Automated Transcript Episode 23

Episode  23: Anxiety in School & Isolation as a Behavioural Intervention

Speaker Ellie Costello

Please excuse any errors as this transcript has been automatically generated.

Dr Kessel:

Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr. Olivia Kessel. And more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neuro divergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. In this episode, we will continue where we left off with Ellie Costello, director of Square pegs, a charity focused on school-based anxiety. We will unpick the ethos of law and order in schools where behavioral escalation policies allow schools to isolate your child as young as six alone and don't even need to inform you as their parents. My mind almost couldn't comprehend this happening in schools today. It seemed reminiscent of a story from Victorian times. We ended the last episode with me asking the question to Ellie, how does the revolution in education start happening? How do you envision this happening? Is it starting in forms and information for parents to empower themselves? Keep listening now to hear Ellie's response.

Ellie Costello:

Yeah. Yes. So yes. Before I answer that, you mentioned isolation. I meant to pick it up because I don't think parents are that aware. Agreed. Can I just,

Dr Kessel:

I'd love you to

Ellie Costello:

Sort of behaviorism and the use of restrictive practice in schools.

Dr Kessel:

Absolutely.

Ellie Costello:

So, and then we'll come back to the sort of forum thing. Um, so, so the, yeah. So it's been a real shock to me to discover or to experience significant seismic shifts in, in, in education in the last 15 years. And what I've realized, as I mentioned, is that this is often politically led. So what happened was, if we go back to where I started with the last labor government, asbo kids, we had a real sort of narrative coming out about in disciplinary schools, unre behavior, unsafe schools disorder on the street, et cetera, et cetera. And I really sort of brought into all of that and the fact that these, these parents need a firm hands, you know, we had serious, like shameless benefits street, you know, we had sort of, you know, real life, real life documentaries that were exposing the underbelly of this country.

Ellie Costello:

For me, what I've realized is that all of those people got there for a reason. They've all got a backstory. They were all children once. What happened to them? Yeah. How did they get there? And why aren't we doing anything about that rather than jet fueling people into criminal justice or, um, uh, inpatient cams or addiction or violence. I mean, it's just, it, it sort of doesn't compute. And so we've, we've got then that, that sort of, then what happened was because the last labor government, and mostly most governments want to try to address criminality, right? You know, they want to try to sort of stem the flow on the public purse. The response though, hasn't been joined up and is really quite unpalatable because what we had was narratives like dysfunctional families, troubled families, problem families, challenging children. And so for me, there is this sort of real tension that happens between how we think about our language matters, right?

Ellie Costello:

It matters from our politicians. We're seeing this all the time. How do we talk about groups of people? How we talk about families really isn't that positive? In fact, families are often spoken about in a deficit model, poor parenting, unskilled, lazy, not firm enough, not trying hard enough entitled, expecting too much pointy elbows, moon on the stick. That's kind of how we get. And so it sort of comes background to this idea that we are uncomfortable with the diversity of human beings. We're not expecting it. And so we are sort of sticking to this industrialized model of just shove everyone through the same factory. Most of them will comply. Those that don't are natural wastage have heard that. Really? Yeah. Natural wastage. You see that in the exam system? Yeah. The forgotten third, a natural wastage that a third of all children will fail. That's part of the algorithm.

Ellie Costello:

So we really sort of need to wrestle with this idea of, of, of what we are willing to accept as parents, as citizens. And, and this is where I do get quite sort of passionate about voter voice. Yeah. Engagement, lobbying. Who knew? My God, I used to turn off news night in the news at 10 <laugh> and I'd have a glass of wine and watch the Sopranos <laugh>. So, you know, but, but actually once you start to really leaning into it, because you have to, and most people who are banging drums are doing it because they've been failed. Yeah. Some of them might have moral purpose, some of them might be doing it for ego, whatever. But, you know, most of us do want to make the world a better place. I've got to believe that even your most ambitious politician, he may, he, let's go with a he or a, she might be doing it for ego, but they've convinced themselves that they're doing it to make the world a better place.

Ellie Costello:

That's their internal story. So if we can agree that we're all here to make the world a better place, and let's just talk about the methods with which we achieve that collectively as a human race, then we then we're sort of at least on some sort of common ground. And that's not meant to be trites. That's trying to sort of bring us back to a place of progress rather than conflict. Yeah. So I think that the, the whole thing with thinking about how we view our children, how we respond to our children, and it was a real shock to me because I was coming out of, as I said, a a an educational landscape that I didn't know anything about. You know, I I, I was kind of, was I waiting when labor came in? I think I was just about, um, so, you know, there was, there's all these sort of ideas around and narratives that are reported in the press around how bad parents are, how harmful parents are.

Ellie Costello:

We can't get away the press. There's huge amounts of reports of the most distressing instances that are happening to children in their homes. We can't get away from that. How did that parent come to be that person? Why did that parent come to be that person? So, and partly we cut the science shows us that a lot of this is childhood wounds. Yeah. See, this happens in our schools. This happens in the way that they were parenting. This happens in a lack of, um, access to services that can support them. So we are perpetuating this cycle in education. What I witnessed was an attempt to instill law and order in education. So that was delivered through behaviorism. So we had a sort of tough on crime thing, and we had a tough on children thing, tough on education thing. It was the same sort of thing.

Ellie Costello:

And we have the language of criminal justice in our schools. We have consequences, sanctions, we have methods of threats and coercion in and fear. And that fear is highly primed based on social rejection, adult disapproval, which is icky, extremely powerful levers to pull on in a young child or, or an adolescent. Adolescents want to belong just as much, if not more so. So what we need to is rather than leaning into our children, rather than supporting them, rather than expecting difference and, and, and, um, and needs, we've just gone to a sort of very strict binary version of managing them. And how did that play out? Well, in my primary school, the beloved sort of head teacher retired. He'd been there, God, 30 years. And we had, um, a new head come in who was sort of in tes 30, heads under 30, very ambitious.

Ellie Costello:

Who, and it's interesting cuz a lot of the young professionals that are coming through are buying into the shiny sort of templates that are out there. The cult of sort of celebrity people who are selling it to the D ffe. And it's really convincing. It's what they talk about is consistency, um, routines, you know, all sort of sounds like things that we would want to do as parents, but the implementation of it and what it actually means, I think is unethical. I'm going to use that word not lightly. Because what it involves in is it is it is going against neuroscience, child development, the science of stress. It is using everything. It is ignoring all of that development as to what we know about how brains grow. How do we stop intergenerational cycles of harm and help and, and stop it in its tracks? Well, we choose to go higher.

Ellie Costello:

We choose not to be the authoritarian abusive parent in our schools and that, but, but that's not what's happening. Yeah. So I'm, I'm using these words strongly because I don't think everyone really, is it too intentionally shock, but it's because it's it, we have to speak plainly right now because I think myself and those in this education system have very much, um, allowed a hard push to happen towards our children and our families and how we educate them and how we support them. And we've allowed it because we're democratic reasonable people. But it has to stop. So in, in my school, what came in really quite sort of things that seemed quite, um, benign. So we brought in a house point system that sounds quite, quite, quite tame, doesn't it? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we brought in learning boards. I say we, they, he, um, brought in learning boards.

Ellie Costello:

Learning boards are widely used in schools, but particularly in primary. They're based on the sort of super nanny style of managing parents, uh, managing parents. But it was partly managed parents <laugh> uh, managing children, um, by moving children up or down a board based on their behavior. And that behavior is subjectively judged by the adults in the room. So if you've got a child who perhaps have been abused the night before, who's a young carer who is living in poverty and hasn't eaten since the night before, who, um, has additional learning needs that aren't recognized, who has a developmental delay, perhaps they were summer born, perhaps they're just not ready for formal education. Perhaps they're being bullied. Perhaps they're just fell out with a friend over lunchtime, what happens is those children are all in the classroom represented and they are not complying to a very narrow set of expectations behaviorally.

Ellie Costello:

So what happens is they move up and down the learning board. So my children aged five and six, became obsessed with the learning board. Like with, it's all they would talk about, and I don't, you know, I, these, these, I would've been the same. These are chi, you know, I remember what I was like at school. And I would do anything for a gold star to the point that when I didn't get a gold star, I would be on the floor distraught. Cause it really matters to me. So if we hold onto the good and the hope in most people, people want to do well, children will do well if they can. Dr. Rore, brilliant man. So, um, we had these sort of quite benign things come in that were sort of traditionally parent sort of super nanny type tools. It's all about extrinsic motivation, but it was with the veiled threat of rejection and isolation.

Ellie Costello:

So that was sort of around, and it was subjective. So house points were given out to the most popular, the most visible kids, or the kids that were the most behaviorally challenging, that the teacher was trying to sort of incentivize through her approval or his approval. Kids will be really alert to the injustice of subjectivity, but they won't see it in a, in a, in a really pragmatic adult way. They will internalize it as they're not good enough, or they will be clever about it. And they'll go, well, Jason's really naughty and he got a house point. I'll be naughty two. So do you know what I mean? There's this kind of way that children will try to navigate the systems that we're putting on them in order to try not to game it, but to, to achieve within it or to be accepted or to feel psychologically safe.

Ellie Costello:

And children are reliant on the adults in the room to feel safe. And so if they are a threat of academic or social appro, uh, disapproval or rejection, it can really challenge behavior. And those that are on a lower, uh, baseline in terms of what they're bringing to the table. That's not a deficit phrase. Sorry, I don't mean it like that. But if they're coming with more disadvantaged, more vulnerability, more adversity, more needs, they're going to struggle even more. So we had house points and a and a and a learning board, and we had achievement assemblies and we had attendance assemblies, and all of these things started coming in, and it was a lot at once. And it was all around prizes. We had golden time on a Friday. And the dark side of it was the use of an isolation room. And I tweeted about this recently, um, last month. It was a seven foot square, six foot square old store cupboard with a LAN window at the top, a lesser box window high up. It had been stripped out, the walls had been painted blue, and it was called the blue room blue because apparently blue is a calming color. It had no furniture in it. It had tile, hard tiled, um, carpet floor. It had a big heavy door with a small security reinforced glass window in it. And um, it has a lock on the outside. And

Dr Kessel:

Unlike prison, sound like prison

Ellie Costello:

<laugh>. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Dr Kessel:

I

Ellie Costello:

Just, I didn't even know what it was. So at that time I was volunteering for our PTA and you know, I was fat mom, you know, <laugh>. And, um, I was culturally positive, let's put it that way to the school. But this is before I became challenging and difficult. Um, and I remember seeing children, it was the boys that were put in there that I knew about. One of them had a D H D and they would, he would come to school, um, without his meds, and he didn't like taking his meds. So they would make him take his meds and then they would chuck him in the isolation room while they waited for the meds to take effect. They were two adults. And I remember this boy banging on the door. Oh, right.

Dr Kessel:

It's human right. I violation, you know, it's just the, oh,

Ellie Costello:

I mean, and this was just

Dr Kessel:

A child.

Ellie Costello:

Yeah, he was nine. Um, and he was behaviorally challenging and he was all these things and he was obviously being, uh, medicated and, but I mean, if you were shoved in a room against your will, you, you'd be behaviorally challenging too. I would think so. You know, and then there was another little boy who was considered a flight risk. He eventually got excluded, but he would try to run out of school every day. So his mom would bring him in through the gates and then he would do everything he can. I saw him restraint on multiple occasions and put in this room. And I, he was the same age as my daughter. He was six at the time. And I, I remember hearing his cries and it was absolutely awful. And I remember going up, I, I heard this, um, quite a few times, and I went up and I spoke to the staff and I said, do, do you not think you should call the mum's name?

Ellie Costello:

Do you not think you should call mom? And, um, they just, so it's all right. He's he'll, he'll, he'll, he'll, he'll calm down. He he'll have got it all out of him in half an hour. And so this child will go into complete collapse and would be put in the classroom and sat on the chair and would literally be coming, you know, like, and so those were the boys. And then I, I tweeted about this, the use of this room because isolation and restrictive prac practice, there is a consultation that the government are doing at the moment. The education select committee, I think doing it or it's a consultation, I will look it up. And

Dr Kessel:

I mean, isn't it, it's, it's a form of torture. It is used as a form of torture. Yeah. And I, it is one of the tools of torture isolation. Yep.

Ellie Costello:

But it's part of most behavior policy in schools. So I would encourage, so this is the other thing that I realized that in the age of sort of standardization and corporatization and marketization of education, schools now have to publish policies. So what you can do is you can look on your school's website and read their behavior policy. What does it say? What, what are the, what are the escalation if your child were to be, you know, challenge the school or not?

Dr Kessel:

And do they inform the parents? So that little boy that you were talking about that you asked if the mom had been called or notified, because I presume he might not even be able to verbalize this at six years of age. What happened to him when he goes home? Exactly. Do they report it to the parents? Are they required to report it or are they just, there's

Ellie Costello:

No requirement. Wow. No. So part of the consultation is that if parents must be informed of all restraints, there isn't a requirement on the use of isolation. So the consultation at the moment is looking into restraint and restrictive practice. And restrictive practice includes the use of isolation rooms and detention can be considered restrictive practice. Right? Yeah. So this is sort of lifting the, there's lots of people in education who feeling really anxious about this happening, <laugh> because, and they are going to be pushing back hard. They really are. They, you know, because they are going to predict anarchy if any of this is undone. Um, how,

Dr Kessel:

How can they not think that they are not safeguarding those children by, by allowing those practices? Oh gosh. It's just, um, because they dicon,

Ellie Costello:

Their argument is, yeah, the argument is, is that they're safeguarding everyone else. So if this child is a risk to themselves or, or school property or staff or the school, but these, these, this is primary school, so let's just sort of go focus on that. And I didn't, I didn't fully, I, I remember at the time, the, the, the, the afternoon, this child's, um, he, he was in there first thing in the morning. And just after lunchtime, the hold of the school was empty. And I went into the room and I stood there and all of the hairs went up on the back of my head. And it selt of fear. It was, it was an awful, awful room. And I didn't know at the time, but my daughter was being put in there as well.

Dr Kessel:

Oh my goodness.

Ellie Costello:

So I mentioned that we were in an early help meeting framework, and she was identified at that point as young carer because of her brother's needs. She was identified as having some auditory processing, um, challenges, difficulties, um, because, um, she'd been on what, she was born with a congenital condition and had been very unwell as a baby. And this had impacted her, um, hearing development. Um, and, um, in the early help meeting, because, you know, she was expressing in year three, some, I think my son was in year five at this point, she'd been expressing some, um, anxiety. And in the early help meeting the solution was that she would identify and name that she was feeling anxious. So we were helping her to support what was going on because she wanted to run away. She was a flight risk. She wanted to move. She was very, uh, wired.

Ellie Costello:

And, um, she would be, it was noted in the, in the plan that she would be supported to a quiet area outside the classroom. They had a sofa in the corridor and supported by a member of staff. I was like, that's fine, I can approve that, sign that off. What actually happened was the teaching assistant, uh, under staff cuts, either wasn't available, was on the long term sick. So there wasn't a member of staff to leave. The teacher felt that my daughter was choosing to be difficult. There was also a belief in the school that small children don't suffer with anxiety disorders on that mental health in small children is not a thing. It's poor parenting and it's the child being willful.

Ellie Costello:

And so he decided, okay, um, Liddy, if you would like a timeout, then you know, that's no problem. You need to go to the blue room. And so she followed the instruction. She was seven, just, she followed the instruction. The first time she went into the blue room, she didn't like it, and she came back out. Bear in mind that this was all about, this was noted in the plan as a co-regulation opportunity. This was about holding onto Liddy's emotional health, but also helping her feel that she could count on the adults around her to be there for her. And obviously it's a high level of need for a class teacher. They can't interrupt the class. So it relies on the ta no ta or with a TA that bought into the teacher's philosophy of the opinion of my daughter. She wasn't gonna get any help. So I didn't know that this was happening to her until three weeks ago when she had the memory breakthrough randomly we were in the kitchen, the memory breakthrough, and she shared the memory and became extremely distressed. And I was so shocked that she was put in there. So I've gone back to the notes at the time, what was noted was that she was having interventions in that room. I thought an intervention was a small bit of catch up learning or a bit Elsa

Dr Kessel:

Therapy, you know, like an emotional learning support, like, uh, helping her through the anxiety and, and, and supporting her to feel comfortable to go back into the classroom again, not being locked in a room.

Ellie Costello:

Yeah. Yeah. So that, you know, I I didn't even think to challenge it. You,

Dr Kessel:

You wouldn't do that as a parent at, in, at a, in home. And in fact, if you did do that at home and it got out, I would say that social services could be called and your parenting would be brought into question. If my way that I deal with my child having an outburst is to lock her in a, in a six foot room with nothing in it. You know what I mean? Yep. With the locked door, I would be in big trouble as a parent.

Ellie Costello:

Yep. And this is the hypocrisy, if I'm completely honest, as to what is going on. Um, so, you know, she, so, so she was, she might have been six, she was the same age as the boy, um, or approaching seven, I can't remember. She's young. And, um, some are born, so she was only just four when she started formal education, Sparty Young. Um, but, um, she said that she was trying really hard to name her feeling, and she knew that leaving the classroom at that point was a good thing. So she accepted that that was a good thing, but she didn't want to go to the blue room. So on a couple of occasions, she sat on the sofa because she, I told her, don't forget, you can sit on the sofa and you can have a timeout, read a book for a few minutes, then go back in.

Ellie Costello:

So she did that, and she was told to go to the blue room. She stopped going inside the blue room, and she decided to quietly wait, leaning against the wall, outside the blue room and leave the door open. And of course, what would happen is other members of staff would come around and go, oh, Liddy, what are you doing? Oh, I've been sent to the blue room. They would think it was for a behaviorally challenging thing, and they would say, well, if you've been sent there Liddy in you go, they would put her in and close, unlock the door. And she said that she felt she, that's when she starts having panic attacks on her own in that room. Now, I hope that our story is rare. I'm not here to frighten everybody at all. And please, can we talk about some positive stuff,

Dr Kessel:

<laugh>? Yeah, no, no, I, the thing is, you know, Ellie, and, and I wish it was rare as well, but I, uh, you know, I was just talking to a mom outside of choir, child and secondary school, having a similar thing with an isolation room. Um, I, I think that it is, it is good to get it out there because parents need to question this. It sounds like there is a, a movement towards change in terms of schools being transparent about this. So I think it's a, an important discussion to have. And it's, uh, important for parents to, as you say, look at the school policies, understand, you know, have those conversations. Um, what can a parent do to take this on from such a negative place? Where can a parent go and what can they do? Um, that's positive in terms of changing some of the, the way that the children are needs are met within the school.

Ellie Costello:

So on an individual sort of basis, um, if you're worried about your child, um, I would actually call a meeting. Um, I think there's so much support out there online. There's free support. So your local area will have ascend, send in information, advice, and support service. You can look it up on your LA's website. There's also national, um, services. For example, you can call Ipsy. That's the Indivi Independent, um, uh, professional supporter, education, advice service, um, contact a family contact, which is the old, they've been around for years. It's the old disabled children's charity. But they have a free help line, which is manned and any parent can call, most local areas will have a family support service as well. If you call your local authority or just search, um, search for family information, support and advice, you should get something. So there is free stuff out there.

Ellie Costello:

There's also independent advocates. It's an un unregulated industry at the moment, but it is out there and there's lots of good people doing good work, but it's very much, um, you know, I, I don't recommend anyone myself because it's, you know, what one parent loves may not work for another. It's really a huge market out there of lots of people trying to support families and not charge them legal fees. There are then, of course, the legal route for those that can afford it. And actually often something called a letter before action, which is, you know, if you get, as far as having to fight your LA for support or even your multi Academy Trust governors or something like that, a letter before action is a templated letter where you remind the party of their duty and, um, and you say to them, um, you know, if this isn't in place, then I will be, you know, moving towards, you know, taking you to court that often unblocks things. Um, so there's lots of things that you can do, um, in terms of, um, challenging more nationally. I, you know, would, we've got a sort of Family Voices page and a support page. If anybody wants to sign up and volunteer and get involved in any sort of national work, there's loads. We're really trying to sort of gather parent voice and think about, and

Dr Kessel:

You do that on your, on your, on your charity, which is called Team Square. Team Square pegs, which we can, we'll have the, yeah,

Ellie Costello:

Peg, peg, sorry,

Dr Kessel:

Peg team square, PEG org <laugh> dot org. So, and we'll have, we'll have links to that so people can get involved and then they can work with your charity to, um, have their voices heard. I mean, I think today is an election day. Uh, the political climate is changing again. Um, and it's interesting, I've talked to some parents who, they're almost bipartisan because they just, you know, they'll contact their labor mp, they'll contact their labem mp, they'll contact their conservative mp and they'll see who will work harder, hardest for them to get what they need.

Ellie Costello:

<laugh>,

Dr Kessel:

You know?

Ellie Costello:

Yeah. And I think, I think this window is really interesting. So we are the other side, we're not the other side. We're living alongside a novel virus, right. That we didn't know about three years ago. And, um, that has really changed the conversation both politically, educationally, in terms of, uh, schools actually reporting very widely that it's fascinating that the behavior management techniques they're using don't work, uh, that they've got enormous. I, I, who knew really. Um, we've got, um, we've got enormous amounts of, uh, uh, awareness around children, uh, parents identifying mental health distress in their young people, and that teachers are seeing it. So there's a legitimate sort of, um, zeitgeist that's happening. And if you combine that with the fact that we've got one government that's held power for 12 years coming to an end, and we don't yet know what's, let, who's yet to come and what that looks like, and actually even whoever gets in next the edu let's assume it's a change of government, um, the, whoever it is, coalition or single party, none of them will really solidify educational intentions until they've sort of completed at least the first six months, probably the first year.

Ellie Costello:

So we won't really sort of start to understand what the ambition is like for education and children and families. I think there's a real n present need for parents to talk to, to be political, talk to your mp, talk directly, really talk about what you are witnessing and what you're unhappy about. Go armed with solutions. What changes would you like to see? What, you know, what do you want them to do for you? Because we only get this opportunity once a decade at the moment.

Dr Kessel:

Yeah. And now is the time. Um,

Ellie Costello:

Now is absolutely the time. It really, really is. I can't express it clearly enough, because what's happened is we've enco, we've, we've enjoyed several decades of, of prosperity, you know, go back to the nineties and the booms and the, you know, dot com bubbles and all of that. We were all enjoying that. It was a time of peace. Well, don't count it wrong. But anyway, you know, there was stuff sort of happening where, where actually most people in the middle were okay. Everyone underneath wasn't, but what's happened is we've got more and more people squeezed in the middle. We've got quite a rigid, um, ideological forces that are happening that is making themes around how individuals are seen labeled or, or responded to, really problematic. And I think there's a consensus of a lot of people for many reasons that they are crossed, particularly parents and mothers. I'm so tired of being told that I'm over anxious, that I'm hysterical, that I'm difficult, I'm none of those things. I ignored my gut instinct for so many years around my son's healthcare, and then he fell into crisis, and then I was blamed for it, <laugh>. And, and that was all a result of, um, it was easier to blame me than it was to try to figure out what was going

Dr Kessel:

On. Well, I think they didn't know how to figure out what was going on. So that, and it's similar in the education, and it's easier to say it's someone else's fault. I mean, it's human nature, isn't it? If I blame you for it, then I, I absolve my responsibility there. It's not right. But, um, I think we've had a lot of guests on this show, and one resounding theme is, as a mother or a father, trust your gut. You know your child best and don't, yeah. Don't second doubt yourself because you, you know, your child best. And I think you're just, um, validating that even more so today in, in terms of what we've talked about. And I think, yeah. Um, you know, as we start to, to wrap it up, and I know we could talk for days and I, I might have to have you back on the show again cause there's so many topics we haven't talked about.

Dr Kessel:

But, you know, one, one really great resource that I think you've, you know, that I wanna mention before we we go is, you know, square pegs the book that you've written, which is really a compilation of different experts and viewpoints of, um, really interesting people's experiences. You know, in terms of inclusivity, compassion, and fitting in, um, and a guide to schools. Um, it's a great resource, I think, for people to dip into and dip out of it. It is a, it is a hefty manual, I must say, but how I've enjoyed reading it, um, is to go in, read a chapter and, and they are almost, the chapters are almost standalone by themselves. With this overall kind of picture, um, your impetus of, uh, uh, of writing in that and pulling these people together, was it to create a kind of, let me say bible for parents to kind of have access to information?

Ellie Costello:

Yeah. So, um, when Square Peg formed, uh, we were having, this was pre pandemic and we were having lots of conversations where professionals were, uh, and in hindsight, maybe we were about being battered into a corner. It was kinda like, why didn't you write a book? You've got lots to say, write a book. It's kinda like, go away <laugh>. Um, and so and so, maybe, you know, there was that. But also we knew, I think parents have a unique window into the multifaceted nature of all the things that impact on our families and our children. And so often we are case managers, we are, you know, project managers. We are, you know, trying to, to, um, uh, navigate health, social care, education, um, welfare, all of these things. Transport, housing, employment, you know, we do it all. And so what we could see, as I talked about the sort of landscape of what was happening in education, we could see that there were very tired, very stretched people, and we wanted to affect change now.

Ellie Costello:

So on the one hand, part of square pegs work now is lobbying and looking towards the horizon and thinking about, um, affecting change at a policy level. But these are massive tankers to turn. Yeah. Um, and on the other hand, and, and there are some very blinkered core beliefs that need to be changed around women and mothers and families and children and people who are different or working class or poor. We've, we've got some real grapples to kind of face in ourselves. The book was, what can we do that will help people in the system and parents right now? And it was meant to be, it wasn't meant to be, you know, onerous and academic and heavy. It is a big book, but it's meant to be accessible. So it's bite size. You can read it all the way through cover to cover, and it takes you on a journey.

Ellie Costello:

So it's cross five parts and sort of ends with some blue skies thinking, um, or it's a compendium of resource. So we wanted it to be fully researched so that nobody could kind of take us down. But it's just opinion, you know, it was evidence backed, it's referenced. So that actually, a on the one hand, you've got a, a, a stressed school leader or phase leader in, you know, or head of year or whoever it is, or a professional who doesn't actually know what they should be doing or is all out of ideas with that child or that family for which nothing is working. What do I need to do? What can I do? What's open to me? And the answer was to pull that book off and kind of go, oh, okay. That's from, I, I didn't know that was our statutory duty. Actually, that'll help me to have that conversation with my manager.

Ellie Costello:

Or, oh my God, that's such a simple idea. Why don't we try that? But also the sort of, the hope that, you know, the definition of madness is keeping on doing the same thing and expecting as a different result. And that is what is happening to our children and families and schools every single day. And we are seeing KPIs go down, down, down, down, down. You know, the outcomes are going down, the gaps going widening, everyone's ringing their hands. But actually some of these solutions are experimentation, pivoting, being agile, pulling a team together, getting some bright ideas from a book, and just trying something. Because when you've got a kid or a family that, that is struggling, what's the best thing you can do? Listen to them, invite them in, ask them. And sometimes the thing that will make a difference is such a small thing, and it's the bridge towards change. And so what you're doing is you're changing one small thing and you're making a big difference. So that's what the book is all about. It's, it's inspiration, empowerment, information, advice, support. So yeah, we just hope that we need as many people as possible to find out about it.

Dr Kessel:

Well,

Ellie Costello:

I, it's been really well received, which is lovely <laugh>.

Dr Kessel:

Yeah. And you know, I, it was, it was recommended to me by someone else. So you're, you're, you're, you're in the bush, you know, telegram system. So it was, you know, it came as a recommendation and, and, and now hopefully many more people will know about it. Um, if you could give, as we, as we finish this podcast, which has just been amazing today, if you could give parents three tips that they could take away from everything we've discussed today. And, and, and I know I'm not asking you to do an easy task yourself. What three things would you really, um, give parents as your top takeaway tips?

Ellie Costello:

Um, so the first thing that I didn't do, that I probably should have done, is recognized what the drivers were for me at that point. So I didn't recognize what levers were being pulled in me and why. So the first thing to do is to ki I wish I'd kind of done this, is to recognize that I was developing anxiety myself, understandably, that the amount of stress that was going on was, was really hard. And that actually I kind of was hoping that other people would fix stuff around me in order to fix my anxiety. And what I needed to do was for those two things to happen in combination, I needed to recognize what was going on in myself, address that. So sometimes that might mean going for a coffee with a friend, it might be going for a walk, it might be writing a to-do list.

Ellie Costello:

Mm-hmm. It might be trying to tick one thing off and just feel like I had some agency, cuz you can feel completely at sea when your kids are struggling. So recognizing what was going on, going on in myself, I didn't realize, for example, that anger, I saw this on the internet the other day and I was reminded about it. Anger is the protector of sadness. So if you are angry about something, what do you need to tap into? Sometimes it might be just feeling helpless and hopeless and having a good old bloody cry, you know, because life is hard. And actually when we get angry, we can get very stuck and it can drive us in a way that maybe isn't comfortable, but is often exhausting for us. So noticing what is going on in ourselves is really important. And we can only do that in partnership.

Ellie Costello:

So if you've got a friend who says, I, I had, so, you know, you, you've kind of got your tribe of mums haven't you, in, in the playground. And, and I realize now that I pushed quite a few people away, I'm really worried about you, Ellie, that sort of turn of the head thing. I'm really worried about you. Are you okay? <laugh>? And I was in such a sort of heightened state. I'd rather be like, yeah, I'm fine. How are you? Um, and actually there was, there was a chance there, there was an opportunity there for me to go, well at least they're asking, at least they're noticing what the heck is going on. But you can get onto a treadmill. So I would say I've learned a lot about myself

Dr Kessel:

And, and being, being vulnerable to let other people hear your sadness, you know?

Ellie Costello:

Yeah. And so maybe I play those, some of those instances on my, out in my head, you know, that sort of well-meaning are you all right Ellie? I would see as a threat. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or a judgment and actually was I misreading those social cues? And there was an opportunity there with someone that could have listened that might have had some support or not. I mean, we've all got the sort of very upwardly mobile friends who have a perfect life, but you dig behind it and it's not all great either. So, you know, there's some solidarity <laugh> in in sharing our, our stress isn't there. And I think mum, mum groups are great for that, you know. Um, so I think being aware of what was going on inside me, also recognizing what was going on in my child. We didn't recognize anxiety soon enough. In fact, we bought in, um, well we did, so I'm going back. I did, I did know something was wrong, but I didn't know he was anxious. I put, so he was anxious cuz he was unwell and then that fed the bowel prop, the gut stuff. So, so yeah. So it was trusting

Dr Kessel:

Your gut, no pun intended. It was trusting, I guess you're kind of saying trusting your gut as a mom.

Ellie Costello:

Yeah, yeah. So one of the tools that I talk about in our training now is, um, a really anyone, um, there's some brilliant parenting books out there that help me understand brain body science and things like that. One of them is Dan Siegel, um, and he, one of the tools that he has, this is, this is a parenting tool, but I use this everywhere, it's called name the need. So again, this sort of comes back to recognizing what's going on in yourself. If I'm angry, what am I actually sad about? Am I ready to face that sadness? Naming it with yourself, but also naming it in meetings. So, you know, um, it's a really simple tool. Let me give you an example. So maybe there's a really tense meeting going on, and rather than you starting pointing the finger and blaming people and being really angry, you can just say, okay, so I'm noticing that you are, uh, not answering the question or I'm noticing that, um, there's some tension in the room.

Ellie Costello:

Can we talk about that? What's going on here? You know, so you are actually sort of shining a spotlight on the implicit stuff that's going on, but it's a really useful tool to get people to kind of, um, fess up as well. So it's, it's kind of, it's, it, um, shines a light on things in a really gentle way. And actually then that builds trust and relationship. Because what you might get is the, the, the head teacher who sits in there might say, do you know what Ellie is? Because we're coming to the end of an assessment cycle and nothing's moved on and I'm worried, you know, so you might get a bit of a courageous conversation. We are concerned as a school that this hasn't happened, and at least then it's expressed and you can deal with it. So mainly the need is really good.

Ellie Costello:

So some relational tools would be the first thing with yourself, any kind of hooks that you can use to help you have those, those difficult conversations without becoming the angry Stampy mum. Although God knows I've been that as well. And sometimes you need to do that as well. Um, so, so that would be the first thing. The next thing would be, um, find your tribe. Yeah. Whoever that is. It can be your local tribe, it can be a Facebook forum, but bear in mind that even the best Facebook forum can sometimes be activating and triggering and can be an echo chamber of distress. So managing that in yourself, but also it's just been so brilliant to have a community where I knew that there were other families like me. Now the main community that I'm in has more than 40,000 families in it. It had less than a thousand when I started.

Ellie Costello:

And so it's really quite overwhelming to think about the scale of numbers. Yeah. But nevertheless, it's, it's a community space where information, advice, and support is shared. Um, and the next thing is to hold onto hope. So I would say that when your child is struggling and unwell, we can take on all of these sort of worries, you know, like, oh my God, lost learning. Oh my God, they're never gonna have a life. Oh my God, they're gonna fail their exams. Actually nothing is the end of the world. What is the end of the world is when your child is so clinically mentally distressed that they're not functioning anymore. That's, that's a place no parent wants to get to or wants their child to get to. So all of those things, all of your, all of that implicit anxiety that is put on you sometimes actually just trusting your, your gut instinct and think believing that tomorrow's a new day because it, it really is. It's a fresh start and you can get up and you can try again, or you can have a duvet day, <laugh>, whatever works for you, do that thing. But, but nothing is set in stone. Everything can change. The future is not prescribed.

Dr Kessel:

I think that's stuck point, I have to say, Elliot, I have, it's so valuable because it's so easy to catastrophize, you know, if this doesn't happen, oh my God, everything is, you know, and it's so, I think it's, it's, it's, it's embedded in us as parents. We worry about the future of our children to, to take that, to stop and say, no, tomorrow's a new day. You know, we don't know what the future holds is so important. Yeah.

Ellie Costello:

It, we really don't. And you know, I was thinking about all of the sort of success stories that we see on Instagram and, you know, it's normally sort of Cinderella stories or triumph over adversity and, and actually, you know, just adulting, just parenting, just, you know, being okay on this rock flying around the sun. That's enough <laugh>, you know, life is really, really hard. And the pressure on kids to kind of attain, achieve, be good, da da da, you know, actually take that off yourself. The most I want for my kids is that they're happy and they like themselves. One of them is getting there. The other one is really struggling. And it breaks my heart that that's where we are. But I still am now choosing to hold onto hope that we will, he will be okay. Um, because there's a whole lot of living to do between today and whatever the sort of mortal coil looks like. You know what I mean? And anything can happen. So holding onto hope, honestly, happens. Start again tomorrow.

Dr Kessel:

Absolutely. And it, it always seems better after a good night's sleep. It always does. You know what I mean? No matter how bad you go to sleep Yeah. When you wake up the next day, you do have a better, you know, it's almost like a deep breath that you can, okay, let's, let's let, let's start it again. You know, thank you so much Ellie, thank you for your time today, your, your mind. Um, everything you've been through, everything that you've shared, it's been super, um, helpful listening to you and I know you'll be super helpful to other parents as well. And yeah, it's, uh, wonderful to have you. Thank you. Thank you. Send Parenting Tribe for listening. If you haven't visited our website, please do at S e n d parenting.com. Please sign up for our weekly letter that gets sent out with links to key things discussed in each of the, you'll also find a link to Ellie's book, wishing you and your family a happy week ahead. Till next week, remember, always hold on to hope.