Interview with Lenore Hall, Lisa McCarty, & Lois Letchford 8-18-2020

Okay. Yep.

No, that's all time. Okay, now we can talk. Hello, Lenore. Hello, Lisa.

Hey. Hi.

Hello.

This is— I'm Lois Letchford.

Hi, I'm Lisa McCarty.

And Lenore, introduce yourself, please.

Oh, well, I'm all the way from Australia, so hi everybody.

It's early in the morning.

Early in the morning. Yeah, it's about 9 o'clock, so it's all good. I've got my coffee.

Yeah, you look refreshed. We look like we're ready for bed.

Lisa has started a new job today.

Oh, yesterday. This is my second day.

Wow, how did it go?

What? Good. I really like it. It's really, it's really good, and it actually kind of fits in with what we're talking too. So yeah, that's good.

Okay, so this is with addictions, right? People with addictions.

Oh, my job?

Yeah.

Right.

In nursing.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm also a registered nurse, but I have worked for many years in mental health and recently completed my Master's of Counselling and now working as a counsellor. But I work from a trauma perspective because my understanding is, you know, we've all been through trauma and it all leaves a mark on our personality in some way. shape or form. You know, that's why we have so much anxiety and, and issues with dealing with life, because we don't get to often process the trauma that happened in our early years.

Yeah.

So that keeps repeating in our lives.

Right.

And when you have, like, trauma that— like, we all have everyday sort of traumas which we can say form our personalities, but the the bigger traumas where, you know, we know when we say trauma, like a big car accident or someone dying, things like that, we all recognise that as trauma. But I think what we don't do well at recognising is the relational trauma that happens for people and the disconnection that happens for all of us, because none of us go through life without that.

You said relational trauma. Would you explain that a little bit more, please?

Well, in relationship, we, we know what it's all like to be disconnected from someone, you know, or when the connection is good, that feels good. And we as people, we're made to be relationally connected. That's how we thrive. And that's how our brain actually grows and thrives. When we're in those warm, safe connections, where we feel safe, and we know that whatever we say and whatever we do is going to be accepted. It's okay. So our brain has the ability to explore and take on new learning and develop new— all sorts of things. We discover new things about ourselves, and we can also be creative. We can try new things. The creativity comes out of that, you know, where we just feel like, yes, let's just try this, you know. Um, and that's ideally, that's where we, we should all be from our home, you know, feeling love and acceptance and being able to connect with other people and not feel like I have to be on guard, right? And that the world is against me.

Right.

That's the start. But at the same time, you can still have those good things happen at home, and life can still feel really difficult when, like, people with disabilities or people who go through sickness, or there's lots of things that cause trauma. It's not just a, you know, one size fits all.

Yeah.

So it has to be a very individual approach. And when we're looking at learning, and especially when this topic is about people with dyslexia, I can see how difficult that is for children to feel accepted and part of, which is You know what children need?

Yeah.

When they get to school age, they need to feel like, yeah, I can do this, I'm accepted, for them to be able to go to the next stages and build and grow on, on the skills they have. They get stuck, right? Which is your experience.

Yeah. And it's that failure and never getting out of that failure in school, isn't it, that causes— it's not only the failure, But I think it's then the condemnation of the failure, that you're not working hard enough, you're not trying enough, you are not doing enough, that compounds.

Yeah. And because the childhood years are all about forming an identity and a sense of who we are as people, so your identity starts to form around, you know, I'm a failure, like you said. I can't do this. So it's much more than not connecting to the learning. It affects their whole personality.

Yeah.

Which, you know, you definitely would see, both of you, with, you know, the difficulties and struggles you've been through with your children. And then the way people who have these sorts of traumas, the way they deal with it, Is to just take— do things that help relieve the immediate pain. You know, that's why addictions is common. You know, you just make you feel good, something to make you feel good. Okay.

Yeah. And that also, that also, um, has to do with— you mentioned relationships, and, you know, people want to have close relationships, and yeah. Some of our— they're not fitting in with the academic crowd. And unfortunately, sometimes the crowd that's accepting of them are the other ones who are maybe getting into using substances for self-medication, and that becomes your identity. And I'm in no way saying that everybody who has an addiction has dyslexia or vice versa.

Not at all.

But there's just a— you're looking for a relationship And to fit in. And if you're going to be accepted by this group—

That's key. And that goes— I go back to what I said right at the beginning. That's so crucial. We absolutely need relationships that work. We all do. And especially in those school years where children are branching out to developing relationships and learning all about relationships. And so they'll do anything. It's so important to feel accepted. Especially in teenage years. That's the big part of that, developing that sense of identity from the people you associate with, finding out and trying out different identities. That's all part of teenage years. But relationship is central, as you said. We thrive— our brains are made for relationship.

Wow.

I had one trauma specialist say, um, his way of saying it was the Barbra Streisand song. People need people. People who need people are the happiest people. Does that make sense?

It's— oh, of course.

Yeah, yeah, it's good. I like that because it sticks in your mind. We need people. We need each other. Yeah, yeah.

And Lenore, you know, you talked to me once about— so you've talked about relationships and building relationships. Which is, you know, the child's hopefully had the home relationship, and then they go to school, and then you've got to build that school relationship. You've got the fitting in. And the third— the other thing you've talked to me about is that people love to succeed. You know, you talked about your grandson.

Yeah, yeah. Like, it's also inbuilt in us to develop, you know, and grow. That's that's part of the way we are as people. You know, we've got a— we have a brain that develops exponentially in the first 3 years. You know, like it—

Yes.

Doubles its size or something. So that early development is going on. But, you know, we just— growth is normal for us as people. So it's really important to keep those— that sense of what is healthy and normal in terms of how we see our children. If they're not growing and taking on new skills, and if they're getting stuck in something, then it is very frustrating at a very human level, right, not to be able to succeed and grow and, and to feel yourself growing. It is part of that whole developmental levels of mastery and feeling like that you can achieve something as a human being. That's also very much, you know, all the developmental specialists and the theorists like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It goes— you need to go up the hierarchy to really feel like you're able to function and feel okay about yourself. That's essential, yeah.

And for that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the first thing is safety, isn't it? You know, food and shelter.

Physical. Yeah, physical needs. And then, then it's safety, and then it's the relational, and then it, you know, moves up. And, and learning is, you know, like further up because you need all those other things in place. And safety, like, we know how the brain develops, and on the blogs it'll come up using that— the sense of the brain is using your fist— that the lower brain, the brainstem, the fight-flight reaction of the brainstem If that is active, if you don't feel safe and you're on high alert, then your ability to think rationally is— it doesn't exist because you're on high alert. You're always looking out for danger.

Right.

So your ability to actually be calm and take in information and just feel like, oh, I get this, or be able to explore in your sense, in your world, what does that look like? Or ask questions even, you know, I don't understand that. It's not there if you, if you're on high alert and you don't feel like I'm safe. I don't have the connections, the social connections, which is, which is the middle brain. So it needs the brain to be working as that whole. And safety is, is the key to that for the brain. You need to be able to feel safe, first of all. Yeah, because that'll come out in the blog, won't it? Yeah, we'll get that done.

And I think too, like Erikson's stages of development, you know, as nurses we've learned about those types of things. And in adolescence, where you have this, uh, like identity versus confusion, I think it's called, and this is a prime time, you know, our kids in adolescence, this is about the same time where that schoolwork starts to get super hard. So if some of these kids have been able to fly under the radar, as I like to say, or they've had some compensatory mechanisms up to this point, here's about the time that's going to start to fail. And they're not really going to know who they are. You know, they don't have that sense of fitting in and belonging. And someone had once said that they can't take pride in their successes often academically in school. So then they, they take pride in their failures.

Yeah.

And I don't remember who said that. But I think that's one of the things where you'll see some of these people that, like the cool kids, Yeah, yeah. You know, hat over his eyes. Oh, I don't care, this is stupid, you know. And then they start to form this identity of themselves that's successful in the wrong way, maybe, is how I see it.

Absolutely, you're spot on there, Lisa, because the teenage years, it's all about being included in that sense of identity, forming a sense of identity. And if you're not learning or able to identify with other kids who are doing well, of course you're going to look for it somewhere where you are accepted. And it is about outside of the home because that's the launching pad for our children. You know, we want them to be in relationships with their peers. That's absolutely normal. You know, we can't keep our children at home. That's normal that they go through those stages to launch out and connect and be be out there doing things. But if you don't have that sense of, I can do this, it's going to be very challenging for those children. And you're right, getting caught up in groups that are not helpful for the children.

And I find that, you know, and I keep using the word unsupported, meaning that even when they're diagnosed, and Lois and I were talking about this before, that the mindset of those around them, maybe they don't quite understand what dyslexia is, for example.

Mm-hmm.

And so even these kids that have this diagnosis, they're not supported. Now, now, some people are. You know, they've found that the successful people have usually had some kind of support that's helped them along the way, whether that be a parent that understands or a teacher or a mentor or another student. But for some of our kids, they've got none of that. And that's where I see the danger. And of course, you're going to have personality and other factors too, but it's so dangerous to have an unsupported, misunderstood student who's struggling through these critical years.

Yeah.

And I just think that, that, that, that support system is so important, you know. And again, Lois, and she He's the reason her son had that terrific support, and it shouldn't be left to this game of luck, as we've said.

You know, I was thinking of my first student in Lubbock, and one of the things that got him through— I mean, he was 13 and totally non-reading, even though he was diagnosed, and he was going out every day to a reading program. The thing that got him through was knowing that he was not alone, that his father struggled. And I think a lot of our children feel isolated. They don't know anything else.

Yeah. And what I'm hearing you say is, like, we can think we're supporting our children or that we want them to be supported and we want to provide that support. But I think the key is that the child is able to feel connected. You know, that connection's got to be there.

Yeah.

You know, we can think that we can put up supports or think, oh, well, there are supports there, but if the child doesn't connect to the supports— so it's very crucial that there's that connection happening.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, that the child connects, you know, that there's something that it's like, oh, this makes sense, or yes, I get it. Like you said with your 13-year-old, my dad struggled with this too. So the child connected to that. So it's something that they can hold on to.

Yeah.

It's not, you know, and that's what I think we sometimes say, oh, look, the supports are there, but can the child access them? Is there that connection? That they feel like they can actually reach out and say, you know, I feel— I'm feeling really vulnerable, you know, because that's it.

We—

to be able to speak out your vulnerability is not only hugely powerful, but it's the hardest thing for a human being to do, I think.

But Lenore, I think you just said it then too, that it's not only having the child there, but the child to say I need help, or that vulnerability. And I don't think our children have got that. They just throw up their hands.

They don't want to look different either. There's a lot of issues with that.

It's horrible to be vulnerable because, you know, vulnerable kids get picked on.

I wanted to bring out a thing too, um, because this tends to be hereditary, as we've found out. And oftentimes you may have a family of, say, the parents who they've— like maybe, maybe a father or mother struggled in school, and maybe the parent didn't know why they struggled, but they knew that they did maybe poorly in school, and they don't want their son or daughter to do poorly in school. And I think sometimes parents are so fearful that we're trying our best to keep our kids on the right track that we then, like, the kid will come home from school, maybe they think to themselves, well, I'm going to make sure that this kid, you know, make sure that they study and all this, and not knowing the nature of the problem will then punish the child, which just makes everything worse. And I don't think parents do that sort of thing because they're trying to be mean to the child, but they themselves may have struggled and maybe they're fearful That the child will have the same difficulty in school. And if I could just make them— you know, if the parent doesn't understand the nature of the problem, they may say, well, you have to try harder because I should have tried harder. Like, once you understand the nature of the problem, I think you can start to heal from some of those bad experiences because you know it's not because you weren't trying hard enough.

That's exactly right, Lisa. I love that because But it's so common for adults to not know until they're older. And what we do as parents unconsciously a lot of the time, but we all do it, is the stuff that we haven't processed, our own pain of what we went through, we— if, if it's, it's stuck in our lower brain, the part of our brain where it gets stuck there, then, then we project that. Whatever we don't process, we project. Because like you said, we're fearful around that because it's unprocessed pain.

Yeah.

So we're fearful for our kids. Oh gosh, you know, and that's that we're on high alert. So we react defensively and we lose the connection. We're not hearing, okay, maybe yes, they'll have maybe some of the same struggles, but their specific struggles will be different to your specific struggles. So it's about hearing what their specific struggles are and dealing with, like, really listening to why am I reacting like that? You know, listening to your own self. Take a deep breath. Getting help for yourself, really, because it's like, okay, there's stuff here that I'm, you know, digging. It's coming up for me. Please just explore that for yourself with help, because most of the time we need help to get You know, old pain out. And, you know, reading, reading, getting informed yourself. I love Dan Siegel's work, and he's written a beautiful book called Parenting from the Inside Out. And it's all about that, you know, dealing, just learning what it is that, that it's, that you're reacting to and getting that help yourself first.

But what do you Sorry, but what do you do about the parent that themselves they don't know maybe that they're dyslexic and that that was the nature of the problem? I think that that's so important to get awareness across the board out there so that people can start to recognize this, because you're not going to be able to help that kid.

Yeah.

And what the nature of the problem was, um, you know, so in, in our family it was kind of funny because it was my son that figured— well, it's, it's kind of what happens. The child finds out that they're dyslexic, for example, and then the parent goes, oh, hang on. You know, and I can't tell you how many people a day I talk to, adults who say, oh gosh, like, well, I thought I was dumb. Like, that explains it. And so that's what I mean, that because parents don't know what this is— I mean, some do, they're the lucky ones, right, that they can then guide The child or support—

Yeah.

Support them, but understand this, or just don't know anything about it at all. How are they supposed to help these kids? That's why I think that we're starting— I think awareness now is starting to get out there a little bit more, and people are hearing the word and they're starting to understand it because there's a lot of groups, you know, that are getting the message out there. What exactly is dyslexia? So that we can get those support systems in place in the home, especially where you may have had this generation after generation, and get the support. Because I think it's— I think as Lois said, I think it's about awareness and understanding the nature of the problem. And then all of that stuff is going to equal support to get these people through this system with— Healthy self-esteem, you know, proficient academic skills. And I think that's what— I think it's a multifaceted problem. But I think those key elements have to be there.

And I think, Lois, your story was very much so, wasn't it, that through your children you realised that you actually had problems at school and struggled with these things. Right, that's how it happened for you?

I can still remember it. I was standing in Blackwell's Bookstore in Oxford, the children's bookstore that's no longer there, and I read this little, you know, 50-page flimsy paperback, 20 Signs of Dyslexia, and I had 18 of them. And see, I'm older, I'm 2 years older than Lenore, and what I remember, Lenore could tie her shoelaces before me, Lenore could tell the time before me, You know, and I taught Lenore to read. I can read words but not comprehend. So I had a really good marker for my failures.

And it, like, it did, like, it really— I mean, it was an unspoken issue between us because we weren't aware. But, you know, for Lois, that must have been incredibly painful. You know, here's her little sister doing these things and, you know, like, it— then she would be questioning what's wrong with me. But it was never dealt with in our family. It was never— we just didn't ever talk about it, you know. And Lois and I recently shared about, like, our learning history. We're from the same family, but how different we were, you know. Just my love for reading and Lois, her struggle with that, you know. We're just comparing that little thing. We didn't know about this about each other, you know. And that's really sad because, because of the lack of awareness at the time what we grew up in. But like you say, Lisa, there's a lot more awareness now. People are— we're so much more informed, which is wonderful. Embrace it, you know, embrace the time we live in. I think it's wonderful. We have so much information from neuroscience now. But— and I keep saying, when we know better, we do better. You know, we— it's such a time now we can Make— we need to make changes happen.

Yes.

You know, we need to be vocal and do like what you're doing here. Get it out there, get people talking about it so that it is about, okay, how can we do better? How can we, you know, capture these children that are falling through the cracks? And I know you're up against a system that's all about, you know, markers and testing and all that. We are down here too. You know, but they're slowly discovering it doesn't work.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

And the price to pay is too great.

Yes.

Yes.

That's what— that's the stuff that I see.

Yes.

Yes. And so the more we can talk about it and agitate about it and people become talking about it and saying, we want a different— we want a change.

Yes.

You know, that's how change will happen.

Yes.

Get it out there like you're doing. Yeah.

You know, I think I was quite lucky is the word that it was Nicholas, my second boy, that had the extreme problem. Because if it had been my eldest, Nathaniel, I would have blamed him because he was wild.

Yeah.

You know, and he, you know, but he could do things so quickly. And I would have said, well, you don't listen enough. Whereas Nicholas literally just, he was like a flower that just died in school. Yeah, yeah, that extreme.

Sorry, that's what happened in our situation.

Yeah, right, similar, was it? You've got boys as well, haven't you?

I have 3 boys and 2 of them dyslexic, and we didn't, we didn't even know about the middle son until fairly recently. And that's why I kicked myself, because, you know, had I paid attention to those Those symptoms or markers or red flags or whatever you want to call it.

Yeah.

And, you know, and it is a little bit complicated because, as we've mentioned, it's on a continuum and you may have some mild symptoms or severe symptoms. There's other things involved. Maybe you're— maybe you have a worse time reading, but maybe your writing is better or vice versa. And sometimes arithmetic's involved. But when— but yeah, as it turns out, there They're both fun. Was more obviously struggling in the reading. I think that's why the school picked that up, because he wasn't doing well on the standardized tests. And I think I mentioned my other son had tricks to get through that, and he was, he was a little bit better with some of that, that he could fly under the radar. But all along, you know, this kid's self-esteem in the classroom is just— And it's— and, and I, I feel bad. I feel guilty. I've got the mom guilt, and I will forever have that.

Yes, yes.

And we all do, because, you know, there's always something we don't do well, whether it's the teaching, learning, you know, there's always— and it's really important to, to be able to just forgive yourself, forgive ourselves. as mothers and just take a deep breath and like, you know what, we, we did the best we could and that's okay, you know. But when we know better, we do better, you know.

Yeah.

Just really, because forgiveness is, is so important. It, it just to move on, you know, not to let that guilt eat you up inside. I think, Lisa, last time we talked, we talked about Turning pain into gain.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Because if that guilt sits and resides, takes up a lot of space inside you, it just, it kind of eats you up inside. And there's not enough room to move on because we can easily be beating ourselves up when we need the energy to go out and make changes. to do things, right? Not beat ourselves up. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. I think that's important for teachers too, because, you know, um, there's a lot of, a lot of moms and parents who are, you know, it's almost like the teachers in the school are the enemy now. And it's, it's, you really need to be all on the same page for the child. And I think that when teachers start to understand some of this, they have some of those negative feelings of guilt, um, you know, maybe not recognizing what this was. But I think, as you're saying, we move past that, and then what do we do from here? Because we really all want to work together, you know. We don't want to keep telling people, you're doing this wrong, you're doing that wrong, you're teaching my child wrong, wrong, wrong. You know, people don't really— humans don't really respond well to that. We want to hold the allies together and help these That's exactly right.

That's what we've got to get back to— connection, connection and social cohesion. That builds, you know, that makes all our brains happy.

Yes, we want happy brains.

Yes, we want happy growing and all the little dendrites and axons, you know, all going growing. And because our brains keep growing— I read a beautiful story from Dan Siegel in one of his books about him doing therapy with the 92-year-old, with this grumpy old man who his wife was so sick of him after all these years of marriage, she sent him to therapy. And Dan Siegel, you know, told the story, and this beautiful man who grew up in a really horrible, harsh environment, just breaking down, the tears coming out, and just the whole softening of him. He explained it. It was so beautiful. And I'm just like, oh, how did this guy happen? I mean, it's like a 92-year-old, you know, still learning. And I see that with my 97-year-old father, who changed from being a harsh, cut-off, unrelatable father into this warm, soft old man who I just, you know, who can— who tells me he loves me, and he tells us now he loves us. He could never do that when we were growing up.

Right.

So our brains can change, you know, that's the beautiful thing.

I thought they used to think that the brains pretty much stopped growing at a certain age, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The good news about what neuroscience has taught us is that we have— it's called neuroplasticity.

Yes.

So that was discovered, you know, and who was that guy who wrote that wonderful book. Um, anyway, it'll come to me later. You know, he's the guru of neuroplasticity. He started this whole thing. Um, The Brain That Changes Itself.

Right.

Um, yeah. Anyway, I've got it on my shelf, so I'll find it for you. But to people who hear this will know him straight away. He does lecture tours and that. Wonderful, wonderful person, speaker, telling us that the brain can change. Okay, so there are aspects of the brain that That's like our social brain learns up until— does a lot of our learning until we're about 25. And then those things are pretty much— that's, that's where it is. But our cortical brain, the outer cortex, continually is able to learn and grow and develop new pathways. And we can learn those skills in our cortex that then can go into the social brain and reflect on, is this helpful for us? And then actually help us with those relationship issues that we've done all that learning on before. You know, all the— we have to then go and unlearn because often they're not very helpful, you know, the way we've learned things. That's what, you know, I do in therapy. It's about the unlearning of the things that are not helpful.

Yeah, yeah.

Much harder than learning.

But we can do that. It's doable. We know that now.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.

And the thing that helps learning is being able to calm your nervous system, being able to teach your children, take a deep breath. You know, it's our nervous— oh, I've got a quote for you. I've got this amazing new book, The Polyvagal Theory. This is all the latest in our research with the nervous system. It says the greatest in all education, the greatest thing in all education is to make our nervous system our ally as opposed to Our enemy.

That is brilliant.

To make our nervous system our ally as opposed to our enemy. William James. I love that. And it's about being able to calm our own nervous system and teaching our children, just take a breath. Just let's just, let's just do some breathing together. Let's just calm down and let's just Tell me what happened. Because if you start putting language into it, you're engaging the cortex, the cortical parts of the brain, right? So if you can get the child to speak it out— because you know what happens when we're really, really scared? Our language shuts down. There are no words.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And often, like these children, they come home and they can't talk about it. And I think Nicholas was like that, wasn't he?

Yes. And he— and in fact, he refused to talk about it to me anyway. Yeah, he refused.

He didn't have the words for it, Lois. He didn't know how to talk about it.

Yeah.

And so if we can— okay, just breathe now and, you know, start putting words on it, that helps us— the child process what's going on when we can put words on it because we're engaging the outer part of the brain in a way that was cut off when the trauma happened.

Yeah.

Right? So we can start to help the child to start making sense of it. Okay, so it's tough for you with learning. But, you know, and realising that some— it's not your fault, but some— we all learn differently. Some brains learn differently. The children that pick it up easily, their brain learns a certain way. Your brain doesn't So we have to find the way that your brain's going to learn, like you do so well, Lois. You know, working with the child to understand it's not their fault, their brain just does it a little bit different to everybody else. It makes them more unique, you know. It's not a negative, yeah.

I recently took on a 16-year-old, you know, non-reading, totally could not read anything accurately. And, you know, and I— and it's all by Zoom or whatever we call it. Yeah, Zoom.

Yeah.

And when he first came on, when I very first met him, you know, I saw him sitting, leaning back in his chair, absolutely gray, you know, at the thought of talking to this woman. And I came on, I go, yay, it worked! Because I'm so excited that Zoom worked. And he laughed. And that laugh, that very first interaction, did just what you said. It broke that pain.

It calmed his nervous system. Yeah. Because laughing is part of it. It's the brakes. It brings out the polyvagal system, like, as opposed to the parasympathetic. We've got the sympathetic, you know this, Lisa. It's the fight-flight. So when that's on high alert, you know, it's like the accelerator. We're pushing on the accelerator and we can't learn and think clearly. Once we can engage the parasympathetic nervous system, get that firing, that's the brake. That puts the brake on the sympathetic. That's what laughter does, one of the things. Also the breathing.

Yes.

The things that calm us down. Feeling connected to someone. It's all the parasympathetic. That's what we've got to get working, you know, and get the sympathetic to just be able to calm that. That's why you say our nervous systems are our biggest ally in learning, you know.

And I, I think what you just said then, if my brain will help me, you know, when you've got the laughter and you've got the breathing, that's when you are open. Yes, to the learning and Yeah, you know, and then you get connected, connected. The connection comes.

And safety, and you trust the person that you're with. And I think that's another factor with some of our kids is that they are scared and they're, you know, maybe they don't trust that, you know, the teacher is, yeah, there for them or on their side. And I mean, the teachers have an enormous job, but I think that's one of the reasons why this is so important to understand.

Yeah. And get the teacher, like you said, Lisa, like, get— be on the same team, you know, if you can. That's so important. Like, be able to approach the teachers. You're not the enemy.

Yes.

You know, we're all wanting the same things here. We're all wanting our children to do well.

Yes.

How do we do that, you know? And using the knowledge of, you know, the neuroscience, like we can calm ourselves first. Because if we go to the teacher all, you know, like aggressive and attacking, they're going to be, you know, defensive. Getting their nervous system all on up and defending. So we've got to be able to just be in a calm place when we deal with any of this. And when we deal with our children, just calm ourselves first and not to try not to, you know, attack them.

Or—

yeah, I know it's a lot harder, but that's okay. Yeah, we need to work on ourselves. And our kids know how to push our buttons too. Oh, we know that, you know.

And the pressures that are on, you know, parents today, you know, the financial pressure, the, the— in the, you know, the Job insecurity. I mean, all of those things mount up. I mean, I cannot even really comprehend now what it's like because, you know, I think we grew up with that. I don't know if you, but I really— where's the next penny coming from?

Yeah.

You know, and I, and I really feel for the families who are now in this coronavirus mess, who've lost jobs, lost their income. And, you know, if you're a single parent, the lack of support just blows my mind, really.

Yeah, it's— yeah, it's— it is a big—

it's huge. And the stress on the teachers, like, this is enormous. It's already a hard job, and now you throw in the mix of all this uncertainty, and, you know, maybe the teachers have kids at home. I just— I like— it's a lot. On everybody's part.

Yeah.

And then I think it's— there's even more need now more than ever to connect, you know, to connect with people and say, you know, I feel your pain, I hear you. You know, this is, this is the toughest time in history. We haven't had a pandemic for 100 years, you know. And what's happening in America is probably— I mean, we can't even imagine. We live in, you know, a country That, you know, in Queensland we've got no cases of coronavirus. So it's just unimaginable what you're going through.

We're all gonna have to get on a Zoom therapy session with Lenore. All of America is gonna sign up and get on a therapy session, and she's gonna calm our nerves and make everybody laugh, and we're all gonna have happy brains. That's a tall order for you, Lenore.

I mean, okay. Oh, that's gonna be interesting. But you know, it's like that, that's part of it. Part of it is I love that, like, the happy brains. What makes your brain happy? What makes you happy? What can you hold on to even in the darkest days that, that you can, like, say, okay, life is still— it's still good, you know. There are still good things.

Yeah.

And that's what we have to find. It's so important, you know, not to focus on all the— yes, there's a horrible lot of stuff, but, you know, what makes you laugh? You know, what's your cat doing? Yeah, we've got this big goofy dog and he just makes us laugh constantly. Um, yeah, but, you know, what is it? What Can we— and laugh with our kids, you know, laugh with kids. It's so important.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's tough times. Hey, yeah.

So, Lenore, this, you know, you've provided so much. We really look forward to going in depth with this. I'm using this not only to get used to the technology, but, you know, there's so much out there that we really— one 40-minute session doesn't touch it. So this allows people to listen again and go back and explore more, and we'll come up and talk with yours, and your session is safety in the learning environment.

Yeah, so yeah, feeling— and I think that's— it's so crucial to be able to learn how we feel safe. And if I can say anything to parents out there, it's starting to look at what makes you feel safe. You know, start with yourself. When do I feel safe? And, you know, connected. How do I connect? So, and then where— how am I connecting with my child, first of all? So are they feeling like they can come to me and be able to tell me that it's really tough at school? You know, most of all, like Lisa said, we all need support. That's so important, but for children to feel like they can connect with somebody.

Okay.

Yeah, right. Yeah, excellent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I mean, there is a lot, and gosh, yeah.

And there's, there's a lot on YouTube. I found a couple of videos. I've got it on my playlist. About the stress brain versus the learning brain. And it's very much of what you're saying, you know, that the brain shuts down and when you're stressed and you actually can't take anything in. And, you know, it stops so much. It stops the growth, doesn't it? It hinders growth when all you are is in that fight or flight.

Yeah. And not just, you know, the learning environment, but it is such a long-term effect on how we form, how we see the world. You know, we see the world as dangerous then, and not— and, you know, we have to hide from it. And then we get— we think something's wrong with us because, you know, it's like everybody else seems to be doing okay, what's wrong with me? You know, the world seems so dangerous and you can't go out in it because you're constantly, you know, got to be on high alert. But it does— it just affects So much more than, oh, I can't learn at school. But, you know, as you've seen with your kids, their whole identity and their ability to make friends and, and the way our brain makes connections, which is vital in the teenage years, building those connections so you can get an overall thinking of the world and not just that tunnel vision, you know. It's just like being more balanced in life.

Right.

Yeah, there's just so many things with with what we know of the neuroscience now, you know. And just anybody, if you're interested in, in learning, reading more, there's so many good— or YouTubing it. Dan Siegel is brilliant on the neuroscience, um, being able to put it into a way that, you know, with that hand model of the brain, that's him, Dan Siegel. And it just helps you get it. Oh my goodness, that makes so much sense when, when he, you know— So YouTube it and And get, get an idea of how our brains work so that you can, like, understand yourself first.

Yeah.

It's really important.

Yeah.

And start, you know, reflecting. Am I anxious a lot? How am I dealing with my anxiety? You know, am I able to calm myself, or am I just, you know, putting it out there because I don't know how to do it myself? You know, what makes me happy? What makes— gives me a happy brain? You know, those sorts of things. of things. That's really, really important. Yeah. And, you know, we've still got to balance life in all this COVID crisis.

Hey.

Yes. You know, and, and, and I think not to put it— not to— people to expect too much of themselves, because we know that if, you know, from Maslow's hierarchy, if we're not— if we're really struggling with the basic needs, just putting food on the table and all that, Then, you know, don't put a whole lot of expectations on yourself for now. You know, we've got to be able to be in a stable place before we can build on that and start to feel safe within ourselves and help our children.

And as you say, I mean, this time in our life, they think our children are regressing and all the rest of it. The brain is not static. The brain is not concrete. The brain can grow and change. And I think this is just a different way of learning. Let's accept it as that.

And I love that, Lois. Love it. Yes. So true.

Yeah.

It's not like— yeah, because we get stuck in a mold and think that the only learning we can do is if everything's going right for us. Our brain is learning all the time. It's how we approach things.

Yeah.

You know, whether we, whether we see it as, oh, Oh, I can't do this, or whether we see it as an opportunity for, okay, what's this telling me about how I'm reacting, or what's happening with my child, or what can I see happening in my child, you know, and helping them learn from it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I read an academic paper years ago, and they said when you're looking at growth, you want it to be Measurable, and that's what we look at, and observable. And I think we forget— we get the measurable, we know and we measure the things that, you know, we can do quickly and easily. We forget the observable, and we need both. And if we haven't got both, one without the other is, is not very useful.

Yeah, absolutely. And what would you explain by observable? How would you define that?

Well, when I saw my 13-year-old, who they said, you know, my first student Christian, he's reading on a, you know, 3rd grade reading level. He's been in this phonics-only reading program for 4 years. And they're saying he's growing and he's getting it. When I look at him and he cannot pick up a book, that's The observation is he cannot read.

Right.

And can he read signs? No, he can't do that. The parent's not seeing these things. And so in this time of coronavirus where we're looking at what's measurable, look at what they are doing around the home. You know, can they make their bed and brush their teeth? Can they do all these other things that require a family to function?

Yeah.

And what other things are they learning other than just the academics? Yes, we do need that. But you know, that'll come if we can provide an environment in different ways. And learning happens in multiple, multiple methods today.

Absolutely. And I love that, that we're constantly learning if, if the brain is open to it, if we feel safe.

Yeah.

But if there's a lot of tension in the home, you know, or if there's, you know, if you— if we can't reconcile, you know, this whole situation and, and it's difficult getting food on the table, look, I feel for people in that. That's horrible. But, you know, we, we then need to be more community-minded, you know, reach out. And are people hurting around us? You know, reach out and connect. with people more so they don't feel alone. Yeah, so it's like there's somewhere we can, yeah, we can come, okay, I found a little safe haven here. So we can, and that's just all about learning safety, is providing the conditions for learning. So kids will be continually learning if they're feeling safe enough, if they're not highly anxious all the time.

Yeah.

Yes.

Anyway, yeah.

Great.

Lenore, thank you. We look forward to talking to you on the 21st of September at 6 AM your time.

I'll set my alarm. And my coffee. I'll have my coffee. Hey, um, I'm just a bit confused about what you want to cover, you know, like—

Oh, we'll talk about that. I can talk to you again without recording it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that'll be a good thing, you know, and we've got your blog post which will come out over the next 3 weeks, 3 months or something.

We've got a year to do that. Yeah, I'm working on the third one. Yeah.

Oh, good on you. Oh, you're saving me all this work.

Well, it's more, it's more about the actual calming the nervous system, you know, what can we do?

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, it's absolutely vital.

We need that, you know.

We need that. Yeah.

Yeah. We need— because there's, you know, like we're saying, you know, there's no endpoint either. I mean, you don't get to grade 12 and then life's fine. Because I look at, you know, both my sons, Nicholas and all of my sons, and we haven't got to the point where the stress is gone.

Welcome to life, Lois.

That's right.

When does it ever go? No, but you know what, if we can laugh together, yeah, and if we can embrace it and realize, hey, it's life, we're doing life, yeah, we don't ever get to that idealistic, oh, life's going to be wonderful. It's wonderful now if we can see those opportunities, you know, sharing, you know, this stuff.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, meeting Lisa, meeting new people. Wow, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'd love to hear more about your story, Lisa. That's just my, my therapist heart, you know. It's like I love hearing people's stories.

Well, I have a bunch, so yes, we'll— when you have another 300 hours, I'll go over it.

Yeah, I mean, that, that's, that's just my thing. So other people will have their thing, you know what I mean? And people, we have to find our thing. Now, what is it that makes your brain happy, you know, or your heart happy, you know, because that heart and brain connection, it's really important. Yeah, you know, it is about, like you say, that learning. We're constantly learning. We never arrive. We never arrive, do we, Lois?

We never arrive. We never arrive. That's a good one. It's always a journey.

Yeah.

And be thankful for every day we've got on this planet.

Yes, and, and it, it frees us from that, oh, I've got to get there, you know. Yes, I've got to get there because, you know, then bloody coronavirus happens, you know. So, you know what I mean? What do we do with that? Oh my God.

You go and model it. That's what you do.

You what?

You go and model it.

Model what?

Oh, mathematics. Nicholas, you know, the kid who failed now models coronavirus.

Love it. So funny.

Yeah. Oh, Lenore, we've nearly talked for an hour. This is fantastic.

Thank you.

Yeah, we'll talk to you on the 14th of September, 4 PM our time, and you'll be able to get it on YouTube and you Yeah, YouTube Live. And we will be talking about— and I'll just put your title away— emotionally safe learning environments, because that's what you recognized Nicholas did not have when he was 6 years old, and how we created that.

Yeah.

How we created an emotionally safe learning environment for a child who was so dramatically out of the system.

Yeah, and I mean, you can speak of that, how you created that, but, and then how he was able to learn. But you know, there are lessons there. Absolutely.

There are lessons there. So yeah, and Lisa, what you— what we're doing for your boys, and enjoy your new job.

Yes, it sounds so exciting.

It is, it is.

Yeah, and it's a challenge. Oh my goodness, what a challenge. That'll be a challenge for you too. Yeah, addictions and—

yeah, but it's where life brought me, and I always knew it would end up here. So, wow. I mean, this has always been a passion of mine, and it's just funny that it's sort of intertwined with my own life.

So, well, and you know, where's it going to take you? You might then go off and study some more. Not in this environment.

Neuroscience, Lisa.

Get into the neuroscience.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's a good one. There's lots there. It's so good. Okay, thanks.

Okay. Thank you. I'll talk to you again soon. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Lenore.

What are we doing?

Talking about when learning is trauma and what to do about it. And this one's about the emotional safety of learning environments. Breathing and laughter break down barriers.

Beautiful. It certainly does. We all need to breathe.

And we, and we have to connect. So when we're laughing, we're connecting.

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you. We'll put this up on YouTube for people to enjoy.

Okay.

I've forgotten the rest of what I wanted to say. Okay, bye. Bye, Lisa. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

Off.

Stop streaming.