Welcome to Therapod. Therapod podcast is about breaking down what we've learned and what we practice as therapists into easy to understand and accessible information. We know that parenting and caring for a child, especially one that has additional needs, can be challenging, if not overwhelming. We are here to break it down for you.
We're a group of experienced clinicians, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, psychologists, and pediatricians, and we will be chatting with parents, teachers, and other professionals working with children. We will also be reviewing books, toys, and equipment so you can make informed decisions.
Our information is not clinical advice. These are useful insights and information. So please seek professional help if you need it. Hi, my name is Banu. I'm an occupational therapist with 20 years of experience. As an occupational therapist, I break down the skills needed for a task and see if the person or child has the capacity to complete those steps.
And if they don't, how can I help them bridge that gap? I love working with parents, carers, and teachers to help them support. their child's regulation through sensory strategies. I'm, I'm so excited to be talking to all of you and inducing TheraPod. It's just that I feel that parents are so overwhelmed and they need information in a way that they can actually access it quickly, understand it easily, and use it in everyday context.
I hope that with TheraPod we will bring you that reliable information in a way that you can actually use it. And the whole point of this is to reduce the overwhelm and to find joy in parenting. Hi, I'm Julie, a speech and language therapist. I love working with children, adolescents, and young adults. I've practiced all around the world, including Vietnam, Australia, and Ireland.
I'm an advocate for neuroaffirming and trauma informed care. My main calling is supporting families to use communication and connection to build secure and positive relationships with their children, all while supporting their child's communication and development. I also specialize in neurodevelopmental assessments such as ASD, um, developmental language disorder and ADHD.
I'm Claire. I'm a senior clinical psychologist with almost 20 years experience working with children and families. I've been working in clinical psychology for nearly 14 years now and I've worked across primary care, mental health, disability, trauma and pediatric services. As a parent and a clinician, I'm passionate about supporting children to thrive.
and to being a compassionate support to their parents and caregivers. I'm Jay. I'm a developmental pediatrician working in the field of pediatrics for 13 years. Having originally qualified in South Africa and now currently living in Ireland, I have great experience across different cultural backgrounds.
I'm deeply passionate about promoting both physical and mental health in children and adolescents. I'm excited to share my role within Theropod. where I will share my insights with you and answer questions related to medical symptoms and safety and on the use of medication. I'm excited to embark on this journey with you.
And it's an amazing opportunity to just make some of that accessible to people who are, you know, interested, um, and, uh. able to to to adapt that to bring that into their lives and see what's a good fit for their family who can take bits that fit and recognize that actually there'll definitely be bits that don't fit and that that's not for them and that's perfect and because we have the um the experience and the knowledge to be able to say this is consistently what we know from really good research from being a scientist practitioner that this is uh really important to helpful useful applicable knowledge and to to help share that.
And I think one of the things that keeps coming back to me the more I learn as well, is that Maya Angelou quote, do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better. I'll compare things all around. Yeah. And like the stuff that I learned. I've been following and listening to you and kind of trying to figure out what's out there.
All parents need help and support and it's only that when things get to be really difficult that they feel that they can reach out and ask first and that's not okay. You know I suppose the whole idea of being able to say actually this is hard. The world has changed since we were kids. Oh yeah we were parented.
Parenting is different. We know so much about the brain, interpersonal It feels huge now doesn't it? Wasn't there before. So, of course, there's something extra that we can do earlier, sooner, that we know we have to shift the trajectory away from becoming disrupted and to help with hair looters and all of that.
So it's not. And it doesn't have to be because you have a gynecomastia, you know, it's not a, you can have needs or need support. I think I actually interpreted additional needs, I didn't see it as ASC to be honest, I thought it was just everybody. Because everybody is on their own profile. So when you said additional needs, I just presumed it meant everybody.
I didn't perceive it as, oh, ac, I didn't know that it was referring to a SD or a D, adhd, so I just thought it was just everyone. I suppose it, it isn't meant to and that's why kind of keeping That's right. That that's additional, yeah, because I remember when like Woodrow was a baby and he wouldn't sleep and he had lots of sensory issues, but I didn't know what I know now.
Yeah. Yes. And if I'd known that. Life would have been so much easier and happier. Maybe, not that there's additional need or something, but at that time, at that point, it is. It helps me to understand children more and better and understand what we were hearing. I think it's a huge part of wealth that I'm very conscious of, the whole idea of it takes a village.
I mean, that's like, we all know that, you know, intrinsically, but that's not there. It's not, it doesn't exist that much anymore. I think it seems as though that's getting more fragmented. The idea of having a village around you to support you. Just the way the word has changed, and there's pros and cons to all of that, but it does mean that things can be harder.
Um, and you are more on your own and you're trying to figure things out. And whereas before someone would have given you a breather, a break to let you kind of regulate your own nervous system naturally without knowing what you were doing, but you would have done it. And then you can bring more creativity, more thinking, more problem solving to figure out what does my kid need right now.
But when you're trying to do everything all the time, it's so exhausting. You don't have room to do that. So you're not able to be as. And perhaps at times as responsive as maybe, you know, we're biologically kind of built to be with the village when we don't have them. And I'm wondering as well, like this day and age.
And we know that picture that you show, we'll put it up on our social media as well, that it is a different world that we're parenting in. And it's not the world we were appearing to them. Oh yeah. And taking that into context, like, when everything's a challenge, like, there's screens, there's the school system is different, the play role is different, language is different, isn't it?
And I think it's well then. There's that added pressure of social media of, you know, perfect family, perfect mom, that it's almost harder to ask for help because you have, you're just seeing everyone's perfect life and no one else is having these problems except me. So, and, and just even, even from, I suppose mine, I suppose Barney, you don't understand.
So we're not even living in the country that we grew up in. So that's completely, you talk about takes a village. I don't have children, but if I had to have a child. Or whatever it is, it would be myself, my partner, like, who's going to help us? Where do I, where do I go, even if I need five or ten minutes of break?
Because if we both are working, who do we have? Except if we pay for Nanny, or, you know, if that's possible. And if that's not possible, you know, where, where do we go from there? And it's definitely hard to basically be able to. Um, recognize that a lot of our parenting approaches, our ways of understanding our kids are coming from what we've grown up with, what we've learned, what's become normal within our family.
And that that is very much a crucial need to belong to. And I think that comes up massively with sleep. That's one thing I remember seeing. Where people think my kid is supposed to be able to sleep through the night. From, you know, they're so gracious. I just heard last week about, um, a baby came home from hospital.
They've just literally been born. That's crazy. First day home from office it was great, they slept through the night, great baby, it's gonna be great. And I just thought like, oh wow, like there's so much, you know, loaded in that one sentence that someone is assuming this is what a good baby is supposed to be.
And that's the thing. You know, that's not, uh, really, you know, that's one thing that they won't do. And there is nothing, babies aren't supposed to sleep through the night anyway. And it depends where you live, and what culture and family you've grown up with, what they see as, um, what is normal for a baby to do or not do, and whether a baby should co sleep or not sleep.
They're so loaded. There's so many kind of, um, um, posts, instant, instant media, all of those books and talks about what is normal for a child's sleep and how to get them into a normal. And it depends absolutely the culture you grew up in to say what is normal and actually babies are all different. It's the same with toileting.
You know, I've talked to, you know, friends, um, and through work where people have expectations of, you know, kids being able to toilet or, you know, One or two years of age and before going to preschool and the others they're like, I don't mind, I'm going to approach toileting to four or five and like there is no one way or right way.
It is integrating who you are as a parent with your cultural experiences, with your family history. That all has to be part of it. And matching it to What the child needs and wants and what they're able for. Yeah, you know, yeah. And without feeling like something is wrong because they're not doing the same as somebody else.
And we do that ourselves as parents and as adults all the time. And we build ourselves up about what's good enough, what's normal, where do we belong. And it's even just recognizing, oh, that's what's driving this. That's why I think something's wrong. That's why I feel uncomfortable with it. Rather than there's something actually that does need a bit of support.
And just, you know, Our skills and our sugar and we change all the time and our kids change all the time so our you know what we project on them and we see them as like we just need to be more flexible at times and then maybe we are kind of given permission to or something. Going back to even something interesting you said about The instantaneous or needing to have that instant classification that we would be used to with social media and so forth.
And now you're hearing everybody talk about what we were just talking earlier about ADHD traits for example, right? Like before ADHD was seen as a diagnosis, how did we manage this condition? Because it wasn't that it wasn't there. It wasn't that ASD was not there. We just have a terminology to name it now.
And that's why we're seeing the videos because we've got diagnostic criteria. But if you pull back, how did we manage this? These kind of things. And we did by adjusting our environments. We did. And our lifestyle was very different. It was different. We were very outdoorsy, which is very suitable for people with you know, ASD or ADHD and all the neurodiverse profiles, because there's a sensory element to it.
There's a lot of proprioceptive plates, proprioceptive work even. We never lived in apartments, you know, we lived in houses and everybody collected on the street. And you would do chores, you would do chores, which made a huge difference to your regulation. The psychologist once said that the single most factor that would identify a successful adult is being able to have due choice as a child and be given that responsibility, that actually is a positive predictor for success in adult life.
And I think that that's, that's really important. significant because we did it naturally because we needed, that's what we needed to do. That was your job. And that is, and things like that make you use all your sensory systems. So you're constantly integrating all your sensory systems and regular, not just regulating, but you're learning because that's how we learn.
Okay. This is the right way to do it. Not right way. More like when my muscles move this way, my actions are like this. And that's how you learn and you'd get better at it. Yeah. And that you're part of the family, part of the family. Are you? And it's not in, um, also, everybody has an equal value in partnership.
And there's a language element to it as well, isn't there? Whether you're following your reception, remembering information, related information. Yeah. I'm even thinking about just. succeeding, you know, like I feel like now the environment's set up for those kiddies or adults to fail and you're constantly getting in trouble and constantly getting these negative reinforcements but that if you were doing those chores or doing those jobs that you're succeeding you're doing something I remember my dad saying about like making your bed in the morning and just that simple like you succeeded you did one thing and like you're starting off the day right because And it's just so simple.
Pick it up and put it down, but your day is, and that, that's what the ministry actually recommends, even if you like, like making a bed and cleaning your courses is, um, is actually part of the beginning of their, even, even a successful day as, as you said. So it, so very advocating for, you know, across the board on multiple different.
areas of facilities, if you know what I mean, like, if you had to think about that. But it is something about achieving. Yeah, and I did listening to something the other day about, um, childhood and how much it's changing and moving to all of the structured activities and the kind of, you know, real structured days and how that's You know, there's a psychologist whose name I can't remember, but describing as an assault on childhood, because we're moving from opportunities to be part of the chore, then part of the family life, you know, part of, and again, free play and getting out there, running around.
It's like being able to, you know, Self identify your needs in terms of your regulation and well being and we're, we're, we're using that opportunity and it's kind of becoming, you know, this now is kind of my word, but that it's nearly kind of performance y bait for kind of moving away from a natural intrinsic knowing of your own body, your own, um, building your own intuition, supporting your own self knowledge.
Now, I'm a big fan of structured activities, but that's the OT in me because it is a chance to practice skills, try skills and be a part of a group. But I can see where you're coming from because when COVID hit, I can remember the relief. That, right, we don't have to rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, and people can now take their time to, you know, it wasn't getting the door after school, get your, you know, grab your swimming gear, go swimming, go something else.
But there's a balance there, isn't there? Having both, like, opportunities. To develop skills and be part of that. But also opportunities to go to the playground and practice all of those skills in a natural environment. It doesn't have to be, we have to go to a class to do that. It's, you know, learning on the playground how to do, you know, your climbing, your movement.
All of that natural opportunity plus the social skills of managing the playground and having to ask another kid to play. That kind of vulnerability and excitement. Yes. All of those basically. That's the sharing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, that they would have to be kind of taught implicitly for some kids and some kids will need support with that and extra practice and extra opportunities.
And maybe, you know, practicing in smaller groups and going to the playground when it's quieter. All of that stuff. But yeah. That's all kind of giving it in their language in their world and us trying to pull them out of that into what we defined it should look like. And also there's, there's huge value in not directing their life all the time where they can actually find a piece of stone or a piece of string and explore their world instead of being sat at the table.
So we're doing painting now, or we're doing this now and everything's there. I've set it all up, but actually that setting up needs to happen, by the balance, yeah. And I think you're saying a balance of someone with a bit of both, where you are helping them to have those organisational skills in terms of boundaries and, you know, organising your internal world in support of externally, you know, but also those opportunities to just be mindful.
I think in my sessions, like when I, the early intervention could be just having those. child led sessions where you just, and that's when you see them succeed. That's when you see the progress is if they want to play with Play Doh, that's fine. I don't have my session set up. Let's follow their lead. What do they enjoy?
How can we then use that? It's interesting you say that because, um, I've been speaking to a few parents and, um, one of the emerging themes is like, They're just playing with the child. So I don't know that there's any therapy going on and I'm spending a lot of money. Um, what would you say to that? I think that's why it's so important to find a therapist who can, you know, like, have the parent in and tell, like, tell them what you're doing.
Like, look, this is joint attention. This is train shaking. This is, you know, what are we actually doing in this game? Like you're playing a dollhouse. We're talking about prepositions. We're talking about, you know, we're making a little story. Oh, look how I expanded their language, but it's all through what they're interested in and what they're doing.
Like you can do, you know, playing, um, working on anything. So you're meeting therapeutic goals. Yeah. And even, um, like they say that. Play. There's a quote, play is a child's work or something like that. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah, that's it. But there was, um, a study, I'll find it, but where, say , where they say, if you want a child to learn something, you've repeated 400 times for that like neuro um, sign.
During play, you have to repeat it ten times. Yeah, I think it actually gave us that. Yeah, so that they learn so much more when they're playing, rather than table. That's a brilliant point about, you know, being able to communicate that to parents, and not all therapists are able to kind of do that well or take the time.
I find this one which is really interesting, um, when we are playing in a session, again, when we're saying that some parents, Um, Forget how to play or need that like coaching on how to play with a kitty. Um, it's just an observation I've had that you find they buy all the same toys you have them at home because they're like You're modeling today and they're like, okay, that's how I play with that toy.
I'm going to buy that and we'll practice that and we'll play with that. Oversubscribing that child when you're already, that helicopter parenting you may refer to sometimes, where you kind of really already structure and then coming into that context about, you know, what play brings in the context of imagination and how even some parents might find it difficult themselves to understand that.
But when you kind of over structure for this child, you don't allow them to be able to then engage in their own imagination. And, and their own imagination actually is almost directly related to intelligence. So, and if you, also there's something therapeutic about allowing a child to be bored. Because then the child comes up with their own abilities to be able to entertain themselves or navigate.
So when you're thinking about them as an adult, working, you know, a nine to five job, that's not very stimulating. Not, not very exciting. Your, your employer is not structuring your whole day in a very stimulating way. So how do you navigate that? It's because you would have learned that as a child through your own boredom.
And how you navigated that to be able to function as the, you know, in society, in society and in your job and being successful in it because you actually are able to navigate your own way. But I found that like, when you work with children who are on the spectrum, it is, and that's one of the advice that I would give is to structure their time.
I think some children need more structuring than others, but it's also, Learning that maybe this is a time that they do need not the structure and that they might need to tolerate. I think we are very quick to fill their time. Mm. Um, I dunno, does anyone else remember? But I remember tagging along with my parents, whether they were going to the doctor or wherever else and just sitting there.
I dunno what I was doing. I was probably staring at nothing. Mm-Hmm. . But I do remember that now we children don't do that. They have a screen handed to them or there's some entertainment or they're being watched by somebody else and that space. I don't know if that fits all children and their needs, but certainly it's happening more than it should.
Yeah, even in a naturalistic opportunity. For, um, exposure to life, family life experiences like being at the doctor's earlier, like seeing what that's like without it having to be about you all the time, but that you get to see your parents and the world functioning around you and be an observer in it.
It's not about parenting then. But it's using what worked then and how it would apply to what we have right now, even if it is shorter periods. And before we finish, it's always good to hold in mind that if there's something that has resonated with you and that it's staying with you, or maybe leading to a big feeling that you want to talk about, contact your GP, who's your first port of call.
And don't be afraid to reach out to family and friends to have a chat. Follow us on your favorite podcast platforms for updates. We also do book reviews on Instagram. So make sure to follow us on theropod. podcast for Instagram. If you have any topics or queries you'd like us to address, email theropodpodcast at gmail.
com. That's T H E R A P O D P O D C A S T at gmail. com or DM on Instagram. Bye.
