You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
Be good friends, and welcome back. This is the Weekend Collective. If you just joined us, you're a couple of hours late. But if you hit our couple of hours late, you want to catch our earlier hours. The panel with Mark Krassel and Wilhelmine Shrimpton. Great fun, Wilhelm and is just Scott engaged. We had a bit of not fun at her expense. We celebrated that a little bit. And also the Wonderof Radio show with Debbie Roberts from Property of But right now the Parents Squad and my guest is
Catherine Burkett. Good afternoon, Good afternoon. How are you doing all right? Keep me out of my good thank you?
Well sort of, that's good.
That's good, that's good. We want to talk about the whole kids study and homework thing. And I said tomorrow they go back to school, but of course it's Monday. I think I must be mentally on Sunday already. And just the best way to get your kids to study, let's just say successfully, let's not put too much on it. You want them to study what they need to study. You want them to do well, you're not reay to
grind their gears too much. But then again, you want them to spend the time that they're spending effectively, so things like playing music and all that. What did I mean, what was your approach as a as a mum to kids homework and especially exam time, study time.
Yeah, there's some brain science around it. I mean, the brain science says that we can't multitask and when we're doing multi things that our brain is trying to concentrate on, you know, opening up different areas of the brain. But in practical terms, certainly through lockdown when my kids were trying to do work, my daughter wants complete silence and so I couldn't even play any music when she was trying to study. But I remember one day my son
actually wasn't during lockdown. He was a bit behind on work and he was in the lounge. He said he'd get his stuff finished because in the lounge he had the TV on, he had his phone next to him watching the basketball or something. And I went in he was working. I was like, nah, you need to turn all that off. And I said, just a minute, actually, I'll tell you what, show me what you're up to what you've done. I'm going to come back in an hour and I'm going to check in and how much
you've done. And he had done a heap of work and he got it all done by the end of the day. And the teacher even wrote and said she couldn't believe how much work he had got completed. So there's science.
And actually that's counterintuitive to me.
Absolutely to me as well, Yeah, that's.
Interesting because I would think, I think, okay, because I haven't thought about this too much, but I look back to when in terms of just being hassled to do homework. But I think it's probably about the environment. So if he's watching the basketball, I don't think he's working. But if he's got the basketball on because he loves the vibe of it and it's something when he sits back, he goes, oh, what's the score, I'll call on back into it. If the environment is conducive to him to study,
I can see why that would work. But if it's if he's on his phone, well.
We need it. Yeah, that's what we need to just And that's what I'm saying. It's totally opposite to what I would have I couldn't do it. But what we've got to do as parents is stop telling them to put a jersey on because we're cold. Right. So, so that's the way that my brain worked, So I'm assuming that's the way his brain works. And it's not like I like music. I like to go. I'm writing a book at the moment, and I have to go down to a cafe where it's noisy, where it's where it's
really busy so that I can focus. If I sit at home, I can't do it.
Now.
Other people say they could never do that. What we've got to do is say to a young people, is you prove to me that you can get work done in this space. I'll check in on you. And if they are, then how are we to say, would you put a jewzy on?
Actually, I do think that it's easy to confuse it. When you were talking about he had what did he have on? He had music and the basketball or what was it?
Yeah, the basketball when he had his phone next to him, which to me is very distracting. But yeah, you.
See, because I think that if he was actually watching the basketball actively, then he wouldn't have been getting the work done. But do you think it? You think what I said before is more closer to the point that he was. Simply, it's like his version of a busy cafe. Some people like a you know, sit there with a coffee or something. There are people coming in and going, but you focus on things and you like the atmosphere.
You who run. Whereas if he was watching it, it would be okay, buddy, you've been watching that and cheering and what have you got done? Bugger all.
Yeah, And that's exactly it. So I gave him a chance to show and then as a you know, I would keep checking in. If you were thinking, Okay, they've done the first hour and they've got it done. Next minute they think, oh cool, mum, that they're not watching me anymore, I'm off the hook, I would just say, if you want all this distraction around you, then you need to prove that you can still get it done. So I'm just going to check in every hour, every couple of hours, and I want to see that there's
some more work done. And if they are doing it, then were we to judge what they're doing. But if they're not, then you have the right to say, no, that's distracting. You are watching it now, I can see that it's got down to the final whatever, and that's okay. But I think what we're doing is we're assuming that that's how I studied, that's how I learned, therefore that's how they should and that's not the right way of parenting.
How do you, well, just from your own point of view, how do you best get stuff done? Do you need silence or do you need some other sort of vibe?
Yeah, Like I said, I'm trying to write a book, and I don't like writing. I talk much better than I write, So I do go down to a cafe where there's lots of distraction and I have I feel like I have to hone in and concentrate, Whereas at home I'm sort of up and I'll go do the washing or do something else. You'll find something to distract me. So I prefer chaos around me. But I grew up with five siblings and a mad household, so potentially that's or maybe it's just genetics. I don't know what is it.
I mean, your specialty is a neuroscience. What is what do we know about the way the brain works in this respect in terms of learning, focusing, studying.
What we what we shouldn't be doing is multitasking. So when and we can't multitask, but that word is used to think that we do two things at once, but what we're actually doing is shutting down one part of our brain and opening up the other. So we can't do things like right and then check an email and then answer the phone call. That's multitasking. But if you've got something and you were describing the basketball as being a background thing, that's a really lower brain behavior. It's
very procedural. We don't have to concentrate on it. That actually arms the brain. I was doing a presentation yesterday and there was a lady knitting up there and showed me all of the knittings she'd got done. And that's a very low lower brain procedural thing that helps the upper brain engage. But you can't do multiple upper brain things because we have to switch between them. That's not good. So you don't want them going on social media and then going back to their work and doing that. Do
you see? You don't want them. And the reason I could leave my son with his phone is because he's not a social media person. If it was my daughter, I probably would have taken the phone off because she's a social media person and she might have been switching into that, But again that's up to you as a parent. Brain can't switch between cognitive tasks. Sorry, it switches between it and that uses energy. It can't do two cognitive tasks at once.
Okay, this has made me rethink a couple of things with my own kids, because we're on a bit of a warpath about phones. Just you know, my kids are not that old either. They're twelve and thirteen, and we're sort of on the warpath because we want them to not rely on their phones. As every parent, you don't want them to be joined at the hippen. They can
be addictive. But for instance, I think my daughter, one of my daughters, likes to have a bit of music on when she's doing her homework, and I think we might have rained on that, paraded a bit. But now I'm sort of thinking maybe so long as she's not checking her messages all the time, because I suspect that's the music is the pretext for being able to keep
in touch on the messages. But if it was just music and that's what she wants to listen to she's got her headphones on, then I'm thinking I need to chill out on that a bit.
Yeah, And in all honesty, what I'd do is, if it's only music that she wants, then she can put the music on, she can transfer it to her headphones, and the phone can stay next to you and she still gets her music. And you know she's not checking your messages, right, So if it is about the music, then she can agree to that and she can have the music.
What's music? Because you talk about the upper brain up, what's the expression you used upper and lower one of them's in the background and the other ones. You know, that's multitasking level.
Yeah, So I use the words red and green brain when I train, And the red brain is the lower brain. It's the two year old brain. It's what we can do. It's the stuff that we do without thinking, procedural stuff, automatic stuff. And then the green brain is the very cortical, executive functioning, thinking processing part of the brain. Really, so we can have something like music, or we could walk, or we could be sitting on a Swiss ball. You know, those sorts of things are really good for the lower
part of the brain. The lady who was knitting was very clear to me that she didn't have a she didn't have a pattern. She was just doing it all from me. If she'd been looking at a pattern and having to learn a new way of knitting, that would have been upper brain, green brain. But she was very procedural. She knew how to do it without even thinking. So
that's the difference. You can do a lower brain in an upper brain task at the same time, but two upper brain tasks require switching between an energy transfer.
Okay, by the way, you want your calls on this O eight hundred and eighty ten and eight. How do you approach getting your kids? Oh, I want to find a nice way of asking this question. Sorry, I guess opposed to getting your kids to do this? How do you support support that? Thank you, thank you, Catherine. How do you support your kids to get their homework done or their exam study done to a level where they are going to do their best and give themselves a
good chance at success? And I didn't say maximize because I think that just implies all this pressure and everything that you're going to do. You're going to nail everything. But so your kids are establishing themselves with good habits, so when they turn up for the exam, they've done the work they need to do to give them a good shot at really doing well, and do you actually ride them on it? Because I always had to think of my own childhood because my kids aren't at exam
age yet. And I don't know if my mum ever told me to go and study Catherine. I think she might have, but I might have ignored her, and I just I was a last minute sort of guy anyway, And I think I've got the exam tomorrow, I better do some work on it, which was probably not ideal. But then again, I think if Mama just nagged me into doing it when she thought I should do it, I'm not sure that what that would have achieved. Maybe a plus, who knows.
I mean, come on, life is we're successful in life because we make our own track. So if you're going to have to nag and nag and nag, then seriously, what's that meaning for your child's future? And also there's so much genetics. I never really pushed my kids in a big way to study, and my daughter was just a massive studyer, that's just what she did. My son not so much. I actually had to ask my daughter
to stop studying sometimes and chill out. But you know, completely the opposite for my son, so there was the difference. But you're definitely if you're going to nag, that's not going to work. Also, the brain can't continue to concentrate in the green brain for long periods of time, so we do need to let them have brakes, go for a walk, have something to eat, you know, stop and do something that's not cognitive brain. So you know, laugh with you.
Yeah, I'm hilarious. It's easy. He actually just on that. I've got lots of questions. I've got a few texts on this stuff as well. Let's just go as somebody's texting me saying I'm thinking about ADD as I'm listening to you, Attention deficit disorder. And of course there's all the different acronyms or whatever. I can't keep up with them. But are there certain brains that either need not distraction but need other stuff going on, like you like the
noisy cafe and things. But in a way, that's your silence from what you described to me, because otherwise you're thinking, I've got to go do the washing and do this at home, so you remove yourself from distractions. But are there certain brains that need stimulation outside music, noise, chaos, and what makes the difference between those who need Look if I hear a pin drop, I'm distracted.
And again that's genetics, that is neurodiversity. Absolutely, there's some brains, but not every ADHD or add any person works in the same way. So there's more difference within neurodiversity categories than between. And why I'm saying that is because again, just check in with your kid and just say, how do you work best? What can I create for you?
What situation can I create? Again, during lockdown, my daughter had to go away and aid to be really careful about not playing my music when I was working because she found that really difficult and really distracting. So I respected her space. So let's check in and yes, this diagnosis can help, but actually just ask a young person and the diagnoses don't define us. They give us a little bit of guidance.
Yeah, we want to have for you, Oh eight hundred eighty ten and eighty what how do you support your kids when it comes to studying for exams and homework? And is it okay to study with distractions? Because I think the point that Catherine Burkert our guest has made is that just because your cold, don't make your kids stick on a jersey, they might be fine. It's a little bit of an approach probably every parents should take
just about on every issue. I think we'll think of some exceptions to that they won't be Catherine in the break it is twenty one minutes past five News Talks. You'd be helping your kids to study, and also should you just let them? Should you push them? Or do you need Is there a point where you're like, okay, me, Naggin's not going to do it. Maybe you have to learn this lesson the hard way. Eight hundred eighty ten
and eighty twenty one past five. No Crystal Long Sancho that she's bad blood paper, Captain Sancho, and welcome back. This is the weekend Collective untim Beverage, and this is the parents Squad. My guest is she is an educational psychologist with her Actually, how do we you've got it? Do? I say? With a bent on neuroscience? So how do we put it? Catherine Burkeert, you're Acien.
I'm actually not an I'm not an education with a psychologist. I haven't done my registration, but I do have my masters of educational psychology, just to clarify, but that's okay. I call myself a neuroscience trainer.
Okay, so you've done a master's in educational psychology and you're a neuroscientist. Whether okay, there we go, well, we'll we'll, we'll tighten that one.
Up something like that. And I'm applying for my doctorate. So and in six years you'll be able to introduce me as a doctor. Fantastic sex years.
I was actually just chatting with my producer that you look very relaxed and bright eyed and bushy tail today or something. We're thinking, wonderful, wonder if you wonder what you've been what's been keeping you busy or not.
Been knowing the lawns today? So maybe it's beautiful sunny day.
Virtuous glow, that's what it is. There we go. You know, we're talking, let's take some calls. We're talking about how to get your kids to support your kids to study and how much you should push them to actually do some homework because there will be the procrastinators and the prevaricadas and all that. Let's go to a call here, Jan.
Hello, Hikin and Ti Hi, I have a couple of ideas, and I'd like to ask you about Catherine. When I was doing my nursing training, I found reading the notes onto a tape and then playing the tape while it was sleeping at night helped me to retain a lot of them information. Quite surprisingly it worked.
Well, Okay, that's one, we'll love that one away. What was the second question?
And the other one is with communicating with anybody, children especially, You can make a mood barometer. It's a bit like a clock, and you have on one side all the happy adjectives and on the other side all the sad adjectives, and you have the big hand in the little hand,
your little hand. The child can move it to how they're feeling their mood and because often they have trouble expressing how they're feeling or what they want to communicate, and it gives a doorway into the communication between adult and child, and the adult can move the large hand to indicate how to read in the child.
What age is the child at this stage when you're doing.
This, anyone, okay, couple you know, and you can hang it on the wall. So it seems you can buy a little clip thing literally pushed through the whole to join the hands and together.
That's an interesting one. Does sound like something you could also move quite passively aggressively on moving the little hand to angry right now. But actually that first to comment from jan there on the studying. I have heard about people the subliminal stuff when you're sleeping. I must say that sounds like the short path to hell for me. But is there anything in that you know, her having dictated her notes and then playing them back at night as she's falling asleep or asleep.
I can't talk to the sleeping stuff could be. I can't say yes or no. But what I definitely know is that the more the more ways we put it into our brain, if we have to use different parts of our cortex to process that information, it actually the process of learning is myelination. We connect the cells through myelination. That is increased if we're listening and talking, and you
know that sort of thing. So I always if I found something quite difficult, I'd read it out loud to myself when I did, because I knew that now I'm speaking it and hearing it and reading it all those parts of my brain at the same time, increased the myelination and increase the likelihood that the brain will remember that. So absolutely, the using different modes of sensory does definitely help. It's excellent information.
Yeah. Actually, what's the thing with concentration as well, my memory is that when it comes to really learning and absorbing information effectively, twenty twenty five minutes at a time is pretty much the max you can do when you're in that green zone, I guess, Or is it longer than that? What do we know?
Gain genetics, Some people can do it for amazing amounts of time, and we've got to be careful about things like that. Theoretically, you can't train for more than a certain amount of time, but I have for twenty years and it's still been you know, people taken info. So it also depends on how you do it. To really focus is hard. But I can focus. If I get into focus, I can do it for an hour and I haven't faulted in my focus. If I'm writing, if I can get really into that zone, but then other
days I can't. So I think we need to be really careful with words and numbers like that. But you can't do it for a long, long period of time because it takes a massive amount of energy. So it's actually the energy that's being used to activate those parts of the brain. You need to go and move and walk around and you know, have a dance or something.
Texas says. My seventeen year old son gets great results at school. He has the Big Bang theory on continuously while doing his study at home. It drives me nuts until I realized he was actually learning and doing great. He did find exams difficult because of the distractions of one hundred other students being around him. In preparation this year for exams, he stops the Big Band theory a couple of weeks before the exams. Very common within his cohort.
Love your shows, Tim, Well, that's very nice. Thank you for you. That's a comedy. I would find it that quite a distraction unless he's listened to it so many times. It's just a familiar sound.
Yeah, my son. Again, he has the office and stuff on in the background all the time and he just doesn't seem to notice it. So again, that's beautiful to hear that the parent is listening to the young man's way of learning. What she has noticed and what is something that we do need to put into context is that the way that the brain puts information in is
the way it's more likely to take her out. So it is right than in exams it's often very quiet, you can't move, and so that is sometimes the way we need to practice being able to regurgitate this information. We might take it in a certain way. But then, like she said, she's that weeks four and some of the friends have done that is because they need to learn while they're regurgitating that information to do it with silence, you know, quiet, because that's what the situation of the
exam is. So there is the research that suggests that as well.
That intuitively makes sense because you get people who study and do well in their and they do terribly in exams. And I would have a suspicion that from some of those, if not many of them, it's simply because the environment of an exam is so foreign that their brain is massively distracted just by the fact they're not comfortable.
And stress response is huge in exams, I mean, in my opinion, exams are first to assessing whether that human can get themselves into a calm enough state and feel confident enough and safe enough in that space to access their green brain. After that, if the informations there can you know, they can get it out. But actually most exams are actually testing whether we can get into the
cortical areas of our brain. And that's why I disagree with them in some ways, because some of our young people do activate a bit of stress in there and they're not able to process the stuff that they do know and get it down. But we have exams, so we've got to learn how to do them the best way.
It's interesting that I do. I've been banging on to my audience. Will know, I've been teaching myself French through an app. But they have time trial sort of vocabulary matchups, and when you get into it, I know if I get tense about trying to finish within time, otherwise I have to start again, and so this anxiety builds up
and I become less and less good at it. And I've actually found that if I tell myself that almost not to engage with it at all, just it's there, the vocabulary, and if I basically just look at it and go, well, my brain knows the answer. I just see what my brain can do without caring. I can almost go twice as fast because my brain is making the connections that it knows without that the nervous pulse, and how much it can cock up your progress. It's quite amazing how much quicker you can be if you
simply don't care. And when I say don't care, you know what I mean. When I reduce the anxiety of the competitive nature, it's just like, well, what sounds to that? And what's that? Whereas if somebody said this hundred bucks on this, I might stumble.
Yep. My daughter's doing law exams this year and one of her exams is fifty percent of the year's mark, and if she fails, then she has to sit the whole year again. That's a lot of pressure on one exam. Now, luckily she does quite well because she's learned lots of ways and she's done you know that sort of stuff, and so hopefully she'll be right. But there's a lot of young people that for that, just walking in there, just knowing the pressure. You can't say it doesn't matter
like your friends, you know. And that's why we do need to let our kids have as many exams because you've learnt through doing it. We do need to advocate for our kids being in exams in undergrads and you know, in their early years at college. Let them be in exams. People say they're anxious, so they shouldn't have exams in
year nine and ten. Actually give them as many exams as possible, give them as many things in sports spaces or whatever that's going to make them tense and anxious, and talk to them about that so that they can realize that actually, what you've realized is what they need to realize, because otherwise that's going to be the hindrance to the exam success rather than the knowledge.
That's interesting that my daughter's schools they are having tests and exams. I think that's you know, they have from third form which is year year nine nine, and I thought that was a bit earlier. But they're probably onto it because they're introducing them to that when it really doesn't matter, even though exactly and.
It does matter, but also it doesn't matter because they're not going to fail and they have to sit the year again, which could happen if by the time we get to year twelve. So that's why weis a lot of parents go, no, we shouldn't be having them, because they're making our kids anxious and year nine. Well, actually i'd rather than make get anxious and year nine talk to them about it, get them to understand that exactly what you have said, chill out, How can we do this?
What would work next time? Hey, you got better next time and the exam you did way better than you did last time, which means next time you'll be even better. So that's the sort of reason we should be having practice so we can learn not to hopefully learn to get less anxious. And by the way, that's a really really easy thing to say, a difficult thing to do.
Oh, it's well, even from my own experience, it's actually quite highly meditative to tell yourself you don't care you know that, to reduce that anxiety, because I know it's a funny one, isn't it. It's a complete letting go of all the things that would other world that you care about. In a way. But back in my day in law school, I don't know what it was like when you were doing exams in your first undergraduate days, but it was just about all on the exam law school.
In fact, I think probably eighty percent sometimes maybe the whole year all on an exam. Great fun anyway, Hey, what about with kids who just start doing the work. They've got exams coming up, and they're just finding excuses, they're procrastinating, they're avoiding. There's got to be a role parents can play in that process. But how do you play it?
Yeah, and I'm going to give you some advice, but obviously every kid's different. But really I've talked to a lot of parents in this space. The biggest thing for a young people, and statistically especially a young boys, but it's not only a young boys, is this sense that they're not good enough, the sense that they they if they're not academic, if they're not successful there, then they're
not worthy. And our levels of depression and other behaviors are increasing because they feel like they're not worth it, not useful that then they don't have money in this space, and for me, if you're doing this and your young person really doesn't want to study and really isn't doing well, if you continuously focus on the fact that they have to be academically successful in order for you to feel that they're worthy, you are doing a huge, huge disservice
to your young person, And personally, I would run. I know that academics are important and I know it's great for young people who are academic, but if my young person isn't doing and my son left with no credits for school, none whatsoever. I think he's got three or six or something like that, I don't know. And then he went on to another course that he enjoyed and excelled and now he's working Scott work, heaps of work,
doing amazing stuff. Why I'm saying that is because what we need to focus on is making sure our young people feel wanted, needed, accepted, connected, And if you are harping on about them studying, then that's not going to happen. So I do ask you to, ah, think what is most for my young person?
Is there a way of harping on such a such an old school expression, but is there a way of doing it where you can say, look, you know, I know you're not confident with this stuff, but just give it your best go and whatever your best is, that's great. But wouldn't it be shame not to give it a crack? Is there a way? I mean, I guess what I'm as I'm saying that, I'm thinking that those conversations need to happen six months earlier anyway, don't they.
And that's the feeling they need to have early. But also it's about saying, actually, if you do want to study with your music on, or if you do want to study in front of big Bang, then if that's going to get you studying, then do it. But a lot of parents are saying you need to study my way when I ask you to, and so they're not getting the engagement. So let's think how could I change my space to make it so that young person might engage. But if you can say that and you can engage them,
then that's fine. I'm thinking that the question there is about young people who literally are not going to engage. And I would ask you to think, what's the most important thing for our young people? And it's to connected and valued.
Somebod who's actually texted saying the AI is just around the corner for everything we're talking about, but it says I'm currently studying nursing. The best thing I've found for exams is a whig website called jungle Wizdolia whatever it is. Import websites. You can import powerpoints, et cetera. It makes
quiz questions with AI and actually I've got another. My producers just told me that there are websites where you upload key documents for the course you're studying, and it uses AI to turn it into a podcast where two people chat to each other and ask questions about the topic. Part of me wants to go that sounds like the devil. Don't fall for it, But it might actually be something
in there. It's just I would imagine that half compiling all the information to give to AI itself would possibly be good study in its own right, you know what I mean. Going through the process of engaging with whatever works.
You have to try and elate data, make sure it's right anyway. And how cool is that? I mean, what if people said radio, Oh my goodness, radio is going to ruin our world. If we had sat back and not let radio progress, we wouldn't be here. So we do have to go with the times. You do have to know that AI is here. I'm actually personally just writing a paper and I have found an AI site that can help me write my paper and it's absolutely fascinating and it'll give me the core I I still
need to check it. No, it's not an exam, but it's it's for something in do buy, so I'm hoping it won't matter. But why I'm saying it is because our kids have got AI if they can learn to use it. But if it can make a quiz for you, or if it can make a podcast that can listen to and take that information and they still have to regurgitate it in the exam we're going to learn it, then yeah, why not.
Do as well? And that if you compile that information and in the process of doing it and I've got to put all this into AI, you've probably done a fair bit of swat already. And in fact, let's teake some calls on this.
And I'm just calling regarding the talk. You guys been heavy.
It's just.
Like, you know, I grew out of it and I've had uh, I've had a rich family in bull but then I was the youngest of my family and so the expectations they had on me when I came to New Zealand about studying and how because my parents were quite old, the like we were like we're aging family, so we came here likes for like maybe in their forties. I was the younger in the family. We were working and all that. But then when we came to New Zealand.
Everything just seemed a bit different and how the influence got to me and all that, Like, they just had a different expectation of me of doing how my father and everyone was making making money and making the wealth.
So how did you How did it work for you with your study?
Show hasn't worked out for me. I'm eight years old and I'm still I'm uh, they're finally understood about how things work out, you know, they've always expected.
Me to do.
It didn't help you? Yeah, hey, Raj. Unfortunately your phone line's a bit sketchy, so I couldn't quite catch what you were saying. But I think Raj was saying how it didn't work out from because his parents implosed their own expectations and what it should be doing. Is that what you caught from that, Catherine?
Yeah, sounds sounds quite typical, isn't it that I'm saying about the Jersey on when you're cold? And I think that's what we do. I mean tell you, we as parents, all we want is the best for our kids. And we thought if only I had studied harder, if I had studied harder, I could have done that. And so I'm going to make my kids study harder. Well, actually, the world's not just about education. The world is about having a life and experiencing things and finding your own
way through these things. And if we continuously push our kids through, you know, force to do these things, and as soon as they're away from ups, they're going to make their own decisions and find their own way anyway. So why don't we while we're with them and we can support that scaffold it, not push it directly, then why don't we let them find a good way and negotiate with them and work it out with them and support them.
Yeah, I must. I think I've learned something from that, because I've always just assumed, and especially when you're a parent, you just have this what are you doing over there? Why have you get your phone with you? Are you listening to music? And well, what are you doing? You're doing homework? Well, how can you focus when you're doing that?
And actually, just for me, just pointing out the fact that the bleeding obvious now you say it, Catherine, that everyone's got a different way of working and just got to find out what's working for them. So long as they are trying to do what that's what they're trying to do.
And I will, but I will say and all honesty, and I've done my device zombies TEDx Talk, and I'll talk about devices all the time. They are addictive. It's like saying to an alcoholic, go and study, and I'll put a bottle of gin next to you. It Actually, we do need to be a bit careful with devices. And that's why I say. If she's said she wants music on, then I would say, absolutely, you can have your music and your earphones, but the phone staying out here in the lounge, well where I am. Do you
know I would? I would support my child by reducing their ability to access their device if they are a device addictive kid.
Great advice. Hey Catherine, time flies when you're having fun. Thanks so much for your time. People want to check out your work. Where do they go?
Engage training dot co, do in Z. I'm about to upload some brand new videos in a week or two once it's relaunched, so check out on the TEDx Talk and podcasts with Peel Today are on there as well, so lots of things to look up.
Fantastic. Thanks for your time, Catherine, Thank you. We'll catch again soon. We'll be back in just a moment. We're wrapping sport with Andy McDonald is with us at quarter two six.
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