Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.285 'Communication Skills For MSK Clinicians: Awkward Conversations' with guest Richard Shorter

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Ep.285 'Communication Skills For MSK Clinicians: Awkward Conversations' with guest Richard Shorter · The STA Clinician Podcast

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You're listening to the STA Clinician Podcast, connecting clinicians across healthcare.
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Welcome to episode 285 of the STA Clinician Podcast, formerly known as the Sports
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Therapy Association Podcast.
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My name is Matt Phillips, creator of Unchecked Live.com. And as always,
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this episode is being recorded live on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube
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channel and Facebook page at 8 o'clock UK time on a Tuesday.
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So in part two of our focus this month, communication skills for MSK clinicians,
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an episode is called Awkward Conversations.
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And I'm very shortly going to be joined by Richard Shorter, who is an expert
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in sports parenting and business leadership conversations,
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which is the founder of nonperfectdad.co.uk, which I think any dad will realize
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it's just a bow, worthy of a bow.
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It's a great website. We're going to talk about that. and it supports organizations
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and parents in enabling them to work effectively together for the best outcomes of the children.
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And in this episode very shortly, Richard's going to be discussing the tough
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issues and challenges parents and coaches face in the high-pressure environment
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of the sports world and strategies that we, MSK clinicians, can use to navigate
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the awkward conversations that arise.
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Before we get into that, I must as always give a huge thank you to my guest
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last week in part one, which was entitled Motivational Interviewing in MSK Practice.
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The wonderful Orla Adams was in the studio, who is a highly respected and experienced
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motivational interviewing trainer based in Cardiff, where she works closely
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alongside MI co-founder, Dr. Stephen Rolnick himself.
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Orla discussed in a fantastic hour what motivational interviewing really is,
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why it continues to matter in modern healthcare, including recognizing and resisting
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the fixing reflex, the power of open questions, reflective listening,
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and also MI training opportunities and up and coming events.
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That whole episode of Glorious Hour is available as always on YouTube and all popular podcast apps.
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And then if you're interested in the rest of the month, we'll repeat these at
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the end, but we've got a couple of fantastic other guests coming in for part three and part four.
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Next week is going to be Ben Wybrow, who's been on the show before,
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a wonderful communication specialist.
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And then very excited the week after, we're going to be with Serena Simmons,
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who's going to introduce a fantastic, she's from the psychology school.co,
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who's going to be maybe kind of challenging a little bit of the stuff we've
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done in the first three episodes and recognizing something else,
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which maybe we're missing.
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And when we regard ourselves as wonderful communicators for behavior change,
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something else that's going to be Serena rounding it up in part four.
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Anyway, back to tonight's episode, Awkward Conversations in MSK Practice.
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If you have joined us live, then do take the opportunity to leave questions
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in the comments. If you do, then I can bring your question up on the screen.
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For example, like this, Nikki Mansfield was first to the door.
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Hey, Nikki, how are you doing?
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Says, hey, hey, hope everyone's fab. Thank you, Nikki. And the same to you.
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Sir Glenn Murphy, Sir Glenn, how are you, is here as well. Gary Benson,
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founder of the STA, is also here joining us.
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And everybody else who's in the live lounge, like I say, if you've got questions
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and do share them on the screen or any experiences anything you want to if any
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bells ring you want to share an experience and do please bring it up and we
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will pause and look at what you've shared with us right then i've left them
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down there long enough let's do awkward conversations in msk practice with my
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special guest richard shorter.
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Mr richard shorter how are you very well sir thank you for having me it's absolute
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pleasure i should be giving you thanks because i understand that you've been
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suffering a little bit from a throat infection.
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So it's double thank you tonight for coming along.
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I've got my husky jazz voice on, as I like to call it.
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It is. No, I think that's fair enough. It's a good description.
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Where are you in the world? Where are you joining us from? So I'm in Upminster
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in Essex, kind of east-east London, end of the district line.
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For those who have been on a tube map before the green line that goes out to
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the right, we're at the very end of it.
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That's a really good way of explaining it. I'm just having flashbacks now to
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when I am on the tube, staring at that rather than making eye contact with anybody.
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And yeah, it does So that's great.
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Let's get straight on with it. So I mentioned before non-perfectdad,
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non-perfectdad.co.uk. Let's bring a little flash screen of it there.
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Great name for a website. I guess that kind of encapsulates what you're all
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about, but we'd love to hear from you about how it came about,
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why you set it up and what your goals and intentions were.
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So I actually wear two hats in life, Matt. I'm actually a Baptist church minister
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for like three and a half days a week. And my wife and I,
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I moved to a very needy part, very deprived part of Romford,
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which is not far away from where we are now.
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And we landed up, or I landed up, particularly leading all the parenting courses
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for the local authority at the sharp and ugly end of safeguarding.
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Having been a youth worker and done lots of youth work and trying to see kind
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of the whole ecosystem around a child and how we support that ecosystem to bring
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about change and behavior change.
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And so it was a real privilege to be at that sharp and ugly end of safeguarding.
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Lots of complexity, lots of challenging cases. I was often used by social services
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to mediate or to find what social services call the hidden families on big council
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estates who were avoiding engaging with...
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Opportunities for them to grow, develop, get support and gain access to the
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interventions that would have helped them as a family.
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About halfway through that journey on that estate, we were only part-time and,
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you know, I've got three grown children, so I needed a bit more readies in the bank account.
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And so I thought I'd start a business, which at the time was done with complete naivety.
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And I fell into the sports world. I was very fortunate, very blessed to land
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up working with premiership football clubs, national sporting teams,
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but primarily working in the academy, upper academy age groups,
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helping parents and athletes and coaches work out how to have better conversations in that space.
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I discovered Stephen Rulick and Orla and have been kind of, I suppose.
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Apostles of theirs, you know, disciples of theirs and kind of been very,
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very heavily influenced by their incredible work.
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And now that means I'm kind of spilling out into businesses and industry as well.
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Again, the bottom line is, you know, how do you help people have conversations
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which give the best possible environment to enable there to be positive or hopeful
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outcomes through those conversations?
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How do we stay the adults in the room in the case of your audience?
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You know, when you've got a parent in a consultation room,
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you've got a young athlete how do you how do you manage that how do you help
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that dynamic that triangle between you and them and the unseen coaches or influencers
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how do you help their conversation so that primarily the care of the kid remains the center of that story.
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That's fantastic and so many clinicians listening
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whether they're sports therapists or massage therapists or physiotherapists
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or any other allied health professional they're going to relate to that
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because it's often just such a it can be
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such a nightmare if you haven't got the tools when you've got that scenario because if
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the child whether an athlete or not is under 16 then
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they need to have a chaperone with them and that's generally the
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parent or the carer there's got to be someone there and often if it
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is somebody who's got an invested interest through good intention
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in that child yeah that can really let the
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fireworks off if you don't handle it properly i'm also really interested in
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your past as well it's so nice to have people who come from the
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background you do because as we evolve now
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as clinicians we've we've talked a lot
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now about the bio cycle social we've had a couple of episodes now some really
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good episodes about low comes to mind where we're talking about how kind of
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the bio we're probably too good at to a certain extent we concentrate too much
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on it and not say it's not important but we kind of lend is always bio yeah
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then the psycho we got into with understanding pain and talking about the psychological,
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the kind of yellow flags, which is cool.
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But the social is just being left out of it. People just add that onto the end,
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and whatever you think about it, it just kind of makes a rule of three,
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which always sounds better than two.
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If it was the biopsycho, no one would really listen to it.
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So it's so important having people with your background who has lived in it
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and understands the socioeconomic effects and how important that is when we're
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working with clients, trying to help reduce pain and stuff. So yeah, really happy with this.
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Really cool. So...
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The non-perfect, Dan, I'm just interested in that. What made you choose that title?
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What was intention behind that? Well, when I thought, oh, you know,
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what do I do with these two, three days a week?
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Do I go to work? Do I start a business?
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And then I was kind of thinking, I'll do this kind of parenting coaching.
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That was its kind of early manifestation or kind of like what I was hoping to do.
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And then, you know, what do you call a business? And that's always like, I don't know.
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But I started googling parenting coaches and they
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were often perfect families with perfect teeth all
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sitting perfectly with all their clothes looking beautiful and
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I thought I thought very judgmentally you bribed your kids to sit like that
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and it would cost me a lifetime in an ice cream to get my kids to sit like that
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and and I was like look I'm not a perfect parent and so that kind of and I was
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talking to a friend and he just went what that's the name of the business mate
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and I was like, actually, it is, isn't it? Non-perfect dad.
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And, you know, I'm the non-perfect dad. I work with all parents.
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And I think hopefully it sets people at ease quite quickly.
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And it sticks in the business world now. You know, I'm just non-perfect dad at work.
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And so even, you know, I was doing some talk last week to some young recruiters.
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I don't think any of them were parents.
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But I think it just straight away says, this guy doesn't fancy himself too much, hopefully.
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And we're going to have a good, honest conversation.
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That's so cool. It's a great name. And your friend deserves a medal. It's brilliant.
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And again, we've talked about it before on the podcast. Clinicians need to stop
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trying to be perfect and stop trying to wear that white coat of perfection.
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And they've got to have that Socratic humility. And it's great.
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I mean, I'm sure somebody now is typing and checking whether on Instagram there's
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a non-perfect physio is available or a non-perfect sports therapist, the non-perfect chiro.
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And they'll overdo it and they'll make videos on it. But yeah,
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it's lovely. It's a really nice way to ease yourself into a good conversation.
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So we love it. Right then.
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So very excited about tonight. Thank you so much again for joining us.
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Awkward conversations. So we're going to focus on that scenario which you mentioned,
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the parent and the child or the care and the child, whoever's with them,
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particularly when, yeah, they make that conversation more difficult because of various reasons.
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So I thought the way we'd do it, people who join us live, if you want to chuck
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something in there and ask Richard about it, like how would you deal with this
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conversation or what about this awkward conversation?
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As long as it's an awkward scenario which involves parents or carers with their
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child and the person they're looking after, then that'd be great.
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It doesn't have to be an athlete. It could be anything.
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Just somebody who's coming to clinic. Maybe a true story which you've had.
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Feel free to write something in the message if you haven't got that.
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Otherwise, what I thought we'd do, and we just agree to this,
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I'm going to come up with a scenario that I've had in the past.
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I'm sure other people will have had and see, yeah, where, maybe if you could
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help us with your experience, identify the potential rabbit holes where we shouldn't
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be going down, where every cylinder body tells us to do and we really need to not.
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So is that cool with you if I give you some? Yeah, please do.
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I love i love i love a good scenario i love
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a little kind of conundrum to try and
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work with it's a little bit on the spot so so if you're not quite sure and you
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say you want to come back to that's fine because honestly people we haven't
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been through these we've got a rough idea but it'd be really interesting with
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your experience to see what you come up with and also just to remind people
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you are you don't work in a clinic you're not an allied health professional
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you're not a sports therapist so this is purely about.
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Communicating with a human being no i've got
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i've got inflamed pelvis that won't go down so if anybody's got a
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good fix for that i'd really appreciate having having i've
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got an mri on it tomorrow but i so i've spent a lot of time on a
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physio's couch but not and i have three sporty children
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so i have some experience then some experience and my middle child felt like
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jumping out of a tree during during covid and she's got no well she does have
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fear but her fear always trumps whatever common sense and so she smashed one
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ankle to smithereens and that was an interesting time during COVID trying to access the NHS.
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So she spent a year on crutches and things like that. So I am very grateful
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for a physio clinic room.
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I am familiar with it, but I am no clinician by any stretch of the imagination.
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That's good on the receiving end. That's good to hear. Right.
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Okay. So here we go. Here's one. And I think hopefully these will resonate with listeners here.
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So first one, scenario, parent or carers there with the, in this case, a young athlete.
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Imagine they've come in a company so they're probably going to be 16 or under
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and the parent or carer says we've got competitions coming up he can't afford to miss training,
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bam bam yeah and this this is a really interesting one i can imagine,
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that you know the london marathon was what two weekends ago and
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i can imagine you could have filled the whole evening of getting a little
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panel of clinicians going jeff's come into the clinic it's the week of the london
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marathon he knows he knows running it will probably knacker his hamstring or
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his ankle or his lower back or whatever but he's basically come in and said
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just get me through it and And that's an adult, by the way, who's coming in and saying it.
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So I recognize, even as a non-clinician, there's a kind of ethical set of questions
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around, you know, here's an adult who knows this is going to do damage,
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but they're willing to roll that dice and what do you do and how do you help them through?
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And yet, if somebody's brought in, let's say, a 14-year-old and
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they've got national finals or they're in a
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pathway and and there is something significantly
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or no there there isn't
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something significantly important but there is something perceived as significantly
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important in a child's pathway journey that means that they they've got to be
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ready to train oh they've got to be ready to compete and come on can't you just
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stick some of that blue tape on can't you just inject them with something.
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Can you just get them through to the weekend and then after that we'll deal with it properly?
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And I think the first thing to recognize is...
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It's always really interesting to think, where is that coming from?
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Is that coming from the parent? Is it coming from the child?
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What conversations have happened
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outside of the clinician's room that are putting pressure on that?
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I think there's a tendency that when parents are expressing that to automatically
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jump to this as a parent pressure.
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And yet actually, there were probably some tears when the injury happened.
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There were probably some like oh crumbs that means
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i'm gonna miss nationals or or
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england trials or let's make it big so it's that kind of on that kind of scale
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and so then you've got a parent who who's gonna look i really trust matt come
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on let's go and see matt matt will matt will sort this out all all hope pinched
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on it and so that is a really emotive kind of connection really.
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I think for me there are
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there are a number of things around that the
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first thing is that let's just acknowledge
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how how how awful it is if they potentially miss
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nationals and let's acknowledge that nationals are important
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okay let's let's not pretend like but i've
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been around sport long enough to know that those nationals under 40s actually
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aren't important and it isn't actually going to mean anything and it isn't going
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to interrupt their journey and if they're really that talented they'll make it in
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that moment it feels that important for parents it feels that
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important for the athlete and so I think in
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some ways if you've got an anxious parent in the corner you you probably need
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to acknowledge that anxiety actually and and and I think like leaning probably
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on what all I did last time rather than trying to fix the anxiety or dismiss
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the anxiety I think you can probably uh.
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This is important. Nationals are important. To miss it would be disappointing.
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And just offer that simple reflection back to mum or dad if you feel like they're
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driving the appointment.
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And then I would fence mum and dad in and say, and give mum and dad a chance
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to respond to that, yeah, it would be or whatever.
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And then give them, however, in this appointment, I'm just going to talk to
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Claire for 10 minutes about their injury.
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And if Claire misses anything think out i'll come back to you mom and dad okay
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so that i think the first thing is let mom and dad be emotional but then make
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the story really about about them about the about the child about about not
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the parent about the child make the story about child do do your assessment look at it,
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and then i think i think how
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we teach people to deliver bad news is you you say this
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is bad news straight away you know if you
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if you don't think the child can make it through nationals if you don't if you
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think that that would be medically an unwise thing to do i've got bad news you
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know give them give and then give it to them as straight as you can and then
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give give an explanation.
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That is simple for someone like me who failed their a-level in
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human biology okay and then
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still acknowledge the emotions around it and then
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and then wait and see
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what emotions come up and see how they respond to that some will be like well
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we want a second opinion that's their that's their prerogative some will be
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some some will say is is there nothing you can do now i suppose the challenge that.
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You have is what if it's slightly grayer than absolutely
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no way what if what if it sits in there
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i i think again give
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it to people straight always give your preferred option last
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so say well you could try this or you could do this
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but whatever your preferred option is is last
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that's interesting i just i'm just going to jump in there sorry to interrupt
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but what's the reasoning behind that because what's said last is often what
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has the spotlight on it very cool there's a little clinical pearl there interesting
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and while i've interrupted now sorry because there's so much you've put in there
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i'm just thinking how it could relate to to listeners.
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Just to just to rewind back to the beginning that's really interesting when
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yeah you're it was important not to
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fix the parent as it were like last week we're talking
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about fixing the patient and their problems but when the parent comes
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in and says something which you know hand on heart is not
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true and and you you're an evidence in formal
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condition you're going to tell them you know you've seen so many more really
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it's not going to end their career believe me you feel that
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that's your identity as a professional but yeah recognize
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their feeling is real
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at the moment and that's their truth i think is really important that one doesn't
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come naturally to people does it i don't think humans would naturally realize that
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the professional thing to do or the responsible thing to do is just to let that
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person have their feeling and respect they're feeling so important especially
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if because before you've examined the patient or done what you need to do to
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with them to them to assess you.
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It can feel like, oh, I've seen loads of people with this injury.
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She probably won't make nationals, but she'll be fine.
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That feels to me, whilst that, again, is probably completely true,
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for me, there's a difference between being truthful and helpful.
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And I'm not talking about lying.
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This isn't like a value-based system about lying. This is about what is the
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most helpful thing that parent needs at that moment.
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And at the start of that appointment, the parent needs to be heard.
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In fact, let's rewind that a little bit. Let's go back to the more important thing.
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What does that patient need at the moment? that that patient needs their
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parent not adding more anxiety during that assessment and
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and so the the way you help that patient is you
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you can you do your best to affirm and reflect this is important oh crumbs yeah
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after all the hard work it would be gutting to miss nationals do you mind if
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i do a full assessment and then i will give you my honest appraisal and and
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i will share with you what I think is,
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you know, evidence-based, what the best way forward is.
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But at that point, isn't the story time for, oh, I've had 10 people on my couch
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with this this week, or I had a runner in last week. And the...
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I'm not actually convinced those stories are helpful for a number of different number of reasons.
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But I think that's the thing of like, what is the helpful thing here?
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The helpful thing is acknowledge that emotion and try and park mum or dad or
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step mum or step dad for long enough to be able to do the assessment in a way
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that the patient is hopefully as relaxed as they can be.
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And yes, and we want to fix, don't we? We want to say it'll be all right,
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or we want to say, look nationals aren't that important or and
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and yet that isn't that isn't
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the right moment for that and at some point Matt not now but before we
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finish I want to talk about your waiting rooms but we'll come back to that in
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a minute but because I think there's things in the environment you can be doing
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even before they come in your room that that enable you to to to help that parent.
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Be be stiller so that you can do a more effective assessment and get more out
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of the young person as to what's going on brilliant yeah no definitely i'm making
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a sign of that talk about what happens
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before the actual conversation even starts the waiting room there's something
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else you slipped in there which i'm not going to let you get away with without
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drawing attention to it i love the way you did it and that was where you asked
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permission to the parent is it okay if we do this and i wondered if you could
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dwell because that just came naturally to you and but i think that's such an
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important thing as well, which people don't necessarily do.
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Some people think it's a little bit patronizing or unnecessary,
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but yeah, what is the advantage of that, of asking permission?
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If you're going to do it anyway, you don't really care whether they say yes or no, but
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What is asking me to do? And they've bought their child for you to do that.
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I think it is. I think it's, A, it's a polite way, and B, it's getting buy-in.
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We want parent buy-in, and that's by reflecting genuine autonomy.
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Okay, so you might say, do you mind if I just assess?
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The parent might say, actually, can I just give you the history first?
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And that's for you to say, yeah, history is really important.
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You're right, history is really important.
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Again, do you mind if I get it from them first? and then if there's any gaps, we'll come to you.
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I find it's always really important to get it from the patient first and then
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come to those who have also been
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so supportive of them and check that they haven't missed out any gaps.
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So I always try and frame it as that. But yes, I think I've just found that
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telling people what to do doesn't really get me anywhere.
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And I'm a bit of a bossy but I've found that if you ask permission,
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that actually it does tend,
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and you mean it, I do genuinely mean it, and if someone says no,
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but it just tends to get better buy-in to be able to make progress,
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whether you're dealing with an individual or not.
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I mean, I would be doing that, you know, I guess you must do that sometimes,
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you know, I'm just going to touch your glutes or whatever, you know,
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you're going to ask permission, aren't you?
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If you're going to ask permission about that in the physical,
23:36
you're also asking permission almost about that in the emotional as well.
23:39
Do you mind if we just... So clever.
23:42
That's going to hit home so much. I love that because I've just heard loads
23:46
of coins drop at the same time with all the listeners going.
23:49
It's true. I do ask them if I can touch their glutes. So why don't I ask them
23:52
if it's okay if I continue with the assessment or if I go down this road?
23:56
Brilliant. Really cool. Nicky Mansfield has got a comment here.
24:00
Nicky says, this is fantastic advice.
24:04
So valuable. fascinated to hear more about the waiting room you've created a
24:07
really nice hook there we will do a couple more scenarios which will build on
24:12
this and then we'll go back to the to the so you're gonna have to stick around
24:15
nikki not really persuading brilliant.
24:20
Yeah, unless there's anything else in that scenario in particular with regards
24:24
to competitions coming up.
24:26
Should we move on to another comment? Is there anything else? I did cut you.
24:29
No, no, no. I think, again, just to recap that, this is not good news. This is painful to say.
24:37
I don't think nationals would be wise or nationals are off the table because
24:41
of X, Y, and Z, and this is the right time.
24:44
And then don't be afraid to stop there.
24:47
Don't be afraid to let that sink in.
24:50
And, and, you know, and that's disappointing news. So you may be at the end of a bit of anger.
24:55
And one of the things I've had to learn, Matt, is I'm not justifying bad behavior,
24:59
by the way, for this. So I'm not just, I'm not saying it's okay.
25:01
People are rude or disrespectful.
25:03
And yet I find even in my role as a church minister, you know,
25:06
people can be angry with you, but they're not angry with you.
25:09
They're angry with the news.
25:10
They're angry with the context. They're angry with your, your role.
25:13
They're angry with your, your, the job you're
25:16
doing in that moment and that is that
25:21
they're attacking the badge or the hat that you wear they're not attacking
25:23
you and i just find that in the last 10
25:26
years particularly all that work i did with social service i just found it
25:29
far easier they're not they don't know me they're not attacking me they're just
25:33
cross that we're here to intervene with their children you know because of social
25:37
service referral or in your case they're not really they don't know me they're
25:40
not angry with me they're just angry that i'm the i'm the bearer of bad news
25:45
news they probably already knew but
25:47
they just hadn't really kind of honestly let sink in yet.
25:51
That's a really good segue, actually, which I think we should go to is because
25:55
you mentioned anger and that's another,
25:57
let's imagine you do get it wrong and you do say, if I had a pound for every
26:01
time Aaron thinks that the child's career is going to, and you say in your head
26:05
and you might think it's humor or sarcasm or irony and they're going to get it, but you're not.
26:08
You've just riled them up and they think that you're taking the mick because
26:11
they're seeing it through their eyes and they do get angry.
26:14
Okay. And they might come out with something like, you don't know what it's like.
26:18
You're not a coach. you're not their running coach or whatever the weightlifting coach
26:22
all i need you to do is blah blah blah just clear them so you
26:25
mentioned this triangulation as well between the coach and that but yeah
26:28
if the parent is angry and you feel that like you
26:31
said the child is now looking down the floor thinking oh my god i knew this
26:34
is going to happen that's awkward how can you de-escalate it from that moment
26:39
well again i think acknowledging that they're angry acknowledging you're frustrated
26:45
you're you're angry at the at the news that that's not helpful if it's because you've.
26:50
Tried to make a clever comment like i've had a pant apologize you know
26:53
sorry that wasn't helpful was it and and kind of move on i
26:57
think if we just stay with the scenario one more because i think
26:59
there's another bit in the consultation that's really quite important that and
27:02
that is when you're talking to the the young person ask them
27:05
if they've been injured before ask them how long they were out for and ask them
27:09
how they handled it ask them what that was like ask them what helped what helped
27:13
with the recovery ask them what helped them stay motivated to do their rehab
27:16
because all you're doing there is you're fueling the good not the good news but the the way forward.
27:24
Of dealing with this injury so oh right okay is this your first injury
27:27
if it's their first injury okay that's that that's fine if
27:30
it's their second or third injury like okay how did you how did
27:33
you move forward with that what helped how did
27:36
you deal with the disappointment last time so you're helping them
27:39
tell themselves a story about actually this isn't
27:42
the end of the world actually i can move through this actually
27:44
i got back wow you had that injury and now you're
27:47
ready for nationals that's amazing that shows you've got real you know
27:51
you've got real possibility you know and and then and then when you give that
27:54
bad news and once they've been angry after a while you're like this is frustrating
27:58
and never but and and yet what i've heard today is you're a great athlete you've
28:03
you you've got the commitment you've got the resilience you've got the support network around you,
28:08
it at the moment it feels like this is forever and
28:11
yet i'm confident from what you've said you can keep you can move through
28:14
this process back into a successful lane
28:17
afterwards this is great people
28:20
if you're listening and thinking wow that richard talks so soothingly and i
28:22
feel relaxed even though i'm not the parent this is just classic mi i mean i
28:26
don't want to say it's all mi it's not the answer to everything but we've got
28:29
affirmations we've got summaries we've got taking the bouquet taking the flowers
28:34
and then handing them back a bouquet it's beautiful it's classic and we're not
28:37
going to go down the road of that because we could spend a whole hour just talking about that but.
28:40
Everything that, and I'm sorry I'm speaking for you, Richard,
28:43
but just as the receiver, it's just lovely to hear.
28:45
And I'm hoping that if listeners do think, oh, that makes so much sense,
28:48
I can see that diffusing the situation.
28:50
And it is, MI doesn't like to call it a technique.
28:53
It gives you kind of like tools to use in the right time, but it is affirmations,
28:59
you know, which I think we've mentioned, well, I definitely mentioned on the
29:02
course, but we've talked about it a bit more where it's a bit embarrassing to
29:04
say what someone's done well. You think it's patronizing, but boy, it helps people.
29:07
We love to hear someone go, you've done a really good job at that. i can
29:10
see the work you put into that it's really cool and just that thing can
29:13
just change a whole a whole environment that you're
29:16
working in so so yeah really nice stuff i just had
29:18
to jump in and say that brilliant yes you're doing
29:22
that just say you're talking about what happened before what happened during bam
29:25
parent jumps in oh they start telling you what's going on that's a
29:28
typical scenario which is where we're going to go on to next awkward again
29:31
because now the child's shut up looking out on the floor because in a
29:35
lot of these circumstances it's not the first time the parents jumped in over
29:38
the child in this scenario so they're just embarrassed again or whatever
29:41
yeah what do you do you're standing there and the parent is
29:43
jumping in again they've jumped over that metaphorical fence which
29:46
you created earlier on what do you do well again
29:49
firstly let's just go back a little step and i'll just talk about the layout
29:52
of the room like if you've got i'm guessing you're gonna have two chairs in
29:55
there one for the parent and i would just make the geography of the room quite
29:59
clear that the parental support chair it is is like in the corner you know And
30:05
that's slightly caricatured.
30:07
But you want to make it really – so often you'll have a table where you'll be
30:11
taking notes or whatever.
30:13
And if there's a way of almost having you and the patient on the corner of the
30:18
table so that you're kind of talking and then the support chair is behind.
30:22
So they're almost out of the conversation.
30:25
They're not – does that kind of make – I mean, not everyone has a table in their
30:28
room. But you're basically allowing the geography to try and –.
30:34
To try and do that. Now, you might have a whiteboard in the room.
30:36
So mum or dad might be like, oh yeah, but this happened six months ago.
30:39
Okay, mum, dad, I'm just going to write it down.
30:40
Six months ago, when I come to you, you can tell me about that.
30:43
Okay? So you're going to hold that fence that you talked about.
30:47
I'm going to talk to them.
30:48
But if mum and dad try and raise something, I need to say, oh yeah,
30:51
you know, they've been on these vitamin supplements.
30:52
Okay, vitamin supplements, I'm just going to write this down up here on the
30:54
whiteboard. So it's really obvious. It's really seen.
30:57
And I'm going to come back to that when we come back to your bit, mum and dad. Okay?
31:01
Or and the other thing is it's not being funny but have a
31:04
form to fill out for mum and dad to fill out while that
31:07
where your first assessment's going on i know you probably had
31:10
a form already at reception but have another form just make
31:13
just have some vaguely physiotherapy orientated s questions that you can say
31:18
if you get the sense oh my word this is going to be one of those parents while
31:21
i just carry out the initial assessment mum and dad do you mind just filling
31:25
out this additional form please they're going to nationals okay can i just have
31:29
a history of their journey within their sport or something like that.
31:31
Give them a pen and a bit of paper and give them something to do.
31:35
250 words, please. 250 words. 250 words, yes. In your best handwriting.
31:41
And I want all the anatomical parts spelt correctly.
31:45
That's a great idea, man. And here's the insight for you to flick through.
31:49
So I'm big on environments, just kind of influencing behavior.
31:54
And so, look, again, none of these things are guaranteed to kind of stop that parent talking.
31:59
But these are just little tools where you are actually being confrontational,
32:05
but they don't know. It's not full on.
32:09
It's not so obvious, if that makes sense.
32:13
And hopefully a self-aware parent will get, on the fourth time you've written
32:17
something down on the whiteboard,
32:19
you know mum's turn right that at the top after the
32:22
third one right mum's turn after child's and we're
32:25
doing that so you are completely reinforcing that this
32:28
is the issue however man I do also think that
32:30
this is their kid and so you
32:34
are dealing with a set of connections and relationships
32:37
that actually if just letting mum talk to
32:40
start off with is going to be helpful then sometimes you might just have to
32:43
do that you know I think it is really helpful to keep child orientated but what
32:49
you're seeing in that assessment room is probably the same dynamic that's happening
32:53
in lots of other parts of family life that will not be new for that young person
32:56
that that that moment will not be.
33:01
That will not be alienating a young person who's then going to switch off any
33:05
kind of treatment pattern or whatever.
33:07
That is probably their life. And they've probably got coping strategies for
33:10
dealing with mom or dad being that overbearing.
33:12
It's amazing how resilient kids are. It's not helpful, but that isn't your job
33:16
to fix overbearing mom and dad in that moment.
33:18
That's between mom and the child and probably the therapist that they'll all
33:22
use when the kid's 30 or whatever.
33:24
You know, it's that kind of thing.
33:27
All you can do is your absolute best
33:31
to try and lovingly fence that parent in that
33:34
process in in that clinician sorry
33:38
in that assessment time so that you can try and do the best job that that you
33:43
can do and that might even mean on some some patients ringing mum beforehand
33:49
and saying i just want to give you 10 minutes beforehand to catch me up so that
33:54
when we get to the appointment it's between me and me and them.
33:58
You might not have that but these are just little ways
34:02
because because the reality is i mean this might be a 17 year
34:05
old but mom or dad may still want to be in there and you could technically
34:08
argue 17 they can come in on their own but but what
34:11
joy are you going to get from forcing that unless unless
34:14
there is a safeguarding issue that the child is saying i don't want mom and dad
34:17
in here okay that's different the likelihood
34:20
is you know most clinicians most
34:23
16 17s probably will want mum or dad in there partly because
34:27
they'll tell the story partly because it's that's their home life environment
34:31
and so so think of these ways have just forms that give you information that
34:36
sound physiotherapy but you're not actually going to use that you can hand to
34:39
them have your whiteboard set out the geography of your room hold that boundary
34:43
as long as you can so clever there's loads there we're going to have to produce a little.
34:48
Top 10 tips or something because you're just throwing them in now willy-nilly literally
34:52
it's just like i mean just to recap then so let's
34:55
put your big screen so we can see so in that room then and
34:58
we'll go to waiting room maybe after this because it's so relevant i can
35:01
see nikki's probably left a comment now so yes you mentioned inside their
35:04
positioning physically the parent in a position where
35:07
they're not right next to the child ready to butt in in your line of
35:10
distance that's really cool the whiteboard to write things down that
35:13
method you use sounds really cool giving them a little assignment
35:16
to do i think that's fantastic because they're going to feel they're
35:19
involved and concentrating they'll put so much effort into making sure
35:21
that's perfect that they won't have time and also i
35:24
love the idea you said of yeah having that call beforehand
35:28
to invite them to have that moment then but
35:30
making it clear we're doing this because then obviously we'll be able
35:33
to spend time just letting little timothy or whatever it
35:36
is talk so cool really good preemptive strikes
35:40
the wrong word preemptive yeah ways of yeah preventing
35:44
it from kicking off really cool let me just check
35:47
if based on what we've just said you've just said we've got a question in the
35:49
comments feel free to i'd love to hear if this makes sense to any of you i mean
35:52
i'm thinking back to my clinic days this has just happened time and time again
35:57
and every time it happens you get more angry when another parent comes in and
36:01
does it because you just haven't got the tools to deal with it and anger just
36:04
really doesn't lead you down very good avenues.
36:07
Nicky has come back here and said, I'll read it out for podcast listeners.
36:12
Nicky says, some kids automatically defer to the parents and are happy to let
36:15
them speak for them, even asking them to talk in place with them.
36:18
How do we encourage a shy and silent child to get involved personally? Great question, Nicky.
36:24
Brilliant. Yeah. And then before the parent says that awful thing,
36:26
go on, they're really shy. Go and talk to the listeners.
36:30
That is a great question. I think there are a number of tools that you can use.
36:34
My favorite tool with young people is, and I bought most of them off eBay and
36:38
you might have listeners around the world, but I've got this card decks from
36:41
something called compatibility.
36:43
It's a card game they don't make anymore, but this is basically for,
36:47
it's basically a bunch of pictures.
36:49
I don't know how many are in the deck for those watching on YouTube.
36:53
I'm can hear in the background is me shuffling through those cards.
36:56
And they're picture cards. There are some word cards in there.
36:58
I love giving these to young people.
37:00
Give me three cards that express how you're feeling with your injury.
37:04
Out of 10, you know, what's the pain like? Give me three cards that show you
37:07
what the pain is like. Again, you have these in the waiting room.
37:09
Ask the, you know, whoever's in the waiting room or if it's you or you're seeing
37:13
another patient, flick through the cards, get familiar with the cards.
37:15
I'm going to use these in your assessment.
37:17
The beauty of these is mom and dad don't have the cards, so they can't be picking any cards.
37:20
Also completely subjective so so it
37:24
doesn't matter what card the young person picks you're like that's an interesting
37:27
card tell me more about that oh i wonder why did you
37:30
choose that then we go back into that mi reflection affirmations for picking
37:33
it for having the courage to do that but just kind of opens up it opens up the
37:37
conversation and it helps i think it helps those young people who are shy i
37:43
also think for some for some children yeah they they may well be shy nikki i don't i don't.
37:49
Again, what is your role? What is the most helpful thing to do for you to give
37:55
that young person the best chance of the best quality rehab?
37:59
If you feel that they're leaning on mom and dad and you're not getting the whole
38:02
story, then something like compatibility or a printed sheet of emojis or whatever,
38:08
so they can pick the emoji that sums up how they're feeling or whatever, that might be helpful.
38:12
In other cases, does it really matter if they talk through mom and dad?
38:15
I what are you missing I suppose would be my question I
38:18
think you probably are missing some stuff but what but ultimately
38:21
what are you missing I think you're
38:24
missing the young person's sense of motivation
38:27
and and storytelling that will allow and now you as
38:30
the clinician to feed that into the story about
38:33
their recovery so there is stuff missing in that I'm not suggesting that
38:36
that's a complete picture and yet it's probably kind
38:39
of a helpful place it's a helpful place to
38:42
start and again with the shy one you know your imaginary
38:45
form or not your imaginary form but your form your made up form of sporting
38:48
histories or whatever just gives you a chance to to engage with the child uh
38:53
the child again and and you know if if a parent says something you know what
38:59
what two things would you like to add you know mom mom or dad or stay on stay
39:02
let's tell me that give me two things to add to that what are they missing what have they forgotten.
39:07
And kind of just give the child the opportunity to share those things.
39:14
Great. Again, really good ideas. I love the cards.
39:17
I love the idea that it doesn't really matter what's on the card.
39:20
All you're doing is instigating an alternative form of communicating,
39:23
getting that buy-in, getting that alliance.
39:25
I guess now we're kind of dipping into methods of being more neuroaffirmative as well.
39:31
It might be a bit of a shy, they might have different forms of communicating and processing.
39:35
So that opens up a whole new way of dealing with things. Fantastic.
39:39
Great question, Nikki. Thank you so much. Really good question. Don't forget,
39:42
people, you have joined us live, throw more questions like that there think
39:44
of what awkward conversations you have in clinic because i'm now 43 minutes
39:48
in well i was confident 10 minutes in that richard's got the answer you know
39:51
before i was a bit protective thinking wow just chucking him to the to the vultures now but no,
39:56
chuck him anything you want i'm thoroughly confident now he'll have an answer to it.
40:00
We've already kind of dipped into i think it would be foolish to distract ourselves
40:04
i mean now you've mentioned a few things in the actual clinic room and early
40:07
on you said the waiting room you've already kind of said a few things but yeah
40:10
what else could you expand on that what can we do in the waiting room?
40:13
Yeah, so I think storytelling is really important, particularly with young people.
40:17
Particularly that you know you there's an element of your role which is is slightly
40:22
bad news role isn't it you know you can't you can't do the thing you love just
40:26
yet or you can only do it to this point or there's or you might miss out on
40:30
that so think about what stories is your.
40:34
Waiting area telling and most
40:37
top athletes have been through significant injury and
40:40
had to work through there's a brilliant video by tyrone ming's
40:43
foot uh is he aston villa still i don't know i'm not
40:46
very good at football sorry but he he
40:50
did his acl and and he
40:53
he produced a brilliant video about identity and
40:57
having more of an identity so that through through injury now
41:00
there are lots of those sorts of things out there on youtube and
41:03
instagram have you got a reel of those playing in
41:06
your reception you could probably quite easily put an hour of that together of
41:09
just top athletes talking about the frustration around injury about
41:13
how they cope have you got images up of different athletes
41:16
so you're like Andy Murray you know forever knackered ankles still won this
41:20
this this this Andy Murray missed this much time on tour through injury still
41:25
won this this and this and this you know I mean I did a session for the Saracens
41:32
under 18 and Northampton under 18,
41:35
parents a couple of weeks ago it was a joint session it was great fun having
41:38
the kind of rival sets of parents in the room together and one
41:41
of my we always talk about injury we always talk about dealing with the frustration
41:44
of injury and i asked them how many of your kids have been out for longer than
41:49
six months with an injury and at least a third of their hands went up so there
41:53
will be biographies of athletes who had a significant injury and.
41:59
You know, when they were 14 to 18. So, you know, you know, David Beckham met
42:05
at Arsenal before the World Cup.
42:06
There are plenty of stories that you can have up and in your waiting room that
42:14
basically telling the story that the injury doesn't stop the career.
42:19
And I realize there are probably some career ending injuries,
42:22
but I guess they're very few and far between.
42:24
But the reality is that you're just and those
42:26
posters alone aren't going to sell the story but what are
42:29
most physical you know what are most sports places have
42:32
you know never give up be resilient i mean it's all worthless rubbish
42:35
if you i want my honest and sitting on the
42:38
fence opinion but i don't think words on walls change any
42:41
behavior but stories on walls might do so stories
42:44
might do and even if
42:47
you revolve that so that you know someone's coming
42:50
to see you every two weeks for rehab actually they're seeing a different story and
42:54
i'm behind me i've got photos on the wall all those photos have
42:57
got that those velcro strips on so you could put together 20
43:00
different posters on velcro strips and every
43:03
month you just put them back up on the wall or every two weeks
43:06
you replace you get someone to replace them so again
43:09
you're you're so the so the so the so the injury isn't bad news injury is part
43:15
of the sports person's journey and this is what people did to kind of cope with
43:19
it photos of Ronaldo hobbling around and you know look at him he's had such
43:23
an incredible longevity career for a footballer so I think there are.
43:29
There are different stories you can be telling. Again, whoever answers the phone
43:34
for bookings, are they going to also do that reflection straight away?
43:40
Because that will be the question.
43:42
My child's got nationals. Has Matt got any time to see? Oh, crumbs.
43:46
That feels really important and really frustrating with that on.
43:49
Are you teaching your staff? Are you doing that? And if your booking system
43:53
is email and it's in the captions box, are you dropping an email?
43:57
I know this takes time. but are you dropping a quick email to that parent
44:00
straight away going crumbs this is this is big we'll
44:03
do we'll you know we'll we promise we'll
44:06
do what we can this is really frustrating we recognize nationals are important
44:10
and we recognize the fear of missing out is is a big thing and so yes bring
44:15
them in so again straight away you're you're you're before they've got there
44:19
you're you're setting that stall out for being listening being reflective and
44:24
then in the in the waiting room area,
44:26
you're trying to use that to tell certain stories about rehab and recovery and what that looks like.
44:34
Amazing advice really really good i love
44:37
the idea and it doesn't have to cost as much
44:40
these days a big screen and just a video you've put together to
44:43
do it on some free software and just showing success and people
44:46
who they know getting through you don't even have
44:48
to the soundings have some subtitles on there yeah really.
44:52
Cool and what you said about yeah front desk the importance of it's
44:54
not just you representing what's going to happen in that clinic room
44:58
it's also how the receptionist handing the call initially and the
45:01
and the like you say the emails you send out are they
45:04
yeah showing that non-judgmental kind
45:08
of environment for for
45:11
for the conversation to continue when you're in the room with them
45:13
that's brilliant really cool stuff and again if it's
45:17
whether it's you or receptionist or whoever clearly spelling
45:20
out you know when matt sees your child just so you know matt's
45:24
way of working is matt will always spend the first 15-20 minutes
45:27
talking to the child listening child we know you've
45:30
invested so much support we know your child will probably leave
45:34
gaps and we know you understand them really really well
45:36
at the end of that 15 20 minutes matt will intentionally
45:40
say to you is there anything missing is there anything extra to
45:43
add here and yet we just want you to know so you you
45:46
understand what's happening for the first 15 20 minutes matt's
45:49
focus will be on your child telling that story so so
45:52
if you just let your child know that's it and then if there's anything missing
45:56
we will we will you will get a chance to just fill in any any few gaps you know
46:01
so again you know you're you're setting out the stall for how the appointment
46:07
is going to go before they get there.
46:10
Brilliant. And this could be done. This doesn't have to be a different conversation every time.
46:15
If you know that somebody's coming in and you're going to know someone's going
46:18
to be coming in with their parent or mum, dad, stepdad, stepmom,
46:21
whatever, then this conversation is worth putting out. This is the way you need to talk to them.
46:26
So you're literally just training the front desk to make sure they're doing this. Very cool.
46:32
Really like it. Excellent. Okay, look, somehow it's already,
46:35
I don't know where that 50 minutes went.
46:37
There's one I wanted to put in there because I know I've had it personally and
46:41
I think other clinicians will relate to it.
46:43
A lot of the time when the parent comes in or the carer and a lot of the time
46:48
they've got this pressure to get them back on the track or whatever it is because
46:52
they used to compete themselves.
46:53
I think we see that quite a lot and they're living their youth,
46:57
which maybe they failed at through, you know, the young athlete they're with.
47:01
And they might come up with something like, oh, I had the same injury at my age. ruin
47:04
my season or on my day we never used to worry about a
47:06
niggle and you're there and maybe you're tired of writing on the board they
47:11
finished their 250 word documents in fact they did 500 words you can't believe
47:15
how they got so much done but yeah they're still piping up and comparing it
47:18
and taking that attention away sadly from the patient or client awkward how
47:24
do you deal with that with that kind of interruption.
47:28
I think there probably comes a point with that kind of persistent unself-awareness,
47:38
where you will have to make a professional judgment call as to how blunt and
47:42
how strongly you call that out and if you and i'm not saying and that's that's
47:47
a challenge matt isn't it because that's that is a really subjective kind of kind of box.
47:54
And i think that there are
47:58
a couple of ways you can do it you can go really cheeky i've got a friend who
48:02
he does this on the sidelines when he coaches but i think it could apply in
48:06
a physiotherapy clinic and that is he has a box of lollipops and if a parent
48:10
is making too much noise he gives them a lollipop so again if in your reception
48:16
area there is the matt matt's,
48:20
uh matt's noisy parent lollipop box you know
48:23
and again so it's in the reception area so what's that if
48:26
a parent speaks too much in the clinician they get offered a lollipop so
48:29
you can go playful which is and again
48:32
if the receptionist explains that or whatever by the way this you
48:35
know we want your support and yet if it goes on too much matt
48:38
off the parents a lollipop okay so
48:42
so it depends on how you're kind i mean some
48:44
people have a great kind of i mean i've
48:47
seen enough physios to know some are really joyful have good kind
48:50
of banter and get that others don't there's no judgment there's no right or
48:53
wrong in that it's just personality type whatever if you're that if you think
48:56
you can get away with that give it a go and also you'll know the parent as well
49:00
you'll be able to know the parent as well or i think there is the mum and dad
49:05
or mum dad step mom step dad,
49:10
your support is really important and yet actually these contributions aren't
49:14
aren't helping or don't line up with what we now know is best practice.
49:22
And so...
49:24
You know the that contribution isn't helpful or that is you know that is that is not going to.
49:37
Help that type of thinking or philosophy isn't going to help them move forward
49:41
because it you know nowadays we do know this injury and we know the long-term impact of it so,
49:49
and i guess that's the difficulty isn't it you know
49:52
i i think i would if you're going to call something out try
49:56
and call out why why what they're saying is unhelpful and what kind of behavior
50:03
is helpful so let's just take that oh in my day or they've got a low pain threshold
50:08
they should just kind of man up and carry on you know that kind of archaic kind of,
50:14
interpretation in my you know
50:17
mr jones in my experience i need
50:20
to say that that attitude isn't helpful because this
50:24
this on this pushing through this
50:27
injury will result in instead of being three months it'll be
50:29
six months and what would six months miss out
50:33
and your frustration is understandable and
50:36
yet actually that approach is detrimental to your child's
50:39
ability to engage a better way of thinking about
50:42
it is with the science that we understand now this is
50:45
the best way forward to get them back onto the pitch or call or pull as quick
50:49
as possible i yeah and i think you have to kind of call it out and there's an
50:56
honesty there i guess yeah and if you're saying it calmly and just explaining
51:01
it then then yeah that's that could be far more effective than.
51:06
But but always think it doesn't have to be personal you know when you say
51:09
things like that it is the impact of comments like that
51:12
are if if we followed that advice
51:15
now the impact is that this is not a
51:18
three-month injury this is a six-month injury and what would
51:20
your child miss out if they had to miss out six months they might make nationals
51:23
but what if they couldn't play sport for the six months afterwards well let
51:27
me ask you child if you missed out sport for six months what would that mean
51:32
to you now again it's weird because some kids would still take the nationals
51:36
i mean this is the flipping problem with sport people just go stupid over it my,
51:42
this is my favorite story to tell but it's my least favorite sport parent story
51:45
so if that let me explain it so my son was
51:48
very good at rugby was in the saracen's pathway and when
51:51
you know at 16 he got let go by them and that or 17 he got let go with them
51:55
that was right he wasn't good enough to stay in it but for a while he was in
51:57
it and in the early days of what they called saracen's trials which wasn't it
52:00
was merely essex rugby but saracen's overseas so i hate all that poor labeling
52:05
and that's not just saracens who do it's not saracens fault it's just what happens nationally.
52:10
And it was actually in a club match that Caleb was playing against this opposition
52:13
team and a lad had most of his ear ripped off in a tackle.
52:17
A total accident, but most of his ear ripped off in a tackle.
52:19
And that was the Sunday before the final kind of trials for Saracen.
52:23
Following Sunday turn up and this lad turns up to these trials because he was also part of it.
52:28
He was a back and he was wearing like a Terry Butcher headband round.
52:31
And we're like to the dad, who we didn't know, but we kind of recollect, like, is he okay?
52:35
Oh yeah, he had emergency plastic surgery on Sunday to reattach the ear.
52:39
Like okay why is he here oh because
52:42
the consultant said if he wasn't hurting too much he could play so i
52:45
suspect you probably didn't quite explain what playing would mean to
52:48
the consultant but but he turned up where and this poor
52:51
lad was he stopped after three minutes he's in floods of tears he
52:54
clearly was not comfortable with it and
52:58
for me it's just like why did that parent think that kind of
53:01
forcing i don't know if he forced the kid or the
53:04
kid really wanted it but those they made a
53:06
very weird decision as far as i'm concerned about a
53:10
child playing rugby with an ear that had been sewn on the previous week
53:13
and this guy was a back not a forward i know forwards all
53:16
have mangled ears but you know it's back so so interesting choice
53:19
wouldn't have been my choice it would have been a painful thing to say to
53:22
my son i'm sorry mate you're you're stuffed you're not you're not
53:25
gonna do that but but sport sends parents
53:28
do lally so i think again you know
53:31
that whole thing and not taking it personally it's actually okay well I've
53:34
done my best advice I've tried to block the parent here and ultimately
53:38
unless you think it's a safeguarding issue in which case you need to refer and
53:41
I'm sure you've been on good training for that that ultimately this is not helpful
53:46
I think the other thing that's not helpful Matt is what if the school are saying
53:48
they're fine to play what if the S&C coach at the school is saying actually
53:52
they'll be all right you know and again I think that's where you have to say.
53:59
You know, my experience and my qualifications tell me that that's not the case.
54:02
Okay. And I'm very happy to write in the reports.
54:06
My advice is that is not good enough. Are they very happy to write to you and
54:10
say, I'm absolutely convinced it'll be fine.
54:13
You know, because if they are, that's fine. That's on them. But I'm very happy
54:16
to say, write and say that that's not a good idea.
54:19
Are they very happy to write and say, I'm putting in paper that actually it's fine.
54:23
They'll be okay. because in
54:25
my clinician experience that's a roll of the dice that's not a good idea.
54:30
Very cool one final question
54:33
regarding the what you said about when you have
54:36
to have the honest conversation with the with the
54:39
parent or carer do you ever is it
54:43
ever a case of taking them out of the room or do
54:46
you do it in front of the child if so under what
54:49
kind of context or do you just lower your voice or how does
54:52
that work how can that help well i think you
54:54
can do all of those again it's it's trusting on the impact i mean the the key
54:59
thing again here is that the child isn't put in unnecessary distress for you
55:02
to be able to treat them that that for me is the center of what's happening
55:05
here and children are pretty resilient at their parents because they used to
55:09
that's what they live with doesn't make it right it's just that's not for you to fix in that moment.
55:14
Again i would say if this is the second time you've
55:17
seen them it happened a lot in the first round ring the parent and say look
55:19
i need to be honest it's a thrill to treat your child and yet those interruptions
55:24
those they don't help and i know you're you really want the best for your child
55:29
i know those comments come from that place and yet in my professional opinion
55:31
they don't matter and of course if you are in private practice that might mean you lose patience
55:36
because because people don't like that boundary and we all
55:39
know that if a parent doesn't get the answer they want that
55:42
they'll go and find a physio who will inject them with whatever or do
55:45
whatever you know and there are there are people out there whose values and
55:49
morals are lower than yours and and that's that's really sad and that's their
55:52
choice i think that's the that's the frustration about having to have the courage
55:57
to let people make bad decisions which is which is human right i think isn't
56:01
it you know being able to you know make make bad decisions is a human right.
56:05
When it comes to their children there is a safeguarding issue in there
56:07
but we we i'll let your safeguarding policies try and determine that and and
56:12
and i doubt any of these things would ever reach thresholds not that you shouldn't
56:15
pass them on if you you felt it was but i doubt any of these would ever reach
56:18
thresholds and so yes phone call before just quickly talking to the parent one-to-one
56:24
trying to work out what to do.
56:29
It will get around the local football
56:32
hockey rugby teams actually if you go and see matt it's about
56:35
the kid and not about you and there will
56:38
be the pet i got the lollipop from matt because i was saying too much
56:41
you know you will get a reputation for being fair and boundaried and that will
56:46
mean some people won't choose to come to you and that's that's their choice
56:48
but it does mean you will get clients who are who know you are fair and give
56:54
give an honest opinion And I genuinely think most parents, even though they're
56:57
frightened of that honest opinion,
56:58
will want to seek out practitioners that they know will give them a solid.
57:04
My own son's had long-term concussion, was called concussion syndrome twice.
57:09
And, you know, and it was, it was, I had no problem in knowing exactly which
57:12
clinicians I wanted to send him to,
57:14
but not because I thought that they would wave a magic wand,
57:17
but because I thought that it would give him the absolute straight that,
57:21
you know, Yorkshire man, I sent him to Yorkshire man, because I knew that he's in Leeds anyway.
57:25
But I just knew ex-England, under 18 physio, up on Otley Road in Leeds,
57:32
I knew that he's a quality bloke who will take it to him straight and will give
57:37
him a realistic timetable.
57:38
And we as parents really value that in who we send our kids to.
57:42
So you will get a reputation for that. It just means you might have to lose
57:45
some clients if you have to be quite assertive with them.
57:49
Really cool great advice there's definitely
57:52
gonna have to be a part two here i'm gonna have to um yeah this
57:55
is so much we could more we could the hour has disappeared
57:58
such good points i think for example in the comments
58:01
here we've got some here i read out and nikki mansfield
58:04
has said brilliant advice great tips thank you gary benson
58:08
founder the sta says this is always this
58:11
is the seal of approval from gary almost wish i was
58:14
back in clinic seeing clients again whenever there's been a fantastic
58:17
inspirational speaker then gary's twitching to
58:19
get back into clinic again so yeah that's like
58:22
gold standard now well done for that and so glenn murphy replies it's certainly
58:26
always a challenge gary yeah that's why we do it isn't it i think it's part
58:30
of it but and it's fun but if you've got the tools so amazing thank you so much
58:34
richard for that you've given so many interesting ideas which i'm pretty sure
58:38
a lot of listeners will not have considered
58:40
of how to not let it escalate to that situation where you've got to kind of
58:44
have that one-to-one conversation with the parent what you can do even as you
58:48
said if in the waiting room just to try and make sure that it doesn't escalate
58:52
and go to that level where you are starting to lose control amazing really really cool.
58:58
If people are interested in contacting you, because you do a variety,
59:02
as you kind of mentioned in the beginning, you do coaching, you do staff training.
59:06
So I guess that means potentially in a clinic, you could talk to front desk
59:10
and people like that and try and get the same ethos together.
59:12
You do keynote speakers and stuff. All of this is available on the website, is it? Yeah.
59:18
I'm on all the social media tarty stuff. So LinkedIn,
59:21
I quite enjoy a bit of LinkedIn as well so do connect with
59:24
me in there brilliant non-perfect non-perfectdad.covk as
59:29
always all of these links will be in the show notes if on your whatever podcast
59:33
app you prefer to use and i put them on youtube i think sometimes youtube kind
59:37
of truncates them so probably best to go to podbean or somewhere or an app and
59:41
you'll see all these links in the show notes um instagram and facebook at non-perfectdad
59:45
without any hyphen in there really worth watching depending on what you like,
59:49
but the Instagram feed is full of great videos and information.
59:52
And the lovely thing about being a communication expert like yourself is your
59:56
posts are so gracious and wonderful to watch as well, because you're not on a pedestal.
1:00:00
You're just going, you know, what do you think about this?
1:00:03
How would you react to this? And just letting people realize themselves,
1:00:06
you know, which is classic MI. So it's really nice, really good to see it in action.
1:00:10
Fantastic. Have you got anything else coming up at all? What have you got in
1:00:12
the next few months? Anything you're excited about?
1:00:15
Yeah, well, I'm doing a lot of teacher training at the moment on MI bits and pieces.
1:00:20
So handling difficult conversations with parents from a teacher's perspective.
1:00:24
So that's always good fun.
1:00:27
And yes, spending a bit more time in the corporate world. So I'm working with
1:00:30
a couple of companies around industries I know absolutely nothing about.
1:00:34
And what is always exciting, Matt, is even the things we talked about now,
1:00:38
just how you remain the adult in the room, offering respect,
1:00:41
challenging in a way that is not,
1:00:43
personal or shaming or guilt tripping but laying it
1:00:46
out so yeah i'm always excited to be delivering
1:00:49
sessions like that brilliant really really
1:00:52
cool right then we reach the end of part two absolutely amazing thank you richard
1:00:57
um to see if you're listening to the podcast you've and you've made it this
1:00:59
way people who joined us live and thank you so much for joining us um just to
1:01:03
let you know just to repeat that next week on the show same time tuesday if
1:01:08
you want to join us live on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel or on the Facebook page.
1:01:12
And then next week, I'm going to welcome Ben Wybrow, who's been on the show
1:01:15
a couple times before, and he's going to be at the therapy show in November as well.
1:01:18
He's the host of the Clinical Communication Podcast, which I recommend you ever listen to.
1:01:23
He's going to be discussing communication skills when it comes to explaining
1:01:26
diagnoses, which is going to be really cool.
1:01:29
And then, as I said, in part four, on the 26th of May, at eight o'clock,
1:01:34
my guest is going to be the fantastic Serena Simmons, who some of you will know
1:01:37
from being on the show before and also if you went to the ST School Exmouth
1:01:40
Conference that we did. Fantastic presentation there.
1:01:44
Serena is the founder of thepsychologieschool.co and she's going to be introducing
1:01:48
us to the psychological patterning process which is a structured way of recognizing
1:01:52
the patterns that sit underneath your client or patient's behavior.
1:01:56
That's going to be an amazing way to end this month and we're only halfway through
1:01:59
and I'm just so inspired and that for tonight is down to Richard Shorter.
1:02:03
So thank you once again Richard for joining us. Your throat held out wonderfully.
1:02:07
So we appreciate that thanks again
1:02:10
everybody who joined us who joined us live really nice
1:02:12
to see you if you are listening to the podcast and you fancy coming on live to
1:02:15
ask questions and do do that try and put some time out i know
1:02:18
some of you're working but if you can join us live you'll you'll remember
1:02:21
so much of it and you'll be able to learn so much more and take it to clinic
1:02:25
and yourselves so it'd be lovely to see some of you next tuesday until then
1:02:30
i hope you enjoy the show leave a rating or review if you can on podcast app
1:02:33
and yeah take care of yourselves and take care of each other and hope you'll see some of you.