The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Being a parent whilst training as a Psychologist: The Highs and Lows with Rose Dunstan

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode: 25: Being a parent whilst training as a psychologist: the highs and lowsThank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. Aspiring psychologists often feel they must put their lives on hold for training. Today we speak to a Trainee Clinical Psychologist studying at Salomons who explores how she navigated moving to England from Australia and then having a baby before getting onto training. We explore the experiences of parents, what support parents need, and how other trainees and courses may be able to help. I hope that you enjoy this podcast episode because I very much enjoyed recording it!The Highlights: 00:28: Introduction for topic and guest speaker02:35: New incoming Trainees and membership spaces! 03:30: Male perspectives needed04:47: Introducing Rose!05:26: A psychology journey in Australia 07:17: “Jobs that I just really enjoyed”09:09: For the Australian listeners  11:10: Having a baby and training 12:28: Imagining life with children as a trainee13:17: A post-natal interview 15:05: Financial pressure16:37: Any family friendly courses out there?17:29: An offer for training and reflecting on parenting18:57: Improving access to psychology20:11: Role models 21:01: A diverse cohort23:00: Employment rights 24:33: Flexible supervisors28:39: Parenting and placements while completing assignments! 29:53: COVID as a trainee and parent33:16: Pros and cons of parenting40:01: The difficult parts, like SLEEP!43:28: Parental support46:29: How to support the parents in your cohort? 51:08: A supportive university51:54: Thank you Rose!52.41: Thank you for listening and I hope it helps! Links: Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her including the upcoming aspiring psychologist collective book and the Aspiring Psychologist membership on her LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrentTo check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 Like, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be included in future shows head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and click the blue request info button at the top of the page.

Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. episode. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast.

Thank you so much for being part of my world and for listening to today's episode. Now, today's episode is all about training professionally as a psychologist when you are a parent. But please, if you are not yet a parent, please do still listen because it raises such important considerations for when you start to consider your own parenting journey. And also, if you don't want to or can't have children of your own, it helps you to think about how you might optimally support those around you within training, or even within your life generally, who have children. So it raises some really important and interesting debates. I'm joined for today's podcast by Rose Dunstan, who is a trainee clinical psychologist. And you can watch our chat on YouTube on the Good Thinking Psychological Services YouTube page, if you'd like to, but you of course don't need to

watch it if you don't want to you can just listen i need to apologize that my audio is quite quiet um in in today's podcast um i'm not quite sure why so you might just need to turn it up ever so slightly but i have adjusted the jingles so that they're a little bit quieter so they won't um suddenly deafen you um yeah i don't know what happened there but um needed to make sure that you could hear both myself and Rose throughout so I hope that you will find that okay um also need to say I only spotted when I was editing that I'd accidentally used the wrong frame on YouTube um it does say aspiring psychologist membership rather than aspiring

psychologist podcast but Rose's details are all correct and I will admit that's the only side I checked because I assumed it was right but as we all know assume makes an ass of you and me so I hope you will forgive me and not think that I am indeed an ass if you do thanks anyway for listening and still being part of my world whilst simultaneously thinking that I am an ass. That said, if you are interested in the Aspiring Psychologist membership, we have had lots of success with getting people onto training courses this year, which is just wonderful. But it does mean we've got a few spaces available um and then it's open for more members from the 1st of July so if you're interested in that then do check out um the link tree link um which gives you more details um of the membership and that can be found in the show notes or um usually at the top of all of the socials um for where you see me online um okay

I think that is everything for now and but I hope you find it a really useful episode it is a slightly longer episode than usual because there was so much to say um so yeah cozy up um you know give yourself a chunk of time because I think it is getting on for just over 50 minutes five zero so quite a lot longer than usual but all good stuff and such important personal and professional debates in psychology so this is mainly taken perhaps only taken really from a female perspective I would love to be able to have similar debates with someone who identifies as male about becoming a parent on the course or starting training you know with children or child already so if that describes you and you'd like

to come on the podcast then do please make contact with me but otherwise just you and you'd like to come on the podcast, then do please make contact with me. But otherwise, just enjoy and, you know, have an open mind if you're not yet a parent. And, you know, just really interesting conversation between myself and Rose. So hope you'll find it useful and I'll catch you again at the end. So I am joined by Rose today. Hi Rose, thank you so much for joining me. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, thank you so much for having me. My name is Rose Dunstan. I am a third year trainee on the Doctorate of Clinical Psychology training and I'm also the mother of a little boy who's just turned four. Oh wonderful thank you so much for

joining me and yeah like four-year-olds are bags of fun but they are also high energy and you know take a lot from you so could you tell us a little bit about your journey to psychology before we start to think about your little boy um if that's okay yeah sure so you can probably tell from my accent I wasn't born here um I was born in Australia and that's where I did my undergrad um so I did that full time um in psychology um and I also worked so I really fell on feet, I worked for a really lovely mental health charity full-time alongside my undergraduate degree and I say it was lovely because it really like had a very strong ethos for recovery. There were a lot you know so lots and lots of peer

support workers, all of my managers had like lived experience of distress and current and heard voices. And so I worked there for about four years in various roles and including at the end doing a research assistant role. And that was in a project to support voice hearers into the workplace and I think part of the other reason why I really enjoyed that role is they brought in lots of external trainers and lots of them came from the UK so they brought over like Eleanor Longdon and Rufus May, Jackie Dillon, Ron Coleman and these are sort of like lots of the names that you hear sort of in mental health or in psychosis um from this country and I guess that's sort of what drew my attention to maybe moving here. So I moved to England with my husband and it was meant to be for

a short period of time and I thought I would go home and train in Australia but then I just sort of fell in love with the country and when I, yeah so once I moved here, I had some very similar roles. I worked for a charity where I managed a high support residential service for people with, sort of inverted commas, severe and persistent mental illness. So just people with experiences of psychosis or, yeah, I guess, childhood trauma, lots of complex trauma. And I did that for quite a long time. And I sort of also managed some employment services to support people into work. And I think I got to a stage where I was, you know, just been really loving all of my jobs, I've been growing a lot. And I think I got to a stage where I was, you know, I'd just been really loving all of my jobs. I'd been growing a lot.

And I felt like my learning started to plateau. And it had always been in the back of my mind that I would apply for clinical psychology training. So I think once I realised I was going to live here forever and my learning started to plateau in these other jobs, that's when I sort of turned my sights to training. And I completed a master's here which I did alongside a full-time job and then applied for my first AP job and that was in a neurodevelopmental assessment service for children um and and then I had a child and

and I got into training so it was sort of perhaps quite a different journey to other people. I was never in a rush. It was, for me, I think I felt like I'd always end up as a clinical psychologist, but I just found myself in jobs that I just really enjoyed and I was very passionate about. I was learning a lot. So I sort of meandered my way here I guess well done to you um I was speaking to someone earlier that was saying you know I can't believe

I get paid to do this because I would actually do it for free and that's when you know that this is a career that is just a bit of you isn't it absolutely yeah although the pay helps oh the pay most definitely helps yeah I get very challenging otherwise yeah just before we start thinking about children I know that I have got people that do listen to the podcast in Australia and I know that a question I will be asked if I don't ask you is how it worked you know moving from Australia to the UK and whether you were then eligible to apply for the funded places just that sort of question if you're comfortable answering it. Yeah certainly first of all you need to like to be aware of whether your degree would be

accredited here so I think both countries are a little bit like our degrees are better than the other persons so it is you need to look into you need to make sure you have the full four-year I think both countries are a little bit like our degrees are better than the other person's. So it is something you need to look into. You need to make sure you have the full four-year degree in Australia to be able to convert it here by the BPS. For me, I have British heritage, so I already had a UK passport even before I decided to move here. So it made moving to the country quite simple. But you do need to have lived here for I think it's three years to get the residency, and that's a continuous three years. So you can't have like sort of been out of the country for too long during that period.

They're in sort of set timeframes. I think it's three years, you need to double check that. And once you're considered a resident of this country, you can apply. I think courses will look out though for, you know, they want people who are going to stay here. So they will, I think, probably look out for that a little bit, a commitment to staying and working in the NHS. Yeah. Lovely. Thank you so much for our slight deviation. But I know that that will be a question that I am asked, because it's important, isn't it, especially the variability and diversity

in our workforce. And that, you know, I do believe, and I've said before, that I've got the best job in the world. Why wouldn't someone in a different country know that and think I'd love to do that? Yeah absolutely yeah I can relate to that. So before we started recording we were speaking a little bit about your experience of applying to the doctorate, would you be okay telling us a little bit about what that was like and where baby fell in that, if that's OK? Yeah, sure. So I think I mean, one of the reasons why I guess I'm here and I guess quite passionate about this is because I agonised over the decision to have a baby. And I can't underscore that enough. it really was agony because there are these really dominant narratives I think that you can't get onto training it's incredibly hard and that having any sort of difference just makes it harder I think and having a child would mean

I guess that you might be discriminated against by courses but also that you can't get the adequate experience that you need to get onto training um and then even if you happen to get on that you can't complete training with children because it is just so incredibly challenging um and I sort of I heard that very strongly in the absolute complete absence actually of having any narratives or stories of people who had completed training with children I don't know I really felt that and yeah I was really in a place where it's like what if you know what ifs are never good are they but what if I dedicate myself to training and I finish and I am unable to have children or what if I have a

child and that means that I can never get into training um and I think because there's two very uncertain things having a child you have no idea what your life would look like with a child and then so you can't sort of plan and think how I could make that work because you don't really know. And then training, you just don't know that you're, like you don't know what the experience will be like. But also you don't know if you'll get on or when you'll get on. Will I get on when I'm 32 or 35 or 38? And what does that mean for my fertility?

So I really struggled with it. And I guess I just started applying. I applied after I had got my first AP job. And I did have the baby. And I applied before I knew that I was pregnant. So during my, when sort of the interview season came up and I was offered three interviews uh I was sort of eight months pregnant um and my son was born prematurely so

that meant that actually the day the day he was born I think I had an interview or maybe it was the day after I'm sorry obviously couldn't attend um and then um I was quite poorly after he was born and I was in hospital for a week and then I had an interview two days after I'd gotten out of hospital and um and I attended that interview and I think on reflection that seems actually ridiculous like a really um almost silly thing to do but I think again there was this narrative that like even if you get an interview this year you might not get one next year so you have to apply oh so you have to go I have to do it um and I did do it having not slept for 10 days and it didn't go well I mean well actually do you know what to be fair the interview went well but there was a written component that I just my brain just wouldn't function for um and then I had an interview about a week after that which I did attend and I and I got on a reserve list for that

one um but I actually think another probably important part of that motivation to attend is also financially so I think um I at that stage my financial situation was such that I thought I might have to work in about six months anyway and part of my rationale was well I could work as an AP and after I paid for my childcare and my travel I'll bring home about fifty dollars, sorry fifty pounds a week Or I could go back to a more demanding job which would be training but at least I'd have enough money to sort of survive on and I think that's probably I think one of the big barriers I think

to having children when you're trying to get onto the DECLIN is the cost of child care is it's just eye-wateringly high it will be almost your entire income as a band four ip um so i guess that was the process and then so i didn't get on that year and then i applied again the following year and i got two interviews and and two offers um and at that stage my son was a year old oh well well done to you and honestly you're my hero attending interviews for doctorate training whilst in the fog of being a very new mother um kudos to you and also getting a reserveless place that year like you are my hero so well done to you on that can i ask when you were applying the next year whether you you know whether you considered more family friendly courses or whether

you considered any factors around you know having your son or was it purely the traditional I like the sound of that course and you know I've met other trainees um etc um I didn't change well it's really hard to get any sort of sense of who is family friendly from the information on the clearinghouse. And in fact, I don't think any of the courses appear family friendly. I don't think it's mentioned anywhere. I've certainly never heard of courses that like invite parents to attend or speak to it in the information that they put out before you apply. So it was was sort of it was a little bit blind actually um it was more about what I thought the ethos would be um but actually having said that I then

actually attended so the two interviews that I attended um that year I actually attended one where I think they made it very clear actually it wasn't even covert they made it very clear I think that they would not support parents um to get through training or carers it there was very much sort of a spiel at the beginning um that made it clear that you you had to do this on your own and we weren't going to make adjustments for you um and my heart it was so devastating i remember i finished that interview and i walked out the door and my first thought was i did really well today i think i'm going to get an offer and my second book which i followed about two seconds later was and i cannot accept it um i just i knew that i would have a miserable time I knew that I probably wouldn't even get through it.

And then the following week I did this other interview at my training course that I'm on, and it couldn't have been a more different experience. In my interview they asked me, how are you going to, like what are your thoughts and how you might manage um being a parent and doing this this course and I could speak to that and that was fine they were placing quite warm and they sort of said that they do try to take that into account and there are some adjustments that they can made and they explained what they were and um yeah it was it was such a relief um and that of course I got the two offers

and I knew exactly where I needed to be um so it was actually very helpful really in the end but it was also you know quite heartbreaking as well thank you yeah it's so important to be treated as a human and someone that matters in this process not just a number who can be so easily replaced because you're you're a person you've got a life you know you you matter to lots of people and having you just scrape through or survive that's not what we want we want you to as much as possible thrive and really enjoy aspects of your training if not the whole thing um you know but also thrive as a mother and to have enough resources left over at the end of a day or a week to feel like you're not just utterly

exhausted and then you can be a parent as well yeah and i think also you know we there's so much talk about widening access and the importance of and i know parenting isn't a protected characteristic it is maternity is sort of for the first whilst you're pregnant and for a year after but it's not protected but I think the experience parents bring a different experience to training and there is a knowledge and an experience that can enrich sort of the knowledge of the cohort and and experiences on placement so it is valuable and I think it is important to have different people represented on cohorts.

It really is. There's a lady on my cohort who had two children. There's a few people that had children, but had two children. And, you know, I just really valued her insight. And she became sort of the mummy of our group as well you know and she was the first person I'd ever heard when she was talking about parenting her children the first person I'd ever heard to say I love you very much but I do not like that behavior and it was that separation for me that was really useful you know you're not saying I don't like the child you're

saying I don't like the behavior and so going on to a CAMHS placement with that kind of real world practical experience was really useful for me. You know, I didn't have I didn't really have many people in my life who had children. So it was a really useful resource. Like you said, this isn't you're not a burden on the cohort. You're actually a real asset. Yeah I think that too uh yeah I think you get that from everyone on the cohort like everyone brings something slightly different and it just it really enriches that I can think of so many people who are just popping to mind now who I've learned so much from from those little comments in teaching or in that small tutorial group where they've just spoken to their experience of something and it's it's planted a seed that you can draw on later um yeah I love that you're all part of a jigsaw that fits together to

enrich each other's experience definitely and as you were talking I was thinking about maybe there's room here for courses to speak to this in their you know application information about um you know becoming a parent either during training they try to dissuade that quite heavily don't they um but people it does happen you know people will have standard maternity leave within a normal fixed term contract which is training and will get um occupational maternity pay throughout training and it's quite common I think in my experience for at least a couple of people per cohort to have a baby at some point during that three-year fixed period yeah we've had quite a few people I think um in my cohort as well and it really bothers me that there is a strong message where people are dissuaded from doing that um I think

people need to be able to make decisions about their own lives and if it feels like the right time to have a child and there might be so many reasons for that that people should be supported in those decisions um I think you know as it is quite difficult to get onto training and it can take quite a long time, I think that the average age is about 28 and we're talking about often at the moment women. I don't know that people actually consider the impact on people's fertility as well.

I do know people who have had eggs frozen because they've been so worried. I know even more who have looked into it. I myself looked into it and I was put off because the cost is just so high and it's incredibly intrusive. And I think just because you want to get people through a course, like there's like this rule, like I guess throughput must be the main KPI I imagine for NHS education in England but actually yeah we're not just a number we are human beings and if people want to have families and it feels like the right time I think people need to be supported to do that and I guess it is a question that comes up a lot you'll see it on

like the AP groups and what happens if I get pregnant will I get kicked off the course there are these real like I don't I don't think people understand their employment rights that you know you are entitled to maternity leave um you are entitled to five days of carers leave a year you can apply for flexible working some courses I think would support that some probably would not but you know we are able to ask flexible working arrangements yeah thank you for clarifying that and i was trying to reflect on my experience of training um and also my knowledge of having young children and i had my children after i'd qualified but you know i know that when i was working in the nhs there would have to be some flexibility for suddenly you know you suddenly get a call on a Monday saying your child is getting the merit this weekend on Friday

can you come and you're like oh could you not have booked it a bit earlier but then suddenly you know you're due into assembly on Friday to watch them get the merit and I was trying to reflect how that would have been during training and Friday was our teaching day so there really I don't think would have been much flexibility you know they might have said I could have gone late but if it had cropped up on a placement day I think that my placement supervisors were very human so long as it wasn't going to impact too much on the day or if I was going to then work from home a little bit that evening I think it would have been supported because my placement supervisors definitely saw me as a human and they were all parents I think and I think that really helps with the context doesn't it if someone

gets the real struggles about being a parent then they're more willing to be flexible and to yeah to make a bespoke fit for you that helps you and helps the service yeah absolutely um I've also had really wonderful experiences with my supervisors they've all been incredibly supportive and in fact one wasn't a parent but I think she was quite open about that and just really curious and was like I might not understand things please explain them to me but she also I know that she went out and asked her friends who had children and asked people about different experiences of children of a similar age and I valued that so much that she actually took the time to try to to understand what my you know what my context

looks like and and some of the demands that I do have on me um so yeah really excellent experiences i i i do know that that's not universal so i've certainly spoken to people who have had a really rough time trying to negotiate even very small changes like can i work 8 30 to 4 30 instead of 9 to 5 and even when there wasn't a specific service reason why that couldn't happen it's just no we only do nine to five type responses I wonder though if that has changed that was just pre-pandemic so I do wonder if maybe COVID has helped people to think and work more flexibly and to be more okay with flexible working yeah I think um when I was newly qualified I was having to travel like 30 miles each way to get to work and it was central Birmingham which was a nightmare to get in and out of and so um there was flexibility with them allowing me to

work early and giving me a key to get into the building and giving me you know the fire safety codes um to to turn off all the alarms and things and I think if I you know because often you'll need to drop the kids at nursery at a certain time won't you and then be on your way and it just adds that bit extra time so I think do ask for flexibility because if you don't ask you don't know yeah absolutely your supervisor ex-supervisor sounds wonderfully holistic and actually really practicing what we preach with clients but actually it's really important we do that with our colleagues and with our workforce too yeah absolutely and like I said that has been my experience is generally people have been really really supportive and really understanding and alongside my placement supervisors my I think my man we call them a

manager at my training course I think places call them a clinical tutor has been really wonderful as well um really supportive and I think I was made I think before I felt like I would be seen as a burden or I'd be seen as the trainee with extra needs and that's an annoyance to people. I create extra paperwork or need more time or need more meetings or whatever, but I don't think I've ever been made to feel like that. There has been a real just sort of like, yeah, acceptance. You know, I am a person. I do have other needs and actually my role as mother is incredibly important um and people you know are practicing what they

preach um as psychologists that you know attachment and achievement and being there for your children is is crucial it really is it really is But also as a parent myself, I know some, I know it's just a mad ride. It's a mad ride. And training can feel that way as well. And then, of course, it's not just the placements. It's not just the, you know, the teaching days. There's also assignments. How have you found, you know, putting assignments around a your work life, but also your family life yeah it was much easier pre-covid so actually I think for the first six months of my course I think I managed all of them I managed things really well I went in very very organized I did a lot of planning about sort of where I would live I did relocate for the course where my son's nursery was kind of like minimize stress at the beginning and end of the day um and I worked on my assignments very

early so I was like really aware that he could get sick you know a week before an assignment is due so I just started everything early and I really made very good use of all of my time. So I think I finished my first assignment about two or three months early I you know and that was working really well and then COVID came and I actually became very ill. I got COVID sort of before the first lockdown. I got long COVID. I also have some chronic health problems and they're sort of all interacted and I became quite poorly um so I've sort of been managing that alongside as well and and what it ended up meaning is I had to really evaluate what I could do so what were my what were these balls that I have in the air and which

one's a glass and which one's a rubber and I decided that my placement was a glass ball you know I had to really do the right thing by my clients and by my services and focus on that work obviously my child my family was a glass ball and these balls that can't drop it and I guess assignments became the balls that could drop and I just had some really open conversations with my manager and all of my deadlines were moved to places that felt more manageable. So I haven't been working at the same rate as other people. I have more time to complete my assignments. It's really hard to say. That really has been framed around my health.

And I'm not sure how it would be framed if it was purely from a parenting perspective. I suspect that I would be supported to move deadlines because of parenting, maybe not to the same extent. It is quite difficult to say. So yeah, basically I haven't kept up with my assignments is the short answer I'm getting there but um do you tend to use your study days to do your assignments or is your little boy perhaps during COVID your little boy was there all the time I don't know what the agreement was

with your nursery some some just shut didn't they yes his nursery did shut um but for a few weeks for a few weeks we did this ridiculous system where like my husband and I would work between like 5 a.m and 8 p.m so we both got a full day of working and like did child care amongst it but fortunately we got him into a hub nursery um but it was you know 40 minute drive away we were doing like an hour and a half driving each per day to get him into some child care so we were very fortunate in that sense we didn't completely lose child care um so yeah i use my study days really effectively i you know it is my free time he is in child care i need to get things done and i think i think that was one of the things

about being a parent is that you really one of the challenges a loss of flexibility you know you can't just work whenever you want whenever suits you whenever you feel like it or you some motivation kicks in you have to work at set times you know around child care and um in some ways that's really helpful though I think it does mean that I procrastinate less. I get more things done in the blocks of time that I have because I know it will feed into my time with my son and that is huge motivation to just get things done. I don't want to be locked in an office all weekend ignoring him.

I want to spend my weekends with him. So there are pros and cons to it definitely definitely um is there anything that i haven't asked you that you think would be useful for us to talk about or anything to add in any of the areas that we've spoken about i guess maybe we could speak a little bit through maybe some of the like the pros and cons of of parenting i don't know if that might help during the decline it might maybe bring it to life a little bit for people um who are thinking about having a child yeah so i think maybe please do yes i guess maybe for me i think the pros there are so many pros

that that are sort of i never envisaged and i think one of them is just how much joy that is brought into my life from having a child um and the love and to you know be met with cuddles and have someone in your life who's just so happy to see you um it's really nice and I think how play forces you to be very mindful and very present it pulls you away from your worries I spend a lot of time stomping in puddles and looking at aeroplanes and animals and flowers. And I just think it's really good for my mental health and it's really good to pull me away from the stresses of the doctorate perhaps.

I guess I've already spoken a bit about time management and how that helps me there. But I think maybe also it really brings theories to life for me. So, for instance, attachment theory, I've always, it's not that complicated to understand, but I think when you have it right in front of you, it sort of, you know, you can see like what achievement looks like. This is, I'm attuned to my child right now.

And you can see how like separation anxiety and things play out It brings like developmental Psychology to life it you know, I always forget like the milestone in the stages and now I don't they're right there in front of me And perhaps it helps me a little bit with Placement, but you know working with families I remember when I worked in the neurodevelopmental assessment service always being like quite puzzled why parents couldn't remember milestones like when did your child first speak through the night they had no idea or when they uttered their first word and so like how do you not know this it's like

well now I know why they don't know this. Very, a lot happens in that time. It's perhaps appropriate for me to now disclose that the tooth fairy did forget to come in our house last night. Like, you know, it matters very much at that moment. But then a split second later, you're on to doing something else and you just forget. And yeah, sometimes you do drop those balls. And I love the idea of your rubber balls and glass balls I hadn't heard of that before but I'm going to keep that but yeah I'm hoping that the tooth fairy doesn't turn out to be a glass ball and that's we're going to be able to repair that

rupture this evening ongoing consequences for forgetting but it is this it's like the fallibility of parents and I think when you're like camps, maybe, and you're thinking about homework tasks that parents are supporting children with, really being able to hold in mind what everyone's experience is obviously different, but having an idea of some of the demands that might be on that parent and why they might not be able to support that child with that task. You know, and it's like all those things. You don't need an experience to understand it but i think it

certainly helps perhaps um so there's some of the positives and i definitely you know some of the we do this thing when we go to bed each one i'm not going to bed my kids are what's the favorite part of your day and what was the least favorite part of the day and the kids both do theirs and then they'll ask me um and sometimes they all say what's the funniest part of your day and you're like oh god i really didn't have a very funny day today you know but it does force you to look for that gratitude you know and to look for the things that we could make different tomorrow and the things we could strive to do better better um or in a different way and i really love that you know um just some of my joyful moments will be when my little boys like really in my face and the other

day we were talking about teeth and how white my little boy's like really in my face and the other day we were talking about teeth and how white my little boy's teeth are because they're like super white aren't they and he goes mummy you've got beautiful golden teeth and I'm like oh you know they think they're being really nice actually like we basically say and I've got yellow teeth thanks kid but you know just adorable adorable love and you know like you said they're so pleased to see you make a cheer when you walk through the door yeah I basically do have a little cheerleader who follows I love your jumper mummy you are so kind you're my favorite person I love you like you know it's wonderful absolutely oh oh they do grow up they do grow up but um I've got two boys and they're both still very cuddly at the age of eight and almost six.

They're adorable. But it is tricky. It's not all a bed of roses. Should we perhaps think about some of the difficult patches of parenting? I will just chuck in there the concept of sleep. And I'm just gonna let you get on with that well actually before I jump on that could I add one more positive because I think it's one that slipped my mind but I think of course you can and I think it's my mind because it's the absence of something and I think for me it's the absence of the distress I was feeling about not being a parent yet and this is this sense of like my life will start after my life was after I get on to training or my life was after I qualify and sort of always waiting for the future to have the

things that you want and I think I don't experience that distress anymore and it was very consuming so I think I have a child and I'm on training I've sort of got my cake and I got to eat it too and um and that for me is probably the biggest positive actually that's so important thank you so much for for including that it is it's exhausting when you're trying to make a decision isn't it and it can consume all of your thoughts um so yeah it's really important and like you said you know it probably can take an average from graduating undergrad to starting clinical training about seven or eight years but that places you at least 28 27 you know 29 maybe and like you said that really is a key window in infertility

journeys for for people and so it is a big deal um it's not really something I'd thought about until until this interview um I started the course single actually um and met my partner in the second week of the second year and so you know we got through it and then got married and then had a baby like a year later but if I'd met him a few years before then it might well have been the right time to have a child during training yeah I sort of do hope that by having these conversations it's something that people might hold in mind a little bit more or because I can see why people wouldn't think about that so hopefully yeah it's just sort of a discussion that can start being had a little bit more yeah I think it's really important should we think about some

of the some of the some of the drawbacks or some of the negative yeah the tricky parts exactly that i mean sleep is a big one isn't it i i'm quite lucky in that i have had a child who does sleep quite well um but you know it's not consistent and I think maybe the thing that struck me the most, even in all of my planning, I was not aware that when small children attend nursery for the first time, they basically need to develop an immune system. So he was immune to nothing. And for the first six months, I'm not exaggerating when I say

he got a cold either every week or every second week he was always sick um and there were minor illnesses um but what it does mean is when you see it disrupts his sleep he can be just a little bit miserable um but also i don't have the best immune system so i was probably picked up every second cold that he had so I was also perpetually sick for six months um and again they were quite low level I think one or two developed into infections but you know but it is exhausting to sort of be unwell for such a long period of time parenting is hard enough without a cough that keeps them awake all night you know oh my gosh and and no like the gag reflex he coughs and he vomits and then he cries and that happens a lot

there's a lot of like late night laundry um and late night baths um i think just children are just so unpredictable aren't they because there's the illness but there's just other things crop up there they go through different state developmental stages they go through sleep regressions um and it just happens when you you don't expect it and there is never a good time you know people like oh it was a bad time for that to happen there is never a good time in your training for something to go wrong with your child there will always be clinical work or important teaching or that important MRP meeting or something um so it's just this constant juggling there's a real um cognitive workload and an emotional workload that sort of goes with that you're constantly

rejuggling your schedule and your priorities and having to explain things to people and reschedule things and you know it can be really exhausting um i think for me there have been huge there have been quite big issues with child care so even even that he could stay in child care um throughout covid i don't know if people are aware there's been a huge impact on the early years sector. COVID and Brexit has meant a mass loss of staff. There are lots of vacancies, and for me that means that they have room closures really often.

So probably there's been a period where nursery will just close for a day a week or every second week and I'm left with no childcare and I'm very fortunate my husband has a very flexible job so he he picks that up when that happens and I guess other people might have wider family who could support them but I think being aware that childcare isn't as consistent as you might think it is um and again that's just a last minute juggle let's um change our priorities have you been able to form much of a mummy or parenting network around you because i know that your parents are likely in australia and the idea of raising my children without um you know family around would be very very tricky for me how's that been for you it has been very

very tricky um so yeah I don't have any immediate family in England um and even my extended family are far away um and neither does my husband so it really is just the two of us um and because I relocated from the course I also moved away from my mother's group. I moved away from some very close friends who were the people that I relied on last minute for support. And then even throughout COVID, you know, we didn't have a bubble. It was literally just the two of us with our son. So, no, there aren't people I can call on last minute. So I kind of during the pandemic, there was a time where we were isolating my son had a really high temperature we were nearly out of cow pole there was a shortage in the shops around us and I was like I cannot get cow pole I can have no one I can call

who can bring me cow pole and it was so it was really hard um so I don't know that I'd recommend that I think thinking carefully about relocation and where you live and who is around you, because having people around is really important. And I think in my mind, I thought I'd be able to make those links after I moved. But then of course the pandemic happened and I couldn't embed myself in my community I couldn't um make those friends so I guess I'm only just starting to do that now I would say you haven't got that currently but my experience of you know being in a primary school is that I really hope you'll have that soon um so I am part of a year four group and a year one group um which is

kind of it formed off the back of a birthday party actually someone had put together a birthday party list for the mums on whatsapp and after that we decided to just all stay on it and it's been invaluable and also chats at the school gates and stuff has been really useful from preschool onwards that they've been in the same school but um I have honestly made friends and people that definitely you know during COVID as well do you need anything if people have been ill I'll drop it around to you you know I'll do this I'll go to the shops I'm going anyway and then all these like school collections that happen oh we're going to send stuff to the Ukraine and I was um off sick with um a sickness bug and I was like I can't get to the supermarket and someone else was well, I'll buy nappies for you.

And I'll drop them into school and just ping me the money on PayPal. And actually, it does take a community to raise a child. And I personally have found that I've really built an important community in the other school parents, not even just the mums. There's dads that have been really important in that as well. So I really hope that with your little boy about to start school that you'll have some of that and you'll find some really supportive tribe members yourself thank you that is my hope as well and I guess we're just starting to do a little bit with preschool and now that like the room is like the nursery is just open for the first time we just allowed back in and you can already sort of feel those differences um so yeah that is that is my hope it would be wonderful

um I guess one other thing that perhaps I wanted to speak to a little bit is I think that I hadn't anticipated going on to training with a child is actually how different I felt and how it felt a very very lonely place to be I think initially and I really didn't anticipate it because I think for my life I've always been around parents. In my undergrad I had friends with children. In all of my work I've always been people with parents, who were parents, sorry, my masters, everywhere.

And then you sort of get onto training and it's just sort of like there are no parents here. I had a very large cohort of I think 44 and there was one other parent um but just one amongst 44 and having her was invaluable I think um however her children were a lot older so there are still differences there and I think going into that space and uh I just I think I felt very alone um and I think I felt very alone and I think I felt very misunderstood. And, like, there was a huge part of my identity that maybe I wasn't invited or wasn't, yeah, included perhaps.

And that's, you know, everyone on my cohort, they're lovely people. I love everyone on my cohort. It wasn't, it's not about individual people. I think it is just about the way that the declin is positioned and framed. And, you know, not being able to always go out for drinks when people go out because you have other responsibilities or if people are going, you know, having a picnic on the weekend, being like, well, I don't think I can make that work. And, yeah, I really wasn't prepared for that.

So, but I think there is something about owning your position and I think if I were more confident in that, I could have brought more of myself and I could have felt more authentic and I could have felt less lonely. So it's certainly a challenge. I think it is something that can be overcome if people are sort of more confident in in that position it's very important and I'm imagining that picnic you know they might have said oh you could bring him along but also having been on a picnic with young

children you would spend most of your time going and looking at the ducks and you know going and going and looking at things in the far corner of the field. And that would not be relaxing and it wouldn't be enriching for you because everyone else would be having a lovely time and you'd just be off, you know, doing something different. And so it's not always that you can, you know, enmesh the two. Yeah, that's true. Although I think, I don't know, you'll just find people though who enable you to do that you'll find the

friend who will walk with and look at the ducks with you or you know the friends who can come over and happily sit with you in your bathroom while you bathe your child and chat or while you're cooking dinner and I think it's about finding your people but maybe it's also you're so right actually yeah my um my husband started a new job on our little boys, our only child at the time, his first birthday. And I was just really upset about that because he was off training for like a whole week. But it was a member of my cohort who came around

and did exactly that, did a bath, did cake with me. And, you know, bought him a little present. And, you know, you absolutely can find your tribe during training as well even if they don't have parents she didn't have parents didn't have children at the time um so yeah i think that's a really a really valid point so thank you for making it rose yeah and maybe people who are listening who aren't yet parents but maybe if you you end up on training this year like maybe it could be something that you think about like maybe you could seek out the parent maybe you could invite the parent to the picnic

and go and look at the ducks with them and maybe or invite them to the pub which is easier if you have a very small child baby but maybe people could hold that in mind a little bit that would be nice um it really would it really would it feels like i could talk to you all day because there's so much of this it feels like we need to do like a special extended edition for all these factors because there's so much um so much important stuff um i just wanted to say a big thank you to um your your your university for allowing you to come and speak so openly today because it's it's an invaluable conversation to have yeah yeah thank you so much for having me I have really enjoyed doing it um yeah and I am very grateful to my university and I don't know that I've sort of I did give you

permission to speak today but and I am I have had a really good experience with them they have been very very supportive and um yeah I guess I would really encourage people to think very carefully about what course they do apply to and if at interview if it does feel right for them. And I think there's a real pressure just like if I get an offer, I just have to accept it. But just really thinking about like will these people, will this course support me to get through

it so that I have a reasonable time and will they support me to be able to be the parent that I want to be as well alongside these you know the big demands of training definitely definitely thank you so much for your time today Rose and I'd like to wish you all the very best with completing your thesis completing your final placement and of course finding employment once all of this is over but also you know with your parenting journey and any future children that you might want to have as well. I hope that you you know hope that you do really well in whatever it is you want to do. Thank you so much yeah and thank you for yeah inviting me here and yeah for opening up conversation. And I hope more conversations are had in the future.

Thank you so much. It was through a chat on Instagram, I think, wasn't it, that we connected. But thank you so much for being so generous with your time and talking with us about these really important factors. I'm wishing you all the best. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. It has been such a pleasure to chat with Rose. And yeah, I hope that you have found it useful and it's resonated with you, either because you are a parent or you perhaps know some people who are parents or maybe, you know, this will be useful for your own training journey ahead, either to become a parent or to start training when you've got children or to help optimally support and include any parents on your future cohort. Thank you so much for being part of my world.

Please do take a moment to rate and review this show or this podcast more generally on the Apple podcast, which you can do by scrolling right down to the bottom of the show, right below episode one and below the trailer episode. And then you will spot the rate and review section. To do that takes you a moment, but helps me so much to help demonstrate that what we do in this podcast really matters and is really useful if you really really like the podcast you can also make a donation to help cover the costs and the details of that are in my link tree in the show notes there are details in the show notes as well of Rose's clinical um but I do believe that um it is entirely possible um to successfully have children on other courses too so um let's not massively stack out their applications next

year if you are a parent um but yeah wishing you well wherever you are and stay kind to yourself take care if you're looking to become a psychologist then let this be your guide with this podcast that's your side you'll be on your way to being qualified it's the aspiring psychologist with dr. Marianne Trent. My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the

different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me of confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay but trust me you will not put the book down once you start.