think we need to let go of that idea that we can do all of it all the time. And if we don't, then we're not good enough. Because that's just not realistic, is it? I mean, it's not the real world, and it doesn't mean that we're a bad parent. Um, so yeah, so a long-winded way of saying, no, I'm not a perfect parent, and I never will be, um, and I don't think anybody will be.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

But I thought it was really interesting because when you reached out to me, Kim, about coming onto the podcast, this is what you kind of came to me with the idea is that you wanted to talk about this kind of this gap almost, isn't it? That between knowing what the theory says and you know the science says or the re all that kind of stuff. We know what it says, but actually there is this gap between this is what we ideally should be doing and then the reality of real life. And I think a bit like you, I often have lots of conversations with parents. I still get it wrong. All the work that I do, and even the work I do around burnout, I burnt out. And I was really, really shameful of that at the time. That I thought I should have known better. But when we're in it, it's really, really difficult. And I think I work quite hard now trying to talk to professionals about just be mindful of the load that you're sending home, be mindful of what you're asking parents to do because they are already probably at capacity and then over it. And then as professionals, we come in with well, you just need to do that. We have to ban that word, those phrases you just need to for parents. Yes. So I suppose I'm really interested in this gap and what what we can kind of do about it, I suppose. And I like your bit of. About letting go of it, letting go of that perfection.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Is that easy to do, Kim? I don't think it is. I think it's really important and I think it's well worth trying to do that. It's not easy. Um, I think the guilt that we have as parents is massive. Um, potentially more for mothers and fathers, but I won't sort of stereotype that completely. But I think there is that that kind of mum guilt that we tend to hear about, isn't it? That you feel that you could could be doing better. And if you don't, you know, if you say something in the spare of the moment because you're all exhausted and you regret it later, and then you'll think about it for ages going, I shouldn't have said that. I'm a horrible person, I'm a bad mum, all of that kind of stuff. Or, you know, if you're working and parenting and all of those other things, you think, well, maybe I should be spending more time with my children to do this, that, and the other. The guilt is just there, isn't it? And I think that really then adds, doesn't it, to this idea of how easy or not is to let go of all of that stuff because we are constantly bombarded, aren't we? This is what parents should be doing. We look through our social media and we see these wonderful examples of what parents are doing and all of that kind of thing. I'm quite pleased that we're seeing more real life stuff on social media now, it is which is brilliant, and I think that will help. But it's not easy letting go because you feel guilty for doing that, and you always think that you should be doing something. You should be doing more, you should be better at this, you should know how to do this. But nobody knows how to do it perfectly. There are lots of things that we know, but actually, each child and family are different, they're individuals, the circumstances are constantly shifting and changing. There's lots of different things that we're going through. So, no one set of rules is gonna work for everybody anyway. No, but I think letting go is something that I kind of learn is important to try and let go of the fact that it won't be perfect and that you will get it wrong. Yeah, it's hard to do, but in doing so, and I don't do it perfectly by any means, I still beat myself up quite regularly and say, you know, you would have told someone else to do this, so why are you not doing that? Or you know that that is going to escalate this situation. So why did you say that and why didn't you do that? I do that, I still do that, but I do less of it, and I think that's helped because I think that's made me realise that actually I can just be me a little bit more, yeah. And I think that helps a little bit with the connection, and I think it helps a little bit to show my kids that sometimes I struggle with it and sometimes I find it difficult, but actually we can have a hug and we can talk and we can just be with each other, and I think that does help. It's I mean that again, that's not always easy, but the bits that we that I can sort of try and be that letting go of the perfection and the beating myself up.

Guilt Social Media And Losing Community

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Yeah, I think it's sometimes as well as just it's just knowing about it, isn't it? It's a yeah. I think it's knowing that that's what I'm doing, if that makes sense. That I've had these horrible feelings and I know they're all the time, but sometimes we just feel rubbish about ourselves generally. Actually, it's only when you start to talk to other parents they go, yo, I feel like that all the time. And that's why I love things like the podcast to be able to kind of get this out to other parents to go, do you know what? I feel it, Kim feels it, we all feel it. Yeah. And even when we're talking about, you know, there'll be parenting, I don't like the word experts, there'll be parenting experts out there, they will get it wrong. Because, like you say, exactly that, every single family, their dynamics, their setup, their sensory system, central nervous system, they're all gonna be different. And what works in my house won't work in somebody else's house. And I think you know, even when you think about it, when the kids are very young and you need I don't remember how do you get them to sleep? And I just wanted somebody to give me the answer. I had one that was appalling. I thought they were gonna have to admit me to a psychiatric unit. I was beyond exhausted with him, and he never slept. And they kept telling me, you know, there was the cry-out method, there was a this and I just kept saying, but what's gonna work for him? And they just kept going, well, we don't really know, you'll have to just try it. Um, as a parent, the only bit of support we really ever get is that a bit in the beginning about birthing plans and what's gonna happen when you have the baby. The birthing plans never go according to plan. Okay, they go out the window anyway. Yeah, rubbish the second time, and I didn't even bother making one. Don't make me make it because it failed last time. But there is nothing past that, is there? I think and I feel really strongly, and I'm trying to get kind of my voice out there, is trying to get support out there for parents where they can just come and go, Do you know what? I feel really overwhelmed, and I just need to be with other parents and let somebody else. And we've we've kind of lost that community, you know, we become very isolated as parents, I think. We're very much behind closed doors, and there's the hey, everything's lovely, and look at our family photograph, and two seconds later everyone's whack someone over the head and someone's crying. Um that that kind of we haven't got that support, and I'm supposed to I'm curious how we get that support. Yeah, Kim.

unknown 27:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Can you solve it? But yeah, let's solve it, shall we? Let's do that in the next five minutes. Great, right? Um I think it's it's exactly that though, isn't it? You feel like you should know how to do it. Yes, and I think that's quite ingrained, isn't it? I think society tells us you should be able to do this. You have a baby and then you parent and you parent and you do it well. And it forgets the fact that we never did that. That wasn't how we ever parented in the past. You know, we would have had this network of people around us, you know, that whole takes a village to raise a child type thing. But we think we've lost that. And I think, yeah, it makes it hard, doesn't it? Because it makes you think you should know what you're doing, you know, and like you were talking about your experiences. When I had my eldest, you know, there were lots of things we struggled with, and we sort of worked through lots of different things, thought we were doing badly, and then we found something that did work eventually with things like sleep. And then when we had our second, I was like, right, well, we'll just copy it exactly the same. And it didn't work, you know, it wasn't because they're two different children. Um, and you've also got the dynamic of having two children, and that changes things again, doesn't it? And you think, well, I've got I cracked it with him, but now she's completely different, and you think, oh my god, I'm gonna start all over again. Like I said a minute ago, seeing those things on social media where people are starting to talk more realistically about their parenting, I think that is quite nice. Um, one of my uh friends from school who's got children of a similar age, she's always sending me um sort of memes and stuff off social media that's talking about the realistic side of parenting. And just that kind of thing's really nice, actually. And I'll send them back. And it's just that, you know, we don't need to say much about it, but it's just that acknowledgement that there is another mum somewhere that is also at the end of her tether.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

And you don't feel quite so alone. And those sorts of things, even though they're small and tiny, actually do make you feel like, yeah, I'm not the only one sat here struggling.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

There was a meme when you said that, there was a meme that I saw that oh I it made not much makes me laugh out loud, but this one did. And it's a picture, and it's like something it's some title about helping your fellow parent or something. And there's a person standing on the ice and there's a gap with some water, and then somebody on the other side. Have you seen it? Yeah, I've seen that one. They're trying to put their hand out to help the person out off the ice, aren't they? And they both one ends up in the water, the other one's flying across the ice. So I thought that sums it up. That's it, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

I'm gonna try and help them, and we both end up in more of a mess. But we're together. We're together, and yeah, and I think that it does, yeah, there are loads of great ones, but I think that is the thing, isn't it? It's realizing that you're not on your own and that actually, you know, even those people that put on that lovely family photo, uh, say how they've had a wonderful weekend doing all these beautiful activities, whose kids always seem to behave when they're out in public and all of that kind of stuff, they will be going through stuff. You know, no child is going to be that model child, no family is going to be that model family all of the time. I was thinking yesterday, I was thinking a little bit, oh, I wonder what I'm going to talk to Liz about, and I was thinking about it. And I was in the kitchen making um lunch or something, and my daughter was sat at the table doing some colouring in, my son was doing some Lego, my husband was out doing something in the garden, and I thought if someone took a picture or a video of us in this moment, it would look like the perfect family. But it only lasted two seconds because then, you know, my son said something to my daughter, and then she flew off on the deep end because he said something, and you know, and then I've got to abandon making lunch to separate them, and you think actually, you know, but if they if someone had just seen that 30 seconds, they would have thought, you know, well, they've got it made, they know what they're doing.

unknown 31:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

But it only lasts for that 30 seconds, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 31:09

We did something similar when we were away, the three of us, and we did something similar. We sat on the beach, uh just down on the south coast, and just watching different phones. I'm a bit of a people watcher and I like to watch other people, and I just looked around these families. I thought, you know, there's one crying, someone's hit someone over the head with a spade, mum shouting at dad because he hasn't done something, dad's having to go out, one of them. It was just nobody had it together. There were tears, but there were also happy moments. Yeah. But it was there was also kind of some fraught moments in there too. And and I think when we just step back a bit and have a look outward, because I think we can become very inward when everything's very difficult, is looking outward a bit and going, actually, not everyone's got it together. Not they might give me the impression they have, but they actually they haven't, and it's we're all struggling um with it. And I think I think as well now in this day and age as well, it's that there are different stresses that were around, and I'm not saying they're more or less, but you know, compared to what my parents probably went through and and their parents went through, it changes, doesn't it, with the different pressures that are on, and you know, family set-ups and makeups have changed a lot, and often now it's I think in the majority of families you'll see mum as well out at work, whereas you know, my mum was at home for a period of time when we were younger, um, and that that's changed and the pressures for us, I think. And like you talked about earlier, and you're even managing our own central nervous system. There are days when I just think if the kids go off today, I'm gonna go off like a rocket because I feel awful today. Um and that's not always easy, kind of manager that as a parent, like looking okay, what do I need today?

Modelling Emotions And Validating Kids

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah. And I think that's really difficult, isn't it? Because it goes back to all that guilt and stuff like that. And I think there has been a shift, hasn't there, in terms of the expectation of parents. So if you know, if we let our um, you know, five-year-old go and walk to school by themselves, there'll be uproar, wouldn't there? But then my mum walked to school when she was five years old by herself because that's just what people did. You know, there's a whole host of things, isn't there, that have changed in terms of the expectation over what a parent does. And it's very much that message that you are solely responsible for the adult your child is going to turn out to be. Yeah, you're responsible for their success, their well-being, how nice they are, and all of that kind of stuff. And yeah, obviously, parenting does have a big influence. But there are always there's so many other influences as well. But I think all of that extra pressure in the mix, it does change things, I think. And it does make us then feel that we have to be there just as the parent, and all of our own needs get sidelines, but we can only do that for so long before we then burn out or explode emotionally, you know, all of that kind of stuff. But I also think that is a little bit harmful in terms of role modelling to children as well. You know, we say to the kids, you know, it's okay to feel the way you feel. How about spending some time doing some breathing or or what chilling out and doing something? Don't don't be negative about yourself, look at all your strengths. But we don't do that. I mean, maybe people listening do. I don't do that often enough. I'm not good at it at all. You know, all that kind of we're meant to do all this um wonderful self-care and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um, I'm not very good at that. But I think if we can't role model to our children, that actually we all have big emotions, we all find it difficult sometimes, we all might have times where we get it wrong or we don't know what the answer is. I think that's probably a good thing, even though we shy away from doing that as a society.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Yeah, no, I agree, and I think as they grow up, you know, you'd hope that they grow into parents that aren't going to be parents that burn out, that are on their knees and struggling to to hold things together. And I think we talk about that in our family a lot, is that you know, there are times when I get cross, there are times when I'm sad. Um and you know, I don't dump all my emotions on my kids, but they do see a varying ray of emotions from me, and I recover from them, and that's really important. And sometimes they you know they'll say to me, Are you okay, Stan? I'll not today, but I will be. I'm feeling I'm feeling a bit down today. I don't know why I feel really stressed today or whatever. And actually they've they've you know, it's they start to echo it back to you. So I said to one of my kids the other day a while ago, Oh, you're alright Stan, you don't see me I'm just not feeling very happy today. I was like, okay. And he was like, it just happens, you know. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Is anything you want me to do? No.

unknown 35:56

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yes, I do that thing that I'm starting to feel a little bit angry, I just need a minute. And then last I was like, yeah, my eight-year-old would turn around and go, I just need a minute. You're making that.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

What a great skill to learn, you know, that it's okay to be angry because I think there's a lot of work happens around with kids that anger is this thing you've got to avoid. Don't get angry, be happy and okay all the time. And actually, that's totally unrealistic. You might get angry about all sorts of things, rightly and wrongly.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

And sometimes that anger's good, it fuels us, doesn't it? You know, for some of the things that we feel angry about, yes, we can channel that and we can feel that into doing something productive with it. I mean, obviously there's anger that's not like that as well, but you know, we've got to feel the whole array of emotions, haven't we?

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And then knowing what you do with that emotion, you know, with how do I manage it when it arrives, because it doesn't it doesn't mean I'm a bad person if I get angry. It just means okay, well, I get out, I must feel angry, so what can I do about it? And what's the safe way of letting that out rather than just burying it and hoping that it'll go away and then it explodes like a volcano somewhere on the line.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

That's it. And I think there's stuff like that in general so in kind of the things about inclusive education that I kind of look at and work and all that kind of stuff. There's quite a lot of expectations that we have of children that we wouldn't expect adults to do. And I think that, I mean, that's one of my bugbears. I really don't like that. Um, you know, the things like you can't drink any water to when you need, you can only go to the toilet when we say you can go to the toilet, all of those kind of things. And I'm thinking, well, you wouldn't do that if it was an adult.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

If it wouldn't say you look at me, I walk out. I've been suddenly.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Yeah, stop. You know, you cannot take your school blazer off even though it is 30 degrees outside, you know, things like that. I'm just thinking, we wouldn't do that and say that to an adult. Um, but it's the same things with emotions. That's what sort of the connection my brain just did then, was that actually we kind of almost expect children to have a complete handle on their emotions, but we know that adults don't and we don't. And it's the same, you know, it's the same with lots of other things. No, that's it. No one does, do they? You know, some of us might be better than others at it, but nobody's got a complete handle on all of that stuff in the way that we sort of as a society talk about having a handle on these things, and it's the same with lots of other things that we kind of we expect children to sit in that chair still quietly for however long and and listen for however long and not drink water when they're thirsty and not go to the toilet when they need to go to the toilet and all of those kind of things.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

That actually, yeah, there's quite a lot of expectation. It's hard.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that worries me that bit as well. I get very worried about that because I think actually that's teaching kids to ignore emotions and sensations and you know, don't trust that because actually I've I've done it, and my son pulls me up, he's brilliant at it. Is I used to say quite a lot when he was younger, it's okay, and he'd go to me, it's not. Yeah. And I'm trying really hard now never to do that, it's okay. Because in that moment for that kid, it doesn't feel okay. And I think probably if someone told me that when I was feeling really, really stressed and anxious, someone said to me it's okay. I've been saying exactly the same, actually. It's not, I don't feel okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yeah, and I think something that I used to say was, Oh, it could be worse, and you think, well, don't well actually, that's just sort of saying, Oh, it's not that bad, isn't it? You're saying, Oh, come on, it could be a lot worse. Yeah. And I try not, I do say it sometimes, but I try not to, because I think I don't want to belittle what they're feeling just because somebody else might be feeling something to that to me would be worse or in a worse situation. Yeah. But actually that sort of just makes them feel maybe they shouldn't feel that way.

Reassurance Tips And Closing Links

SPEAKER_02 39:34

There's that really lovely sketch. Have you seen it by um it's Brene Brown about empathy versus sympathy? Yes. I have. But then the goat gets down in the hole. I'll link it in the comments because it's just lovely. Because the goat kind of goes, well, at least, doesn't she? I think that person's feeling really rubbish. Well, at least, but then the other person gets down in the hole with them, and it doesn't try and solve it, it's just there with just such a lovely sketch. I love it. Yeah. Um, I'm a big fan of Bruno Brown. So I'll I'll link that in the comments for people. If, say, for example, we've got someone listening today, Kim, and they're having a bit of a tough time, and maybe you're going through that. I'm a bit of a rubbish parent, I'm no good at this, I'm letting my kids down. Have you got a a ton of a top I don't like a top tip, but a suggestion or something that you've used or maybe in the past that would help them in this moment?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

I mean, it's really difficult, isn't it? Because it depends on so many different factors. It's really is complex. But I think it's that just trying to reassure yourself, and it's easy for me to say this in practice, not necessarily quite so much, but it will get easier the more you do it, is just to reassure yourself that this isn't just you. You know, there are every single parent will have at some point, some more than others potentially, will have gone through that stage of I'm rubbish, I don't know what I'm doing, I've got it wrong, you know, I'm a rubbish parent. I think every parent has been there at some point. So I think reassuring yourself on that. And I think the other thing is that just that reassurance that there is no one piece of advice that's going to work, and that may feel scary because you want that list of things, don't you? You want that sheet that someone can give you when you have your baby that says this is how you do it, this is the manual of being a parent, and it doesn't exist. And I think trying to kind of let go of that thought that it might exist is helpful.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

So I think the more times you can say to yourself, there is no one way to do this, I think is going to be helpful. And I mean, I I look at every time I've got a problem, I Google everything and I read loads about it because that's just the way my brain works. Actually, sometimes that is quite bad because you open yourself up then to all of this advice, and there'll be so much advice about what you should be doing. And sometimes it's framed as this is the easiest thing in the world, and you think, well, it's not because I can't do it. So is that because I'm rubbish? Or you'll just see like 10 different things to do that all seem to contradict each other, and you've got no idea which one to pick. So I think just taking that moment and just saying, okay, like there is no one way of doing this, just go into try something, think about what might work for my child, and if it doesn't go right, it doesn't matter. You're not going to ruin them for life because you've done one thing that might have been better or might have escalated the situation a little bit more than you wanted to. And it is really hard to get into that mindset, but I think the more you do that, hopefully, the more that'll get ingrained into your mindset.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Um and I think what people can do as well is is tag this podcast episode because actually it's quite nice to come back and listen to it and just because that's the thing I think that's helped most for me is other people reminding me it's okay not to get it perfect. That's really helped me. And I think as you said, the practice has helped, and I'm better at doing it myself now. But to begin with, I almost needed that either it came from my partner or it came from my sisters, and I'm like very lucky and I'm privileged to have a really great family and a support network around me, that they would often remind me, you know, and I'd be going, you know, I want to go out for the evening, and I haven't been out for like ten years or whatever it is. I want to go out for the evening, and then feeling really guilty about it because or worrying about when I came back, I knew there was gonna be a fallout, and not because they were gonna punish me, the kids, but because it had been tough for them. And being kind of reassured by my family, you need to go out for you. It's gonna be okay, it's not gonna injure the kids, they're safe. They might prefer it if you were there, but there's only I'm a salad parent, there's only one of you. So you need to go, have a good time, and we're done with it when you come back. And maybe that's what this podcast might help another parent uh take away from that is that this is kind of almost your permission today to do something for you, however small that might be. And it can be something tiny. And I talk about a lot with sitting on my one is sitting on the back door with a cup of tea. And there were times in our family when I couldn't leave the house because things were so difficult. I'm a solo parent and there was no one to hand over to. So how do I get that time? And that's that gap again, isn't it? It's bridging between the the perfection is well when you I'll go out for a nice walk and I can't. And so what do I do in those moments? It's it's anything. Find some way even if it's locked yourself in the toilet for five minutes, even though they get notes under the door with my kids. But what could you do? And I think this is your reminder that it's okay not to be perfect. It's okay not to have it all pinned and what could you do for you today?

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Yeah. And I think that's really important. And to remember that you know nobody knows how to be a perfect parent you know I can talk all day long about um S End, neurodivergence, disability, inclusion, I could talk all day about that. But that doesn't mean that I'm on expert parents that I can translate all of that knowledge into my everyday, every second of my day. And even the sort of the people that are expert in parenting and will tell you all of these different things, they won't be perfect parents. Nobody will be. And maybe that's something that can reassure people listening is that even the sort of experts and we'll put it in verse of commas because I'm not so keen on that that word because I don't think anyone can ever be a complete expert in anything. I agree. Yeah. But even the people that study it that live it that teach it that whatever it is will get it wrong because you know we're all human and maybe that can be reassuring that there there aren't these perfect parents out there that have got it all sussed and and you're there and you haven't. I mean they just don't exist.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Yeah at all. I totally agree Kim yeah what I'm going to do is um I would definitely recommend going and following Kim. So Kim you are on Insta. Are you on any other social media platforms?

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Um I'm on LinkedIn as well. So they're probably the the main two to find me on at the moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

So we'll make sure that we have linked those in in the show notes so people can come find you. I know you do some great stuff on LinkedIn around inclusion, accessibility, all that kind of stuff. So neurodivergence definitely worth going to give Kim a follow and suck up all her knowledge because she does have some amazing knowledge there as well. All that leads me to say Kim is thank you ever so much for coming on. I'm really this has been a really good chat actually I was really great I was really pleased when you came um on and asked me to talk about this and this was your idea it was nothing to do with me this was Kim's idea but I thought what a great one actually that gap between knowing the stuff but actually putting it into practice and it is hard it's really hard. So I'm incredibly incredibly grateful that you came on um and yeah we'll see everyone soon. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome Kim take care