Episode 3 explores what the use of isolation does to children’s mental health and building trusting child-adult relationships (Introducing Coco the magical barking dog)

• Despair over the use of isolation booths in some schools. Leads us to look at how isolation is so embedded in what is ‘done to’ children in the name of teaching them how to behave.
• We turn our attention to how it has become quite normal to separate children from us just at a moment when they are really struggling and distressed. And the very real benefits of doing the opposite!
• Finally, we share practical tips to support you as you find alternative ways to raise children without breaking your connection.

 

The episode in more detail.

Ticked my box or ticked me off:

• The use of ‘consequence rooms’ in schools where children sit in booths in stillness and silence
• The emotional and physical impact of also making toilet breaks restricted and timed

4:29 – The male brain is not fully developed until nearly 30 and the female brain, mid to late 20’s so we often ask far too much of children and young people.

4:48 – Isolation does not offer opportunities to understand they ‘why’ behind behaviour. What’s going on for them?

9:28 – Delegates at the National Education Union Conference voted unanimously to oppose the move towards ever more punitive behaviour policies in schools saying it is feeding a mental health crisis for children. – YAY!!

 

10:07 – This week’s topic: The real benefits of moving from isolation to connection

11:20 – The use of the ‘calm down step’ seems a good idea but children still feel a sense of shame.

13:36 – Using ‘time-in’ to help children feel safe to learn. Time together to reconnect, feel safe and learn with you.

14:43 – What is isolation? Removing a child from one environment and putting them in another space on their own. E.g. the bottom step or their bedroom.

15:46 – Quick-fix parenting, make it stop!

16:53 – Any intentional disconnection, “don’t look at me, I don’t want you to come near me or speak to me” is isolation.

18:11 – Nature wires humans, especially children to be in emotional and physical connection with adults around them. Losing it is scary for them.

19.00 – It’s employing fear to get children to do what we want.

20.54 – If we raise children on a bed of fear then that is what they then know as their framework of reference for the rest of their lives.

22.16 – What we set children up for…Trying to always get things right which creates anxiety in all areas of their lives.

28:27 – How unresolved trauma in the parent can be triggered by a child’s behaviour and react from that place of trauma.

 

35:15 – Practical take-aways

• Lie down on the floor and BREATHE!
• I know you must be feeling some really big feelings, I am here for you
• Are you OK?
• Have a grounding and connecting phrase to repeat in your head.

 

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