TONTS. - Play Therapy with Felicity Odgers

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

My guest today is a very good pal of mine Felicity Odgers. Flick was a primary school teacher and is now a qualified play therapist with a masters from Deakin University. Flick and I team taught many years ago in a remote community in the Kimberlys, working with a very special group of first nations children. What I learnt from Flick and her approach to working with little people has been invaluable not only in my career as an educator but especially as a parent. We talk today about the power of play and of rest, about co-regulation, about how to build trust and safety with our kids and so much more. If you are a parent especially I think you'll get so much out of this conversation but also so much of what we discuss can also be applied to us as humans in general.For more about play therapy you can head to the Play Therapy Association at https://appta.org.au/For more information for parents about Play Therapy: https://www.bapt.info/play-therapy/info-parents/ Additional resources:The Goodbye Book by Todd ParrThe Memory Tree by Brita TeckentrupSomething Very Sad Happened by Bonnie ZuckerThe Grief Wave by Trace MoroneyThe Tiny Star by Mem FoxThe Invisible String (a book for children about grief)Dr Becky Good Inside (lovely parenting advice & child appropriate language to use)Play Matters with Dr Kathy WalkerFlick’s favourite parenting books:No Bad Kids by Janet LandsburyThe Whole Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Bryson Attachment Play by Aletha SolterFor more from Claire you can head to www.clairetonti.com or @clairetonti on instagramYou can email the show at [e-mail] credits:Editing - RAW Collings and Claire TontiTheme music - Avocado Junkie Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, this is Tons, a podcast of in-depth interviews about our emotional lives. Lives? Lives. Maybe lives is right. Anyway, it's hosted by me, Claire Tonti, and each week I talk to writers, thinkers, activists, and experts, and deeply feeling humans about their stories. Now, this week I'm bringing you a special treat. I have a friend of mine, Felicity Odgers, who I think is just wonderful, and particularly

for people who are parenting little humans. Now, Flick is a qualified play therapist with a master's from Deakin University, and she is an incredible advocate for the play therapy community. Aside from that, though, I met Flick in another life when I was teaching. Now we shared a classroom together up north in the Kimberleys working with First Nations kids. It was a really full on time. These kids were super special and I think my favourite part of all of it was that I learnt so much and was so humbled by the way Flick worked with these kids. So to give you some context, back in time, I was maybe 25 and I came to the community with all of these resources and data and all these things I'd learned at university about the way that kids learn and,

you know, all the assessments that I could do and the things that I could tick off. And I just needed to go in there with all of this, you know, knowledge. And I just kind of shoved it into these kids and we'd work really hard together and we'd get our literacy rates going and everything would be fine. And within the first five minutes of being in that classroom, I really understood just how far out of my depth I was really. And what an expert Flick was. She has an ability to speak to kids and really understand the way that they think. And I think part of it is innate and part of it is also the way that she learned to teach working in communities that were very culturally different from her own. And I think she quickly taught me the power of connection and relationship when you're trying

to teach kids and to reach kids. And really, I think that extends even to our own selves and our own people in our lives to get things across. Building that sense of trust between people is so powerful. And also humour, the ability to make kids laugh, I think, is something that Flick has in spades. And actually the biggest thing she taught me, which may sound surprising, is the power of rest. So Flick would do this thing where in the afternoons, she would just basically put the whole room of five-year-olds who love to cartwheel over desks and, I don't know,

sing and dance and be super loud and active. She just put them all to sleep with this incredible singing bowl that she has. And on the surface, you may think, well, you know, should kids really be napping during the day in a prep classroom? And my answer is absolutely yes. I think we could all do with a lot of rest. Now, these kids particularly had come from quite complex intergenerational trauma in many instances, and they had kind of complex home lives for lots of different reasons. And that kind of came into the classroom. And Flick taught me that really the biggest thing that we can do rather than seeing these kids as

sort of little machines that we needed to get outputs from, what we needed to do was have high expectations of them and have structure and routine, but also develop relationships with them, see them as little human beings who just needed what they needed in the moment. And I think in general, that's a problem, right, with our culture and our society that we almost see ourselves and each other as like little productivity machines that just need to keep outputting all the time, right? And that's so damaging for our hearts, for our heads, for the people in our lives, and ultimately for our planet as we're seeing. So I wanted to talk to

Flick about that today, about the power of play as well. And if you haven't thought about play before as something vital for your kids and for yourself as well, I really encourage you to listen to this conversation. Learning about play through Flick and then through another guru, Kathy Walker, just completely opened my mind to how important it is that we give kids space and time to just play, to experiment, to stretch themselves and test their limits and their boundaries and explore by themselves different scenarios, but also with each other. And we see it in the animal kingdom all the time. And there's so many flow on effects for the ability for kids to grow and learn and trust themselves, both physically as well as mentally.

And so really, if I took anything away from this conversation, it was just a huge reminder that we all need to be resting and playing more as much as we can, I think, and allowing our kids the space to do that as well. All right. So back to Felicity Odgers. Here she is. I can't wait to share this conversation with you. Hello. Hi, Claire. How are you going? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. We're all panicking because we have conversations all the time, but actually having them on a microphone is totally different. Yeah. It's the equipment that's getting me.

I'm going to put that aside. We walked in and she was like, well, this looks way too professional. It's very professional. It's really nice. It's in the backyard next to our veggie patch. It's fine. You have come in this morning and said something really beautiful already, which you always do because you drop so many wisdom bombs all the time.

I leave your house and I'm always like, I'm a better person now. Oh, you're too kind. That's very lovely, Claire. I'm not sure. No, it's so true. So you've brought an Acknowledgement to Country in today, which I thought was so beautiful that I would love you to read it. Yes, I came across this Acknowledgement the other day,

so I thought it would be great. So we acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of the land and waters across Australia in which we share. We pay our respects to elders past and present and to the children who are the leaders of tomorrow. We recognise and accept their culture as the oldest continuous living culture in the world and that their sovereignty has never been ceded. That is so beautiful. Yeah, I thought that was a good one. Why did you bring that in?

Why was that important? Well, I guess thinking about, well, thinking about the importance of doing that in a public way, but also thinking about our relationship and how we met in a remote community. I just thought it would be a really great beginning and framing a way of thinking about how we meet together in that way. I know, yeah, because we met, we won't sort of say the exact community, but we did meet, well, we met before that, didn't we, actually? We met through our partners because they were teaching together.

Yeah. So we met through teaching and then we taught up north. I roped Claire into coming. There was a lot of roping in, but I'm really glad that you came up. It was so cool. It was, it was a lot, but I just learned so much. Do you want to explain a little bit about why you got into teaching in the first place? That was your first sort of career. Yes. So, well, I guess in my twenties, I was just a little bit of a blowing around tumbleweed sort of mindset and having no idea where to go and sort of stumbled across teaching as something that appealed to me.

And as a graduate teacher, I made the decision to go remote to the Central Australia at first and then across to the Kimberley where I worked with Claire. And it was a really amazing experience. But looking back, I have got a lot of thoughts and how it has taught me a lot and it has led me on a bit of a professional journey, I'd say, to where I am now. Yeah. So working with Claire in the northern part of the country, in the Kimberley, I got to share a classroom with her and we team taught for a whole year, didn't we, Claire? We did. Well, you, yeah. Okay. So to put it in context, Flick was very experienced as a teacher working in remote communities in that way. And I came in with all of these ideas about how I should do it and really was super humbled to watch her work

because the kids we were working with had experienced a lot of trauma, really, hadn't they? And had some difficult backgrounds, I guess, but also such beautiful, rich experiences too. Do you want to talk into that a little bit about your approach in teaching and how that informs the way you practice, I guess, in the classroom? Okay. I sort of came to it with you in the same way. I had all of my teaching resources. I was really gung-ho. I was like, yes, let's do this. It's so exciting, full of hope and really positive expectations. And I guess the first term there, I realised how underqualified I was really and underskilled. And I had to do a lot of learning and growing on the spot. And so I spent

five years teaching remote. Yeah, it made me think about teaching in a whole new way, because obviously teaching is much more than just delivering the curriculum. And children are much more than just learning machines. And the Aboriginal children that I worked with in both those communities really showed me that they needed a lot of care and a lot of support and a lot of, I guess, meeting them in a different space than what I was prepared for as a graduated teacher on my way to the outback. Yeah. Yeah.

What do you mean by meeting them in that space? Well, I had to sort of really reflect on my own skills levels. I quickly found out that I needed to shift my focus from just purely teaching, like expecting the children to be able to sit and listen and I'm going to develop a lesson plan and that's going to go smoothly and, you know, tick off the assessment. Everything's great. I had to take it back to like the humanistic level and see them as whole people, whole children with really rich backgrounds. Like some of the children that I taught could speak five languages and here's little old me like trying to read a book in standard Australian English. Yeah, so seeing them as bringing a lot of their own skills and ways of looking at

the world, I think a lot of the time I learnt a lot more than they did in that learning environment. Yeah, completely. Yeah. So, and I just, it did lead me to think about just our education system in general, and even working in mainstream skills in Melbourne, just seeing there's a bit of a gap in the way that we approach educating children and also what we know about neuroscience and child development and how children do develop in relationship to other people and how we have to honour the relationships firstly before we can expect to bring about any sort of teaching or healing. So that's where I was at. Where did you see a change with the kids in the way that you structured the classroom? So what was some things that worked really well

with the kids you were teaching within remote that were different from maybe what you had expected in your training? Well, a sense of humility, as I said, approaching the community as knowing that this was not my community and that I don't have the answers. So bringing about like a sense of curiosity and wonder, stepping into that classroom, finding relationships that could be used to work together to learn more about the children and the families. And which is something interesting was I had to lean into letting the children rest. I guess that probably came from our own unconscious hustle culture. Like, you know, we have to be productive. We have to get through these readers, we have to get this assessment done, we have to prove that we're hitting these outcomes in this curriculum, when really there was not a lot of value in doing that when there was, you know, greater things

going on in the community that meant the children were exhausted or that I was exhausted. Yeah, so being able to pivot that and park my own unconscious need to produce things and really embrace rest. Like I know at the end of most lunch times was rest, like sleep. Yeah, and your ability to put a whole room of really out there, busy kids, like super loud, cartwheeling over desks, kind of incredibly vibrant kids, just to sleep with a singing bowl. I was very dedicated to that.

But I tried to do it when you went there and it just never went to plan. There was always someone swinging from something and someone else climbing over a desk and you would come in and just put a spell on them. No. It was amazing. It's the singing bowl. Yeah.

Yeah, it was just that sound. Yeah, exactly. So I guess at the start, I would be a little bit fearful, like if somebody walked into the classroom now, they would think that I'm being slack or they think that I'm not, you know, doing my job properly. But I guess it's having the courage to take those layers off and meet the children where they are and the needs of where they are and you know rest was the most important need at that point and you know at other times connection was the most important need or playfulness was something that needed to happen so I guess it was finding creative ways to weave all of those things into the curriculum. Yeah, but oftentimes just having to park it.

Yeah, right. And things weren't going to go the way we thought they would go and rolling with that. Yeah. And do you think also being a consistent person too in just the routine of all of that, just consistently this is what we do in the morning, this is how we do it. Yeah, definitely. And I think that what we know about the way children develop and how their brains develop, it's really about consistency and building that sense of trust. And, you know, communities that have experienced really real traumas and intergenerational traumas, there is a difficulty

to trust because, you know, they've seen people cycle in and cycle out and it's good to hold that and realise that the work has to be done in building that relationship and that trust before anything else can happen, I think. Yeah. and on that, in I guess a more general way, from your experience now, because you're a qualified play therapist as well, you said before that your experiences in teaching in Indigenous communities informed that. Why did you choose to pivot from teaching into play therapy? Well, I guess there were so many times in the classroom, both remote and in Melbourne,

I have to say, in mainstream schools, where it was just, it seemed so obvious to me that there was this huge chasm between how to be with the children and what we're trying to do to the children. So I think a lot of the time in schools, there's a focus on trying to do a lot, really. There's so much now. Too much. Too much. And we put a lot onto children and that I guess I was really interested in finding a way of working with children where the onus isn't on having the child having to change like a top-down approach. I really wanted to see if there was a way that you could work with children where they're all honoured as individuals

and that we trust children to grow in a way that's right for them and in a more therapeutic way really because sometimes in schools I was seeing that children needed therapy. The relationship is with the teacher a lot of the time. Children are with the teachers a lot of time. However, teachers are not trained therapists. So I know in my experience I've had children bring things to the classroom like their house is burnt down

or their parents have been separated or even lost. Like there was tragically a death of a student where we worked together, Claire. And as you remember, we were just sort of briefed and said, okay, here's your, you know, classroom of four to six-year-olds who are from a different culture, who are grieving, who have a lot of cultural practices, go. Like, you know, like hold that. So it was my journey to get more skills for myself, but I also want to work to see a little bit more therapeutic systems

in place at schools because that's where the relationships are and the kids are coming to the teachers with this stuff and it would just be wonderful if we knew how to respond in a therapeutic way. So that led me to think about, well, what is therapy for children? And I came across the Masters of Play Therapy course from Deakin, which is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful course, and it honestly changed my life. And I just feel very grateful that I found this job. I just never could believe that I would find a job for me.

You knew me when I was younger and I often just did a lot of musings of like, what are we doing? So play therapy really fits with the way that I see how children should connect with the people around them and, yeah. How did it change your life? That's a big statement. Well, I surprisingly loved to study, which is something I never thought about myself.

I thought I was just like, type out the assignments and get this done. But, yeah, going through Deakin and really connecting with the lecturers there and also the people that were my colleagues now, it was just a whole new ballgame. It was people meeting in a heart-centred way, teaching in a heart-centred way, which is what I wanted to learn from, and just being part of an emerging industry in Australia and being able to speak in forums like this about this way of working with children

that's really exciting to me because I can see the power of it and the benefits that it can bring. What is play therapy for people who are sitting there thinking, I have never heard that before, I don't know what she means, I understand what therapy is and I thought I understood what play is and I didn't really understand what play was until we worked out in the Indigenous community and I did some sort of really eye-opening and heart-opening study, I guess, and discussion.

I learned so much from you about it too. So what is play therapy? Okay. Well, yes, play therapy is, it's a form of psychotherapy really. So it's working with play and toys as a way of delivering healing and growth. And it's really appropriate for children, but you can do play therapy across a lifespan. But usually we see children into play therapy

because it's really specifically amazing for them. And the way that it works is it's in relationship with the therapist. So the therapist builds a relationship with the child through play. And in this safe space, the child is able to express themselves purely through the play. So it's different to counselling or to other psychological approaches, which are very top down with the brain in that it's trying to teach you to think about your thinking and giving you strategies and trying to get you to verbalise what's going on in your inner worlds. And if anyone that's had a child and asked them how they are or how they're

feeling, it's really hard to, it's hard for them to verbalise. They don't have the words. So they're at a unique stage of their development. So play affords them a language. They can play things out rather than having to talk it out, if that makes sense. Yeah. And the play therapist is important in that as well, because they, the person that is able to connect with them and essentially sort of read that play that they're bringing in order to bring about the healing or the processing that that child needs. So it's really a great and it's evidence-based, I should put it. It's really evidence-based and effective form of psychotherapy that's really appropriate because it doesn't require them to have to speak. And a lot of the time, and I'm going to say like almost all of the time,

children love coming to play therapy because it's safe for them. It's a safe place. It's playful and it's not a place where they have to confront things that are too scary for them. Play affords them that distance, you know. And what do you define as play? Because it opened my mind so much in understanding this. Yeah. Well, it is difficult to define, isn't it? So, you know, a lot of

academics have tried to define play. And I guess we all think we know play when we've all played as children, hopefully. It's something that is a little bit nuanced, I guess. So for me, I like to think of play as something that is child-directed, so something that the child engages in willingly and spontaneously and for the process of enjoyment and connecting and, you know, processing the world around them. So it can look like a lot of things, I suppose, and there's a lot of different types of play and a lot of, you know, toys that facilitate different sort of things about play.

Yeah, in a simple sense, for me it has to be something that is child-directed. I don't think it can really be considered play if an adult has directed the child to do something or play something, yeah. Yeah. And why is it important in general, even outside of a play therapy context, why is it so important that we allow kids to play? Well, for starters, it's like a human right. So it's in the rights of the convention and rights of the child

that, you know, they have the right to play. And I guess it's in there because it's the child's innate need. It's the way a child connects to the world and to the people around them. So taking that away from them would be really devastating to their development. Like they wouldn't be able to process the things that are happening. They wouldn't be able to learn about themselves. It wouldn't be fun, which is something that children need to have fun. Yeah. And it's a way of communicating. So it's a way a child can express themselves.

And is it also sort of being able to risk take in a kind of safe setting and develop social skills and negotiation skills as well? Yeah, definitely. With their peers and exploring the world in a way. I mean, I remember watching a lecture about how animals play as well, you know, puppies, small babies, all kind of different animals will play to kind of test out their limits and work out the world around them. Yeah. And it's really cathartic as well. Like I know I've spoken to parents before, especially about rough and tumble play that can be especially triggering for adults. Or, you know, some more aggressive play can be quite confronting. I think, you know,

without an understanding about what's actually happening for that child, parents can worry like, oh, they're going to be aggressive. They're going to, oh no, they're, you know, they might want to play with weapons when they're older. There's a lot of worry that comes in. And I guess, you know, in reference to the rough and tumble play, I think sometimes people say, well, you know, they're trying to negotiate. You set these ground rules and two seconds later, one of them's crying.

I guess it's holding that space of like, well, that one needed to cry. You know, maybe that one, there's something going on for them and they needed a reason to get this energy out. And rough and tumble play is a great way of being a catalyst to getting that emotion out. So instead of, I guess, looking at the problem being the emotion or the outburst or the, you know, the tears that happen, kind of meeting it with a trust in the child and allowing that play to have that space and being there to support that child through that emotion that was probably going to come out anyway

in another way, you know, it had to happen. Yeah, I think that's so valuable because I know that's a worry. I speak to parents about it and I worry about that too, that our kids gravitate towards battles just constantly all of the time. Yeah. And also the battle between good and evil and testing their limits in that way. Why do they do that? Why do they constantly want to battle?

Well, I think it's very evident that you have a six-year-old boy. Yeah. I'm correct. I'm getting a real like six-year-old vibe here. Yeah, completely. Absolutely. It's typical developmental behaviour and the battling, I guess, it's really great to sort of think about how play can allow the unconscious to come out. And children, in a

sense, are very powerless by nature. You know, they don't have a lot of agency over their situation at all. Really, they get told a lot of what they need to do and how to do it. And in play, they get to try on something bigger. They can try on that powerful role and they can control the battle. They can play it out. So it's a little bit allowing them to grow in that sense, allowing them to try on values that they want. They might want to be a heroic person.

They might want to, you know, just sense what it could be like to be a villain. You know, it's fun and it's safe for them to do that. So I would really recommend just in a safe way, obviously, there needs to be boundaries for safety, but allowing children to have that powerful feeling of being in a battle or like showing you what it's like as a child. Yeah.

Battles are okay. All right, cool. And Chasey, because the other thing they love is if you're a monster, right, and you're chasing them. What's that about? Why do kids love that, do you think? Well, as a play therapist, we kind of hold all possibilities. So it can be a lot about a lot of things.

And I guess using your relationship with your child to wonder about that. So you could be like, oh, you know, what's happening for my child today that I really need to be this monster? It could be a little insight into their world. And of course, you're never going to know the exact reason. Like your little six-year-old boy is not going to be like, well, I had a hard day at school and I feel like I'm being chased by an impending force. Like it's not going to be something that he's going to be able to articulate, but just the act of him doing that and seeing like, you know, here is this force

that's chasing me and I've gotten away and I'm safe. That's really quite powerful and therapeutic. So, yeah, keep playing. Keep being the monster, Claire. Good. I'm honing my skills. I'm honing my skills, definitely. Exactly right. And I guess that's interesting because sometimes when parents come to me,

there is like a hesitation, like I don't want to play wrong. I don't want to mess it up. Like we're learning about the importance of play so there's a bit of a trepidation like what if I play the monster incorrectly and I will traumatise them from life. That is just a constant parental fear. I'm just going to traumatise my child forever. Yeah, that's just baseline.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's what we all worry about. Yes. Well, I guess, rest assured, in play, there's not that worry. There's a distance because, you know, you're not a monster. You're actually a mum playing a monster. So there's that safety there. Yeah. And I guess to be able to engage with your child in play, if it's hard, sometimes it is hard. We've got a lot going on. A good thing that has kind of worked for me is just reflecting on your own, you know, your own play abilities and your own history with play, how you played as a child, you know, what were some things that you enjoyed doing? If your child is someone that plays very differently for how you played, well, of course it's going to be difficult to meet them

and play with them in that way. So it's kind of allowing you like just that space to be like, oh, this is just like a different way of being, a different relationship that I can grow into as well. I don't have to come into this space as a play therapist or as someone that's trying to play correctly. You can actually just be playful and let your child lead and have some really beautiful moments that way. Yeah, that's beautiful advice. You said something really

important to me the other day about how you've come to a realisation that play therapy is wonderful, but that also part of what you think is important is that parents have their own therapy, I guess. And do you want to talk into that? Yeah. So as part of my role as a play therapist, I can work with families as well, which is a really great and powerful way of working with, you know, families in general but also as a way of getting the whole system to change for that child which is really beautiful. But I also have and just noticing through my work with families, a lot of the time parents need support and, you know, children will come to me and they're like typical developing children,

you know, they're great, of course. But it might be mum is feeling anxious or mum has had trauma and is trying to support their child. But really the support needs to happen around the parents. So I think there's sometimes a bit of a viewpoint that everybody's operating separately, like there's the mum and then there's the child. And if we want the child to change, well, we help the child and the child changes.

And it's sort of really looking through it through like a pinhole and if we like take that away and see that there's like a whole cog in this system and that it all works together and really honouring that parents are the absolute experts of their children and imperative to their children's lives and caregivers, of course, not just parents, then I think that really opens up a much richer way of working with families. Yeah. So I'd like to, that's, I'd like to really focus on that in my next part of my career is to like, I never thought I'd really be focused on working with adults I

kind of want to be like in the playroom with the puppets I love the miniatures and but she's so good at it as well just you're so good I even I remember we came over to visit you and sometimes you'll just put toys out and the adults will sit there and play it's. She's just got the most incredible toys. I have a lot of toys. I know. Miniatures. I know. I've actually, yeah, my partner's put a puppet band and a miniature band on me so there's no more miniatures or puppets getting bought currently.

That's very sad. I know. But you do have a lot. No, there's always a need for more. But hopefully one day the miniature band will. Yeah, we're talking about like miniature figures. Yeah, I was just about to say what are miniatures for people who don't know. Yeah, like little figurines and things.

Yeah, so they're really expressive and children love, and obviously adults, I love it too. They just can tell such a wonderful story, you know, and they're really symbolic. So, yeah, I really love connecting with children with miniature play, like little small world play. And I guess that's a really good thing if you have like a small child that has lots of figurines.

If you are wanting to connect with them, you can just say, hey, let's just set up a little world, you know, see what they create and wonder about it. Like, oh, what's happening over here? Like, you know, there might be a little wolf, like, you know, quartering a little piglet. And you think like, oh, that's interesting. Like, tell me, like, is there a story about this? And if you sit back and just wonder and are curious, children will tell you the most rich, you know, inner workings through the play because it's not really about them having a hard time here or there.

It's about, I don't know, a princess having a hard time and, you know, making that connection. So valuable, I think. It's hard, right, because as parents we have so much on our plates. Yes. How do we? We were just discussing this before. It's a lot. have so much on our plates. Yes. How do we? We were just discussing this before. It's a lot.

It's a lot. Totally. Yeah. What has becoming a parent taught you? Oh, my goodness, Claire. I know. Deep breath. We need a wine.

We have tea. I know. Well, definitely the need for a system. You know, like the whole like you need a, what is it, the village raises the child? Yes, correct. The village. Yes, you need a village.

A thousand percent. And also I guess it's taught me a lot. I didn't realise I guess how much it would enable me to sort of reflect on my own life. Like I always thought like, you know, when you have children, it's about the kids now. And like don't get me wrong, there is a massive sense of that going on yes but also underneath that it really it forces you to look at yourself and your patterns of thinking and the way that you come to behaviors

and why you're doing things and sometimes you're speaking to your child and you're hearing your mother's voice come out of you and you're like, what is happening? It's so good to hear you say that as a father-flying therapist with all your experience with kids because it's one thing, isn't it, to know the theory of it. I remember as a teacher knowing the theories and there's a whole other thing when you have your own and it's a 24-hour gig and a privilege.

But, you know, we're not all perfect. And I can't, sometimes knowing the theory can also get in the way a little bit, I think, in that early life thing. I know I just had my second child a year ago, so we've been through that first year of life. And a lot of the times I said to my partner, like, oh, my God, what do people do in this situation? Like I know I have to, like, you know, allow for these feelings and, you know, welcome them and work

through. But honestly, we're all at capacity and it's not perfect. You know, we have to hold that imperfection and that complexity and also that uncertainty as well, which is really hard for parents. We want to know the answer. We want to know the answer. We want to know the solution. We want to know what do I do? What's the steps? Let's do it. And children don't work that way. And a lot of the time the steps are inward, focus inward, find out what's going on for you and be kind to yourself. That's one thing that actually I learned through becoming a mother is about self-kindness. I've kind of been on a bit of a self-kindness journey where, especially when you become a mother, all of a sudden there's like this self-care rhetoric. Like, look after yourself.

Take time for you. Don't just put all the needs of the baby. You know, you've got needs too, self-care, self-care, self-care. And I actually got really overwhelmed with self-care because I was like, it's another thing I have to do. Okay. Washing, self-care, you know, get through the day, self-care. There's no time. There's no time for self-care. Yeah. And so I came to this notion of what we actually need to be telling mothers is the need for community care and the need for self-kindness. So, yeah, that's what I've been working on that. What's community care?

What do you mean by that? Well, having the community care. Yeah, like having that village and having that people around you to give you some space. Absolutely, yeah. And I think in our individual sense, like having that village and having that people around you to give you some space. Absolutely, yeah. And I think in our individual sense, like even what I realised when I first had a baby, sometimes like I was just like I want to be left alone, do you know what I mean?

Like I want my own space. I can handle it. I got this. I'm rocking the baby. I'm doing the things. I've got the things going. It's like if people came over, that's a thing that I have to deal with and it was too much and I guess there was like that anxiety in place.

If I had a baby now, this was five years ago, like if I had a third baby, I'm not going to have a third baby. But if I did have a third baby. Just put it out there in the universe. No, I am not. That's bold. That's a bold choice. How do people have, I mean, we have two.

Two feels like many. Yeah, it does. It's two. Yes, it's a lot. Yeah, so if I had that time again, I would really work on actually welcoming the community and being, seeing that as like care, like it's, it's hard for us going from professional women, always having it together, always being on the game to suddenly you're in a position where you're in your home with a newborn in your dressing gown and people want to help.

So people are like, let me know what I can do. I'm going to bring some food over to you. And it's so foreign to us that we kind of bulk at it and say, oh, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, we're fully stocked, we're fine, and we're eating chips for dinner. It's like, yes, bring the lasagna, please, I need some food. Yeah, exactly right. Do you think that's also about this idea that as professional women and

in our lives beforehand, we felt like we had a public face or a way of being in the world. And in order to actually let people in, you have to be okay with the fact they're going to walk into a chaotic, messy house. They're going to see you in your dressing gown. They're going to see that you actually don't have your shit together all the time. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just normalise mess? Yes. Like can we just like start some sort of thread, like post it.

I need to see you messy. I want to because it makes me feel seen and alive. It is so true. You gave me that beautiful book as well about this very thing, right, because it is so true. It's so triggering. It's like we can't have someone to help us until we look like we don't need help.

What exactly, right, Claire? That is a truth bomb. Yeah, I feel like it's like a tweetable moment, right? But that is so true. I'm guilty of that myself. It's like, well, I'll let someone in if I look like I've got it's like a tweetable moment, right? But that is so true. I'm guilty of that myself. It's like, well, I'll let someone in if I look like I've got it all together. Exactly right. Or like, oh, no, we can't because I'm really not feeling it today

so I'll struggle through it alone. And, yeah, I guess that's what I mean by community care is, yeah, and because it's false, like it's a fallacy. Like I have never walked into somebody's house after they've had a baby and been like, there's tails on the floor. Yes, exactly. What is her hair about today? Like nobody has ever done that.

Why do we do that to ourselves? Why can't we just be like, please, welcome, come and, you know. Sit in the mess with me. Yeah, if that feels good for you, having that, I guess it comes down to relationships, that safety in relationships. We can build that before the children arrive. So we can, like, you know, if you have got a friend that's pregnant, let's practice, like practice caring, because it's hard to figure out how to become a mum and also how to accept care for the first time all at once. That was my experience.

That's huge. That is such like an epiphany of a moment because I do really think that's something that we're not used to being vulnerable enough to accept the care. And it's actually I find it much easier to be the caregiver. Yes. You know, because that's something that you can do that if you feel you're in control of in a way, whereas to accept someone's care means you have to admit A, that you're vulnerable and you need help and B, that you have to, I don't know. Yeah. But as women, it's kind of like we all love

to be that caregiver, that comfortable role because, you know, the rhetoric that we've been sort of sold since birth is like the caregiving role and really kind of unpacking that sense of worth just being tied up in being able to give care because obviously there's a deep well of care being needed as well and relationships will only be truly authentic and when we can have that balance of caregiving and care receiving so we kind of I know it's uncomfortable but this is like the journey that I'm on

is trying to receive the care as a way of, you know, saying, well, this is also relationship building. People want to be there for me and it will bring us closer together as well. So, yeah, it's hard. It is really hard, right? But you're so right in that, that actually allowing people to care for you is in a way caring for them because, yeah, developing a relationship which is sort of closer and more

like family I guess in some ways. And can I also say that it doesn't end when the child turns three months old? Yes, yes. It doesn't end at all. Like I know like parents of teenagers still require care. You know, parents of adult children require care. You know, parents of adult children require care. It never, it never ends there. It just keeps going. It's relentless.

It's relentless. Someone asked me that, what's parenting like? I just said, never ending. Relentless. In a great way too. But you're right, it just changes. And that whole teenage land seems like almost even more scary than the land we're living in now. We don't have to worry about that until a few years. We'll park that. You'll hit it before me so I'm just going to watch and see. All right, I'm really set. Much care from you.

All the care. I actually love teenagers. I have to say this generation of teenagers, just I get so heartened. I'm one of those old women now that's just like, good on you. Well done young people. In what way? What's giving you heart and hope? I get, especially girls. I'm seeing like the French and they've obviously always been there. Girls being like friends, best, loyal, beautiful children. I guess I feel like they're just, well, maybe I'm just seeing it. I'm on another side of the coin, I guess. But seeing in the community, girls being there for each other and being really

just unapologetically themselves, like having a different way of speaking, having like really leaning into that. Like I know back when we were younger I heard I think some, I don't know, talk about how like girls say like a lot and how it's terrible and like they say like and like that. And it's really like turning girls' ways of speaking into being really frivolous and really silly and just really dismissing them as people. Yeah, usually. But I'm just seeing, I guess it might be the rise of social media.

Them just really owning their power and their dialogue and the way they're together. And it just gives me a lot of hope for my own daughter who is only five. But, you know, she will be 15 very soon. It happens so fast, doesn't it? Yeah. It is, right, because I think there's a lot of subtle messages that we received as women or young women growing up that I just don't want anywhere near my daughter.

What were some of those messages? I was thinking about this and the thing that came through for me is the unconscious messages around the three Cs, so the really convenient three Cs, of compete, compare and complain. And I think as girls we see a lot of comparing and, you know, I can't speak from my experience. I was never a boy and I know that, of course, boys did experience this as well, especially the compete side of it. Yeah. There's

this real looking outward, looking outward to other people for validation and, you know, a really judging culture. Judging, because, you know, people are judging you. So you have to project your best self and, you know, you have to be really mindful of this judging that's going on and inherently we're teaching children to judge not only themselves but others. So we've got the comparing and the competing which is just, you know, a recipe for sadness and anguish and then complaining. Like for me it's like when people have gripes with each other

like the whole like gossiping connecting through negative judgments of others and complaining about that complaining about what your friend did or what this girl did in class and yeah having that three c cycle around just constantly and constantly and constantly, it really will affect people's worldviews and the way that they see other people and their relationships and what they have to do to sort of survive and get along. Yeah, so. Yeah, that's huge, I reckon. I totally agree with that.

And I think everyone can kind of fall into that gossiping kind of vibe right because it is it's about not having to talk about the stuff that's real to you yeah or discussing sort of topics or ideas or things you're reading and you know expanding your mind in that way it's kind of for me like junk food yeah it's energ isn't it? Like it's kind of like exciting and a bit sort of juicy and then, but I also feel gross afterwards. Yeah, like junk food. And then, and I agree because it then pits girls against each other. Absolutely. When really we need to be working together to improve things. It's that idea that I guess it's a scarcity mindset, right? Like there's not enough for everyone, for women particularly, and so we need to compete for it.

Yeah. And can I, like, dare I say that it's like obviously the tool of the patriarchy. Yes, exactly. Say it loud. It's the tool of the patriarchy. It's like, you know, in service to keeping this patriarchy going where women are, you know, too busy, you know, in service to keeping this patriarchy going where women are, you know, too busy, you know, worrying about little nitpicking things.

And others' perception of themselves. Exactly. Don't step out of the line because you might get judged and what's that going to be like? So keep your perfect house and your perfect kitchen and your perfect garden and keep the lawns mowed because everyone needs to see that you're perfect. And don't challenge anyone because nobody likes a challenger. Yeah, a hundred percent. Exactly. There was a story, I was, I went and saw Clementine Ford speak and she talked about this story where she was swimming in a pool and there was a guy in his sixties and she was overtaking him and he really didn't like it. And then they got to the end of the lane and she said, well,

why don't I go first and then I'll get halfway and then we can just share this lane together. And he said, well, I know why you're single. Oh. Right? But it is, it's a bit like, isn't it? It's that idea of put you back into your place or something. Yeah, and also just like assuming that as women we're going to care.

Yes, exactly. Oh, please tell me. I've been just like racking as women we're going to care. Yes, exactly. Oh, please tell me. I've been just like racking my brains as to why I'm single. I need to know. I'm dying. Yes, exactly. It's like if you step out of line there and try and challenge things, we'll try and put you back in your place.

Yeah, we'll shame you. We use shame as a weapon a lot. And even with children, that's a real tool of, you know, past the olden days I like to say. Yes. But even current now, like I think the way that there is like a little bit of still that shame-based approaches with kids that wouldn't it be great if we could take that down?

I know. Do you want to talk a little bit about that phrase, the olden days? Because you use that with your daughter and it's just so great and I've taken that to you. Yeah, I don't know if it's foolproof but it's kind of worked for me because I've got a little girl that questions a lot and is a real observer. So she's out there in the world observing like women and girls and boys and interactions and she brings all of the questions to me which is like, oh, my goodness, how are we going to tackle this at 7.30 at night? Anyway.

Parenting, it's relentless. Yeah. So I think a way I've explained it to her is that I don't try and shy away from the fact that these things exist out in the community and that these perceptions. So we talk a lot about thinking, like the way that we think and how thinking has changed. So she kind of accepts that back in the olden days, which, you know, I'm thinking, I think she thinks the noughties is the olden days. Anyway. It is flick. We're on now, mate. It is. It is the olden days. I know. Scary. They have petticoats on. I know. Before Netflix. That's what I heard my son saying the other day.

They didn't even have Netflix in the older days. Well, I've told my daughter that I'm older than Google and it's true. We are older than Google. Yeah. Gosh. And that's pretty. That's actually really old. I know.

I know. Which is a good thing. Yeah. You know, ageing. It's great. Yeah. But she kind of accepts that you know back in the olden days people did think differently and they had these really rigid social rules and I'm trying

to sort of enforce that things are different now just so that she can grow up with a bit of that freedom of like you know you don't actually have to behave a certain way or look a certain way to be valuable. Yeah. Exactly. You can just be who you are and step into that. And how exciting to see her do that. Yeah. Completely.

Yeah, she's all right. She's a good one. She's, yeah, she's a whacker. She's so good. She's so deep thinking. I know. I mean, I don't know where she could get that from. I know. She's fallen from the sky. Yeah. We do do a lot of pondering together, her and I. Yeah. Which is so beautiful,

isn't it? Like you were saying about how parenting teaches you a lot about yourself. If you're willing to sit with it, it's actually such a gift. Yeah. It's challenging. Yes. But it can be a real gift. Yeah, because you're kind of forced. Your children are just like little reflections sometimes. You're like, whoa, I was exactly the same way when I was little. And then being that powerful, you know, realisation that I can be that person that I needed, you know, like I can say what I wanted to have said to me.

It's really quite a profound privilege to have. It absolutely is. Yeah. And a challenge. And one thing I did think about in those moments when you're not your best self, when you say the thing that you wish that you did say, when it sounds like you've repeated something that really you've just said the wrong thing, you've dropped the ball and it hasn't gone well. What advice would you give to parents when you know in your gut you've just handled that completely wrong and the meltdown's happening and you're not sure where to go?

Yes, definitely this is where the self-kindness comes in. I think that it is imperative before any sort of repair work, which is obviously very important. And we know about the necessity of rupture and repair in psychotherapy as a way of building relationships. So I guess don't go into a space of berating yourself or, you know, getting down or just feeling really defeated by your own humanness, but actually see this process as necessary to being in relationship with another person. All relationships need to have ruptures and repairs. So if you have ruptured, I would say that you need to do self-kindness first. So take that moment, take that breath, give yourself that love, you know, like even like visualizations, I'm a fan of visualizing what you need in that moment,

having that friend come to you and like, oh gosh, this is a tough moment. Oh my goodness, like this is really erupted. You are a good parent. You are trying your best. You are enough for your children. All of these things that help you gain that sense of calmness and also just like, yeah, that sense of being loved and like you're human, you're not perfect. And, you know, leaning into that instead of bulking out and being like, oh, my gosh, leaning into that instead of bulking out and being like, oh, my gosh, I've failed.

There's no point because no moment is final. There's always other moments to come. And so, you know, you're going to learn from whatever happened. You're working on this. We're a work in process. Like it's part of it. It's part of the messiness of being a parent. So love yourself first, calm your nervous system

and, you know, engage in co-regulating with your child. Your child needs you and this is like it's both scary to think of, I suppose, as like the importance of co-regulating with children and also just like a wonderful, wonderful aspect of being human. You know, we have the power to connect and literally be in sync with our children so that we can calm them. And through hundreds of these experiences of calming the children and nurturing the children and, you know, when they're calm,

having that discussion about what happened and their feelings and, you know, our processes and being accepting, that is the way to build resilience and that is the way to build independence. I think there's a bit of a cultural thing happening in our society where we're really keen to get the kids to be independent, get the babies sleeping independently, Claire. Get them, sleep them. They need to be sleeping. They need to be sleeping.

They need to be independent. They're not needing you, self-settling, you know, self-reliant, resilient. And I think we've like hold on to this word of resilience as like this is the word we're going to use or, you know, all the schools have got resilience all across the healthy. And it makes me feel a little bit like I'm in a bit of an alternate universe when I see that. Yeah, tell me about that. Well, to me, I wonder about what resilience actually means. Because for me, I know that

resilience is the process that happens over years, years and like thousands of interactions with a trusted caregiver or someone, a trusted adult in relationship, like that co-regulating all the time, all the time leads to resilience. And I think that once the child gets to school, we're like, now we're resilient. And I think that it means, like I'm fearful that it means a child has learned to just like shut down their needs, to look like they're coping, to be independent because I haven't asked for help. I've managed my own problems, which is wonderful. I guess that's what we're hoping as an adult we can do. But it's so early to expect primary school-aged children

to be able to navigate really complex social environments, really like, you know, complicated even just cognitively all the sensory information all the time is happening and being able to like control their emotions. It's actually just not developmentally appropriate a lot of the time. So, yeah, I wonder, like, is resilience an innate, like, inherent strength or is it I just learnt not to express that need and now I'm resilient?

And why is it important, do you think, to express your needs and emotions and not repress them? Oh, well, for just general wellbeing, obviously, because it feels better. Like, you know, when we repress things, it's like putting a cork under water, like it's going to come up in other ways, in maladaptive ways. And we see that throughout, you know, adolescence and adulthood, all sorts of corks popping up, I guess. Yeah, I love that expression. And that can be things like,

right, addiction or dysfunction in relationships or other coping mechanisms. Yeah, depression, anxiety, yeah, problems with relationships, you know, even problems in workplaces. Yeah, it can have a real knock-on effect in like all aspects of your life. Your physical health is really impacted with trauma and, yeah, I think there's just some wonderful research out there about like our nervous system. So how our body, our physical body reacts to stress and it kind of like gives us a bit of a tool of how

to actually manage the stress through the body, not so much like through the thinking. So there's been like a bit of a shift about like thinking about your brain is like that's where it's all going on. Yeah. You know? Yes, and you just have to talk it all out. Yeah.

Think it all out. Yeah. You know, and if you have anxiety, it's because of your brain. So, you know, talk therapy will help. And, of course, talk therapy is definitely a great tool and appropriate in lots of settings. But thinking about the nervous system and how it actually affects every single organ in our bodies and stress in our nervous system can affect

our physical health and just thinking about that as thinking about stress and our bodies together, not like a medical model of like, oh, well, I've got a bit of a tummy ache, so I'll go to the, you know, it's definitely a physical tummy thing, not has anything to do with like the enormous stress that I'm coping with at work or whatever. Like giving people that mindset that we're whole people and we're all connected and our emotions and our physiology and our, you know, the way we think are all part of it and honouring that.

It's huge, isn't it, right, that idea that instead of being sort of brain to body, sometimes you can work through body to brain. Yeah, and that's like a really beautiful thing that play therapy enables. It really works with like that, those lower centres of the brain where emotion are and those, you know, physical responses in our bodies and the, yeah, the somatic experiences, they're all kind of connecting together rather than kind of coming at it with a lot of thinking and reasoning and logical, rational, like, tell me about this, like, talk to me about it because they're not there yet. Their brains are not developed to that point yet. So it's really, it's a really valuable way of

working with kids that is so perfect for their, like, where they're at, you know? Yeah. Is that why things like weighted blankets are really good too? What are some actual physical things that we can do with kids? Obviously play, but in terms of physical things we can do for their bodies, I guess, to help calm their nervous systems. Well, the really great thing about children is that they will go where they need to go. So we don't need to spend hours researching, well, a three-year-old needs this sort of, you know, sensory input. That's just really overwhelming and not going to happen. But if

you watch a three-year-old, they might gravitate to the sandpit or they might, I don't know, tip over their water and then splash in it. And, you know, they're going to lead you where they need to go. Their bodies are propelled to take them where they have to be. So I guess if we can step back and observe the children and be curious and accepting, like be quite permissive in a safe way, their brains and their nervous system are the drivers. They know where to go. That's such wise advice. You said a word before I wanted to ask you about co-regulation.

Oh, yeah. Because we've all been in that kind of moment we were talking before about when you get it wrong and you've got really angry at them for something and, you know, it's all exploded. Yeah. When you talk about co-regulation, what actually is that? How do we co-regulate well I guess it's as the adult we're using our nervous system to calm down the nervous system of our children so there is no way I read this beautiful quote there is no way to de-escalate

a child when we ourselves are escalated so an escalated adult cannot de-escalate an escalated child. Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I've botched the quote, Claire. But no, I feel like you nailed it. It was beautiful. But we've all been there where we just kind of like park our own. We're like, okay, I'm clearly freaking out and stressing out, but it's not about me right now. It's about my child who's throwing a fit in Kmart. And I need to sort this out. And we're right up here and our child is inherently connected

to us and intuitive. And when we're up here, there is a very high chance that they are also up there because they're so, you know. Connected with you. Connected and one with us, yeah. We're like their sense of safety in the world. They look to us to gauge like am I okay here? Like, you know, mum's looking okay, I should be okay.

Everything's okay. Yeah, everything's okay. But when mum's not looking okay, I'm not okay. I'm going to, yeah, I might run or I might hide or something. Yeah. So and we look at the behaviours and we go, well, the behaviours need sorting out. Let's sort these behaviours out when really what needs to be first,

the first step in the equation is I need to calm myself down because only when I am calm can I calm my child. Yeah, and it happens from birth, you know, when the baby's crying and we rock the baby, that's co-regulation because we're using our nervous system, our like, shh, shh, shh, calm, calm, that connects with their brains and their nervous system and calms them. That feels so nice. Just it's such a beautiful tool I think in parenting.

I'm just thinking about even our morning this morning we're all running late and, you know, my son, I'm trying to get him to get his socks on and he can't get his socks on and we're all, you and, you know, my son, I'm trying to get him to get his socks on and he can't get his socks on and we're all, you know, socks and then the shoes and then the lunch and then we're all tumbling out the door and I'm thinking, why can't you get your socks on? But then also I was kicking my heels and taking too long. And so then I was escalated, then he escalated.

Yeah. And I realised that in that moment when we took it back down, then he calmed down too. And as we were walking to school, we took five deep belly breaths. Oh, good. And that to me, that breath work for me is something I do to calm my own self down. Oh, it's so good, isn't it?

Yeah. It just, it feels good and it's the one thing I've been able to do in the franticness of COVID, I think? Yeah. It just, it feels good. And it's the one thing I've been able to do in the franticness of COVID, I think. Yeah. Well, it's actually like the only autonomic response system that we can control. Like we can't control our heart rate by just saying beats lower. You know, we can't do that. We can't control our blood pressure or any of that, but we can control our breathing. So it's kind of like the, you know, they talk about like the brake pedal. Like it's actually a way of putting that brake on and calming it all

down. It's the one thing that we've got for us. So breathe. Oh my God. It's so good though, because it's free and it doesn't require any extra time or additional like moment for self-care. Oh, I know. You can just be in the car feeling stressed and breathe. Yeah. One thing not to do though is to tell your partner to breathe. That's really good advice. Why is that flip? Doesn't work.

Interesting. Just from my own experience. Don't do it. No, no, in the middle of a big fight, just be like, I think you need to breathe and then we're going to co-regulate our distance. Yeah, don't do it, honestly. All right. No one in the history of calming down has ever calmed down

by being told to calm down. That is so true. Oh, my goodness. All right, I have a few things I wanted to ask you about sort of specifically now. One of them is about what to do when kids are going through particularly big life-changing things. So things like a divorce or if there's been some kind of traumatic event in the family. What would you do as a parent in that moment? Would you suggest they seek play therapy and then what do you do?

Yeah, it really depends on where they're at. I wouldn't recommend seeking therapy if the trauma is, like, happening right now. Like, you know, if it's right now and you're in crisis, there's different supports that need to be in place. For therapy to happen, there needs to be a really felt sense of safety because through therapy, things come out to be processed. Now, if we're still feeling unsafe, it's not very effective

to bring all of this stuff out when there's still chaos going around us. So that's the first thing to really make sure that whatever the traumatic event is, that it's passed or if it hasn't passed, that you seek support for that right now. You can't just like, well, I'm just going to sit around and wait for the trauma to end. Obviously, you just need different supports in place at that point. Yeah. Another thing is to go back to your heart-centered approach with your children. Really just love your child through it, I would say.

Take down the expectations. You know, if things are hard, and I'm thinking about COVID specifically. Yeah, that's a big one. We've all been through like a bit of a shared trauma, I suppose, collective trauma, especially in Melbourne and other places with extended lockdowns. Children are looking to us to gauge what's happened and to process what's happened. So there is a definite need again for self-care and kindness and having your own support systems in place to be able to meet the child

where they are, as well as loving the child, obviously loving them through that, allowing for feelings, I would really recommend being okay with talking about it. If a child wants to talk about anything, if a child wants to say to you, someone was talking about Ukraine at school, what's that about? Don't be like, oh, ask your father. There's a way of deferring until you feel like you have, you know, the appropriate words. You don't need to like launch into something right now and just be like,

oh, that's a really great question. I would love to talk to you about that after dinner tonight and just giving yourself a bit of time to think what's an age-appropriate way to explain this really complex and quite scary situation for children. And obviously there's lots of, we've got the internet now, and so there's lots of resources on there and lots of really, you know, great people have got like little scripts about what to say to children in this situation.

You can access things to help you. Yeah, checking with friends. We're all kind of in this boat together. So we've all had these hard conversations with kids. We've all seen like tricky behaviours come up that we wondered about. So I would say come together, you know, get your support network going and really accept where your child is at. And yeah, try not to let that fear come in that, you know, oh no, what's happening? You know, they that fear come in that, you know, oh, no, what's happening?

They're struggling. You have to deflect or just distract. Yeah. And I think, you know, would you agree that it's important to use simple language and be as honest as we can without scaring them? They don't need all the details about Ukraine. But if they're asking, you want to tell them in an honest way. Yeah.

And also just recognising that children are in an interesting, you know, stage of life where they're really egocentric and they essentially just want to know, am I safe? Like what's the go? How is this impacting me? So if it's, you know, the war in a crate, you can say that, or if, you know, you've had a death of a loved one, you can say, yeah, and you're safe. You know, this has happened.

You can ask me any questions, but I need to let you know you are safe here. You know, this, you know, it's not, it's how it affects them. You know, if a parent is separated, this is happening. A lot of things are going to change. A lot of things are going to be. A lot of things are going to be the same and we're going to be there together to work that out and you're safe. Like that always stressing element of safety. Yeah, that's really helpful. Oh my goodness. This has been so lovely.

I could talk to you about this. I have so many other questions to ask you, so I might have to have you back to answer some more. Well, I've kind of gotten used to like the professional mic set up now. Yeah, you've done very well. You've done such a good job. I did actually want to ask you one more question. I know you touched on briefly about death. And I know in our community, we've had some experience with death recently. How would you approach talking about that with children? Yes, well, definitely be child led, I think is a great way to going with it. If a child is naturally curious about these things, showing them that it's okay, it's safe to talk about these things. And that involves doing a lot of work, especially if you're in the grief as well. It's really hard to hold your own grief and then try to put

on your parenting hat as well. So I'd say definitely seek support for that. Yeah, and finding age appropriate. Wait, there's a lot of children's books that you could read. Yeah, I know like the Teeny Tiny Stevies have got a song. There's lots of resources out there for kids because obviously death is one thing that will touch all of us throughout our lives and especially children. We can't avoid that, but we can set up a system for the children for the rest of their courage and being able to accept the grief and those big waves that happen and ensuring safety, always ensuring safety.

That's a beautiful sentiment in general, heart-led, child-led, and that they're safe. Yeah. That's kind of the biggest sense. And I think from our whole conversation, my biggest takeaway has been that it's about relationship. Yes, that is. That is the main thing and that's what I've learnt through both my professional life and my family life and even just thinking about women in general,

like all aspects of life basically. We're human beings and relationships are the best things that we have really in our arsonry or our toolbox maybe to connect and to, yeah, be together. To figure it all out. Yeah, to process it all. To process it all in community, give each other more care and accept care, which is the other part of it, right, isn't it?

Sure. And develop that. Thank you so much, Luke. This has been such a joy. Oh, thanks, Claire. Oh, I love that. I know you have some resources and things, so maybe what I'll do is put them in the show notes if there's anything

that you'd like to pass on to people, books and those kinds of things. I'll put them in the show notes. Sure. Thank you so much for coming on. Oh, you're welcome. It's just been so valuable and I hope everyone's got as much out of it as I have because we just already my nervous system is a lot more regulated.

Yeah, thank you. We covered a lot, didn't we? We went a lot of places. We went a lot of places but big good places, I think, and the more that we can get advice and help and be kind to ourselves, right? Yeah. The better. Thank you for having me.

You're welcome. You've been listening to a podcast this week with me, Claire Tonti, and with the wonderful Felicity Odgers. So if you want to know more about play therapy and you're in Melbourne, you can head to the Play Therapy Hub. So that's playtherapyhub.com and there's lots of information there and resources and people to connect with. And if you're looking for a resource or a book to read more about it, I really love Kathy Walker

and her book, Play Matters, particularly if you're an educator. I think she's got just so many beautiful recommendations over there. That's it from me for this week. For more from me, you can go to claretonte.com or you can check out at claretonte on Instagram where I tell stories and sometimes even play music, which is what I did this week, played one of my favorite songs, Third and a Wife by Lennon Cohen. And I also have another podcast with my husband, man, James Clement, that comes out every Thursday called Suggestible, where we recommend you things to, read, and listen to and solve the age-old question, when it's nine o'clock at night and the kids have gone to bed, what the bloody hell do I watch or read or listen to or sometimes eat?

Anyway, so that's over there and it's a lot of fun. I'd love you to rate, review, and subscribe. It really helps the show and tell a friend about it. So if you loved this episode and you think someone in your life might benefit from it, please send it along. And that's it. Okay. Talk to you next week. Thank you as always. Oh, I nearly forgot. To Raw Collings for editing this week's episode and to Maisie for running our social media at tauntspod and also the at suggestiblepod too. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye. I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak and write today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging that the sovereignty of this land has never been ceded.