Automated Transcript Episode 27

The Power of Self-Directed Education: Benefits for Parenting and Education

Please excuse any errors as this transcript has been automatically generated

Dr. Olivia KesselHost00:08

Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, i'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent 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 be welcoming back Dr Naomi Fisher, clinical psychologist, speaker and author, to discuss her newly released book A Different Way to Learn Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Learning. This is a must listen for all parents. Her insights apply not only to self-directed learning but to parenting. We will discuss how important it is to accept your child as they are now instead of comparing them to the norm, being in control, go as a parent, and techniques to then collaboratively encourage behavior change with your child. We will also challenge the concept of education versus learning. Can a child really learn without formalized schooling? Welcome, dr Fisher, back to the Send Parenting podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you back on the show.

01:44

I am super excited to have our listeners hear your pearls of wisdom from your new book A Different Way to Learn, neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education. I finished reading it this weekend and I have to say there is a lot of really good parenting advice in here as well, which I actually implemented this weekend. It is amazing how you are thinking. I love the way you started it, because you challenge us as parents to really look at the status quo of education, which a lot of us are in our DNA. That is the gold standard, and then we are thrown into this kind of abyss when we realize that our children are struggling. They are labeled as different, it is stigmatized, we are often blamed as parents and it is really challenging. So I thought today if we could kick off the podcast with getting your views or elaborating on when standardized expectations in school meet really un-standardized children, which is a quote directly from your book.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest02:56

It is one of my favorite things, i think. I think it is a real mind shift. It was a big mind shift for me when I started thinking about it that way, when I started thinking we have this system that expects certain things of children at every stage, right from very early on. We expect them to be potty trained before they go to nursery and it expects them at each stage. The expectations increase of what they manage. And then when you have children who are developmentally different, who are doing things at different rates, maybe actually doing some things faster and something slower, it can be both And then they meet the system which has expectations of them at each stage, and we get problems And the problems are compounded. And it is like that is when, differently, they become distressed and they become disability.

03:38

Because it is quite common for parents to say actually that their children, when their children were really young, they just acted to how their children were, they kind of made. You know it was not easy, but they moulded life around the child And often even nursery is quite good at doing that. So people will sometimes say nursery is a very child-centered environment. It is an environment where you can do things at lots of different levels and you can follow your interests, and staff are often really connected and caring about the children. And then, as we go up through the school system, it becomes more and more about not about the individual child, but about this is what you must do. This is what you must do at the age of, and when a child can't do that, then you start to have real problems. And of course, because I'm a clinical psychologist, i'm always interested in mental health, emotional well-being, but I'm particularly interested in the beliefs that we form about ourselves, that children learn about themselves at school. So we talk a lot about what the child is meant to be learning at school. You know they're meant to be learning to read. They're meant to be learning to write. They're meant to be learning how to do maths. We don't talk nearly so much about what a child is learning about themselves as a learner. So maybe the child is learning The child who really struggled, for example, at age six or five.

04:43

When children are like learn to read in the system, they don't just not learn to read, they learn to think of themselves as someone who can't read, they learn to think about themselves as someone who struggles And they learn to think about themselves. Perhaps I mean they're given I think I talked about that in the first chapter of the book. Often the first information given to them by adults are you need to try harder, not try hard enough, or even you're lazy or you're not. You know, there can be a whole range of things that people will say to a child who isn't managing to do what's expected of them at different stage And those things last, those things. That child carries those things with them.

05:13

And I've worked Because I'm a psychologist, i work with adults as well. And I've worked with adults who will tell me about their feelings or inadequacy when they were seven at school and often if they couldn't learn to read and how they still have those feelings of inadequacy now, even though they can now read and they can do the things that they do, then It's almost like we bake them in for the system to the child by making it so important early on that they can't. Rigid age.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost05:35

I mean, that's just so powerful, how debilitating that can be. You know, and carried on to adult life. And then you know, you also discuss how neurological maturity happens at different times for different kids And that's kind of completely ignored. So it's actually okay that they're not learning to read right. then You know, it might not be their developmental trajectory, you know.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest05:54

Yes, absolutely, but we just don't think about it that way. We think six-year-old. And the thing is I think that really brought it home for me is it arbitrary, right? We decide each country to decide for itself that children must do this at this point. And if you move between countries as I did as a child I moved between lots of systems, lots of different schools and lived in different countries you find that it's not the same. You know, what one country thinks a child should be doing at eight isn't the same as what another country thinks she should be doing at eight. But within a country we all behave as if this is like set in stone every six-year-old should do.

06:25

And there's a lot of people now talking about the sort of old-age, the age, the GCSE exam sort of stage, and how, again, we expect that all young people should do these exams at 16, when actually they are massively different at that stage. The neurological development is enormously right at it And we sort of have this hang up about age. Why? Why is it better to do GCSEs at 60 than to do them at 18, for example? If you're able to do the GCSEs at 18, why not just do them then? Why make everybody go through this process where they fail at seeing, because, again, when you put them through something where they fail, that has an impact That will make them think a certain way about themselves.

07:03

And again, i've worked with adults who'll be like, yes, i failed and I know I'm no good at math. I failed my GCSE And they may be working in maths now. They might be doing a job that actually requires quite a lot of math, but they still hold that I'm not very good at that. I actually I hold that said with myself. With French, i did really relatively badly in my French exams when I was a sixth-former And I carry that sense with me of not being good at French And of, even so. I've lived in France for a few years. I speak French quite well, but I can speak French.

07:34

But I have French left. When I was in, when I was living in France, and I realized that whenever I gave her any written homework, i started having kind of habitation. I started being really anxious about it. And when she would bring out a red pen which she did because she was French and I read quite into being quite, it would literally I would feel blocked, like I couldn't. She would say you know, you're always making this error. I was literally couldn't think about it because it made me so anxious. I think I'm getting this wrong all the time And that really made me think again about what we're doing to our children when we're telling them all the time you're failing at this, you're not good at this.

08:06

And I suppose there's so much talk in the education system about success and about how every child can see And I think I write about this in the book as well that it's just not true that every child can succeed in our education system, because our education system is set up to compare children and to set them up to compete against each other.

08:22

You know right from when that further they go in by being paired against each other, because the way that we consider that a child is doing well is really that they're doing better than others, and that's what tests are about. We're testing all the kids and we're saying this is a good test for six year olds. Some of them are going to fail it, and in fact, that's one of the definitions of a good test. You know, one of the things I studied as a psychologist was what makes a good exam or a good test, and one of the things that makes a good test is that it differentiates between you know you want some children to be failing. That's a strange way to put it, but if we had tests that we were giving children and they were all passing it, people would say that's not a good test, it's too easy for them see So there's a strange, this kind of difference between what's really going on in the system and what we're told is going on in the system.

09:03

We're being told everyone consistently they can't If they all work really hard and they all do brilliantly in their exam. they'll make the exams harder.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost09:10

They'll change the path more, because differentiation is one of the points And I mean you talk about this in your book too, because the GCSE system which for me is unusual because I've also been raised in different countries with different education systems that it's designed to fail a third of the individuals, right? So all those issues and those traumas that you're talking about, that's a third of your population that's going to be failing that way And that's considered, oh right, that's okay, we're, you know, gold star for that one, you know, And not just that.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest09:39

But we'll tell them it their fault? Oh yeah, we'll tell them from the beginning. You know that you can all succeed, and if you don't work hard enough you won't. And we tell them it their fault.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost09:46

But on a population level, it's not, And one would argue that have a personalized approach to your potential and where you're going is a better metric, But it's a you know, it's a system that people just buy into almost 100%. you know what I mean.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest10:01

And they don't know they don't realize that it's like that, because I think that I think I mean people often say do you not think we need exams? Don't we need some way to demonstrate that young people are reaching certain levels? And I'm like, well, yes, but for A we don't have to show that at all. But also it could just be a benchmark. So, for example, the driving test you take the driving test. If you're good enough, you're par. If you're not good enough, if you don't, if you fail it, you could do it again. But basically it's literally a benchmark. Everybody in one day in the driving center could par. That wouldn't be a problem, because what they want to know is are you, say, go out on the road? You know there's not really much flexibility in that And I'm happy about that. I think it's a great test.

10:36

But I failed my driving three times and it was annoying. It was annoying and expensive. I had to pay for it every time. Obviously It didn't make me feel I'm a bad person, it didn't make me think I'm not worthwhile And it didn't make me think I'm a bad driver for life. So I drive now and I think I'm a pretty good driver, whereas I think there's something very different about how exams are used in school, where they're kind of used to define your work person, And it's like with GCSEs. It's like you will carry these GCSEs with you for life. You know you will always have these grades. It's like why? Who decided that these stuff we do at 16 are so important that you've got to hold it, hold on to it forever. It just makes me it's not a good way to raise our young people.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost11:11

It causes so much stress and anxiety. You know, i say to kids I've got quite a few moms who have kids of that age And I'm like you know what? They're not going to ask you on a job interview what score you got. They're not going to. you know, none of this is actually relevant. Yeah, you know, yeah, exactly. But you look on the news right When it's GCSE results time. they don't show the kids that are failing. It's like, oh, open up your envelope.

11:33

Oh, yay, you've won, i know, and it's just you think of all those kids who are watching now and just the third of the children, excuse me, the third of a children who aren't opening up those envelopes and having a good result.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest11:45

And who are feeling bad about themselves. And of course, the thing is that those children they know. You know from earlier on. They know by the time they're 13, 14, 15, that they're not going to be the top score. Everybody knows that. That's the other thing that research shows us that young people are very good at ranking themselves as well. You know, school ranked them and they will rank their siblings. They're not their siblings, they're peers, and so, of course, they're going to be motivated. You know, when people are saying 13 or 14 year olds, they're not in there, don't want to go to school, we can't make them do it. Yeah, it's because they know really they're heading for this exam which they're going to fail, and who wants to do that? And there aren't other options for them. There's nothing they can't. I can absolutely see why our young people at that age would be depressed and anxious when we're only offering them this exam, which probably well, we know that third of them are going to fail.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost12:30

And it's skewed to your point as well. If you're a summer born baby, you know it's not.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest12:34

All of those things tribute that.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost12:36

And none of that is discussed either. But you know it's. You know, as a parent, when your child is struggling and is in that lower set or is you know struggling with that, it is really scary because that's what society pressurizes us to believing, that you know they're going to fail in life. So there's the pressure on the child and there's the pressure on the parent And it's really. It's scary. And I like what you say in your book and I is that you know you really have to accept the child where they are at now And part of that is to kind of say, okay, i don't accept that. This is the only way. And then it's to find your comfort in there And it's very uncomfortable, i have to say, to say to just No, it is.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest13:13

Yeah, i know it is. It's really uncomfortable, i know, and it brings up all sorts of stuff for yourself, doesn't it? as a parent, absolutely, and I think, particularly if you've been a parent who has been a high achiever through them, who has you know, you haven't seen that what it's like to be one of those who isn't achieving, and I think you can go through life quite blinkered And I sometimes think that's part of our problem with our whole system actually, that everything politicians, teachers, professionals they're all the people who did okay at school, because that's how our school system works you know.

13:38

So it selects out those people who do well at school. They are the ones who will get to go on to do something. The people who didn't do well, they assume it because of them. If they assume, it's because they were to blame and they don't have power because it's. Yeah, we've always been deemed from a kind of perspective of those who have sick And that's why I think it's really really uncomfortable and also really powerful when you get an insight into the experience by having a child, for example, who isn't going to make it. On those metrics that you know that we were all told were so valuable and that you probably accepted at school were so valuable because you probably would have had to buy into them in order to achieve Well.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost14:10

It's been interesting for me as a parent because I, you know, i've gone to, my daughter's, been in a private school in an affluent neighborhood where you know all of the moms are, oh my, you know, my child's gonna go to this school and that school and that school. And I've always felt to myself, you know, my child has always struggled. So I'm free of that Because, frankly, if she can just have a happy life and manage to be self-sufficient and pay for herself, i'm gonna be a happy mother. So I kind of was like, wow, i've sideset this. If I had been them and it had a child that was succeeding, i probably would have pushed them too. And then I see the consequences of that, because I see some of my friends who are pushing their children so hard that they're having panic attacks, that they're having depression, you know, and I'm like you know, maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest14:49

Yeah, absolutely It's, and I talk about this a lot about. I think it's such a gift to have a child who experiences things differently, because it does open your mind to actually, what might I have done If I'd had a child who was born in my mold, who did everything like I would have to and you know kind of I could program to do the things, to accept things. then I might have done that. And you're right, we do see the damage. I think the damage is there not just for those who struggle in the system, but also for those who succeed in the system, because the pressure to do that is so intense And the pressure, you know it. just there's a whole status thing going on. Nobody wants to be the failures.

15:25

There's some really interesting books about this. I don't know if you've read the inner level and the spirit level. I've forgotten their names for a moment, but we can look them up afterwards. The sociologists basically they say one of the problems with an unequal society is there's a higher level of stress on it because the ones at the bottom are stressed, but actually everybody else is stressed as well because they don't want to come, the ones at the bottom. So the whole everything become pressured about. I've got to do this, i've got to keep my place, because society, because everything's so unique And I think that's what we're doing, school and in our society. unfortunately, we've got this very unequal system and it's stress is teachers as well.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost15:57

Yeah, incredibly competitive and not incredibly collaborative. And then you know you take kids who are different and aren't going to succeed in this environment, and I love what you also said in your book. You said you know the more a child struggles, the more flexible the system need to be. Yes, and the opposite happens, doesn't it? The less flexible they become.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest16:18

Richard, richard, yes, absolutely. More coaching, more things, more things, more things you've got to do And what else in fact even becomes less flexible, in the sense that often what happens if a child is really struggling is all the bits that they really enjoy a cut out. So no art, no drama, no P E, just English and Maths for you, because you're really struggling with English and Maths And nobody thinks but what's it like to have the things that you really really struggle with picked out as the things you are going to spend all your time on as an adult? that would just be awful with it.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost16:45

I mean as an adult. you know, and working, mentoring people they always all of the you know corporate things that you'll go on there like you need to support the strengths of an individual. That's where you'll get your biggest bang for your buck, you know absolutely, but we don't have that approach with children.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest17:01

I think it's such a tragedy that we don't, but I think we should and I think we can. That's what I mean really when you say about accepting the child where they are. it's like where are you right now? Some of the things that really make you come to life?

Dr. Olivia KesselHost17:11

let's do more of that, yeah, and build that confidence and self-worth, because that's what's going to carry you through that belief.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest17:18

I can do that. I can make choices, I can learn. That is so much more important whether they can pass their phonics screening test when they're sitting.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost17:25

And that you know. That, i think, is one of the huge things that we need to just rip apart as a parent is this concept that you can only learn in education, and I love how you talk about that in your book. Can you like elaborate on education versus learning, because I think I had drunk the Kool-Aid that the only way my child is going to learn is if they're in education and you kind of in school? Yeah.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest17:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing. It's like we've all, i think I say in this book, or certainly say in my other book, that one of the things we learn most at school is how important school is. That's what we taught at school. You must be at school And if you're not at school, you're not learning, and we explicitly say that to young children. Usually When you go to school there's plates of amazing learning And if you're not at school you won't learn. And I think I certainly had that when my children at school. I had that quite deeply. What would they get to? How do they get?

Dr. Olivia KesselHost18:12

to learn. How are they going to succeed? You know like yes, exactly What's going to happen to them. I'm going to get it.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest18:20

You know what I mean Like they must be at school. But then when you start to think about school as a psychologist, as a developmental psychologist and as a learning environment, you know the things that get said about how you learn at school are just not in line with child psychology. You know, i studied, i studied a lot of developmental child psychology. At no point they say we've discovered the best way for children to learn and we'll sit them in rows, keep them quiet and we'll tell them Never. You know there was so much talking about how learning is an interactive process, how they ask questions, how children inquire all the time, how children always bring what they know to a situation. It's very much a two way thing, not a process of adults telling child child must remember And that that isn't actually an efficient way to learn. But that's the way our school system has been going. We have this idea that adults are the repository of knowledge and of the curriculum and that the curriculum is somehow sacrosanct. You know this. This curriculum must be learned. And again, i think if you've moved between different countries, you know that countries have very different curriculums. They have and you know and I mean one of the things.

19:19

I think that really stimulating about thinking about this, even in childhood, was that I moved between educations really often, like I think I was no more than two and a half years at any one school And I moved between us at the American system for a while. I was in a signer school for a while and moved between different educations And I didn't have to go back to the beginning and start again each time. It wasn't like I got to the American school and they were like, Oh my goodness, never done in history before, never done this before. We'll have to go back to the first grade, you can't. You know you did that And I was thinking how much of what we're doing is actually developmental.

19:49

You know that actually a lot of what we think children are learning is actually them growing up and then becoming capable of doing more things. So maths, for example. We think that young people can do maths at the level of a 12 or 13 year old because they've been doing maths and they were five. What if actually they can do maths at the level of a 12 or 13 because they're a 12 or 13 year old and their brains are a certain level of specification, and if they've had experiences which have enabled them to think about maths and think about numbers. They don't necessarily need to have gone through that curriculum. I use maths deliberately because there was. There have been some research studies where they have children haven't done maths, and this was a long time ago. They probably wouldn't be allowed to do this now, but basically they had a group of children and one group didn't do any formal math until they were about 11. And then they caught them up with the other year group in a year And I've seen that myself with children who don't go to school.

20:37

I've seen that you don't have to be studying all these things at an early age to catch it up at a later date, when you're, when you want to do it, when you are motivated you're like, oh, actually this could be quite useful. And when your brain is at the point that you're ready to understand these ideas so much trying to do it when you're little And actually when you don't see the point. I think those are the two things that the school system does. It tries to get children to learn when they don't see the point in learning yet you know so that tries to take children who aren't yet desperate to learn to read and tells them it's really important to learn to read, they must practice it, and it takes children who aren't yet really interested, in number perhaps, and tells them they've got learning things. And I think when you've done that, you've lost the best of the juice of learning really, because the juice of learning I want to know, i am interested And once you've taken that away, then you've kind of tied your hands behind your back because a lot of the effort, a lot of the effort has to go towards trying to persuade the children to want to do what the adult do. And what I'm saying with self direct education is what if we just skip that bit? let's just not try and make them do things that they don't want to do right now, but instead help them follow their interests. And it turns out that when you do that, children learn in all sorts of amazing ways And in a really different developmental trajectories. And that's why I've always thought it goes along really well with children whose developmental trajectories are non standard, because it enables them, so it enables.

21:50

You know, one of the things I noticed I think I write about that in the book is that there are these children who start imaginative play a lot later than the kind of typical norm would be said right. So when you're a developmental psychologist, you learn that children start to imagine, to play around the age of two, three. They go through this phase of like. You know, living in a world of fantasy, often lots of magic to play, and we are taught that that's a really important part of child development them to do that. And in young childhood, early childhood, we often facilitate that. So nurseries facilitate imaginative play. They have the home corner and they have dressing up and all that kind of by the time they're eight, nine, 10,.

22:23

Imaginative play isn't really valued in school system And it's not really valued out of the school system as well. So children are encouraged to be doing more serious stuff. That meant to be doing structured activities or learning And you'll. One of the things I noticed talking to children who went to school was that they would say that said, i'm too old to play now. Oh, i'm giving away my dolls, i'm too grown up to do that. And I noticed for self directed kids. I knew that some of them went through a stage of imaginative play in that kind of age range eight, nine, 10, when they hadn't really done it when they were younger, and that was one thing that really made me think, whoa, there's something going on here that I don't really see reflected in the literature. You know I don't see a research literature about this And perhaps it's because nobody is looking at child development and learning properly outside the context school. Everybody assumes that school is a different, all children of that, and so we don't look, we don't really know what learning and child development looks like.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost23:11

When a child It's super fascinating because, as you say, like there doesn't seem to be any evidence for forcing children to learn all this stuff, like you have to have the building boxes, which is what you know. We are preconditioned to think, if they don't do math and reading at this age, and they're not going to, you know, be able to do it when they're 12 or 13. And we, you know, they don't see a point to it, so there's no intrinsic motivation at all, right, and when you kill that, you kill the desire to learn.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest23:35

Exactly. That's what it feels like to me, that you've kind of lost the battle already. Yeah, because that spark of want to learn is what I think is fundamental of self-directed education And that is what I see myself as trying to guard in my children, trying to help you know, whatever we do in that, whatever they do in those early years, it's all about nurturing that little spark of wanting to know, of curiosity, because it doesn't just, you know, with young children it generally is just there. That's how they are And it's sometimes school kind of seems to assume that it will just stay there. It doesn't really matter what you actually do in school. That you know you can make school really quite boring and it's okay. They'll still be curious and engaged in the rest of their life. That isn't my experience. I find that if a child is bored and frustrated at school, like they kind of switch off, they stop being so curious and engaged about the world.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost24:18

It happens as adults, doesn't it? I mean, you know what I mean. If you're forced to go on some like learning thing for work, that is just absolutely. You just want to pull out your fingernails and die. You know, you don't?

Dr Naomi FisherGuest24:28

learn.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost24:28

But if you're like, inspired and you want to do something, you know and you're like I mean, i started podcasting because I wanted to do this podcast to help parents. I don't know anything about recording and editing. I find it very challenging with my dyslexia, but you know what I'm highly motivated, because I want to do it, you know.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest24:44

Absolutely And I remember, yes, that's such a good point. You're motivated and then it becomes resting and we're losing that with our children And they don't even know because they spend so much of their life being told that what they've got to, what the adults are telling them to do, is really important And what they're interested in isn't important. Because we devalue children's interest. You know people will say well, if I let my children out, they would just be interested in Pokemon all day, or they'd just be interested in Minecraft. I'm like great, that's what you did. That's where you are right now. Minecraft and Pokemon. That's the stage. Or even with them, with autistic children, the interests like oh, fantastic. Like you know, my child's really interested in traffic calming measures. My child's really interested in locks Fantastic, that's what you want to learn about. There's so much to learn about traffic calming measures a lot.

25:27

Or you know we can't evaluate the thing that children are interested in And I think that devaluing also is damaging because what the child learns is I can't trust what I'm interested in. Or you know adults will say to them quite openly it's a way you're wasting your time. They minecraft example. You're wasting your time pursuing this thing that you're interested in. Imagine what it would feel like to you if someone was saying well, you're wasting your time podcasting. You're never gonna be, like you know, the star podcaster, so don't bother. It's like why would we do that to children?

Dr. Olivia KesselHost25:56

Because yeah, i totally understand And you know it's not about becoming the best of anything And that's another thing. But you know, and it is. You know life is about finding passion. You know as a child and as an adult. And if you can find your passion, whatever it is, no matter how financially successful it might be, as long as you can get by, those are the happiest people, or those that find their passion, find that you know You're doing what they're doing Yes.

26:16

And you actually have a better quality of life. But you know, and so I think you know, let's get more into the self-directed learning, because I think you know parents themselves thinks oh my God, i'm guilty of this. It's like, well, you know self-directed learning, so I just let my kids go and they run Ferrell and somehow they learn how to read and write. And then I experienced COVID, which was like, oh my God, i have PTSD from online learning and working and it was terrible. So I think there's a you know, from my perspective misconception of what self-directed learning is before reading your book, because that's kind of where my mind was going And that's not what self-directed learning is.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest26:50

No. So people in the school system sometimes use the term self-directed learning or self-regulated learning to mean the teacher says what the child has to do and then the child has to do it by themselves, and that's a bit like what it was learned. What happened with COVID to some schools? You know it was like here's the stuff you've got to learn, you do it and then if you don't do it, oh you're not very self-directed. That is not self-directed, that is just coercion. It didn't work.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost27:13

It didn't work. And like she's not self-directing herself at all, oh no, she's outside.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest27:19

Of course she isn't. You know It's yeah, she's playing, that's her self-direction, right there she is saying and that's the thing if we set the outcome. It's like if someone I don't know about you, Olivia, but for me, if someone had said to me, you must make a podcast, i am going to insist that you make a podcast. Up to you how you do it, when you do it, but you must make a podcast Immediately. I'm like I don't want to make a podcast, i have no interest in doing that.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost27:41

Well, you know, i've learned that in medicine because my background's a medical doctor, and I was taught that you tell patients, say you must quit smoking, you have to lose weight. Well, the minute you say that to a patient, they immediately argue the other point of why they have to keep smoking. It's just, you know, it's part of our human nature. Human nature, yeah, absolutely.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest27:57

They double down in that position, basically. So you should never, you should never tell them what to do.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost28:01

You should say to them so I see that you really like smoking. What do you like about it? What do you know? turn the tables.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest28:07

Yeah, even I mean it's a psychologist. one of the things I do sometimes as a kind of thing that I think helps people think is to say there must be really good reasons why you're smoking, or there must be really good reasons why you're still with this guy, or you know what I mean. You kind of turn the tables because they're expecting you to say don't do that, stop doing that, And it kind of makes them go, huh, hang on a minute, and it makes them think about it.

28:27

So, yeah, if we say to children, this is what you must do, but I'm going to let you do it by yourself, that is absolutely not self-directed learning. It's kind of the other way around. The self-directed learning is when adults are very involved, but they're involved as facilitators, helping the child do more of what that child might intract. So I say that there are kind of three key elements to self-directed education. There is connective relationships. You need good relationships with older children, maybe with adults. You can't do it in isolation. It isn't just child on their own in their bedroom. Then you need opportunities. So you need things to do, interesting things to do, And those opportunities are going to vary depending on the child as to what is interesting for them, And so that any kind of learning environment is going to look different depending on what child is into. And then you need autonomy, And that bit is that the child needs to be able to choose what they do and they need to be able to choose when they stop. If they can't, then it's not self-directed.

29:14

So if a child is, you know, if your child is going out in the garden, for example, and it turns out that they are really intracting plantings and growing things, then the self-directed approach would be okay. How could we do more of that? Maybe we go to the garden, stand down, have a look, see what plant, Maybe we get some different seeds My daughter's quite enjoying stuff And anytime we go near a shop that has seeds she'll buy some random bag seeds and we'll try growing it. And we have a whole set of poppies come up in our garden And we're like, oh, I don't remember getting there, But that's what self-directed learning is. And as that goes then she becomes more interested for things, maybe in how soil type might affect the plants or what kind of things might help the plant grow or not grow. And we follow that interest. And then at some point she's like yeah, I'm not doing gardening anymore, Let's do some cooking instead. And we moved to that and that's fine.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost29:58

I thought what was really interesting, though, was that, you know, especially looking at neurodiverse parent is that sometimes you know you're like, okay, we're going to go with this, and you start controlling it, and you're like, all right, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and you know, get super out of control, printing off stuff, you know, and that just kind of shuts the whole thing down, doesn't it?

Dr Naomi FisherGuest30:19

Yeah, printing off a worksheet, Or actually I find that investing money in anything is a really good way to find that they're not going to want to do it.

30:26

You know, Book a, buy that, buy anything about a garbage or something And that'll be it. That'll be it, we won't be out anymore, yeah, so of course there's a very much. It's a doubt I think they're always a doubt in the child and the parent. A parent offering in a way that the child can manage And some children cannot manage being saying things like would you like to do this? That's too much for them, that feels too demanding, particularly if they've been in school And there's a.

30:48

You know, i think in school children learn that questions aren't necessarily real questions. So when a teacher asks the child something, it's rarely what I call a real question, and by what I mean by that is that the teacher doesn't really want the child to tell them what they think. They want to know what the child, they want the child to do, what they want. But they also want to kind of test our knowledge. So if a teacher says to a child you know, young child, what's the color of the blue, the teacher isn't saying that because they don't know the color of the blue. They're saying it because they want to test if the child knows the color of the blue.

31:15

So I think children acquire the kind of suspicion about questions, particularly if they're pretty good at picking up that kind of view on which a lot of precious empty kids are. They feel that this is really a controlling And there isn't really space. Or, you know, often we do this with children. We say would you like to do this? There isn't really space for a no there, okay, class. Would you like to do this? No, we would. Okay.

31:33

Sorry, that wasn't right on that. Or would you like to do go? you know, would you like to learn about this? No, we would. Actually isn't the answer we're looking for And it wasn't a real question. So I think there's something that parents need to kind of shift in our own mind there of thinking am I asking my children? show my child genuine. Are these genuine questions? Am I able to take a note? Am I really wanting to know? do they want to plant stuff in the garden, for example? Or am I actually planning that we're going to plant up in the garden And I'm just handling that? I'm asking you because I know what we're going to do already?

Dr. Olivia KesselHost31:58

Am I barb the expense of going to a new kit?

Dr Naomi FisherGuest32:00

Yes, I've already bought this great kit and come on, give me the gifts for you. I thought last week exactly last week we were really interesting gardening and that makes me feel better because I feel like doing something. I think one of the things I talk about in the book as well is how I think this relates to the idea of child development that what I've noticed with the self-directed children that I see around me that I use for the book is that the period of kind of play-based recovery learning goes on much longer than children are allowed to choose what they do, than you would think it will. So children are still and what I mean by that the discovery phase learning is. I mean that they're still in the phase where really they're doing things because they like to do them and because they're interested, but they're not doing it because of a future goal. So, for example, the child who draws lots they're drawing lots because they like drawing. They're not thinking I would like to be really good at drawing until I'm going to practice drawing. That doesn't really start happening until they get into adolescence, but that shit does happen when they move into adolescence And for different stages and particularly for neurodivergent kids.

32:53

it doesn't happen, definitely doesn't happen overnight And it definitely doesn't happen kind of on the dot of puberty. It's a slow, gradual thing, but what happens is they become more able to think about the future. they become more able to be okay. I would like to be able to do this, and I might do things that I don't enjoy so much right now, but because that goal is in me, i'm going to do it.

33:12

And I think parents often worry that because they're young, children aren't capable of that. So they're young children. you have to really pressure a child quite hard to do something that they don't see the point in it. they don't want to do because they're just not there yet. It's like they can't really imagine that future goal of being able to read chapter books, for example. That just seems really unimaginably far off. And yet you're putting this pressure on them to do the phonics so that they so. I think it's hard for parents to kind of hold, keep hold of the fact that actually that changes is neurological, developmental, and it happens a lot later than the schools in which have you?

Dr. Olivia KesselHost33:43

And that you have no control over it, really, and you have to be, you have to sit at peace with your child, because actually you don't, as much as you want to control you don't have, and then it's just frustration. you know, and I think it was really interesting also what you said about and I'm guilty of this controlling screen time You made me look at it so differently, you know.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest34:02

Because I've got the parental controls a lot.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost34:05

And I'm getting rid of them based on what you said, i think you know, because Oh, wow, okay.

34:11

You're like keep, keep saying No, no no, not the ones where she can't communicate with other people, but in terms of the setting limits and making it this it's like. well, for me would be eating chocolate cake, because I have to. you know, i have to be careful of what I eat So that chocolate cake becomes so much more attractive. So, you know, i would love you to to share your views on this, because I think it's a bit revolutionary.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest34:33

Yeah, so okay. So screen time, yeah. So I mean I think we've just made a really good analogy with the chocolate cake. I think, basically, that lots of the things parents do around screen time have the opposite effect to what we want them to have. So I think my standpoint is that what we want for our children is to have a healthy relationship with screens and devices in the longer term. We want them to be able to use it when they want to use a device, put it down when they've had enough, and then we want them to be able to use it when they're having a healthy relationship. So I think that's one of the most interesting things on them, because there's loads of exciting things. No-transcript Food is one of those things which often is controlled quite strictly controlled in childhood and often those controls backfire.

35:09

So children who will have very, very strictly controlled diet as children sometimes find this adult very hard to control that. They find it hard to control it because food has become much more than just food. It's no longer just nourishment and nice tasting, it also has a kind of aura of other things. So what do I mean by that? So I mean that by making something scarce, we make it more desirable. And advertising know that. They do it in math. In math, you know, marketing It's all about only two left get it now, only 30 minutes left of this thing. And we do that to our children. We make something scarce and it becomes more desirable. We also make special.

35:42

So we often use screens as a reward or take them away as punishment. Both of those things also make more attractive. So it's kind of like and this is by associative learning. Yeah, it's just that you know, when you use something as a reward, it becomes something you want more. It's that's why people like certificate gold stars not because gold stars are so great by themselves, it's because it means reward, it means prize, it means special. So what we're doing is we're doing those two things which make screens more attractive than they need to be. And they're already attractive to children. They're particularly attractive to neurodivergent kids because they're a place that you can be really often children feel really competent. They're a place where they can be really autonomous. They can make lots of choices for themselves. They can feel like clay, minecraft. You can be literally be. You know, you're in charge of a kingdom, you've got all these amazing things to do, but we make it.

36:26

But parents then kind of make that relationship with screens more complicated than they be, and then the other thing that they often do is they also denigrate it. So they often will also tell children it's a waste of time. Why are you wasting your time doing that? You're addicted to that, you know, i can't believe you're doing this rather than playing outside, and then we make children feel bad about it. So on one hand, we're making it more attractive And on the other hand, we're making it feel bad about it.

36:47

So that makes that relationship with screens so much more complicated on the line, and I think that what we're aiming for as parents is to just have things be straightforward. So really what we want is screens to just be one thing. You know, oh, do I want to read a book or play on my iPad? You know it's up to me, and I do think that we can help our children learn that. And I also think that as our children grow, we need to help them learn that, because strict limits are a strategy with an expiry date. They're going to get to a certain age and they're going to be like no, i'm not. You know either. They're going to say no in your home which is bottle, or they're just going to leave home. They're going to leave home, and then it's going to be like, okay, the world of free access to screens and TV.

37:23

And, of course, in my day, when I went to university, it was TV. Really, we didn't really have devices or anything like that. And there were, though I remember going to university there were. I went to university. I've just watched TV all day And it was almost like they hadn't developed the ability. So you know what? this is actually quite boring. I'm going to turn it off, and that's what I want for my kids. I want them to be able to say you know what? this is actually a bit boring because once we surround it with scarcity and specialness, they're going to hang on to it. They're going to want to use every minute They're going to.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost37:49

It's going to feel differently, even if it is quite boring, it's humenation and it's getting them to learn what their boundaries are, instead of us imposing that control on those boundaries which, as you say, has a shelf life, you know.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest38:01

Exactly, And we kind of work. I think a lot of our sort of mainstream parenting ideas have this idea that we will make them do what we want to do And then they will carry that on as adults. You know, we set up little about habits. We're going to establish these habits early on and it will just be like we program them and they go on I don't think it really works like that, at least not for a high proportion of kids.

38:18

You know it isn't the case that we can just kind of input these things and then they'll just carry on like that, because they are an active person, they're an active part of this situation And we always have to think about that from their perspective. And I often say to parents how would it feel to you if you had this thing you really liked doing The person who you love most in the world, who has quite a lot of power over you, that you can only do that for 30 minutes? eh, and I'm going to police that really rigidly and I will stop you even if you're halfway through doing really important. And one of the cartoons I did with Eliza Fricker because she recently did a screens time webinar together actually was a child saying to their parents you know we agreed 30 minute a on your phone. I need you to get off that now.

38:59

And I think whenever we flip these things around and we think what actual impact would that have on me? It helps us to reflect on what we're doing with our kids and what we're doing with our relationships as well. I think that's a really important part of it. Like, what kind of relationship do we want with our children? Do we want one where we're the controller, or do we want one where we're the trusted facilitator and the one who can get alongside them and say, wow, look at that amazing thing you're building in Minecraft, you know? can you tell me more about it So you get in there, rather than it becoming that separate?

Dr. Olivia KesselHost39:25

I mean, all of us, as parents, want to prepare our children for the best that they can do in life And I think that you know, similar to education, we might have a bit wrong in our heads of how best to go about this and how to actually make them be autonomous adults who are making and learning from their own decision makings, versus us controlling those decision makings, you know.

39:46

But if we're giving up all this control and we want to change behaviors and I love this because you do go into it in the book you don't leave us just hanging there. But you know now what do we do, you know what, you know how do we support And you use the great analogy of the percolating coffee, coffee pot, and I've started trying this, but I'll let you put it in your own words because I probably won't do it justice. But yeah, how you can look at it differently, you know.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest40:14

Yeah. So basically it's the idea of introducing change that needs to be done really slowly, and it's not something if you can't all sit on someone, but often what happened? if a child is very, very, very pressure sensitive and really doesn't we act really badly towards sometimes parents will back off completely and they'll be like I have no idea what, i have nothing, i don't know what to do, i can't do anything, i can't say anything, or they go blah. You know what do I do. So I talk about this idea of percolation and also of drip eating.

40:40

So basically, you're introducing the idea of change to the child. So you know the child might, because children don't. You know children can't think about the future in the same way. They don't know what the world is out there. But you know that although it might feel really safe to stay home all the time I think the example of my book Child to Stay Home All the Time, which is a costume, something I get asked about all the time what do we do my child with at home all the time? So you know that feels safe to that child at home all the time. The problem with that is that the child isn't then able to get the experiences that they need in order to grow and in order to learn, because it isn't enough for a child just to be at home all the time without anyone. So you need to be thinking about what kind of things can we bring into that child's environment so that things are happening?

41:16

but also, how do we just bring up, introduce the idea to children that things are going to change at some point. We're going to go out, and one of the things I say is we kind of just introduce the idea so we say you know it's really hard to go out, but one day we go out. So you're kind of whole and the parent kind of has to hold on the time that we're going to change and the child might go. No, we're absolutely not, and that's fine.

41:35

That's when you just go and smell the coffee because you're like I'm just throwing these ideas in, because you expect, with a child who's highly anxious, expect the first time any idea is suggested, you are going to get a big no way, get out of my face, go away. That's just what I think. If you expect that for yourself as a parent, it can really free things up because you're like okay, that was the first time we're going to get that response. Then you might bring up another time that you know the next day or something you know, at some point we're going to go out. Nice to be home, but it's also important to go out. No, no, no, no, no. And you keep doing that. You keep just dropping in those ideas.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost42:05

Really, because you also, you say don't talk hours about it, and you know, you know I go on and on. I mean she even tells me be quiet, be quiet. You know, you know the simplicity of it.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest42:16

Just ripping in that coffee, just drifting in, that's all it is. You just love the idea And even if they completely ignore you, that's fine. You expect that. You just you know it's been said And because all the talking made it less likely that things will happen, you know, because it just stresses the mouth and also it makes them feel more pressured and anything that makes them feel more pressured make less like feeling about happening. You're not pressuring, you're just putting in that idea. But you also, as an adult, holding on to the sense that actually you do know that we are going, the world is going to grow up gradually. That is going to happen. That isn't a negotiable, because I think sometimes both children are very anxious and they can be really controlling.

42:51

parents get start to kind of lose insight of what the non-negotiables are and the negotiable And it's the same with screen time. Actually, parents sometimes say to me so do you mean we should just let them watch whatever they want? You know it's all. No, no, no, you have to have safety. You know they have to. If you don't think they're safe, then you don't let them do watch stuff, that's it. But the point is that while choosing those you're choosing, you say actually it's non-negotiable, for example, that you watch. You watch the stuff on TikTok and you're only eight and TikTok is for 13 plus, or whatever. It's just non-negotiable. Sorry, but we can play again.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost43:21

Minecraft, you said mean to the difference.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest43:23

Yeah, we can play something together. It's about drawing those lines, but you still have to have the. This is not safe. But also, this is about me as well. So you know, if you're, i talked to quite a few single parents who are home educating their children and they're completely stuck at home, and I think it's fine for those parents to say I am going to go out, this is going to need to happen. How can we help that? How can we make that Rather than can I go out? See, because that's it. It's a non-negotiable, really, that you need to leave the house or else you're just going to go horribly wrong. It's not going to be sustainable And you need to be thinking about long-term sustainability. So, and it's fine for parents to say, actually, i really have to go out, and then you'll think about how do we keep that?

Dr. Olivia KesselHost43:58

And it's letting the child come to it in their own time. So it's taking the pressure off you because there's a tendency to want to have it happen now, but instead of saying I don't know when it's going to happen, but I know that it is going to happen, and then I'm going to be this with the child until they, until it's ready, yeah, which I?

44:13

it's just, it is a long game, but it's. If you, as you say, put that fundamental, that it is going to change in your mind as a parent, then it gives you that I can, i can play around with it, whereas trying to do it right now and it feels like it's never going to happen, And then it just and that's awful.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest44:30

That's the worst play as a parent, isn't it? If you feel really trapped and you don't think it's ever going to change. I think, and I think that's kind of what I'm trying to give my book is I'm trying to say there's going to be hope, things you know there are. I've seen children, i've seen loads of children come through this stage and but it. But it doesn't just happen. I suppose that's what people say is, oh, it'll just happen. No, self-directed education doesn't just happen. You have to be there as the parent, providing those opportunities, providing that safe relationship, providing a place for them to be in and them to grow in.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost44:56

It doesn't just happen, but it's something that you can do And I think you know it would be great if you could share with us, as we wrap up this podcast, one of the. You know there were several stories in your book of neurodiverse children who have done self-directed learning and have been incredibly successful. I'm putting on the spot a bit, but can you think of one story that you can share to illustrate it to people?

Dr Naomi FisherGuest45:16

Yeah, so I think Alice's story about her older son is a really useful one. Her older son is autistic and I'm not going to say what his name is because I can't remember what student him or you But he had been really challenging as a younger child and also had played video games for years and years and years and that is what he wanted to do and that is what he did. And then as he became a teenager and I think it was a bit older teenager, 14 or 15, he suddenly became really interested in particular things languages. He became really interested in Japanese and Mandarin, chinese And he was just like she said. It was just like amazing. It was like he was kind of like on fire with learning his languages. But he also started to be really interested in going out and being and like joining groups with other young people doing drama groups, having not really managed group before at all. So by the age of 14 or 15, he was like you know I know these are hard, but this is what I want He had that kind of awareness of his self by this age that this is going to be difficult for me but I want to do it.

46:16

And I think and she talks about how amazing it was. She just saw it as holding the space for him to kind of grow and blossom in his own time. And she was seeing him blossom. And I know actually from talking to her, since I know that he's now going to go to college in September, so he's just you know. And she said, you know, this was a kid who was watching, he was playing video games all the time And we just didn't know what was going to be, what was going to happen in his future. And then when it happened for him it was like it was like you know, actually I want to do things And I can. It was amazing.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost46:42

It just gives such, I think, hope to parents And also, you know you can look at another way of if you'd taken that child and forced them where you'd be at when they're in their teenage years And you know.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest46:52

Instead, you know reaching out for mental health and well-being. Do you really trust it? And so much.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost46:57

Yeah, we do that.

Dr Naomi FisherGuest46:57

Yeah, we do that When everybody's telling you, you've got to get them on track, you've got to do this, you've got to do this. And yeah, amazing to see such a big way.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost47:03

Well, i want to thank you so much And I would highly recommend this book to everybody. I will have links to it both on the podcast and on my website, because and when is it coming out?

Dr Naomi FisherGuest47:12

It's not out yet, is it? It's on the 21st And if you they use the code NFisher20, they can get 20, then all the on J K P, that's the publisher, just easy publishers. on their website you can get 20 off with NFisher20. And I don't know if you're. I don't know if this podcast will be still coming out in June, but my first book is also 99p on kindle. Okay, anybody's interested.

Dr. Olivia KesselHost47:31

It's all up to my editing skills and how fast I can get this out there, but I will try and get it out I'll try and link it with the June 20th, kind of around that timeframe, because the 20% is a great gift for everybody And, as I said, it's you know, even if you don't think self-directed learning is for you, and you know there is so much from a parenting perspective as well, that you benefit from reading this book. So I just got to thank you and I've got to encourage everyone to read it And I look forward to your next. Thank you, sen Parenting Tribe. I hope you enjoyed the show today. Please visit our website at S E N D parentingcom to get the 20% off code that Dr Fisher mentioned. If you haven't already started following us on Instagram, please do. It's S E N D parenting podcast, wishing you a week where you can accept and be at peace with your child the way they are right now.