#52 - Laura's Lived Experience

This week we welcome Laura, a nurse and mum of three in Victoria, to share her family’s experience supporting her 15-year-old daughter, Mimi, through ongoing School Can’t. 

Laura describes Mimi’s early anxiety, neurodivergence, and how returning to school after COVID intensified distress, leading to escalating attendance struggles in high school, especially without close friendships and with limited school wellbeing capacity. 

She explains the daily realities of getting out the door, the impact on work and family relationships, and the personal parenting work required to shift away from “just make them go” approaches. 

Practical school-based supports (trusted staff members meeting Mimi on arrival) and the Hands-on Learning program, where Mimi’s engagement and attendance are consistently high, demonstrate how changing the environment can transform the accessibility of education.

People & resources mentioned in this episode:

• Hands On Learning - https://handsonlearning.org.au

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt 0:05

Hello and welcome to the School Can't Experience Podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia Community. Caring for a young person who is struggling to attend school can be a stressful and isolating experience, but you are not alone. Thousands of parents across Australia and many more around the world face similar challenges and experiences every day. Our guest today is Laura, who is a nurse and a mum of three. And Laura is going to share her experience of supporting her youngest child, Mimi, who is now 15 through her ongoing experience of School Can't. We are going to talk about the work that Laura has has to do on herself and her parenting as she supports Mimi, who is determined to stay on in mainstream school despite the difficulties it presents. For Mimi, being able to access supports to enter school on a daily basis and also discovering the Hands-on Learning program has made an enormous difference. I hope you enjoy our conversation. So, hi Laura. Thank you so much for joining us on our podcast today. Really appreciate you taking the time.

Laura Highgate 1:05

Thank you so much for having me.

Leisa Reichelt 1:08

Let's start off by just hearing a little bit about you and your family. What do we need to know?

Laura Highgate 1:15

So I'm a mum. have three great kiddos. we all live under the same roof with my husband, their dad, and lots of furry animals in our house. Got some dogs, some little cavoodles. we've got three bunnies. are down to two rescue Guinea Pigs.

Leisa Reichelt 1:40

Whereabouts are you?

Laura Highgate 1:41

We're in Mornington, down on the peninsula in Victoria. Lovely love living here. We've We probably all spend a lot of time in our little home environment where we've got everything the way we need it. We've got a neurodivergent family, so four out of five people in the house have neurodivergent diagnosis. I'm very lucky that I was able to recently get a job around the corner, five minutes walk from home. I'm a nurse so I'm now working in a clinic and that is absolutely wonderful. So, I do that a couple of days a week, which is fabulous and fits in really well with us.

Leisa Reichelt 2:20

Thank you so much for sharing all of that. We are talking today, I think about your youngest kiddo. Yeah.

Laura Highgate 2:29

Yeah, Mimi. So Mimi, my youngest of three. She's just started year nine this year. And we've, had several years of school difficulties, specifically with Mimi. Its been going on probably since primary school, but it's just gotten especially difficult in high school. As you know, it happens quite often for so many different reasons. But having said that, we also had many difficult years for my big two as well. So this is sort of the third child in our family to go through all of these school difficulty, school attendance issues.

Leisa Reichelt 3:08

It's interesting, isn't it? Because you will have had the experience of the elder two and she would've had the experience of the elder two as well. So I think that context is kind of interesting, isn't it?

Laura Highgate 3:19

it is. And I think I always saw Mimi. she's a very tenacious kid. if she wants to do something, even if she is literally standing on the edge of a bridge over a river where all the kids have jumped off, and she wants to jump in that river too. And she's absolutely terrified and she is crying, but she wants to do it so bad and she'll make herself do it. All the things she wants to do, she pushes herself to the absolute edge to try and do it because she just wants to do these things too. And she wants to do the things that everyone else does. And I think she saw for a long time all the issues that the big kids had. I actually remember her saying when she was in primary school. Early years at primary school,'this won't be me, mum. This isn't going to be me. it's okay. You'll know that I'll always want to go to school'. Remembering that now, that little tiny kid now saying that, obviously during one particularly difficult morning when she was just trying to make things seem better. Part of me thinks she was obviously trying to smooth things out for me, but probably also in her head, I don't want to go through this as well, but realistically, you know, it was probably within a year or two of that that things started getting harder for her too. So, you know, even with all that tenacity, all that drive, that determination to have the normal school experience. It just doesn't always happen.

Leisa Reichelt 4:45

Well, and in a way that might almost make it worse, in that she's so relentless with herself.

Laura Highgate 4:52

Yeah. Yep.

Leisa Reichelt 4:54

So if you think back, thinking about Mimi where were the earliest clues that this might have been a pathway for her, what do you think about.

Laura Highgate 5:04

We had the difficulty of COVID, obviously with Mimi, in those younger years. Whereas the other kids were bigger when that was happening. Sort of, year six and year eight. But with Mimi, I think the difficulty really started to come after getting back into school after COVID, like so many kids, I think it was that. But obviously also being a neurodivergent person, the transition from that home environment, that safe space all the time. That environment of so much lower demand, stimulation, everything, having to go back into a classroom is so jarring. That's where things really started to go off the rails probably. And that was really from sort of year four onwards. We started having those, conversations with the teacher about, she's finding it very difficult today. She'd go and see the school wellbeing person, which wasn't easy because the school wellbeing person was one person and all these kids trying to get back into school after COVID, even if they had the plan that, okay, when you're having a hard morning, this is where you come. When you turn up there, there's one person and they've already got someone with them. So sorry. You either go home or you go into class. So that's where there was that huge gap really that started becoming very obvious where, if you actually can't be getting straight into class, what happens now?

Leisa Reichelt 6:34

Yeah, there's a real lack of capacity to support.

Laura Highgate 6:39

Absolutely. And as lovely as, you know, certain teachers might have been, or the wellbeing person might have been. There's one person in a seat essentially.

Leisa Reichelt 6:47

If you're not there when you're needed, then you're not there. And you knew that Mimi was neurodivergent at this point.

Laura Highgate 6:53

Yeah. So, Mimi, I think she was about six when she had formal diagnosis. And, as she's gotten a bit older, she's extra letters to her little string of, of diagnosis there. But, you know, she's always, been incredibly anxious. From the moment she was born. She has been, you know what some people call the Velcro baby or the koala baby. She calls herself a little koala. She's always been incredibly attached, but very, very, very anxious. Very anxious. You know, what's that person doing? Why are they mowing their lawn? Just the whole world. But also because of that too highly curious, you know, highly involved and just wanting to be a part of everything and to be a part of all these big experiences, like the school experience, you know? Yeah. So it's been a very difficult push pull for her. She absolutely does not want to be at home. She says, she's bored all the time if she's at home, you know, she just ends up watching TV or watching YouTube or something, Doesn't matter what sort of activities we might suggest to do, she needs to be doing something. It's hard because it's one of those things where, you know, that traditional, your kids just need to be at school, just make'em go to school and all that stuff I would hear from some teachers or the principal. Just get them to school. Just get them in the door. Just get them to school. It'll be fine. I'm still gobsmacked that that is still the expectation. Just get them to school. Okay. And how damaging is that to fight, deliver, push someone to the extreme, and then have them in that incredible environment and then they say, oh yeah, they were fine. Once they were here they were fine. They were fine because they completely shut down and they became people pleasing and they masked and then they got home and then they just completely fall apart. They are beyond empty. Their tank is empty there. And yeah. What do you do? Do you push someone so hard every single day to wear themselves down to nothing and what else do they do with their life? They don't have the ability to do any after school activities. Mimi loved dancing for a while. She was doing dancing, loved dancing. She did jazz, I think, and some hip hop and ballet, but it came to a point where we had to drop all those activities. Any activity she picked up, they didn't last long because she was so burned out from the whole school experience. Even before it became so hard to get there, the exhaustion she had from every single day for her, meant that it was just so difficult to try and do any of those extracurricular things. And obviously life isn't just school. That's,

Leisa Reichelt 9:48

Right,

Laura Highgate 9:49

it's a really,

Leisa Reichelt 9:50

but when you're in the thick of this, it could be everything that everyone's thinking about pretty much all the time, isn't it?

Laura Highgate 9:55

That's it. And then even though we have, lots of wonderful, well-meaning people in our lives, family, friends, the constant, I suppose, how'd you go with school this week? How was school this week? Did you get there? Okay. Oh, that's amazing. I think it becomes such a massive focus that it's almost like, what's my worth? Is my worth only based on can I get into school?

Leisa Reichelt 10:21

So primary school was where we started getting the issues with being able to show up and participate.

Laura Highgate 10:30

Yeah, but by the time she got to year seven, things were significantly worse. she sort of battled through primary school. We'd probably have, maybe a couple of one to two days off school. But it was just the battle getting there and getting supported when she was there. But when she got to high school, that's when getting out the door just became really hard. Probably a big thing for her as well was the fact that she didn't have close friends at the school. That can be hard for so many kids, obviously starting something so massive like high school having close friends. Most of her close friends went to a nearby school, but a religious school, that she wasn't, well, we didn't actually even apply for her there because one of our previous kids had applied and we didn't get a place there. So, I also was very happy with the school that her siblings had been to. So I thought, I feel like we can get the support we probably need because I'm very familiar with this place. I think it's a lovely environment. And the Hands-on Learning program that they had at the high school, I thought a lot of, because that was the thing in the end that got my big kids back into that school environment. So that's probably where things started to really get hard for her, obviously. Year seven. And that's where we had so much absence starting within the first sort of couple of months of that.

Leisa Reichelt 11:58

Can you tell us a little bit about what would a morning look like for you at that time?

Laura Highgate 12:05

It's me getting up and physically getting into her room and saying,'okay, up now, up now.' Yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay. But I'll do that, multiple times. Other days it was me going in there and she just said, no, go away. Leave me alone. So just even the battle to get out of bed. She would always have alarms set, but she would just turn them off. So the battle to get out of bed and then if she did sort of start to wake up and get out of bed, I would help by bringing her breakfast. I was always trying to reduce the demands in that morning. I would try to reduce the choices she was having to make. Because I knew all of those things, sort of, it's all those little chips to the pile to add up to making things more difficult. So it was essentially me doing every little thing for her to try and scaffold getting her up and moving because I knew it was so hard for her. Whether or not that's helpful or detrimental long term, I dunno. But there was no other way forward. So, you know, I couldn't work. I graduated my nursing the end of 2019, I think it was. So 2020, I started right in the thick of COVID. I started nursing full time.

Leisa Reichelt 13:15

Wow.

Laura Highgate 13:16

Apart from obviously trying to make that work, I just had to say to my, thankfully, I had a pretty understanding employer from the word go, I really would prefer to only have to do as much as possible afternoon shifts. So sort of after the first year, I cut back to three days a week, but I was not able to ever do a morning shift unless I really had to be there in the morning. Now if Matt was home, getting the kids ready for school things were very different as well. I think they're always different when the primary caregiver's probably the one the thick of it all the time. So, he'd be trying to get them up and I think it was a bit more of a hard lined approach. Like, no, we are leaving now.'cause he had to also get to work.

Leisa Reichelt 14:00

So dad would be more strict about it and Mimi would get to school more often, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing in the longer term.

Laura Highgate 14:08

No, no, and I think, yeah, we had that period of time where we both discussed, is it better if he is the one getting her up and getting her going. However, having said that, his work didn't really allow for him to be doing that very often anyway. So, it was a tricky period of not only trying to support getting Mimi up and ready for school in a way that worked best for her. You know, she woke up and her anxiety was already through the roof. From, I can't remember the age exactly, she was already supported with psychology, with OT, with a pediatrician prescribing medication for anxiety. So all of these things, we sort of had in place as well. And it was what else are we doing? What do we do? The idea that maybe that hard line approach of having someone else doing it for us, like having Matt do it instead or whatever, it was the short term result, but it wasn't helping the long-term problem. And it was, I think, upsetting their relationship too.

Leisa Reichelt 15:15

Tell me a little bit about parenting together through this phase.'cause it can be challenging, can't it?

Laura Highgate 15:24

Really challenging. I'm not trying to paint myself to be like the savior of anything, but I think because I put in all the time, I guess, and understanding more the kids, you know, from going to appointments with them over the years, learning a lot about different brains, ways to support different brains, different types of learning, you know, for kids. All these things I suppose I would deep dive into then I would tell Matt about these things. But there's definitely been, and we've said this recently, there's definitely a divide how we parent individually and probably even our parenting beliefs still. I think Matt probably tends more towards a traditionalist view on a lot of parenting things because he hasn't been the one that's probably done all that exploration himself. We both have obviously very different backgrounds, growing up. We come from different families and I think at the end of the day it's very difficult to both end up with the same amount of understanding about kids if you're not equally parenting. And I don't mean that in a negative way towards him.

Leisa Reichelt 16:50

There's a big burden on you too, then to communicate and to educate and to share. And you know, when you're in the thick of this, it doesn't always feel like the highest priority thing to do, does it? Because you're so focused on the kids. But I think also, like, for a lot of us, I think it's a massive leap of faith to move away from traditionally accepting parenting practices into bringing your kids breakfast into their room in the morning for them, you know?

Laura Highgate 17:17

Absolutely. I talked to someone about this, one of the key people behind the Hands on Learning program when we're having a discussion about this recently, and she said, how did your way of parenting from coming from a very traditional family and way of doing things, how did you turn your style of parenting on its head? And I never really thought of it as being a radical change. I think I just got to the point one day, and I dunno if this is from, you know, I did lots of parenting seminars and, I saw a lot of of speakers, that started talking about understanding your child better. The big talking point was all behavior is communication. And once I started understanding that more, it sort of naturally just clicked. And even though I've come from a very reactive way, I suppose in the earlier years of parenting from my own neurodivergence, from my own background, you know, meltdowns, big behavior sends me into an absolute spin. So I've had to do a lot of personal work myself on how to manage my own way of being when someone around me is completely losing control of all of their emotions. It's still obviously a big challenge. You know, I'm very triggered by hearing some little kids with their voices escalating and I'm like, ah, what's going to happen now? But I think like from an early age, Mimi was probably parented quite differently, I think, to the big kids, because of what we'd gone through big, big behaviors with, with the big kids when they were younger. I joined a wonderful online a Facebook parent group that was more inclined to very gentle parenting, and it just gave me wonderful exposure to people with the same, I guess, parenting ideologies that I wanted to move towards.

Leisa Reichelt 19:24

Yeah.

Laura Highgate 19:24

and from that it was this progression that as things, I suppose, yeah, escalated with all of the kids in different ways, whatever was happening, it was, you don't, don't listen to the shoulds. That was a big thing. Don't listen to the shoulds. And I think it just sort of progressed through there. So, you know, when the school issues started happening, I said for a very long time, I'm not the person to homeschool a child. I, I'm not, that's not me. And I understand that. That's my limitation. I'd been at home for eight years or so with all the kids. I knew that then having to do any kind of, I understand homeschooling is not just enforcing a curriculum on a child at home, I didn't feel like that was something that I wanted to take on and I would be patient enough to take on, but I started opening my mind up to different potentials for schooling when things started getting difficult with the big kids. So, yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 20:26

Let's go back to Mimi in year seven. So she's at this school that had gone fairly well for your bigger kids, but she's lost her social supports off to a different school. Tell us about year seven.

Laura Highgate 20:43

I think she went from, not necessarily having any problems in terms of having social groups in primary school, but then going into high school, there was a couple of people she knew from primary school, but she wasn't, close friends with necessarily. And then they all developed their social groups very quickly. So the longer it went where she wasn't developing a social group, the harder it was getting. And there was a few, social groups that would come up and then sort of fall flat. So I think that was probably one of the biggest things. And, the school offers things like, they do some activities during some lunchtime or whatever.

Leisa Reichelt 21:21

Clubs and stuff.

Laura Highgate 21:23

Yeah. But even still, just going there by yourself I think was too big a step for her. So all of those sort of things, it was really tricky because she was never a kid that was flagged for school support needs in terms of funding or anything like that? Very quiet, very well behaved. If you get her talking, if she opens up, she's a total clown. And, she's a very, she's a very loud kid, but not a lot of people know that because she will just sit very quietly. It's only been last year, year eight. By year eight and she was doing the Hands-on Learning program. There was a group of kids in the Hands-on Learning program she jelled with beautifully, and they're all a bit older than her, but she sort of found this little tribe and it wasn't till year eight when this happened, and there was one day of the week then. So her Wednesdays where she'd do hands-on learning and she was so happy to go. No problems, like going from taking, over an hour to sit up, have breakfast, everything was drag, drag, drag, drag. Then the sitting outside school in the car half the time, not being able to get out of the car, All of these things. And then you see her on a Wednesday and she's up before me. She's dressed, ready to go. The difference is absolutely astounding. So she had this group of friends who were all a bit spicy. They were all little neuro divergent group. And she would just have, half a day with them.

Leisa Reichelt 23:02

It is interesting though, isn't it, that you change the conditions and her response completely changes.

Laura Highgate 23:10

it's just like it all last, the last week has been really hard. Thanks public holidays for messing up people's, rhythm and everything else, but the whole last week has been a really, really hard week and we haven't, she hasn't managed to get to any school days. We got there once, but it wasn't in class. But she's doing Hands On Learning on Friday this year, so come Friday she was already up before I woke up in the morning. Getting herself ready. She doesn't wear a uniform as well, which I think, you know, has a bit to do with it maybe too. She was out of the car before I could blink. You know, like it is phenomenal the difference Yeah. That, that an environment So

Leisa Reichelt 23:52

If only we could do hands-on learning every day.

Laura Highgate 23:55

It's like a dream. If I go back and look at my search engine, on the computer, the amount of hours I've spent trying to find something that we can make work that is like Hands On Learning every day. I just wish. This is how much I've turned around in the last couple of years as well. Having said I would never homeschool anyone. And nowadays I'm like, it's fine Now i've learned so much more about homeschooling. I would love to you know, register for homeschooling. And there are so many options, you know, like there are so many groups, there's so much that we can do, and it's not sitting here just doing bookwork. The more I've learned about it, and the more I can see how it would benefit her. But she's the tenacious kid who just wants to do her high school the way she wants to do high school. So that's hard because I feel like too late. But I see we all had to go through what we had to go through to get to these points, I think. And I can see now that there's so many different ways that she could be supported, outside of a traditional classroom environment.

Leisa Reichelt 24:59

Why do you think she's so committed to doing school this way?

Laura Highgate 25:04

Look, I think it's probably a few things. I think she wants to do what the other kids do. She still has an amazing friend who goes to that other school that she never went to, they still see each other regularly. I think she wants be in the same sort of thing as her friend. She has another friend who's also going through some really difficult schooling, ups and downs and all sorts of things. So we have, this is almost sometimes a mirror held up to these situations, but she still always wants to choose the mainstream schooling side of things every time. And it's hard because sometimes when things aren't going well, like last year, we go through these periods of time where it's just not happening for a long period of time. We're not getting into class, it's not working. And I don't ever mean it to be a threat I'm like, if it's not working, we have to find another way. And I feel like the only other way will be, let's register for homeschool and let's, you know, but she just absolutely, for whatever in her mind, doesn't wanna do it. She's locked herself into this is what she's going to do and she's going to push herself as hard as she can to do it. But it's like me, for me, I have to manage her. I have to help her

Leisa Reichelt 26:30

Yeah,

Laura Highgate 26:30

manage. Not burning yourself out.

Leisa Reichelt 26:33

it's really tough, isn't it? My son is in year 10 now. We did almost a year of home education last year because he really just got to the point where he really didn't have any choice at all. We did most of the year of home education, I also couldn't ever imagine myself doing, but then in doing that you get to see this whole other way of learning and it's extraordinary. But then he decided to go back to school again this year and it's really hard for him and the school, thank goodness of being really supportive and we learned a lot through this whole process that

Laura Highgate 27:10

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 27:10

allows me to do a much better job of advocating for him. And he can advocate really well for himself now in a way that he couldn't before. But one of the big reasons he's doing it is'cause he wants to get his ROSA so that he is able to maintain the option to go and do his HSC. And it doesn't matter how often I say to him, there are so many ways, we don't have to do this.

Laura Highgate 27:31

Yeah,

Leisa Reichelt 27:31

can, we can go a different path. And I also think that he learned way more when he was home educating.

Laura Highgate 27:39

absolutely.

Leisa Reichelt 27:40

Than he did when he was previously at school and that he's learning right now when he's at school. But I just think that social pressure, like all it takes is one teacher to say, ROSA is really important. And then, you know, that means so much more than everything that I say.

Laura Highgate 27:59

Do you know, I found it really interesting when we started doing home learning with COVID and my eldest. Was doing their online school stuff with COVID. And they came out and they went, I'm done, you know, within a couple hours. And I was like, what do you mean you're done? And they said, oh, well I'm not going to do these classes or whatever today. I don't have to, but I can do this work. I'm finished. And I was like, are you serious? You have no idea how much messing around happens in a classroom every single day. Most of the time we are in a classroom. The teacher is telling kids to do this. The teacher is going and checking on stuff. They said, it's just the actual work aspect of it, if you understand it or if you get the instruction of it and you just do it. For some brains it's just like, why do you need all that noise and that busyness of that environment? When you can just, access content and, learn from it. I think with Mimi being a highly social kid, but finding the social also very difficult to navigate. I think there's less of an interest probably for the education for her, and there's more of the, she wants that school experience and that social experience, and she just wants to keep pushing until she's at a point where she's able to somehow get it. It's a hard one to manage that expectation and, and them pushing themselves a situation when you can see another way that might support them better. So the biggest thing I've had to do is really manage my expectation of anything. I've been through a lot of things with the other kids where they want to be doing something, but it doesn't happen, or, they change their mind or whatever. We're doing so well at the moment. She started school this term with a bang. Started so well, and then as soon as we hit last week and she wasn't able to go. It's this, back to how I used to feel it's this horrible memory, guts

Leisa Reichelt 30:06

ripped

Laura Highgate 30:07

out.

Leisa Reichelt 30:07

Yeah, You let yourself think. we've turned the corner now and it's going to be okay from now on,

Laura Highgate 30:12

I've gotta manage that expectation because me going flat after that happens is not going to help her. It's not going to help me. So what I have to work on is just staying a bit neutral about all these things.

Leisa Reichelt 30:26

I know you gotta be neutral about the wins as well, don't you? You can't get excited.

Laura Highgate 30:29

So neutral. Neutral. Yeah, I think, and again, that's been a big thing for me to work on is, my reactions, my expectations, and remembering this is not actually about me. This is 100% them. And my goal is just to try and, scaffold to try and support moving through this period of their lives. And to always remember, like you said before, there's so many different ways of accessing further education down the line. This is not the be all and end all. And the best thing I feel like we can do is support their mental health. Support them developing themselves and going through that tumultuous teenage journey of finding themselves and going through all those experiences and that life isn't just about being at

Leisa Reichelt 31:24

I agree with everything that you've said, but I also know that secretly, deep down inside, if they did magically turn a corner and managed to go to school, we would be telling ourselves, thank goodness. It shows that I've done the right thing and I've made the right decisions, and I am a good mum after all.

Laura Highgate 31:41

I think, yeah, there is, there is and there's a lot of shame and stigma that goes along with your child not attending school.

Leisa Reichelt 31:49

Mm-hmm.

Laura Highgate 31:49

my workplace now is beautiful, really flexible and wonderful, and I'm doing an extra day, but I've said I have to finish by one o'clock because that extra day now takes out of my availability to do different time to pick ups if necessary. And they've been great with that, you know, so if I can finish at one, that means I can do a lunchtime pick up if necessary on that day. But explaining why, and as soon as you open up that explaining why I need to be available and Oh, I thought your child was, you know, 14 or 15. Okay. Unless people go through these situations, they don't understand. You can be an open, you can be a kind, you can be an empathetic, compassionate person with no judgment, but you don't obviously fully understand someone else's perspective until you're going through that situation yourself. And there is definitely levels of, of that terrible shame for not being able to make it happen. Having to then explain to other people, and defend your position, defending your position is exhausting. And then also having to do that with the education providers, that's a whole nother thing. Having to not only defend your position, but then fight on a regular basis just for your child to have access to the basic, basic supports that will help'em get in the door. The end of last year, I sort of had to just lay it out and say, when she's able to contact someone in the morning and say, I am on my way, can you meet me near the office? The biggest change. And, just a small group of people, so good continuity. So she's got good trust. She knows they're not going to shove into a classroom and run away. If things go bad, they take her somewhere quiet and say, okay, are we going to try again? Are we going to go home? So there's all these options now that they can offer, but it's something that we still have to frequently keep in the forefront of everyone's minds. So she's able to contact these support people at school in the mornings through a teams message. I'm on my way. Someone will get back to her and say, I'll meet you at the front. They walk her in, whether that is to class or whether that's somewhere else. If she's able to do that and to get there, which has been most of this term so far. She usually won't go on Monday, but then she had been going most other days for most of the day. It's made the biggest difference with her all of a sudden knowing that she has people at school that are on her side. It sounds really basic because, I suppose you hear people say, oh, you know, we're on your side. We're here to support you. That's sort of lip service. We've been through that in primary school. We're here to support you, but they don't have the capacity to support you I think that we've had so many meetings now. And she's had a lot to do with the support people at school, that there is some really good familiarity of continuity now. I'm so proud of her for being able to finally say at the start of last year, yes, I need a person at school to help me manage just anything. And yes, I'm willing to actually, let that happen. if someone can provide it for me. It just makes me a little bit sad I wasn't able, to provide this level of help for the other two, when they were really struggling as well. Different times. The school probably didn't have as many support people post COVID, post everything else going on. I think things have changed a lot at the school. And I suppose I wasn't the squeaky wheel as much as I probably needed to be for them, but,

Leisa Reichelt 35:40

I think the thing that we all have to tell ourselves, and everyone who's listening has to tell themselves this as well, Is that we do the best we can with what we know at the time with what's available to us. Knowledge and resources and capacity. We all do the best we can

Laura Highgate 35:54

Thank you.

Leisa Reichelt 35:55

Hindsight.

Laura Highgate 35:56

reminder.

Leisa Reichelt 35:57

Hindsight is a curse for us all, but we're all in the same boat and we just have to trust that we did the best we could.

Laura Highgate 36:03

you're very right. There's no point in looking back on any of that. You know, everyone's different, everyone's experiences are different. We go through all of these journeys and we gain new experiences and new knowledge as we go through and, hopefully that experience can then, somehow be beneficial to someone else. You know, whether it's the third child, whether it's a friend who says, I don't know what to do, and you can say, Hey, I've heard about this, or what about this?

Leisa Reichelt 36:28

Or maybe it's coming on a podcast and sharing your own lived experience. Laura, people will kill me if I don't ask you about this Hands-on Learning program. What is that?

Laura Highgate 36:39

So it's a completely non-denominational charity so it is in conjunction with the education department. In some schools where they show an interest, they are able to set up a program with what they call artisan teachers. And so they have a program where they're usually outside of the classroom. So at Mimi's school, they have a little hut. They've got a hut, they have a huge garden space. They have chickens. They have a massive aviary with birds and guinea pigs. They have a shed. They have all the tools you could even wish for. And they have some amazing teachers. Mimi desperately, when she was in the paper about this recently, she desperately wanted to say, I love Steven Beck, but they didn't publish it. So here's her. I love Steven Beck. Now these guys are just, all on a first name basis. It is super casual. There's rules about this. They have to wear like work boots. They have to wear appropriate clothing because these kids are getting dirty. It is literally hands-on. Regular school time, they have an allocated day of the week that they go on. I think the program runs for three days a week. it's from 8:45 until 1:15 think maybe there's up to maybe eight to 10 kids per group. I reckon Mimi's group has about four or five at the moment. So essentially you go in there. It's casual with structure and purpose. The kids have like a little meeting or a little discussion at the start of the term or the start of the year about what their goal for the year is going to be. And that's put up on a big board as well. These teachers know how to interact with kids who otherwise find a classroom environment doesn't work for them for whatever reason. So think any kid that's having a difficult time at school, for whatever reason it is, they can, apply to be in this program. So this is Mimi's third year now They built a deck at one stage. So these teachers obviously also have, some building or whatever background, however, it, build a deck at the school. But they have a, they built a wood fire pizza oven, you know, big pizza oven. So they will have a fire and they'll make pizzas for their morning tea or their lunch or whatever. Every single day they sit down together, they cook together. Every single time they have these classes, have to figure out who's going to be on cooking, who's cleaning, what their jobs are. It is a very sort of independent, but it's also with guidance. And it's real life skills. It's life skills for kids that struggle with being in a regular classroom environment. They do gardening, they've painted murals. Has to feed the chickens or do whatever with the chooks, you know, or clean out the, the aviary, whatever it is. These kids feel respected, the hierarchy of a regular classroom is gone. Really. And I know some teachers might be more progressive I guess in a classroom environment and say, oh, it's okay. You can call me Matt, or you can call me Bill, or whatever. And this is all pretty chill in my classroom. But this, it's just on a very different level.

Leisa Reichelt 39:49

And presumably there's heaps of incidental learning. Like they're still learning about math stuff and English stuff and science stuff.

Laura Highgate 39:54

You are building a deck, you know, you need to measure, they're being taught how to do all these things that incorporate incidental learning. So everything they do, reading a recipe, you know, if they're making a cake that day,'cause it's someone's birthday, or if they're cooking brownies, whatever it is, they need to be able to figure out all those things. And I think when it's delivered in such a casual way, that incidental learning, is the best way for a lot of kids who are having difficulties for whatever reasons and still be in a school, well still be in a social environment, let's say a supported social environment. It's just fantastic.

Leisa Reichelt 40:34

If you were going to look at Mimi's attendance rate for hands-on learning, what would she be looking at there do you think?

Laura Highgate 40:41

Oh, she would be, I'd say probably she might be 99% and that's only because there's probably been a couple of sick days. She has no problems with the teaching staff there. when I've seen her sit down and chat to them, it's a different person.

Leisa Reichelt 40:56

She's like a walking demonstration of the fact that it's not the child that's broken. It's the environment that's completely unsuitable in some cases, and then completely well suited in the hands-on learning case for the child. And if we're going to solve the problem, we don't look at the child, we've gotta look at the environment, right?

Laura Highgate 41:16

Yep. Absolutely. Everything you've just said, that's exactly right. You know, you go from having a child who starts crying outside of a classroom, doesn't wanna speak to anyone, is completely shut down and overwhelmed. And then you have a child that bounces in and is a bit cheeky and, goes up to the teacher and says, Hey, what are you doing here? and literally just slots straight in. it's so obvious. Like it's so obvious. Like I said, if I could find a program that was, I just wish I could give her this every single day.

Leisa Reichelt 41:53

We just need a lot more diversity, in the educational offerings that are available to our kids so that you can find the right setting for the right kid.

Laura Highgate 42:02

because having seen my three different kids that have all had these issues as well, everyone is so different. So we desperately need that diversity. Because seeing something work for one then something different, work for another, and just being able to watch a person actually become themselves and be able to relax enough to actually learn something, to enjoy themselves, to want to go back and have that experience. it's when you've gone through all of this, I suppose, in seeing how down and how hard it is for these kids sometimes, seeing the flip side is incredible.

Leisa Reichelt 42:44

Laura, If you could share one message to all the folk who are listening, who have got School Can't kids in their lives, what do you want them to know?

Laura Highgate 42:58

I think there is often support available or there are often ways schools can support you, but you've gotta push and it's exhausting. Just don't listen to the shoulds. Don't listen to the shoulds. Do what works for your family and your child especially, and support your mental health. Support their mental health. That's the biggest thing at the end of the day. People can access education at any age. Take care of yourself, take care of your child. And I think be the squeaky wheel. It's exhausting, but be the squeaky wheel, and Google the heck out of what else you can find in your area, that might work better. You don't have to do what the person next door is doing, you know? Do what works for you and be kind to yourself and be kind to each other.

Leisa Reichelt 44:01

That is all fantastic advice. Thank you so much, Laura, for spending time with us today and sharing your story and all of your wisdom. It's been amazing to talk to you. Thank you.

Laura Highgate 44:11

Thank you so much for listening to me. Thanks a lot.

Leisa Reichelt 44:15

It was so lovely to talk to Laura and to hear about Mimi's journey and what an amazing illustration of how much changing the school environment can make the accessibility of education can completely different for our kids. If you have some feedback or a suggestion for a future topic or a guest, or perhaps you've been inspired by Laura to share your own lived experience story, please drop me an email to schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. If you found our podcast helpful, I'd be so grateful if you could take a moment to subscribe or give us a rating or a review. It really does help make this podcast easier to find for people who have School Can't kids, and have not yet found the School Can't community at all of the information and support that we share. If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you are feeling distressed, please remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. Do not hesitate to reach out for some extra support. Thank you again for listening. We will talk again soon. Take care.