Jane McFadden:

Hello and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums. I have been so excited for this episode on meltdowns. I’m bringing Tanya back.

Now, if you haven’t listened to Tanya’s first episode on the education system and our sons go back, it is a cracker. This was the episode we were supposed to be doing before we got off track completely. I’ve pulled us back into line today.

We are going to be going back onto meltdowns. So Tanya was a lawyer for 22 years before she resigned from that profession in 2017 to take up the role of advocate and full-time care coordinator for her third son who struggles with ADHD and autism. She has since completed a Bachelor of Behavioural Science in Psychology and her Honours in Psychology.

Tanya is currently working as a research assistant for a project looking at internet gaming disorder among adolescents. Tanya has just applied for a scholarship to begin her doctorate in the use of co-regulation to prevent and minimise meltdowns in the classroom. Tanya is passionate about inclusive education and improving outcomes for children with ADHD and autism.

So Tanya has come back again. She’s very busy. I’m very excited. I’m so excited that I told my husband how excited I was this morning. Similar to when I interviewed Jacinta Thompson, where I arrive an hour early, completely ready, internet, coffee, done, water, ready, completely wrong time. I wonder where company is, get completely confused and then what I do is I realise I have the wrong time.

I take a breath and I think I will do those jobs I’ve been procrastinating and I start doing them, get off track completely, then run late and then my internet drops. Exactly the same thing as last time. So we’re a little bit frustrated, well I’m a little bit frustrated with myself mainly, but I am so excited Tanya.

This meltdown episode is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while. Big question for me Tanya, what is the, and this is probably a bit of a pet hate from everybody who’s experienced a meltdown, what is the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum? Because people use them interchangeably, they’re completely different.

 Tanya Waring:

They’re completely different. Anyone who’s experienced a meltdown will know that it’s completely different to a tantrum. A tantrum sort of suggests that a child is not getting what they want, so they throw themselves on the ground and kick and scream for a bit until they get what they want.

A meltdown is where a child’s developing prefrontal cortex, the higher order thinking part of the brain, goes offline and they are operating from their hindbrain, which is the very primitive brain, fight, flight or freeze. You cannot reason with a child in meltdown, they cannot help what they’re doing in their meltdown, they are reacting and they are only emotion. There’s no thought, there’s no reasoning.

Our job as the adults is to try and help them bring their prefrontal cortex back online, to try and help them get their thinking, higher order part of their brain, back online so they can start responding instead of reacting and they can start to calm down. But there is no point arguing with a child who is having a meltdown, they just simply, they’re out of control.

And once they’ve tipped into that out of control place, you are along for the ride and you just need to try and keep them safe and help them come back into reality again where they’re able to think again.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and it’s such a difficult one, I’m right in the centre of that at the moment and I’ve experienced tantrums, meltdowns are not tantrums, so it does upset me a little bit because people who haven’t experienced a full meltdown do not understand what it’s like.

I think, you know, and I mean I think you made a great point, it is all about the child and how horrible it is to be inside them for sure and it’s difficult not to become selfish where you do feel embarrassed, humiliated, upset, I should be doing better, what could I have done differently, like the emotional toll.

And angry right, like it’s very easy to be angry and be like are you ridiculous, are you serious, like you are having a meltdown because what I closed the door too loudly or I can’t have something that you wanted or something didn’t go the way you thought and it seems so unreasonable and it’s, it is unreasonable.

Tanya Waring:

Let me just let you know, it’s absolutely unreasonable because they’re not coming from a place of reason. They’re so overwhelmed that they cannot think and so all they’re doing is they’re screaming and it’s, and it’s like you’re not, you’re not hearing me, you’re not hearing me, you’re not hearing me, you’re not hearing me. That’s all there, that they’re just so, it’s terrifying for a child being meltdown.

They need to see that you are in control because they are so out of control and it is, it is absolutely terrifying. So it’s just so important that we come from this with an understanding about what’s actually going on inside their brain because if we, if it does give you a different, you can reframe that, it can give you a different perspective on it and it becomes less personal because it’s not personal.

And I, you know, I still get cranky sometimes. You just honestly, you do an inner eye roll and just think, oh my god, really, is this where we’re going today? But less and less over time and much better. As soon as I see my son starting to tip into that place, I bring my whole, whatever we’ve been talking about and fighting about or arguing about or whatever’s been going wrong, my whole body changes. I take a breath, I soften my whole body because he’s going to a place that is really hard to recover from, so I need to help him ease back into his thinking place again.

Yeah, meltdowns are traumatic and they can go on and on and on, I mean literally, literally hours, like hours and hours and hours of screaming and, you know, I think I used to in the early days, you sort of respond to their frustration with frustration and it’s like you take the stakes up and then they take the stakes up and then you take the stakes up, you know, that’s 10 minutes in the, in the corner, now that’s 20 minutes in the corner, now that’s half an hour.

And like I’m telling you, they’re, you cannot match them because they just don’t have any boundaries, they’re so, they’re just developing brains, they really don’t have those boundaries, you are the adult and you have to, you’re not going to win that argument, so don’t even try, it’s not, it’s not going to get you where you want to go.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and the, I think the real message I was thinking about this last night of this podcast is awareness. I think in 80 to 90 Mums is pretty much the key, nearly every episode, nearly every theme is the awareness. It’s not about medication or, or, you know, calendars or it’s about awareness.

The part that I think a lot of parents will struggle with is you have one parent who’s saying okay this is a meltdown, we need to calm it down, what can we do and then we’ve got another parent going well you’re giving him what he wants.

Yeah he doesn’t want that, you think a child wants that, if you like, I mean really when you look at it, no child wants that situation and I can tell you that we have never come from like a place of in the end they don’t get what they want, like even if you gave them what they want, they don’t get what they want, they’re, they’re beside themselves and in, in this terrible headspace, you know, and, and it’s actually a trigger for my son now to say just look fine, you just have it and then he gets upset because it’s like, you know, because it’s not actually, it’s not what they, it’s not giving them what they want, they, whether you gave them the thing they’re after or not, that’s not, that’s not the point of it, they’re really just out of control.

 

Tanya Waring:

And I hear that where people say you’re giving in. You’re not giving in, you’re understanding that they’re doing their best, so in that moment their best might look pretty ugly but that’s their best and so we’ve just got to respond to that.

And I am now, because I know how much, because that communication to you from the child when they’re having that meltdown, that communication is I’m not coping, so I’m not doing well. Now what you do with that as the adult is the game changer because you can either say I don’t care if you’re not doing well, this is what we’re doing and that’s going to go very dark very quickly so, or you can be the adult who says okay I see you’re doing your best and this isn’t working, what can I change about this situation so that we can get a different outcome.

So it’s, what the capacity they have to cope in that moment is their capacity, that’s the end of it, you can’t punish it out of them, you cannot, you have to understand that that’s their capacity. Now what are we going to do with that as the adult, are we going to scaffold it, are we going to lower our expectations so that they can meet our expectations with the capacity they have, or are we going to do a bit of both where we might scaffold them a bit and lower our expectations a bit.

Yeah meltdowns are debilitating for the child and they put an enormous amount of pressure on the adult relationships and the other children and the family dynamic. And I guess what I would like is to spread the word about what meltdowns are, what’s going on in their brain so that parents with younger kids who are having meltdowns can understand that about their child and make some more educated, informed, clever, thoughtful decision making about how to respond to that child.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah I think that’s such a great point. The other thing that I know, I definitely think there’s always that play between adults where you know often even just you know typical conversations you will say things like you know my husband wants me to be more disciplined or I want him to be more disciplining but you know you’ve got those parenting challenges.

The, I noticed with my youngest son who’s meltdown very often at the moment like once a day and it’s debilitating because you can’t get anything done, you’ve got to be somewhere, you’ve got other kids, it’s a simple thing and generally like for example this morning it was a piece of colouring was slightly ripped, slightly ripped.

So I think I went to take it, he was holding it, I was already really aware that he could melt down at any point so I’m like you know already kind of jumping around him as if he’s a small bomb because I wanted to make sure I could get to work on time. It just went on forever and then it’s like anxiety then as a mother because you’re like at any point this can kick off.

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah I think you get better at that, you get…

Jane McFadden:

Do you?

Tanya Waring:

Yeah because already you’re describing that you’re aware he’s not doing well so you can sense that he is starting to, his capacity to cope with stuff is reducing. So you’re aware of that and we have to work with that.

Now their capacity is their capacity and it does not matter how many things you’ve got on in the day, it doesn’t matter what time you need to be at work, it doesn’t matter what anyone else in the household is doing, that doesn’t change their capacity. Their capacity to cope is what it is.

We can build that capacity and it will get better in time, it absolutely will. They’ll get better at managing transition, change, have more skills to manage what can be inflexible thinking. Their capacity to cope with things not going well for them will improve in time but it is what it is on a daily basis so you just have to be aware of that and what you learn to do is what you are doing.

You’re already, like it is a bit like you’re walking on eggshells sometimes, absolutely, particularly when your pressures on you are, you know you’ve got to be out the door at this time, you’ve got to have, you know you’ve got all these other things going on so it is, it’s hard, I’m not going to lie to you, it is hard but you get better and more deft at doing it and I think you get better at helping them.

So when, you know, if we have somewhere to go on the weekend and we’re going as a family, we take two cars or we have, we understand that one of us might take an Uber or cab back with, we are always prepared to exit stage right with that child.

When he has reached his capacity at anything, he will say I need to go home and one of us will go and we’ll have sorted that out before. Now we didn’t learn to do that when he was four years old but by the, I don’t know, 400th meltdown, we had sort of come to this point where like we always had a plan for him that was dependent on his ability to cope.

Do I think sometimes he was like just got a bit bored and wanted to go home? Maybe but in the end it was respecting that he was, I just have to respect that if he’s sort of, if he tells me that he needs to go, he needs to trust that I’ll respond to that and that I’ll get him out of there.

And if I can’t in that moment, and there’s been times when that hasn’t been possible, then we have, I try and talk to him about, you know, I understand you need to go now, is it possible, like, you know, try and sort of talking around whatever the problem that has arisen that we hadn’t thought of, whatever that is, try and talk him around. It’s not always successful, not saying that we’re doing it all fantastically well now, but we’re certainly heaps better at it now that he’s 14.

And he’s better too in some ways, like he’s certainly better able to articulate what’s going on for him. And sometimes it sounds like, because he is well at, good at articulating things, sometimes it sounds a bit like, well, he’s having a lend of his disability.

And look, you can approach it like that and be suspicious. And possibly at times he is, like he’s human being too, you know, possibly he does use it at times, but we do try and certainly have to trust that he’s telling us where he’s at and give him reason to trust us that we will respond to that.

And we do try and grow him, you know, we do try and choose our moments to grow him a bit together and say, you know, it’d be really good if we could practice our waiting now, do you reckon we could practice our waiting and you could just be another five minutes.

Tanya Waring:

I mean, even this morning I had to go to the doctor and I knew that it was not going to be good for him. And I tried all these different things, but you get the appointment you get, it’s a specialist. And so I gauged how he was doing this morning and went, I think that you could probably do this.

Do you want to come with me and wait in the car? And you know, he did all right, but now I know his capacity to cope with stuff for the rest of today is reduced by the effort and energy it took him to cope with that kind of funny start to our day.

So, you know, they’re the things that are going on in my mind all the time. What’s happened today that has reduced his capacity? What’s filled his cup? What’s emptying his cup? And where is he at at the moment? And it sounds like a lot of work and you know what, it is.

Parenting neurodiverse kids to become healthy adults with good self-esteem is really hard. It is harder than typically developing kids. Absolutely. So I don’t want to sugar coat it because if you sort of say it’s easy, it does diminish the effort.

And it is a lot of effort to really, you have to put yourself out there and understand what’s going on in this kid’s brain. And then you have to be prepared to be flexible yourself, which might not come naturally and be like you really afford them genuine positive regard.

And that’s not always easy when honestly you look at them and you just think are you serious you’re going to have a meltdown over this? It is hard sometimes to remember that.

Jane McFadden:

No, I actually think that’s really important to acknowledge the ADHD or just mums generally who are parenting diverse kids because it is really difficult. And I think when you, what I’ve noticed is when you add more kids into the mix, that’s where I think things get really out of control.

We had, I think one, it’s swimming on Friday night and you know they were trying to shut the pool in the end. That’s how long it went. It was dark and my husband was away, which is rare. And I had two other kids who it’s cold like you can imagine and I’m trying to deal with this four-year-old push.

And you know you kind of start, not Mary Poppins, I’m hardly Mary Poppins, but you start okay. Okay, I can handle this. We’re going to be okay. You know you’re an hour in and security’s like you need to leave the pool.

And at some point you start to think what were all the decisions that I’ve made coming up to this moment because I’ve made a mistake somewhere. And you start to really wonder what you could have done differently. And I really started to take it on board personally, like what have I done here to create this situation? But you’re balancing three kids.

Tanya Waring:

Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t like, it’s not the blame. It’s not that you’ve done something wrong because often you’re not doing anything wrong.

All I think all the time is what could I do differently? And that’s what I ask of teachers too. It’s not right or wrong or better or worse. It’s just what could I do differently?

So and that’s, you’re always thinking about just difference like what could I slightly change about his environment? What could I slightly have done? What different decision could I have made that might have helped him avoid this?

Or and you know what sometimes there’s honestly my husband and I sometimes look at each other and go you know what we couldn’t have done anything. That meltdown was going to happen because they were just so out of sorts and so depleted by whatever’s, you know, might have been events in the days leading up to it might have just finally caught up with them and overwhelmed their thinking so that their prefrontal cortex goes offline and they’re in their full ball of emotion again.

Like you know, so sometimes that is actually the case, particularly we’re talking about developing humans. They’re not fully formed. So absolutely sometimes there is nothing you could have done.

But what I do think all the time is what could we have done differently? What could I change? Not better or worse because they’re such, you know, they’re such judgmental kind of words and it’s not better or worse it’s just different. We’re not doing anything bad, you know, you’re not making bad decisions about your kids, but you’re making decisions — but what different decision was available or something.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and I think the world is changing a little bit too because I noticed it seems to be more now, like my daughter is seven and my son is four. So being kind of mum-lifing for seven years and I noticed that the way that people react to a child in meltdown now is different to what it was seven years ago.

I think it’s improved. I think there’s a lot more support. The amount of people that stood next to me and said do you want me to go get your other child? What can I do? Do you want me to get a packet of lollies? You know, because people don’t know, they think they might help and they’re just offering do you want me, do you want space? Do you want to move your car? Do you want me to, you know, because they can see in your face that you just are at the end.

Yeah you’re at the end and I feel like that sense of community is changing. Would you agree with that?

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah I think we’re talking about it more, you know, in our community. The reason we’re seeing so many more diagnoses is there’s a lot more awareness of it. There’s a lot more interest in understanding what the hell’s going on here.

Absolutely I agree. I think that people are more interested to understand and that’s super important because that’s where we start to get change, you know, in the bigger ticket items like what’s going on at school and elsewhere.

I agree absolutely and I’m pleased to hear and see that myself. I think it’s just so important and I just, I wanted to add actually when I was talking before about how difficult it is parenting kids with neurodiversity compared with neurotypical kids, it’s even more difficult when you have your own neurodiversity.

Whilst there is a natural empathy, like it’s like looking in the mirror in some ways, you’ve got your own stuff to deal with and that is the case for lots and lots of mums with ADHD kids. They have ADHD themselves and that can be really disabling as well but in the parenting space.

Like my best friend is absolutely ADHD and has two ADHD kids and it’s been, it’s a real struggle for her to manage all the appointments, the medication, the school situation which is diabolically difficult and so many meetings and yeah, it’s like she, we talk about it all the time, how overwhelming it is and she has to deal with that.

But she’s the adult right, so she’s just got to, and find, got to find ways to manage her herself and the needs of her kids. It is, I just want to take my hat off because it is hard and to not acknowledge that is not fair.

 

 

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah it is, it is difficult and I think as well sometimes I feel like I take it personally in a way, like for example if I go to daycare pickup and he’s been great all day, I hear great stories about how beautiful he is and compliant and does what he’s told and this and that.

I pick him up, something simple happens and he will kick off big time, it’ll be in over an hour to get him in the car and the teacher’s not knowing what they’re like — we never see this behavior.

 

Tanya Waring:

Because he’s doing his absolute best there and he’s used up every bit of energy and effort in his little body to manage himself all day to meet their expectations. And you’re his safe harbor, so he just is like right well I’m done and I’m hanging up my boots because I’ve got nothing left.

And you know, there’s ways to respond to that which are really helpful I think, like when you see your child in meltdown. Do you want to talk about that?

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, let’s do it.

Tanya Waring:

Because when I see or sense my son and I’m, you know, mothers of ADHD kids, honestly I’m listening for the cadence of his voice. If I hear the stress in his voice, if I see him and he looks red or his hands are clenched or he’s sweating and has been running around, you know he’s not doing well.

So as soon as I sense or see that he’s not doing well, my palms go up, my arms go out, my body softens and I look to him, not necessarily maintaining eye gaze because that can be really effortful, but I say, Maddy I can see you’re not doing well mate, I want to help you. What can we do?

And you know he, depending on where he’s at, could be anything. Like I’ve got an older child and he might swear back at me or scream like just wordless screaming. And I don’t argue, I never argue with him when he’s in that state.

I always gently, softly, Maddy I’m here to help, I want to help you mate. It’ll be okay, we will work it out. So reassure, soft voice, I’m here to help you. I think it’s important that they hear those helping words — it’ll be okay — because in their mind they have catastrophized the situation to the worst possible outcome for them.

So you need to help them bring it back into perspective: It’ll be okay, we will work it out, we will work it out, it’ll be okay. Whatever’s happened, it’s not forever and we will work it out.

He might be screaming, and often what you’ll see is he might quieten a bit, and then his brain will still be like going a thousand kilometers an hour and it’ll occur to him again, and then he’ll go off again. This is why they last for hours in this meltdown headspace — because they come down and then they remember what the problem was and then they go up again and down and up again. It just goes on and on.

So the helping them bring their prefrontal cortex, their higher order thinking, back online: soft, reassure them, I’m here to help you. I don’t touch him unless he asks me to. Some kids like pressure, some kids don’t. But if I touch Matt in those circumstances, he’ll just go off — he hates it.

Let’s go for it. Then I start talking about our strategies: Take a breath with me Matt. And I do that with him a number of times and intermittently until he’s calm. Take a breath mate.

I reflect back: I can see how hard you’re trying to bring this down again, I see how hard you’re trying. Your shoulders have softened, you’re doing really well. I talk back to him what I’m seeing.

I describe: I can see how upset you are, your hands are clenched so tight. I can see you’re really upset, I want to help you. I can see that you’re managing better now, your shoulders are softened.

And I’ll, if I have an idea about what’s gone wrong, I might try to not reduce the catastrophe of it: Mate, it’s okay, we’ve missed that appointment, it’s okay, we’ll get another appointment. It’s all right, it’s not the end of the world, we’ll sort this out. Or whatever the problem was that has seen them kick off, because there’s always — you can always work something out.

And then sometimes, I also try and get them thinking again: I’m going to ask you a question. Can you tell me what four plus six is? Because as soon as they’ve got to start using that brain for those simple maths, then that helps them bring their thinking part of their brain back online again.

So if we’re in the car, I will ask questions like that as soon as I hear that he’s not doing well, I’ll start asking maths questions so that he has to think about what I’m asking him.

You know, the idea being: connect with them — I’m here mate, I’m here with you, it’s okay. Reflect back what you’re seeing, reassure them that it’s not a catastrophe, find a way forward and keep reflecting and reassuring until they come down.

Now look, now I’m calm — or I’m trying to be calm — he may still be screaming abusive comments to me or someone else or you know stalking away. I’m just going to walk with you Matt to make sure you’re safe. I want to make sure that you’re safe. And he understands that, and most kids understand that, particularly once they’ve had experience with this sort of thing.

When you talk about planning for the, you know, if this happens again, there’s always — we need one person with eyes on you. So there’s that, he does understand those things and being prepared does help.

So having a talk when he’s in a calm state of mind, then we might talk about: Well, what could we have done differently there to get a different outcome do you think? And having strategies about walking away, which at the age of 14 he still has not mastered. He’s still having meltdowns in classrooms, still has not mastered that. But he’s getting better and I can see that he is really starting to see the benefit for him if he can just get himself to walk out of the classroom instead of staying in the classroom to make his point.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah okay, yeah okay. So let’s say for example you feel it coming. I suppose this is a little bit, I suppose the awareness of feeling it coming a little bit myself too.

I took the kids to the circus yesterday which, oh my god, it was a nightmare. Yeah predictably, right? Oh I knew what was going to be, I don’t know why I did this to myself. I really — but anyway I think practice. Or I took my kids to the zoo in school holidays which also resulted in security coming to the canteen, so that was great. I don’t know why I do it to myself but anyway I do.

So my daughter was loving it and my son, who’s four, wasn’t. And I ended up putting some headphones on him which I had in my bag. And then I thought there was probably about 10 minutes left, so I’ll put him on my lap and kind of did a countdown on the phone so he can kind of see it, it’s not that much further to go. That was a bit of a breakthrough for me yesterday, the fact we could get him home without him kicking off at the circus — which would have been a circus.

And then this morning I could see he was — I was thinking, this is, if I push him much further, even though I’m late, I reckon he’s gonna blow his fuse and see me two hours. Like I thought, I’m gonna miss his appointment, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, so I’m starting to panic.

So I ended up getting my husband to take the other two and I just sat down and started paying bills on my computer because I’ve got to start doing something. You just let me know when you’re ready. And he eventually came back out 15 minutes later with his clothes on and he seemed somewhat ready to go.

And I was like, well that was quicker than coming at him. But then you know my husband’s kind of on the phone like, well he needs to be ready when you told him to be ready. But I’m like, I’ve done that, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.

 

Tanya Waring:

And there’s a couple of things in that. I think that what you’ve done there is make it a reasonable adjustment for him, because not only did he get ready but he also got ready without being completely depleted by a meltdown and without the humiliation and shame that comes with a meltdown.

And he got ready. So like that’s actually a win for both of you and should be said as much. You know like tonight when you’re still at the site or whenever you see him next, make a point: Hey I just want to say what a great job you did this morning getting ready, I really appreciate that, good job buddy.

Because that is specific praise for something that you needed him to do and you need him to do tomorrow and the next day and the next day. That’s awesome.

And there is a little bit of — he’s got this capacity, that doesn’t change whatever your expectations are. So I think it’s, you know, you can expect them to do it in your time until the cows come home, but if they don’t have capacity to do that, they don’t.

The other thing I’d say is with some things it might just be having someone go with them. Like with my son brushing his teeth. I could ask — like lots of kids — I could ask him to brush his teeth a thousand times and he will not brush his teeth. Like he just, I don’t know, he just cannot get up and go and brush his teeth.

But if I say, Hey mate let’s go brush your teeth, and I take his hand and we walk to the bathroom together, he’ll brush his teeth, no problem. So for a number of years that’s what I had to do, well past like being a two-year-old, like for several years after that.

But it just meant that he brushed his teeth. It was one minute of my time and I didn’t have the frustration of asking him a thousand times to do it. But it was just — that transition can be really hard and the stopping this task and doing a dispreferred activity can also be really hard. But if you come and hold my hand, it’s so much easier and we just chatted.

So things like that, I think trying to sort of say, well what’s the problem here, what is the hurdle that he can’t get over to do what you’ve asked him to do? And it might be that in the mornings it’s cold and he doesn’t want to get out of his pyjamas and into his clothes. You know, so give him a rug that he can stand on, whatever.

Like you know, I mean like just sort of trying to understand what’s the barrier and then helping him either address the barrier or help him get over the barrier. With brushing my son’s teeth, the barrier was the transition. He just found it really hard to stop doing a preferred activity to go and do a dispreferred activity.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah I think that’s what it is. Yeah, yeah.

 

Tanya Waring:

So he needed me to help him do that, which I did. And I’m still happy when he goes and brushes his teeth.

 

Jane McFadden:

I’m asking you, you know, something I’m struggling with, I’ve been struggling with for ages is — I call it a replay. I don’t know if there’s a particular word, but my boys have both done it. The older one, six-year-old, is, I don’t want to say growing out of it, but he’s definitely improved a lot, he doesn’t do it as much.

But my four-year-old will do this thing where if you touch him or help him in any way — so it doesn’t make sense, because you can, he can ask you for help every single day and then the one day he doesn’t ask you but you assume he needed, he wanted help.

You know like, let’s say I’m doing a bike helmet. Let’s say you had a bike ride and he every day he will say to you can you unclip my bike helmet. I anticipate that and I touch it without asking or whatever. It is very, and you know it’s almost unconscious because you do it and you don’t think I’m going to undo his bike helmet upsetting you, just — you’re used to, that’s the routine.

And you’re juggling so many things you just go ahead and do it, right? And my husband does it without knowing, without thinking a lot. And it will spark him off. And it will spark him off to such a point that he will have to ride his bike back to the park, get back on his bike, ride all the way back and then do his helmet himself.

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah, that sounds autistic to be honest. And maybe, because my son’s autism wasn’t diagnosed until after his ADHD, because once we sort of had the ADHD under somewhat control, then the autistic — and certainly autism now is his biggest challenge.

That inflexible thinking, that difficulty with transitions and that sort of thing where it’s like we didn’t do this the way I wanted it to be done and so I’m going to go and do the whole thing again.

Yeah, that is something that’s very typical of a child with autism. But look, all you can do in those circumstances is model for him what you want him to do.

Oh mate, I’m sorry. I thought I was going to give you a hand there but I should have asked first. You’re right, like I shouldn’t touch you, I should ask you first.

And try and downplay it like that, because you’re only yourself responding in the moment. And it’s trying to be respectful: I was trying to help but I can see now that you didn’t need my help and I should have let you do it.

There’s — yeah, there’s no like, we want our kids to do that when it’s them who’s overstepped or made, or you know, done something that the other person didn’t want them to do. That’s how we want them to respond. So that’s how I would respond to that. Does that make sense?

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah it does. Do you think there’s any good in attempting not to do the full replay? Is there any…?

 

Tanya Waring:

Oh no. To what end? To what end? If it’s going to help them put this to bed, absolutely let them do it. There’s no harm unless it means that you’ve got to yourself ride for another half hour and you don’t have time to do that.

Like unless there was going to be a bigger problem caused by that, absolutely. And even if it could be — do you think we might be able to fix this by riding to the corner and back again?

Yeah there’s no, I think he’s got in his head that’s what he needs to do in order for this to work properly in his mind. And at this time, there’s just no point trying to — it’s not that sort of thing is not going to cause you a drama. He’s just going to go and do a bit of extra riding.

It becomes more problematic when they’re more difficult things to replicate. But you cross that bridge when you get to it, right?

Are you thinking that there’s a concern that there might be OCD symptoms or anything like that, or is it just…?

 

Jane McFadden:

I think there’s some ASD traits in there. I just don’t know to what extent. I mean you know, you talked earlier about how everyone has ADHD traits, you know, and it’s to what effect in your life.

So I suppose there’s, you know, there’s questions around that. But then there’s questions around, well you know how significant is it going to be, and early intervention, you know, or has he, wouldn’t felt a brother do that, hard to know.

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah and look, I don’t mean everyone has ADHD traits. I mean — because I get really cross when people say we’re all a bit autistic or we’re all a bit ADHD. That’s not right because it diminishes the difficulty that people with ADHD and autism have in coping with life.

I just mean that everyone can be forgetful, everyone can be impulsive, everyone can be, you know, like any of those features, we all at times can be like that.

But yeah we definitely — like and I think that my, that thing, that qualities about ADHD, I would certainly fit the profile towards that outer end but not enough for a diagnosis.

Yeah, I’m probably — because I really do get cross when people are like we’re all a bit autistic. No we’re not. Yeah, yeah. It’s actually hard being autistic and it’s hard being ADHD. So let’s not take that away from people who have those diagnoses, because life is harder when you’ve got those diagnoses.

 

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and I think, you know, I’m still — I probably need to maybe work on my acceptance a little bit but I do have trouble accepting that when I have friends who will say to me, oh yeah my four-year-old’s really hard at the moment too, and I’m thinking I don’t know if it’s exactly this.

I’m trying to be there for them, that they’re frustrated too, you know, that’s sure, that’s their reality and…

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah and everyone, because — and I have people say to me, I don’t know how you do it. I think, well what do you want me to do? Like here’s my son. I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got and I’m not any more special than anyone else, I’m not any more, you know.

And I hate God gave you what you can cope with and I think that’s absolute bullshit.

Yeah, and but to your point, everyone’s dealing with their own stuff. And you know I’ve got a beautiful friend who doesn’t have children and she’s busy, and I think you know — and when you’ve got three kids, two of whom have diagnoses, and like yeah, I don’t know.

It’s really hard to kind of not go you think you’re busy? Oh my god. I thought I was, and I just worked full-time without having any children and I did that. Oh, that was me absolutely, right, because that’s your reality.

That’s, you know, you do feel busy, you feel like you’ve got a lot going on. And then yeah, so — but as life throws more at you, you’ve got to just deal with it. And yeah, and everyone, so everyone can only see things from their own experiences.

And I guess what you are asking people to do, and I am 100% holding you up saying please listen — you want people to try and see the perspective of kids and adults, but particularly kids with ADHD and autism, because it is harder.

And so you know we do want that discussion, we want to try and share perspectives so that you know we get more acceptance and understanding for kids with ADHD.

 

 

 

 

Jane McFadden:

Okay, so I suppose, correct me if I’m wrong, one of the messages I’m getting from this kind of interview would be that you want to kind of compromise with your child as they’re starting to escalate, yeah, and prevent it where you can.

So set things up like, for example, you know maybe you wouldn’t back-to-back activities and then expect to be somewhere at a short period of time — that’s a recipe for disaster.

Be aware of what they can cope with and then also I think I probably need to have a chat with my husband and say to him, you know, it’s not always going to be like this, we are building capacity here.

That’s right. At the moment he’s not doing pretty much anything I ask him, but you know, yeah the 15 minutes late and you know, I suppose I’m fortunate, I have flexibility in my work. So I’ve gotten to a point now where I’m like okay, I just can’t do nine o’clock appointments, I can’t really do 9.30 either.

I just don’t really know how to go. I know if I book something in the morning and I know that I’m feeling pressured, there’s no hope that he’s going to comply with anything I ask him to do. So you know, we are building capacity still at this point.

So you know, it’s not like, okay well this is the way he’s always going to be. But pushing harder is not working.

 

Tanya Waring:

Absolutely not. And I think that’s exactly right. You’ve made adjustments there. You’re not going to commit to things early in the morning because you don’t know if he’s going to be able to allow you to meet those things.

And you said you’ve got, you’re lucky with flexibility with employment. Absolutely, there’s some mums out there and dads out there who need their nine-to-five job in order to meet the expenses of running their household and they don’t have flexibility.

And like my, they are people that we as a society should be supporting better, because it is so hard. And that kind of inflexibility in the parent’s life does not bode well for that child, because that child’s needs are what their needs are.

And if in that household they’re not going to get met because the parents are stuck in positions where they can’t give their kid that time to get out of the house without having a meltdown — and having a meltdown every day does not build a happy confident child. It is really hard on them.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah I agree. I don’t want to get you off topic, so I’m going to try not to do that, but I did send the Premier, Anastasia Palaszczuk, an email which she hasn’t responded to in regards to free kindy that she, you know, announced.

I had a real problem with it because I don’t feel like it is really free kindy. It’s got so many like stipulations on it about income and what kind of kindy and the long day cares. It’s actually only 15 hours subsidy or something, which is hardly anything like compared to free kindy.

And what it means is, that’s a conversation I had with you about how a lot of those neurodiverse kids were coming into prep with my son. And he’s neurodiverse too, so it’s not a negative, but I’ve noticed that a lot of the kids that I think are quite explosive are the ones that are four, and maybe they should have had another year of kindy, maybe.

But then when you talk to the parents, they talk about how kindies, you know, might be 20 grand a year, right, for example. Ridiculous. School’s free, or you know a little bit more for a private school possibly, it’s still cheaper than…

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah, yeah, school is. Child care is the most expensive time. So not only is it the hardest time with kids who are neurodiverse or otherwise, but also it’s the most expensive time.

You’ve got appointments, you’ve got childcare, you’ve got, you know, it’s, it is super expensive. More needs to be done to support kids being home and having a parent being home with them, or a carer being home with them.

You can make school free because you know unfortunately there’s all sorts of problems with getting kids into a structured environment from three or four years of age. They’re so immature. And to try and force — because then education gets pushed down and pushed down, and before you know it we’re trying to teach three-year-olds how to write.

But there’s lots of kids who are just not, their brain is not ready for that kind of structured environment. And it’s not flexible enough to respond to their needs. This is the problem with school, it’s not flexible enough to respond to the needs of these kids.

So we’re just pushing that problem even further down. They would have to change some big things to make that a good place for kids to be for, you know, six, seven, eight hours a day.

Jane McFadden:

I agree, and then you’ve got, you know, all the other kids that are put in there as well and then you just get a heap of unhappy parents and a lot of pressure on the teachers which is…

 

Tanya Waring:

Absolutely, yeah. Sorry, but I just feel like these, a lot of these kids in my opinion an extra year of kindy would have been really beneficial. But I look at the parents and I think I can see why you’ve made the decision — it’s massively expensive.

Yeah it’s not about the parents not doing the right thing to the child. They’re doing the best for their family probably, absolutely.

So I think with meltdowns, setting them up really well is probably key. Preparation is everything. But that means that you’ve got to be aware of what’s going on in your child’s brain, you’ve got to be connected with your child so that you can sense or see that their capacity to cope is diminishing, and you’ve got to have flexibility in your response and time to support them to navigate their day.

And often social interactions can be so depleting for these kids that having them in any social interaction in a kindy playground, a school playground or wherever, that can be enough to deplete their capacity too. So you need to be aware, you need to have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D — flexibility so you can respond.

And always be prepared to respond with that kind curiosity about what’s going on for them. Reassuring them, reflecting feelings back to them so they learn to connect what’s going on with their body with how they’re feeling.

You can see how upset you are — you’re sweating, your face is red, your hands are clenched. The more they hear those things, the more that they can connect, because what you’re trying to teach them is: when they feel or see these things happening to their body, I know I’ve got to use some of the strategies.

I can tell you verbatim when I’m in a good state of mind, but when I’m going into that meltdown state of mind, all those strategies just go out the window. I can’t remember any of them.

So it’s really important to have that consistent response to kids who are having meltdowns or prone to meltdowns. And I think always remembering that meltdowns are communication. The child is not coping. It’s not personal to you, they’re not trying to make your life a misery.

They are not coping and they do not want to be in that position. Kids don’t wake up in the morning and, you know, look for ways to have a meltdown. It’s devastating for them, it’s humiliating.

And if it happens in a school classroom or in a public place, it’s shameful, it’s humiliating. It’s bad enough when it happens in front of your family and you can see the child knows that they’ve upset everybody in the family. Absolutely they have.

They know that. It’s an awful thing to feel responsible for that much misery all the time.

 

Jane McFadden:

So yeah, and I also feel for the siblings too because you know you’re just done, right? You’re just so f**king done and then one of your kids will ask you just like one reasonable request, really, and you know you just can’t, you know you just can’t cope.

And that’s one of the things I, you know, you do struggle with where you kind of lay awake and you think jeez, you know, they stood in the dark waiting at the pool for half an hour or whatever and then they’ve asked me can we stop and get something and you know I’m like oh we’re not f**king stopping, god no, are you crazy going anywhere?

You know, like we’re hungry, we want to stop and get some McDonald’s, it’s like mate, like I’m like if I don’t get home in the next five minutes I’m gonna rut myself, you know.

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah, yeah look and that’s a very good point Jane. I think I’m very conscious of always taking opportunities to tell my other two kids, just quietly, not in front of my third son — I don’t want to make him feel bad — but I do take every opportunity to tell them, to acknowledge that it is hard being a sibling to a younger son.

To remind them that he is actually doing his very best and so are we. And I’m grateful that they’re doing their best as well.

I always point out how important it is that our third son feels their love and connection, and that it’s okay to want to have time away from him and time where you’re not the brother of that person, that you can just be your own person.

And we try and make opportunities with each of them individually where it’s away from the chaos that surrounds our youngest son. And they’re 15 and 16 now and I’m really confident that they know that we respect and appreciate how hard it’s been for them at times.

Like I mean it just couldn’t be harder as a sibling, there’s been some terrible things. And we’re very grateful and they know that we do what we can to enrich their lives in different ways, to kind of try and balance out how much time, energy and resources are put into our third son.

Just to try and make them feel seen and understood as well. It is hard for siblings, but gee they’re nice people for that. And I think that is because they’ve seen how hard it is for our third kid.

I think like all of us there would be some resentment there at times, but they understand it’s just how he is and it’s hard. And none of us would be in his brain for any amount of money — it’s really hard for him.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and I think you said that in the last episode and I thought it was so interesting, I’ve thought about it a lot, where you were talking about how if we can spread this message on the podcast then more people will have an understanding about how the siblings of kids, or parents, you know, of kids that do have additional needs and how inclusive and aware they are and how compassionate they are.

And it’s often the people that just don’t have any understanding or experience, you know, that are probably — I wouldn’t say the problem, that’s not the right word — but they’re just not aware.

 

Tanya Waring:

That they’re intolerant.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, there’s a lot in that, and judgmental.

 

Tanya Waring:

Yeah, look absolutely, and I’ve absolutely seen that in school communities where they’re just, they’ve never seen a meltdown. And when they do see it, they’re just horrified. And look, understandable.

But you know honestly, you’re still talking about a child who is not fully developed, whose brain is in some ways quite delayed and in other ways it’s quite intelligent. So he’s still, you know, developing as a person.

And kids make mistakes and kids, you know, do things that adults don’t do. And yeah, the level of intolerance that I’ve seen is, it’s just heartbreaking because it’s devastating for him, it’s devastating for us.

And yeah, so the more we can talk about it and kind of normalise — this is just, they’re doing their best.

And we’ve kind of created, as a society, this disability because in times gone past if he was defending a village from marauders in, you know, the Middle Ages, he’d have been a hero because he’d be up for all of that. He’d have his sword and his shield and he’d be out there fighting the good fight.

But that’s not what we value in our society. So he’s born in this age where we value people sitting up and, you know, whole body listening and all that sort of thing. He’s just not capable of that.

Jane McFadden:

One big question before we head off Tanya, one big question I’ve got for you — and this wasn’t planning on asking this one — but my husband always asks me, he always says to me, okay so you know in the 70s, back when you were just like hit over the knuckles or you were belted or whatever it is if you did the wrong thing, do you think there were as many meltdowns then? Or do you think they were just corporal-punished out of people? Like what is the difference now? I just don’t understand it.

 

Tanya Waring:

A few things. A few things are different. There’s more people to start with, there’s more kids in classrooms. The expectation on kids in classrooms is so much higher.

When we went through, teachers had proper lunch breaks where they would go and play cards in the lunchroom. Not many teachers get to do that these days because there’s so much expected of outcomes in school environments.

Things have really changed materially since, certainly since I was a kid back in the 70s and 80s. Like things are different. There’s much less play-based stuff, there’s much more academic expectation on kids, and sporting excellence, and drama and music, and there’s like a million things that you’re expected to do and parents are expected to foster in their kids.

So all of those additional expectations put a lot of pressure on not just neurodiverse kids but all kids. And then if you’ve got neurodiversity, your ability to cope with all of those pressures from a very young age is diminished.

And I think whereas, and like homework wasn’t such a thing — like there’s all these things that impact kids in all these multitude of ways. I think that we see more meltdowns because of the increased expectation on kids and families and the reduced resources available to them.

When I grew up, my parents both worked but my mother’s work was flexible and there were lots of kids who had one parent at home. Well that’s not the case anymore. So you’re expected to kind of go, you know, you might get dropped off at before-school care at seven and picked up at five or, you know, something like quite a long day.

Whereas back in the day you might wander to school at 8.30 and walk home again at three o’clock, or you know, it was just a different time. So I think it’s the expectation we have of kids.

And also, in the same way that introducing more voices to a conversation, you’re going to get some different points of view and therefore probably a bit more conflict. We’re now in a time where there’s so many different points of view that are now being heard: women’s, you know, all sorts of multicultural views.

And people are much more interested in talking about what’s going on for kids and for themselves culturally, with their brains. There’s a lot more interest in it, there’s a lot more discussion about it, and I think we’re just sort of working through all of that.

So the awareness is great. I think we’re going to see things improve for our kids in schools. I think we’ll see the way schools are done change. I hope we do. And that will be because we’re seeing more awareness of issues like ADHD, autism, the importance of inclusion, cultural difference, respecting people’s different cultures.

And so all that means that we can’t just teach school in the same rigid way it was taught back in the day. Now it’s got to be more flexible.

So yeah, I think it’s just this sort of hotbed of change at the moment. And I don’t know, certainly the expectation feeds into the increase in meltdowns, but also a changing of the guard in terms of teaching as well.

I think what teachers need to do is changing. It’s not just a case that you go into a classroom and you’re the dictator in that classroom. You’re accountable to parents in ways that you never have been in the past. There’s a lot more expectation on you from the government. There’s, yeah — it’s just changing.

I think there’s a lot of change at the moment and teachers don’t feel equipped in the classroom I think to deal with meltdowns. And I’m hoping that I can contribute to that. But there’s lots of all these different things kind of playing into more meltdowns.

But hopefully we will address the reasons that we’re seeing more meltdowns by changing the environment, and all do better for having done that.

 

Jane McFadden:

Wow, I’m so glad I asked that question. I’ll have to chat to my husband later because he’s always saying to me, well why can’t we just go hard, because that’s what people used to do and we didn’t see it then, did we?

 

Tanya Waring:

So yeah, it’s a different — there’s lots of things that were different back in the 70s and 80s, lots of things.

Yeah and also that wasn’t better, because kids with ADHD did not do well back then either. And you know, they were the kid that was flogged and they were the kid that was, you know, kicked out of school.

I mean that’s what’s happening now too — they’re getting kicked out of school all the time. But yeah, I certainly don’t think that was better for kids with ADHD. We’ve got to keep on this path where we’re trying to understand better and do better.

Jane McFadden:

Oh absolutely. My dad always talked about the story about how he was in the head — that all the classes graded and streamed and he wasn’t in the dumbest class, he was in the second dumbest class sometimes.

And you know he came out and I mean he couldn’t really read and write very well to be honest. So yeah, they gave up. And he was a tradie, he did very well, but he said to me, you know, he always wanted to be a real estate agent or he had other dreams but he couldn’t read and write very well at all.

Yeah, where he just didn’t have those opportunities. So I suppose you could say yeah, he went through, was he melting down? Who knows what was going on with him. But he was ignored and probably belted a lot.

Tanya Waring:

Yeah, and meltdowns can look different for different people too. Like we’re all aware of the child who has an externalising meltdown where they’re like, you know, literally screaming — wordless screaming — for hours and hours and hours.

It can also look like hysterical sobbing to the point — my godchild is one of these, and she has ADHD — and it sounds so false, you know, it just sounds like she’s putting it on. She’s not putting it on. She’s like sobbing hysterically for hours.

And honestly her mum and I sometimes just like, oh just stop. But in the same way I would say about my son screaming, oh just stop screaming mate. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that.

Yeah, so it can look like hysterical crying. It can also look like complete withdrawal where they just disappear into themselves. And that sort of internalising behaviour, whilst it’s easier on those around them, it’s just as hard for them. They’re not coping.

And that internalising can manifest in a whole heap of other unhealthy ways. So all of those things are kids not coping, not doing well, and they all need us to respond to them with that kindness, that curiosity, the connection, the empathy, and help them make sense of what’s going on and work out how you can problem-solve the situation to get a different outcome next time.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, beautiful. Well look Tanya, it’s been just oh my god, so interesting. I was so excited but even more interesting than what I was expecting. So thank you so much for your time. Do you have anything that you’d like to add that I haven’t asked you?

 

Tanya Waring:

The only thing I want to add at the bit at the end is to have hope. Because you know, my son’s now 14 and lots of people talk about 12 to 14 as being an age where a lot of the more difficult ADHD symptoms can — lots of people talk about a real improvement around that age.

And then they kind of just kick in. Now I think that that is absolutely something to look forward to and I’ve seen things change for our child.

And even like, he’s 14 and life’s been super, super tricky and hard for him, but I have real hope because I can see everything that we’re doing. We are building his self-esteem again, we are building his confidence and we’re building his capacity, and I see that growth in him.

So it’s absolutely ahead of you if you’ve got little kids. Have hope, stay kind.

 

Jane McFadden:

Oh beautiful. Look, thank you so much Tanya for your time. It’s been great.

 

Tanya Waring:

Jane, thank you.

 

Jane McFadden:

Thank you. Bye.