Nip in the Bud® Podcast - The children's mental health charity

How to support anxious children in school: Lessons from Peter Ruppert of Anxiety Fitness

• Nip in the Bud Children's Mental Charity

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In this enlightening conversation, Peter Ruppert shares his personal journey with anxiety, detailing his early experiences and the challenges he faced growing up. He emphasizes the importance of understanding anxiety as a natural part of being human rather than an enemy. Peter discusses various coping strategies, including mindfulness techniques and the significance of therapy in managing anxiety. He advocates for better mental health education in schools and the role of social media in fostering community and support. The conversation highlights the need for empathy and understanding from educators and parents towards children experiencing anxiety, ultimately promoting a healthier relationship with mental health.

Takeaways

  • Anxiety is a natural part of being human.
  • Understanding anxiety can help in managing it effectively.
  • Mindfulness techniques can be beneficial for anxiety management.
  • Education about mental health is crucial for both children and adults.
  • Social media can be a powerful tool for sharing experiences and support.
  • Panic attacks can feel overwhelming but are manageable with the right strategies.
  • Therapy plays a significant role in understanding and coping with anxiety.
  • Children's behaviors may indicate underlying anxiety that needs to be addressed.
  • Validation of feelings is essential for children experiencing anxiety.
  • Anxiety can be managed to a healthy level, not just survived.


Keywords

anxiety, mental health, therapy, panic attacks, mindfulness, education, social media, coping strategies, childhood anxiety, mental fitness


Nip in the Bud - Where to get help

https://nipinthebud.org/where-to-get-help/



Transcript


Alis Rocca (00:00)

Today we have a truly inspiring guest, Peter Ruppert, the driving force behind the incredible community at Anxiety Fitness. Peter bravely turned his own journey through anxiety and panic disorder into a powerful source of hope and practical guidance for thousands. Join us as we explore Peter's deep interest in mental health, his own transformative journey, the challenges, the pivotal experiences.


and the tools that have shaped him into the role model he is today. He's here to show us that anxiety isn't the enemy, but a natural part of being human. The key, understanding it, understanding ourselves, and unlocking the path to a happier, more fulfilled life.


Alis Rocca (00:45)

Hi, Peter, and welcome to our podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today.


Peter Ruppert (00:50)

Hi Alis, thank you so much for having me.


Alis Rocca (00:52)

You're more than welcome. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.


Could we


Could we hit off this conversation today just by you telling us a bit about your background, your interest in mental health, a little bit maybe about your own mental health journey?


Peter Ruppert (01:08)

Absolutely. So my background is actually in social media. So you may know me from sharing my story online all about my mental health journey. So it actually started quite young at a young age and I dealt with anxiety from quite a young age. And throughout my life, interestingly, I've dealt with many different forms of anxiety and that's where I kind of draw my experience from and where my interestreally stems from.


Alis Rocca (01:40)

Okay, thank you. When do you think you first felt anxious as a child or is that a blurry memory?


Peter Ruppert (01:49)

I think the first memory of really noticing anxiety, I would say I was around six or seven years old, because that's the age when I first started realizing about mortality and these kind of existential thoughts of life and existence and things like that. Also, I was always quite a shy child, and that's not something that I necessarily thought at the time was anxiety, but...




Peter Ruppert (02:17)

I think as I got older, I started to notice that this was playing a role as well.


Alis Rocca (02:22)

So you say it was your sense of mortality and that's quite unusual for a six-year-old. Why do you think that started?


Peter Ruppert (02:32)

I don't know. was just something that came as a realization. I think I remember going to my mum and saying to her, you know, mum, people actually die. And that was just mind blowing to me because it's not something that you think about, especially at that age. It's not something that you feel like you should need to think about. And especially when you see...parents who are kind of these figures, you know, these all-knowing figures to a child and they might not have a satisfying answer. It's a frightening thing.


Alis Rocca (03:09)

Yeah.

Did you feel afraid that they would die, that your parents would die and leave you?


Peter Ruppert (03:16)

Yeah, so I think, I can't remember which thought came first, so worrying about myself or my parents, but realizing that they're older than me, there's gonna be a time where I'm gonna have to be completely by myself. And that's, it's an extremely frightening idea, especially for a child to think about the people who are, you know, meant to be the most safe people in your life, not being there, not having those people to go to and obviously just you love them.


Alis Rocca (03:44)

Yeah, yeah. And as you say, they haven't got the right answer, which is as a child, you'd want them to say, no, I'm going to be here forever. you can't, yeah. So how did you react to this anxiety? How did that show up for you as a six-year-old and as you grew up?


Peter Ruppert (03:45)

So it's terrifying.


Exactly. Yeah, it started off being quite subtle, I think. So really, I started off with, first of all, asking these questions, but also thinking about these things. And that didn't necessarily present itself in any specific behavior, for example, but it had an effect on me just thinking about it. It made me more worried. It made me spend more time thinking about things I didn't necessarily need to or spend all time analyzing what could go wrong in a situation and then over time that worrying essentially becomes a skill like a bad skill to have because you get quite good at analyzing things analyzing what can go wrong in a way that that is your focus on most things


Alis Rocca (04:43)

Right.


Yeah, yeah. And that anxiety, did it show up physically in your body? Can you remember how it might have felt?


Peter Ruppert (04:59)

Yeah, so there's quite a lot of sensation. I think for me, the first ones are just feeling this fear, this pit, dropping feeling in the stomach, you know, for me around this area and just feeling of...


The only way to describe it really is fear. And I remember complaining about having fear in my head. I said, I can feel something in my head. I don't know what it is, but it feels like there's a ball of something in there. And I would often describe these feelings in really strange ways to my parents or teachers and things like that. that's the best way I could describe it.


Alis Rocca (05:28)

Yeah.


So what did the adults in your life do? What did your parents do to help you? What did your teachers do?


Peter Ruppert (05:54)

Well, I was fortunate that my dad, for example, had dealt with anxiety and my grandmother had also dealt with anxiety. So he would tell me about that and that would help me to feel a bit more, you know, a bit more understood a little bit. But it's interesting because, you know, everyone's anxiety is slightly different or the focus is slightly different. But also I would tell teachers at school and sometimes


Sometimes the answer is again, I wouldn't get an answer that I felt that I needed. I would describe a strange feeling I was having or a worrisome thought I was having and it sometimes felt like it was brushed off or I wasn't taken seriously.


Alis Rocca (06:39)

Yeah, yeah. What do you think teachers could do differently or could have done differently to take you seriously? What do you think you wanted them to do?


Peter Ruppert (06:52)

Maybe spend more time just listening to what it was I was trying to describe because I think, now I understand as a teacher it's probably quite, what is a quite stressful job and that you have to manage a lot of children and there's a lot of things going on and, but for me it felt as if sometimes my worries would play out in certain behaviors. For example, I might be so worried that I didn't want to engage in an activity.


And when I would try and express this, you know, it was almost as if, I'm just being troublesome, right? So for me, I feel like at that time, they could have been more really spending that time to listen and try and understand what it was I was trying to express, which of course is difficult at that age anyway. So it's quite a difficult thing.


Alis Rocca (07:31)

Yeah

And you say that sometimes you were labelled as naughty because you weren't maybe in the right headspace to do certain things, so you refused. How did it make you feel getting that label?


Peter Ruppert (08:03)

Well, I actually started to believe it at some point. I was labeled as naughty because I'd do things like hide under the desk sometimes just to avoid getting picked, know, picked to read out something or to do something like that. I'd, know, go to the toilet after I'd already been a few times just because I was feeling overwhelmed in the moment. And so I was labeled as the



Peter Ruppert (08:31)

just being a bit disruptive or I didn't want to engage and things like that when I did. But at the same time, yes, I didn't because I wasn't feeling comfortable. wasn't feeling very necessarily safe or I wasn't feeling confident. And that made me feel like, I am just a naughty child. I am just being disruptive. Even though I didn't feel like that, like I didn't feel like, I'm intending to be bad, but that's what I felt like.


Peter Ruppert (09:00)

and I started to believe it. And I got in trouble a lot of times. I was put on special report card at one point because I would do things like get stressed out as well and it would come out as outbursts, things like that. But that was all stemming from I was feeling anxious and unsafe and I didn't know what to do and I didn't know how to describe it. So yeah, for a period of time, I just really believed that I was just...Naughty.


Alis Rocca (09:31)

That must have been really tough and almost what I'm hearing you say is it's a bit like you were in the wrong for having these overwhelming feelings. It was you that was in the wrong. What helped you as a child? How did you get through that? How did you get beyond that label and beyond thinking that you were the one that was causing this trouble?


Peter Ruppert (09:52)

It's a difficult one because for really a lot of years it was like that, especially during primary school. I did just kind of feel like that. It wasn't until I went to secondary school where I started to be exposed to more different experiences, like kind of a wider world of things, when I started to learn a bit about mental health as a concept. When I started to realize that, it's not necessarily that I am naughty or I want to be like this. There's actual things like anxiety that exist and that may be what I'm experiencing. So for me, was just the education and learning about these concepts, which I didn't really know much about when I was younger.


Alis Rocca (10:35)

And I completely can understand that. And as a head teacher, I made sure that we had those times or books, know, just that there's some fantastic books out there for kids that just that time where children can understand that there is such a thing as mental health. We do a lot around physical health. You you've got to do your PE, you've got to run around the field, you've got to get strong.


Peter Ruppert (10:55)

Yeah.


Alis Rocca (11:08)

But there needs to be that balance of understanding that mental health is a thing and that we should be looking after it and poor mental health is a thing and we need to be acknowledging it. So yeah, I completely understand that.


Peter Ruppert (11:18)

Exactly. I can't remember a single thing from primary school about mental health specifically. was PE as you say, had PSHE but there was like sexual education, things like that. But I don't remember anything about mental health specifically and that would have been very, very useful at the time.


Alis Rocca (11:38)

Yeah, because it validates, doesn't it? If you had a story and the main character of a story was suffering from anxiety, you'd be able to relate to that as a six, seven, eight year old and think, that's how I feel. Yeah, I can understand that. Do you have a memory of noticing when you realized your behaviors were different to other children, to your peers, to your friends?


Peter Ruppert (12:05)

Partly to do with the labeling is when I felt different.


Alis Rocca (12:08)

Mm-hmm.


Peter Ruppert (12:11)

I also, you know, kind of needed it, it seemed like I needed more supervision, not just in that sense of, he's going to do something troublesome, but also I needed it. I needed more reassurance, more, I needed to go to the teachers more to ask questions or, or because I felt scared or I felt nervous about something. So I felt a bit of a nuisance as well sometimes. And then in the change from primary to secondary school, I really noticed it a bit more because let's say it felt like I was at a different stage than the other children at that time. So where others were much more confident and seemed independent and carefree in a sense, I was just always focused on the what if or the what might go wrong or what's wrong, know, feeling just


Alis Rocca (12:59)

Yeah.


Peter Ruppert (13:08)

negative emotions all the time. But I wasn't a negative person. I didn't have a negative mindset in the sense that I was very joyful and happy and I had a lot of fun. But there's always this cloud hanging over, right? Always like, if I'm having fun, what could go wrong? Rather than, I'm just having a great time.


Alis Rocca (13:21)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.


Yeah. Did you ever envy that in your peers? Did you ever envy their sort carefree existence that they seem to be having?


Peter Ruppert (13:37)

That's a key theme that throughout my life I've always felt kind envious of how do people just walk around happy and carefree and enjoying themselves from the smallest things. Even just for me going on a school trip or walking into a class late for example was something that was just such a horrible feeling for me and I don't know why could...


almost the feeling of being put on the spot was something I really hated. But it's like I could feel the eyes on me or feel the judgment or things like that. Whereas other people could just waltz in and I just wanted to be carefree like that. Yeah.


Alis Rocca (14:20)

Yeah, yeah.


And I think...


You know, things like that that you're saying there, again, I'm just sort of thinking of my time in school and as a teacher. If I'd known, and I'm sure I miss children like you, just because you are so busy, but if I'd known that a child was anxious, there's certainly things that you can do as a teacher that would help them come into a class later. You know, just easy things like the way you organise your learning environment so that a child just comes and slips in at the back and their seat's at the back and they feel less threatened by the whole scenario really.


Peter Ruppert (14:54)

I mean, on that on that point I remember many times because you know going in a class late This even in the older years, let's say around sixth form for me going to class late It was bad, you know is something you could get in trouble for and so there would be times where I might be late because I was anxious in the first place or something was going on and I go to the class and I realize You know in my stress. gosh, I'm late. I better go get to the class enter, open the door and why are you late? You know, where have you been? You've just been skiving off, you know, and then all the eyes staring at me, everyone kind of, he's in trouble, this kind of thing. And again, feeling like I've done something terribly wrong, but really, you know, there's a lot more going on that no one knows. And so that's just, for example, one thing that could have been done much differently. And I think I do remember some teachers that were a bit more...

relaxed or understanding about that situation and I felt a lot safer in their class and weirdly I did better in their classes.


Alis Rocca (15:59)

Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? And I think, you know, the word really is as teachers we need to nurture as well as teach because of that exact reason. If somebody feels nurtured and safe and validated, they're going to be much more open to learning at the end of the day. They're going to do better in those classes. I've heard you talk about the mind-body link. What do you mean by this? And have you recognised that in yourself?


Peter Ruppert (16:08)

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, so what I mean when I'm talking about mind-body link is just the ways that are, let's say thoughts and even just perceptions, you know, of the world around us can basically physically affect the body. So like a key example of this is the fight or flight response. So if you feel or you think that you're in danger, whether there's a physical, a real danger there or not, your body will flush with adrenaline, know, stress hormones, you'll get a racing heart and you'll feel overwhelmed and you'll feel all these physical symptoms, you know, that you could pick up if you go on an ECG, you'll see the heart racing and things like that. It's that link between basically your mind, your thoughts and the effects that that can have on your body.


Alis Rocca (17:15)

What's your experience of that? How could you describe that in yourself?


Peter Ruppert (17:21)

So it's again, especially when I was younger, something that I did not understand and so I would have feel as I was talking about earlier describing these different sensations in my body and it was just something really alien, something really strange to me that I didn't understand what was going on but only later did I realize that these are, this is my, this is the physical menace. A manifestation of my anxiety is what the effect it's having on my body and how it's making me feel physically as well as just feeling, you know, worried or anxious or afraid. It's actually making me feel ill in a sense, right? And this also contributed me to dealing with a lot of health anxiety because the focus not only is on your worries, but the worries and the feelings.



Peter Ruppert (18:14)

present themselves physically, and then that becomes worrisome in itself.


Alis Rocca (18:18)

It's almost like you're proving yourself right. It's like the anxiety starts and then the body feels terrible and it's like, there you go. I am, I'm not well. This is happening to me.


Peter Ruppert (18:20)

Exactly.


Exactly.On that, there's a phrase that I hated growing up, but I did hear it a lot. And I won't put anyone, I won't say any names who said it, but the phrase, you're going to make, stop worrying so much. You're going to make yourself ill. That was something that absolutely terrified me because I was already worrying. I would feel this physical worry. And then the idea that, I'm going to actually make something physically wrong because I'm so worried. Just create small worry.


Alis Rocca (18:38)

Yes, just a negative feedback loop that just feeds on itself. What sort of things did you learn to do as a child?


Peter Ruppert (18:58)

Yeah, exactly.


Alis Rocca (19:07)

What do you do now that might help calm your body if you're having that sort of physical response? Because I know as a yoga teacher and breathwork teacher, I teach different breathing styles and I know that can just calm people's mind. You can sort of see their whole body start to relax. What sort of things have you done?


Peter Ruppert (19:25)

Yeah.


So yeah, there's quite a few. As you mentioned, breathing techniques can be really helpful, especially just in the moment when you're feeling a bit anxious or stressed, just as a way to ground yourself. another tool that I found really useful that I learned I think in therapy at one point is thought labeling. So specifically this relates to the kind of mind-body connection.


And it's that idea that you get thoughts, you know, and thoughts can, we don't choose our thoughts necessarily. So they can just pop into your mind something that frightens you, it's a worry or, what if this happens? Or if, you know, you're waiting for, you know, your friends to come to your house or something, it's like, they're a bit late, you oh, what if they got hit by a car or something like that? But that causes physical, you know, that causes you distress. And it can...increase your anxiety and overall but thought labeling is basically a technique where you have a thought and instead of allowing yourself to have that instant emotional reaction where you feel that in your body you notice it and you just give it a label so if I am worrying about something I'd say I'd get a thought and it's like okay and I just label it as worry that's a worry right or if there's another thought and it could be


even do it with positive thoughts. if you're, I'm hungry, just say, that's a hunger. and then another one, there's another worry. And then I think what that does is it kind of creates a disconnect between having the thought and then immediately having a reaction because it puts something in between. So you give it a label and then you just kind of sit with it. You don't engage with it necessarily, but you just allow that thought to kind of pass. And for me that made a...massive difference because I would have thoughts that would immediately cause me a lot of stress and I would think you know there's something wrong with me why am I even thinking this or why is my mind focused in just negative ways why can't I think positively and happy and I found out that just trying to think positive or just trying to push away these thoughts didn't really help for me and actually this was a way to sit with them rather than pushing them away, which tends for me to make them worse and actually learn a bit more about how thoughts themselves work. Because that's another key element that I think we don't really talk about that much, especially in school, is that what are thoughts in the first place and how, as well as how do they affect our body, but what is a thought? If you are someone, you might think that, I choose all my thoughts.



Peter Ruppert (22:25)

I thought that at one time. But really, you have loads of thoughts today and 80 % of them might be repetitive or something you thought before. Some of them are new, some of them are stressful, some of them are worries. But they're not really something that you, I'm going to think about this now.


Alis Rocca (22:41)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.


So I definitely taught about the brain and neuroscience, but that was really about how to learn and how to be an effective learner. never thought, ironically, I never thought of teaching kids about thoughts. It just hadn't occurred to me, but you're right, you're absolutely right, because we do get into these negative loops and we do have these repetitive patterns.


Peter Ruppert (22:48)

Mm.


Alis Rocca (23:10)

And the more aware, I suppose what you're talking about there, I I love that thought labeling as a tool that teachers could use and parents could use with their kids. But I suppose what you're talking about there is mindfulness, isn't it? It's about really being in the present moment and thinking, okay, what's coming up? I've got a worry, that's a worry there, or I'm hungry or I'm thirsty. And I could see that working really well with all ages of children, actually.


Peter Ruppert (23:18)

Mmm. And it's kind of a task, it's an activity, But it puts things into perspective because you start to build a better relationship with how your mind actually works firsthand rather than just simply reading about something or something like that. So that's definitely something that is very easy to do, it's very accessible and I think it can have quite a huge effect. And it's like a muscle as well, especially with mindfulness.


Alis Rocca (23:45)

Mm-hmm.


Peter Ruppert (24:07)

The mind is like a muscle where practicing these techniques, you know, it's not something that you're all your worries are going to be gone, but it's becoming quite, you know, practicing that over time, you gain that ability to step back and have perspective when situations get stressful or when you're feeling a bit more stressed than usual, anxious than usual. The fact that you've been practicing these types of techniques prepare you for when times get more stressful.


Alis Rocca (24:38)

I love that, I love the idea of it, seeing it as a muscle and something that you train and you work on rather than thinking it's just gonna happen. You know, I just need to do this once, one afternoon of doing this and it will be sorted, but actually it's something that we need to keep fit with, keep going back to. That's brilliant, thank you for that. I think that's gonna be really helpful.


Peter Ruppert (24:42)

Mm.



Alis Rocca (25:04)

Now another word I've heard you use is depersonalization. What do you mean by that and what's your experience of it?


Peter Ruppert (25:10)

Yeah, so what I mean by depersonalization is it's a feeling of feeling disconnected from yourself or maybe your emotions or even kind of the world around you. So there's depersonalization and derealization. And derealization is kind of the outside version. So it's the world around you might feel a bit strange or disconnected or even a bit fake, like a dream. And these...to feelings are actually quite common, actually quite very common, especially in association with anxiety and things like panic. But I think they're still quite misunderstood and under-researched and things like that. Those are feelings that I dealt with growing up that I really found it difficult to talk about, to describe. I thought there, again, there was something wrong with me.


When trying to describe it to adult teachers adults, I know, it went nowhere. It went nowhere. And so I was stuck for many years and this can be quite a persistent feeling especially when you don't know what it is and it's very It's scary and So that's something that I talk about a lot now because there are so many people who feel this and think


it means the worst and they have no idea, don't know what term or anything but yeah, so for me I just want people to know that that's actually quite a common experience.


Alis Rocca (26:48)

Yeah, I think there's a real theme coming out with this conversation and that is about education. It's almost like the more we know, the more we can, not necessarily control, but just understand what's going on and therefore we feel less out of control. And I think that education and learning is not just...


for the person who's suffering, but for the teachers and the adults around that person, so that the more they know, the better. Because if there again, was a teacher that knew about depersonalization or derealization, then they could have understood what you were trying to articulate as a child and therefore been able to help. So there's more to be done really around teacher training and for parents to...


Peter Ruppert (27:28)

Exactly.


Alis Rocca (27:37)

Let parents understand these terms and what might be happening. So you mentioned therapy there. You were sent for assessment by your school. How useful was that assessment and how did that lead you to getting therapy eventually?


Peter Ruppert (27:56)

So, yeah, I was sent for an assessment at school and partly due to kind of things I was talking about. I really had trouble engaging in lessons and going late to class and I really struggled to speak to teachers. Let's, this is around maybe year seven, eight. So just start off secondary school. So I guess they would see me as underperforming compared to the other children at the time. And yeah, so.


Alis Rocca (28:08)

What sort of age are we talking about now?

Okay.Yeah.


Peter Ruppert (28:25)

I had trouble with, you know, speaking to teachers, engaging in class. was so anxious that I didn't want to speak or ever read out in class or engage, you know, in the way that everyone else was. And, and I got stressed as well. I would get, you know, visibly stressed about it. And so the school kind of sent me, or suggested or sent me for, to be assessed. So I then went to, I think it was CAMS, CAMS to be assessed and went through a process.


It made me feel quite...describe it made me feel quite strange because again that to me felt like why am I being picked out and you know sent what's wrong with me again what did I do wrong this time and why isn't this happening to anyone else so at on one hand it did make me feel quite isolated in a sense but at the same time this was during a time when I was learning more about these concepts mental health as a concept things like that and so I was beginning to understand


Alis Rocca (29:11)

Mm.


Peter Ruppert (29:33)

why and and kind of identify with what aspects of my life is is this relating to because clearly I'm struggling with things and so this is an avenue to learn more about that and to to get help with it and so that's when I was diagnosed with I think it's generalized anxiety disorder and also social phobia social anxiety and then you know referred to therapy


Alis Rocca (29:34)

Yeah.


Right, okay. So part of you felt isolated by the whole process, but part of you wanted to know the answers, wanted to know why you felt different.


Peter Ruppert (30:06)

Yeah, yeah. I was afraid


of labels as well. was not afraid, but I was worried of having a label.


Alis Rocca (30:14)

Yeah.

Why do you think that was the stigma of it or?


Peter Ruppert (30:20)

Yes, because I was always, again, it seemed like I needed extra help and things like that. And it's not in the sense of, I think, you know, it's not that there's something wrong with that, but it's, I felt different. That's it. I just felt different to everyone else. And I felt like I was falling behind everyone else. And the idea of having some kind of label.



Peter Ruppert (30:49)

At the time, I didn't like the idea.


Alis Rocca (30:52)

Yeah. So you got to the point where they referred you to therapy and you started therapy. How big a part of your life has therapy been and how has it helped you? What tools do you think you've left with?


Peter Ruppert (31:05)


So I think therapy has definitely been, from then until now, quite a big part of my life. I've been through a few, let's say, rounds of therapy. So the therapy that I engaged with was CBT. And I think on the NHS you usually get around 12 sessions, 11 to 12 sessions. You can get more. But yeah, so I've… done quite a bit of CBT in my life. And the thing is, you might think, it's just, you have one round and then that should be all good to go. But life happens and things happen and situations happen and you know, there are different anxiety, there are different focuses on my anxiety. So a good example of that is, so this initially was for my social engagements and things like that. And I was very socially anxious.


And the therapy really, really helped me in that time to understand that, improve, to do things to improve, to learn tools that would help me to basically engage more and actually feel more confident. But during that time, there was an unfortunate twist where I got mugged twice in one summer as I was becoming more confident and...


hanging out with friends more and things like that. And then my anxiety shifted to, you know, starting to be a bit more reclusive and afraid of going out, afraid of public transport, things like that. And so later I had to have more therapy for that. But to me that's positive, the fact that you can, you can improve something. It's never a linear path is what I'm trying to say in that respect, yeah.


Alis Rocca (32:47)

Yeah.

 Do you have any, I mean, you told us about the thought labeling, do you have any tools that help you, that you've taken away from therapy, that you think, actually, these are now part of my life that help me to keep the anxiety at bay or get out there, not be reclusive?


Peter Ruppert (33:15)

Yeah, definitely so the mindfulness, thought labeling, there are a few different, you know, many different types of mindfulness techniques that can be very useful. Again, concepts such as learning the, let's say, anxiety cycle can be really useful in just knowing how to break it. So for me, one of the most useful things was identifying, for example, safety behaviors that I would do.


So for example, if I was particularly worried, would have like safety people that would, you know, be somewhat, can only do this thing if I have this person. And I had to identify that to me, that was a safety behavior and start trying to, you know, take steps to take my own steps, you know, in different. And another...kind of grounding exercise that I found really useful is, and a quick one that anyone can do really easily is called the 5-4-3-2-1 or five senses grounding exercise. And this is just a simple exercise you can do at any time really. You don't have to be wait to, or you're feeling overwhelmed or really anxious. It's good to practice, but essentially you're using your senses. So you start off by pointing out five things around you that you can see. And that can be anything. There's a painting on the wall, there's a window over there, there's a tree, and you point out five things, but you really want to observe them. So if I look at a painting, say, there's a blue painting and there's yellow dots and there's chairs and you really just want to focus on what you can see. And the tree is really tall and the branches are nice and green and vibrant.


After you've done five of those, you move on to four things that you can touch. So that can be anything around you. could be, okay, I can feel this material on my shirt and you can really describe the texture of it and you want to actually touch and feel it. Microphone here is quite soft. And then after the four, you've found four things to touch. You do three things that you can hear around you.


So, and this one's really key as well because you really want to, you know, notice the silence and try and focus on those things that maybe you wouldn't notice. Right. So obviously me talking as an obvious one, but if I if I really focus. I can hear like the wind of the trees or I can hear the hum of the fridge in the other room. know, can notice those sounds that you might not think about and really tune into


Peter Ruppert (36:09)

So after you've done the hearing, then you can focus on smells. So...This one's a bit difficult because there's not always like a certain smell, but it just be the smell of the air or if you really, you know, just smell your breath. You know, that's what I always do, the smell, how my breath's doing today. Oh, I need to go brush my teeth. Yeah. And, and finally it's taste. So I think with smell and taste, can kind of do like a memory as well if you can bring that. So if you don't have anything, you might have a mint around or you might just, you might have just eaten something and can still kind of taste it a little bit, but.


Alis Rocca (36:23)

Or like the fabric conditioner or...


Peter Ruppert (36:45)

That's kind of the point. want to focus, you want to really hone it in and focus on these sensations. And I think just try that for a few minutes and you will always come out of it feeling, wow, where have I been? You know, I feel relaxed, I feel calm.


Alis Rocca (36:59)

Yeah, it's brilliant.

And whatever it was that was heightening that anxiety, you sort of forgotten to think about for at least, you know, a few minutes. And I suppose again, that goes back to that mind-body link. While you're busy doing all of that, your body stops thinking you're in fight or flight and needing to produce all that adrenaline.


Peter Ruppert (37:08)

Exactly.Yeah. Well, there's a, there's actually another technique that I found really useful when I was dealing a lot with a lot of health anxiety. So health anxiety involves a lot of self scanning of your body, or you might do symptom checking and things like that. And, there's a technique basically two, different, two variations of it. One is, worry time. So this is where if you find yourself kind of overwhelmed every day with lots of worries consuming your day, you actually,


Peter Ruppert (37:47)

Set yourself a time. You can say 6 p.m. for 20 minutes. I'm going to worry about everything. I'm going to write them down. I'm going to write down any solutions I'm gonna write. Just write all my worries down and that way in the day whenever you have a worry You say okay. I acknowledge this worry. I'm gonna delay it till later, right? I'm just gonna set it aside until worry time and then when worry time comes I'm going to worry about it and why this is so effective. I think it is because as I mentioned before, what we resist persists. So if you really try to push away thoughts or worries or things like that, you know, if I say don't think of a white elephant, 10 seconds, you're going to think of a white elephant, right? So what we resist persists and with worry time, you're not resisting it. You're actually accepting it. saying, okay, that's a valid worry or maybe it's not that maybe it's an irrational worry but you're saying, okay, I'm going to worry about this later.


Alis Rocca (38:28)

Yeah, immediately, it was there.


Peter Ruppert (38:44)

and your body is like, okay, well, I'm not, I'm not trying to get rid of it. I'm actually just delayed. I'm pushing it too late. I can handle that. And then you'll find that when you get to that point of the worry time, you probably don't remember any of those worries, right? And so the health anxiety variation of this is essentially if you're, if you have trouble checking, checking behaviors, things like that. So I mentioned safety behaviors. So one for me, as I was always worried about my heart. So I'd check my pulse all the time.


and that focus on the pulse brings on more symptoms and brings on more worries. So what I would do is I would say, okay, I want to check my pulse, but I know that's gonna make me worried. So I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes and then I'll check. And then within that 10 minutes, I might forget or I might not worry because I've delayed that worry. And I gave my body permission to actually relax rather than fighting this urge or sensation or whatever I'm worrying about. So these are really powerful little tweaks that just change your relationship with the thought or the sensational or the behaviors that you do.


Alis Rocca (39:47)

Yeah, brilliant.

And they're not hard, but it's just knowing these things, isn't it? It's knowing these tools and having them in your toolbox so you can sort of think, this is a new habit that I need to do for now. And that's going to be my worry time at six o'clock and see what happens over time. It's brilliant, really good. Thank you for sharing that. You're sharing a lot of your learning on social media at the moment, and you've got a massive following.

And I've watched some really great and really informative content. And I think that's the key thing, isn't it, that you're trying to inform people. Why have you chosen social media as a way of sharing your information and your experience?


Peter Ruppert (40:35)

So why have I chosen social media? I'd say for me it's one of the reasons it's quite, it's social. So I'm sharing a kind of personal journey. And I that social media is naturally social. It feels like you're on FaceTime with someone. Or I'm sharing things as the way I see it. I'm not sharing them as an expert.


Alis Rocca (40:37)

Hmm.


Peter Ruppert (41:03)

I'm not sharing them as a mental health professional or anything like that. It's really my lived experience. And I think that just really fits social media. And as well, it's easier to reach people, especially reach people who have those similar experiences. And partly because of things like the algorithm and the way content is pushed out, when people scroll, they get things that are related to them.


Alis Rocca (41:25)

Hmm.


Peter Ruppert (41:34)

And so for better or for worse, using social media is a good way to reach people who have a similar experience as me.


Alis Rocca (41:37)

Yeah. I've never thought about it from the algorithm point of view, but that's brilliant. Yeah, it's reaching the right people because they're the ones that are looking for support and ideas. And why did you choose that name, anxiety fitness? I think it's great. What's your thinking behind that?


Peter Ruppert (42:01)

kind of two reasons. the main reason is, you know, mental health is just as important as physical health. So we stay physically fit and I'm set and my focus is on anxiety, but essentially it's mental fitness, it's staying mentally fit. And I believe that with anxiety, you know, it's not about getting rid of it. Anxiety is not this bad, horrible thing that you need to eliminate from your life.


You just need to work, you know, it's working on that resilience, you know, being able to sit with it, to understand it, to have a better relationship with it. And so for me, you know, it's anxiety fit, right? It's, yeah. And then the other half is because fitness was something that I did to help, literally exercise. It's just something that was really helpful for me.


Alis Rocca (42:34)

Yeah. Okay.So was another tool in your toolbox was physical fitness as well.


Peter Ruppert (43:00)

Yeah, another tool. Originally, I might have, I think the plan was I was just going to be fitness, sharing lots of fitness tips, but I don't think it quite worked out that way.


Alis Rocca (43:12)

And what would you say your key messages are? mean, there's a lot on there about panic attacks. Can you just tell me a bit about panic attacks and what your key messages are?


Peter Ruppert (43:24)

So panic attacks, yeah, so panic attacks are something that I even quite recently was dealt with quite severely and during that time, so just a quick explanation for panic attacks, but essentially your body just gets a flush of hormones, adrenaline, you're in fight or flight, so if there was a lion there...You go into fight or flight, your heart races, you want to escape or fight it. And this can feel really overwhelming and frightening. And many people actually, you know, end up going into A &E because they think they're having a heart attack because the symptoms can be similar. So panic attacks, yeah, are these overwhelming phenomenon, I guess, that can happen to people. And it's usually associated with high anxiety.


And so during that time in my life when I was dealing with a lot of panic attacks, I felt like I was stuck like that. I felt like, you know, I've, I'm stuck in this way because I can't seem to handle anything. I can't even go out without having a panic attack. I can't, you know, just relax anymore. And to me it looked like, well, this is just how my life is now. Right. And


Peter Ruppert (44:49)

My key message on that is that no matter if you can see, let's say the light at the end of the tunnel, it doesn't mean that it's not there. Just like we have these anxious thoughts that tell us something, that doesn't mean that that's true just because I can't see that things might get better. That's not necessarily true because that's exactly how I felt. And that's exactly why I share my experience because I know there are going to be people now who feel like that.


but I wanna be like a living example that that's not the case. Another one is a key message that I always talk about is you're not alone. So I know it's always said, you're not alone, you're not alone. But really what I found is it's very hard to really be alone in the sense that no matter how strange or different or, you know.


weird your experience may be or things that you felt or even thoughts you've had may be, there's someone else out there who understands or can relate or who has gone through something similar. I can't empirically prove that, but I really 100 % believe that because I share a lot of personal experiences that I thought were totally unique to me, that I thought were something that only I struggled with. And millions of people, you know, completely say, I deal with this. I thought I was the only one. And I've never had something where I couldn't find some kind of community or people who could relate.


Alis Rocca (46:21)

That's interesting because that's the opposite of what you said earlier about how isolating it can feel. So you've moved almost full circle from that isolated feeling you're the only one to a sense of community and finding that community through social media and recognising that there's a lot of people out there that have got a similar story to tell. How does that make you feel being part of a community?


Peter Ruppert (46:27)

Mm.

Well, it's amazing. for me, it's interesting because it's very true that the isolation and social media allows us to reach out to people in completely different countries, different places who are going through similar things. Whereas it might be that no one in your immediate family or your house or even your class can relate. So being a part of that


Alis Rocca (47:13)

Yeah.


Peter Ruppert (47:18)

kind of community where there are people that you can relate to. For me, it's just incredibly valuable. And I think it makes a difference to a lot of people. Just the fact of having a place where they know that they just don't feel isolated. So that's one of the key things that I think is so important about using, let's say, social media to kind of spread this kind of awareness and message.


Alis Rocca (47:46)

Yeah, the positive side of social media.


Peter Ruppert (47:49)

Exactly,


Alis Rocca (47:51)

What, can you tell us a little bit more about your panic attacks? I'm finding that really interesting and I think the audience would find that really useful. What were your triggers or what are your triggers for going into a panic attack? And would you say that your triggers aren't something that only you have, but other people might have? Unusual was the word I was looking for.


Peter Ruppert (48:13)

Yeah, so I'd say for panic attacks, I'd say that probably for me there's two types of triggers. One is like the physical trigger. it could be just something that you notice that your heart rate has been increased and that triggers a worry about your heart or your health or something. And that can just trigger a panic attack to begin where you're worried about your health.


could be, let's say, mental triggers. And what I mean by that is situations or something that you're specifically afraid of. So for me, I was actually diagnosed with panic disorder and agoraphobia, which essentially means that describing agoraphobia in the quickest sense is that you become afraid of places or situations where escape or help is perceived to be difficult.


So that could be like a crowded place, right? It could be a crowded place because you can imagine, well, what if I have a heart attack and an ambulance can't get to me? Or it could even be an open space because, what if I can't get somewhere, get someone to help me in time. So it's really interesting and really important just realizing how these things can be different for everyone. But in terms of the panic attacks, yeah, for me, my triggers mainly focus on those types of things. So for me, it would be being alone.


Being completely by myself is something that I really struggled with because I often depended on people When I had high anxiety or when I had panic attacks, I would need reassurance that I was okay I would need to know someone was there in case something did happen to me That someone was there to help and of course with panic attacks We call them panic attacks and if I had panic attacks, but in the moment you don't necessarily know it's a panic attack and that's why you know, might believe you're having a heart attack or believe you're having some medical episode and that's why this idea of, for example, safety per people or needing that kind of reassurance can be so encompassing.


Alis Rocca (50:24)

Interesting and you talk about anxious predictions, is that part of it? Is that part of the, when you're in it and you don't know that you're in the panic attack?


Peter Ruppert (50:38)

So, yeah, anxious predictions, would say, because they can definitely have these outside of panic. I would say that the thoughts where, you know, your anxiety says, you know, if this might happen or what if this happens, but you take that as fact. So you have something to do and your anxiety is telling you, well, you better be careful because this dangerous thing might happen or, but you're taking that as, your body is reacting as this.


Alis Rocca (50:44)

Okay.


Peter Ruppert (51:06)

Okay, that dangerous thing is definitely gonna happen and that's where that anticipatory Anxiety really builds up and you can really have those symptoms build up In terms of like inside up during a panic attack. I would say yes those anxious predictions are telling you that You're having a heart attack You know, this is your anxiety is so high that it cannot be explained by just anxiety or it cannot be explained by you're having a panic attack your anxiety


is telling you, you're dying. So it's predicting that you're gonna die and when you predict you're gonna die, you're gonna act as if you're gonna die.


Alis Rocca (51:41)

Yeah, yeah. Interesting, thank you. And you talked about as part of your therapy doing CBT as one of your rounds, is that the same as exposure therapy? And that you mentioned earlier, that sitting with your feelings, do you feel like that's all part of the same process?


Peter Ruppert (52:04)

So, CBT, so cognitive behavioural therapy, would say, doesn't necessarily include, it's definitely a key part of CBT, but it will depend on what you're being treated for. So I think there are some types of anxiety, for example, social anxiety where exposure might not be the first. you know, thing you do, right? But with panic exposure, let's say probably more relevant. so exposure as well, essentially, I'm just talking about actually exposing yourself to those situations that cause panic or, or high anxiety and actually sitting with the feelings because what we immediately want to do when we feel panic or anxiety is we want to escape the situation and get away. But that is…That's the worst thing you can do because then you're essentially controlled now by this anxiety or this panic is telling you if you go there again, you remember when you escaped last time and I saved your life. If you go there again, you're gonna something bad is gonna happen. So the moment you even go to that situation because you escaped last time, your body is gonna react like this is so dangerous. We need to leave. Whereas if you actually stayed even though your anxiety would have peaked. Panic might have peaked as well, it would have then went down in the situation. So then the next time you go to that situation, I did feel a bit anxious, but then I actually, it was fine. But that leads us to a really key thing is that like the cognitive side, the, let's say the rational side and the, and the experiential of your body. So cognitive behavioral therapy is really dealing with, you know,


Peter Ruppert (54:02)

thinking patterns or the way you think, right? So things like those mindfulness techniques we talked about or analyzing how does the panic cycle work? So it might be you have the trigger that leads onto physical symptoms and then that leads to behaviors. So you might escape or you might, you know, sit down because your heart's racing too much. And then that leads to avoidance and then it leads again, it goes into a cycle and learning that is fine.


Peter Ruppert (54:33)

But exposure helps you to deal with, okay, I know how panic attacks work, but I still have panic attacks. And when I'm having a panic attack in the moment, I think, oh, this time it's different. And so it's learning, okay, so now you know how it works, but you actually have to, your body needs to learn the difference. the fear part of your mind, I'm not a neuroscientist or anything, but let's say,


Alis Rocca (54:44)

So goes back to that mind-body link. Yeah.


Peter Ruppert (55:01)

the amygdala, but essentially I think in panic the amygdala takes over and the part that's the rational thinking part of your brain is the frontal lobes and those are essentially turned off during panic attack so that's why you can get someone who has had 10 panic attacks and they still have another one and they still believe they're going to die this time because the rational mind is not really working in the same way that it is you when you're talking, because if there was a lion or tiger there, you're not going to have a debate or play chess with it. You're just gonna, just gonna run away. That's all those other things are useless. So that's what happens. And so with exposure, you're kind of exposing that part of your brain, showing it that, okay, even if you keep firing off all these fear things, and I'm in this situation, nothing's going to happen. So eventually, you don't need to do that anymore. And that's where it dies down.


Alis Rocca (55:31)

And I love the content on your social media because it's almost like you're doing a bit of mental health first aid for people. It's like, this is what you can do to help someone. And that's great because… as you just said there, the actual person that's in it, their frontal lobes, their prefrontal cortex is switched off. So they're not thinking rationally. So you can step in and take that rational thought and help in certain ways. And those ways might not be giving them a hug, you know, or telling them to do the wrong thing. That's just going to heighten it. But actually a lot of your content is about what you can do to help, which is brilliant, really good.


I'm interested. So my next question really is about how hard you find it talking about all of this. And you're so eloquent and you're so articulate and you're doing such a good job on your social media and just having a conversation like this. And I go back to what you said right at the beginning of our conversation was that as a little boy, you were shy and you were quiet.


How have you moved on from that and how easy or how difficult do you find it to talk about your feelings like this?


Peter Ruppert (57:07)

At the beginning, I definitely found it quite difficult because it feels very vulnerable, right? I'm sharing something that I was almost embarrassed about when I was sharing my story or these situations. And so at the beginning, it definitely was something scared, but I actually took that as a reason to do it, right? So my mindset shifted from...avoidance to actually doing the things that that frighten me because I think that's where the growth lies so Now sharing this almost it feels so natural and I feel so much more confident confident as a person I don't feel things like embarrassment or shame about my mental health or or my mental the past of my mental health and The key thing is that I'm turning like something negative in my life experience to something positive that hopefully is helping other people.


Alis Rocca (58:10)

I think it is without a doubt and I think, you know, the wonderful thing is it's helping you as well. As you say, it's made you more confident as you go along on this journey. Do you think you'll ever completely get over panic attacks and anxiety disorder or having those anxiety, anxious moments? Or do you think it's going to be a lifelong journey for you?


Peter Ruppert (58:32)

So I think about this one quite a lot actually because because I often hear people Kind of say if you have anxiety you never get rid of it. You're gonna be stuck like this forever You just have you just really learn to manage it. Well And I think that for me the what I think about it is I think that Yes, I think that you can overcome anxiety. I think you can overcome


Peter Ruppert (59:00)

anxiety disorders and I the the way that I agree is that yes You were that person and you lived through that experience So you're gonna never be the same as someone who never had an anxiety disorder, but I don't think that you're gonna be stuck Just managing and surviving people say in this way of all you just you just manage and you survive and you really every day have to put 100 % and I can see where the truth is, but for me, it's really you're at a disordered level of anxiety. You can 100 % bring it back down to a healthy level. And remember, we don't want to get rid of, eliminate anxiety because it's a healthy human emotion that we want. We want to just bring it back down to a healthy level. And I don't think that you'll be, you're going to have to, there's anything with you that means, you have to live a certain way where, where you, you need to do certain things to keep it that way. think the act of broadening your comfort zone, growing your confidence. That will make it so that you are now living a life that doesn't invite anxiety. If you become reclusive and you don't do anything all the time and you avoid things, then you will need to work on it again. And so, yeah, think once you overcome this level of anxiety, just the act of living will keep you that way. But there are...things that happen in life, right? That will make anyone anxious for a certain time or that, you know, there are times where let's just say things get difficult or anxiety comes back. And that will be even for people who've never experienced anxiety before can get back to that disordered level or to that disorder level or you may get back to that disorder level. But I think that the person with anxiety is in a better position in that case because they have been through it, they know the skills they need, and I think they'll get back down to that healthy level quicker. So for me, it's not necessarily that you're gonna be managing it forever, it's just you have the skills now. And so when life gets difficult, you'll be able to utilize those skills, rather than having to struggle for the rest of your life.


Alis Rocca (1:01:22)

Yeah, and that's a fantastic way of looking at it and a really positive way of looking at it. Being in the position that you're in now, having come through and having built your resilience and got those skills, what advice would you give to, first of all, schools and educators? What do you think they could do to help the younger Peter or help people that in primary that might be suffering and not be able to articulate because they haven't been through it yet.


Peter Ruppert (1:01:54)

Yeah, I think the key thing is definitely just education. What a great example we mentioned at the beginning about the like being naughty part, realizing that, you know, if a child might not be able to put their feelings into words, but they might have certain behaviors. you know, they might, you know, having a tantrum or, or, you know, even being quiet or fidgeting, I get told off for fidgeting. These types of things can all be a sign that maybe they're not feeling comfortable or they're feeling anxious or they're feeling unsafe. And so for me, rather than treating these things as bad behaviors, trying, you know, using those as maybe signs that something else may be going on or they may be dealing with something that they don't know how to express. So firstly, identify these things and then education and literally learning these signs and learning what might be causing those. So really just learning, as you said, I think you mentioned before, having more education for the teachers about things like anxiety and mental health in general. There's also things like, there's lots of books now, lots of children's books as well about anxiety, which I think would be fantastic to have in schools and available? Exactly.


Alis Rocca (1:03:25)

Have on the curriculum, absolutely. And what about parents? What do you think parents, what advice would you give to somebody who might be looking at their child and thinking, I think they're over anxious, I think they're different in some way with their level of anxiety.


Peter Ruppert (1:03:42)

I think firstly for the parents realizing that anxiety you know it's it's when you say over anxious I mean but it's this is a human thing you know and we all we all think differently and we all express ourselves differently and we all perceive things differently so what does that mean? Yeah


Alis Rocca (1:03:56)

Yeah. So even that comment, even that comment is a comment that could make a child feel isolated because all of a sudden I'm putting my level of judgment, this is the level of anxiety you should be at and you're above that, so it's wrong. So even that's wrong, isn't it? Yeah.


Peter Ruppert (1:04:12)

Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah, so I mean, in the sense of not trying to identify a problem necessarily. But because anxiety is fear, in a sense, or is worry as so it means that they are feeling something, right. And so the key should be not trying to figure out what's wrong or what needs to be fixed, but trying to actually understand the child and there are ways.


Alis Rocca (1:04:26)

Mm-hmm.


Yeah.


Peter Ruppert (1:04:49)

To talk to them about it that might be not just what's wrong with you? It's like


Can you tell me how you're feeling or how does this situation make you feel? I don't know the exact examples, but there are ways to gently ask about how children are feeling in a way that in their language they know, right?


Alis Rocca (1:05:07)

Mm. Mm. Yeah.rather than tell, yeah, rather than tell them, this is how you should be feeling, but actually ask, yeah.


Peter Ruppert (1:05:22)

Yeah. And validate, yeah, validate how they are feeling, you know, if they do say it. So if a child tells you, well, I feel worried about this and you think, that's a ridiculous thing to be worried about. it doesn't matter if you think it's ridiculous because they are worrying about it. And so you want to find out more about that and what it is, you know, about that situation that makes them worried. Just so at least they feel heard in that sense.


Alis Rocca (1:05:50)

A key takeaway from my conversation with you is if I was still teaching in the classroom I would start teaching why we have thoughts because I've never thought of that until you said it today so that would be a key takeaway for me. What key things would you hope listeners take away from your conversation today with me?


Peter Ruppert (1:06:10)

So I think one is that anxiety is not really an enemy. I know, this is something I as well when I kind of think anxiety is something bad and terrible and an enemy too. But it's normal. It's something that everyone feels and sometimes we feel it at a bit of a higher level and we need to understand it a bit more. And so if you know, if your children are, you know, showing signs of anxiety, don't just shelter them and


take them away from what is causing them anxiety. You want them to feel heard and feel that you understand but help them to feel comfortable with that slight discomfort, right? Because that's something that I had to learn over many years and if I knew that earlier that not all negative emotions are necessarily bad or mean something is terribly wrong


I think that would have helped me quite a lot. And I think it couldn't be easy for parents to want to protect the children, for example. I think there's a big case with lots of children that don't go to schools, especially since COVID. And it might be due to high anxiety of going to school. And maybe it's easy to, okay, we'll take a day off here and not go. But I think that can lead to big avoidance. And avoidance is really hard to...


to tackle once it's in full swing. So for me, it's thinking about the relationship with anxiety rather than just eliminating it. And the key there is through education and learning how the mind works, how thoughts work, how our body experiences anxiety and how it physically appears in our bodies. And I think once you have a good understanding of that.


It makes it a lot easier to navigate, especially with children and to communicate with them about it as you go forward because everyone's life is going to be different. So I can't say, your child is doing this. So you have to do that. You really have to understand that in your context. And I think the best way to do that is to just be really clued up on these mental health concepts.


Alis Rocca (1:08:30)

Thank you. And finally, as a charity we're compiling a list of great reads on our website that might help parents or an educator or a child with supporting good mental health. Do you have any good book recommendations, Peter? And it could be for any of those, for an educator, for a parent or a child.


Peter Ruppert (1:08:51)

Yeah, there's a great book I'd recommend. I think it's called How to Shine in Primary School by Kit Brown. And he's like a creator. He's a primary school teacher, a creator that I really think is fantastic. And he did a book about being confident in school and it tackles themes like anxiety in a way that kids can understand. So that's definitely one I'd recommend.


Alis Rocca (1:09:00)

Okay.

I don't know that one so I'm going to go away and have a look at it and we'll put it in the show notes for this episode. Peter, it's been amazing talking to you and I hope to have another opportunity to talk to you in the future. I know we've got lots more that we could cover but for now thank you so much for your time today.


Peter Ruppert (1:09:38)

Thank you so much for having me. was a real pleasure.