#68 - The Day We Stopped Backing the School: A Grandfather's Lived Experience with Frank

Content note: This episode includes a description of family violence during a period of acute distress for a young person.

Frank is the first grandfather to share his story on The School Can't Experience Podcast. Over several years, Frank was deeply involved in supporting his daughter and granddaughter through one a difficult School Can't journey. His grand daughter, a young girl who desperately wanted to be at school but simply couldn't get there, and whose distress escalated into crisis. But who found a way through and has gained entry to her Melbourne University course of choice with an ATAR of 89.9.

Frank speaks with honesty about what it was like to watch his daughter's job, wellbeing, and mental health erode under the weight of it all; about the moment he lost patience while trying to get his granddaughter into the car, and also about the "Cone of Silence Milkshake Sessions" that eventually became part of keeping their relationship strong as she found her path.

He also shares the line that changed everything: his granddaughter telling him and her mum, "You're backing the school instead of me. I'm on my own." That moment forced them to ask whose side they were actually on, and once they answered it honestly, things started to shift.

The path forward included stepping away from psychologists who weren't getting to the root of the problem, stopping the pressure to attend school, leaning into what she loved (horses, in particular), getting her into distance education, and encouraging her to get a job at McDonald's  which gave her something school never had: a sense of purpose, earning power, and the discovery that the behaviour tolerated in schools simply wouldn't fly in a workplace.

Frank's message to other grandparents is clear: take your foot off the pedal, stop sending the message that the child is to blame, and start listening. And when your family is in the dark times — there is a way through.

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt 0:05

Hello and welcome to the School Can't Experience Podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt, and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia community. Caring for a young person who's struggling to get to school can be a lonely and isolating experience, but you are not alone. Thousands of parents across Australia and many more around the world share similar challenges and experiences every day. Now grandparents play a really important role in our School Can't community. They can either be really powerful supports, or they can really intensify the stress and the challenge for families. Today, today, for the first time, we are meeting a School Can't grandfather. Frank has been very closely involved in supporting his daughter and his granddaughter through some very stressful School Can't experiences, and as a result of that, has some really helpful insights to share with us today. I do have a content warning for this one. This episode does include a description of some family violence that occurred during a period of acute distress for a young person. If that is not something you have capacity for right now, feel free to skip this one or come back when you feel more able. But otherwise, I hope you enjoy our conversation Frank, thank you so much for joining us for our School Can't Experience podcast. Really appreciate you coming and, and sharing your story today

Frank Wyatt 1:27

Thank you

Leisa Reichelt 1:28

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Frank,

Frank Wyatt 1:30

Well I'm the grandfather of a year old. But from the age of uh it is when you start at year seven, my granddaughter refused to go to school That was accompanied by her mother separating from a former partner. But she moved from Sydney to just up the road in fact and so I became surrogate father along the way which was a delight in so many respects to step back into a role of parenting as a grandparent. And she went through a terrible time as part of that process. You know we went through a phase of trying to get her to go to school. Of cajoling, encouraging. I'd take her of a morning rather than mum because her mum would get distressed and she'd only just started a new job also and it was a big job. And um we'd My granddaughter and I would go for coffee beforehand so we'd you know chat and have a conversation We'd get to the school gate. She just couldn't go in. Or if she did go in she'd go and sit in the carer room and be under careful attention by one of the carers there. But none of that worked effectively. We changed schools a couple of times, to try and offer her different opportunities and different environments Again none of that worked. And progressively she got very angry at the world. Quite violent in her approach and um In my conversations with her subsequently I've talked to her about that being a very dark period for her and a a period where she was so confused by what was happening for her that none of us could solve. She wanted to go to school. She wanted to be part of the normal everyday system of kids going to school and networks and friends and all that type of stuff but simply couldn't get there. And friends were impatient, intolerant and they were young girls at the same time you know And anyone who was tolerant she would cling onto them uh to the point where they felt as though it was just too much for them. I suppose the for me the the final straw is I lost my block at one stage and um and dragged her out of the house and pushed her into the car. But by the time I'd walked around to the other side of the car to get into the driver's seat she'd kicked the windscreen out. So at which point I thought This is clearly not working

Leisa Reichelt 4:34

Yeah, she's trying to tell us something, isn't she?

Frank Wyatt 4:36

Yeah So um her mum was really very distressed by the whole thing and very exhausted and tired.

Leisa Reichelt 4:47

And still trying to work presumably

Frank Wyatt 4:48

And trying to work yeah And I'd get phone calls in the middle of the night uh saying Come round I'm I'm I'm locked in my bedroom cause she's got a a knife and she's trying to kill me. And so we had to do a lot of deescalating of tension. My granddaughter and I developed this thing called the uh the Cone of Silence Milkshake Sessions where we'd go out and have a coffee and or a a a milkshake together and talk and talk about anything and everything really. All types of things that were going on in her head and you know what things were going on for her in her life. Um cause you know she was a young girl going through puberty and everything else and so it was all complicated In her own conversations about herself these days she talks about the fact that uh she was angry at herself. Angry that she couldn't solve her problem. I I correspond by saying Look you were angry at yourself because we weren't able to solve your problem for you. You expected adults to be able to solve your problem for you and we weren't able to. And it was it was terrible as a time to go through. And I could see my daughter just you know going down and down in terms of her emotional stress and capability. And it was getting very threatening for her job and everything else. So she was head of an organization and they were being very tolerant but uh you know there was a point where it became at risk

Leisa Reichelt 6:27

Yeah

Frank Wyatt 6:28

So

Leisa Reichelt 6:30

Frank, if I, can I take us back to, to the earlier stages? I'd love to understand for you when this first started to become an issue for your granddaughter. What was your understanding of what was going on? What did you think the problem was?

Frank Wyatt 6:46

Well it's interesting. When she was in Sydney um when I ever turned up at Sydney she was my granddaughter was delighted to have me attend events up there and I would go up specifically for concerts and things of that nature. I'd go up specifically to to be around and and we'd go for ice creams and so forth and walk home and it was always a joyous life and she had friends around her at school. By the time she came down to Melbourne apparently she had started school briefly in Sydney but was struggling I I didn't know anything about this at the time I wasn't hearing much about it and I guess my daughter was being cautious about telling anyone about the fact that she was struggling getting her daughter to go to school. And so that was the kind of embarrassment and shame of it all and dealing with uh the violence in the house at the same time was problematic for her So

Leisa Reichelt 7:53

So all of, all of that kind of started around the same time, the problems with school and yeah

Frank Wyatt 7:58

So uh so she rang me and said uh you know Dad can I come and live with you Um you know I I have to get out of this situation Uh Hmm You haven't lived with me for 20 years I I suspect we'd kill each other

Leisa Reichelt 8:15

What could possibly go wrong? Yeah.

Frank Wyatt 8:16

that's right You know Uh But what about if I find you a house nearby uh I can be really supportive then and helpful of whatever you're doing as part of that. By the time she got to to Melbourne she was unable to effectively engage in school. She was in and out of school at various times. Attending school in a very broken way Um you know not turning up for four or five days and then going for you know one day of it n the following week and

Leisa Reichelt 8:53

Yeah. Do you remember how you were kinda trying to explain that to yourself? Like how, how you made sense of that?

Frank Wyatt 9:01

Ah I I struggled to understand it personally. I could see that she was struggling and I could see that she was emotionally distressed by the school experience. I didn't have any experience of that personally myself um and I had not really paid attention. I'm an exteacher and I you know hadn't really had any experience of it even at schools where I went I was teaching. So I'm I I wasn't conversant with this approach You know I've I've seen kids truant and maybe now in reflection that truancy was in fact Schools Can't But who who knows. I'm not not able to reflect back on that at this point in time But certainly my observation was that here I had a little girl was frightened of the world, uncertain of herself, uncertain of to behave in the world, wanting to be part of it, wanting to be normal, wanting to be ordinary, wanting just to have friends and knock around and the world had changed. She wanted to go back to Sydney cause she had friends there My daughter and I both think that that was not the solution. And that she could establish friends here if we could just get her to go to school.

Leisa Reichelt 10:30

So getting her to go to school was kind of like that was the, that was the, the priority because that would then help to solve things.

Frank Wyatt 10:37

box you know inside that thinking process

Leisa Reichelt 10:40

Do, do you know if the school was giving your daughter much support or guidance or... Really?

Frank Wyatt 10:47

Hopeless and zero. the local high school uh where she went initially was completely and absolutely useless. They would have carers who changed on a regular basis who who had no appreciation and no education in the of of what to do. They'd not been trained in this field at all. They were often teachers who were distressed themselves in terms of workplace stress and therefore they were put into these carer roles because they were out of the classroom. What was progressively becoming obvious with my granddaughter was any degree of uncertainty or change was completely disconcerting for her. It was a a school that was being renovated. She'd go to school and and the lockers had been changed overnight in terms of where they were lo they were placed and therefore to try and find her locker just sent her into a spin and she'd walk out the gate and come walk home.

Leisa Reichelt 11:55

Particularly in high school, I think there's always a lot of change, isn't there? 'Cause you've got so many teachers, and therefore the exposure to substitute teachers is even higher and

Frank Wyatt 12:03

that's right And she couldn't stand the noise She couldn't stand the the disruptiveness of um the other kids. She was very impatient with them not wanting to learn where she wanted to learn. She was very keen on learning. She's a good learner. Quite disciplined about her learning. And skilled in mathematics particularly. So she wanted to achieve things and demonstrate that she was part of something by being able to demonstrate that she was good and and and capable you know When we took it to the the Catholic girls school They they were more tolerant. But they treated it as a health problem rather than an education problem or a context problem. In other words the school hadn't changed. They thought that the problem was in the child

Leisa Reichelt 13:05

So as, as in a mental health problem?

Frank Wyatt 13:07

Yeah Which in part it was clearly, but they put her into a separate room on her own to do work on her own. Which didn't solve anything.

Leisa Reichelt 13:18

lost access to all the, that sort of teaching interface, didn't she?

Frank Wyatt 13:23

And all the all of the network of kids you know

Leisa Reichelt 13:26

Yeah

Frank Wyatt 13:27

lunchtime came and you know Who are you You're not in our class know I'm the strange kid that's in the carer's room all day. So what happened is COVID came along and of course we were all locked up and and um so on and So towards the end of COVID I remember having a conversation with her in the kitchen at her mother's house. And I said So Em what are you gonna do when COVID restrictions are lifted And she said I'm gonna go to school And I think both of us, her mother and I just sat back and reveled in the thought that she was gonna go to school.

Leisa Reichelt 14:08

How had she been during that COVID period with like, with education and just generally?

Frank Wyatt 14:12

not not bad at all and because the teachers were sending work out generically to everyone she was excelling in that and learning how to be disciplined and responsive to her lessons. She was impatient to learn and impatient to have more and more.

Leisa Reichelt 14:30

It must have been very informative to see the difference between her struggling to get on premises in the normal school setting and then having COVID come and see how she did in that context. Like, that must have been re- really good information for you all

Frank Wyatt 14:46

Yeah, I, I'm not certain that we actually read the signals well enough, to be honest. I think her mother and I were just so delighted about the fact that she was getting on and she was quieter and more calm during that period.

Leisa Reichelt 15:03

So we get to the end of COVID.

Frank Wyatt 15:05

get to end of COVID, she goes to school. We arranged for some mates to pick her up and take her to school. It all gets a bit difficult. She does develop some friends at school. New, new and different friends a bit of the kind of normal shaking out between girls, you know, the, "you're in my group, you're not in my group" type of stuff. But incrementally she, she started not going to school again. And in one of the milkshake sessions she said to me, "You don't understand how hard it has been for me to to school." And I thought, "You're probably right. You're probably right that we thought that we were so delighted by the fact you were going that we haven't spent enough time asking you how is it going, going to school." And so we didn't pay enough attention to, to some of the signals that were going on behind the scenes for, for her. But progressively she stopped going. And you know, she was seeing psychologists and God knows who else, you know. Psychologists who were costing a huge amount of money, draining the pocket for both her mother and I. And, um, my sense was that progressively my granddaughter was feeling as though that there was something wrong with her. whereas my sense was there was nothing wrong with her. It was, it was, it was a systemic problem.

Leisa Reichelt 16:39

What were you hearing from the psychologist? Like, what was their read on things?

Frank Wyatt 16:42

oh, well, you know, they gave her some toolkits in terms of how to be more patient with herself and more, uh, tolerant and, uh, you know, breathing space stuff, but it, it was all superficial at the end of the day. So,

Leisa Reichelt 17:03

Yeah. So they weren't, they weren't honing in on the school environment as being the source of these difficulties either?

Frank Wyatt 17:10

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we were still working inside the frame that said children have to go to school, and the school is, is the right atmosphere and the right environment, uh, for a child. And all children will fit into that same environment. Well, I'm sorry. In hindsight, and probably the reason why I left teaching myself on reflection, I found personally schools were a bloody awful place to be. Whilst I loved working with kids, I hated the environment within which they required me to work with them. And on reflection, I, I look back and think that's probably what my granddaughter was going through also. Didn't want to be in that environment. Eventually she s-said to us in one conversation, "You're backing the school instead of me. I'm on my own." It's tough to think about actually. Um, she was, um, telling us how lonely she was. And her mum and I actually sat down and said, "I think it's time we actually backed her. Stop, stop backing the system".

Leisa Reichelt 18:38

Yeah. I think that's a conversation that a bunch of us have had, Frank. I've certainly had my son say and think the same thing as well, where it's like, "Whose side are you on?" And it really, it does, it makes you look hard at yourself, doesn't it? And go, "Right, yeah, whose side am I on?"

Frank Wyatt 18:55

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it, uh, it meant that we had to then start to get ourselves outside of the box that we had operated in without knowing there was a box. I think we needed to solve the problem of where we sat in relationship to my granddaughter, and to find an alternative to her desire for learning and fulfillment And to give her the, the opportunity to do that. Progressively finding a way to give her a sense of herself and who she was, and that she was valued and important in the world was really important to her And interestingly, in her reflection, she still blames herself for a lot of it. Um, whereas my sense was, still part of the messaging that I'm trying to give her, is that you were struggling to be heard, and we weren't attuned to the need to, to listen in a particular way. You know, I'm not necessarily blaming us. I'm, I'm, I'm saying w- we didn't have the experience to listen to her in the way in which you wanted to be heard. I don't know whether that makes any sense,

Leisa Reichelt 20:27

I think it totally does. It's like we all do the best we can with what we know at the time.

Frank Wyatt 20:32

Exactly. and, accordingly when we did stop and start to listen in another way, and I've gotta say that my daughter drove this agenda, things started to turn and things started to change.

Leisa Reichelt 20:50

how did your daughter drive it? What did she do, what did she do to sort of drive this change?

Frank Wyatt 20:55

she backed away from psychologists. Stopped putting pressure on to go to school. and then spent enormous amount of time trying to discover alternatives. She also identified things that my granddaughter, really, really loved doing and put time and energy into those. So I was a horse rider, passed that on to my daughter, who's now passed it on to my granddaughter. So, you know, there's one thing that she absolutely adores, and that's riding horses. And, um, we put some money aside to able to take her horse riding every now and again. Getting her into a good pony club where she could go riding and get experience and get trained. Then doing some adventurous riding, in the high country herself. all of which was fantastic for her. Her mother's been sensational.

Leisa Reichelt 21:58

Well, gosh, it sounds like your daughter has done an amazing job So what were the options that were explored for education

Frank Wyatt 22:06

We looked at alternative schools originally. I'd been working in the entrepreneurship education field, and so I'd met principals who were doing different things. We decided that wasn't the solution. Eventually she was able to get into a homeschooling situation, where she was doing online education, from home.

Leisa Reichelt 22:30

So it's like distance education?

Frank Wyatt 22:32

yeah, I don't know what it was, to tell you the truth. She would get lesson plans sent to her and, and she had to do the exercises. And, she had available to her teachers online who she could talk to about problems and issues, who were far more skilled and, nuanced in their experience of working with kids who had complex dynamics to them. She loved that opportunity. And yes, she would still go through dark times and so on and so forth, but life was getting better. Um, there was a lot more smiles, a lot more happiness, a lot more joy in the world. We also encouraged her to get a job, because we thought employment would give her an option to just sitting at home and she'd get to meet people and maybe she'd discover some other people who she might have as friends. And that worked a treat, I've gotta say. She went to McDonald's and, worked at McDonald's. She progressed pretty quickly up the system herself. And she realized was that the kind of disciplinary science of schools wouldn't be tolerated in the workplace.

Leisa Reichelt 23:59

Say more about that?

Frank Wyatt 24:01

Um... Well, she talked to me about the fact that, you know, at school I get yelled at. If I got yelled at in the workplace, I'd report them and there'd be a workplace violence action taken against them. You know? That person who would be under notice legally. Yet at school, there's no recourse for students.

Leisa Reichelt 24:26

That's really interesting though, isn't it? Because schools make such a big point about the fact that you have to go to school because this is how we prepare you for adult life, and if you don't go to school, how will you be prepared for adult life? But that, yeah, really throws that in the, in the face of it, doesn't it?

Frank Wyatt 24:39

Exactly. Yeah. So she, she would come home from working at McDonald's and she would, you know, she'd be tired and exhausted and pissed off with some of the staff that, you know, that either did or didn't work properly. But she had a sense of herself in that, and a sense of purpose, and earning money. Money was important to her. Independence and money was important to her. She's a kid who, who wants to take charge of herself and be responsible, um, as part of that process, and she was demonstrating it at a number of different levels.

Leisa Reichelt 25:15

So did the distance ed continue to work for her? Did she get to the end of, end of schooling with distance education?

Frank Wyatt 25:22

she went through, um, we've got photographs of her coming out of the last exam. And exams themselves were, you know, a big thing because she had to go into an environment with people to do the exam. Couldn't do it independently. But she did it and, skipped out from the last exam. The family all gathered in Queensland, actually. to be there when the results came through. And, um, she got 89.9, I think it was, in it, in her ATAR. Like, she's in the top 10%

Leisa Reichelt 25:58

That's amazing

Frank Wyatt 25:59

in Victoria, um, and walked straight into Melbourne University for what she wanted to do. She wants to do neuropsychology eventually. There was also another episode in her life that was important here. One of my daughter's work friends "I'm down the coast with with a new bloke. Why don't you come down and stay. And, they got down there and the new bloke had a son. So my granddaughter, and the son hit it off. and they've been together ever since. And, he, been really good for her. He's a bit neurodiverse himself. She got herself into studying routine when she was doing her year 12 and told him he had to go and study. His parents had actually said that he wasn't smart enough to study uh, told him not to enroll,

Leisa Reichelt 26:57

Hmm

Frank Wyatt 26:57

uh, in anything and, uh, told him he was. He got into a TAFE course in IT, excelled in it, and it was a TAFE that had a university attached, so he will go on to do a degree in IT. He's a smart kid. He just, uh, has a difference about him also. They decided that, they were gonna take a year off. So they're currently in Canada, got themselves into some organization that gets you jobs and accommodation and so on and so forth, and looks after you. You know, if the first job doesn't work out. She's managing everything about her own life right now over there. So she'll be a different woman when she comes back, there's no question about it.

Leisa Reichelt 27:45

I bet when, when she was in the depths of those darkest times that she could never have imagined her life being what it is now

Frank Wyatt 27:54

And, um, and the message that, you know, I, I wanna convey through the School's Can't community is that when the parents are in that dark time also, there is an end to it. There is an opportunity for these kids to actually discover themselves and find their way. you just step out of the flaming box we build around ourselves, assuming that normality is the way to go. Whereas in fact, we've got to change the normality and look at alternatives and find ways that are actually quite normal at the end of the day. You just change the frame of the box.

Leisa Reichelt 28:42

Kind of draw your own box really, can't you?

Frank Wyatt 28:44

Yeah. Yeah. And there are, you know, there are boundaries to that, of course,

Leisa Reichelt 28:48

Frank, your daughter must have been very thankful to have you as a support throughout this journey. What would your message be to other grandparents who have got grandkids who are experiencing, you know, difficulties attending school?

Frank Wyatt 29:06

Take the foot off the pedal that says you've gotta get your to go to school and start to listen. Just spend more time listening 'Cause you discover what that child's actually going through, and you discover that they're feeling terribly lonely and terribly isolated, and that's It, it's absolutely a mountain that they can't climb. You've gotta find an alternative to them climbing that mountain and, stop making them feel as though they're to blame for it, um, either the parent or the child. So grandparents are, are really important, I think, in not sending the wrong messages to their kids and their grandkids. Providing the support and that sometimes has to be financial the alternatives are sometimes financially costly, because the system doesn't manage that effectively. But that's life. They're the people you love

Leisa Reichelt 30:18

Yeah. I think, I think that's it in a nutshell, Frank, isn't it? Like, just to be... In so many cases what the kids really need is just someone to listen. And so if you can be a listening ear and to listen without judgment, and without advice, and without, you know, th- threats about the future and all of those kinds of things, I think that is incredibly valuable. Yeah. I know my son sometimes is able to talk to my mum and talk to her about things that he doesn't feel like he can talk to me about. And so, often if things are getting a little bit kind of difficult here, I'll text my mum and go, "Do you think you could just give a quick call and just, just see if your magic touch is gonna work?" And, like, a lot of times it does

Frank Wyatt 30:59

Keep letting them know that you love them and that it's not artificial love and it's not conditional love. Um, it's unconditional and it's, comes with listening. and then being willing to act on that listening to find alternative strategies that are, out there.

Leisa Reichelt 31:23

Frank, thank you so much for sharing your journey and the story of you and your daughter and your granddaughter. It's great to hear from your perspective, uh, the way that you've been involved and what you've observed and learned on the way through, and I'm sure it will resonate with, with lots of people

Frank Wyatt 31:42

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity.

Leisa Reichelt 31:44

Well, what a journey Frank and his family have been on, and I am so glad to hear that they have come out the other side and are thriving today. And if you are still in the dark times, well, I hope this provides a little bit of hope of light emerging at the end of the tunnel. If you know somebody who would benefit from hearing this, please take a moment and share this episode with them. And don't forget to subscribe or leave us a rating or a review. All of these things really help us get this podcast in front of more School Can't families who haven't yet found our supportive community. If you have feedback, a guest suggestion, or perhaps you'd like to share your own School Can't lived experience, we would love to hear from you. You can email us at schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com. If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you are feeling distressed, please remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. Thank you for listening. We will talk again soon. Take care