Latest / The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education / SEND, Ableism & Neurodivergence in Education: Rethinking 'Standard'

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SEND, Ableism & Neurodivergence in Education: Rethinking 'Standard' · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

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  Actually, the government's aim is often at odds with what nor
• 0:04
  divided children need, because their aim is standardization.
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  And standardization is the enemy of equity, because equity is
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  about giving different things to children in different ways,
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  educating children in different ways, which nor divided children
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  need, And standardization is the opposite.
• 0:39
  Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the big Home
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  Ed conversations. My name is Kelly Rigg, I'm a
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  home Ed mum of two, founder of Off Roading Motherhood and a
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  qualified mindset coach. I'm passionate about supporting
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  parents and neuro divergent families, especially as they
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  navigate the transition from mainstream schooling into home
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  education. So today's subject is super,
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  super close to my happy place in terms of what I love to talk
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  about. I'm here together as always with
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  my Co host Ashley Venerio. So she's a fellow home Med mum
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  of three and a former primary teacher.
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  We created the Big Home Med Conversations podcast with what
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  began as honest, heartfelt talks around her coffee table, the
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  kids screaming around our ankles, and has grown now into a
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  space where hundreds of listeners now tune in for real,
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  unfiltered conversations about mindset, behaviour, challenges,
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  educational philosophies and the often emotional journey of
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  alternative education. So we cut through the noise and
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  we focus on what really matters to home, educating families,
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  offering clarity, confidence and hopefully some community in
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  every episode. Our guest today is Helen Daniel.
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  She is an educator, author, and after getting her masters in
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  autism studies, she focuses on neurosensory divergent and you
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  can see how this really sparked her passion for advocating for
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  neurodivergent children so they can all have an educational
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  experience that is equitable and supportive of their sensory
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  needs. She's incredible.
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  We know her, we love her. Our conversation with her today
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  focuses on some areas which are very, very close to my heart, as
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  well as obviously a neuro divergent parent with neuro
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  divergent children. I have experienced an awful lot
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  of the things that we'll be talking about today and the the
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  prejudice and experience that families are having around this
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  right now in the modern world we live in can be can be really,
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  really hard to listen to. And I appreciate that there may
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  be some really triggering elements to this conversation.
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  Obviously we have worked hard to try and offer you a
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  compassionate view of the school system and and the ways that
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  changes that could be made within it that would actually
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  really help young people to access it and enjoy their
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  education in a way that actually feels really right for them.
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  Whilst obviously respecting the limitations that teachers and
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  the kind of budgets and environments that they already
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  have in place offer to the the staff who are trying to
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  facilitate that. We're absolutely going to be
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  talking to you today about the concept of how you as a home
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  educating parent. Obviously, if you have chosen to
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  pull your children from school and are trying to support them
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  at home. How you can obviously try and
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  ensure that you are providing as supportive and accessible an
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  environment as you can for your children.
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  Understanding them and their needs and how they learn.
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  But also having that ability to adapt and understand each
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  other's kids. And the when you go to
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  environments or set up groups and things, how you can make
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  sure that you are being as inclusive and aware as possible.
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  Obviously this subject is all around the concept of ableism in
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  education and how ultimately it is not designed for those of us
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  who operate outside the bounds of neurotypical or normal.
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  However, people like to try and put it that we like things to be
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  different and we we like to keep our own interests at the heart
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  of what we do. And I think it's so important to
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  make sure that we are being really, really open to our
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  children's opportunity to embrace that as much as possible
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  through their learning. So get stuck in this is this is
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  a long one. Again, we're sorry.
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  These conversations are just too good.
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  Like, it's just gonna have to just enjoy it.
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  It's it is what it is. And yeah, we hope that you
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  really, really love it. Enjoy it.
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  Have fun. I'm so excited to have you on,
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  Helen. I think I nagged you like a year
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  ago to come on this, so I'm really glad that we've managed
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  to nail her down. I'm really excited to be here
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  and obviously I love listening to your podcast.
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  Helen Daniel is a really good friend of mine.
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  I've known her for probably several years now.
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  I don't actually know how long we've known each other for, for
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  quite a while. But she is also now published
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  author of Neurosensory Divergent Autistic Languages, which is
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  very much all to do with kind of creating an amazing kind of
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  Equitable Life for autistic children.
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  So you can go and grab her book. So in all the usual places, it's
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  well worth a good read. I've really enjoyed reading it
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  myself. But we are talking to her today
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  about this kind of concept of ableism within the education
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  environment, specifically through the lens of
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  neurodivergence. But ultimately it will touch on
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  some of the experiences that people have all kinds of
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  disabilities. But that's not our main focus
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  today. So we do appreciate we're not
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  going to necessarily touch on everything that might be
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  relevant to you listening. We're going to do our best.
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  But the the thing that we really want to kind of to explain to
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  you guys as we're going through this series of changing
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  perspectives and understanding how all the different things
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  like ableism, ageism, create prejudice and they create
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  judgement. And actually for a lot of us,
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  we're really working on trying to not do that.
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  But we obviously then don't want to create that in our own home
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  Ed environments as well. We want to raise compassionate
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  children. We want to be compassionate
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  ourselves too. So as I say, without no further
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  ado, we are talking today about scent and ableism in the
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  education system. And I think we're just obviously
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  having our brief chat before we came on to get ourselves
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  straight. And we kind of found ourselves
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  really circling around really kind of the issues we're having
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  with the current curriculum, EHCPS, the structure and the way
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  that schools have obviously started to be established with
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  this kind of idea in mind that really anybody with a difference
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  kind of just has to get on board and and somehow conform to the
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  system we've got. And obviously, that is not
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  working for most SEND children. And so obviously handing over to
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  you for a moment, Helen. So I won't keep talking the
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  whole time. I'm terrible at this.
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  You're mentioning before about EHCP's being a bit of a problem
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  right now and what's actually kind of happening.
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  I think that when we're talking about the education system,
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  quite often people talk about the EHC PS as being there's far
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  too many, there's, you know, revising amounts of people
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  needing EHC PS and children. And with EHC PS coming out in
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  2013, around the same time 2014, there was a new curriculum,
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  there were new targets, 14 and I don't think a lot of people are
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  looking at how these targets actually hugely impacted
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  neurodivergent children and SEND children because they narrowed
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  what we were looking at. They started to bring in more
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  complex ideas around core subjects.
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  So they moved the goal posts and they said now children are going
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  to learn their 12 times tables earlier.
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  Now children are going to start studying Shakespeare earlier.
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  Now children are going to start to look at literacy concepts
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  earlier and earlier and for some children they it's narrowed it
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  so that they can focus. For neuro diverted children it's
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  narrowed it so they fall outside.
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  So we are having more children who need EHC.
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  PS:. Because we've literally moved
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  the bell posts in education and it's highly problematic and it's
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  something we need to talk about. And obviously there's a new
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  curriculum view coming up, and the government is talking about
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  making it more varied, like bringing music and drama and
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  things. But actually, the government's
• 8:08
  aim is often at odds with what nor divided children need,
• 8:14
  because their aim is standardization.
• 8:17
  And standardization is the enemy of equity, because equity is
• 8:22
  about giving different things to children in different ways,
• 8:28
  educating children in different ways, which nor divided children
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  need, and standardisation is the opposite.
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  Like when when it comes with like neurodivergence as as a
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  send kind of requirement. Obviously the we've got young
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  people who maybe kind of learn really visually or they learn by
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  moving very tactile kind of sensory based play or they might
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  need to be moving their bodies quite a lot.
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  And I know that when I chose to home educate, this was one of
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  the major factors for me. I did not realise my son was
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  neurodivergent when we first started home educating, to be
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  fully transparent, but I knew that the concept of making him
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  stay in a school environment for five days a week and have that
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  structure around him just wasn't going to work very well for him.
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  I also, I mean, to be fair, he was, he'd lost a lot of his
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  young years to COVID, so he hadn't had all the fun of being
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  outside, playing with friends and having that like connection
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  with nature. And in a way, I wanted to
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  maintain some more of his freedom.
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  I just wanted to give him some more time wanting to be a kid.
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  And I think that whilst we say that obviously these things have
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  really, really detrimental for neurodivergent brains that
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  actually, I think a lot of children would benefit from a, a
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  way more varied and, and like more interestingly taught
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  curriculum with way more play based activities and
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  opportunities to learn things themselves and to contribute
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  their own individual behaviours and ideas to it.
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  Instead of it being kind of like, as you say, like, oh, they
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  need to learn literacy way earlier.
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  Do they though? Like, is that actually going to
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  have a solid outcome benefit on, on how quickly they learn to
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  read or what they're able to go and do in future life?
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  Like is that really making any difference?
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  Or is this just a way to get them to sit down and focus a
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  little bit more? Like and and they brought in.
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  So I used to work in early years and primary as a teacher and
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  they brought in table activities and then they brought in sitting
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  and writing earlier. And actually, if you look at the
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  research and you look at different like radio media and
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  different types of education, pedagogy and things, there are
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  some amazing ways that we can educate children.
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  If you look at the early years, the way we used to do it, where
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  children were, you know, investigative and like learning
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  about the world around them and finding what works for them and
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  is enjoyable. But the problem you have is the
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  government wants to measure. They want to measure a criteria
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  so that they can compare children and that the two things
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  cannot marry. What neuro divergent children
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  need, and I think I've said this before, there is not a huge
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  amount of research on what works for neuro divergent children.
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  And as you say, obviously I talk about sensory a lot because I
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  sensory systems, we don't go into it deeply enough.
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  And children who need to learn visually, who need a less speech
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  based education are not being served by our current education
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  system. But in the early years, it isn't
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  as much like that. They are investigating.
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  And actually, as you said, it could be really helpful for lots
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  of different children who need to move their body more, who
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  need a less speech based, you know, investigative kind of
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  education, who need to learn through their interests.
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  Yeah, we're we're way more aware as well of like people obviously
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  talk a lot about kind of the rising diagnosis and the rest of
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  it and worrying about more children being diagnosed
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  etcetera. And obviously whilst there's the
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  fact that obviously we didn't have the right criteria in
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  place, we didn't really know what we were looking for, we're
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  now becoming more aware of what we need to be looking for and,
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  and supporting children better. We're also moving towards the
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  kind of concept. I think I read somewhere that it
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  by 20-30 they reckon that one in three children would be
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  considered autistic. And it's like that means that
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  actually a large majority of our community is neurodivergent.
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  Meaning actually are they divergent at all or are we just
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  all very different And we kind of just need to start accepting
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  that people are different to each other and we're not all the
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  same and we can't standardise them because they just doesn't
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  work that way. And the more kind of social
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  model we move to where we are just slightly more accepting
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  that if someone's quiet, they don't they don't really like
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  going to social things and they find these places really loud
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  that actually we don't force them to go as a grown up.
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  Like I wouldn't drag my husband's father, for example,
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  who doesn't like talking to people along to some event and
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  insists that he sits and have a conversation with them.
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  Like, you just don't do it. You allow people to be The Who
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  they are. But we don't give the same grace
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  to children. We don't, we don't really
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  respect them. I think we're definitely going
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  to cover this to some degree and sort of the ages and side of
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  things as well that we just kind of expect them to be, to just
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  put up with whatever us adults decide is relevant.
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  And it's very weird when you think about it.
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  It's really strange. I don't know why we're not
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  interested in hearing what they have to say and actually
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  respecting their boundaries. Yeah, and my tutor at
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  university, Luke Bearden, stated that he was saying that we get
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  education the wrong way around for lots of lower divergent
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  children. So the way that they go into
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  college and university and can study what they want to study
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  and can learn in a way that works for them.
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  So you can do more open book based learning.
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  Do you know, more vocational learning?
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  And yet we don't offer that earlier on in ways that could
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  really work for all different types of brains.
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  I think learning through interests for all children would
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  be amazing. And actually, because we have
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  the Internet, because we have video learning, because we have
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  all these resources that we didn't have before, it is
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  possible. So where the government is
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  saying we can't give a different academic experience for every
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  child, actually we can, you know.
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  Yeah, that's the thing. The school itself could become
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  more of a container and we're seeing this.
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  There are lots of different alternate provisions that are
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  cropping up. And I know the government are
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  getting antsy about them because people are loving them and
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  they're using them. But ultimately there are a lot
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  of alternative provisions cropping up that do provide a
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  more play based or nature based or like project LED or eclectic
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  and allow the children to kind of lead their own education.
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  They don't, I think they kind of just, they basically provide
• 14:35
  facilitators. So adults who are around the
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  children have their own space where they learn.
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  It's like their desk and their space that they can come and
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  utilize if they need it. But they can collaborate.
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  They've got libraries, they've got computer banks, they've got
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  places they can go and explore. They can bring stuff in, they
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  can like go off on field trips. They can do all kinds of cool
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  stuff that basically furthers whatever project they are
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  working towards. And the facilitators are there
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  simply to help guide them and to, I guess encourage them to
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  continue to be productive. It's allowing them to kind of
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  follow the natural like progression of their education.
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  And so much of our home education journey has been
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  obviously understanding that my children and they're divergent,
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  recognizing that they need to learn very differently to how
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  necessarily I was offering it, offering loads of creative
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  opportunities, trusting them that they are actually
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  incredibly intellectually capable and are very, very like
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  capable of pushing their own education forward when it
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  matters to them. And I, and I say there's some of
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  the grid on my face because obviously we do still have our
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  struggles around some subjects, of course, that are societally
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  expected. And to some degree I am not
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  educated enough to argue with that.
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  So I'm just like, I still feel like we need to learn maths kids
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  like I don't, and I can't argue with the fact that this is
• 15:49
  probably necessary. So like, it's not that they
• 15:51
  don't like numbers, but just that they need to have it
• 15:53
  presented in a really fun way. And I mean, I set up a, a maths
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  obstacle challenge on our table the other day where they had to
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  match the coins to the price on the products I'd put there and
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  they had all the timers out. But we don't often do this.
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  I mean, I know that teachers do the best within the grounds of
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  what they've got. And again, this is not teacher
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  bashing, this is 100% system bashing.
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  It's, it's recognising that the, the agenda of the school system.
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  And again, we have talked about this before, we'll bash on about
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  it forever, but the goal was never individual greatness.
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  The, the goal was educate the masses with as minimal resources
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  as we can get away with putting into it, because it's expensive
• 16:30
  when you do it that way. To allow them to become
• 16:33
  reasonably competent in literacy and mathematics and basic
• 16:37
  understanding of the world of science so that they could go
• 16:40
  off and do industrial jobs and further the economy of the
• 16:43
  country. The goal was not to create
• 16:45
  innovators. It was not to create
• 16:46
  individuals. They believed that the rich were
• 16:49
  doing that and that was fine. The rich could do that all on
• 16:51
  their own and they didn't need our help.
• 16:53
  But actually we're seeing more and more individuals, especially
• 16:56
  neurodivergent individuals, running their own businesses,
• 16:58
  coming up with their own ideas, writing books, content creators.
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  An awful lot of them are neurodivergent.
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  And I think ultimately that does mean that we just have a real
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  mismatch with what is expected in the national curriculum and
• 17:09
  in a school environment versus how we actually need to operate
• 17:12
  as individuals. And if we're allowed that time
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  to hyper focus and explore our own ideas, then actually we
• 17:17
  thrive and we feel very like self fulfilled in our lives.
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  We don't actually need an awful lot of other people fulfilling
• 17:26
  us. We're actually can be quite
• 17:27
  self-sufficient in that way if we are able to be free and
• 17:30
  choose our own destiny to some degree, if you think.
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  About the national curriculum, the way it was designed in
• 17:36
  research, it's designed on research based on non Moro
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  divergent children and nonsense children.
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  So all the targets and motor targets write handwriting
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  targets. They're not based on children
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  who that where their motor skills develop along a different
• 17:51
  timeline. So even inference targets for
• 17:55
  autistic children always gets me because autistic children quite
• 17:59
  often don't think one thing and say another.
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  They say what they mean. So inference is the scale of
• 18:06
  knowing about thinking one thing and saying another and being
• 18:09
  able to decipher that in texts. Well, an autistic child, it's
• 18:15
  just like, well, I don't even know what it is.
• 18:16
  What is it, you know, and for lots, I would like the targets
• 18:24
  don't consider the fact that there are children that learn so
• 18:29
  differently, that develop so differently.
• 18:31
  And when we were talking about ageism and I, you know, the fact
• 18:35
  that we think, well, we can't possibly believe this as a
• 18:39
  society that children all fit the same developmental
• 18:44
  milestones at the same age. Like it's not possible and as
• 18:49
  and as an ex teacher, the differentiation that we're able
• 18:54
  to put in is does not meet the needs of a cohort of their
• 18:58
  children nowhere near. And so in home Ed, that's what's
• 19:02
  so lovely as well is the fact that we've been in environments
• 19:05
  where there are older children and younger children all
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  together. That's beautiful.
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  It's really wonderful because in the moments where say a child
• 19:14
  needs those younger children to be able to connect with, they
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  have them and in the moment when they need the older children,
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  they have those to connect with, so.
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  Yeah. That's something we don't see in
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  schools. No, there's a lot of othering,
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  isn't there? I can remember feeling very
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  segregated within my year group. Like even out in the playground,
• 19:33
  you, you didn't play with children of different ages, you
• 19:35
  didn't go and integrate with them very much.
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  And if anything, you may be more scared of them or like didn't
• 19:39
  really know much about them. And it is quite upsetting
• 19:44
  actually when you think about that because I also think my
• 19:46
  youngest, for example, who's now six, she, if you ask her who her
• 19:51
  friends are and she does struggle with this anyway to
• 19:54
  some degree because she she doesn't tend to really decide
• 19:57
  the people are friends very easily.
• 19:59
  But she will actually list most of my friends as her friends.
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  Adults. There are people in her
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  environment who she is very attached to and sees them as
• 20:07
  friends. Like she enjoys making them a
• 20:09
  birthday card and she wants to tell them that she loves them
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  and she wants to play with them and spend time interacting with
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  them as they're around adults who encourage them to just be
• 20:18
  themselves all the time. They feel very safe.
• 20:20
  And I don't think that a lot of children feel that way.
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  I suspect an awful lot of them don't get an awful lot of
• 20:25
  autonomy at all really in their lives in terms of what they wear
• 20:28
  and where they go and when and what they're actually working
• 20:31
  towards or trying to achieve. And I think this, this obviously
• 20:34
  becomes a problem in schools when you're then the, the goal
• 20:37
  really is for a teacher when you've got 30 children.
• 20:39
  I can only imagine how disruptive it becomes when you
• 20:43
  have got goals and things that you have got to try and achieve
• 20:45
  and you have got to try and get this curriculum taught because
• 20:47
  that's what you've been told you've got to do.
• 20:49
  And you have got children in that class who are not
• 20:51
  regulated, who are struggling to access it, who are therefore
• 20:55
  getting bored or frustrated or distracted moving around the
• 20:57
  classroom, possibly getting upset or angry like you do.
• 21:02
  See, obviously teachers and parents who took the comment
• 21:05
  threads of certain posts and stuff.
• 21:07
  I saw one of the day where a lady had shared about a petition
• 21:09
  that's going around about asking for all children to be allowed
• 21:11
  to go to the toilet whenever they need to go to the toilet.
• 21:13
  I says I can't even believe we need a petition for this.
• 21:18
  But the comments on it from teachers were how to say that
• 21:22
  you're like you're not a teacher without saying you're not a
• 21:25
  teacher. Like obviously we can't have all
• 21:27
  the kids going to use a toilet whenever they want.
• 21:29
  And it's like, how on earth are we supposed to get a class tour
• 21:32
  if they were just wandering off every 5 seconds?
• 21:33
  And it's just like, but is that truly what would happen?
• 21:37
  Or if you actually offer respect and grace to someone, like yes,
• 21:41
  to some degree, OK, but this is actually more of a cultural
• 21:43
  issue in terms of children do not feel respected to make
• 21:47
  decisions about their own bodies.
• 21:50
  They are young adults who have got so much potential and are
• 21:55
  stuck being told, no, you need to focus on this.
• 21:57
  No, you need to focus on this. And actually, but I'm really
• 21:59
  interested in this. So I want to go and learn how to
• 22:01
  do that. Or I could be a really great
• 22:03
  hairdresser. But everyone's telling me that
• 22:04
  that's a rubbish career and I shouldn't do that.
• 22:07
  And I don't know what I'm supposed to do and I don't know
• 22:09
  how to express myself. And so of course they push back.
• 22:12
  Of course they cause like Ruckus is in these situations because
• 22:15
  they're bored and they're restless and they want to be
• 22:17
  able to be independent and make their own choices.
• 22:19
  It falls kind of into the whole idea of like there are a lot of
• 22:22
  practical changes that can be made in schools that offer
• 22:25
  obviously more respect towards the children that are being
• 22:27
  educated, but it eventually would lend to meeting all the
• 22:32
  different needs of the children. They're not just those that are
• 22:36
  neurodivergent, but everyone, everyone in the school that
• 22:40
  there are a lot of needs being depressed that aren't
• 22:42
  necessarily related. And I think this is probably a
• 22:45
  whole other, other topic. But when we look at it from the
• 22:48
  topic of today, I think schools misunderstand a lot and there
• 22:52
  are these changes that can be made.
• 22:53
  So one thing that I wanted to go back to about going to the
• 22:57
  toilet and teachers saying, Oh well, they're going out to the
• 22:59
  toilet and they're there for ages.
• 23:01
  So isn't it interesting that children will prefer to be in
• 23:04
  the toilet than in your lesson? I mean, there are children going
• 23:11
  out to regulate, spending time in the toilet because they just
• 23:15
  need downtime. That's a bit of research and
• 23:18
  information right there. And so if you're having to bring
• 23:21
  in rules, and I think this happens often in the education
• 23:24
  system, rules are brought in around behaviour that is
• 23:29
  challenging for the adults instead of getting curious,
• 23:34
  which it goes to what we were about to talk about, getting
• 23:37
  curious, what is happening for these children, what is going on
• 23:42
  that's making them. And because I think when you
• 23:47
  talk about teachers and parents, the difficult thing about
• 23:50
  talking about who is right and who is wrong or who you know,
• 23:55
  that the teachers need to accommodate, which of course
• 23:57
  they do. I think when you're in the
• 23:59
  system it, you're so it's so ingrained in you.
• 24:02
  You've gone through the system as a child, You're then teaching
• 24:06
  within the system. You don't know, you haven't
• 24:11
  stepped out of that system. You're still working in it.
• 24:14
  So you're like, well, we have to teach children maths and this is
• 24:17
  the way because this is the Mester curricula and are those
• 24:19
  teachers quite often we have this like especially as a neuro
• 24:23
  divergent teacher undiagnosed, you have this formal response to
• 24:26
  education, the system because you're like this feels wrong,
• 24:32
  but I can't put my finger on it. And actually my training in my
• 24:37
  master's on autism and not like a neurofoaming course was the
• 24:43
  eye opener to me to go, oh, like the problem, I was sitting in
• 24:49
  the problem. And the teachers that are in
• 24:52
  there don't know how much they're sitting in the problem
• 24:56
  and they can't change it because how do you change government
• 24:59
  directives that are coming down to you as a as a single teacher?
• 25:05
  Yeah, and that's where like we get angry with teachers striking
• 25:08
  and we get angry with them pushing back or whatever.
• 25:10
  And like, but actually, I, I mean, I was saying this for a
• 25:13
  little while now. Is this like home educators will
• 25:16
  spend an awful lot of energy campaigning against bills that
• 25:19
  eradicate children's rights. That that like this children's
• 25:22
  well-being bill, for example, which absolutely has not got
• 25:24
  well-being at its core at all. It's like a Band-Aid.
• 25:27
  They're desperately trying to cover up the fact that actually
• 25:29
  they have created a horror show of experience for most families
• 25:33
  and that it's not dealing with the core problems.
• 25:35
  And again, it's like behaviours versus triggers and looking at
• 25:37
  the root causes of things that that is not going to solve the
• 25:41
  problem. We know this, it absolutely will
• 25:42
  not and that ultimately you are dealing with a situation where
• 25:46
  you've got parents who are really unhappy with what their
• 25:50
  children are experiencing in schools.
• 25:52
  They are seeing them really miserable.
• 25:54
  They're seeing them not OK with what they're being taught.
• 25:55
  They're even saying to the kid, look, I know it's boring.
• 25:58
  We just have to do it. Like we just need to tick the
• 25:59
  box. And it's like, I know you don't
• 26:01
  want to sit your GCS ES, but in a school they won't allow them
• 26:04
  to sit the functional maths GCSE which has the same equitable
• 26:08
  value in terms of UCAS points for getting into university,
• 26:11
  unless they failed their maths GCSE twice, then they can try
• 26:15
  the functional 1. And it's just like, why?
• 26:17
  Why is this not kind of being offered as just an option?
• 26:21
  Like if you are not loving the more academic form of maths,
• 26:24
  then let's do the functional 1 and let's get you a
• 26:26
  qualification so that it's just done and we don't have to keep
• 26:29
  stressing you out about it. There is not a child on this
• 26:31
  planet who after failing maths twice is going to want to go and
• 26:33
  try and do maths a different way.
• 26:35
  They're going to want to run fast away from education.
• 26:37
  And when they're given an opportunity to run, they will
• 26:40
  run and they will never trust it in the same way as they could
• 26:42
  have done. And we don't want this.
• 26:44
  We don't want young people running away from education at
• 26:47
  the first opportunity. We want them to want to lean
• 26:50
  into it. And you don't get buy in like
• 26:53
  that by forcing it. You don't get buy in like that
• 26:56
  by by making it as as possible and like forcing them to do it
• 27:01
  from as young as possible. Like you get it from showing
• 27:04
  them that it's relevant and interesting and like fun.
• 27:09
  And I really wish we'd start to understand this bit more that
• 27:11
  education is not supposed to be dry.
• 27:13
  It's not supposed to be boring. It's supposed to be incredible
• 27:15
  and interesting. What?
• 27:16
  I would love to see should I say this on a podcast.
• 27:21
  I'd love to see what I was doing is but I think it's easier in
• 27:24
  primary school. I don't know if it's so easy in
• 27:26
  secondary, but almost having very small moments of teacher
• 27:29
  rebellion once you know, you sit in this system like bring in and
• 27:34
  it isn't even rebellion, it's equity.
• 27:37
  So, So what like we were saying, bring in noise cancelling
• 27:41
  headphones and have those in the classroom for anybody to use
• 27:45
  whenever they want to have an AIDS.
• 27:48
  And talk to your head teacher about the fact that there are
• 27:52
  children in my classroom who take in more sensory information
• 27:57
  and therefore that school bell is really quite traumatizing for
• 28:01
  them. What can we do about that?
• 28:03
  So teachers have power. They don't feel like they have
• 28:07
  power. And I had small backs of
• 28:10
  rebellion, like one child in my class needed to hold on to my
• 28:13
  knee the whole way through this session.
• 28:15
  And I was like, if that's what you need, I'm OK with that.
• 28:20
  That's what you need. And and again, like thinking,
• 28:25
  getting really curious. And we don't have huge amounts
• 28:29
  of time for getting really curious as teachers, which is so
• 28:32
  sad because that's really what you need to do.
• 28:36
  But you do have some time to do it.
• 28:39
  And the time that you do have getting really curious about
• 28:42
  cohort of children that's in your classroom, thinking about
• 28:46
  what is their sensory experience thinking.
• 28:50
  So a teacher said to me, I've got a child who just isn't
• 28:53
  engaging with the lessons. They aren't engaging with
• 28:56
  anything that we're doing. And I said, give them a video.
• 28:59
  And she's like, but that's not like the other children won't
• 29:02
  have a video. Give them a video with subtitles
• 29:04
  and see, just do one lesson and see what they access similar the
• 29:08
  same subject, but give them that and they accessed it.
• 29:13
  And I'm not saying that's right for every child, but that
• 29:15
  sensory accessibility, if a child has taken in learning
• 29:21
  through their visual sense, not primarily through their auditory
• 29:24
  sense for whatever reason, or they don't memorize spoken words
• 29:28
  because of the wave of access language.
• 29:30
  If they're echolalic like you were talking about, they were,
• 29:34
  they're repeating speech, then their communication has been
• 29:38
  accessed differently. And therefore, like you said,
• 29:41
  they they seek out communication partners with adults because
• 29:44
  adults are safe communication partners.
• 29:46
  We will all to their way of being to meet that child's
• 29:50
  communication needs. If a child needs to speak to an
• 29:53
  adult instead of another child in partner work notice that.
• 29:58
  You know, there's so many things we've learned through curious
• 30:02
  tweets. Yeah.
• 30:04
  I don't think little tweets are enough obviously, but they are a
• 30:08
  start beginning. Yeah, And I think just give give
• 30:14
  the kid a little bit of hope too, right.
• 30:15
  Because I mean, if you feel like I never had teachers who were
• 30:18
  really were more flexible, who did allow us to get up and move
• 30:21
  around a bit more, who let us sit wherever we want, who would
• 30:24
  let us sit with our friends. And like all of these different
• 30:27
  moments when you think like these are things which can maybe
• 30:29
  get told like, oh, no, don't let them sit with their friends.
• 30:30
  They'll talk the whole time or like don't do this, whatever.
• 30:33
  It's like, but are they learning nothing from talking to each
• 30:37
  other? It's like the whole concept of
• 30:38
  like fining people for taking holidays during the term time.
• 30:41
  It's like actually, are they learning nothing from travel?
• 30:43
  Like, or are they learning nothing from going to a family
• 30:45
  funeral and actually being a part of a massive social
• 30:47
  occasion like that or even helping with a house move or do
• 30:50
  you know what I mean? Like all these different things,
• 30:52
  like there is so much learning happening in the day-to-day life
• 30:54
  that children actually get separated from.
• 30:57
  It's a whole other conversation. But like, we've got an awful lot
• 30:59
  of young people here who are going into a system that was not
• 31:03
  designed for them with parents saying, please listen to me, I
• 31:06
  actually do know my child and I've got lots of information for
• 31:08
  you. And the school being like,
• 31:10
  there's only so much we can work with with this.
• 31:12
  I mean, but ultimately, if we make it boring, if, if we're not
• 31:16
  offering enough opportunity for different types of learning.
• 31:19
  And like, I think I mentioned on a podcast about a year or two
• 31:22
  ago that my son was doing, like, break dancing in the kitchen
• 31:25
  whilst I was chucking maths questions at him.
• 31:26
  And he was able to answer them immediately.
• 31:28
  And as an experiment, I got him to come and sit down and asked
• 31:31
  him similar questions, and he couldn't answer them.
• 31:33
  And so in motion, he could access it, but still, his whole
• 31:39
  body was vibrating with a need to move, and he couldn't focus
• 31:42
  past the feeling of needing to move.
• 31:44
  And it's like, this is fascinating.
• 31:47
  Yeah. Like that movement that's needed
• 31:50
  that we don't offer in virtual education as much, only reducing
• 31:55
  and reducing. And actually it's been proven
• 31:58
  that movement helps cognition. So it's, you know, it doesn't
• 32:01
  make any sense that I'm not doing it and talking about like
• 32:05
  how you, we make things harder and harder for a lot of
• 32:08
  children, then demands become unsafe because as we make it
• 32:14
  harder and harder and we're putting demands on their body
• 32:17
  and their brains that feel uncomfortable or worse than
• 32:20
  uncomfortable, like painful sensory demands, academic
• 32:24
  demands, they start to their brain goes, that's not safe.
• 32:29
  This demand is not safe. It doesn't feel safe in my body.
• 32:32
  And then all demands become unsafe because how do I know if
• 32:37
  a, if a teacher is like, oh, that's not that loud, you can
• 32:40
  cope with that or it's not that smelly in here, or you can eat
• 32:43
  that food or whatever, or parents are like that.
• 32:47
  Then then that's where we get children who have a trauma
• 32:51
  response to demands. And if we want children to feel
• 32:57
  safer around these things, again it comes down to get curious
• 33:02
  about where they're at and what they actually need, which we
• 33:06
  can't do in a standardised system.
• 33:09
  No, and I think that's, I mean, it's interesting because even
• 33:12
  just reflecting on what you're saying, then I'm brutally
• 33:14
  honest. Like I I have moments and I have
• 33:16
  done over the years, I'm gradually getting better and
• 33:19
  better at it. But like there are moments.
• 33:21
  I'm just saying, OK, I hear you. I know that it's loud, but like
• 33:24
  we just need to get through this.
• 33:25
  Like it's not long. Like I hear you, but can we
• 33:28
  stop? Like you screaming about it is
• 33:31
  not going to help. Like it's just going to make it
• 33:32
  even worse. Or like I was literally talking
• 33:34
  to some of the other day about the compromises we make between
• 33:36
  having two children. For example, I've got one that
• 33:39
  is just like, leave me at home. I just want to be home.
• 33:41
  I just want to play at home. Please don't invite anybody over
• 33:44
  because it massively just regulates me.
• 33:45
  And I will withdraw to my bedroom and I'll play with them.
• 33:47
  And I've got one who really needs to be out and moving and
• 33:51
  seeing people and super social and gets very isolated very
• 33:54
  quickly, very bored and will become quite distressed if he is
• 33:57
  home too much. And so where people can talk
• 34:01
  about compromise and like trying to meet needs.
• 34:03
  And like this is the same just in our household, let alone like
• 34:06
  a classroom. I can't imagine if I'm trying to
• 34:08
  do maths questions with my youngest, my eldest will answer
• 34:10
  because he has a need to just state the answer immediately.
• 34:14
  And once we figured out that that was just an impulse control
• 34:17
  issue, we were able to re divert it.
• 34:18
  And I got him to write on a piece of paper to show me
• 34:20
  privately instead. And we got around it.
• 34:22
  But you have got to constantly adapt and notice and observe and
• 34:27
  look for the triggers and try and understand why they're
• 34:30
  starting to behave this way. And, but the point is that it's,
• 34:34
  it is so complicated. And I think this is one thing
• 34:36
  that we did want to kind of talk about in terms of the home Ed
• 34:39
  environments. Like we've talked a lot about
• 34:41
  schools and the tricky stuff that kids are experiencing in
• 34:43
  schools. But actually we can quite easily
• 34:46
  end up accidentally replicating ablest behaviour at home.
• 34:51
  We can accidentally create ableist groups and environments
• 34:55
  that aren't very aware of neurodivergent needs.
• 34:58
  We can equally create neurodivergent groups that, as
• 35:02
  we discussed very briefly before, actually this needs to
• 35:06
  almost stop being a thing. What we need to do is create
• 35:09
  neurodivergent groups that are probably going to be for the
• 35:12
  louder, more exuberant end of the spectrum versus the I need
• 35:16
  quiet and safety kind of end of the spectrum.
• 35:19
  Like that. I again, I've got two children
• 35:20
  both on opposite ends of that spectrum, which is hilarious
• 35:22
  fun. And so I do have to do some
• 35:24
  things that are for the one that's bonkers and one that's
• 35:27
  for the kid who wants to be quiet, AKA be at home.
• 35:29
  Like there is no groups for that one.
• 35:31
  But it's trying to understand that actually you can try
• 35:36
  settings. You can go to settings, but not
• 35:39
  all home Ed settings are going to feel accessible to you and
• 35:42
  your children. Yeah.
• 35:44
  So I think that we were talking about intention and the
• 35:48
  intention behind some home Ed settings that set up is we are
• 35:54
  going to work towards being inclusive and equitable to the
• 35:58
  cohort in front of us. And when you go into those
• 36:01
  settings, you feel that, you feel welcomed and they're like,
• 36:05
  right, how can we make this work and what can we do to assist and
• 36:08
  what can we? And there are other home Ed
• 36:10
  settings that are set up with the intention I have a
• 36:14
  particular cohort in my mind. They read the louder or they are
• 36:18
  more talkative or they are outdoorsy or they, you know,
• 36:21
  they have that cohort in their mind.
• 36:23
  And therefore when you go into those settings as a homemade
• 36:27
  mother, father, parent, carer, you might feel, well, this
• 36:31
  doesn't fit. And there's a there's a feeling
• 36:36
  that Oh well, it should fit like they should try and make my
• 36:39
  child fit or it's it's hurtful if your child.
• 36:42
  Doesn't fit. But I was saying I think we're
• 36:45
  going to have to accept that there has to be different types
• 36:48
  of home Med settings because where standardisation doesn't
• 36:52
  work, you can't have one setting that works for all children.
• 36:56
  But you can have an intention as a person who runs it to try and
• 37:03
  be as equitable as possible so that if it can work, it will
• 37:08
  work, if that makes sense. Absolutely.
• 37:11
  And I mean we run a Co-op on a Friday morning and I have always
• 37:15
  had the intention for it to be inclusive.
• 37:18
  But initially we definitely found that the the setting is
• 37:22
  actually, it reverberates, the sound isn't always great in
• 37:24
  there. So the acoustics isn't fun and
• 37:26
  for those of us with sensory issues around sound, actually
• 37:29
  it's it can be quite unpleasant, especially if there's a lot of
• 37:32
  children playing. And we had to kind of instigate
• 37:35
  sections of time. So like we've had to have the
• 37:37
  role of noisy play has to go outside.
• 37:40
  No one can think if it's inside. And that we've had to definitely
• 37:45
  work on stages of the sessions, like structuring it a little
• 37:48
  bit. So the kids had some boundaries
• 37:50
  and some understanding of like this is what's expected in this
• 37:53
  little window of time. Also for the parents
• 37:56
  perspective, like we want everyone, everyone to feel like
• 37:59
  they that matter. That is very important to me.
• 38:02
  And so obviously as a neurodivergent person with
• 38:04
  neurodivergent kids, it's obviously easier for me to
• 38:07
  provide that because I'm aware and have and have learned over
• 38:11
  the years to be so tolerant of and not get annoyed with
• 38:15
  behaviours. And I think Ashley was saying
• 38:18
  before about you said it's not just a school thing where you
• 38:26
  know, it's the complexity of not being of standardization versus
• 38:32
  equity is so difficult as well in the home Ed community.
• 38:39
  Yeah, exactly. It's so funny because when we
• 38:41
  started talking about this, I was reading about your
• 38:44
  backgrounds and everything that you're doing in the space.
• 38:48
  I was looking at it very much through this lens of education
• 38:52
  in the traditional sense and thinking about how, gosh, it's
• 38:56
  so lovely to have the flexibility of education because
• 38:59
  we really can cater. But it's as we had the
• 39:02
  conversation, it's actually actually really hard to cater to
• 39:06
  all the different needs. And so you are going to have
• 39:08
  this element of trial and error to see which spaces work for
• 39:14
  you. And it's not, it's not
• 39:18
  neurodivergent specific either. I mean, I think there are
• 39:21
  children's needs that you, you still have to accommodate.
• 39:26
  And it's, it's hard, like you were saying, standardization
• 39:28
  makes that impossible. It's just not possible.
• 39:31
  And so every I can look back, you know, over my school and say
• 39:34
  there were plenty of things that I had to do that I didn't want
• 39:37
  to do, plenty of situations I had to endure that didn't feel
• 39:40
  comfortable just because you have a rude teacher or you have
• 39:44
  someone that's got to work through something because that's
• 39:47
  what the state demands of it. And teachers that are teaching
• 39:50
  to testing. And so it's, it's just going to
• 39:54
  it's just always going to be the case.
• 39:55
  And I think the more aware we can be.
• 39:57
  And actually, I wanted to ask you it not just for parents of
• 40:01
  neurodivergent children that are listening to this, but for all
• 40:04
  parents, is there advice that you would share or just even,
• 40:09
  you know, wisdom to impart in us to say, you know, having this
• 40:12
  open mindset, just being aware because I think that's part of
• 40:14
  this series that that Kelly and I are doing now is just trying
• 40:17
  to. Challenge everyone to think
• 40:21
  critically about stuff that we've just sort of accepted
• 40:25
  because like you were mentioning with the teachers, we haven't
• 40:27
  left that world, right? We're still in it so.
• 40:30
  I would love to hear. So I really, my, obviously my
• 40:34
  passion is around understanding sensory profiles.
• 40:38
  And I do think that a huge part of the work that we can do as
• 40:43
  parents is to understand our child sensory profile.
• 40:47
  How are they accessing the world around them?
• 40:49
  How are they accessing the learning, how they access
• 40:51
  communication? How are they interacting with
• 40:54
  the environment? Because we unless we know that
• 40:57
  we can't know what setting's going to work for them.
• 41:00
  And you can't until you're in that situation with them and
• 41:05
  seeing, OK, they're not able to. We don't talk enough about the
• 41:09
  fact that, oh, they're not able to access the lesson in the way
• 41:12
  that other children are. They're not able to access
• 41:15
  reading in the way other children are.
• 41:17
  When you know that, then you can sort of configure life in a way
• 41:23
  that works for them. When you're a home educator,
• 41:26
  when you're in the schooling system, it's incredibly
• 41:30
  difficult. And This is why I find it so
• 41:33
  hard to work 1:00 to 1:00 with parents often because I'm like,
• 41:37
  well, they need to not be in school really.
• 41:41
  Or alternatively, we need to all come together to instigate
• 41:49
  change, which is what we see a lot of the campaigns happening
• 41:52
  now and a lot of the conversations are around there's
• 41:56
  any city systemic change. But until that happens, having
• 42:02
  that this is, this is my key bit of support.
• 42:06
  I would say having a deep understanding of your child's
• 42:11
  way of being in the world and what it could look like if you
• 42:15
  had the gold standard for them. Knowing that writing it down,
• 42:19
  they might not have it right now, but if you know what the
• 42:22
  gold standard is for them, then that can be in your brain as
• 42:27
  right, this is what I'm working towards.
• 42:31
  And then also communicating that to anybody that is working with
• 42:37
  them, anybody who is around them to get curious about that.
• 42:40
  That's what I would say. Yeah.
• 42:43
  And I think this is 1 like you just touched on it, home
• 42:45
  educators work quite hard politically to to push for the
• 42:48
  rights of young people. Because although we have decided
• 42:51
  to opt out of the school system in a lot of ways, we, we do care
• 42:54
  an awful lot about young people in schools and the experience
• 42:56
  they're having. It's why we talk about, it's why
• 42:58
  we care so much about it. And that truthfully, if we were
• 43:01
  to rally all of the parents of the UK to start pushing back and
• 43:05
  signing petitions and actually saying, no, it's not OK that you
• 43:07
  find me if I want to spend time with my children.
• 43:09
  No, it's not OK that you force them in even when they're really
• 43:12
  miserable. No, it's not OK that you're
• 43:14
  telling me that they're going to fail at life because I can't get
• 43:17
  them into your school. But your school isn't willing to
• 43:19
  actually accommodate and adapt to support my child.
• 43:22
  Like no, it's not OK that the funding that you are receiving
• 43:26
  for a school, like schools receive like I think it's £8000
• 43:29
  a year towards that child's education, which a is not a huge
• 43:32
  amount really in the grand scheme of things.
• 43:34
  But most of that is going on overheads.
• 43:36
  Not anywhere near enough of it is going towards actually
• 43:39
  contributing to that child's education.
• 43:41
  If a home educator was able to claim even half of that to be
• 43:45
  able to support their send child at home and provide them with an
• 43:47
  accommodation rich environment with all the resources and
• 43:52
  occupational therapy and everything they need, they could
• 43:54
  go on to be absolutely incredible young people, fairly
• 43:57
  really confident in themselves and capable and that money will
• 44:00
  be really well spent. But we, we don't see parents
• 44:04
  fighting this battle enough, partly because they're exhausted
• 44:06
  and they're busy and they're they're working long hours and
• 44:08
  they're just about trying to keep through the day And the
• 44:10
  hostile culture is so real that most people haven't even got the
• 44:12
  headspace to be thinking about this.
• 44:14
  They're angry about it, but they haven't got time to do anything
• 44:16
  about it. And I think this is something
• 44:18
  which I, I do feel quite passionate about the more of us
• 44:21
  who care and start to push back on it, the the government will
• 44:24
  have to make some changes. But that's where I guess the
• 44:28
  HCPS and more people applying for them and more people pushing
• 44:30
  back and, and shouting about what's what they're unhappy
• 44:33
  about. And then also then removing
• 44:35
  their children from school and deciding to home educate them is
• 44:37
  getting the government's attention.
• 44:39
  It is making them realise that parents are not happy and stern
• 44:42
  is one of the number one reasons for people taking their children
• 44:45
  out of school because they can see that it's just not going to
• 44:48
  work. That doesn't matter how hard
• 44:49
  they fight. I mean, I've known parents who
• 44:51
  have fought tooth and nail to get the EHCP, to get the the
• 44:54
  person put in place and to have the 1:00 to 1:00.
• 44:57
  And there's been a child in the room who has got more severe
• 45:00
  needs and that TA has been moved to take care of them.
• 45:03
  And their child is coming home every day saying, but with them
• 45:06
  saying, have you had your one to one time today?
• 45:08
  They're like, no, they sat with them all day and it's just like,
• 45:11
  this is unbelievable. And the parents got no recourse.
• 45:14
  There's no way for them to force the issue.
• 45:16
  The school like say, Oh no, no, he's definitely getting his one
• 45:19
  to one time. It's like he's not there.
• 45:20
  Is he like you're just lying to me?
• 45:23
  And ultimately it's. Yeah, I do think that when we
• 45:27
  talk about this, we talk about it on a systemic basis because
• 45:30
  there will be so many teachers in the system who have their
• 45:33
  hands tied want to instigate change.
• 45:37
  So I actually think that and head teachers and people within
• 45:42
  the system and if if the training was there, if it it's
• 45:47
  it's a massive systemic change that we need.
• 45:50
  It's a changing government ideology.
• 45:54
  It's a complete like when we talk about tinkering around the
• 45:57
  edges of education, I just think it's not going to work.
• 46:01
  That's not going to work because we're doing that at the moment
• 46:04
  that we're talking about putting like, you know, buildings in the
• 46:09
  playgrounds of schools to assist SEND.
• 46:12
  That's not going to do it. So tinkering around the edges of
• 46:16
  education, it needs to be such a forceful change in narrative.
• 46:24
  Change of attitude and socially I feel like we're getting there.
• 46:28
  Like socially I do feel like people are starting to be more
• 46:30
  aware. Not everybody know, but more and
• 46:33
  more people are talking about it.
• 46:34
  More and more people are trying to be accepting of it and it's
• 46:36
  going to hopefully have a trickle down effect.
• 46:38
  We've had a kind of parenting revolution as well where we that
• 46:41
  went through that system. We're no longer perpetuating
• 46:44
  that. So that's a huge shift.
• 46:47
  It is that we that we are. So when we talk about demand
• 46:51
  avoidance and the fact that we're not allowing our children
• 46:54
  to go into school and there's, you know, emotional based school
• 46:57
  avoidance, actually that's parents going.
• 47:00
  I'm not going to push my child back into the system that hurt
• 47:04
  me that I know is problematic. You know we and it's now hurting
• 47:09
  them. And it's now hurting them.
• 47:12
  So with this parenting revolution, we're not, we're not
• 47:17
  going up against it feels so LA like local authorities and like
• 47:25
  teachers and head teachers. It feels like we're going up
• 47:28
  against them as parents, but actually we're all being damaged
• 47:31
  by the system. The so maybe go into those
• 47:35
  industries to help, but they are forced to into this system.
• 47:40
  So it's like when you talk about patriarchy, it hurts everybody.
• 47:45
  The system hurts everybody. It does.
• 47:48
  And I think every time we do feel the confidence to stand up
• 47:51
  for ourselves or for our children, or we advocate for
• 47:53
  their needs or we manage to get an accommodation for them or we
• 47:57
  we manage to get them into a special provision or whatever.
• 48:00
  Like every time we are able to fight for them that bit and show
• 48:03
  like to help educate the the teachers there or to whatever,
• 48:06
  right. Every single one of these steps.
• 48:08
  It feels really hard and slow progress, but it does make a
• 48:12
  difference. And even if the decision is I've
• 48:14
  had enough on pulling them out, I can't even deal with this
• 48:16
  anymore. That is a massive like stop sign
• 48:21
  up to the government and it's saying absolutely not.
• 48:23
  I'm not happy with this. And it's not to say that this is
• 48:26
  the the rebellion which you're on strike and just every parent
• 48:28
  should just pull their same kid out of school and be like,
• 48:30
  that's enough off with you. Obviously that's not going to
• 48:33
  work. So a lot of people can't like
• 48:34
  rely on it and need this to be a safe space for their children.
• 48:37
  And it needs to change, but it definitely does.
• 48:40
  It's making them pay attention. It is like they are concerned
• 48:43
  that so many people are pulling their children out of school.
• 48:47
  Well, we've seen change. In the workspace, so hopefully
• 48:50
  that will eventually bleed into the educational system.
• 48:55
  Yeah, we were talking about that earlier.
• 48:56
  We were talking about the fact that there are closed captions,
• 49:00
  there are subtitles, There are different ways of doing work,
• 49:04
  like not having to go into the workplace for some people
• 49:08
  working from home. You know, we can see that human
• 49:11
  beings need these sorts of things, and children are human
• 49:16
  beings. So, you know, we need to be
• 49:19
  instigating these changes across society, really.
• 49:22
  We need to start seeing more and more those of us who are kind of
• 49:27
  obviously in the world of neurodivergence.
• 49:30
  We see it, we accommodate, we notice, we're working constantly
• 49:33
  to adapt and understand our children, our friends children,
• 49:36
  to provide safe environments for them to go and interact and
• 49:38
  enjoy. Those, those of you listening
• 49:40
  who would consider yourself neurotypical or do not believe
• 49:43
  that you are your family life isn't necessarily touched by
• 49:46
  neurodivergence is to just again, recognizing that where
• 49:52
  your children maybe are able to achieve things by a certain age
• 49:55
  or I don't know, for example, going to an environment where
• 49:58
  you see a child who is behaving in a way that your child has
• 50:02
  been raised to behave differently.
• 50:03
  Language matters. Awareness of neurodivergence
• 50:06
  matters because we do obviously have children getting
• 50:08
  dysregulated. They might be having a massive
• 50:10
  meltdown in public. I think it talks too about like
• 50:13
  physical needs versus like that. We can see like if someone has a
• 50:18
  physical need, like they are in a wheelchair or they're lined
• 50:24
  and they're walking around with a guide dog or a swinging.
• 50:28
  I'm not, I don't know the proper name for it, but the stick to
• 50:30
  make sure they don't hit anything.
• 50:32
  We make an effort, right? It's very easy to say, OK, I'm
• 50:35
  going to get out of that person's way or I am not going
• 50:37
  to pet the guide dog because it clearly says not to and I am not
• 50:42
  going to or I might open the door for the person in a
• 50:46
  wheelchair, right? Like we, we, we can see that and
• 50:49
  do that. But there is this, I don't want
• 50:53
  to call it ignorance, but there there is this lack of
• 50:56
  appreciation for the non visual needs that people have.
• 51:02
  And so it's just, yeah, I think taking the opportunity, like you
• 51:05
  were saying, there's this opportunity to talk about the
• 51:07
  differences of families and the different needs that people have
• 51:10
  and being able to then take that as an opportunity to to tell
• 51:13
  your child about that and to talk about it because it it can
• 51:17
  be talked about. We, we want to build that
• 51:20
  awareness, We want to build that empathy.
• 51:21
  We want to build that respect for the differences we all have.
• 51:24
  And I think that it's just instead of maybe saying, Oh
• 51:29
  yeah, that, you know, that's what they do and we don't do
• 51:31
  that. You, you can build it more right
• 51:33
  like what I'm saying and. I do think that.
• 51:35
  I do think that. So my theory of neurosensory
• 51:39
  divergent really helps with this because when you talk about the
• 51:41
  sensory system and taking in more sensory information or more
• 51:45
  varied sensory information, then you can see that that creates a
• 51:50
  physical difference in the brain, that it builds more
• 51:54
  connectivity in the brain and it's busier.
• 51:56
  If you have a busier brain and your sensory system is filled
• 52:00
  up, then think of those as cups and they can overflow much more
• 52:03
  easily. And so that's a really good way
• 52:06
  to explain to parents to explain to their non odd virgin
• 52:10
  children. Look, this is actually a it's a
• 52:13
  physical thing that's happening for this child.
• 52:15
  Yeah. You know it's.
• 52:16
  I explained them. So I explained this to my kids
• 52:19
  the other day. I managed to come up with an
• 52:20
  analogy of, you know, like you have a sensor, when you walk
• 52:22
  into a room, it turns the light on.
• 52:24
  And I said, and if you think that some people have a sensor
• 52:27
  that when you walk into the room, it turns the light on for
• 52:30
  some people, the sensor would be as soon as somebody enters the
• 52:33
  house, it turns the light on. Or maybe it's on the blink and
• 52:36
  it's basically just saying it's on all the time because it's
• 52:39
  really aware that there could be something moving like a family
• 52:42
  flies through the room and that is enough to set the sensor off.
• 52:44
  I think actually you've been literally dealing with this
• 52:46
  situation at home anyway, haven't you?
• 52:47
  With a random sensor that's been doing something with this have?
• 52:51
  We ever ghostly? Oh my.
• 52:53
  Lord, but it's like literally that I explained to some of this
• 52:56
  concept that when because I was getting really over stimulated
• 52:59
  and I said to them both, I need you guys to understand something
• 53:01
  I said right now mummy has got about 20 different senses going
• 53:04
  alert, alert, alert. Something is wrong.
• 53:07
  Like fix it, fix it. And you guys are talking to me
• 53:10
  and I've asked you to stop and I'm recognizing that I am
• 53:12
  feeling uncomfortable, like I'm thirsty, I'm hungry or I'm
• 53:15
  feeling a bit touched out or I need a bit of quiet time or
• 53:17
  whatever it might be. And you are and actively
• 53:21
  crossing that boundary right now.
• 53:23
  And you might have needs that are doing this too.
• 53:25
  And yours are all going off as well.
• 53:26
  And I'm very conscious of the fact that you have got lots of
• 53:28
  alerts going off that you also need things from me right now.
• 53:30
  And this is chaos. This this leads to like, and I
• 53:35
  was like, oh, it sounds like there's a massive great bombs
• 53:37
  going to go off in a minute. Like calm down.
• 53:39
  Everyone needs to take a breath like.
• 53:40
  And that's, yeah, unplug. You need to unplug basically,
• 53:44
  that's what needs to happen. I always say, I always say if
• 53:49
  you're going towards a meltdown, if you can unplug the child from
• 53:53
  sensory input, that can help. If you can't, you're just going
• 53:56
  to have to sit through it because it's like a computer
• 53:59
  system like you know, when it overloads, you can't stop that.
• 54:04
  And once it's got to that point, so you sit through it and you're
• 54:07
  there for them and you oversee it.
• 54:10
  But if, if you can manage to before you get to that point,
• 54:14
  you're unplugging sensory. Yeah, you're turning off those
• 54:18
  alerts as best you can before it gets to that point.
• 54:21
  And like you said, I need you to stop speaking just for a second.
• 54:25
  Just for a second. I just need a second.
• 54:28
  It's so hard, isn't it? And I think it's, it's like
• 54:31
  trying to get them to understand we did the whole thing on like
• 54:33
  sensory and like what how many different sensors we've all got.
• 54:36
  And there's so much we could talk about around this, so much
• 54:38
  more we could say. This has been a really amazing
• 54:40
  conversation. These conversations never run
• 54:41
  short. But thank you so much, Helen,
• 54:43
  for being with us today. And we'll absolutely have you on
• 54:45
  again at some point. And we'll talk about some more
• 54:47
  of the sensory stuff in more depth and how we can teach that
• 54:49
  to our children. So I think that's really
• 54:50
  fascinating. But thank you so much for being
• 54:52
  here with us today. Thank.
• 54:53
  You for having me loved it. Thank you.
• 54:56
  Bye. You've been listening to the Big
• 55:02
  Home Ed Conversations podcast. Thanks for tuning in.
• 55:06
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• 55:09
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• 55:15
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• 55:18
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• 55:20
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• 55:23
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• 55:26
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