Parent's Guide to Working with the Schools on Behavior

Do you have a child who acts out at school? Do you struggle with how to work with the school to help your child? If so, don't miss today's interview with Sarah Naish, the CEO and Founder of the Centre of Excellence in Child Trauma and the author of many books on foster parenting, including The A-Z of Trauma-Informed Teaching.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why do our kids often have behavioral problems?
• What are some typical behaviors that are problematic in school?
• What is it about school that exacerbates behavior issues?
• How much training does the average teacher have on the long-term impact of trauma on a child?
• How much training does the average teacher have on the long-term impact of prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs on a child?
• Many of our kids will have an IEP or 504 Plan. How to address behavioral issues in these plans?
• Let’s say you have a child who is acting out (i.e., being defiant, not following rules, disrupting class, and other externalized behavioral issues); what would be your suggestions for a parent to work with the school on these behaviors?
• Let’s say you have a child who is withdrawing or fading into the woodwork (i.e., internalized behavioral issues); what would be your suggestions for a parent to work with the school on these behaviors?
• That doesn’t mean that there doesn’t need to be consequences.
• Question from our audience: Child is being defiant in school and refuses to finish her assignments. Teacher sends the unfinished assignments home to be completed by the next day, in addition to the child’s homework. Parents are spending the entire evening working with child to finish the work. How would you suggest handling it?
• Thoughts on homework? 
• Blame, embarrassment
• Homeschooling
• What are some ways parents can start the school year off right to set the stage for working with the school to help their child succeed?
• Tips for parenting in working with the schools.
  1. Share info
  2. Share trauma-informed teaching resources.
  3. Be honest and upfront about what you will and won’t do. Ex. Homework.

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am both the host of this show as well as the director of the nonprofit, creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about how to work with schools on your child's behavior. And we're going to be talking with Sarah Naish. She is the CEO and founder of the Center of Excellence in Child Trauma in the UK. She is the adoptive parent of five siblings, a former social worker, and keynote speaker at conferences around the world and the UK is best selling author on therapeutic parenting. One of my favorites, is the A to Z of Therapeutic Parenting, I highly recommend that book. She also advises on best practices in two therapeutic fostering agencies, and founded both inspire training group and the National Association of Therapeutic Parents. Her latest book is the A to Z of Trauma-Informed Teaching. Also a great book welcome, Sarah to Creating a Family. Hi, Dawn. Thank you. Let's start by saying it seems obvious, but sometimes we do need to start with the obvious. We need to start at the beginning. Why do our kids and when I say our kids, I mean children? Who are have been connected with the foster care system? Or who have been adopted? Or who are being raised in kinship families? Why do our kids often have behavior problems?

Speaker 1  1:30  
Well, quite simply, it's because their brains are developed differently. If you are in a scary frightening environment, or one way, you don't know what's gonna happen next, then your brain adapts to that. And of course, for our children in their formative years, their brains have never known anything else. So I often use the analogy of, you know, I say my children were born on a plane, and the plane wasn't being flown very well. And so their brain adapted to that environment. So when somebody comes along and move them onto my safe plane, they don't know I'm a good pilot, they don't know I can fly the plane. So they're going to keep those survival behaviors, you know, control, making sure I'm flying the plane properly, making sure they're gonna get fed, all that kind of thing, those behaviors don't just disappear, because our environment has changed.

Dawn Davenport  2:21  
And I think one of the things that is challenging is that sometimes we think, well, we adopted this child at birth, or the child was placed in our home at birth, and then we later adopted them. So where's the trauma there? I mean, they have been with me, and I was a good pilot from the beginning of that play. So how do we address that? Because many of our children do come to us at infancy?

Speaker 1  2:43  
Yes, that's right. And with my children, one of them was removed at birth, and the other four were with their birth parents for varying length of time, although they're all siblings. And I was told, like many people are told, and I believe that my youngest would have no issues because she was removed at birth. And of course, what I didn't know then. And what I've learned since is all that she experienced in utero, including the high levels of cortisol in the birth mother because of what was going on in her life, drugs and alcohol, that kind of thing that all crosses the placenta. So although my youngest child wasn't frightened of adults, she wasn't scared off me, because she hadn't been abused by an adult since she had been born. She in fact, did have trauma responses to loud voices, loud noises, shouting, and had high cortisol and still has high cortisol, and she's now 25. So that looks like ADHD.

Dawn Davenport  3:40  
Right? research would indicate that upwards of 75% of children who have been connected with a child welfare, this is not for domestic infant private adoption necessarily for international adoption, although the numbers of both of those who are high. However, the research has been done on children connected with the foster care system. And we know upwards of 75% of those kids have been exposed to alcohol and or drugs in pregnancy. And we are certainly aware of the fact that both drugs and alcohol are Tourette regions, they impact the brain development. So we're talking today about school and behaviors in school. So what are some of the typical behaviors that are problematic for kids who have experienced trauma or prenatal substance exposure or pregnancies involving high degrees of trauma and stress for the mom, which impacts the fetus as well? What are some of the typical behaviors that we might see in schools?

Speaker 1  4:41  
So some of the things that happened with my children and having with many adopted children, is first of all the fight flight. So that's where if the child feels cornered or threatened in any way, they can overreact and maybe push somebody away or run out the door. So runnings, a really common one. And teachers have complained that the child runs out the classroom. So they say, for no reason. So my son used to run out the classroom door. And we would continue to do that right up until he left school, really. So the running thing is a really common hiding, hiding under the desk hiding under the table, you know, just trying to get away from everything. That's another really common behavior, aggression, where the child is no pushing people, I wanted to keep them out of the way. But also some of the low level stuff that teachers see is about where they feel the child isn't able to concentrate, because they're not able to concentrate a lot of the time. And they'll see that as being noisy or disruptive or unsettled. Or they might say the child needs an ADHD assessment, where the child literally can't sit still. So we call that kind of tippy tappy kind of really busy all the time. So those are the most common ones. I think,

Dawn Davenport  5:59  
also, I would throw in there, I think you were implying this impulsivity, the, you know, the ready fire aim, where they speak out. They don't think first, they don't think of the consequences, that if they do this, that will happen, which ties into all the things that you were saying as well. Yeah. So what is it about school in the school environment that exacerbates behavioral issues? Specifically, the behavioral issues we just spoke about?

Speaker 1  6:27  
Well, interestingly, you know what you just said right, then about the impulsivity schools have an unrealistic expectation often that if the child does something wrong, what they seem to be wrong on a Monday that somehow the child will remember that hold on to that, and have a consequent on Thursday, and then to relate it back. Right? Yeah, happened. And of course, that doesn't happen at all. So the behavior spiral really quickly because the child feels it's unfair. So that's one of the things that I think is really common, and is really difficult, it almost seems to be to me like a downward spiral where our children's behave the way they behave, school reacts to that the child reacts to that. And then you get into this really negative cycle of blame and misunderstanding. The difficulty is, is that our schools often are not seeing the whole child, there's a lot of should have, or should be able to attend. Now they should be able to do this. They're always thinking age, not stage. And we think of what stages the child at what are they able to do when we're talking to schools and training schools? We say, it's not that they won't, it's that they can't, and that's very different. Yeah, that is a real problem for parents, because there's a miscommunication between us and the school as well. Absolutely.

Dawn Davenport  7:50  
And I think that a lot of parents would say that it feels as if what they're getting pushback from the school is that we are making excuses for aged kids are that we are coddling them or that we're enabling or whatever? Do you hear that as well that the trauma informed approach that we are taking doesn't always sit well with the discipline approach that many schools take? Yeah,

Speaker 1  8:16  
and we say, the center of excellence that blame is easier than solving a complex problem. So it's much easier to blame the parent than it is to go. Do you know what this is? This is really tricky. And guess what? My training didn't train me in this. So I don't actually know what to do. There's not many people that are brave enough to say that, and that includes many social workers as well. There's a tendency to say, well, you know, the parent must be doing something wrong. And that's a lot easier to do. So yeah, that's sad, but true.

Dawn Davenport  8:51  
Let me pause here in this great interview with Sarah nation to tell you about a resource that creating a family has created and that is an interactive training and support curriculum for foster adoptive and kinship families. This can be used as a small group training, or it can be used in support groups to have them be skill building, as well as support. We have a library of 25 topics and each topic is a curriculum and each curriculum comes with a video, a facilitator guide, a handout that specific to that topic, we also have an additional resource sheet specific to that topic as well. And if you need it with foster parents, there's also a certificate of attendance. It's a terrific resource, check it out at parent support groups.org. Okay, I'm glad that you brought up before the topic of training. How much training does the average teacher have on the long term impacts of trauma on a child? And that's a general question. You're in the UK we're in the US but just generally, from your understanding, because you even know on both sides of the Atlantic. a lot about this training. So how common is it to receive training and understanding about trauma and an average teachers education?

Speaker 1  10:08  
It isn't. What we find is that most teachers that we speak to have not had training in trauma, or once they've qualified, or during time, they've qualified, certainly in the UK, they've had maybe a day that one day is training within their teacher training. And then host qualifying. Now there's a bit of pressure on schools to become trauma informed.

Dawn Davenport  10:32  
Yep, same on this side, too. Exactly.

Speaker 1  10:35  
But I don't know if those courses are any better. At Center of Excellence. We do run courses, and they're very trauma informed. But usually, again, they're ones that just kind of missed the mark all the time. And I think it's really sad, because, you know, we have a school's team here. And they helped me write the book and everything. And they've said, you know, we've done those calls we've been on this course is, they don't properly explain trauma, they don't properly explain why the children do it. They do it and it doesn't give them any tools for what to do. They're all unrealistic. So I'm not sure how helpful a lot of the courses are the best teachers seem to be ones who are therapeutic parents who have adopted or fostered themselves. Oh, absolutely,

Dawn Davenport  11:18  
absolutely. Although that's a unicorn, we don't see that many too often. And I will just say, in addition to what you were saying about trauma informed schools, as some variant of that would be, and we are creating a family had been doing some work on this. And that is, what type of training do teachers have, for the long term impacts of prenatal substance exposure, both alcohol and drugs. And that is even less than trauma, there is a movement, as you mentioned, towards trauma informed schools, and you can ask your school that you know, have your teachers because generally, it's Post University training is when that is coming in at least here, although there are some university schools of education that are shifting a bit and including some now, but prenatal substance exposure, I don't know of any university program that is doing it and I know of almost none, creating a family created a training for K through eight. But that's the only one I know of. So it's not only trauma, it's every impact that will hit our kids. But you know, many of our kids will have in the US we would call it an individual education plan, an IEP or a 504 plan, both in special ed, our exceptional children programs, I know we'd be named different things in the UK. So many of our children will have that not all, of course. So how do we address behavioral issues in these plants, because they're one of the strongest things if we can get our kids to qualify for them. If our kids do qualify for them. It's one of the strongest things we have to get the schools to address the impacts of trauma. So how do we do that? How do we address behavioral issues in these plants,

Speaker 1  13:00  
I think they're really important things when you're looking at IEP s is to make sure the person who's drawn up with you is either trauma informed, or you kind of give them a bit of a crash course in it as you go through it. In the UK, you normally are working fairly closely with either a teacher or an educational psychologist, while that's being drawn up, if you're lucky. And it's a good opportunity then to be dropping in things like well, of course, you know, the reason my child runs out of the classroom is because it gets very dysregulated. And what dysregulated means is scared, terrified, not knowing what's going on. So that's not because he's being naughty, he simply can't contain themselves. And sometimes it's about being a bit clever about how we explain that to the person drawing up the IEP with us because they don't like to admit they don't know. Good point. So I would often say things like, well, I know you know this. But first last week, GSA didn't understand this. And of course, it's because the reason he does this is because of this, this this. And the difficulty is if we don't include in the IEP, that the reason he runs out the classes is because he's dysregulated, a teacher will chase him. And that's the worst thing that can happen. So we need to put in the reasons why we need to help you to put in the reasons why that behavior happens to get the correct response. Interesting.

Dawn Davenport  14:16  
Okay, so one of your suggestions would be in our IEP or the 504, whichever we have here to include not just the solution that accommodations, but to include the reasons the child needs them.

Speaker 1  14:30  
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Otherwise, it's over simplified, and then we get the wrong responses. If we don't understand the reasons why the child is behaving the way they are, we will always meet that behavior with the incorrect response and then the behavior just becomes entrenched.

Dawn Davenport  14:47  
Now that makes very good sense. Okay, let's say you have a child who is acting out, perhaps in school, perhaps being defiant, not following the rules disrupting class Are other externalised type behavioral issues? What would be your suggestion for a parent to work with the school on these behaviors?

Speaker 1  15:08  
So I was very lucky. And that obviously, I had two children, two of my five that did have these exact behaviors. So one of the schools, I was lucky with the other one, not so much. So one of the schools, I was working very closely with the behavior support teacher, I did a lot of work with her a lot of training with her and I lent her books, and I explained why the behaviors were happening, because otherwise you just got a shedload of blame coming your way. And there's no point to that. So she learned a lot. So she would fire me up and say, Oh, Mrs. Nation, I'm very disappointed to tell you that Rosie ran out the room to die and push the teacher into the cupboard and that type of behavior. And what I found really useful to do was, I wouldn't undermine the school because that just irritates them. Obviously.

Dawn Davenport  15:56  
That's never a good way to get started. Yes, you're right. No,

Speaker 1  16:00  
no. But tempting though it was, I've always made sure that the child knew I was on their side. So say something like that happened at school, and she came home, I would say to her, I understand that a difficult day to day, I wouldn't go into blaming her because I needed to try to understand what had happened and how this behaves, because there's always a trigger. And what schools do is they miss the triggers. But by not doing blaming judgment with my child, I could unravel and work out what had happened. And then I could feed that back to the school and say, Did you know The reason this behavior happened is because of this, this, this? Now that behavior may be unacceptable. I'll give you an example, the time talking about where Rosie pushed the teacher in the cupboard. That's completely unacceptable behavior, obviously. And the school excluded her for that for a few days. But their view to me was, you know, she's naughty, she's rude. She's disruptive. She's controlling she's this. And what I did is I said to Rosie, I know you've had a difficult day, I know something difficult has happened. And we'll work it out together. Well, what we worked out by taking that approach he was at what has happened was the school have broken the terms of her IEP, because she was supposed to be told every time there was a new teacher coming in a supply teacher, and she hadn't been. And she had this person who came and she didn't know, it was an art lesson. And she was told she had to draw her feelings in this piece of paper. And then the teacher had leant over her in quite a threatening way. And her cortisol had gone up, her drone had gone up, and she just kind of ran. But as she ran, she pushed the teacher. So she hadn't actually thought what I'm going to do is this, it was all while she was dysregulated. So I use that incident, to explain to the school where that came from, and also that there was some culpability there from them in that they hadn't laid the groundwork, because if they had laid the groundwork, that incident wouldn't have occurred. So some schools are really good at listening to that and reflecting on it, and some aren't.

Dawn Davenport  18:11  
And even within the school, I have found that some teachers are very receptive. And then some are not, it's not even school wise. Okay, we've just talked about externalized behaviors, the defiance, the pushing teachers, the things such as that. But let's talk now about, let's say you have a child who is withdrawing or fading into the woodwork, what we would label as internalized behaviors. What would be your suggestions for a parent to work with the school on these behaviors? Because honestly, schools often don't perceive that as a bad thing. And parents as well, that a child who is causing no problems, but is also, you know, not learning anything, and not developing in any way is a problem, but not necessarily perceived as one. So what would be your suggestions for working with the school on a child who is exhibiting internal behaviors? Yeah,

Speaker 1  19:04  
I mean, this is the child we call the possum child. In our book, therapeutic parenting essential Sarah Dillon, who's a former child in care, she's written a beautiful poem about it, about how that child goes into survival mode and just shuts down and isn't really there and doesn't really want to see them. I think what's interesting about this is always where there's a difference between how the child is at home, and how the child is at school. So the child who's the possum child at school, might well be the one at home who's really acting out and very difficult. There's a double whammy, tricky situation there. Because when you go to the school and say, Well, I'm sorry, we're late, but Little Joe wasn't getting up and wouldn't do X Y Zed, and the school unhelpfully say, Oh, I don't know why you're having these problems. You know, we don't have any problems at school. So when they used to say that to me, I used to do a bit of a sad face and say, Oh, or you don't have any of these issues at school, you don't have any problems, you know, so So my child's kind of sitting very quietly and no, yeah, you know, and I would say tomorrow, that's a real shame. And they said, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, it means they're masking it, it means my child doesn't feel safe enough in school to behave in their true way, I hope one day, they will be able to show their true self to you. Because you know, and I would sometimes taken because one of my children who was like this, I'd taken a video of what the child was like a home. So if you've got a different child home to what they're talking about at school, I would take a video into school and say, This is how my child is at home. This is how they behave. This is how they talk. This is how they interact. I remember with one child, the teacher could not believe it was the same child. And I was saying, Well, this is the hidden child, this is the one you're not saying, What can we do to bring this child out? I said, because what I feel is that my child is terrified. My child is terrified at school. And here are some of the reasons why I think she's terrified. And I would name you know, things like there was a lot of changes going on very big classes. And we looked at setting up more secure areas, and also places where the child could go. And in some cases that was as simple as a desk with a blanket over where they could sit underneath the desk when they were overwhelmed. And just kind of have some time to calm and be okay, the stuff we do with our children, of course, but that is a different topic, but the strategies I would use with my child around that turn.

Dawn Davenport  21:38  
Well, although I think they're intertwined, because if the school agrees, the strategies that we're suggesting for our children, then that is a way to work with the schools is to get them to agree to okay, this child is overwhelmed, the behaviors you're seeing are being overwhelmed. What can we do within the context of the classroom that would allow this child to place to get away and be able to self regulate? Let me stop here and ask you, did you know that creating a family has a monthly newsletter? Yes, indeed we do. It comes once a month, it's an E newsletter. So it comes into your emails, it is free, we curate the best that we have found in that month to truly this practical stuff. That's what we're really aiming for. And we have a thank you have a guide, a parenting a child exposed to trauma guide that you will get if you subscribe, you can subscribe to the newsletter by going to Bitly slash C A F guide, that's bi T dot L y slash C A F guide. One of the things that I think it's important is that I don't hear you say at all, that our kids behaviors should not have consequences or that we should interfere with the natural consequences or the school rules as they relate to our kids. One of the complaints we often hear when we're talking about trauma informed parenting, or trauma informed schools is, as I mentioned earlier, that we are excusing poor behavior, that we are encouraging enabling poor behavior. But that's not what you're saying. Because you're not trying to stop the consequence. You're trying to help the school understand the cause of the behavior, and perhaps have the consequence be a fit the crime half the punishment for the crime type of thing. Yeah. So I mean, am I correct understanding that you're not saying, Yep, Rosie should be able to push the teacher? No,

Speaker 1  23:32  
that's correct. That's correct. And of course, I would do stuff with Rosie at home about explaining the behavior around it, and why that had happened. And what we could do differently next time. It's just that, you know, I knew that if the school make the same mistake, and she was asking and terrified again, it's likely you're going to have the same response. So the school did try a few times early on in my therapeutic parenting career, they did try to get me to put in consequences at home for what had happened at school. And I realized really early on, that was a very bad idea, because our children have got to have someone in their corner, and nine times out of 10. What's happened at school is because the school have misunderstood or misjudged the situation. And although they may be well intentioned, something has happened, which has provoked something to happen in our children. So I had to be really kind of in my child's corner and just be like, I know, it's very difficult. I know that you've got a detention on Friday, and that's a bit of a shame. But you know, I'll make your favorite tea for when you come out. So I knew and the child knew this detention was not going to change their behavior. It wasn't gonna make a scrap of difference. They weren't going to the next week go well, I better not behave like this because if I do that, I'll get a detention. That thinking wasn't ever happening. So when the school used to say to me you need to speak to the child about this. We have you need to, I would say I did say to the head teacher once I'm I'm always happy to do that providing you can come to my house on Saturday and get my children to tidy up their bedrooms. And they were like, well, we're not doing that. I said, Okay, you keep school at school, I'll keep home At home, I don't ask you to pick up consequences for my children, for something that happened at home, because you don't know what happened at home. You don't know what I did and what went before. And I don't know what happened at school. So although I will support the consequential putting in place for you, for my child, I'm going to do the right thing.

Dawn Davenport  25:31  
This raises a we got a question from our audience, it ties in to what you're talking about. So let me summarize it. The child was being defiant in school and refusing to finish her assignments in school. So the teacher sent the unfinished assignments Home to be completed by the next day, in addition to the child's regular homework. So the parents were spending the entire evening working with a child to finish both the work that was supposed to happen in school, as well as the homework, how would you suggest for that parent to handle that situation?

Speaker 1  26:08  
So I did us have these situations. So what I did is I made it really clear after a few months early on in my life with my children of trying desperately to meet the demands of the school, as well as help my children to make secure, loving attachments, I decided I needed to make a choice between whether my children could do maths, or whether they could form secure loving attachments. And me putting myself in the teacher role. And letting go of the role of loving parents wasn't doing my children any favors at all. So what I did is I explained that to the school, the schools were three schools at that time, the five children, two of them were okay with it and one wasn't, but the outcome was the same. I said, Listen, my children have had a tough start in life, they've got a lot of ground to make up. And my job as mom is to help them to make secure attachment. And I can't do that if I'm becoming a teacher, and trying to get into the schoolwork, if they're not completing their assignments. And you think it's really important for them to, I'm happy for them to stay at school and go to homework club and things like that. But we will not be doing it at home. That's not my role. You are the teacher, I'm not asking you to parent, and I'm not doing the teaching. And of course, the school says, Oh, they're full behind the dog. I say that's fine. They'll catch up later. And of course, all my children did catch up later, well,

Dawn Davenport  27:33  
in some kids won't catch up. That is just the reality. Yeah, but I'm guessing that you would say it is still more important that they have a secure attachment, then they understand how to work fractions 100%?

Speaker 1  27:46  
Because if our children can't make relationships, how are they going to parent? How are they going to get in alongs? How are they ever going to live independently? It's not it's not possible. It really isn't. I have examples of children where the parents have prioritized schoolwork and all that's done is created a rupture, because the children can't live up to that expectation. And again, we have to think about can't not won't. All the exams for our children, all the pressures, big pressure comes at exactly the wrong time. Ages 15 to 16 is just a terrible time for our children. So I would make sure that I would just be saying to our children, or you know, we don't do home, I always say my training. Therapeutic parents don't do homework, we don't do it. It's like 983 on my list of important things to do. My children are parents now they are parents of securely attached children. Some of them are still a rubbish at Maths. But guess what, they can measure out the formula in a bottle, and they can do all those things. And some of them have some really good jobs as well. They caught up later, some of them caught up later. And some of them went a different path, but they're happy and they're okay people. And that's important thing. I'm

Dawn Davenport  28:58  
glad you brought that up about homework. Depending on our schools, there can be a lot of homework that is dumped on, what is your feeling about now, of course, if you have an IEP or a 504, you can put this in there. But what are your feelings about limiting the amount of time saying we will have a homework time that will last? Pick the thing, 30 minutes, one hour, whatever is you feel it's appropriate? What are your feelings on addressing homework that way with schools?

Speaker 1  29:24  
So my children did homework at school. That's the only way we could do it. So although I would make time available for them and the computer available, and there was homework places, there would be a 30 minute limit in any case, but usually what my children would do would sit at the computer kind of tapping it for half an hour, just tapping the girl gazing out the window. And after a little while, I thought yeah, there's really no point in doing this. And of course the school would put in consequences when they're not doing it. And I say to my journal, let you know because you haven't done this homework. They'll probably get you to stay in at school on Thursday to do the homework there. I like Yeah. And I have to say, as a therapeutic parent with five children and being very tired, when they used to stay on that homework club, I got an extra hour to myself. I mean, that's a much better deal.

Speaker 2  30:13  
I have to say. That's what we would call a win win. Definitely.

Dawn Davenport  30:18  
Yeah. And the other thing is that if your children do after school care, one thing is when you're choosing it, and most of them do this, make certain that they do have a homework time there. So that you're not involved could be at the school, it could be in the Boys and Girls Club or the Y or whatever. The homework is their responsibility. Yes. So often, when our kids are acting out, or are not doing their homework, or whatever we see our kids don't fit the norm sometimes. And that can be embarrassing. It is one of those things you think sometimes? Why is my kid the one who pushed the teacher? Why is my kid the one who ran out of the classroom? Or who, you know instigated a fight on the playground or whatever? Why is it my kid? And and the feeling sometimes is that we're being judged as well, that we're being judged as inadequate parents or going back to the coddling or whatever. Did you face that? And how do you address that? And do you talk about that at all? I know you do. But in your books, how do we as parents deal with the fact that we feel maybe not guilty, per se, but certainly blamed and embarrassed? Yeah, I

Speaker 1  31:29  
mean, I think it's something that changes a lot as you have your children longer. I don't remember feeling embarrassed, I think probably just because I've got a really thick skin anyway. And I'm really lucky that I've never really cared what people think I never did. So if my children needed me to lie down on the floor at the supermarket, to help them get regulated, that's what I would do. And I didn't feel embarrassed. But I understand having spoken to other people that they would feel really mortified and embarrassed by their chores, we haven't been able to do it. But I was always thinking about how am I going to get them through this. I've written fairly extensively about the blame and judgment that comes our way from not just teachers, but social workers, friends and family, that kind of thing. And then I've got in the Survival Guide, I've got a kind of a table of useful phrases of things you can say. And it's, it's got a few swear words in it, I must admit, you might be thinking in your head, and that you really want to say, but I say is better not really to say that say this instead. So I used to be really kind of clear with people, I think it helps to be really clear with people in advance. So not getting into a situation where suddenly it's all unraveling. So for example, if you know you're going to be late for school, you're likely to be late for school, simply because one of your children is going to hide their shoes somewhere like they always do. Because they're avoiding school, I used to write to the school, and he's saying, Look, you know, this is how our life is, this is what happens, I'm not disorganized, I'm extremely organized, I do this, this, this, this this, however, my child is scared of school, so they're likely to sabotage that there's likely to be an incident, we might well be late. And this is why. So a lot of kind of paving the way stuff helps. And then if the blame and judgment comes your way, you know, I would just be like, Well, anyway, I emailed you, and it's all explained that would you like to then do a book on that? I used to do a lot of that. I'd say a lot of things like, Oh, I see what's happening here. You're looking at this from a standard parenting approach. But my child comes from trauma and has a trauma informed approach. Would you like some information on that and give some information that would be really helpful. So I would kind of do that rather than be embarrassed and accept that I'm to blame. Because if I do that I'm not helping my child. And furthermore, I'm not helping all the other children that are coming through this person's class in the years to come. So I think it's really important that we put our embarrassment to one side and we stand out and we are counted for our children's sake.

Dawn Davenport  34:02  
Mm hmm. Yeah. And the books that you reference is the survival guide for therapeutic parents. Yeah, right. That is another one of my favorites.

Unknown Speaker  34:12  
So I find one to write because I could swear in it.

Dawn Davenport  34:17  
Well, there you go. Before we go on, let me let you know about the jockey being family courses. These are free courses that are sponsored by the jockey being Family Foundation, we have 12 of them that can be used as continuing education. But even if you don't need continuing ed hours, you still need information on improving your parenting we all do. And these courses are directly designed for that they're designed for those who are actively in the midst of parenting in the trenches as we would say, check it out at Bitly slash J B F support, that's bi T dot L y slash Mr. B all one word J B F support All right, I wanted to talk about homeschooling. What are your thoughts, and I will be upfront with one of our children, we did homeschool. It was a huge commitment. And I realized that we were privileged in a way such that we were able to do that. But boy, did it ever make a huge difference. But that's not for everybody. But let's just talk generally, what are your thoughts on homeschooling? Yeah,

Speaker 1  35:23  
I mean, it's something that I didn't used to know a lot about, because I didn't homeschool my children, but I kind of wanted to. But since I've seen more and more parents that I'm involved with in the last three or four years, taking their children out of school, and starting to homeschool them and, and seeing the difference in the children, really, their anxiety goes down, their cortisol goes down. And because they've got Facebook groups where they will share resources and that kind of thing. The adopters that I've spoken to have all said, we would never go back to mainstream schooling, we would just never go back, the children are thriving. One little boy in particular, that I met, a year ago, he wouldn't even look up, he always was looking at the ground. And when I saw him this year, because I hadn't seen him in between for one year, he was chatting away, he was telling me all about dinosaurs that he you know, he knew everything about dinosaurs you could possibly imagine, confident, and he'd caught up, when they did sort of independent tests he'd caught up in the year, he'd caught up three and a half years. So it can make a big difference. But as a parent, you've definitely got to bring in support for that and share it around you made with other parents, I think that's really important. Because if you are trying to have your child at home 24/7 and become the teacher as well, you need to have the emotional resilience to be able to do that. And for my five children, I could not have done that. And

Dawn Davenport  36:58  
I think that is a really good point to raise academically, and sometimes emotionally. There are advantages to homeschooling, but there are disadvantages to about specifically not getting a break from your child. And also the fact that you may be working and realistically, it is just not an option for many people, especially to do it. Well. Yeah. So what are some ways that parents can start the school year off right, to set the stage for working with the school to help their child succeed, it seems like at the beginning of the year, we have an opportunity to do this, what are some suggestions for doing just that, the first

Speaker 1  37:39  
thing that I would do is kind of look at it as a two way street. So I'd be making sure that the school had all the information they needed. Sometimes even just like a little sheet around these assigned to behaviors we have. And this is what we do. And this works well. And so I would have something like a prompt sheet there. So sometimes my son does this, this is what works. This is what doesn't, this is what makes it worse. And I just give them that. But I'd also offer to help. So I did at the beginning, when my child started school, I used to go in or offered to go into the school and work alongside the teacher, and help with other children or whatever, for the first week or so of the term. And by doing that I could take a bit of pressure off the teacher, but also, you know, I'd go in and help listen to children read and that kind of thing. So that way, you're not starting out being cognitive adversary to the teacher, you are kind of putting yourself out there. Well, you know, this can be tricky. And this is why it's tricky. And I was just thinking actually, I know that a lot of people give teachers the nutshell book, which was my very first book, and it's very little one, and it takes couple of hours to read, which is self parenting in a nutshell. And what they find really useful is that some of that has that list in there and a table of life. These are what the behaviors look like, this is why they happen. And this is what to do. So I think some teachers found that useful. But you could also give them a copy of a starting off gift of the A to Z of trauma informed teaching that's got everything teachers need in that written by teachers. So that would be helpful. All

Dawn Davenport  39:14  
right. So if you were asked to give tips to parents, for working with the school to help their kids, what would be say, five tips or three tips or however many tips that you would kind of take home messages you want parents to get from this. First

Speaker 1  39:32  
of all, I'd say make sure you share information, critical information. I think sometimes parents are worried about sharing information, which actually is really vital for the schools to have because if they don't have that information, they don't know how to respond. Secondly, I would make sure the school has access to trauma informed teaching resources and that they understand that this is normal. It's a growing thing. We don't want them to be left behind. You know, it's an Got a little niche, then it's not a tiny little thing for just a couple of dozen people, there are hundreds of 1000s, not millions of people now using a trauma informed approach. So I'd make them aware of that and keep them up to date with everything. And then I would be honest, I found it very useful to be really upfront with the school about, you know, I understand that your policy at school is that the kids do homework. And just to let you know, I don't do that. This is why I don't do it. And I know that's difficult. But I can help in other ways. I can do X Y, Zed, but we won't be doing so I was very open, very honest, very upfront, but not in a kind of antagonistic way. I would do it in a way and I would just explain. So be open, be upfront, be honest. But don't be kind of angry with it. There's time for getting angry later.

Dawn Davenport  40:48  
Well, on that optimistic note, serenade. Thank you so much for being with us today to talk about working with schools, when our kids do have challenging behaviors. We have mentioned a number of your books today, I recommend them all. There is a survival guide to therapeutic parenting. There is the A to Z of therapeutic parenting. And then there is your new book that's directly relevant to the topic today. And that is the A to Z of trauma informed teaching. Thank you so much, Sarah, for being with us today to help us learn more about how to help our kids inside the schools. Lovely,

Unknown Speaker  41:26  
thank you.

Dawn Davenport  41:28  
Before you go, you've heard me say this before, but let me say it again. Thank you. Thank you to our sponsors. These are agencies that believe in our mission of bringing you unbiased research based trauma informed resources. And one of our longest sponsors has been hopscotch adoptions. They are a Hague accredited international adoption agency placing kids from all over the world but specifically Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Ghana, Guiana, Morocco, Pakistan, Serbia, and Ukraine. They specialize in placement of kids with special needs and do a lot of Down syndrome placements. And then of course, they do a fair number of kinship adoptions as well. They place kids throughout the US and they offer home study services and post adoption services to residents of North Carolina and New York.