Kathryn Berkett: Students need schools - podcast episode cover

Kathryn Berkett: Students need schools

Sep 07, 202434 min
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Episode description

Several schools nationwide are considering online learning as a solution to manage poor attendance, teacher shortages, and student mental health. 

Kathryn Berkett joins Tyler Adams on The Weekend Collective to explain why this is a bad idea. 

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.

Speaker 2

I'd be good afternoon. Welcome back into the week in Collective. Tyler Adams fillnon for Tim Beverage. He is banked tomorrow and it is time for the parents Squad. Catherine Burkett is a neuroscience trainer at Engaged Training and she joins us. Now. Hi are you Katherine? Hi? Really good to chat and nice to meet you.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 2

How's your weekend gone so far?

Speaker 1

Ah?

Speaker 3

Well, today was a good one.

Speaker 4

I flew to Blenheim and back from Wellington, so if anybody's seen the wind out there.

Speaker 5

Was a good good day for flying.

Speaker 2

Oh, bed, I bet so what was happening in Blenham?

Speaker 3

I had a conference down there, so went down.

Speaker 2

Yeah, very good. Lovely part of the country there isn't it isn't it? Did you bring home some wine?

Speaker 4

I actually was gifted some fine so yes I did, and which.

Speaker 2

Is pretty lucky, fantastic. If you've got a question for Catherine, or indeed a bit of advice for our audience, I'd love to hear from you. We'd love to hear from you. Oh, eight one hundred and eighty teen eighty is the number to call. You can also tech through to nine two ninety two and if you want to email, you're more than welcome Tyler at news talk zeb dot co dot Nz. Catherine, let's start a big story this week about Hagley College is offering twenty NCEEA Level two students two days of

online learning a week. And I do know that there are several high schools colleges around New Zealand that are starting to look at that model as well, to allow some of the senior students a couple of days a week to have what they call learning from home, which was effectively work from home for adults. Ryan, do you see any risks with that approach from some of these institutions and colleges or can that be an effective way to teach these older children about self management?

Speaker 3

Yeah, And it's like.

Speaker 4

With all things when we're talking about human beings, we cannot put us all into one box, even if we're the same.

Speaker 5

Age or so.

Speaker 4

And in the article that was quite interesting because they said they were trying to cater towards neurodiverse students, but actually one of the students was saying that she wants to get a part time job so it was going to work for her. So she's obviously a very motivated young lady and I would guess something like that's going to.

Speaker 5

Work for her.

Speaker 4

But if you have got someone who is finding work difficult and that's why they're not doing it, then allowing them to work from home is probably not the best option. But again, Hagley College themselves have said they're putting in lots and lots of thought processes around that and stop gaps.

Speaker 5

But you do need to be careful.

Speaker 4

We're very relational creatures and our brain responds much better to humans rather than computers, so it is hard to get motivated to do work without humans around to an extent. So I would see some risks absolutely, but again it would depend on the individual.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean on the attendance side of things. And just from a neuroscience point of view, you a child's brain, is it somewhat more problematic for children while their brain is still developing to be able to manage that workload themselves, as you say, to distance themselves from distractions. And we all get distracted. It's a distracting world at the moment, no doubt about it. But at that stage of brain development, is there more risk in them.

Speaker 4

Yeah, unless you've got someone like someone an adult who's able to sort of keep that motivation going. And you know, and again some kids are just incredibly able to do that for themselves. But and in generalized sense, our brain can't really think forward properly until about fifteen sixteen years old, So it's very hard for us to go, you know what, if I get this assignment finished, then three weeks time, I won't have to do so much work, or in

ten years I'll have a good job. So that's not really the capacity of the brain until we're sort of fifteen sixteen. So, like I said, some kids will just do it naturally, but for us, we go, Okay, I've got to get this stuff done because my pay's got to come in. It is hard for a child's brain to do that. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2

And what about for the parents if your child is at home for another couple of days a week and they are meant to be you know, doing school work and learning, I mean, that's got to be hard for parents to manage, right. Are there any tricks to you know, not bombard them or micro manage them and say, hey, make sure you're doing your book work here. You meant to be working, not, you know, lounging around at home. Is there any tips and tricks for parents if they're in that situation?

Speaker 5

Yeah?

Speaker 4

And I guess, you know, we all sort of experienced a bit of that of working from home during COVID, And I know I learned a really big lesson with my son. He was sixteen at the time, and he had to get some work done and I looked in and he had his phone next to him, he had the TV going, and he had the radiot or something, and I was like, oh, And I instantly wanted to say, turn all that off and get your work done. But what I said to him is, can I have a look at what you've done so far? And what is

your goal for today? And he had a quite clear goal, and I said, if you can get that done, then you can study like this. If you can't get it done, then this is not okay. And he got it done beautifully. And I think we have to be really careful of assuming our kids learn like we do. So I urge parents to give them a chance to prove it. If they can't, then you sort of take some control.

Speaker 5

But some of our.

Speaker 4

Kids do really well with lots of distractions going on.

Speaker 2

Now, yeah, absolutely, Now, if you've got a question for Catherine, Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. All you can teach through on nine two nine two. A doozy of a question has come through Catherine, and they haven't they haven't put their name, but this is a great question. Since Hi, guys, I was hanging out

with my group of friends today with my son. I'm late twenties and first one in the group with a baby, and on multiple occasions people turned and shushed my baby with their finger on their mouth because he was babbling or growling like a baby normally. Does it bothered me? Is that weird? Because well, he's a baby and he doesn't know any better, even at an age whereas noise

level is correctable. Advice please, but that felt rude? Or should I be doing something to make my baby a little bit quieter in public settings?

Speaker 5

Correcky?

Speaker 2

I don't even get any and.

Speaker 3

I'm an adult and I don't have an off switch.

Speaker 4

Our babies are responding absolutely to the feelings inside themselves and wanting to get a response from the environment, and the biggest thing at this baby's age is working out whether the world is safe. We know, trust versus mistrust, safety attachment theories. It's the most important thing at the moment. And what that little baby is doing is sending a message to the environment and seeing if they're going to get a positive response to show them that they're safe

and that they're accepted. So what I'm getting from the responses of the other people is not what baby needs. Baby is babbling, is checking out their voice, wanting hear things and wanting to get a similar response, which would be a similar babbel. You know, we go and then baby gets it.

Speaker 2

We get it.

Speaker 4

That's what we want to do, and teach them how to have a conversation going back and forth, even if with sounds. So the parent is one hundred percent right, we need to allow baby to do that.

Speaker 3

And they have no.

Speaker 4

Cortex to be able to control behavior. So what we would be doing is scaring them almost into not responding, not teaching them to be quiet, if that makes sense. So no, it's not a good response to a little baby to shush them.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and that would be a you know, a diplomatic conversation with their friends to say, hey, you know, I know what you're trying to do, but that is not how you do it. Just to have that conversation to say, you know, I'm the parent here and you know if you're having a problem with that, then you can have a check to me about it rather than shush my baby.

Speaker 4

Absolutely, And the issue is that if we've all got kids, we sort of understand it, but what they're saying is the only one with a kid, so that other people aren't used to it. Whereas if you sit around with a bunch of babies and with your friends, we just have to raise our voice a little bit louder to hear each other, right, and we just know that that's what's bub's going to carry on bubbling and bubbling, and we'll acknowledge them every now and then.

Speaker 2

So lovely though, it is really nice, particularly when it's a happy babbling. I mean, it's a beautiful zeud and they're trying.

Speaker 4

To engage themselves in the conversation. So think about having a conversation just like everyone else.

Speaker 2

Yeah, another good question here. It says Hi Catherine, my ten year old daughter has expressed loneliness at school. My daughter has just started a new school. When she got home last week, I asked her how her day went. She told me she really likes the teacher, but there are a lot of popular kids in her class that seem to ignore her. She has gone to the school for the last week. She expressed to me that she is feeling a bit lonely and doesn't know how to

interact with the other children. The teacher has been really good, but I'm really fearful of this should I be?

Speaker 4

I mean loneliness. We feel loneliness, and it is one of the emotions that we have to learn to deal with. But and it's only been a week, and sometimes we take a while to get, you know, sort of into the groove of things. What I would be looking at is how is she acting? We've sort of got it almost model. Just check in to see whether she's got ways of introducing yourself to other people. You know, girls, let's get real, especially girls, can be pretty cruel when

a new one comes in. So I mean a week's not long, but staying confident in herself, staying and you know, not sort of butting in and trying too hard. It's highly likely she'll find someone her tribe. But it is especially if it's a smaller school, which it could potentially be when they're talking about it, and the girls have got their cliques already, especially around that age, they can really have a clique.

Speaker 5

So it's really hard.

Speaker 4

We want to have a talk with the young girl and we want to, you know, give us some advice. This happened to me, Being lonely, being on your own as a little bit normal, and then try and give her a couple of chips of how to engage in a conversation. What happened at school today, what were the other girls doing. Okay, we might be able to try this. So that's some of the things we might be able

to help with. But this world is a cruel place sometimes, and I can give some advice, but I think she has to just hope that the girls will warm up.

Speaker 2

Our school can be an incredibly tough place for kids, no doubt about that.

Speaker 5

I mean, it.

Speaker 2

Appears to be a good sign that the fact that she's talked to her mum and she said, look I am feeling a bit lonely. That must be a good sign, right that communication is already there.

Speaker 5

She's got someone to talk to and stuff like that.

Speaker 4

So and being lonely for a while is not the end of the world, did you know, But if it went on for too long, yes, that could start getting to be a problem.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hi, Catherine, My sixteen year old daughter text me earlier asking if she could go to a party tonight. She said, the party starts at ten and if I could drop her and her friend off. I know we all snuck out and went to parties when we were younger. I'm glad that she asked me first instead of lying, But I'm just horn on whether I should let her go or not. All these thoughts keep popping up on my head about what could happen. Advice please, sixteen year old just feels a bit young.

Speaker 4

Yes, he's sixteen. You think back to sixteen. I mean, sixteen's actually an age that we sort of often were already leaving home. You know, in my sort of generation a bit older, and our kids in that age, they really are trying to separate from the parent. They really do need to call it in the adolescent age. Learning

to apply the brakes. Now, they don't have the best brake system, so it is good for a parent to put some boundaries around them, but they have to test the brakes under good conditions, So if that parent lets them go to this party, they know where they are, they can set up some things. There's always that phone call that they ring up and go, oh have you put my purple jumper in the wash? I e come and pick me up please?

Speaker 5

Do you know?

Speaker 4

So we've got some really safe boundaries. You know where they are, what time they go in that sort of thing. It would be better than saying no. Then that young person next week decides they want to go to a party, so they don't tell their parents. You don't know where they are, do you know? If they're going to they're going to be wanting to do these things. I want to do them when I've got as much protection around that child. So that would be my advice than not

my child. You've got you know, this parent knows their child the best. It does feel young. But if they're asking to go, they're going to find a way to go at some stage. I'd rather be on their side.

Speaker 2

Great advice. And certainly you know I was out at parties at sixteen and did some silly things and mum, you know, quite rightly said well now you know, but you're right. The fact that she's talking to her mum and asking and saying, here's where I'm going to be, And as you say, the mom said, yep, but here's how you can keep yourself safe in that part of the conditions. Seems like a great place to be when

they're sixteen. Hi, Catherine, my fifteen month old throws tantrums when he's grabbed something he shouldn't have and I take it away, he flips out. I pull him away from tearing apart a plant, he flips out. What do I do in these situations?

Speaker 4

Know that a kids are learning to activate their calming response, and we can't do it until we learn, so it's completely well, not completely normal, it's you know, it's quite a normal behavior that we would see. And as long as they don't last for ages, as long as they don't absolutely you know they're doing it consistently, what I would potentially say, now you've only given me a tiny

bit of information. But some of us are born with higher personality types in certain areas, and it could be that this young person, even at that age, has got a higher desire to have control over their own environment, which means when you control them, it's even harder for them to deal with that. I'm not saying give them

control in that space. But I would be saying, actually, I'm going to take this off you now it's not okay to ever and then take it rather than so you sort of joining in with them rather than overbearing them. So it would be interesting to watch This young person might have a you know, a real inclination towards controlling their own environment, and when you control them, they find it much harder to handle.

Speaker 5

So, but there are little ones.

Speaker 4

We can't have babies that don't have tear potentiums and lose the plots. Yeah, talk to your friends and ask your friends if you have friends with kids the same age, and ask them. It's highly likely they'll say, oh, yeah, my kid does the same thing. See if you're within the bounds of normal with your other friends. Is always

a helpful thing for anyone listening to this. Even with whatever age your kids are, try and find someone with similar age and say, honestly, tell me how your kids are behaving.

Speaker 2

Fantastic. Yeah, great question and great advice. Hi Catherine, my daughter is six and we are deciding whether or not to continue home school. She hasn't show an interest in going to school, but my husband is scared that can coninuing to homeschool will stunt her developments? Is there any evidence for this? Should we be worried.

Speaker 4

Six six and almost sort of at the end close that seven eight year old. Our kids rarely need to start to develop another group of people outside of the family unit and stuff, so because then when we hear adolescents, it becomes even more important for them to have friendship groups. And they have to have learned how to do all that arguing, fighting, disagreeing when they're before puberty, because once

they hit that it gets really, really difficult. So allowing her to have social situations where she literally has to take turns, has to lose, has to do that that's really important. Now, if you're homeschooling and ensuring that, I don't know, you've got big sports events, you take them to church, you're doing lots of things, and that's fine.

But if she's not getting that, then I would be inclined to say she needs to get into a social space where she has to negotiate a number of difficult friendships because that is a really important thing to learn, and you don't want to wait until she hits that really difficult puberty time. For her brain to learn those negotiations and learnings.

Speaker 2

Yep, really good, really good. Now this is a bit of a long text, but again it's another doozy of a question. Hi, I'm thirty one years old and I have a two year old. I feel I have normal expectations on how he behaves. Basically, I understand that there is pretty much no impulse control and he has trouble regulating emotions. At this age. I really get mad, and my approach is usually to explain things to him calmly and accept that he will act like a two year old.

My parents say he needs to learn to sit down when they think he should sit at a meal for forty five minutes, no screen time, and act like an adult. They also say your no should mean no. He still sometimes will grab their dog, and of course my parents freak out. These are just a few examples, and it's NonStop. They make me feel so on edge, and they always put the comments about spanking, to which meme doesn't make any logical sense for my style of parenting. I'm venting.

But also am I being strange here?

Speaker 5

Don't we love our parents' desire to help us?

Speaker 4

Now they are just trying to help and I can hear that, and I got similar advice from my parents. Of course what I want you to do. And absolutely our young people have not got a cortex yet at two years old. So the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that makes a conscious decision to do something or not. But at two years old, we can learn conditioned responses, so we can go, oh, I better not do that. Someone's gonna hurt me. You know, it's

not a conscious thought, it's just a conditioned response. Now we do need to have our kids learning some conditioned responses. I don't put your hand in the dog's mouth, you know, and don't touch the hot things.

Speaker 5

But when we talk about behavior, what.

Speaker 4

I want this person and to consider is do I believe my child is reducing that negative behavior so they're able to sit for longer at the dinner table. Now they are able to control their behavior a little bit more than they could till three weeks ago. As long as that's happening, they are actually increasing this young two year old's ability to physically regulate their stress response system.

And that can be done without a cortex. It's literally learning to breathe, calm down, feel safe, and that's through modeling and being with them. So it sounds like the parent's way of doing it is absolutely fantastic. That's what we want to do. We don't need to hit, we don't need to spank, we don't need to yell. Obviously sometimes will by the way, I did all of that

when a parent lost my and yelled. But yes, watch the behavior and as long as the behavior is generalizingly getting better and they're being able to control themselves more, you're doing the right thing.

Speaker 2

So what is actually going on from a neuroscience point of view, because we all know there's a phrase there, the terrible twos, is that just the period of development where emotions are at all time highs. That's kind of a critical part of development and there are a lot of things happening in the brain at that point.

Speaker 4

Yeah, so the terrific twos, and by the way, terrific twos usually start about two and a half three years old, so it's more likely and that's when the area of the brain that we call the limbic area that holds all that emotionality, and the way I explain it is when our kids learn to walk, is all they wanted to do is walk because they were in a sensitive period to learn to walk, so you couldn't carry them. Then as soon as they learn to walk, they said,

pick me up. Now they get to the emotional development, and the brain says, we need to learn to feel angry, annoyed, stressed, anxious, you know, frustrated. But then my body needs to learn to calm down, and they're in a sensitive period for that. So the brain says, why don't I turn up emotionality? So I get frustrated at everything now, I get sad

at everything. Now, I giggle at everything now. So the terrific two's are the brain sort of sand papered emotionally so that you can feel more emotions, so that you can learn to calm down from these emotions. So, yes, it's a sort of a period of time where you'll get significantly higher emotions. Possibly night terrors because they're dreams before were dreams. Now they're scary because their emotionality is up.

So it is absolutely a higher level. But it's a really positive time, and it's a time we have to model calming down, breathing, going for walks, you know, bringing that body back down to calm.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Great, Hi, Catherine, my sixteen year old son wants to leave school, but he can't give me a plan for what he wants to do next. Do I let him drop out or encourage him to stay until he has a plan.

Speaker 4

Advice please, would definitely depend on how he's doing at school, and I can as you say, my sixteen year old son was at school was not doing well at all. His whole belief in himself, his manner, his behavior was right down low because of the way that he was being seen at school, so he didn't feel very good. Luckily, in Wellington we had this place called the Institute of Sport. He could go there and do that and be doing something.

My advice is if they can do something, it doesn't matter what work in a shop, that they're doing something each day, they're getting up involving themselves, even if it's voluntary, you're better if they're feeling really bad about themselves and their whole personality is dropping, my advice is, and remember I don't know much about your son, so please just this is just advice from a person who doesn't know him. If you think it's a good idea out, but yeah,

they do need to be doing something. He doesn't need a plan. We don't have plans at that age, especially if you're talking about boys. It's less likely they know. But let's get him out doing something feeling good. Even if it's only two days a week and three days at school or something like that. It's not The school's not the be all.

Speaker 5

And end all.

Speaker 4

My son's just actually just got a job as a personal trainer after doing a year and a half at the institute's sport doing really well. He wou He wouldn't have done that if I'd stayed at school. He would have been a wreck if I'd stayed.

Speaker 2

So, yeah, that's something family, you know. I mean, if the sixteen year old never thought of polytech or going into some of those institutions, and perhaps once they start going through what's on off and might start to get a bit excited about something that pops up.

Speaker 4

Yeah, let's take them out and see that there's gateway things at school if they can help them with that, give them some opportunities, maybe talk to the careers people if that's possible. I'm guessing that might have been done. But leaving school's okay unless you think staying you know, possible, But leaving school's okay as long as we're doing something. But we don't need a plan because that's really hard for them to have a futuristic plan sometimes.

Speaker 2

Yeah, brilliant. If you've got a question for Catherine, keep them coming in on nine two ninety two. That's the text number you can email as well. Tyler at Newstalk zb dot Co to nz and the phone number is O eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Got to take a break back very shortly here on the Parent Squad. It is half past five. Welcome back into the Weekend Collective and the Parents Squad, and we're joined by our expert

Katherine Burke at Neuroscience trainer at Engage Training. Thank you again for your time, Catherine.

Speaker 5

I'm more than welcome now.

Speaker 2

If you've got a question for Catherine, get in quick because she's not with us for much longer. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call it. You can take through on nine to ninety two. Plenty of great text questions coming through. And again this one, this is clearly a worried parents Catherine. It says, hi, I now have a seven seven month old boy. He's a really good eater and I started introducing pures at five months. I always fed him with a little spoon.

It just seemed easiest to me. While he gets used to tastes, but now he absolutely refuses to eat with his hands. He eats from the spoon, but I can't put a bowl in front of him and just let him messy eat. I thought all babies would just dip their hand in and suck on the food. He will hold the spoon after I scoop up a bite onto it, and he will eventually put it into his mouth, but without that help, he absolutely won't eat independently. I'm worried. Is there anything I should be doing here?

Speaker 5

Yeah?

Speaker 4

And I mean I can give my advice, but babies, babies another complicated we thing. So if you do keep being worried, obviously get some pediatric advice. But you know, it's seven months. There's all these beautiful things happening in the brain. What they work out that they can control you to a certain extent, which is, you know, I'm not going to do anything unless you help me. So it could be a just a It's like when they

drop the spoon and you pick it up. Drop the spoon, pick it up they've worked out that they can control you, and that's a really powerful thing. They learning cause and effect, which is important with the messy stuff. And again it's just a little thought in my head. We do have some kids who don't like MESSI. They just literally don't like MESSI and they won't ever do messy play. And

that's fine if they don't want to. The example being if we don't let a kid crawl, they can have quite bad outcomes they don't do crossing midlines and balancing. But if we see a baby who naturally goes from bum shuffling to walking and they don't crawl, they don't have any negative effects because they didn't need to. Their brain didn't need to. So if you allow messy play and they don't want to do it, it's likely that their brain doesn't need that or doesn't want that to

choose you what I mean. I don't like people stopping kids MESSI playing, But if he really doesn't like it, it's possible that he just is going to be one of we know those people that just won't allow that to happen, But just keep giving them the option. You know exactly that it sounds like you're doing, but I wouldn't panic too much at this age.

Speaker 2

Yeah, great, another good question here. Hi guys, I'm a thirty three year old mum to a six year old boy. I always thought i'd have two kids, but it never planned it never planned it out. When my son was too we struggled to hold on to our jobs due to the pandemic. Later we figured he had a severe speech delay, which is getting better now after years of therapy. We feel it's time to try for another baby, but we are worried about and the age gap between the

children is a seven or eight year age gap. That bad.

Speaker 4

Oh I would I'd say, if you want to have another baby, you go for it.

Speaker 5

That's your desire.

Speaker 4

I mean, there's nothing better is there than becoming a parent, And if that's what you are going to try, No, But what I'd be making sure is that you have kids his age around him for him to be with, because what happens when baby comes. His baby gets praised for pulling and farting and crying, and he's not going to get the attention for that. So making sure we've got his tension there. But no, absolutely, we know people with lots of age gaps like that, it's it's definitely not a negative.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I would, I would absolutely go for it.

Speaker 2

Fantastic help please. My ten year old refuses to tidy her room and her pets items. It's an absolute mess, many small things on the floor in the bed. She said, it's her room and she likes it the way that it is. She had just closed the door. If we do not like seeing the mess, I told her she's still living with us, so she has to go by the rules. What is the correct thing to say in these circumstances. It's a great teach.

Speaker 4

Now, this is this is not a neuroscientist's advice. This is Catherine the Mother advice. And don't waste your energy. Honestly, don't waste your energy. I have exactly the same.

Speaker 3

Thing in my house. My child is not tidy.

Speaker 4

And I close the door and they will eventually get sick of it. The ruler is there's no food in the room if the room is dirty, you know, like there's no food in the room because we don't want rats and all that sort of stuff. And if the go oh, I haven't got my clothes for whatever, it's not my concerns. So there's natural consequences that will come out of it. But you know what, if she wants to have a messy room, she's exactly right if she

shut the door. That's my care for and advice because you're wasting so much energy you're spending time that you can just hang out with them and actually be positive, and then eventually she might go, you know what, I do want to have a tidy room. I'm sick of it being messy. But if she doesn't, cause it's her room, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

Ten year olds will be ten year olds, is what you're saying, Catherine.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and she'll change.

Speaker 4

I would say she's more likely to change if you just back off and ignore it. But I would have some consequences. No, I'm not doing your washing or if you need that, I haven't got my sports gear. Well that's because your room's are messed, So it's not my biggie.

Speaker 5

Do you see what I mean?

Speaker 4

So there would have some consequences, and so she does learn that there's consequence for that, but they would be natural consequences and just save your energy.

Speaker 5

That's your energy.

Speaker 2

Be a win win situation, right that. Hey, look, you know, if you help pass out, will help you out. And that's the strategy you're talking about there.

Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, give us some choice over the matter. But yeah, some kids are just missing and that's just the way they are.

Speaker 2

Yes, Hi, Catherine. Essentially, we have a beautiful, easy, happy baby boy. He is super easy most of the time, in just an absolute joy. But man, he hates to sleep. I'm not sure exactly when it started, but he's seven months old now, and he scream screams and cries, red in the face, losing his voice, coughing and gagging type screaming every time we try to put him to sleep.

The only way we've found to do it is by doing an activity that makes him sleepy and letting them fall to sleep by accident like car rides or watching TV. Basically not letting him think or realize he's being put to sleep. So my question is, is this Okay? Should I not be doing this? I feel like we're tricking him into going to sleep? Could this create bad habits?

Speaker 1

Okay?

Speaker 4

So, first of all, we're around this age and a sort of started to the other seven month old. It's called object permanence occurs potentially around this age, and object permanence is when before if you put something under a cloth. If you show the baby something and then you put it under a cloth, they will just think it's gone.

Speaker 5

They can't see it it's gone.

Speaker 4

But then around that age they will notice that it's gone. So you could even test your baby and see if they've got this, which means now when you leave the room, they remember you and they miss you. Whereas before, sorry to say, they didn't really care. They sort of as long as someone was there to look after them. But now they're going to miss that primary person very often.

So it could be that he's going through object permanence, which makes it even more scary to be separated from you at the moment, which is why it could be escalating. The thing with sleeping is it's a physical practice. So the body needs to wind down, it needs to activate malatonin, and it needs to go to sleep. It doesn't matter how that happens. If you get that happening and he goes into a nice sleep and he sleeps and he

wakes up, you are gone. I want to teach your body to start doing that, and then he'll be fitter to do that himself. Laying with our babies, singing to our babies, helping them go to sleep, is not a problem.

Speaker 5

We've got a.

Speaker 4

Westernized vision of our kids should go to bed and sleep by themselves. That's not the way that we've done it naturally. I slept with my babies to put them to sleep when they were little. I didn't make for a rod from home back. They got to sleep by themselves because I helped their bodies practice that. And it sounds like that's what's happening here. They're practicing go to sleep, and then we'll try and do it without the car one day and see if it weeks night, let's go

back to that. So we're sort of like, you know, just practicing it in the body and then trying to extend it without those tools. But no, our babies sleeping, it's hard for them to go to sleep, and they are scared without us.

Speaker 5

Know, our babies.

Speaker 4

Shouldn't be sleeping by themselves. I'm not talking about sleeping post sleeping. I'm talking about they need to hear us breathing, feel safe with us for their bodies to relax and get to sleep. And some kids more than others.

Speaker 2

I'm sure that will give that text for a lot of comfort. And I mean it is. It is a stressful thing. For new parents. Isn't it clearly that all these things are happening and you're trying your best to do, you know, to be a parent and to look after your child, and you're worried about all these things that you're doing. Is this going to have an impact down the line, And what you're saying is you just got to go with it and do what works best for you to the best of your ability and it will.

Speaker 4

Work oututely and careful of those social media posts, oh my child's sleeping through the night. Yeah, they're probably naturally going to do it anyway, but why it's much worse now we only get the good news. Honestly, Ask your friends are your babies sleeping and they'll be going, oh my goodness, or as much. You know, let's be honest with each other, which is really helpful as parents. You know it's hard, it's hard, but just do the best you can as a parent.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. Catherine, You're great, really good to chat with you, and thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 5

No, absolutely my pleasure.

Speaker 3

Thanks everyone.

Speaker 2

That is Catherine Burkett, neuroscience trainer at Engage Training. A fascinating text that came through so thank you very much. Right after the break, we're going to catch up with our voice of rugby in South Africa, Elliott Smith. Big match on tomorrow morning, three am kickoff All Blacks v South Africa. We lost the first one. Can we win the second one that's coming up very shortly. It is seven minutes to no seventeen minutes to six.

Speaker 1

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