A couple of months ago, a Facebook post caught my eye. The title of a book called Raising Girls Who Like Themselves. And whilst the title seemed so simple, I thought, bingo, that is exactly what I want for my girls. So I grabbed a copy and I read it within a day and I thought, I need to get the authors, Casey and Chris, on the show so that we can help more girls to like themselves.
UNKNOWNMusic
SPEAKER_03Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education and stepping into the wilderness,
SPEAKER_01however that looks, with your family. Each week we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less travelled.
SPEAKER_03We're your hosts, Vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School. Pop in your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure. Before we start, we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kabi Kabi and the Gubbi Gubbi people. We honour their songlines and storylines and pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging. We would also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which you are listening to this episode. Hello and welcome to the Raising Wildlings podcast. I'm your host today, Vicky Oliver. But before we start, I just wanted to thank our latest Patreon supporters. Now, after some gentle prodding from some of you, our loyal listeners, we decided to bite the bullet and give you the opportunity to support us for the cost of a cup of coffee, which is around $5 a month, through our Patreon page. Now, your support helps us to continue producing this podcast from all the sound editing and the uploading and all of the admin that happens behind the scenes. Your support in this way means that we can invest more of our time in delivering our message and our mission and it's not taking away from the other programs and the shop and all of the other different projects that we take on at Wildlings. The rest of the business isn't suffering and that we can continue creating this amazing platform where we get to share with you all of the amazing people around the world who are changing the lives of children and helping to educate us to be the best parents and mentors to the children in our lives. So thank you to all of you who have signed up recently. Your support means so much more than you could ever know. And we love the fact that you can become active participants in our podcast. So we're hoping in the future at the moment, we've only got a very general pledge. And when we've got a bit more time, we will be hoping to give you some more access to exclusive content and our community and an insight into our creative process. So thank you again. And while you're at it, whilst you're on your little podcast player, make sure you hit subscribe and like, and that helps us also to get our podcast into the ears of more people who are making a difference in the lives of children around the world. So today on the podcast, I'm really excited to have Casey Edwards and Christopher Scanlon, who are the authors of the book Raising Girls Who Like Themselves. Now, Casey is a leading Australian columnist and bestselling author of eight books, and she has an audience of over 10 million people worldwide. Chris is a writer and researcher and academic at Deakin University, and they live in Melbourne with their two daughters, which I'm sure is the inspiration for this book. And I can't wait to be able to share with you the message, which is so important in helping to support our children and our girls in particular in becoming just human beings who like who they are. And that's, I think, such an important message. So I'm really excited to share this podcast episode with you all. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having us on. It's great to talk to you. Do you want to know, I think it's important for you to know that The reason why I found your book was a Facebook ad and the title of your book, whilst it seems so simple, it really grabbed my attention because I thought to myself, that is exactly what I want for my girls. So I would love for you to start by explaining why you think girls don't like themselves.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. The first thing I would say is that When our daughter was born, so we have two daughters, we've got Violet who's 12 now and Ivy who's seven. And when Violet was born, I had this really strong feeling that I hope she wasn't going to turn out like me. And I thought about that a lot because, you know, if you look at my life from the outside, you know, I'm very privileged and you know, white, middle class, good family, educated. I, you know, ticked all these boxes. What was wrong with me? What did I not want for my daughter? And I realized that I grew up feeling like I wasn't good enough, like I was never enough and that I didn't like myself very much growing up. And that was really at the heart of why I didn't want her to be like me. I wanted her to grow up liking herself more than I did. And it became really clear to me that it wasn't just me who felt like this. You know, I looked around at the other women in my life and honestly, most of the women I know don't like themselves very much. And you look at the stats about girls' well-being and body image and eating disorders and self-esteem now, and it's even worse for them than it was for us. And so it really occurred to me that, you know, we really need to do something different. And to start with what we need to do with something different is change our goal. People will say, I just want my daughter to be happy, or I want her to be successful, or I want her to be kind. Well, we want all of those things for our girl too. But at the heart of it, the starting place, the fertile soil for all of those things is whether or not she likes herself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that resonates so much with me. And I often, and I've probably said this a a few times on the podcast. I don't want my girls to get to 30 and start to try and unpack all of that stuff. I want them to be able to move through that and know who they are and like who they are and be accepted and be surrounded by people who also love them unconditionally. And so, you know, what is it that we need to do as parents, as community members to help children to like themselves? So you've got seven pillars. Do you want to explain that? Yeah,
SPEAKER_02so we came up with seven things that every girl and indeed every boy and every grown-up as well, in fact, they need in order to like themselves. And the first one, we might just back and forth here. The first one is a power perspective. So that's the idea of learning to think in a way that works for you rather than against you. And so we know that Something will happen in life, a bad event, a challenging situation, and some girls will be able to push their way through it and thrive, and other girls will be crippled and crushed by exactly the same situation. And it's not necessarily their capabilities that is the difference. It's how they see the event and whether or not they believe that they have the internal resources to cope. And the thing about a perspective is it really is a perspective. We can teach our girls to choose how they think about something and choose how they're going to act in accordance with that thinking. So therefore, it doesn't matter what happens in their life, they will be able to thrive by managing the way that they address the event that happens in their life.
SPEAKER_03I think a lot of adults... still unable to do that. That's the tricky part, right? Because as adults, sometimes we don't have these skill sets to even pass that down to children.
SPEAKER_02For sure. And the research around a power perspective is really exciting because what it says is that anyone, it doesn't matter how old you are, we can change the way that we think. We can rewire our brain. And I can vouch for that because I can tell you 100% that I like myself more now than I did before we started researching and writing this book. I have absolutely trained myself to think differently and to not get knocked around by the events that happen in my life or the look that someone gave me or the thing that they said. I can push through and at the heart of that is me understanding and teaching every girl and every boy and adult, that they are the ones who get to decide if they are okay, that their opinion matters most more than anyone else's. And just one very simple thing that parents can do to reinforce that lesson is with praise. So parents will come to, sorry, children will come to parents, you know, a hundred times in a week saying, What do you think of my drawing? Do you like my somersault? And rather than just saying, yes, I like it, flip that question around and say, what do you think? And reinforce the message that it's your drawing. So your opinion matters most. And if they like it, say good for you. You should be proud of yourself. And if they don't like it, then you can say, well, what would you like to do differently next time? And talk about how they can practice and get better over time. And that's just one time. tiny little parenting tweak that is absolutely bang for
SPEAKER_03buck. I love that too. It's just about tweaking and it's just about being a bit more aware of how important our language can be and it's just little swaps we can make in our behaviour and in our responses that we have for children. So it doesn't have to be like a life-changing, like all these changes made that make it really overwhelming. It can just be these just little things that are easy to implement and bit by bit, which makes such a huge difference.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's right. And so the next pillar is about body image. And so we know that many women and a lot of girls are growing up with really bad body images. Eating disorders are a serious problem. And I really think people don't understand just how serious an eating disorder is. Eating disorders destroy
SPEAKER_03lives. Yeah. Well, I mean, the stat in your book is right, 55% of eight to nine-year-olds are dissatisfied with their bodies. I can't even remember thinking about my body at that age.
SPEAKER_02That is something that is really happening earlier and earlier. And we actually heard the same story from four different parents. It broke our heart. It was the same story about their girls, aged six and seven, wanting to slice off the rolls on their stomach with scissors. Oh, God. And it's like these little girls should be thinking about fairies and unicorns and glitter, right? But at that age, they're consumed with this hatred of their bodies. And so what we discovered when we were looking at body confidence is that the advice that parents often get is, is actually making the problem worse.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's not helpful.
SPEAKER_02We actually heard one of Australia's leading experts in raising girls tell a packed crowd full of parents that they needed to tell their daughter more how beautiful she was. This is sticky for me. Yeah, keep going. All right. So the thing is that strategy was used on us and still is. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yep. And that's what I find. This is why I find it difficult because I actually find it hard to say that to my girls because I know that that was said to me a lot. And it didn't work, right? It didn't work. And so now I'm really careful because I want them to think that I think that they're beautiful and I know, but I also know it's unhelpful. So then I feel sticky about it because I don't know what to say. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So the reason that strategy doesn't work is twofold. One, if you tell your daughter over and over again that she's beautiful, then she will naturally assume that it is really important. And many girls believe that their beauty is the most important thing about them. Like it defines their worth in the world. And then at the same time, they're growing up in this world where no one is ever beautiful enough. It doesn't matter who you are. You cannot meet these standards. So we're setting them up to fail at the thing that we've told is most important. So the thing about beauty is not for your daughter to think that you don't think she's beautiful let her know that you think she's beautiful but also let her know that it's just not that important yeah you know like of all the things that you love and value about your daughter beauty just shouldn't even be on the list yeah you know because beauty is something external that you bestow upon someone else so it's automatically making people feel insecure because when someone can give you the judgment of beauty, they can also take it away. And our girls need to build their identity on a firmer foundation than other people's perceptions
SPEAKER_03of their beauty. It's actually really interesting. I'm really lucky that I'm surrounded by a very conscious community who we have lots of really in-depth discussions about how we're raising our children. And now that I think about it, When I was growing up, how children looked was mentioned a lot, you know, that child's beautiful and how beautiful, you know, and all of those words were used, whereas I don't actually hear that when we talk about any children now. Like my community don't, they don't emphasise that. And so I think that for my girls it's not something that they hear as often, but I can imagine if that's what they're hearing mum or dad or other women in their lives talking about when it comes to other people, then it starts to become that inner monologue of, yeah, That's the judgment and the importance of it because it's been spoken about so much.
SPEAKER_02That's right. So we have a rule in our family that we don't talk about how anybody's body looks, whether it's good or bad. We don't comment about someone looking well, losing weight, you know, looking good for their age or whatever. Because even if you think you're giving someone a compliment, you are still teaching your daughter that bodies are to be policed and judged.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yes. And it's just so much better if we can eliminate that as being something that we have to coach. I feel like we have to coach so much anyway. And if that's just the conversation, like you say, if it's not something that we talk about, then it's just one less thing that you're having to manage everyone's expectations around. Yeah, because there's all sorts of things that we
SPEAKER_02decide are not suitable to be discussed in front of the kids, right? And this is just one more thing to add to that list. In fact, I would put it to the top of the list.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that's really good advice.
SPEAKER_00Another big one is, and it's related, is body autonomy of having girls, our girls, you know, understand and really truly believe and internalise that they get to decide, you know, who controls their body. Yes. I mean, this is really important given the national conversation around consent and, you know, there's a whole, that national conversation that is ongoing around that in Australia. And it's just really important that we teach girls from a really young age and in an age-appropriate way that they are, you know, mastered their own body. And so we even do this with things like, you know, showing displays of affection. Now, girls are often told that, or they're implicitly told, you know, that, you know, you own your own body, but then we send different messages. And that's often around affection. So we say, you know, give grandma a kiss or give grandpa a kiss, whether the girl wants to or not. And I remember as a kid, you know, being told this, and I also remember running away, not because I didn't like it. But because I was a little mischievous boy and that was okay. But my sister wasn't always afforded the same liberty. She had to display affection. So we've been, you know, Casey wrote an article about this and it went viral and it ended up on the Daily Mail in the UK. They called us the kissing police. And, you know, shock jocks on radio have said this to us about us. And our argument is, well, it's not about affection. Our daughters, you know, show affection spontaneously and naturally as any other kids do, but they get to decide. And that's the important part about it, you know, that girls get to make that choice.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And it can actually be really hard as a parent to back up your child's choice, you know, because when That's just been the expectation in your family for generations that girls give affection whether they want to or not. It's very hard for a parent to step in and say, how about a high five? Right. What about a handshake instead? Exactly. So it's really difficult but I would say it is really important because the research is very clear that girls are grossly underprepared for enforcing their boundaries and when it comes to sending nude selfies, when it comes to being asked to give oral sex. And so you might say that's a big leap from kissing grandma to oral sex. But the thing is, it's all about choice. It's about a girl knowing that she can make an unpopular choice and still be loved and still be
SPEAKER_03supported. Absolutely. And I guess also modelling the difficult conversations that we have to have. And as parents, we do sometimes have to have these difficult conversations with our families and our children are watching us. So if they see us sort of shying away from those difficult conversations, then they're not going to feel confident to have them themselves. And so that's the importance of us modelling and stepping up and pushing past our own discomfort and And the two, like as an adult, I find that really hard. The good girl in me wants to make everyone happy. And so it is really hard as parents to step in and say, well, you know, like how do I buffer the adult in this situation because a lot of adults and a lot of they can use, you know, emotion and shaming like, oh, you're breaking my heart and, you know, using all that really strong language. And it can be hard enough as adults to put that boundary in place, let alone adults. teaching children, as you say, I think sometimes people find it a real big stretch to go from the really simple stuff and it doesn't seem to matter all the way through to the really important things like saying no in sexual situations that they're uncomfortable with. There is obviously a very big lead up to that and everything that we do builds them up to how they perceive the world. And if we don't start early... it's too late.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Where are girls going to learn it if they're not going to learn it in our home? And so at the core of everything about raising a girl who likes herself is bravery. Our girls really need us to be brave for them. And In this situation, we have to be brave enough to have those difficult conversations and to back up our daughter's choice to either give affection or not give affection.
SPEAKER_03On
SPEAKER_02any given day, it can change. Maybe one day she wants to kiss grandma and the next day she doesn't. Well, that's okay. And she needs to know that she's still going to be loved and welcomed and supported within the family, even if she makes an unpopular choice.
SPEAKER_00Because a lot of issues, if you never get used to sort of you know rocking the boat and being used to it then you're never going to be okay with that but if you start to model it on run reasonably you know in the scheme of things smaller things then um you know your girl's going to know that it's okay but if you've never modeled it it's if it's such a big deal then when it gets to the really important things it's kind of like well there's no way you rock the boat you know
SPEAKER_03that's right
SPEAKER_00yeah
SPEAKER_03yeah so important
SPEAKER_02Okay, so the next pillar, so we've been through three pillars so far. The next pillar that every girl who likes herself has is calm. Now, when we say calm, we mean not overscheduled, not overtired, not overstressed and having time to play.
SPEAKER_03It's so funny. It's so funny. Actually, I've got little notes when I was reading your book and that triggered me that like a girl that's calm and I was like, what do they mean by that? And it's always like you have to dig deeper and I was like, oh. Yes, that's exactly what they mean because I was like, you know, they don't always have to be calm but it's all about like, you know, your initial reaction. Sometimes you've got to dig a bit deeper and actually listen to what you're saying.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's right. So look, our girls are just as likely as any other girl to use their outside voice inside. You know, they will do a cartwheel down the aisle of coals just like any other child. So no, in terms of exuberance, that's not what we mean. And this is another... area where parents, again, have to be brave because there is a lot of pressure on parents to cram as many skills and experiences and activities into our kids as quickly as possible. In many ways, that's what good parenting looks like. We think it's giving children opportunities. But what I would say is, how do you feel as an adult if you're not getting enough sleep for weeks and weeks and weeks on end? How do you feel if you are overscheduled? all the time, that everything that you do is ranked and measured and you're pushed all the time. You don't get any time to choose how you want to spend your time. You don't get to play. You don't get to make a mistake when no one's watching or measuring. When adults are in that circumstance, it brings out our worst. We cannot regulate our emotions. We struggle to learn. We struggle to be creative. We struggle with our interpersonal relationships. But yet some children live like this all the time and we're told that that's good parenting. So that's what we mean about calm. We need to back off and give our children, very intentionally, give our children time to play. The
SPEAKER_00strange thing about this one too is that, I mean, I think a lot of – unless parents see – you know, a learning outcome at the end of something. They're liable to see it as not really valuable, but it's a waste of time. Whereas kids learn through play. And, in fact, I would argue that actually adults learn play. If you watch an adult really engaged in an activity that they're learning, they kind of get into that flow state and they just disappear into it. So I actually think, you know, allowing kids that time to play is actually that you'll probably get the same outcome that you wanted in the end but just allowing a lot less pressure, a lot less competition and a lot less stress.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we talk about this a lot in what we do and it can be really hard when you are, you know, trying to educate people about play and Peter Gray talks about this a lot. Like, you know, sometimes people want to repackage play in some way to make it sound so much fancier so people take time notice of it but then it takes away the fact that it is the trivial triviality of play is what makes it so important so people just have to embrace it for what it is instead of trying to convince people that like having to sometimes talk about what they're learning through play and make it really explicit sort of you lose the whole point
SPEAKER_00well that's that's the thing like a lot of learning activities now are just sort of dressed up as play and they're like thinly disguised learning activities but they're not actually play because they're not really about the for its own sake. It's for some other goal. For
SPEAKER_02an outcome. Yeah, it has to be child-led. And we also know that young adults are really struggling with identity. They're struggling with meaning. And those things are found through play. You find what you're good at. You find what you really care about through in a situation where you're not being measured and monitored, where you can just try out different identities and personas, try out different things. And so it's so critical for a child's wellbeing to be able to play. So important. Totally
SPEAKER_03agree with you on that one.
SPEAKER_00Another one is masterful and independent. And I think this actually fits into play nicely because it's that kind of, you know, being able to fail at something and be okay, you know. So I remember I was a parent helper when Violet was young at her school and there was a little girl that we had to, you know, break off into little groups and do some reading. And this little girl was learning to read and she kept on stumbling over words and being sort of hesitant to go on. And this kind of went on for a little bit. And I just said to her, I said, you're worried about making mistakes. And I said, that's how you learn. And I said, I actually want to hear you make mistakes. You know, that's kind of, that's what we're here to do. And to celebrate mistakes.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Because, you know, I always say to my girls and also my students at university as well, that's when you know you're learning. If you're keeping in your own little safety zone and getting, you know, the top marks, and the good results, great, you know that. You need to move out of that and you need to fail and you need to fail well. And that means sort of like not being dissuaded but by actually picking yourself up. And, of course, our education, so much of our education system is based not around that. We have high stakes, you know, so failure is the worst thing ever.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_00Well, actually, it's key to learning. That's right. And we should encourage our girls to do that, to sort of have a go, fail, and, you know, don't address it up as something else. It's failure, but that's okay. Yeah. And allow them to do that. I mean, people sort of say it's feedback. Okay, it is feedback, but you messed up. That's okay. Yeah. And to be okay with that and to kind of keep going. That's right. And I think that's the important thing. And
SPEAKER_03have that language woven through because I'm an ex-teacher as well. So even I reflect back on, you know, our learning, like the rubrics and the outcomes. But nowhere in there is there any scope for getting anything wrong. It's like how well do you know it, how everything's about, achieving and so even the language there doesn't really allow much for failure and one of the key things I remember when I was at school in science is learning about how to hypothesize and I would actually change my hypothesis to get the right answer because in my mind it was always about getting the right answer and I totally lost to the idea like I just didn't it didn't You know, the message didn't get through to me that the hypothesis isn't about guessing the right answer and being smart enough to know what the outcome was from the start. That's the whole point of science. And I reflect on that a lot and I think that was the message that got through to me. And I missed the point completely and I was the A grade kid. So we need to change the way that we talk about these things and failure needs to be a huge part of how we talk to children these days.
SPEAKER_02That's right. So getting back to being brave, we need to be brave enough to let our children fail if we want them to have self-esteem. Because self-esteem, we know, does not come from word presence. It doesn't come from telling your kid that they're awesome. Self-esteem comes from mastery and independence. And the road to mastery... is paved with failure so if we don't let our kids fail and teach them how to fail well we are denying them the opportunity to truly have self-confidence and self-esteem and believe in their own capabilities It's so important. The next pillar is a girl who likes herself has strong relationships. Now, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that social skills just develop naturally, that they don't have to be taught. But I would say that you don't have to look very far to see that this doesn't always happen naturally. You know, maybe some of your colleagues or extended family at Christmas time and you think, well, not everyone learnt social skills in the playground, did
SPEAKER_03they?
SPEAKER_02Oh, no, they didn't. No. And we also know that loneliness and the ability to make meaningful and lasting connections with people is as deadly as cancer, right? So we shouldn't be leaving social skills to chance.
SPEAKER_03We
SPEAKER_02also know for girls that friendship dramas can be a really big problem in girls' lives. It affects their wellbeing and their mental health and it also affects their learning because they are not concentrating on long division if they had a fight in the playground at lunchtime and they didn't know how to resolve it. So we really need to very intentionally teach our girls how to be a friend and We have to teach them how to choose friends that are good for them, how to be a good friend. We have to teach them how to resolve conflict, not be afraid of conflict, understand that conflict is part of any healthy relationship, but teach them how to deal with it and resolve it, and also teach them how to act in ways that reduce the severity and the likelihood of bullying. Because there are things that girls can do. And just one little tip for people listening, it's called a quick comeback. And this is something that you can practice with your daughter at home. And it is one short, sharp statement that is not disrespectful and is not going to get her in trouble if she's overheard and not going to escalate a situation, but it helps her stand up for herself. So if someone is being mean to her on purpose, she can deliver it. a short, sharp statement like, that's not okay, that's not cool, or our daughter says, really? This is what our 12-year-old says.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_02And deliver your statement in a way saying, I'm not putting up with what you just did or said, and then walk away. So this is a technique that is taught by Dana Kerford from You Are Strong. She's a friendship skills expert and consultant to the White House. And she's very well renowned. And this is her technique. It's called a quick comeback. You practice it at home because delivery is really important. And just that one statement is has been shown to reduce the likelihood and the severity of bullying happening again. Because if you let that kid know you're not putting up with it, they'll likely back down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's a really big challenge for a lot of parents. I know it's quite triggering for a lot of mothers. I see this a lot because that relational aggression and the drama that we experienced as children ourselves can sometimes cloud our ability to help our own children through it. Oh,
SPEAKER_02that's right. It's like a knife to the heart, isn't it, when you hear what someone did to your child at lunchtime because it's like you're back in the playground too. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03and because when you're not, and I guess from my experience because I actually homeschool my children, we were talking about, Nikki and I were talking about this the other day, and a couple of the other mothers, is that we actually have a lot more input in helping our children to learn go through these experiences, again, because we're surrounded by families who spend a lot of effort in trying to make sure that we help our children the best way we can without doing all of the work for them, so coaching them through those situations. And it is really hard to – like I know when I was working in schools to – have enough people to coach our children through these situations in the playground there's you know like they're having to deal with it all on their own a lot of the time and and there's not a lot of um mentors and it doesn't necessarily have to be adults but anyone older who can step in and sort of deal with the conflict resolution in a way that serves all of the people involved instead of you know the blaming and the name calling and the bull you know all of that that you have to then wade through in order to actually get to the real issue I think also
SPEAKER_02that we were often given bad advice when we were young. So the advice I got is either just ignore it. Now, what does that do to your self-respect and self-esteem? like saying, oh, it's okay if someone treats me badly, I'll just ignore it. Yeah, it's invalidating as well, I think, sometimes. Exactly. So we need to have dignity to stand up for ourselves and enforce our own boundaries and teach people how to treat us. But the other result, the other advice I got was, you know, punch them. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03yeah.
SPEAKER_02Going down to that person's level, going back, that's not going to help to resolve conflict either. No.
SPEAKER_00And this was often framed with, kind of, you know, you've got to be friends with everybody as well. It's like, oh, well, I have to, you know, base myself because I've got to be friends with you. I've got to find some way to be friends with you. And it's kind of like treat it as a numbers game as if, you know, that's what you've just got to have as many friends as possible rather than think about, you know, who's actually – good for me, who actually likes me, who actually knows good for me, who's going to stand up for me.
SPEAKER_02Because that really changed for us when we wrote the book. We were from the, you know, be nice to everyone camp. Yeah. And then once we did our research and, you know, it was very clear that not everyone is good for us. That's exactly right. And while you need to be respectful and kind to everyone, you don't have to be friends with everyone. Friendship is a special relationship that we choose. Yeah. And that we should choose wisely.
SPEAKER_00And that's the important thing, I think, also to to have girls understand that they can make it, they can make that choice, and it's valid for them to make that choice rather than, oh, no, I just have to be friends with everybody because that really takes that choice away from them. They're kind of disempowered through that.
SPEAKER_03And then I find that's when girls get very clever and they find other ways to get what they want, which is perhaps not to play with that child, but they'll do it in a way that's still hurtful and mean. Yeah. It doesn't, like it's not shining the light directly on them, so it's very underhanded, which is not a good lesson to be teaching them either because you've taken the power away from them to make their own choices, like you say. Like you have to be friends with everyone. And I've, you know, I catch myself sometimes, you know, saying all those automatic things and I can see my girls' faces. I'm like that was not the right response.
SPEAKER_00That's the thing. We all do it. I mean, as parents we are all going to be, you know, come out with the things how we were parented. Yeah. And like, you know, even having done all this research and written this book, we still do it and catch ourselves and kind of go, oh, that wasn't really, you know, we've read a whole book about this, we've read the papers on it, but still. And
SPEAKER_02it's a great time for model mistake making. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03And that's really important for parents to know is that even those people like, you know, I can believe in, you know, respectful communication and all of that so much and And not do it a lot of the time because I've got my own conditioning and I might be run down or overtired and you're not going to be at your best. And then that makes me also think about our expectations of children, like you were saying earlier, when they're not calm, when they're overscheduled, to not be able to make the best choices or to react in the way that you want them to. And that expectation isn't even of myself sometimes.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think also parents need to, you know, forgive themselves a little bit in this process. We all quite a lot, you know. Yeah. Yeah. The final pillar is a girl who likes herself is herself. And by this we talk about in the book two different styles of parenting, stone parenting and seed parenting. And stone parenting is the idea that, you know, our children are precious pieces of marble and our job as parents is to pick up that chisel and chip away and sort of realise them in, you know, the best that we think they can be or whatever society tells us is what they can be. Whereas the opposite of that is seed parenting, where you kind of let children unfurl under their own energies and in their own time. And, you know, it's not, you do provide guidance, you know, it's like a garden, you provide nurturing there, you provide some guidance, some stakes in the ground, but you kind of allow them to find their own way. And I mean, we both think these, these come from, both styles of parenting come from places of love. And we started really more in the stone parenting camp rather than the seed parenting. And we just discovered that it was you know, that our daughter Violet was not really going to go in that particular direction. And then we kind of realised actually why should she? And, you know, it was perfectly fine the direction she was going and the way she wanted to go. But it was just more like getting behind her and nurturing and us getting out of the way in some respects and getting behind her and allowing her to be who she was going to be. But I think for many parents that comes with, a degree of, it can be a grieving process in there. So particularly parents have a particular idea about, you know, who their children should be. And, you know, they might have learned some lessons or they might have missed out on opportunities and they're going to make sure that their child gets those opportunities. And maybe their child doesn't really value those opportunities in the same way. Maybe they've got a completely different mindset and they have different values as they will have. And it's about kind of being okay with that. But there might be a period of grieving, you know, where your child is not who you thought they were going to be, you know, in your expectations and to be okay with that. And it's okay to kind of have a different set of expectations, you know, that your child doesn't necessarily share but maybe to, you know, find what they find valuable and go with that.
SPEAKER_02Because our job is to help our children grow into the best version of the person that they choose to be. You know, if they're going to like themselves, then they have to choose who that person is. And our job is to support them, to pick up our watering cans and put down our chisels.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I absolutely, like I really did love your book so much for that. And whilst a lot of what I read I'd already was on board with it, it went so much deeper and just so reaffirming of the way that I wanted to raise my own children. And actually my husband's got the book at the moment. He said to me last night, he said, I was really tempted to do what they said, which is, you know, for dads who, you know, might be time poor or just want, give me the summary. He's like, no, I'm going to read it properly and go through it. And I think that it's so valuable to have two parents who are willing to Always reassess what we're doing and making sure that we're making the best choices we can for our kids, like you say.
SPEAKER_00I think that's the thing to kind of go with the principle too because, you know, in particular we've tried to kind of, you know, give scripts for conversations that people might find difficult or conversation starters. But if they don't work for you, it's kind of take the principle and run with that. That's the idea as well because, you know, one book is not going to cover every single situation in terms of the specificity. But if you go back to the general principle, then you can get quite a long way with it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and at least you can catch yourself too if you feel like you're, you know, reacting in a way that's, you know, your reactivity and you can bring it, like even if you've said all the wrong things, like you said, you can come back and you can model making mistakes and have a different conversation or to be able to recognise and show them why you were thinking a certain way and why that may have not been the best. And I think that even that in itself is so valuable for children to see adults, you know, doing for them and another level of showing how much we're supporting them by being able to admit that we weren't right. I
SPEAKER_00think that's one of the most powerful things I think you can do with a child is to apologise, to actually say sorry and say I'm marked up because so much of it is, I mean, so much of traditional parenting has been really about, you know, the disciplinarian. and being the one to determine whether, you know, the child was right or wrong or doing the right thing or whatever. And I think, you know, if you can reverse that and realise, well, I've got a role here as well and model that to a child and they can go, okay, well, you don't get everything right all the time and that takes the pressure off a little bit.
SPEAKER_02It does. It's also so powerful when dads do that because, you know, a lot of men have been raised that they're not allowed to show any weakness, they're not allowed to, show that they make admit fault and make mistakes yeah
SPEAKER_03so
SPEAKER_02if a dad can actually show his child that he made mistakes he got back up and he was okay then that is so powerful to that child because dad's like superhero right so if he can do it anyone can
SPEAKER_03that's right so you know rewriting the roles that we have as parents and and and and the way that we've watched
SPEAKER_02parents
SPEAKER_03those play out in the past and just changing those so much so that it just benefits both the boys and girls. Because that's what I loved about the book. You know, it is about girls. It resonates with me because I have two girls. But the message is the same for all children, right? It's just that the message is received differently
SPEAKER_02for the most part. that he didn't have friends and he started saying things that he didn't like that he didn't see any point in being alive. And so she was very worried about this. So she read our book and the power perspective chapter really spoke to her. And she realized that her son did not have a power perspective. He was very disempowered in the way that he saw his place in the world. So she taught him the lessons of the power perspective. And then over the next couple of weeks, she noticed a change in him and he started getting up and dressed ready for school without being nagged. And she noticed that he started laughing again And then a couple of weeks later, she was at a parent-teacher conference and the teacher had noticed the same transition in the boy. And what had happened is on the first day of term two, the boy had gone to school and he said to his teacher, I am choosing to have a good term this term. And he did. And that by one conversation because the mum had the conversation and didn't even realize that her son was even listening to her yeah but that one conversation changed his outlook and suddenly he wanted to go to school and he was optimistic and happy again and so it's so powerful um the some of the techniques that we can apply everyday techniques to all kids yeah
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's so brilliant. Well, I've really appreciated you coming on and I think it's an important book, which is why when I read it, I was like, Straight away I was like, I'm going to invite them on the podcast. I think that this information is so valuable and I think that people really need to get your book and be able to explore the pillars that you talked about in a little bit more detail in the book. But just to wrap up, I've just got a few little rapid fire questions for you. So if you'd like to each say to me your favourite book of all time or something you're currently reading that you think our listeners might enjoy.
SPEAKER_02Chris and I actually... We grew up loving the same book, even though we're at opposite ends of the country. Our favourite book was Hating Alice and Ashley. Oh,
SPEAKER_03wow. That's amazing. And it wasn't until after
SPEAKER_02we got
SPEAKER_03married that we realised.
SPEAKER_00That's an all-time favourite.
SPEAKER_03Pretty much. I remember reading that a long time ago but I'll have to revisit that now. I always love getting new recommendations. I'll have to go back and check that one out. Where do you guys go to reset after a tough day or a tough week or what's something that you might do?
SPEAKER_02We're really lucky that we live near the beach. So we are, well, in lockdown certainly, we make our trek to the water. Yeah. Just to check it's still there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's so calming, isn't
SPEAKER_00it? And our youngest, she's a sort of natural runner. And I was never a runner as a kid. And our oldest is not a runner either. She's very much like me. So she's now insisted that we... now run in the morning.
SPEAKER_03And
SPEAKER_00she likes going out to the two piers, so we have to run out to the piers. Thankfully, she hasn't asked to do it for about a week
SPEAKER_03now.
SPEAKER_00You've got to sleep in. And that's probably because I slept in, but she's very taken with running in the morning.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's so cute and good. I love that children can come up with their own, you know, motivations and things that make them feel good. Yeah, getting back to raising the kid you have, right, it's like, oh,
SPEAKER_02can't you just go back
SPEAKER_03to bed?
UNKNOWNI know.
SPEAKER_03Can you do that without having to involve me in something? Yeah. I'd love that for you. Not for me, maybe. All right, and then what's one thing that you would change about our education system?
SPEAKER_02I would remove the competition. You see, we worry that girls... have friendship problems. I hit like the age 10 and they're, you know, they really struggle to make friends and keep friends. And the thing is, because our education system is so competitive, our girls' friends are their competitors and their foes. Everything that they do, they are ranked against their friends and measured. And as a parent, it's really easy to get sucked into that. I found myself doing it very early on when I Violet had started school. And she came to me, she skipped out of the gate and said, oh, I got seven out of ten for my spelling test. And I said, oh, that's great. What did Katie get?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I thought, oh, my gosh. You know, the message I just gave her is that she's only good if she beats someone else. And it's really, really hard to have good, solid friendships if you're competing with people all the time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's important.
SPEAKER_00That's a really good point. On that too, I'd create time and space for people for both children and adults to have a go. And teaching in the university, there's all these policies around the learning outcomes. I mean, that's perfectly fine. I think otherwise the curriculum goes off in all wonderful directions. But I'd like to give students more time, more of my time as a teacher to kind of get feedback and to have a go. And that didn't really work, but let's kind of try and keep working on it. And I teach journalism. So, you know, the first go isn't necessarily going to be the right one. They're not going to get everything right, but let's go back. And so I would say giving both teachers and students the time to kind of, you know, practice more and get that really solid feedback rather than these, You know, everything's got to be assessed and it's high stakes assessment. Let's kind of allow, you know, students to have more goes at something.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And some will hit the mark almost immediately and others will take a little bit more time and that's okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, maybe perhaps too, like as I'm thinking it in terms of like, you know, they submit a draft and then a final copy, but reframing that more as like the journey from where your first, you know, thing was to where it ended up rather than just... the finished product as a finished product, but the process in between, which I think we miss
SPEAKER_00a lot of as well. Yeah, and for that to be out in the open rather than I'm going to hide my draft, it's like, no, no, no, that's actually, that's fine. Yeah. be cool with, you know, showing the progress rather than just the final outcomes because we all come away with thinking, oh, this person's just really naturally good at it. No, they're not. They've had a whole lot of inputs that have helped them along the way. I mean, there are those, you know, remarkable few who do it perfectly, but that's really the exception. But allowing students to see that journey of, you know, their own self and kind of others would be, I think, really helpful.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Now, you were talking a little bit about helping children in terms of how to handle teasing and criticism, and you've got a little bonus mini course. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so we came
SPEAKER_02up with this mini course after we kept hearing research about girls being really crippled and crushed by what other people think about them. So we heard stories of girls not wanting to go to school because they were worried they would get teased because of their drink bottle. You know, little things like this, they're so concerned about what other people think. And so I was reading the research of social scientist Brene Brown in America, who writes a lot about vulnerability and creativity and courage. And so we have adapted her... thinking on handling criticism into a little mini course to teach kids how to handle teasing and criticism. And it's just a 15 minute video. There's something in there for big kids and something in there for little kids. And we've delivered this course to school children. I've delivered it to thousands of kids. And you just see the light bulb go on when a child realizes that just because someone says something to them, they don't have to believe it, that they get to choose if they are okay and who they're going to believe um so if anyone would like that course you're very welcome to it um you can just um i've given you the website if you just um yeah register for it and you'll just get a login and a password emailed to you and you
SPEAKER_03can watch that course absolutely so we'll link that in the show notes uh for those of you and perhaps even in our socials because i think that that would be a really really valuable thing for for parents um to be able to help their children and and through that because i've had an experience just this week and as soon as i I read that, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to go back and give that one a go because I think we always need that little bit of a help through.
SPEAKER_02It's
SPEAKER_03also
SPEAKER_02really powerful for adults. So I use it myself. I, as a writer, get a lot of criticism and a lot of trolling. And I can honestly say I would not have had the career that I have had without this technique, without strengthening and thickening my skin with this technique. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and like you mentioned Brene Brown, sold already. I love her work. And I love that you can adapt that because a lot of the time I read her stuff and my brain always goes to, oh, how can we help kids more with this so that we're not having to do what she's doing now, which is helping adults through it all. We can do the prep work for them and help them from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_02That's right. And if we can give this to our kids at this age, it is a present they can unwrap every day of their lives.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Oh, my gosh, I just think about how much – how much more joy they'll find in their lives because they're not getting bogged down in the thought processes that can come from not being able to deal with criticism in particular or just, you know, negative experiences.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_03I really value that. Thank you so much for offering that to our listeners. And we are so grateful that you were able to come on to the podcast. I'm so excited for your book. I keep seeing it pop up on Facebook and I keep thinking, I hope other people see the title and think the same as me, like, got to get that one. And it just is exactly, like I said before, I value that so much for my girls. So thank you for writing it and doing the research. It's very, very much appreciated.
SPEAKER_02Our pleasure. Thank you so much for having us on. We really appreciate the opportunity to spread our message. It's a passion for us, this project. You can tell. Thank
SPEAKER_00you for the conversation. You're
SPEAKER_03most welcome. Thanks, guys. Thank you. It has been an absolute pleasure having Casey and Chris on the podcast today and we will link all of the information to get in touch with them to have access to their book and that mini training course that they have available for you and so make sure you get in touch with them because they have so much to offer and so much support in this crazy crazy business of raising girls. Now Before I go, I just wanted to remind you also that we have dropped our mini intro to homeschooling course on our website, wildlingsforestschool.com. This course is for those of you who are thinking about homeschooling, but maybe you're not ready to take the leap and you need a little bit of support and information. And we are so excited to be able to help you through this. Maybe it's that you're looking to get some support. How do you do the paperwork legally? Maybe you're feeling a bit anxious about dealing with your current school. Maybe you're a little bit nervous about about meeting the needs of your children or talking to your partner who might not be too keen on homeschooling all of those frequently asked questions we are going to cover through this mini course because we do absolutely believe that this is a valid way of educating your children and we just want to be able to support those of you who are interested so again that's wildlingforestschool.com and you can find our homeschooling courses so an introduction to homeschooling and then if you're curious about and we keep throwing the word unschooling out there and wild schooling, delving into those a little bit more. We've got also two other mini courses there that you can join in on and learn more about. Now, thank you so much for being with us again. We absolutely love doing this journey with you. So until next time, stay wild. Music