#53 Lucette's Lived Experience

Lucette, a mum of two neurodivergent girls, education advocate and author, speaks with our host, Leisa Reichelt about a School Can’t journey that began as “Daycare Can’t” and “Kinder Can’t.” Lucette describes years of difficult drop-offs, restraint collapse, and escalating distress—including absconding and family crisis—before her eldest child, ‘Big A’, was identified as autistic and ADHD with high sensory needs, and the family began using more PDA-aligned, low-demand communication. 

Despite extensive home-provided supports and an early advocacy consult to understand school rights and adjustments, a change of teacher in Grade 1 coincided with worsening experiences and a missed school meeting, prompting a rapid school move. 

A a small mainstream school with strong leadership, staff training, and full-time classroom aides, eventually made a huge difference. 

Lucette emphasizes trusting your gut, bringing advocates or support people to meetings, knowing your rights, and she shares her children’s book about emotions and regulation, “When I’m Excited, I fart Glitter”.

People & resources mentioned in this episode:

• Autism Goals - https://www.autismgoals.com.au/
• Lucette’s book: When I’m Excited, I Fart Glitter - https://www.instagram.com/lmc.writes/

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. Today we are joined by Lucette, who is a mom of two neurodivergent kiddos, an educational advocate and an author. Lucette is going to be sharing her story about supporting her eldest daughter. Who she now realizes has experienced not only School Can't, but also Daycare Can't, and Kinder Can't. We do have a content warning for this episode. Lucette does describe some particularly challenging times for her family, including parental distress, and there is an inference of suicidal ideation. So please take care when listening. If you don't have capacity today, think about giving it a miss and please never think twice about reaching out for some extra support if you need it. That said, Lucette and her family are in a good place now and she has some wonderful advice to share from her experiences. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Welcome Lucette to the School Can't Experience Podcast. It is a delight to have you here with us today.

Lucette 1:25

Thank you so much. I appreciate coming along. It's amazing.

Leisa Reichelt 1:28

Let's get started, as we always do with just getting a little bit of context for you, Lucette, tell us a little bit about you, your family, where you are, what you do, what's interesting?

Lucette 1:37

So, my name's Lucette. I have worked, I suppose, in the disability and criminal justice space for my entire career. And then obviously since having children, the capacity to engage in a career definitely changes. I went through a little bit of a period of time where I stopped work for a little bit and started to do some extra things and then most recently I've gotten into the advocacy space. So I've been working as a education advocate and disability consultant. Which has been amazing. So I suppose, yeah, most of my background in terms of career seems to be supporting people that the community kind of likes to forget exist, for whatever reason that might be. I've got a lovely husband called Jason. He is a tradesman, which is amazing, very helpful. And then we've got two small people. So we've got two young girls, so I'll refer to my eldest as big A and my youngest is little A. So big A is seven. She's in grade two. Little A has just started in prep. We've also got two dogs, which are the obsession of the entire family. We've got Luna, who's a Labrador and we've got Dakota who's a Kelpie,

Leisa Reichelt 2:51

Oh, bless.

Lucette 2:52

just the most beautiful souls. And yeah, they just support the entire family, although they've not been trained to do so. But they definitely, they definitely do.

Leisa Reichelt 3:01

They just intuitively know their jobs sometimes, don't they?

Lucette 3:04

Oh, definitely,

Leisa Reichelt 3:05

Yeah.

Lucette 3:06

One of them is laying down next to me now,

Leisa Reichelt 3:08

that's good.

Lucette 3:08

you know,

Leisa Reichelt 3:09

Mine is like literally under my chair, and she's a snorer, so apologies if you hear any snoring along the way. That is my dog, Stevie Lucette. We are here obviously to talk about School Can't Tell us where's the beginning of your School Can't journey.

Lucette 3:27

Yeah, I suppose if I reflect back on it now, School Can't for us started daycare. It started from the absolute beginning and I only really reflect on that now because of the difference I've seen in the last like nine months. But if we go back to literal daycare days and kinder days, it was never easy to get, gonna focus on my eldest on Big A. It was never easy to get her out the door for anything. And you know, I suspected neurodivergence back when she was nine months old.

Leisa Reichelt 4:02

What made you suspect it when she was nine months old?

Lucette 4:06

The only thing she would watch on TV was the first 10 minutes of Moana on repeat, and she was highly like high sensory kid. and I just thought, oh, maybe like sensory processing disorder. I was looking down that sort of path. Hadn't really considered autism at that point in time. I was not diagnosed with any sort of ADHD or anything back then. So for me it didn't even sort of trigger in my mind.

Leisa Reichelt 4:32

Sounds like you knew what you were looking for though. Like why were these things standing out to you

Lucette 4:36

I think I was so thankful that about a year and a half before we fell pregnant with Big A, I started working in disability organisation. And I had the absolute amazing opportunity to work with young people who the families were really, struggling to support them. And they were on the verge of being like, we are a complete and utter crisis. We need in-home support and we need external supports. So we'd support these young people. They'd come into a respite house and we'd support them in the respite house, and then we'd support them at home and teach families strategies on how to support them in the home. So then they could return to the home full time again. So it was a beautiful program, which unfortunately stopped with the transition across to NDIS. But I worked in that space and I think that gave me so much insight and I learned so much from the families that I supported. Then when I became a mum myself, I was like. Hmm, my daughter's not meeting the milestones that we are meant to be sort of looking out for. She's really loving the first 10 minutes of Moana and she's really hating going outside the house. We cannot go to the shops. Separating from me was an absolute nightmare. So I did so much sensory stuff with her. I'd create new sensory boxes every week and put in a lot of work in the sensory space, thinking that that's what we were working towards. And then daycare they were amazing, but getting her in the door was a nightmare. Getting her to settle was a nightmare. And although we chose such a beautiful daycare for her to be at initially, it just wasn't, that wasn't the space that she obviously felt comfortable being in. I didn't know that I was a new mum.

Leisa Reichelt 6:19

Yeah, it feels as though the sense that I'm getting is that because of the knowledge that you have from your past experience, you were maybe able to identify this as a problem that was not your parenting, because I think a lot of mums in the same situation would go, this is me obviously being a rubbish mum. if I could do better, this problem would go away. So I wonder whether that's like, that feels like a real fortunate situation for you as well.

Lucette 6:44

It was very fortunate for me that I was able to look at it in a more clinical kind of lens without knowing what it was that I was exactly seeing, but I just knew something wasn't right. And I had the gut feeling, don't you, as a mum, where you're like, it shouldn't be this hard. I'm seeing all my friends doing drop offs. I'm seeing people walking and be like, see you later. Like, bye Jim. And I never got to experience that. And honestly, I never got to experience that until last like three months. And she's seven now. So for that to happen, whilst I was pregnant with my youngest as well,'cause there's only a 15 month age gap between the two. So, I didn't know it then, but coming out of daycare, it was the restraint collapse after daycare that triggered a lot of physical, emotional reactions that lasted for hours hours on end.

Leisa Reichelt 7:38

Talk some more about that. How did that work?

Lucette 7:41

I suppose I'm gonna refer back to a time when she was three, and we were living in a rural country town in Victoria. We'd moved, it was peak COVID time and we'd moved out to a country town thinking what's the world gonna look like in the next five, 10 years? We'll get some land. So we can, know, try and have space because we feel like our kids need space and they need quiet. We literally sold everything that we had and moved and we bought a property out there. And I remember I was working from home, still for a disability org, and they were, they were beautiful, beautiful company that I worked for, eternally grateful for them. But I remember just, I was fortunate that I could take her to daycare. So I would do the daycare drop off for both girls. I would drop them off immediately, get in my car in tears, feeling such an amount of guilt and grief in a weird sense

Leisa Reichelt 8:41

Because you'd had a really difficult drop off every day?

Lucette 8:44

Because it was a difficult drop off, and I knew that inside that they couldn't be there, but I couldn't have them home because I needed

Leisa Reichelt 8:51

Yeah.

Lucette 8:51

to work to finance the family. My husband was working his butt off doing his carpentry stuff, and I just needed to get them somewhere so I could a) have little bit of time for myself to work and to reinvigorate I suppose, and increase my capacity. So then I could pick them up at pick up and be a better parent. getting out those mornings, it was, I couldn't get them dressed without a fight. I couldn't get their bags packed. The clean clothes getting into their bags was like just this big thing of being like, oh, where's the clothes to put in the bags? Because the house is in absolute disarray. Drop off was awful. I'd get in the car, I'd cry all the way home. Get home, be like, okay, now I need to work. Work for the five hours or six hours I was at work and go and pick them up and be like, mum's here! Pick up! Get them in the car. And my eldest just, I couldn't ask, was your day good today? My youngest wasn't really speaking by that point. She was only two. We'd get home it would either be, we had literally two scenarios. It would either be absolute silence with a blanket over her, with an iPad and I'd slide snacks under the blanket to regulate her enough she would sort of stay away from her sister, or it was all hands on deck. I'm really unhappy and I'm gonna let you know about it. And I just had to be the one that would deal with it because I was the support. Dad was still at work. Little 2-year-old walking around trying to get into the pantry and climb up the shelves to get herself some snacks, try and keep her safe while, my big one, I'm, I remember one day she was just so distraught. I recognize it now. She had a panic attack in the kitchen and she couldn't catch her breath, and she was just screaming and crying and I just sat on the floor with her and I was just in tears. I just remember rocking her on the floor or, well before that, she wouldn't actually let me touch her. So I remember just sitting on the floor being like, I'm here. I'm here when you need, and she'd kicking everything, punching everything, and then she'd crawl over to me when she got to the point of being like, I can be touched now. And I just have to, I had to squeeze her sat there and I rocked her, and we were just both in tears. And it was that point in time that I was like, A) we can't live here anymore. We had no supports up there. And B) I didn't wanna be here as a mum either. Because it was just so lonely because no one else was experiencing that. And that was before we had a formalised diagnosis as well, and a formalized sort of profile of what she was experiencing. I was still thinking it was possibly autism. But I wasn't sure. And then it was maybe like six months later that I was like, we need to get her assessed. But I, I didn't have the capacity at that point in time to into it anymore. Because I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna be around myself. And so I said to my husband, I'm like, we either sell this house, we move back to where we were. Or I'm like, you're gonna be a single dad, basically. Because it was just at the, that point of just having a three-year-old and a 2-year-old that they weren't comfortable in their environments. They weren't safe. They were safe in the sense of nothing physical was going on, or like, there was, no sort of, incidents towards them or anything like that, thankfully. But they weren't safe in the sense that they were being supported in the way that they needed to be supported. They were safe at home and obviously we, we were the ones that needed to regulate them.

Leisa Reichelt 12:49

It sounds so distressing. I'm so sorry that you went through that.

Lucette 12:52

oh, it was, I think everyone struggled with COVID. Everyone's got their stories with COVID and probably, not many people realize how intense that period of time was for us, it was, yeah, it was really, was something, something different. And I still didn't realize, I think there's so much when you hear about School Can't now that it's hard to think that that is what Kinder Can't is and Daycare Can't. And it's like, oh, it's just a hard drop off. It's not just a hard drop off. You know in your gut that it's not just a hard drop off, but yet there's things that we need to do as adults. There's income that we need to bring into the house and there's not the services available. For our kids and for us to be able to do anything that we needed to do. Through that entire time, I wish I had been able to stop work, but I've never been entitled to any payments for my kids that go above like the Carers Allowance. I've never been entitled to anything from Centrelink. So that wasn't an option. So we did sell up thankfully, and we came back to home, which has been three and a half years I think we've been back home, which has been the best thing that we did. So we thought picking up and moving away was gonna be the best thing for our family to have space, to access small schools, to access rural supports. We thought that would be the best thing.

Leisa Reichelt 14:32

It sounds logically like you made a huge move for all the right reasons and yet. And yet.. Yeah.

Lucette 14:41

And then, so we moved back here halfway through 4-year-old kinder for Big A. So, that was really lovely because when we walked into that daycare center, the staff were like, oh, you guys are back. One of the women that rocked her as a baby at six months old in the baby room was now the aide in the 4-year-old kinder room. And so she was very much like another grandmother kind of figure that was able to really keep Big A safe in that space. So we were like, okay, this is gonna be okay, this is gonna work. And I'll be honest, the drop offs were easier. The restraint collapse afterwards a little bit easier, but we were still getting a lot of physical stuff. A lot of absconding kind of happened at that point in time. But I was like, she's had a lot of change. It makes sense.

Leisa Reichelt 15:37

You've talked about restraint collapse a couple of times. For anyone who is listening, who is not familiar with that term, can you give us a little bit of a definition?

Lucette 15:46

Yeah. So I suppose my personal sort of definition of it, especially for my kids, where they hold everything in, all day. And I guess similar to the spoon theory in the sense of like, they use up their spoons every day, all day. They get to the point where you pick them up, you're a safe person, you are gonna get all of the emotion, good or bad. And then their skill levels of what they can usually do, and their capacity levels drop. So, you know, for my youngest toileting would be manageable kind of all day. She'd get home and toileting would drop. The ability to communicate their needs, some of their needs, their basic kind of needs. At kinder were able to happen. They get home, they're not able to communicate because it's just too hard. They've used everything up that they've got. So that would be my sort of explanation of how our restraint collapse looked

Leisa Reichelt 16:39

Yeah, I'm sure plenty of people who are listening are very familiar with this experience. it's really, helpful to put words to it though, isn't it?

Lucette 16:46

Definitely is, and this is, I guess where it was probably this point in time it became my special interest. So, We'd received our neurodivergent profile for Big A. We understood that she was level two autistic and ADHD with high sensory needs, but still yet to receive any sort of SPD Sensory Processing Disorder profile for her. But I then started to really look into PDA because the typical strategies that we'd been taught and we'd started to use for autism weren't supporting us really at all.

Leisa Reichelt 17:30

Talk a little bit about that. Like what was it that you were seeing and what was supposed to work that wasn't working?

Lucette 17:37

So I guess things like, Now And Then boards, star charts, rewards, I think visuals as an, as an example, kind of like the set routine as well. Those sort of things, they worked to a degree, but they triggered more. So I couldn't have a visual up that said, we are gonna put your undies on first. Your dress on, your socks, your shoes, get your bag and go to the door because that's too much of a demand that we have to do it in that order. So it got to this point where we graduated kinder and we were starting school. And I was like, how's she gonna work with this? I can't get her to do anything in the mornings. Whether it be PDA aligned or whether it be School Can't aligned, I couldn't get her to do anything. So I just had to change my language. So I had to do a lot of declarative language, a lot of like, oh, I'm curious if you can put your shoes on before we get out the door. I'm curious what shoes are you gonna wear today? Or what shoes might feel good on your feet today? I'm gonna wear my runners. Like, so, speaking to her in a different way and changing our entire parenting style to support her needs to be able to do anything.

Leisa Reichelt 18:55

You say changing our parenting style.

Lucette 18:58

yes.

Leisa Reichelt 18:59

And this was your special interest. How did your husband go on this journey of trying to get everyone's head around what was going on and understanding what to do?

Lucette 19:07

I will be honest. He's a great listener. And he's been very invested the whole time with our girls and learning about their needs and strategies to support them, things like that. But I will take the lead in this space a hundred percent. It's definitely taken him longer than it has for myself, because I think with men, and with dads, I feel there's this preconceived idea about what parenthood can look like in a dad space. Like teach them to ride a bike and, doing bits and pieces in that sort of space. I feel like dads sort of look forward to those parts of being a father. For my husband, it was very much he had to change his ideas about what fatherhood looked like for him. So he's been able to change his language and he knows how to support the girls and things like that. It's just taken a little bit longer, but, it's nice to see them now go to him and not solely go to me all the time, but it's taken years for us to get to that point though as well.

Leisa Reichelt 20:10

Yeah, yeah,

Lucette 20:11

it's definitely harder. I do think it's really, it can be really hard for dads. The

Leisa Reichelt 20:16

social expectations and, you know, the way that you are sort of socialized to think about how to be as a parent and like you say, what parenting is gonna look like means that everybody in this situation at some point has to do like a pretty hard pivot on what they thought parenting was gonna be versus what actually works.

Lucette 20:36

Big time. Its great now though, he takes them out by themselves and things like that. And, he's able to sort of implement all the strategies that we implement as a family. And it's, you know, it's allowed us to be able to do some things that we never thought that we would be able to do either, which has been amazing. So it's good having someone on your team. And I'm fortunate that I've got that,'cause I know that there's a lot of parents that do it on their own. And I just think to me would be so incredibly hard,

Leisa Reichelt 21:02

Yeah.

Lucette 21:02

that the team around you is what you need. Big time,

Leisa Reichelt 21:06

You were saying Lucette, that this experience led to you guys looking at your own neurotype as well.

Lucette 21:14

Yeah, definitely. So Big A, obviously we discovered her Neurotype 4-year-old kinder. I think I got my ADHD diagnosis two years ago now. But obviously it's a typical like thing where you take, you get your ADHD diagnosis, you take your meds and you realize you're really autistic. Which is quite funny because obviously I wouldn't have considered that for myself. And I look back and I'm like, oh, no, that's quite, feel like it's quite obvious. And I know with my husband, like he's not received any formal sort of neurotype or anything like that, but he's very much like, oh no, like our kids have got it from both of us. And I'm like, they have. My youngest bless her, she's exceeding on the ADHD scale of things. I'll give her that much. Autism as well, but the ADHD really, really impacts her. Whereas the autism for my eldest is, the part of her neurotype that she obviously finds the most challenging.

Leisa Reichelt 22:10

In our family, we talk about have you got an autism major or an ADHD major?

Lucette 22:15

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I think, yeah, it's so very interesting. I think that's what I was so thankful that with Big A before getting her into school, I knew what her neurotype was. We had that formalized. So what I did, and what I'd recommend for any family to do, was I engaged with an advocate before we started school. And I purely did that to know where do I stand? As a mum, where do I stand legally? And what is she entitled to have at school? Because if she's not getting that, then I know from that point what to look out for. So that would be my biggest piece of advice for this stage is if you've not engaged an advocate before they've started school, engage one when they're at school, just purely to understand legalities about what you can receive, what supports you can receive. So we had one appointment and that's all it was. It's just one appointment.

Leisa Reichelt 23:11

Let's step back again, you are opening up loads of concepts that are not necessarily like, you know, some of us just got our heads around Occupational Therapy. When you say engage an advocate, what are we looking for and where are we looking for this magical person?

Lucette 23:25

So I googled it and I was just like where can I get support to understand like education system I think I may have even just seen an ad, I really don't recall now where it was. The name of this lovely woman and this lovely organisation called Autism Goals popped up. They're based in Melbourne sort of area, and they cover the whole state. And I just rang up, I was like, can I just have like a, just like a free consultation? I'm like, I just have a few questions about what to expect. They're like, sure, no worries. They booked me in for an hour and I went there and I had this meeting. I said, look, I'm just really concerned. My daughter's graduating 4yr old kinder now, she starts school in three months. She's been accepted into a Catholic primary school because it's the smallest school in our region. And she gave me the advice of, you know, they have to meet the Child Safety Standards and Disability Act, the Human Rights Act. She went through the funding and like the NCCD, which is the funding that you get. She goes, this is what the NCCD funding looks like, and this is what they have to do, and how they would apply for the funding. And this is the supports that you're entitled to ask for and to request, and the adjustments that you're allowed to sort of request. I was like, okay. I walked outta there going, I've got a little bit more of an idea because otherwise I would walk into a school, they would say to me, oh, we can't do this. And I, I would've been like, yeah, okay, then you can't, you're a school

Leisa Reichelt 24:59

I think there are dozens and dozens of people who are listening to this right now who are just like going, oh my God, I wish I had that when I started on my school experience or when I started to see the things that were happening. Yeah, that's such a super smart thing to do and great advice.

Lucette 25:16

I have no idea what led me to do it, but something obviously said to me, like, you know, look into something else. But I'm so thankful that I did because it gave me that confidence to know that there was more that I could ask for. And more that I could do, from day one. So I suppose we went to school, we started our orientation. We started our term, one of prep of foundation. And beautiful teacher, like a really beautiful teacher. And the principal, I was like, oh, you know, beautiful principal. Like this is gonna go really well. We've made the right choice here. And then the same thing happened as what happened in daycare and kinder. And the restraint collapse happened and I couldn't ask about the day. She'd get in the car and it would just be tears or we couldn't make it to the car, actually. So I'd pick up as an example, I remember numerous occasions where I'd walk out the door and we'd make it into the quadrangle and she'd just drop to the floor. And would just be in tears. And I'd have to rock her in the quadrangle for 15 minutes before we could even walk to the car. And that was after a day in foundation. And we think about foundation and we go, surely it can't be that hard. They're doing a lot of art and it's all play-based and things like that. So I was like, she's just tired.

Leisa Reichelt 26:47

And that's the story that you'll be told as well, right? Everyone finds it hard in the first period. It'll get easier.

Lucette 26:52

She's just tired. I'm like, okay. So she's just tired. No problem. We'll do wellbeing days. And I think what's really hard, and I'm hoping that our experience is able to resonate with other families because I feel like it's not a typical School Can't scenario, that is that my daughter wanted to be at school every day. So when I suggested a wellbeing day, that would trigger her because her desire to be 110% and appear 110% at school was greater than her desire to rest. She would prefer to have been at school, come home and be distressed, than miss a day of school. And miss out on what they were doing at school.

Leisa Reichelt 27:48

Do you understand what was the driver for that?

Lucette 27:54

I think now I see her and I actually spoke to her this morning and asked a couple of questions of her,'cause I wanted her voice to come across in this as well. And I said to her, what was hard at that school? And she said, the bullies. And I said, yes. Like there was bullying there, and I can touch on that as well. she said, the work, and I said, of course, the work. And I said, tell me a little bit about the school, like the, the space. And I was like, do you know, was it safe? And she said, it wasn't safe for me. She goes, I would sit there, and she goes like, I would sit, I have to sit still. And,'cause we were talking about comparisons between old school and new school. She goes, now I don't have to sit still. I sit in a rocking chair. I said, yes. She goes, but I sat still at my old school. I said, yes, you did. Bullying was a big thing, a huge thing for her. But I think her masking was utmost, the biggest thing for her when it came to her School Can't journey. And, her desire to need to be at school. And it wasn't just a want, she needed to be there and if she missed anything, she felt like she was then littler.

Leisa Reichelt 29:11

Is that like a perfectionism thing

Lucette 29:13

as perfection.

Leisa Reichelt 29:14

yeah.

Lucette 29:16

She would feel like she wasn't as good as her peers if she had to leave early to go to an OT appointment or if she started late because we had a tough morning, or if she had a wellbeing day off. She couldn't handle not being there from nine till three.

Leisa Reichelt 29:33

It was like a sense of failure.

Lucette 29:35

Sense of failure.

Leisa Reichelt 29:36

Oh, bless.

Lucette 29:37

So we had School Can't, but like it was distressing either dropping her off and it was distressing keeping her home. So it was that thing of being like, what, do I do? The teacher was beautiful. She was absolutely lovely, lovely woman. I would enter the class 10, 15 minutes before the other kids in the morning. So I would enter with her. She had safe spaces and a lot of the time she would, within the school day, she would retreat to like the cuddly kind of corner of blankets and pillows and weighted things and things like that. And then I, I created a sensory box for her to take into school. So she had a sensory box that basically covered each, each sense. She had a lot of tactile things. She had noise canceling headphones. She also then had Loops'cause she stopped wearing the headphones because she didn't want to appear different to her peers. I created communication cards for her because she couldn't communicate her needs in the classroom. So I was like, well, let's take that demand away of her having to actually speak. So she'd use cards instead. She had like sort of smelly stickers, like she had weighted lap pads. I've got like sensory specific shoes for her, for school. All that sort of stuff everything I physically could to resource the school with things that she would need, to support her needs.

Leisa Reichelt 31:04

Just to try to reduce the amount of effort that it required for her to be there

Lucette 31:08

yeah, not knowing that realistically I was going beyond what was required of me and, essentially the school should have also done some of that stuff.

Leisa Reichelt 31:18

And this is even with your great advocacy that you'd had beforehand as well. Gosh. Yeah. We can't help ourselves, can we?

Lucette 31:26

We can't. And I think, it was, it was okay. Like I said, drop offs were still really hard. Pickups were still really hard. We were still having very similar sort of, quotation marks behaviors, when we were coming home. And absconding was one of those. So I would pick her up from school, we'd get in the car, she would be upset in the car, and then we'd get home. I'd open the car door and she would run.

Leisa Reichelt 31:55

Gosh.

Lucette 31:57

And so where we lived was sort of like a bit of a main street, and then we had a reserve next to us that was fenced off, but there was a gap that could go onto the big main road. And she'd run out the car and I'd step closer her to her, and then she would step closer to the road. And I would just have to stand here and just hope to anything that she was not gonna run through that reserve. And so I literally just have to stand there, but I'm not coming closer to you. Not coming closer. And she's like, okay. And I would sit on the floor where I could literally just see the top of her head. I'd sit on the floor and eventually half an hour or so would come past and she'd step closer. I'd move away, she'd step closer and I'd move away to the point where she was the front lawn and I was like, sort of sitting in the front step and just sort of waiting there. And that was something we hadn't experienced before. And that's what really was like, she's not coping like, but still School Can't, I'd never really heard about it still at that point in time. I was just sort of like, she's just struggling. It's prep.

Leisa Reichelt 33:15

And this is like a progression of everything else that you'd experienced before as well, isn't it? Yeah.

Lucette 33:20

Exactly, and I was like, it's just prep. She's gonna find it hard. Of course she is. She's autistic. She's gonna find it harder than anyone else. What can we do about it? Not, school is not gonna be for her right now. That didn't even cross my mind, and I think I reflect on it now, and I feel so guilty as a parent that I should have stopped her going. We had the wellbeing days, we had extended holidays, did shortened hours for a little bit there as well. But although she was experiencing such distress about being there and about missing out, I didn't cancel school altogether. She still went. And I'm just, I'm thankful that it was only foundation, for that point in time. But I wish I'd known about School Can't before. And I had an understanding then about why school was so difficult for her.'Cause I was like, I'm, doing everything. I'm doing everything, providing resources And, you know, she's just, she wants to be there. It's just a hard environment to be in,

Leisa Reichelt 34:43

Lucette, what would you say to somebody else if you were talking to somebody else who was in your situation, who wasn't you, what would you say to them

Lucette 34:51

I'd say to them to,

Leisa Reichelt 34:54

if they'd have said to you, I just feel really guilty.

Lucette 34:58

yeah, I'd have more empathy for them than I would for myself. It's that whole Brene Brown thing,

Leisa Reichelt 35:03

It's so hard, right? Because I like, there's loads of people who will be listening going, oh my God, like, you've done everything you don't need to feel guilty. You know, and your kid's only seven. And ultimately this is gonna be a good news story, right? So you've sorted something by the age of seven. And there are a lot of us who, who go a lot further. So I wanna acknowledge the fact that, that you, you have that guilt and that loads of us do. But I think we also need to keep reminding ourselves that we've all done the absolute best that we could with what we knew at the time. it's super hard to reconcile that, but we just have to keep telling ourselves until it becomes true.

Lucette 35:42

and I think when, I don't wanna minimize anyone else's feelings either, so I'm trying to be really wary about how I, how I say this. But I think. because she was so young, it was so hard to recognize what's different between a regular difficult transition into primary school and trauma still ongoing, but we're, you know, still unpacking it. And it's just like, when in parenthood does it get to the point where you can recognize it for School Can't and say what it is and then be like, oh, that's what it is. And I feel confident as a parent to be like, this is what we are experiencing

Leisa Reichelt 36:22

So much of this within Neurodivergence as well, it's often very multifactorial, right? I had a IEP meeting with my son's school yesterday, and I'm like trying to explain, well, there's this going on and this going on and this going on and we're trying this and we're trying this and we're trying this. But like, who knows? Like what's the chicken and what's the, there's so many chickens and so many eggs.

Lucette 36:41

It's really, such a hard space to sit in as a carer and as a parent. And then when you look at your child, you're like, it's hard for us, but it's hard for them tenfold. And so I think, well leading into grade one for her, we had a change in teacher and that's where everything went downhill.

Leisa Reichelt 37:02

Even more downhill.

Lucette 37:04

yeah, even more downhill. and I'd was like, okay, it's fine. It's a new teacher. We're gonna be great. It's a new year. Fantastic. did everything I, we could, support Big A with the transition into grade one. So I give them all of the reports. I'm a very open book. I'm like, have everything. I know that you are a teacher, you are not gonna read a 52 page psych report. So what I've done for you is I've created a wellbeing plan from all of her reports that's three pages long. Has her neurotype, it has her triggers, it has her strategies, it has her risks, it has her sensory needs, it has her familiar phrases that we use that help, you know, support her. It's got everything on it. So here you go. Here's the wellbeing plan. So I did that, provided it to the school, provided it to the new teacher, and I said, just please, can we meet you at the end of foundation to show a familiar face? Could we get a photo of you to help transition into grade one? Unfortunately, we didn't get that, so I couldn't do the prep that I needed to do over the school holidays. I requested an SSG week one of term one. That happened, which was great. But it was very clear that the teacher hadn't read anything of to do, to do with Big A. So I was like, okay, see how this goes. We started off, I was like, let's do the normal transition into the classroom. We'll arrive 10, 15 minutes before that got reduced to five minutes. I was like, okay, no worries. Started doing that. And I was like, these drop offs are getting harder and harder. And then so I thought, teachers don't have time to have training in autism, in PDA and in ADHD. I know what I'll do. I'll make it easier for them make. I spent hours of my own time and created an email and was like, here's YouTube links so you can watch a YouTube. Here's podcast episodes. Here's free online training you can do. Here's some resources for Autism Month with it being in April And by this point it was, I think it was like week two or week three, and we were needing a couple of days off. And she was agreeing to having a couple of days off. I was like, oh, we are in strife here. Because if she's agreeing to be home, then it's really not working. And I just remember through that term, the drop-offs were getting longer and longer. The bell was going, the kids were coming into the classroom. I was still there. And then I noticed That other children were being acknowledged and welcomed and we were walking into a classroom to silence and not even getting a hello in the morning. And it was just very, the dynamic between the classroom and between, myself and teacher and Big A and teacher was so different and I was just like, this isn't, gonna work. And there was one day where I was like, we are at crisis point here. She's no longer wanting to be at school. I'm now forcing her to be at school, which we've never had before.

Leisa Reichelt 40:25

Mm.

Lucette 40:26

And I'm like, can we please come together? I've got an amazing behavior support practitioner. He will jump in online, I will jump in. And then the teachers jump in as well. I turned up to this meeting, no one showed up.

Leisa Reichelt 40:42

Wow.

Lucette 40:43

10 minutes later a teacher showed up, but it was the teacher that she was having every Friday and she was like, oh, I've only really met her four times. I don't really know anything about her. But her primary teacher that was having her four days a week didn't even turn up to that meeting. I hung up from that meeting. I was like, you never step in foot in that school again. And we did the quickest changeover to another school. And I reflect back on it now and go, she should have had time off. She should have had a couple of months off to recover. She needed that. She deserved that. And I didn't give that to her. And that to me, I, I feel really quite guilty about that. We had three weeks off, we took three weeks off over the Easter school holiday break. And she started her new school on day one of term two. And thankfully I contacted this school, I'd never seen it before. I contacted this school and it's outside of town for us, 140 kids. And I was like, I've got a daughter who is, and I didn't think she was traumatized from school at this point in time. I was just like, I've got a daughter who's really struggling and this is her neurotype. These are all of her reports. Can you support her or can you not, because I'm not wasting time. And they were like, yeah, of course. Come in for a tour tomorrow. This is like peak Easter holidays Okay. Went around for a tour, went by myself. And with my mum actually. And then I was like, this is really lovely. This is 17 kids per class, composite classes like this. This seems really great. And she was using language that I was like, you've done neuro affirming training. You know what you're talking about. And I was like, you know, she's high sensory needs. They were like, that's okay. I'm like, she won't sit still and my, I won't have her sitting still. There's no whole body listening when it comes to her. And then she was like, that's okay. And I'm like, she's very much like interest aligned. And then she goes, I said to her, well, how are we gonna do this transition? And she's like, you let her on the school grounds for the entire school holidays. She goes, you come here whenever you want, just to play on the park. She goes, just get her familiar. I was like,

Leisa Reichelt 43:14

Wow.

Lucette 43:15

I'm like, can I do a second tour with her? Of course you can. So like, okay, this is a bit too good to be true. And sure enough that school holidays, I've never visited the same place more than I have in that two week period, being that school grounds to go on that park literally like every second day. And we went there and we played there we had a complete low demand school holidays, or no demand school holidays basically, apart from going to this school park. So we built up her positive sort of interaction of being at that school. We'd have picnics there, all that sort of stuff. We'd go and get ice cream afterwards. So it was literally just all associated with positivity. And although she'd seen the school, I didn't say to her, we are gonna send you here. I just said to her, how do you feel? like, it seems really nice. I said, yeah. I go, What do you feel like it's like in comparison to your school? And she goes. a lot better than my school. I go, yeah, it does, isn't it? And then it got round to day one of school went completely against the grain when it comes to autistic strategies. Didn't plan her for it in the sense of telling her everything we were gonna do. Said to her, Hey, I go, that school that we looked at the other day that you said was better than yours. She goes, yeah. I go, do you wanna go there instead? She's like, yeah, I think I do. I'm like, okay, do you wanna go get the uniform today? She goes, yeah, all right. Then went and got the uniform and I said, you wanna start tomorrow? Maybe do a half day? Yeah. Okay. And she did. that's how we started at this new school, literally with, for her a day's notice,

Leisa Reichelt 45:00

Wow.

Lucette 45:01

A day's notice.

Leisa Reichelt 45:03

Completely the opposite to what you would think would work.

Lucette 45:07

Yeah. Completely opposite. And it was, I think,'cause we'd built up that safety over those couple of weeks, we'd made it her choice. I mean I'd already been like, she's gonna probably go there, but had she turned around and said, no, I don't like this one either. She wouldn't have gone, I wouldn't have sent her. That would've been totally fine. the school was like, how does she wanna start? And it was very much like, what, how does she wanna start? And I was like, she needs to be gradually introduced into this. And we go on her call. That's fine. That's okay. And that was, I said, that was term two last year, term 2 2025, we started this. We had a couple of days of like half days. And then we've had wellbeing days. But she's chosen to have the wellbeing days. Not because she's distressed, but because she's actually able to recognize I'm actually just really tired. And it's not a theme. When she was eventually asking for time off of the old school, it was a theme. Was a Wednesday or it was a Thursday afternoon, and then it turned into like a Monday afternoon and I just, I could pick up on what the themes kind of were with it. Whereas this, it's like, like, babe, you seem tired. Do you need a day? She's like, yeah, I think I do mum. And it's that kind of conversation. It's not an argument, it's not a force. She comes home. She's able to play with her sister. She's able to tolerate being around her sister. That in itself shows the capacity. She could not tolerate being around her sister from when she was like 12 months old. She could be around her and, but they, they, they didn't play. It was arguments all the time. It was hurting each other. it was like, I can't handle you being near me. Didn't have capacity to do anything outside of school hours or anything like that. Whereas now, like she's able to knock for friends every day after school. Every day. And I think what was really important is I went into that school being like, this is us. You take us as we are. By the way. I have an advocate, like gonna be honest from the get go. And they were like, that's okay, that's fine. And then I went into the SSG meetings and they were like, what's the goal? I go, safety, don't put any other goal down. Her goal for this entire year is for her to feel safe enough at school to stay here for the time that she needs to stay here, whatever that looks like. I don't care. They were like, okay, I am like, she needs to be safe enough to communicate her needs. That's the IEP goal. And they were like, okay, no problem. And we went to the SSG this year. last week. And they were looking at the IEP, like, oh, we're looking at IEP for last year. Top goal. There was safety. And her teacher goes, do you still want that goal? I said, no, she doesn't need it anymore. She's safe. She feels safe here. She kept the same teacher as last year. They let her have the same teacher. And I'm like, I never thought that that safety goal was gonna come off of her IEP.

Leisa Reichelt 48:33

What is the deal with this school, Lucette? How have they been such a unicorn?

Lucette 48:39

I think they are a unicorn. I know they are a unicorn. But I think they're a school that they actually want to engage neurodivergent students and they want to provide training to their staff. They are very honest to being like, we are gonna stuff up. Sometimes we are gonna do the wrong thing sometimes. We are learning. They will say that like, we are not perfect. Things are gonna probably go wrong and we'll learn from them. They don't put on a facade. And I think for us to go there and be like, this is us. And they were like, that's fine. We can accept you as you are. I went outside of our zone, which I know is a really big barrier because you get told we are zoned to this school, we've gotta go there. You don't, you don't have to go to the school. You zoned to. And if you can engage in an advocate, they will be able to say to you, you don't have to go to this school that you're zoned to, we can contact the Education Department and we can request based on special circumstances that they don't go to the school in that zone. And you can do that. So if I was in the same position, I'd look at my school, they'd say have 1100 kids and is my kid gonna be able to handle being in a school with 1100 kids? Probably not. Do they have sort of specialized units or wellbeing people and things like that? and I'd really sort of ask them the questions of being like, well, how many kids do you have that are funded in this school? Okay, you've got 200. That's interesting. How many kids do you have that need to be funded in this school? 200. are you doing about that? Where's the 200 kids that are missing out on supports? And I asked this question to one school when I was looking at the other schools, And she said, well, that's just the way it is. These 200 kids aren't funded. And I said, well, what are you gonna do about it? Well, they're not funded. I was like, okay, well my kid's just not coming here if that's the case. So I think asking them what are they doing for the kids that aren't funded, it's gonna give you a true reflection what supports are they gonna provide, whether they're getting money for your kid or not.

Leisa Reichelt 50:57

Because that's gonna dictate whether or not they actually have the capacity to offer the amount of support that's needed for the student population that they have. Right?

Lucette 51:05

A hundred percent. And my daughter's been at that school for three terms. Last year we requested the DIP, which is a Disability Inclusion Profile, the funding for Victorian state schools. We requested that beginning of term four. There is a massive delay in getting DIP funding at the moment. And we've got a DIP meeting next week. So she's got all this support that she's had over the last three terms without technically being a funded student. And that did not matter to that school.

Leisa Reichelt 51:37

What can you tell us about this school? Are they a government school?

Lucette 51:40

They're a mainstream school. A government, mainstream school, 140 kids. they've just got like a great principal that only came on board about four years ago. They're a country school. Their money goes into a lot of training for their staff. And I remember when I did the walk around, I said, how do you manage, like you've got an aide in every classroom. You tell me that aide is full-time. Yeah, there's a full-time aide in every classroom. I'm like, but the school we just came from said that they could only put an aide in three days a week for half days. And she goes, I would prefer to get my school in debt than to not have an aide full-time. She goes, I will find the funding to have an aide in every classroom full-time. She goes, none of my classrooms are not gonna have an aide full-time. She goes, I will find the funding somewhere.

Leisa Reichelt 52:28

Yes, it sounds as though a lot of this is principal driven, which is not the first time that we've heard this, right? You've got a principal who wants to create a certain kind of culture and environment, then they will make the investments in staff training, in, getting the funding, in putting the right supports in place.

Lucette 52:45

Definitely, Definitely. And I mean, they are a little unicorn school for our region definitely. So that advocate that we saw, before my daughter started school, I started working for her nine months ago,

Leisa Reichelt 52:58

Wow.

Lucette 52:59

months ago. Yeah. I'd followed their story and I reached out to her. The last nine months I've been advocating for families in Victoria as well. Going through the same thing that we went through as a family. And that's where I wanna say there is good schools in Victoria. There's schools that we've supported families to change into, that have had really great results for kids that have not been able to be at school you know, months, if not years. and there's definitely some out there, but you've gotta know your rights, I think, as a parent. And I think that's the hardest thing.'cause when we're at zero capacity anyway, the last thing we wanna read about is what legislation we're entitled to. And that's where, honestly, my biggest piece of advice was get an advocate,

Leisa Reichelt 53:44

Yeah, I think when you are really stressed out, like the science that shows that your IQ level drops, your brain stops working, like your ability to actually tackle those more complex intellectual tasks just is not there anymore. And a lot of parents who really need this help are so stressed They just definitely need that extra support.

Lucette 54:06

Definitely. And even someone who's been an advocate, I will still recruit an advocate come in on my family's behalf, even in a positive school. Because not that I'm going against the school is I'm supporting myself to be able to support my kids. I think that it's really important to note that if you've got someone coming into SSG meetings or communicating on your behalf to the school, that's totally okay to do that. And you are doing the right thing for you. Because if you are dealing with big emotional responses at home and you're not able to work because your child isn't at school and you're literally just getting by because at the end of the day we are literally just getting by in a crisis state. To take the load off of you and have act in that space gives you such relief. And I know for me, I get nervous speaking up, you know, in schools when it comes to my own kids. I can speak up in schools when it comes to other people's kids in that job role. Comes to my own kids. I can't speak up. I need someone there to speak up on my behalf. So this DIP meeting that we're coming up with next week, I will have an advocate in that DIP meeting with me because we know that when we go to some of these meetings, you are just the parent.

Leisa Reichelt 55:37

Yeah. Yes.

Lucette 55:39

You know what I mean? Like you're just the parent. They're not gonna take you seriously. Whether your background is in disability, in education, in law, you're still just the mum. You are the emotional

Leisa Reichelt 55:49

Yeah. The anxious, biased overreactive. Yeah. All of those things.

Lucette 55:55

Having someone else in the room with you, even if it's not an advocate, even if it's your OT, your support coordinator, your family friend who's a little bit feisty,

Leisa Reichelt 56:04

Mm-hmm.

Lucette 56:04

having someone like that in the room is, so unbelievably helpful.

Leisa Reichelt 56:10

Well, is a very good tool for everyone to be aware of. I am very, very glad that Big A is in a much better place now and doing well. I feel very jealous of her rocking chair in class. I would've loved one of those. I'd love one of those right now, honestly.

Lucette 56:26

I know.

Leisa Reichelt 56:27

You mentioned earlier, that you've written a book. Tell me a little bit about that.

Lucette 56:31

So this was when we were going through everything, with Big A in foundation, I was looking for resources and I was like. In my head, I need to do more with her about her emotions. I need to help her process this. I was still, in that space of being like, I just need to help her understand what she's feeling. And I couldn't find anything that she was able to relate to, that was written in a way that was for her to understand her emotions and how they presented physically. And then also that had strategies in it. So I ended up writing a children's book and self-publishing a children's book, which then sent me into massive burnout, like huge burnout. But, it was lovely and the outcome has been lovely. it's called When I'm Excited, I fart Glitter.

Leisa Reichelt 57:26

Oh, bless. That's awesome. I love it.

Lucette 57:31

It's quite a fun little book. And basically follows the like crisis curve of being able to identify sort of emotions. And like one page as an example, says, when sadness washes over and the world is too loud, I need my earphones, please know, or make a sound. My clothes are itchy and my skin prickly. I really wanna talk. But right now it's too tricky. So I pretend to be a turtle and I retreat to my shell. What animal would you choose to be? Please do tell. It's that way of like, it's low demand language. It flows in a rhyme. So it's engaging, but it also then asks a question to get the young person like actually engaged in the storytelling of the book. But also, I guess it promotes inclusion because it's like, headphones are okay, I put them on. Yeah, and then I added some resources in the back for parents as well.

Leisa Reichelt 58:27

That's amazing. If we wanted to get hold of a copy of one of your books, where would we go? What would we do?

Lucette 58:33

Two years ago I had a website. As I said, I went into complete utter burnout, so now I purely sell them through my Instagram page, which is@lmc.writes as in like W-R-I-T-E-S. So I literally, created this book, months ago and have been in burnout for 18 months, now I'm ready to sell it.

Leisa Reichelt 59:01

Well, gosh, we do, we we definitely pay a price for some of the things that we wanna do, don't we? Well done. It looks beautiful. It sounds beautiful. I'm sure that a lot of people who are listening will definitely be interested in taking a look at that and seeing if it's a good resource for their kiddos. So we will put a link to your Instagram in the show notes so people can

Lucette 59:22

you.

Leisa Reichelt 59:22

go and have a look for themselves and get in touch. Lucette, I'm conscious that I've kept you for a long time today. We've covered a lot of ground. It's been really, really fascinating to hear your story as well as Big A's story. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you think people need to know or that you'd like them to know?

Lucette 59:42

I think biggest thing as a parent, trust your gut. Trust your gut. Don't hesitate to get professionals or an advocate or a fiery friend to go to those school meetings with you. And although the thought of a change in school and a change in environment is so incredibly scary, and nerve wracking, sometimes it can be the best thing that you can do. I know that the education system is very delayed when it comes to neurodivergence and when it comes to even the content that they're sort of, giving to our young people as well, that looking at alternative means is okay. There's alternatives out there. It's, but I understand that everyone is in different circumstances as well, so you've gotta make something that's right for your family too.

Leisa Reichelt 1:00:43

Absolutely. But to your point, there are so many different pathways. You just need to find the right one, the right one for you and for your kiddo. Fantastic. Lucette, it's been an absolute delight to talk to you today. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really, really appreciate it So glad that you were able to share your story.

Lucette 1:01:01

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it too.

Leisa Reichelt 1:01:03

Well, I am so pleased that Lucette and Big A have found their unicorn school and things are going well for them. If you have a young kiddo with big feelings, maybe check out Lucette's book. It looks adorable. The link to her Instagram is in the show notes, along with some links to other helpful resources. So go and check those out. Now, if you have found our podcast helpful, I would be so grateful if you could take a moment to subscribe or give us a rating or a review on your podcast software. So that might be Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or whichever one you use. This makes a huge difference in helping us get the podcast in front of more people who have School Can't kids, and who haven't yet found the School Can't community and all of the information and support that we share. If you have some feedback for us or maybe a suggestion for a future topic or a guest, or maybe you've been inspired 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 are a parent or a 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. Please do not hesitate to reach out for some extra support. Thank you again for listening. We will talk again soon. Take care.