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SEND Parenting Podcast
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I am a mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast.
As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity, I have uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks.
Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade.
SEND Parenting Podcast
EP 139: Why Punishments From 1846 Still Don't Work Today
Dr Olivia Kessel welcomes back co-authors Georgina Benger and Karen Price to discuss restorative justice as a compassionate, relationship-based approach that helps children understand the impact of their actions and repair harm.
• Georgina's research at Cambridge University revealed schools still use the same punishment methods from 1846 despite their ineffectiveness
• Traditional punishments fail to teach accountability and create patterns where children accept consequences without understanding impact
• Restorative justice shifts focus from punishment to repairing relationships through a seven-step process
• Creating a safe space, active listening, and acknowledging emotions are foundational steps in restorative practice
• The approach encourages children to explore the impact of their actions and take accountability without forced apologies
• Particularly beneficial for neurodivergent children who often experience disproportionate punishment in traditional systems
• Implementing restorative practices in schools requires time initially but becomes embedded in culture and ultimately saves time
• Children learn to resolve conflicts independently when these practices are consistently modeled
• The core principles include prioritizing relationships, focusing on learning rather than labeling, and recognizing that healing should involve everyone
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Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. Before we get into this week's episode, I wanted to share something with you. If getting your child to sleep feels like a two to four hour battle, you're not alone. I know I've been there, but research actually shows that 70% of children struggle with sleep with ADHD and 50 to 80% of children with autism also experience sleep problems. So that's why I created the 30 day better sleep starter guide. Although it's designed with ADHD in mind, the strategies support all neurodiverse children. So as we settle back into routines after that long summer holiday, this is the perfect time to focus on your children's sleep. You can download a free copy at sendparentingcom backslash sleep or through the link in the show notes. Here's to better nights sleep, which then lead to calmer mornings.
Speaker 1:In today's episode, we're going to welcome back co-authors Georgina Benger and Karen Price to talk about Willow's Day. Last week we spoke about Olive's Day and PDA. This week we're shifting our focus to restorative justice, kind of how we say sorry or how we kind of apologize for our actions. We're going to look at it from a compassionate approach, a relationship-based approach that helps children understand really the impact of their actions to repair the harm that's done and to rebuild trust, really going beyond just saying the word sorry. Georgina will share her journey into restorative justice, including why punishments that were set up in 1846 are still shaping discipline today, and together we will look at how these practices can transform both schools and homes.
Speaker 1:Willow's Day and we'll be diving really into the world of restorative justice, which I didn't really know very much about until I spoke to you guys. But it's something, Georgina, that you focused on as your master's at Cambridge University, so we couldn't get a better person to come and talk to us about something that I knew very little about but is so important because it's looking at traditional punishment in such a different way. So I am very little about, but is so important because it's looking at traditional punishment in such a different way. So I am very excited for our discussion and what I'm going to learn from today. But, Georgina, you know, last week we heard all about Karen's background and you were silent. But today I'd like to hear a little bit about your background and what drew you to this topic and to your master's.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm a mother, I'm a teacher, I love studying. We've discussed before we're lifelong learners. My master's focus I was very, very lucky and you mentioned then about me being here but my professors that I worked with for many, many years were exemplary and inspirational and I don't use that word lightly. So my work in my master's for over three years was impact the impact of punishing children at school on teenage years. On going into teenage years now, I felt and I suggested that the children aren't learning to be accountable, that they just replicate the acceptance of receiving a justified or not justified punishment and that this then carries on into teenage years. Um, when it's the punishment has been administered by a voice of authority, so in their primary years this is by a teacher and that then, as we go into teenage years, it can be a police, it can, it can be a secondary teacher. But I was very much looking at inner cities and this voice of authority now becoming a police, a police voice, and the the impact they'd had of just accepting this punishment, of just carrying on with this punishment, accepting it, walking away, never being accountable. I felt I wanted to look further and I was suggesting we were having a problem in teenage years with young boys and girls who are now just saying, yeah, whatever, I've been pulled over, taking it and carrying on. So that was interesting. I felt very valuable work and I was very lucky to be supported by incredible academics.
Speaker 2:I interviewed lots of young teachers in inner city schools and they so this married with my interviews with these teachers. They were frustrated at giving out lines. They were still giving out lines in inner city schools, and they so this married with with my interviews with these teachers. They were frustrated at giving out lines. They were still giving out lines. Yeah, they needed an alternative, but they didn't know what that alternative was. And then I sat, very sadly, at the british library and found lots of evidence that that in victorian times. I found documents from primary schools in 1846 where they were doing exactly the same punishments that we were doing. And so I sat at university and unpicked all of this and ended up completing my master's, learning a lot about it and then working with Karen on this book, because we needed a teaching tool. We needed something to explain this meaty subject to help children and educators and parents.
Speaker 3:And kind of really spending a lot of time looking at our own circles, kids who are older people, just people watching, which we loved and realizing that this idea of apologizing and accepting an apology really in society is a very, very difficult concept and I don't think we do well, we didn't think that we do it very well, but I guess if I can encapsulate what you're trying to say is because, as children, how we say sorry and how we respond to an apology isn't, isn't done in a way that is very meaningful or um, doesn't teach us then how to, as adults, deal with when people say sorry and then it should just be forgiven.
Speaker 1:And that's what your book kind of unpicks is, kind of what, what are the layers around an apology and and how you, how you deal with that and and how that works. But correct me if I'm wrong there, because I am still a bit confused about the whole topic.
Speaker 2:But it what restorative justice means, for want of a better word. Would that help us? We went slightly-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's strip it back to the beginning there, because we've talked about you've talked about 1846 and punishments. You know I remember my mom used to get caned in the classroom with her hand and she'd carried that on into her parenting as well and that was okay and you know, I turned out fine and I think a lot of parents say that but yeah, it was when I was interviewing primary school teachers and there was a frustration there.
Speaker 2:They said I'm giving out lines, we're not sort of delving any deeper and I'm doing it over and over again. The children are coming back in and it's writing out, it's not working. It's not working. It was in 1846, they were writing lines. We're still writing lines. It's still not working. And in that time we've been to the moon, we've got an Apple iPhone, but we're still getting children to have time out. Um, I think in this text that I I use when I'm speaking about this, you can see in this beautiful, beautiful victorian writing, there are five punishments which were time away from things that the child likes remove child from class. Um writing of lines speaking to parents and um then detentions. And we're still using what does it sounds?
Speaker 2:very similar to what they do today, isn't it? There's, and educators tend to be slightly silent and sit there and say yes, and I give, I give teachers all then time to say we are we just doing the same things now, have we? Have we moved forward at all with medicine, and so on and so forth. So I then this has then led me into restorative justice practice, because I kept thinking, well, what is the alternative? You know, this is what I do with my boys. I say, well, we won't be going to the cinema. You know, sort of, I'm using this punishment, I'm using discipline, but I'm not getting to the problem.
Speaker 2:So, if I read from here, from this, because I think we need to really understand, restorative justice is a shift from sometimes unrelated punishments to learning to repair the actual harm, and this then is, through inclusive relationship, a centered approach. We can look at that in a moment. So it ensures accountability. Yeah, to make amends. And, for example, in the book you'll see willow lies about eating broccoli, which is what we all get into, situations where we might tell a little white lie or you know, this is nothing, this isn't very serious, but they, we, we have to, we have to not just tell her off and sit her on the naughty step. What happens is Willow, mum. They talk, mum, mum. Then they talk it through as a family and Willow comes to an apology by saying I'm sorry, I sorry I hurt your feelings when I lied, but I don't like broccoli, I didn't want to eat the broccoli. So we need to have to sort that out now and together they work out a solution which is she's going to eat parts of the broccoli and whatever. So we need to understand that.
Speaker 2:It prioritizes repairing the harm yeah, the damage that's been done. It strengthens the relationships and this is punishment is over. Strengthening the relationships and repairing the harm is rather than defining a child by their worst moments. Yeah, if I was defined by the time that I double parked the car in the high street because I really had to go into the bank I parked from the double yellow line you would think ill of me, quite, quite rightly so. But actually you're defining me by my very worst moment and children don't deserve that and if we help them and we implement this, that should move it forward.
Speaker 1:That's a really great explanation and it's clarified for me, and it's also because I think it's our fallback as parents If you don't do this, we'll do this to you. We'll take away your phone, you'll take away your screen. It's, it's not. It's not. It can be slightly effective but doesn't last. And then also, as you say, with children get older, then I don't know, my daughter said I don't care, take them all away yeah, you know, always spiral into that shame, guilt.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'll show you.
Speaker 1:You go sit in the naughty corner because you don't deserve to sit here now, so you're not building a better way forward and it and it hasn't really done what it is supposed to do yeah, it hasn't moved anything forward.
Speaker 2:It hasn't strengthened any relationships, it hasn't. It hasn't repaired the harm. So, for instance, um, if I screwed up karen's paper, now because of my feelings, I'm angry, I'm cross, I screw up the paper and then you sit me on the naughty step. Karen still doesn't have her paper. Yeah, karen and I are now fractured, the mum, my mum's, screaming at us both. Um, we all then finally calmed down.
Speaker 2:I've sat on the naughty step and it's all over but I haven't actually had to look at Karen, yeah, and actually understand that Karen's work has been destroyed. I haven't properly looked at Karen and had to face what happened. I haven't said sorry. I haven't just gone at Karen and had to face what happened. I haven't said sorry. I haven't just gone and got her another piece of paper and it's all over. We're all calm. I've replaced the paper. I've said sorry. We've had a discussion. Our relationship has moved forward. I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's stagnated. It's stagnated in the other example, where you're just sitting on the naughty step being angry at everybody.
Speaker 2:You're too gr. Being angry at everybody um ashamed. Mom's still shouting everyone's heightened karen's in tears.
Speaker 1:She hasn't got a piece of paper, um, we've got nowhere. And willow's day kind of beautifully, kind of illustrates this in different vignettes of the art of apologizing and accepting an apology. Do either of you want to share any of those little stories that willow does we?
Speaker 3:but there's a, there's a really good one, where actually something happens by mistake, somebody knocks over her bridge that she's building and in her anger and frustration she purposefully breaks somebody's bridge. And I think that ties in so beautifully with your last example. Yes, where it's not that it's exploring that actually she takes accountability and she realises that actually what happened to her was an accident, wasn't purposeful, yes, but also she has to take accountability for then really breaking her friend's bridge.
Speaker 2:Yes, which are two. So it here, um. In in our storybook it says willow was shocked. She couldn't believe her eyes, she burst into tears and she felt furious. So we can see there that she was angry but it had been an accident. But in her anger she then lashed out and that's completely normal. So we've got one accident, but you feel angry on the end of this accident and you then lash out. And we've got here feeling, but you feel angry on the end of this accident and you then lash out and we've got here feeling embarrassed and frustrated.
Speaker 2:Willow angrily wailed to her teacher, mr peach, mr beach, we all, we've all had mom, mom, um. And then it goes on through the stories they, they sit calmly, the teacher sits calmly, or the parent sits calmly with them and discuss it through. And willow sees the difference between that was an accident, yeah, but we do need to say sorry for that accident and we need to pick up the pieces and repair it. This isn't just letting them off, yeah, but then when she's lashed out through her anger, she does need to repair that harm and apologize for her actions and learn from them and move forward and extend that emotional literacy yes throughout understanding what emotions feel, like, how they feel, and it is okay and we say this very clearly in the book it is okay to have all feelings, yes, but not all behavior is acceptable.
Speaker 3:And how, how do we explore that and that? That's quite tricky. It's a huge, huge huge subject.
Speaker 1:Yes, um but it's turning that conversation from one of okay, I'm gonna punish you, you're going to go to the principal's office, you're going to, you know, go sit over there. Instead it's trying to turn it into a learning, where you you know, once you're calm, that you can stop and actually learn from it, which can help you the next time you're in that situation.
Speaker 3:And actually that's the derivatives of the word discipline from its origins is to teach, discipline is to teach, so it's not actually to punish or so, so we're trying to bring it all the way back to how, in those learning moments I think the art of apologizing and accepting apology.
Speaker 2:We've often written, we've often spoken about and written that it is very much teaching children empathy, accountability, forgiveness, how to help and how to repair relationships, how to build trust, um, how to understand the impact of your actions. And I always suggest we would suggest that these are key skills learning to forgive, learn to be accountable, to have empathy. These are real, foundational, key, key skills, alongside your maths and your times tables and learning to read.
Speaker 1:But this is the stuff of life and having boundaries, what's acceptable, what can I accept happening to me, too, I think that's very important, yes, and we, we don't focus, I don't think enough enough on that and actually creating an environment where kids can feel that they can learn, and I think you do a really great job in Willow's Day of breaking it down into practical strategies and steps. Can you take us through that, either through an example or a story of what parents or educators can listen to in terms of OK, how do we do this, how do we change the way we go from that we've been doing since 1846?
Speaker 3:We've looked at the research of restorative justice and really broken it down into seven steps that we think are again not rocket science, aren't going to cost parents money or teachers or schools money, and put it together.
Speaker 2:And these are recognized. I was very much taught these at university. These are seen. This isn't something we've just made up or fancy or or plucked from, plucked from the air. So this is a very universally thought, sort of uh accepted process. So we we've always have it as seven steps, which would be creating a safe space, and I know we've chatted before about this. It's not a, it is a physical space, but it's also thinking about your voice, about being calm, about being reassuring, and in the book we have the, the teacher just lowers his voice. Because you'll soon notice, I'm, halfway through my study, suddenly realized that it it absolutely was true. Voices get heightened. The children, you know, my boys would be going he did it, mum.
Speaker 2:You don't understand, mum, and I'm going please be quiet, and I'm raising my voice and before we're all sort of we're all so heightened so it's bringing my voice down, just being very calm and reassuring, perhaps moving to a different room, because you've got to think about a power dynamic. You know, if you're in one child's bedroom and then you carry on in this one child's bedroom, it is going to skew it. You can be woo-woo and talk about energy or not, but perhaps you just quietly go somewhere else, just go downstairs, just sitting in the kitchen, so you're using a neutral space. Perhaps you might just turn off the television or turn off the radio. There's a background noise that's just heightening it all. So, using your voice, creating a safe space, a calmer, safer space.
Speaker 1:It's also like distracting them by doing. That which I find is really useful when people are in that kind of heightened things is by doing something like that moving rooms or changing the environment.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to turn off the television. It's a bit too noisy for us now and that's just giving us a little bit of time just to kind of just get. Get, bring it down a little bit. Listen actively is the other one that I step. Number two so you're really listening. You're not just, I'm not shouting over everybody trying to give up. You don't understand. We have to leave in five minutes if you stop shouting at each other. So I'm actually going to listen to you. I'm going to use open-ended questions. So I'd say, yeah, olivia, tell me what happened, tell me how you feel. Lovely open-ended questions.
Speaker 2:Pausing, karen, could you now tell Olivia and I are listening tell us now what happened for you, taking a breath, counting to five old old chestnuts, but they do work. Acknowledging their emotions would be step number three. Yeah, I understand, olivia. I understand how you feel now. Um, karen, I understand why you're crying. I understand that you feel sad. Your paper has been destroyed or your book has been torn up or you haven't had tv time. Um, so saying I, I can see you. Um, the fourth step is exploring then the impact. You can say olivia, how do you think karen feels now? How do you think that has. How do you think that's made karen feel when you tore her her book? So you're really now starting to direct and facilitate and help the children see the impact and when they start saying I think she's most probably sad because she doesn't have her book anymore and they're verbalizing that, it's really bringing that.
Speaker 3:And that theory of mind that understanding.
Speaker 2:Yes, very much so.
Speaker 2:And then number five, step number five was you're now, you're not forcing anything, you're not forcing an apology, but you're encouraging accountability. So buy through your lovely calm discussion. This is obviously a perfect scenario here. My boys would. We'll talk about pitfalls later. We'll get my children, my big boys, into to tell, tell you otherwise at home, how it could be otherwise at home. So it would be well, what could we do next time? How could we repair this harm? You're really looking at encouraging some sort of accountability and you're moving these children forward. To that You're encouraging.
Speaker 2:And then point number six is facilitating dialogue. You're there very much as a facilitator. So I'm not going to say Olivia, I can't believe you've done that again. Olivia, why are you now shouting I'm, I'm not, what you did was so mean, mean, yes, it's you again. It's all, olivia, it's always all of this language needs to go and you're facilitating this dialogue and I'm an adult and I can do that. It can be challenging sometimes but I can very much help and guide the two of you to talk to each other about the incident and you need to have some follow up and check in because it does work. You do realise, olivia, you say I'm sorry, karen, here's another piece of paper and you may do it kindly, you may do it slightly begrudgingly, but you do. You do quickly get to repairing the harm and you say sorry. But it's important that it isn't that I come back, that I just say you okay, guys, you're happy now you've got enough paper. How are you feeling, olivia?
Speaker 2:just following up and and checking decisions checking in just saying I care, I do care how you both feel. I'm still here, we're still communicating, we're still a team. It wasn't great. How are we now? So those would be the seven steps, I hope.
Speaker 1:And that is a way to explore both children. I'll use the word children even though I know, karen, you and I are not children but at heart, of course. But instead of just demanding say you're sorry you, instead of just demanding say you're sorry, you know, and you say you're sorry, and then kids just say sorry, and sorry can mean nothing. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:like it's, it's, it's a word, five-letter word, that can mean absolutely nothing I'm so sorry yeah and I don't know if you, as mothers, have said, I'm like I don't care, if you're sorry, like you need to actually understand what's going on here. Like sorry is an easy word to say.
Speaker 3:Because actually they've been taught that's how they do it. So then they do it and then they don't understand and without that emotional literacy and understanding and kind of relating it to a lot of your neurodivergent parent listeners and their children who are neurodivergent if we think about how our children are told off more, have social interaction problems where they haven't quite understood or other children haven't understood them, these strategies and tips really pull it in beautifully so that they often are told off a lot more than the others. If we think about those typical ADHD children who can't sit still, who are impulsive, who jump over the table, who knock over the painting water when everybody's painting, it's really stopping and helping everybody understand what's happening. How to scaffold that, how to scaffold the conversations in a non-blame, non-shame way, but also going hold on a second when you slide across the table and you knock everybody's things over. That's what happens. Why don't we clean that up together?
Speaker 2:so understanding it and I know we talked about this before reduces the trauma. Yeah, from a punitive response and there is, there is trauma.
Speaker 2:I can remember clearly the one time I'm such a goody two-shoes but I remember the one time now I think, 40 years later when I was told off and I remember the shame and being isolated and shouted at. So for a neurodivergent child, the trauma for a punitive response is great and sits with you and peers and adults need to have. They need to build their understanding, their empathy, reducing the people around them.
Speaker 3:And the social communication by scaffolding the language. If we're looking at children who have specific social communication difficulties, that scaffolds the language that can be used. So again, coming all the way around into beautiful teaching moments that de-escalate, not make everything worse and harder and trickier, but scaffolding and teaching through, and I mean it's.
Speaker 1:It's been shown that using the behavioral techniques of, you know, taking them out of the classroom, putting them in an isolation room we had a great uh psychologist on, dr chris bailey who's like it's a pipeline to prison because basically it's setting them to be excluded, them to have to find alternative ways of inclusion that are outside of normal society. So it actually is an incredible detrimental effect. What our punishments and what our kind of response, both in the traditional parenting model and in the school behavior policies, which I've really been shocked in the two years that I've been doing this podcast. I had no idea that schools, what they can actually do in terms of behavior policies that parents are unaware of. They can lock your child up in a room by themselves and not tell you about it.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that all schools do this, but there have been quite a few people who have described such situations to me that make it seem like it's not actually as unusual as you would think it would be in today's day and age. I mean, we certainly couldn't lock our child up in a room at home and it's not okay. So it's something we fundamentally need to change. But, as I said in the beginning of this podcast. I didn't even know what restorative justice was before speaking to you guys. So you know it's kind of like getting the message out there about this. It sounds very simple, those seven steps, but it's not.
Speaker 2:And I should really add here that I have the pleasure of interviewing and speaking with a lot of educators and schools who are leading the way and who are implementing this, but it has to be a whole school policy. It has to. You know it's, it's a movement and it's a change. It's um. So there is a lot of good work out there and there are a lot of schools, but I couldn't agree with you more than exactly what my work was, that these, a primary school child is learning.
Speaker 2:Um, I didn't actually take the pencil, but I'll just accept this. I'll just sit out of break for five minutes. I've been labeled and told off. Yeah, the voice of authority shouting at me. Oh, they're still shouting. They'll stop in a minute. Oh, they stopped. I do my little punishment and then I go and play. All done. Or they did take the pencil and exactly the same thing happened. They got through it, they missed their five minutes, the voice of authority shouting a bit, but they've got the pencil, they got. Nothing's happened. They haven't given back the pencil or face the person they took the pencil from. So, yes, and then this leads into teenage years, where you have that, that that's set in your mind.
Speaker 3:That's what happens policeman shouts a bit and then he goes away and actually these practices through research has shown that there are less once they are in place and they are embedded, that they are less intense reactive reactions, processes, issues, because you're able to process it through and learn how to accommodate, figure it out, have discussions and you know you always use that great example about parking on the double yellow lines, getting a ticket and actually going to the person who, yes, or disabled parking.
Speaker 2:that's a really yes, um, I in it was in a parent talk that um, I often say that, um as an analogy. So people sort of say, oh, restorative justice, that just soft. And oh, you just let them get away with it, don't you? And oh, it's all a bit sort of, oh, nothing really happens and there's, there's no punishment, is there? And I, and I explain that I say, imagine if when you get a parking ticket which sadly, I'm sure we all perhaps have, Not me.
Speaker 2:No good Is. It's much, much easier just to have that flash of anger and a little bit of embarrassment and you open the piece of paper and you just pay the £70 and you choose yourself whether or not to tell friends. You make light of it or you don't, or you don't, you just shut it down, you put it in your desk and you think, oh dear, that's a bit embarrassing, but if somebody actually said there's no fine georgina at all, but I'd like you to come and meet the gentleman who was in the wheelchair and who couldn't get into his car, yeah, and then missed his doctor's appointment and various things happened for the day for him because you parked there on that, that double yellow line, um, but you're not going to pay any fine or anything, but you do need to come and meet the gentleman, yeah, and talk to him and hear what happened to him for his day because of your actions. Yeah, now I know me very well. I'll be in bits and I would be.
Speaker 1:I'd rather pay the fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, give me the fine much easier to expect from a punishment, yeah, than it is to face. Yeah, I'd be accountable and repair the harm, yeah it's so much easier, pay the fine any day, double don't put me in a room where I've actually caused that through my whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's when people say, well, what is restorative justice, and is it a little bit soft? I'd say, no, actually, I think it's the opposite. I think it really teaches me and I will never park again like that. I will never for the rest of my life. Once I've had this chat with this gentleman, I'm never doing that again. Pay the fine.
Speaker 1:That'll happen again yeah, it's so, it's, it's so powerful and it's you know it's. It's that accountability and that actually facing what the consequences are. They did an amazing documentary actually with survivors or people who've been impacted by people using their mobile phones in cars mobile phones in their cars and admitted to it, and then they put them together with someone who'd either lost their entire family just before their graduation because you know, and have them talk to each other, and it was so powerful you know what I mean. It was so much more powerful than even being put in jail, I think you know or being threatened with being put in jail for being. I guarantee you none of those children or teenagers I shouldn't call them children ever use their phone in the car. After speaking to the survivors of victims who have been impacted, that's, that's it.
Speaker 3:It's exploring the impact. I truly wouldn't understand the impact just parking and getting a fine, but really understanding the impact and learning that and learning from it. That deepens the empathy, the connection, the understanding of human being to human being and straight away.
Speaker 2:You see, why are we still doing these punishments? 1846? I keep going on about that. But why are we so? Why? Why are the punishments still happening and we're not moving forward? So this does move it forward. It's far easier to accept a punishment than to truly face up to the harm you've caused.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could argue or could put on, uh, an argument that says, in the classroom, well, if you have a kid who's done something you know, quote, unquote bad, or done something to another student, removing them from the classroom and isolating them in a room where I don't have to see them anymore, and then I can deal with what I've come here to do, which is to teach, uh, the other 28 children, is obviously the easiest, best way to deal with this, you know, and that's otherwise it's going to be disruptive, you know. So how would you respond to someone who might have that view?
Speaker 2:Yes, which and I've been there, you know this is. I've been studying and I sat in my first lecture thinking I'm very busy, I've got a lot to do, I just need, I just need that child to be sitting over there five minutes and then I've dealt with that and I can carry on. So in the classroom it would mean exactly the same. We've just discussed it's creating a safe space, letting the students speak. So this does take time and there's no two ways about this. There's no shortcut, there's no magic wand. So what we've done is you need, do you? You need staff training. You need to have some training, which can be done very easily. Um, there's a lot of available resources.
Speaker 2:But when you shifted that mindset, you, you do have to then implement it by understanding that you're initially, this will take time. So, instance, two children may be screaming and shouting. Something's happened. You do need an adult to now quietly sit and go through your seven steps. So you are going to lose five or ten minutes. Now, if you're in the middle of an English lesson and you've got 35 children and you've got your head coming to see you about your English data, the last thing you want to do is freeze 28 children, sit with four children or two children and go through your seven steps. There's no easy way around this. At some point you do have to do that at some point, so normally, certainly for me.
Speaker 2:I can remember spending a lot of time speaking to my professors and saying I didn't quite say you don't understand what it's like to be in a class, but that was my and I can remember that my academic tutor was very clear and said you have to choose. Do you believe and understand in those principles? Yes, so I'm really sorry, georgina, you have to train up your teaching assistant. You have to get on board with this. I have my paper and my pencils ready in a tray I actually devised, and part of my master's work, which I've implemented in other schools, is a little. I have two little circles where they draw and that buys me time.
Speaker 2:So I would say Olivia, karen, I'm afraid we're in the middle of an English lesson. I have to carry on teaching, but I'm going to ask you to just to quietly draw what happened, and that gives time. So you would put the children it may be a number of children. You don't know what's going on. You don't know who stole who or who punched first or why it happened, but you actually haven't. We're going to assume you're in the middle of your lesson or you're busy or something's happening.
Speaker 2:So asking the children to draw is a great tool because it does buy you some time and it quietens them. So that is what I do, that is my suggestion, that was my work in my master's and I have had a lot of feedback from a lot of teachers that do use that. So, saying karen, olivia, I'm actually going to carry on teaching, I need to be with this doing this. Yeah, I'd like you to draw. Is is a good thing.
Speaker 2:And then when you get a moment which hopefully is within quite soon, you don't want to leave them too long I come back or I send an assistant or another teacher saying now chat to me about that. And you're then giving them their chance to. So they tend to the children tend to look at their picture and they say and Olivia screwed up my, my paper. And then I give Karen her chance and she says but this drawing shows this, but you've given some time for it to de-escalate, you've given them some agency for their drawing. And then I have a chance to say you need to go to your break now and I need to be teaching my next lesson.
Speaker 2:How are we going to repair this harm? And that's the language we would use around children. And then normally what happens now is you quickly say I need a new piece of paper, I'm sorry. And then you can just bring it to a nice quick conclusion, say you need to go out and play. Well done, girls. I'm glad you've repaired the harm. Let's think about how we can do things differently next time. That's the language I'd use. Yeah, we've got to be realistic. In a classroom, you haven't got half an hour to follow through seven steps all on your own, but I think that's where the whole school policy and understanding.
Speaker 3:If you think about the united nations schools, they have a peace table yes, which you've?
Speaker 3:seen. Everybody is really is trained up from the little ones to the big ones, to the tier, to come and sit at the peace table and have a conversation, and I think it is time consuming to start out with. It is, but it quickly becomes embedded and that's why it's so important, why we've written it for primary school aged children, our book, so that it becomes part of who we are. It's embedded and then the hard work doesn't need to continue, the time doesn't need to continue, the time doesn't need to continue and we know how to have these conversations and we do find certainly there's lots of research not my specific research, but lots of research saying that once this is embedded, this becomes, the patterns become very natural.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when things are learned early, it becomes a very natural, becomes second nature and you'll children and I have observed and written about seeing children now doing this themselves in the playground. So when this is embedded certainly Karen's lucky enough to be in the UN school in New York, but certainly you see, in Northern Europe and in schools where this is embedded from reception, you will see children now naturally being peacekeepers or being able to collaborate towards this shared goal of learning from what had happened, not just punishing.
Speaker 1:I presume you do this with the whole classroom also listening in, so that they're also passively kind of learning as you go forward as well, versus the kind of like let's take them out to the principal's office and speak about it there.
Speaker 2:This happens in the live classroom yes, it happens in our classroom and also remembering um, now we're getting into some deep thinking here, remembering that sometimes you don't actually know what did? Happen, yeah, but what you tend to do and I know from experience I tend to do is look and think oh k, karen, you've done this before you know. So actually, karen, I think you just need to apologize. I've made my judgment, I've sat in judgment as this sort of all-knowing adult and and actually that's not fair.
Speaker 1:No, that's just fundamentally not fair, and it always takes two to tango. That's what you know, that's what I always say. You know it's uh, it's never. It's never always one-sided. There's always, there's always, uh.
Speaker 3:And your side, my side, in the truth and it, you know it.
Speaker 1:Actually it gives hope, I think, in the classrooms and also for parents as well, that yes, this might be difficult to do initially, but that it becomes embedded and that then it becomes easier to do.
Speaker 3:That then saves you time because if you think about parents rushing out the door, we're not trying to figure it out, it's sorted itself out. Playground issues that have happened have sorted out before they come back into the classroom, so that initial input and learning, which takes time, really saves you time a little bit later on.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely I would. I would agree because you conquer, I would conquer classroom. I've written here earlier that in the classroom, restorative justice means creating a safe space, letting each student, student share their side, acknowledging feelings, exploring the impact, encouraging accountability, agreeing on solutions and following up. This is shifting the focus from punishment to repairing relationships and building empathy. So that is a little sort of life skills, life skills development.
Speaker 1:Well, it's constructive versus destructive, and we have the misconception that we need to punish to be effective, that we're too soft. But actually, what have we learned at the end of the day? Nothing. It's not setting us up, Rather to learn someone else's perspective, to learn your own emotions and then to be accountable and to repair. Yes, definitely, it's a no-brainer right.
Speaker 2:I have to say, yes, I was two years in and I was thinking this, this is obvious, this is, this is how we should all. This is how we should all function. Yeah, but yeah it's.
Speaker 1:Well, you know and I think this is actually you know I've learned a lot from from listening to both of you, and there are there are tips that I'm going to be taking home with me to use with my daughter as well, because you know it is so easy to go into that punishment mode and to not not to do it like this. And you know, I think it becomes even more complicated if you have siblings in the house I'm lucky, I only have one, but you know it's and especially if you have a neurodivergent sibling and a non neurodivergent sibling, and you know there might be different ways you react to one versus the other or different things, and and that can cause conflict. So this is a great way to navigate that.
Speaker 3:And understand in perspective. I think, and also, you know, we've got to remember that as adults, we also have to apologize for our behavior. Yes, and I had to apologize to my son last night and I was like like I jumped in too quickly, I was too tired, I wasn't listening, I'm really sorry. And his response was I accept your apology, mom. Boom and done not, you know. And that that in itself is saying okay, I've apologized. That's the accountability.
Speaker 2:I also think that certainly with that, that's a brilliant example of sometimes I hear adults and I'm sure I've done this you keep going the sort of sorry isn't enough yeah well actually it is, if it's done with true accountability and understanding.
Speaker 2:He accepted your policy. This is over now. We don't need to keep going on about this. We don't mention it in two years time, or do you remember the time that, oh, you can't give any more? Sometimes you have to, you are you? All you can do is say sorry, yeah, you know I can't take responsibility for what I've done.
Speaker 3:Yes, I've taken responsibility.
Speaker 2:I've repaired the harm, yeah, I've given you back your piece of paper and I've said sorry, this is finished now, there's not much more you can do, and I think that's that's quite a subject actually. Yeah, um, quite a big subject to think about. Is that actually? Sorry can be enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and and and you know I'm I'm so excited that you're going into schools and that you're changing this, because I think that we need to prepare our children better to understand each other better, to understand that we are going to make mistakes in life lots of them and we're going to. You know how to deal with them practically, versus. You know you learn most from your mistakes in life and you know, my mom was actually great with this as well, because I worked for her when I was a teenager and I did something terrible with one of their clients, whatever and she's like Olivia, you need to call them back up and just admit that you've made a mistake and apologize for it and ask them how you can make it better. And this is, this is now. It's like a penny went off of my head. That's she was doing restorative justice before you know, but but that's and and you know what.
Speaker 1:That client was really happy that I did that and stayed a client, and and and was very loyal, and it taught me, like you know, own up when you make a mistake, and and and that's what this is all about and that's what we want to teach our children, because otherwise they're going to. You know, like the broccoli in the story um, they need to step forward. So I think you know it's just. It's a beautiful, a beautiful way of looking at things differently and getting rid of punishments which don't work and banishing them. So hopefully all your work in schools will, will, will spread forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah there is phenomenal work out there. Um, certainly, the faculty that I was lucky enough to be under are doing incredible work in schools, and there are, I do know I.
Speaker 1:I think I need to add that in yeah, and I think mothers as well and fathers that you know, this is something, as I said, personally I could work on, you know, and and that's it. It is just taking that time. So I really appreciate everything you've educated me today and my listeners today, and I'd like to end with what would be your top three tips that parents and or educators I think they're probably universal can take home in their back pocket.
Speaker 2:So I think that we've got our three tips here. We had to distill this all down Relationships first. It's about prioritizing relationships. It's about repairing relationships first. It's about prioritizing relationships. It's about repairing relationships because it's fractured in the heat of that moment or whatever's happened. The relationship is fractured, you need to repair. You're strengthening that over punishment. You're strengthening relationship. So when I've written here, when children feel connected and valued, they naturally want to contribute positively to their community. So that's their class, their school or their home, that's your little community. So I think it's relationships. It's relationships.
Speaker 3:First, tip number one, and I think, with adult relationships, children's relationships throughout, and our second big one, and we kind of had to toss and turn where we were going to put this one it's really about the learning and not the lab. Yeah, how we spoke about in the beginning, that's we're not defining our children by their worst moments and giving them that label.
Speaker 3:It's about the learning that's going through and we're not supposed to know it all you know even as adults, we're not supposed to know it all, so so that was our second top tip and number three was connection.
Speaker 2:That harm affects everyone. So healing should and could and I've written must but, uh, involve everyone. So in a family, even if it is between myself and my younger son, actually this is unsettling, yeah, for my elder son, yeah, so, um, that harm does affect everyone. So we are working collaboratively, we're discussing this through, we're chatting, yeah, and we are all part of this. Isn't me just saying, actually, you're not having the car anymore, you're not. Actually, you're not having it this weekend. Well, you're not having it this afternoon, and it all sort of fragments because I've punished him because he was home late, but actually it's valid that his elder brother says, mum, he was home late, because I hear everyone and we, we collaborate, we connect, yeah, we solve the problem. Yeah, we listen to each other, we're kind of solving, we're problem solving. So it's connection was our third point. When we work together to address problems, we build stronger, more resilient communities where all of children, all children, can thrive. That's our third point yeah, and that generational.
Speaker 3:You talking about your mom in willow's book, we've got her mom and her grandma. Yeah, but this beautiful picture that we love, this illustration of all of them together hugging, and I think it's remembering that generational trauma can also be healed through the restorative.
Speaker 1:So it's I mean, it's massive, but we it's a big subject yeah, we put it in a in a toolbox book three story. Yeah, no, and I think it's. It's so great because kids can read that and understand the story, and then they can understand what you're doing and how you're doing it. So I think that's what the beauty of your books are is that it's digestible to children. But actually, you know, studies have shown also that adults, the best way you can get through to them is speak to them as if they're a child. So it works.
Speaker 3:It works for both the children and the adults you know you've got us even tips at the back of the book that they will relate to the stories, because everyone have been a child once and are now an adult once.
Speaker 1:And figuring it, out anyways yes so, and the links to your books will be in the show notes so everyone can uh purchase them, and I just want to say a big thank you for taking time to be with us for two weeks in a row, and you've been a pleasure to have on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure, thank you for all your hard work.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you for listening. Send parenting tribe. I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as I did today for listeners. I encourage you to explore Willow's day and try some of these practices at home or in your classrooms. It can really shift how we think of discipline into one of trust and connection. If this episode has resonated with you, please share it with a friend or leave a review so that more families can find the support they need. Also, don't forget we have. If sleep is an issue for you at your house, please download the free guide that you can find in the show notes or you can find on my website, sendparentingcom. Backslash sleep. Until next time, take care.