Jane McFadden:

Hello and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums. We have another cracker topic today. We are going to do the neurodiverse classroom. I have gone and sourced an amazing person to bring in. As disclosed, I have no idea about classrooms, educators or anything in that space, so I bring in guests because it’s a topic that I want to learn about too. I’ve brought in today Millie Carr, who is a passionate educator of nine years.

She’s an ADHD mum of three children, two of which are diagnosed neurodivergent, and she has recently written a children’s picture book storybook to help increase the visibility of ADHD in young girls and encourage them to unmask and be themselves. Welcome Millie.

Millie Carr:

Hi, thanks Jane. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Jane McFadden:

Now I just want to give everyone an update. Millie seemed to be a little bit panicked when she arrived because we just had an issue with the link. I let her know that she arrived in seven minutes, so seven minutes late, which is a record. Then we actually created a plan for what we were going to do. We said hello in another seven minutes and we started recording 15 minutes after the starting time.

Millie, we are off to a cracker start. That is a record, so welcome. Well done us.

Millie Carr:

Well done us. Knowing our ADHD brain. Yeah, well done us.

Jane McFadden:

I was actually checking my phone right in the morning because I and my husband was like, what are you doing? I was like, a lot of these people just cancel, so I’m just going to like just check that straight up. Because of ADHD, you overschedule, then you realize, but we are here and we are organized.

This is a really big topic, Millie. We’ve done two episodes on the school system. We’ve done one from the girl point of view. That was an absolute cracker with Jenny Cleary. She was an ADHD mum who shared her experience. Oh my god, it was so emotional. I actually cried during it, which is unlike me.

Millie Carr:

I love that episode too, Jane. It was great.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, how good was it? I love Jenny. The second one we had with Tanya Waring. Tanya Waring came in hot. We were not planning on going there. We were going to actually talk about meltdowns. We went off into the classroom system because it’s a struggle for me, so I am interested. The feedback I get online is that people want to know more about it.

She went from that not disruptive, I hate using that externalizing boy kind of place, which is a totally different perspective. Again, I knew nothing about, but with two boys, five and four, that’s going to be my future, hands down. Millie’s contacted me and I invited her on the podcast because I love her website. I love her books. I’ve bought one for my daughter Gigi already. Millie wanted to talk about in more of a positive frame, neurodivergence and how it works in classrooms and how we can get ahead of it.

Feel free to take over, Millie. This is more your space than mine.

Millie Carr:

I’ve been listening to your podcast and I’ve heard all the episodes and I listened to those really important ones that you spoke about just then. Listening to it in the car, I was on the way to work. I feel like as an educator, to have my perspective as also being ADHD and having children, I just think it’s something that parents are struggling with at home, but teachers are also struggling with at school.

Everyone’s struggling with something that I think can be eliminated and reduced with some simple kind of positive things that don’t put too much work more on the teacher, but then also on the parents as well. It’s a bit of a combination and a working together approach.

What I’m talking about here is, I’ll use a bit of an analogy about flowers. I’m going to say you’ve got multiple different flowers and there’s roses and tulips and all these different things. We accept those things as a natural part of biodiversity. We don’t expect a rose to be a tulip or vice versa. The same is with the classroom.

Assessments and diagnosis rates are getting higher and higher than they were in prior years in education. I think that we don’t accept these diverse things. We deal with them after the fact. It’s like we teach to a neurotypical kind of framework from the get-go and then go, okay, we’ve got these five kids we’ve got to manage. How do we do that? We’ve got to do it all individually. It becomes really tricky.

 

Millie Carr:

My thought process, and I’ve done some readings and there’s some fabulous books. The Neurodiverse Classroom written by Victoria Honeybourn. I can give Jane the link so you can show people and teachers. Fabulous resource about this kind of stuff, about preparing for that diversity, preparing for the range of different neurodiverse people that are going to be in your classroom.

You’ll have people that have dyslexia, ADHD, autism, dysgraphia, so many different learning differences. I’m not going to say disabilities because I feel like the thing is a lot of the time they’re seen as disabilities because the environment that they’re in makes it a disability. It’s not always a disability.

Some of these things that we experience in students and children that are neurodivergent, it’s just that the way it’s set up isn’t set up for them. It becomes a difficulty, it becomes a disorder, it becomes a difference.

My whole philosophy and view around it is changing that and making it that we go in from the get-go, from the start of the year, we organise it in leadership teams and we go in and we prepare for this and we set everything up knowing that we’re going to have the differences and the difficulties.

It doesn’t disadvantage anyone else that isn’t neurodivergent. The neurotypical people, it doesn’t disadvantage them. If anything, it might pick up some kids that we actually can’t see that have these neurodivergent tendencies and are able to mask it.

Jane McFadden:

That’s really interesting. It actually made me think of pre-diagnosis when I was expecting myself to operate neurotypically and I was expecting my kids to operate neurotypically. I just went out and about and just expected that we could all just cope.

We would go and meet friends and go from activity to activity or whatever everyone else was doing. Then I would look at myself and my kids and be like, why are we not coping? What’s wrong with us?

I think that’s really interesting what you said about the classroom because now the way I think about things is completely differently. I’m like, okay, well, I know we’ve got a birthday party so we 100% cannot do any activities after that. We’ll be lucky to make it home alive.

I think what you’re talking about is becoming more proactive and preparing for that as opposed to waiting for shit to go south and then as a teacher being like, I don’t know how to get back out of this situation that we’re in. Is that what you’re referring to?

Millie Carr:

Yeah, exactly. We don’t have to wait for a diagnosis to make these changes either. We don’t have to be like, oh, we probably suspect this person has got some kind of neurodivergent tendencies or something’s going on there, but let’s wait for a diagnosis or we can’t get the parents on board for a diagnosis, which is very common.

Not everyone is open as you and I, Jane, to diagnosis or supporting our children at home in that way. So we have to support them at school, but we don’t have to wait for those things.

So making some changes and anticipating these differences in amongst the classroom is just going to benefit those students, the students that are diagnosed, the students that aren’t, and even the neurotypical people. So yeah, planning and pre-knowing because I’m the same as you, Jane.

I know myself and I know that I need certain things in place. Like today, I was quite prepared before our podcast. I made sure the earphones are working and that’s why I was still kind of stressed that the link wasn’t through. So I know that I prepare myself to stop that kind of anxiety and that stuff that happens to me if I’m late or whatever.

So yeah, preparing the kids and knowing that if we can set them up from the get-go and also knowing, you know, teachers sometimes get really overwhelmed. You know, I’ve got seven different diagnoses that are all different. You don’t have to treat a lot of those diagnoses differently.

A lot of them can be catered to with similar things across multiple diagnoses. So it’s not like you have to be an expert in ADHD, in autism, in dyslexia, and I’m not either. I’m probably better in ADHD and autism than I am dyslexia and I have to do some more reading, but it’s still things that I’m doing can cater to these dyslexic students the same way that I do with ADHD students.

So you don’t have to be an expert as a teacher. I think that kind of helps teachers a little bit because they feel a bit, you know, stressed about I have to know everything and you don’t have to know everything to cater to these students.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, I agree and one of the common themes that I found with the people that I’ve spoken to is that a lot of the parents aren’t asking for major changes. They are not asking for, you know, $20,000 systems to be built into classrooms for their children.

They’re talking in their mind quite simple, cheap strategies. I suppose though from the teacher’s point of view, if half the class are asking for slight variations, that can be hard to keep track of. But what kind of things specifically do you think you could do for kids with ADHD or autism, you know, that would be like a pretty good strategy that would work across most of them?

Millie Carr:

Yeah, so there’s quite a lot of different things that I think that you can do. Some people will be already doing these things. There’s some really fabulous teachers out there that understand some of these things.

The first thing is around the communication. Communication is a really big one with people that are neurodivergent and allowing them to access communication in different forms of communication. As simple as even like written instructions on the board are hard to understand for some students if they’re not in the correct font or the right size or the right background color can, you know, distract things.

So making sure that if you’re doing a PowerPoint or something that those things are catered for, making sure that you’re reading out the information that’s on the PowerPoint. You’re not just putting it up there and saying, okay, kids, off you go. Just, you know, there are some kids that aren’t going to be able to understand that by just looking at it. They need the verbal instruction as well as shown what to do.

So I have this conversation with teachers that are in upper years. I’m currently working in the grade six space and a lot of teachers like, oh, we don’t know what to do. And I’m like, well, actually, how are they supposed to know how to do this, you know, strategy in reading or writing unless we show them what to do?

So it’s showing them, you know, that multidisciplinary approach of, you know, not just verbally saying or putting it up on the board, showing them. I want you to be able to, you know, identify something within this text. This is how I would do it. Go and do it yourself and practice that.

So showing students. And not everyone needs that, but it’s not going to hurt them to have me show them, you know, it’s not going to hurt that at all.

Other things of communication is making sure that students have got the instructions available, maybe on their table, or they’ve been able to write them down as well. So I find that’s a really great tactic, especially for students with ADHD. They love to call out and put their hand up and explain their answer.

And I find a strategy that I really use to kind of get them to focus and not call out and interrupt my lesson is they just write down like a little notepad, and they have a pen or a pencil, and they write down what I’m saying. Doesn’t even have to be what I’m saying, if I’m being honest. It just kind of keeps them kind of focused down on something listening.

Because eye contact is another thing that teachers sometimes really expect, which I find is absurd, if I’m being honest, because I don’t need to look at someone to listen to what’s being said and to understand what the instructions are. And if I’m being honest, I know for my children as well, they actually are worse if they have to look, like they’re probably going to zone out because they’re concentrating on like looking in the right direction or staying still or doing whatever it is.

So the eye contact is another massive important one that it doesn’t need to happen. So if some students need to write or draw, and as adults, if you’ve done personal development or any kind of session or something where you’re listening to things, I’m never looking at the screen all the time, I’m doodling on my paper and doing things like that.

So there’s some simple things, there’s more again, but like some communication things, I think that’s the first step is being able to communicate with the students in a way that suits them and having it set up ready. So preparing words, you know, like if they’re doing a writing task, having the words ready to go so they can kind of go, okay, these are some things that I could use. Just some helpful resources prepared they can use to help them get started or to make a start or things like that, that can be easily done.

Jane McFadden:

I think that’s great. So there’s some good ideas that if people are listening to the podcast, they can go, okay, well, look, we need to make some changes. There’s some things that are quite simple that maybe the teacher could look into if your child’s not understanding.

I know it’s really upsetting when, you know, one of my kids comes home, it doesn’t happen so much now, especially my daughter, and she would say that she got yelled at because she was off task. And I’d be like, why did you not know what was happening? You know, that communication, she’s clearly missed it. Maybe it wasn’t delivered in, you know, the three different ways that you discussed.

And also, you know, with ADHD, I think it’s really important to show people. I’m still quite scarred by the fact that I went to that parent teacher recently and the prep teacher was still, you know, talking to my son and the fact he still doesn’t really know any sight words. And to be honest, it’s shocking, right, how little sight words he’s known in eight months of being at school.

But look, she sent out the homework a couple of times via email. She told me verbally what it was and then gave it to me in my son’s bag. It wasn’t until the parent teacher, when I said to her, hey, I literally can’t hear you when you start telling me high pressured like homework instructions. I actually can’t hear you.

Even if you tell me twice, I won’t be able to retain it. And I said to her, can you get someone else’s book? Show me all these pieces of paper. Show me how it looks. Show me the folder. And it wasn’t until then that I actually like, okay, I’ve got it.

And it does, it did stress me out a little bit because I thought, wow, I’m 37 and I’m having trouble picking up what I’m supposed to be doing here. My poor five-year-old son. And I think he would be the same unless you literally put it in his hand. He’d be like, what book? I’ve never heard about it.

So I think what you’re talking about is so important. And those are small asks too, I think.

 

Millie Carr:

Yeah. And there’s a couple of things there, Jane, what you just said. I think as teachers, sometimes we forget that a lot of the time our parents that we’re dealing with are probably neurodivergent too.

And obviously adults are able to probably like, you know, mask that a little bit during parent-teacher interviews or at home. And look, I’ll be honest, I am the worst person with my children’s school-related things. Like anything school-related, someone will send me an email. I just don’t, I don’t actually always reply because I spend a lot of my time focusing in on work.

So I understand from a parent’s point of view. And there’s a lot of teachers that don’t have kids yet and kind of like, oh, the parent didn’t respond to me or they didn’t do this. And I kind of go, well, actually they probably are working full-time. They probably are trying to manage their home and their children and their behaviours, which you know that they’ve got because you’re dealing with them in the classroom.

And on top of that, you want them to do homework or do your job. A lot of the teachers, some teachers, not all teachers, some teachers complain about the work not being done at home. And my question to those teachers are, what are you doing here at school?

So I don’t like the idea of homework. That’s a personal opinion of mine. And I’ve been to different schools that have done homework and haven’t done homework. And all of the time, the parents are the ones asking for the homework.

If I’m being honest, I don’t like the idea of homework. What should be taught and re-taught? The only thing at home should be reading with family members and potentially playing some maths games and things. They’re fun stuff that you can do as a family that can help those things, but it’s not high-pressure homework situations.

I don’t feel, especially in primary school, that homework is an expectation that actually makes any difference to anything, if I’m being honest. And when you think about, yeah, the teachers don’t always acknowledge that maybe what’s going on for the parents and the family at home and how they can support them.

And it could be something simple as having parent information nights where you have a rotation system where you go around and you teach the parents what you’re doing in school. And if you would like to do this at home with your child, you can, but the pressure’s not there.

So if you’re reading with your child, these are some things that probably you could question or you could ask. You might want to ask a question about what characters they were and how they were feeling.

So you can do things like that. Or with maths, again, it could be, these are some games that we play here at school and they help with their number sense. And you could go and play them at home and these are the questions that you could ask.

And this is the stuff that we’re kind of looking for, because a lot of parents haven’t been at school for however many years. Things are very different to the way they were when we went to school. And the way we teach kids is different.

So I think that we need to be really aware of parents and work with the families and be a little bit more understanding of the fact that the parents are dealing with so much. And if they can’t, I mean, I can’t, I get home at five, we cook dinner, we do the bath routine and I’m done, I’m cooked. Like there’s nothing else that I can get out of that day.

So I often feel guilty that I haven’t done anything actually with my kids as a teacher even, but I just can’t. So I understand other parents in that same scenario. And I think, yeah, I think that homework and those expectations, if you’re wanting to do it, should be in a fun kind of way and it should be shown to the parents in like a bit of a workshop or something so that parents know what they’re doing and treat the parents the same way with the kids.

Give them instructions that are broken down, give them steps and this is what you could do. Only a couple of instructions on a giant page of writing, because like the kids, they look at that and go, no, I don’t want to do that. Parents are the same. They’ll look at it and go, that’s too hard. We’re not going to touch that tonight.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, totally. And, you know, I think this podcast is also about lowering the expectations on ourselves. You know, I don’t even attempt to meet anywhere near perfection. I think the bare minimum is where I’m at with homework.

We ignored it for eight months until it became critical because my son doesn’t know any sight words at all, right? I’m like, okay, look, probably need to have some movement now and we’re, you know, we’re doing some sight words. But when the teacher talked to me about anything else, I was like, nah, not doing it. Give me the rock bottom that I need to do.

And only that, because if you give me one job, my husband calls me one job, Bob. I can only do one job. Don’t give me the wishlist. I’m not going to be able to do it.

The same with my daughter. They give us all the apps and all the stuff we’ve got to log in. I put it in the cupboard. There’s one book, one spelling thing she does per week. That’s it. Bare minimum.

And I think if you’re listening to this podcast, bare minimum is okay. Bare minimum is actually pretty good, really, compared to doing nothing at all.

 

Millie Carr:

It’s completely okay. Like I was saying before, like myself, sometimes I sometimes don’t do anything. And I think that’s, like I said, the expectation on parents to do things is quite hard because we’re the teachers. We are the experts. They’re at our school for six hours a day.

I even would, to be honest, Jane, if your son’s not learning your sight words, what’s going, what are they doing at school to cater to that? Because it can’t be all on you to bring your sight words up. He’s been at school for however many months and however many hours a day. So they’re obviously doing, hopefully they’re doing something. And I would assume that they’re doing something at school to help with that as well.

But it shouldn’t be put on you either at all. You shouldn’t feel guilty about where he’s at with that, because I feel, and because this is my personal opinion about homework, that it’s an added bonus if parents are able to get it done. If the parents have got time to play a game with their kids or to read with their kids, I mean, reading, I think is very important.

I think everyone probably has time to probably read a book to their kids at night, but there shouldn’t be like worksheets of things that you have to do for 45 minutes or an hour every night because they’ve been at school for six hours. It’s like, you know, I’m tired. How are they feeling? So we can’t expect them to do too much.

It’s just a little bit of like potentially just showing you what they’re doing at school. It’s like a practice. We’re learning this game at school. It’s helping me with my, you know, multiplication facts. And this is how we’re playing it. And we can play together.

You can ask them some questions. Like we’re reading this book. I’m going to read a little bit to you. Maybe you can read to them. That’s it. Maybe they write a bit about what they did on the weekend.

Really simple stuff that isn’t—the expectation probably needs to be lower for a lot of schools around homework because I feel it just puts a lot of pressure on, especially the neurodivergent parents who are struggling themselves anyway to keep everything afloat. Yeah. So I feel like, yeah, people shouldn’t feel bad about that. Do what you can, but the school, they’re going to school for a reason as well.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, I agree. Let’s talk inclusion because I’ve had some interesting moments.

Time is the last two years in terms of inclusion. When I was at school, which doesn’t feel that long ago, I feel very young at heart, but it is in fact a long time ago. You know, they took everyone out to the special education caravan and everyone would go see, you know, Mrs. Anne and everyone knew that those kids were going for some extra help.

And if you knew if you were going out to the van, that you were a bit behind, and then people would come back from the van, they’d go to the van, it would be back to the van. Inclusion’s all changed now. And inclusion means that you are in the classroom the whole time.

There’s so many questions to me around that, because I don’t think it’s great, not that I know enough about it to really have an opinion. I was wondering what your opinion is on the changing inclusion system that I think a lot of parents are just starting to understand has changed.

Millie Carr:

Yeah, I’m in Victoria and we’re doing a big focus at the moment on disability inclusion. It’s kind of all around Australia as well. I think we’re at the beginning of the journey though. It’s really—there are lots of teachers that still are unaware of how to cater to all of the needs and kind of put some of these simple things in place that will help cater to some of these things.

Personally, my son is autistic and currently goes to a specialist school. So he’s not in a mainstream school. He’s non-speaking, speaking minimally. But at the moment, the school system couldn’t cater to him. So he’s separate because he can’t be catered to in that school system the way it’s currently set up. So he is separate so that he can get the best support that he can get at the moment.

But at the moment, the school system isn’t completely set up for that. It’s not set up—it’s set up in a neurotypical fashion. A lot of the emphasis is on reading and writing. And reading and writing is not the only way that you can show what you know and learn something.

And I think a lot of people that are neurodivergent sometimes struggle with reading and writing, holding in memory and holding what they’ve learned, being able to express it. Either they have trouble with holding a pen or actually getting started on their writing. A lot of students that are neurodivergent really struggle to get started and need that extra support in that area.

So the focus needs to come off the reading and writing and everything needs to be, you have to read this and then write about this to show me what you know. Why can’t we do it where the option is to verbally explain what they’re doing, to verbally prepare before they write?

So working with partners, they could record it on an iPad or a computer if they’ve got it. There’s a lot of different now programs on the computer where they can read. So it’s like, you know, software that can read the writing on the page for you.

There’s also special reading pens. They’re quite expensive, but you can get them and they can—you can touch any word on any page and it will read it for you. Because I feel like, especially as the kids get older, if they’ve lost some of their struggle with some of these reading abilities, it just kind of—the gap gets bigger and bigger.

So if we don’t have some of these things that we allow students to use, so a lot of teachers are like, nah, we can’t have some kids using the computer and some kids not using the computer. And I’m like, well, how come? Because some kids can’t write, they can’t handwrite properly. Like it’s really hard for them to do that.

And you’re going to get a piece of messy work that was probably not as great as if they typed it. Or you’ve got kids that are better verbally than they are writing. So they could give you a fabulous story. They know all the information they need to include. It’s just getting it down.

So why can’t they record themselves and then go back and maybe copy what they’ve recorded? So I think inclusion—and we’re at the very beginning of the journey—but it’s not about equality. It’s about equity. Equity means that everyone gets what they need at that moment.

Some kids have got computers. Some kids don’t because they don’t need them. Some kids have got fidgets because they need them. Some kids don’t. Some kids sit on chairs. Some kids sit on the floor. It’s individualising what students need and getting the kids to understand, because I know that this is a bit of a problem with students as well.

They go, well, why are they sitting on a chair? How come I can’t do that? And I think it’s about teaching that awareness to students about everyone is different. Everyone needs different things. What you need is different to what that student needs.

And if that student’s doing something, obviously it’s because it’s for a specific need that they’ve organised with the teacher. And having that time to get to know the kids at the start of the year, learn what their needs are, try different things and have that acceptance and having that culture in the classroom of accepting different students.

And it comes from the top of leadership. It really comes—and I’m lucky, I’m in a really quite a good school for the most part. We do a lot of these things. There’s different teachers throughout the school that are doing probably not the same kind of things.

But from the top, I think the belief is that we want a culture where the students are accepted and they feel happy and safe in their space. And I think if you create that with your classroom, that inclusion comes with all these other little strategies that I’m kind of providing. They’re little things, but you’ve got to create that overarching inclusion by reading books about characters that are neurodivergent, reading books about characters that have got different race, different gender. All of that stuff is so important.

Talking about it, kind of doing a lesson around what ADHD is. What does that mean? And I know for me, even a few years ago, my stereotype of ADHD was of the boys that were running around kind of being disruptive. And that’s not what ADHD is. I know that now.

And I don’t—the kids don’t know that. Other teachers don’t know that. So it’s kind of breaking those stereotypes down and kind of learning and being accepting of each other and kind of understanding that, you know, different students react in different ways and being able to manage that as for kids and teach them that, then also do that as teachers and create that really positive, inclusive culture.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, I think that is, that’s pretty massive, to be honest. I think you and Tanya Waring would get on really well because she’s all about proper inclusion, proper inclusion. And I suppose properly including people and having everyone in the classroom, which I know I said, I don’t disagree with doing it that way.

I disagree with the amount of resources the teachers get, because I think they get stuck with a lot of diversity and they’ve got no extra support and they can’t move some of the kids in and out with different resources because they don’t have any. That’s what I have a problem with. Proper inclusion, having all the resources in the classroom, a supported teacher, I think is 100% the best way to do it.

I don’t think the teachers are being supported enough. And then I think that we also get a culture of you’re different, you’re disruptive, I don’t like you. And then that culture of that is then displayed out into the playground, which is then you get that bullying.

And I think there would be a really interesting take, and we have it at my son’s school at the moment. He was getting punched and hit repeatedly at school all last term. So he wasn’t the kid who was doing it, he was the kid on the other end of it.

And when I spoke to the teacher about what they were doing about it, what they were doing with the other kids I wasn’t happy about, because they were segregating them, taking them away, taking away their privileges, not having lunch break, sitting in an office. And I felt for the kids that were the perpetrators to my son, because I thought, well, how’s this ever going to get better? He’s never going to have a friendship with these kids. They’re only in prep.

They can be there for 12 years. How is this going to work? And I think you’ve really talked about that culture change where perhaps if you gave those children leadership roles, or let them be good at something, build up their confidence, included them, then maybe there would be less of this gap.

Which is then when I see in society, when people make comments to me that are a little bit, probably not the nicest thing to say about people with ADHD, it’s just that they don’t know any better. It’s not that they’re malicious, or they have got some kind of bad intention towards neurodiverse people. They literally just don’t have any experience. They don’t know what to say.

And they have all the old school beliefs that you’ve just suggested. So I just think that’s an incredible, like a culture change within a school.

Millie Carr:

Oh my God, I think that’s a great point. I think it’s a culture change just nationally. This is not just, and there are people within schools that are thinking this way. There are not just—it’s not just me, it’s not just you.

There are people within this system that are thinking this way, but it is tricky. And you mentioned the resource element of it. It’s tricky in that, you know, I mentioned some strategies that would cost, you know, allowing computers, allowing technology that allows them to read, allowing those special pens, or there are some things that kind of extra stuff that we need to make sure are available for teachers to be able to use if they need.

And teachers are—teaching is a very hard job. It’s really hard. It’s so draining. You’re not just teaching the curriculum, you break up fights, you’re managing emotions, you’re managing the behaviours. There’s so many things that are going on for teachers.

And I think sometimes bringing a new thing and going this, you know, this is like, you’ve got these acceptance and inclusion thing. It just seems like another thing for teachers. So they kind of almost shut down. We have a lot of new things happen in education a lot.

So we do things for a few years and then they change it and then we do something else and then we do it again. And then new research comes in. So we do all these different things to change and try and do the best job that we can.

But I think what happens is teachers aren’t properly—we don’t have a lot of time to train teachers. So we’re teaching and we have meetings, you know, a couple of times a week outside of that, but we have so much to cover. It’s like, what do we prioritise?

So it’s like, you know, sometimes there are meetings about, like, you know, reading content and what that is and how to help teachers with that. And it’s also the wellbeing. So I think this stuff is so important that it needs to be done more because teachers don’t realise you don’t need to be an expert to start some of this stuff.

They don’t have all of these ideas. You know, I mentioned it like, I think two weeks ago to another teacher, I’m in a kind of coaching role outside of the classroom at the moment. And I mentioned to a teacher, one of the kids who was disrupting her constantly to just let him write down what he was thinking and then he could tell her later.

And she was like, oh my God, it’s made the biggest difference. Like just a small little thing, but she didn’t think of that. She was like, so he was constantly being, you know, so and so, stop talking or move over there. And you can just do something to swap it, put the energy into something different.

So teachers don’t know all this stuff properly. And it’s because we don’t have a lot of time. And the time comes again from up top, from the governments, from our principals and what they put and where they put the professional development for teachers needs to be this stuff.

Because if we can’t work out wellbeing and work out behaviour, the kids can’t learn in this environment. Not just the kids that are neurodivergent, the neurotypical kids are, you know, trying to do stuff and then the kids are disruptive because of the environment that they’re in isn’t conducive to their learning and to help them do their best learning.

Or the expectation is it’s only reading and writing stuff. You have no other way to respond. You know, some kids are fabulous at drawing. Why can’t they draw their response or do a little comic strip of the different sequence of what’s happening?

We just need to be able to just be open to the different ways people learn. And I think sometimes teachers as well. And when you’re in the front of a classroom with 30 kids trying to manage all of this and make them sit and be quiet to tell your instruction, it’s overwhelming for a teacher if kids are doing different things.

So a lot of teachers just want the kids to sit down and be quiet so that they can say what they need to say. We need to stop talking and kind of show the kids off they go. So the sitting down and the talking kind of breeds a bit of a problem too. So there’s multiple elements to that.

The resources, the teachers, a lot of the time are trying their hardest. Most teachers are really trying super hard. There are teachers leaving. We have a massive teacher shortage here in Victoria. We can’t get CRTs. We can’t get teachers to stay longer than a year. Even throughout the year, teachers are leaving in the middle.

It’s really, really tricky because they get in the job and they’re like, oh, it’s just way too hard at the moment. So there’s something that really needs to change. And I think it needs to start at the top with looking at this, preparing for the neurodiverse classroom, preparing for these students and the behaviours that we’re likely going to see and setting it up from the get-go so that we’re eliminating meltdowns and things as frequent.

They’re always going to happen. There’s always going to be changes in schools that we can’t control. Like, you know, all of a sudden we have to like move out for a fire drill or something. But most of the time you can prepare them with visuals, with schedules, with, you know, this is what’s going to happen. Social stories.

There’s so many different things that we can do to eliminate some of these behaviours that escalate and become disruptive and to help these kids. And, you know, knowing that I’m ADHD, I know that I can help eliminate my meltdowns by doing certain things. It’s the same thing.

You know, we’re trying to eliminate it before it happens and before it gets really big and that environment isn’t conducive, then they’re going to happen. And then we have to deal with it after the fact. And then the whole cycle just goes around and around.

And yeah, something needs to happen from the get-go from the top and then filter down for the teachers.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. And, you know, one thing that I think is really positive is that all of the parents that I’ve spoken to and I’ve spoken to a lot of them and I just get hit up, like the inboxes that I get are just, a lot of it’s school related.

There is, I don’t think I’ve seen one message or had any conversations with any person who has blamed the teachers. Most of the parents are like, the teachers are like us. They’re stressed, overworked. It’s not fair. And they feel awful, a lot of them having to ask for anything extra.

And I think then even if you do ask, there’s not a lot that the principal or anyone can do because you’re right, there’s a teacher shortage. So it’s like, how can they—not performance managers in the right word—but put any pressure on them to learn or to do this or to do that. Because it’s kind of like lucky that they’re there at all is the impression I’ve always gotten, because it’s like without that person, we don’t have anything.

So there is a feeling amongst the parents that the principal of the school is on the teacher’s side. That’s probably not the case, but it’s the feeling that I think that is being given. Again, everyone’s very well aware that the education system is set up to fail at this point.

The other question it raises when you were talking was, if we look at the mental health crisis that we’re at at the moment with our young people in Australia, it’s horrifying. I’m terrified for my three children coming into their teenage years: the suicide rate, the mental health, the state of the system, the availability of therapists, medication.

We haven’t seen a breakthrough in psychiatry in 50 years, 5-0. They have not had any breakthroughs. Okay, what are we doing then? Because I’m not convinced the strategies that we have to help mental health work.

I own a mental health company. I’m not convinced. I think we really need to look at other strategies and we need to look at the education system and what we are putting our kids through because why are they coming out like that?

Sorry to get my high horse. It gets me really angry. I look at the education system and I think, well, geez, there’s the bloody problem.

Millie Carr:

The primary area is a little bit different to secondary. The primary area, I think we really try. There’s a lot of like, you know, attempts of inclusion and doing small groups and trying to cater to different students in the primary.

In the secondary setting—and I’ve only got a slider when my daughter is in year nine—at her school, she comes home and she says they put PowerPoints up and she just answers questions. PowerPoint questions, PowerPoint questions.

Pretty much most of the time, there’s a rare teacher in there that does something slightly different. It’s usually a music teacher or something like that. But they’re all just putting things up and it’s so unengaging for the students.

She is so—she hates school. She often tells me, I don’t want to go. I can’t go.

At my school, we’re a P to nine at my current school that I’m working at. And we’ve tried to alter that and change that a little bit. So our year sevens go into year seven and have the one teacher for most things.

They have a couple of—they don’t have all different teachers for everything. We’re trying to keep it in a similar kind of setup that we do in primary, kind of going into those seven, eight, nine, because you’ve still got kids in the year seven, eight, nine that are struggling with these things. And they’re just getting lost.

They can’t go to—if they can’t read in grade six, at a grade six level, how can they get to year seven and be expected to read just the chapter book? Like, and everyone reads and answers questions. It’s just impossible.

And I think the secondary setting has a lot that needs to be changed and needs to be changed about it. The teachers that go in the secondary area are kind of a little bit more of that authoritarian. Again, this is just generalising in my experience based on teachers that I’ve seen that teach in that area. They’re just a different kind of teacher.

And the way they deal with those kids, again, is very different. You would know, you cannot deal with kids that are neurodivergent by yelling at them. It just does not work. It just—it’s a sure way to set them up to fail and to set them off and melt down.

You’re going to set them off if you talk to them the way that you’re going to, like you yell at them or you tell them off for something they haven’t done. That’s not the way to go about those kids.

And I think that in primary school, definitely there’s some kids doing it there, but I think as it goes into secondary school, they’re just expected to just conform to this approach that was set up so many years ago to help get kids out into the, you know, people working in the industrial sector.

That’s what it was set up for: sit down, be quiet, get information in, off you go, use it. That’s not the jobs that we have now. The kids are, students are leaving year 12 and the jobs in the workforce, there’s so much more work being done already around inclusion and working from home and different options for people. It’s so different to being at school, in secondary school.

In secondary school, they’re just sitting there listening to questions and answering exams. And then they get out into the real world and jobs aren’t asking you to do that anymore. So many jobs, it’s a different workforce now.

So we need to accommodate that for when they go out in the workforce, they’re working with people, they need to do more group work, more, you know, learning how to be social with people or be in those situations when they leave to be in those kinds of jobs.

So yeah, I think, yeah, what you touch on. I’ve got a high horse too. I kind of get really passionate about this because it just really upsets me that, you know, it’s not the teacher’s fault per se, but it comes from that someone needs to make a change. And it’s probably bigger than, it’s bigger than me.

Doing things like this, Jane, and having your podcast allow us to talk about these things and have other people go, oh yeah, I had the same experience. I want to start some of that in my school. And hopefully people in gathering together is going to help us make some of this change.

And then the people up top can hear, you know, what we’re saying and it’ll hopefully start to change. But I think we’re at the very beginning of it. I think it’s identified that there’s a big problem, but it’s, yeah, how do we go about changing? It is, it’s tricky and you’ve got to get people on board and some teachers just don’t want to change what they’re doing.

So it’s a tricky process, but I think we’re at the start of it and what we’re doing now, talking about it, so important.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, parenting and teaching is not hugely different in some ways. I had an OT at my house yesterday and one of my kids went into full meltdown, just transitioning from playing cards with the OT to getting in the car.

And I mean, he was given plenty of warning, like an OT is in charge, right? I mean, how much more, you know, can you really get with that in terms of what we could have done differently? It was actually more my fault, not my fault, but look, he was coloring something in and I went to put it on the fridge and I didn’t realize he was still holding it and a little bit of it ripped. So the whole thing happened there.

But the point was the OT said to me at the end, geez, you guys are pretty calm. She was kind of like expecting one of us to fly off the handle. And I said to her, you know, we’re at that point now where we used to handle them neurotypically, where you would just do, get in the car, get in the car and just keep yelling at them and threatening to smack them or whatever.

It’s like, we’ve been through that place and the place that we’ve been is like, we know that doesn’t work. That does not work. And generally, when we have done that in the past and you force, you end up with a bigger chaotic environment than you began. You end up with multiple kids going off. It takes hours.

And so we were kind of looking at him like, at some point he’s going to come to his own devices here. And I feel like teachers were kind of at that point where we’re all realising that the education system is not working and you’re realising that it’s not really going anywhere.

But the place from that to actually skilling up and knowing what to do differently is a massive leap. And it is a huge leap. And to have that many resources organised, that many people, you know, I’ve struggled to organise my own family of five.

So I can only imagine what kind of job that will be. But I think it’s that place of we’re starting to realise it’s not working and people are talking about it more. Parents aren’t happy. Kids aren’t happy. Teachers aren’t happy. Principals, I’m sure, are not happy.

But it’s that next piece and that next place that I don’t think we found yet. And that’s a really difficult question.

Millie Carr:

Yeah, I think it comes back to, again, that culture. And it’s about spreading that culture. And I think it’s starting to happen, obviously, more online and more awareness about things. But it’s that, yeah, it’s bringing that culture and that awareness and visibility about what different people’s brains are doing and how they’re working and being accepting both the kids, students, parents, principal, staff members, all of that, working together to help all of the students and think about and anticipate all of these different differences.

Because that’s where it is. Yeah, that acceptance and that culture shift is massive. And I think it’s going to happen. I believe it’s going to happen. I’ve just got a positive kind of view that it’s going to get there. I think it’s starting. It’s just that we’re just really at the start of where it’s going.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. And we want more teachers, right? And we want the right teachers. So we want passionate educators. And we want people to be attracted to the industry. At the moment, I’m not sure how that would be going, but we obviously need more of them and we need more passionate educators.

What would be some tips and tricks? And this is probably going to be a tricky question, Millie. If you were a parent and you were unhappy with something that was going on at school, a lot of us are lost on how to approach, what to do, what to ask for. I think there’s a lot of that feeling of not wanting to encroach.

Parents are very well aware the teachers are stressed out. You’re kind of adding to the mix. What would be some of the more positive things that you could say or do to create a positive outcome without attacking anyone? What are your thoughts on that?

Millie Carr:

Yeah, because there’s obviously going to be different teachers’ awareness. So you might come across a teacher that hasn’t got as much awareness as you do of some of these things and some of the different changes that they need to make.

I think creating that consistent relationship with the teacher from the get-go, that you’re not kind of saying they’re not doing it because you respect the teacher and expect that they’ve got a massive workload. And sometimes the teachers don’t have control all the time over what they have to do.

So sometimes they’re being told to do something that may not work and may not make sense, but they’re being told that from higher up as well. So I think communicating with the teacher consistently from the get-go, even before anything negative has happened. And I like to encourage teachers to do that also.

So to start that communication with, you know, what does your child need? Asking the parents what works for you guys at home? You know, what do you do? What are their strengths and what are their interests? Because if we can hook into that, that’s going to help us in the classroom.

So you know your child the best. So what are some things that you do at home that help with anything that they have trouble with or have difficulties with? So even communicating that before the teacher comes. Because some teachers start like that. They’ll ask, you know, can you give us information about your child? Or they’ll ask the student, can you fill out a bit of a questionnaire of what you like and how I can get to know you and how I can best help you learn?

They’re not doing that. That’s the first place to start is kind of like giving just them a little bit of an idea of things that work for you at home, small little things that they’d easily be able to take on. The way you communicate with your child, the way that you prepare them. They might need a visual. So then the teacher goes, oh, okay, I can set that up. That’s great.

So just kind of preparing them. And if it’s continuing on and you’re like in the middle of the year, I think having that relationship helps then to be like, okay, something’s not happening. We need to sit down and have a meeting. And it might be that the meeting happens with the teacher, but also some leadership as well.

I find when you’ve got some leadership involved in the meeting, because sometimes the teacher doesn’t know what they don’t know. So if you’re having it with someone in leadership, we’ll know some of these things. And that’s why they’re in leadership. They’ve got that level of experience that’s higher.

You know, and I often sit in meetings with teachers that I work with and I’m coaching. And then I can then support the teacher. So the parents are telling me something. So if the teacher doesn’t know how to kind of cater to that, I can help them kind of do that. So coach them and build their capacity in that way individually.

And I know on a whole scale, it’d be great. But if we can just do it individually, if parents have that, if they go, okay, I’ve spoken to my OT, the OT has got some suggestions here. Even having allied health come into school is fabulous.

Because again, sometimes teachers in some schools do have funding for allied health at school and some don’t. But if you don’t, if your school doesn’t have allied health, and you’ve got allied health that are telling you some strategies and suggestions, tell your teacher, I’m happy for my speech and my OT, my psychologist, if they’re happy to come in and spend a session in the school, they can see how they are in the school setting, give you some strategies, give the teachers some strategies, and then report back to you what happened.

So, you know, I met with the teacher, I observed so and so, and they were doing these behaviours, I’ve got some really great strategies the teacher can use, I’m going to give them to that teacher. So those kind of things, I think emailing and just being really like, starting that communication in that relationship early, maintaining it, checking in on your child.

Sometimes I encourage to hear a teacher listening, call parents that have children that have behavioural kind of things that happen a lot, call them for positive things a lot. Don’t just call them when it’s negative, don’t just call them and say, you know, oh, it’s happened again, we’ve had so and so run out of the class anymore, they’re not listening or whatever, they’ve meltdown. That is not a great relationship.

If you’re a parent and you’re constantly being called about something negative, you get a school phone number, you look at it, you go, oh, God, what have they done now? Like what’s happened? I don’t even want to answer that. Whereas if it’s positive, and there’s also those concerns that come up too, it just—it makes the relationship easier. And it makes it seem like you care about that student, and you really want to help both the parent and the student and cater to that.

So I think, yeah, building that relationship with the teacher, if they don’t take the lead on it, you as a parent can do that. You as a parent can email them, here are some really, you know, these are some tips that I use at home to help cater to some of these things. I’d love to have some regular check-ins with you on, you know, how my child’s going, and then yeah, maintain it as you go.

Get some leadership involved if you need, the teacher needs some support, and then maybe some allied health as well.

 

Jane McFadden:

I love what you said about the positivity, because I always try and make sure that I do lots of positive feedback. So then to the teachers, and we had the head of students involved with the punching stuff that was going on.

I sent him a really lovely email and said, hey, just to let you know, we’ve really seen a difference this term. Because I always want to have the awareness that I can be happy. I’m not a complainer. I’m not someone that only turns up when it’s negative.

And I think it goes both ways, to acknowledge that there’s some good parts to happen with everybody—parents, teachers, you know, the exec staff and the kids—and to acknowledge all the positives as well as the negatives, because jeez, it gets old when you’re told constantly about what you’re doing wrong. And that would go both ways as a parent and a teacher.

And then, you know, any constructive conversation can sometimes just be completely out the window because you just did negative land.

Millie Carr:

Yeah, I completely agree. Similar, you know, if you look at your husband or your friends, you know, you don’t just go, hey, thanks for not doing that. Hey, thanks for not doing that. You wouldn’t have many friends or, you know, many relationships.

So even though there’s been times that I’ve directly, personally not liked a teacher, bloody hell, it’s hard to put your personal differences aside, particularly when you’ve got ADHD or neurodiversity, because I’m like, my face is very open about how I feel. It’s very hard to rein that in.

And, you know, I’ve sat through parent-teacher interviews where I’ve literally hated someone, and that’s been really difficult too. But to put that aside for the child and in the sake of the relationship, yeah, it’s tough as a parent and as a teacher, because I’m pretty sure there’s been teachers that have not liked me either. But, you know, I suppose that goes with it.

Jane McFadden:

One question I wanted to ask you, Millie, this is a big one. Ready? ADHD mums, I have so many of them, they inbox me: how do you pick the right school for your kid? What should we be looking for? Because when you walk in, they all talk about inclusion.

They all talk about what they do, but whether they actually do do it or not, you don’t know until you get there, and then your kid is ripped out of one into the other. What would be some kind of tips that you would be looking for in a school?

Millie Carr:

I think it’s really—and they all do, they try and put their best foot forward and try and make it look fabulous. I think I would be really cautious of people and people going on tours and things like that, talking just about academics, really cautious about people that are not planning results or, you know, that they’ve got all these fabulous things in place for reading and writing and maths.

I would look for a school that’s looking at everything, talks about the specialist program—music, art, sciences—that talks about, you know, potentially special lunch clubs that they do for students that are struggling, or how they have like the library available for students in the day, or thinking about those programs that they’ve got that are not the educational programs set up, the wellbeing, how are they looking after your child’s wellbeing.

So the wellbeing should be at the front, and then all of the other stuff happens after wellbeing. So I’d be looking at for, and again, they might say these things and may not do them, so it’s hard to know in those kind of environments.

When I get a good—I don’t know about you, Jane, but my ADHD gives me some really great sense of stuff. I just know things. If I walk into an environment and I feel something off, I’m like, that’s, I can just, I can tell something is off in an environment when I first go into it.

I mean, my school is really like, the teachers are all very happy there. We have got artwork and stuff painted on the portables. They look inviting and pretty. We’ve got this special like seating area that has this lovely tree thing that we got the kids to do.

There’s all these stories that the kids have written and then were made around the school. There’s all these like really great things that were, again, extracurricular, culturally diverse things, the flags that we have even, you know, we often sometimes change the flags to have different things, flags up there for, again, gender and our Indigenous students.

So I think it’s just thinking about all of those things and what does the feel of the school have and are they talking about wellbeing and things that aren’t just reading, writing, maths? Because if they’re scores, and some parents care about that stuff. Some parents think that’s what the important things are, but it’s not.

So if they’re talking about, oh, you know, we’ve had the best NAPLAN scores in reading for the last three, that doesn’t—to me, I don’t care. How are they—the wellbeing is important. That stuff comes when the wellbeing is important and the kids want to be at school. They feel safe at school.

They love the environment. They love the teachers. They feel the teachers believe in them. They will do well. So those things come first. So hopefully they’re able to give that in a bit of a tour and you’re looking for something like that.

You’re looking for a school that looks like they put extra effort into things that aren’t just academics, into like making that environment really important. Our environment, our school feels nice. Like it feels lovely to walk around. It’s well-maintained. It’s colourful. It’s pretty. Kids’ artwork’s up all over the place.

It just feels good on the outside, even before you walk in the classroom. So if you walked through there, you’d be like, oh, this black, it looks like they’re going to put a bit of effort into stuff. I think that’s important. So that’s probably a couple of tips. I think, yeah, think about the wellbeing over the academic stuff and that give you a bit of a tip.

 

Jane McFadden:

Okay. And controversial question, but I hear it and I see it everywhere. Do you think there’s any differences or, you know, between private and public? A lot of ADHD mums say, okay, the public schools are better resourced. The inclusion areas are better.

And then you get other people that go, well, privately, they can attract a better teaching staff because they pay more and the packages are better. And in Catholic as well, versus independent, do you—is there any, you know, comment you could have on any of those?

Millie Carr:

That is very controversial. And I’ll say in prefaces that this is my opinion. So I can’t say for everybody what everyone else’s opinion is. I work at a public school. I send my kids to public schools. I refuse to send my daughter to a Catholic school.

Catholic schools—the way things are done in Catholic and private schools, they can do their own thing a little bit. They don’t—the curriculum is still there for them to follow, but they can do kind of their own thing and work around it. And the way they do things is a little bit different than public schools.

There’s like a government mandated based on research, what we’re doing. And a lot of that, it’s progressing as we go on. We’re at a point where there’s some really great stuff coming out of our government, kind of in Victoria especially. Victoria has a very fabulous education department that kind of filters down. There’s some really great initiatives going on there.

I also feel that the resources can be different in different areas. And I remember you speaking about it a few episodes ago about, yeah, different—so depending on what you put on the enrolment form is the amount of funding that we do get. That is very true.

So if you overestimate your job or your qualifications, it does change our funding. And also the kids, the students that we identify as our tier three students changes our funding as well. So things that we have to make adjustments for, we get more funding for those things, different areas get different funding.

So personally, I feel that there is—that everything’s going in a more inclusive way in more government schools. In private schools, yeah, they can hire, they do pay more and they do hire, they can hire people that want higher pay, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get a better teacher because you’re paying them more. It doesn’t mean you’re getting a better teacher.

If I’m being honest, I refuse to go work at a school like that, even though I get paid more. And I, you know, I feel like I’m quite a good teacher in the classroom and I won’t go to that kind. Everyone’s got different preferences, but I feel like, you know, in religious schools and Catholic schools, they have to do religion.

There’s a time that’s kind of like taken out of other things to do religion and that’s part of their curriculum. There’s different things that are positives and negatives to both sides, but ultimately I feel like—and you know, public schools and private schools are going to have potentially less students that are having difficulties because they can also accept different levels of kids. So they actually can exclude kids and say, no, we’re not going to accept you.

So a lot of schools that are private, you have to sit an exam or something to get in there. You can’t just go there. So that eliminates a lot of those kids that have learning disabilities or things going on because they exclude them.

So they’ve got this entire environment that can—the neurotypicals are sitting down learning and it’s a bit quieter because you don’t have as many of those students that are neurodivergent because they can kind of exclude some of those things that happen.

Whereas government schools, we have to accept whoever’s in the area. So we just get, you know, whatever’s in that zone, in that area that we’ve got. So that’s kind of my roundabout kind of way of, I’m really happy in my government school.

I feel like there is still work to be done, but there are some things that are positively happening in that space. Different states are obviously slightly different in terms of what they do. There are some positive things in our Victorian education space that are coming through. It’s just a slow process of changing some of those things, but we’re getting better at it.

So we’re at the beginning, but I think government schools, yeah, they have more of that diverse needs to cater to. So we’re getting better at doing it because we have to, because we’ve got, we’ve got all this going on and we have to kind of cater to it.

So yeah, I don’t think there’s any benefits. I wouldn’t say definitely go put your child in a Catholic or a private school because that’s going to help your child better. If anything, their tolerance for your child’s behaviour probably will be worse, if I’m being honest, because they’ve got probably strict policies about, you know, you hit someone, you’re suspended, off you go, rather than taking the fact that the kid’s had, you know, the environment wasn’t right, or there’s equity potentially in that. Whereas I think it’ll be like, if you don’t follow the rules there, they’re the rules forever on.

Yeah, that’s kind of my personal opinion, but that’s just my opinion. So there’s obviously different teachers with different opinions.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, no, no. I asked you, I asked your personal opinion. I talked to an OT and a psychologist the other day, not on this podcast, just because they’re my friends, and this is—I just talk about this stuff all the time.

And I talked to them and they said similar to you in some ways. They said, look, you know, a public school can be brought down by a—not the best principal, that that can happen. A private school can be brought up by a great principal. You know, you don’t know, it comes back to that.

But they also said, again, similar, the world is full of neurodiverse people. And the best school for a neurodiverse child would be to go to a school with neurodiverse children. However, however, it has to be properly managed, because if you’ve got a lot of bullying behaviour towards those neurodiverse children, you’ve got overworked staff, you’ve got poor policies, poor practices, and you’ve got, you know, chaos, that would be awful.

That would be a horrific environment for a neurodiverse kid. But the right school that manages things properly with neurodiversity is a better move. So, and that’s not necessarily public or private, as you said, that comes back to the culture and the way that, you know, the philosophy of the school and how that works.

But I think, yeah, popping a neurodiverse child in to a place that didn’t have many could also—I mean, I’ve heard views of people say that, you know, camouflaging the neurotypical neurodiverse child just copies all the neurotypical children and they come across quite good. But when we say come across quite good, I mean, what is good? That’s a whole nother thing.

I don’t mean that in good or bad, but they come across okay, that they’re fitting in—and I’m using, you know, finger marks—fitting in. But I always wonder what the toll is on that child and if they really truly feel that they fit in. Because coming across wearing the uniform and camouflaging and masking up all day comes at a real cost.

And I went to a school like that. It was one of those elite schools and yeah, I mean, I was okay until I had a full breakdown at 14. I’m sure people thought I was great. So, you know, camouflaging and following along and having the illusion of everything being beautiful also makes me have questions too.

So I don’t know, you kind of—it’s a really tricky position for mums to be in, I think.

 

Millie Carr:

It’s so tricky and like, it depends on different—different schools have different teachers and different principals and it comes from the top, that culture. So it’s really hard to know which school is the best one until you’re kind of in it and you’re experiencing different things.

You might have one great year at one school, in the same school the next year have not a great year. It depends on the teachers as well. Do you mean different teachers are different? So it’s different.

It’s really hard because not all schools have exactly the same teacher the whole way through. So there’s variety within that as well. So there’s never going to be—I think the thing is like you overstress about whether you’ve made the right choice of school.

And I think you just need to kind of get a feel, see what they’re saying and just kind of give it a go and see how it goes. Because it’s really hard to kind of overstress that and like make that—it’s a big decision, but it’s, you need to make a decision, I guess, and you can’t just—there’s going to be some negatives at every school. It’s going to be some positives probably at every school.

There’s going to be some that are really not great for your child and there’s some going to be really, really accepting. So it’s just trying to find the one that’s got the most positive and great environment and culture for your child that supports your child really well, as many throughout the years they’re there. That’s probably the best way, I guess, to kind of get into it.

The masking thing, when you were talking about that kind of hiding and camouflaging within that, I feel like I went to a Catholic school myself personally in primary and secondary, and I did feel like I had to do that. I was very highly, highly masked the whole time throughout my schooling and had multiple breakdowns at home and stuff, but not at school.

And I struggled and overworked to show up the way that the school wanted me and needed me to show up. And it’s exhausting, absolutely exhausting. So those poor kids that are trying to do that, sure, it looks like they’re managing from the outside, but that’s a whole another, I guess, kind of issue or topic, Jane, that we can cover again. But that’s something that, yeah, they struggle with, but we need to be able to identify those kids as well.

Because you can really see the loud ones. You can see the kids that are obviously, you know, doing things that are different in the classroom that don’t hide it as much. The ones that hide it, they’re the ones that we really need to try and catch a little bit, because they’re the ones that are falling through and not being recognised for so many years and struggling without having that extra support.

Because that’s why, going back to my original thing at the start, the neurodiverse classroom—if you set it up in a way that caters to all of this, those kids that we kind of don’t really realise, they can still get that help. They can still get that support inadvertently because we’ve set it up in a way that expects those things in the classroom.

So it doesn’t matter if we can’t completely identify those kids or they’re really good at kind of camouflaging it, we can set it up in a way that it still supports them. They’re still going to be able to have that support of knowing they can have their instructions there or they can, you know, act it out in a certain way or talk to a partner—whatever it is, they can do it in a discreet way because everyone’s doing it. So it doesn’t matter.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, and I think what you’re talking about there is creating an inclusive world, not an—I mean, inclusive classroom, beautiful, I’d love that for my children, but we’re talking about, you know, dropping the labels, dropping the diagnosis, who’s got what, and just creating a supportive world that everyone can live in.

I mean, and then what we’re doing is we’re creating a generation of children who just accept everybody’s difference, cater to everybody. You don’t need to label who’s got what, you just are—we’re including everybody and, you know, I don’t want to go on the whole love is love thing, but it’s kind of like, well, we’re all just, we’re all just here doing our best, which, oh my goodness, can you imagine if we see that in a lifetime, that would be an achievement. It’s such a positive thing, but out there.

Millie Carr:

Oh yeah, it’s like super out there. I know I talk about this stuff with other people and they’re like, that seems a bit out there. I’m like, no, no, no, no, I’m going to be 80 years old. I’m going to go, remember when I made that podcast, which is so obsolete and like a, you know, a DVD or a CD or it’s like a tape or maybe like that.

And, you know, we can all feel that we were part of it.

Jane McFadden:

I think we will finish up, Millie, but what I would love to do is to get you back for the highly camouflaged subtype of, you know, female ADHD and ASD. Real passion area of mine. And I know it is of yours. Let’s finish up because we’ve done such a great thorough job on the classroom, I think.

And then we will finish up and we will move on to that next time. But thank you so much for your time, Millie. This has been an absolute cracker interview. I’ve learned a lot. Thank you.

Millie Carr:

No, thanks so much, Jane, for having me on. It’s really important to have people like you doing these kinds of things. So thank you.