Episode 012 with Emma Ahern

Join Rebecca in conversation with Emma Ahern as they explore the realities of parenting, tuning into your child, and embracing your authentic self. They reflect on the weight many parents carry, the reminder that there is no perfect parent, and the importance of trusting that you know your child best. The conversation also highlights practical tools like observing patterns, noticing when your child feels most regulated, and the power of play, with encouragement to reflect, stay curious, and avoid assumptions.

https://www.zeebratherapy.co.uk/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Aiden Equips, the podcast that shares real stories, practical tools to help parents, carers, and educators feel equipped for the journey of raising and supporting neurodivergent children and young people. Whether you are tuning in with a coffee, if you're in the car, you have a very rare and precious quiet moment. I am so glad you're here. I'm Rebecca, and today I am truly delighted that we are joined by Emma Ahern. Emma, you are one of our keynote speakers at our conference this year. Emma is a speech and language therapist with only with over 14 years experience supporting autistic ADHD individuals. Parent of three children, bringing professional expertise, bringing your lived experience to work, passionate about advocacy, emotional understanding, supporting parents to trust themselves in an incredibly overwhelming landscape. I know so many of you are excited for this episode. So get comfy for our two-part podcast with Emma. Emma, I'm delighted you're here. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. It always feels so strange nearly doing those like introductions when someone sat right with you doing that and probably hearing that as well. And I think even with that, we could go down so many avenues, and this two part could become a 22 part within that, because there are so many things there in terms of I know we're gonna get that, get into that in our second um episode, especially around your passion around communication, obviously. Yeah. As a qualified speech and language therapist, and um the heart with that. But for this one, we're gonna start. And a great place to start is your keynote that you're doing for us for our conference this year, which I'm really excited to hear. And so many of you listening to this will have heard or may have not been able to get yourself tickets, so be excited to hear a bit of overview as well. Our title for the conference this year was Beyond the Noise. Yeah. And I think whenever even we connected originally, and I was so delighted whenever I even shared that title that you were nearly like, oh like it was nearly like an immediate, yeah, it is so noisy. It is, and that's how you then kind of came to your keynote of when everything feels loud. Yeah. Reclaiming trust as a parent.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

What does that even mean? Like, how do I, yeah, where do we even start with that? It's been relentlessly loud this year, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

It has. It it really has. I feel like the last 18 months has been a particularly noisy time. Okay. I think it's just the landscape I think that we're in right now, particularly with news and social media. And we live in the information age, so there's a lot happening and at a very, very fast pace. I think.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

And I think sometimes we don't realize that happens when you're in the era of whatever kind of season that's happening in, that then it's until someone calls it out that you're like, well, this is why. And I think nearly for even people listening, you don't realize that this kind of knowledge that we're able to input actually hasn't always happened. Like I was talking to a principal recently and they reminded me of this because we were talking about the pot, like how our brains have rewired to like instant gratification a lot. And he was saying, um he was sharing, he was like, Yes, like even simple things. Like when I was wanting, even, you know, when he was like, when I was your age, I if I wanted a piece of information, I had to go to the library, yeah, and I had to try and find the book and I had to look it up, and often you just leave, being like, Well, I'll never know because I couldn't find that. Whereas now, how many times in even a conversation, if I say something and you might be like, I don't know if that's true, I immediately finding it.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, yeah, I even do that in arguments with my husband. My mom is wild for it. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

It's it's so funny, isn't it? Because you don't realize then how that starts to impede on everything I'm doing. So if I'm a parent, what how is that impacting you?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

I think when you said like it impedes, but I also think it creates a divide, it creates this wedge between ourselves and our inner kind of our inner knowledge and our instincts, right? Because we start to doubt ourselves. Like, I mean, how many of us are on Dr. Google? Like, how many of us are checking things on ChatGPT or in the old days of Wikipedia? Yeah, yeah. But like we're always outsourcing things. We're we're we're not sitting with those questions and looking for those answers or doing a bit of research. We're we're checking in on AI or we're checking in on Google, and we're looking to influencers and content creators for answers, and we're not really trusting ourselves that we actually probably know a lot of it ourselves, or maybe there's a process to finding that answer out. And and it's not just about the sheer amount of information that's out there that we can access immediately at our fingertips whenever we need it, but it's it's it's also this sense of urgency that we need to have answers now, and that so it's not just the amount of noise, it's the speed at which we're given that information, that's a good thing, and we're we're just there's so much to filter through, but also there's an urgency that we need to have answers immediately, and I think that adds to the noise, it adds to the chaos, yeah, and and to the expectations around certain situations too, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

And I think this is where we really start to feel it. Our nervous systems were not built for that. They weren't working. And I think when you say that when you know, when you told me that this was going to be called Beyond the Noise, that parents, whenever you speak to them about it, like there's this sense of like, oh God, like people feel that like you hear that exhale, but you can hear the weight of that. That's their nervous system speaking, that's that non-verbal communication of yeah, I can really feel that. And I think we're carrying a lot of weight, we're carrying a lot of noise, a lot of self-doubt. Um, and I do think that generates a lot of distrust with ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Well, I I think that self-doubt is that key topic because you know, people might be listening to this and being like, Yeah, but it's great. I can look things up, and it's amazing that I can't get help. Absolutely. That's absolutely what we're saying, in terms of lots of this stuff is really useful, and like you and I benefit from that both as professional and barons at times. However, it's that imbalance moment and that's self-doubt. Okay, so what is how does that impact my self-doubt? What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

I think what's happening is that what's happening is we're we're not really we're looking externally. This is what's happening. We're kind of we're looking on social media, we're looking on Google, we're looking on Chat GPT for answers. And we're forgetting to look internally to ourselves and also the child that's sitting in front of us. We need to remember that if if there are parents listening, yeah, um, we're parents ourselves, so we we get this, but it's remembering that you need to step away from that noise and not see your child through the eyes of a content creator who's sharing a story about their child. That's helpful information, absolutely, gives us perspective. But they're not they're not the parent of our own child. And as a speech and language therapist or an educational psychologist or any expert is absolutely an expert in their field and they have value to add, but that value is limited to what they know, and they don't know your child in the holistic way that you know your child. You know your child through context, through time. You know what they're like at their best and at their worst. You know what they're like from the moment that they wake up to the time that they're trying to fall asleep for however long that takes. You know what makes them tick, you know what makes them joyful, you know what makes them sad, you know what comforts them. But if we're constantly trying to understand our children through other parents' perspectives online, only through the perspectives of experts who have the theories and the frameworks, then we're gonna lose that connection. And and it starts to instill a sense of doubt in ourselves, and we start to question ourselves, and like you said, there's a lot of expectation around what is a good parent and the and a perfect parent. And there's here's a little secret, and I think sometimes we need to hear this out loud. There's no such thing as a perfect parent, no, only a human one, and we cannot raise our children in these like perfectly curated ways. And remember, Instagram's a highlight, isn't it? It's all about the highlights, um, and it's all about solutions and it's all about problem solving, and that's not reality. Life is messy and it's meant to be navigated in a messy way, yeah. Um and our children need to see us making mistakes because making mistakes is part of learning. It's about what we do in those moments, it's about repair.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah, repairing the rupture. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

You can do that. You're you're upskilling your child, so when they make mistakes, they know how to repair. There's no shame in that. There's no guilt in that. And what happens when you let go of shame and guilt? You open up your mindset because you're no longer in a state of fight-flight response, that stress response. You are now open-minded and ready to learn. Learn from those mistakes, listen to other people and evolve. And that's where we start to bring the awareness back to ourselves. That's where we start to build that trust again.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

It's so there, Emma, there's so much there. Like as you're talking, I'm just like, but it makes so much sense because I think then there is that feeling of like a few things there. First of all, you know, it's something we say a lot, but I think we've lost, is that if you're a parent or care, you're the expert on your child. Absolutely. And that's that key, key point that we were trying to like hone in again and again and again of like, as you said, we might bring amazing kind of expertise and like knowledge to a situation, but I don't know your child in the same way you know your child. And I actually never could. No matter if I like moved in and lived with you for six weeks, I'd still not know your child in the same way. And I think then that thing that you were saying at the end, it really made me think of like brain structure. And if I'm always in my survival mode and my limbic system is in charge, it's that whole like Dan Siegel's theory of like flipping my lids. So I can't access my reasoning, my thinking, my problem solving, my choosing, any of that stuff. I'm just surviving. So I'm also not able to access that part of my brain that is like, well, what do I think is the right thing in this situation to be able to do? Or what is the choice I can make? And I think especially that like perfect parent situation of there's such an interesting moment that often happens at training for me when I'm doing like around behavior, and we're talking about all these proactive strategies, and then I start to share all the ways in which I've not done those strategies because and there's like a weight lifted in the room because I'm like, here's an example in teaching, here's an example in parenting, how I didn't do this. Because although I'm trying to do this, like I always say like 70% of the time, and you'll start to see that change if you're proactively, if you're repairing all the ruptures of those things, but there's gonna be a moment we talk about like 20% active, and then there's a 10% reactive moment that's gonna happen because you are a human being who's tired and is reacting. But if I'm forcing myself to never be able to respond like that, I'm not gonna teach my little one a life skill of repairing a rupture, saying, sorry, here's how my body felt at that moment because I was my brain was so fizzy and noisy because there's just a lot going on, and then that one noise you added really just sent me over the edge. And yet, like I think then that's that thing of like we've got sucked into this culture of perfect parenting or perfect teachers as well, like educators, you have to be this person. And I remember whenever I was doing my PTC, it was terrible, but whenever I was doing my PTC, it was like a and I absolutely challenged him on everything elector being like um uh promoting this book that was called No Smile into Christmas. Like you're he was convinced that your young people shouldn't know that you're a human, like you shouldn't show emotion, you shouldn't do that. And I was like, Oh my gosh. But I do think there is a fear of that, isn't there? Because we've seen this perfect picture, but as you just said, there's such a danger to that, even for our own well-being, then.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

There is. I think we're afraid to and again, it's interesting you talk about that. Like, what was you're saying, rephrase that again about like what you can't show.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

So can't show emotion, no emotion, no smiles to Christmas was the book he was promoting, and it was like no emotion, like don't let your young people know you're a human, basically, in these moments.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Like, ro here's robot central, and I think I think that's interesting because that that brings into question camouflaging and masking. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I think that's that's I mean, this we said we'd go down rabbit holes, and I'm just gonna point this. Yeah, I'm just gonna highlight this. Maybe we'll put a pin in it and come back to it in another podcast, like you said in. Episode 40. Exactly. But like that brings into question things like professionalism and what that means, and and a lot of conversations that are coming up now is like being your authentic self. And actually, what is authenticity? Um, and how does that show up for you? And I know we're talking about parenthood here, but actually, also that's also about professionalism, and and also we need to point out here that none of these things exist in a vacuum, which is why we're bringing up these tangents and these conversations, because it all intersects. Like whether you're a professional, you're you you might be a professional, but you're also a parent, but you're also a female, you're also, you'll also have there's other intersecting identities that you will have. And none of these things exist in isolation. And this is the other thing that I think that creates this divide and distrust with ourselves, is because when we follow accounts, very often they're niche. They focus on one thing. Yeah. And I believe that when we start looking at these accounts that very much focus on one thing in isolation, again, it might be their area of expertise, but I think that reinforces that fragmentation of our identities. And we start to lose this understanding of ourselves as holistic, messy.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

We I feel like social media particularly starts to fragment that even more because we can end up because the algorithm again reinforces this. You might only be following occupational therapy accounts for a while, and then you're just focused on sensories.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I'm on that band away at the minute myself. And there's great here, you learn learning so much, but I'm like movement, movement, movement, and have been for a while, but then I'm like, oh, and it is so interesting. Oh, you're like, oh my gosh, you're listening to everything I'm saying, because now I'm following all of these, and this is my one thought. But I think that's exactly what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

It's diversifying, but also when we diversify, stepping away from it and understanding how it interconnects with everything. So it's like these. So if we are going down rabbit holes around you know sensory and and movement and all of this stuff, actually, how does that then apply to who you are and your child? And understanding that holistically. And I think this comes back to um about building up that trust again. Is we're we we shouldn't be passive sponges absorbing information. What we see, we should be actively engaging with information. And and uh, you know, when you're when you're scrolling, the algorithm, if you're if you are concerned about something and you're trying to find a strategy or a hacker resource, naturally, I do it happens to me, by the way. I'm I'm speaking from experience, not from a place of judgment. We don't judge. But um, I'm sharing this. But when from my own experience, that if you look up something, the algorithm picks up on that because it notices how long you watch something for um and how quickly you move on, and then suddenly your feed then becomes that thing that you were looking up, and then your anxiety becomes more heightened. But the thing is, it rather than absorbing information passively, active maybe try actively engage with it. Don't get me wrong, I like a couple of cat videos every now and again. I like the dopamine hit, and my one thing, if I can share openly, I have a retirement plan. There's this lady, and she has these um miniature Shetland ponies, and she visits people in nursing homes, and I'm like, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

I've ever really chosen that.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, that's my life. My postcard planning for the future, and there's stuff like that, and it is lovely, and I and that's information, I get that. But it when it comes to the kind of the more serious stuff when it comes to trying to help a child, yeah. And this is where a really good teacher, an educator, a professional, an expert, a speech learning therapist, whoever it is that you're working with, when you're working with them, it should feel like it's not hierarchical, you're not coming to them for expertise, their expertise. It should be a collaborative, harmonious journey that you're on together. Make to make sense of your child. And remember that, like we said, you are the expert of your child. Right. And you're going to actively engage with that information that maybe you saw something on Instagram. Bring that to the conversation with the therapist or the or the teacher, and then they'll bring their expertise and together, and then your observations of your child at home, and then it becomes this more 360 dynamic conversation, and then that's where information can be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Okay. But that's I think that's a really key part because I'm thinking here, okay, so if I'm consuming a lot, and we are, if I'm consuming a lot, how do I protect myself and how do I make this useful? So I think one thing that we've already pulled out there is collaboration, as in uh, there's not a we're coming into a meeting, and again, if you're a professional, like listening to this, like I think it's simple things in like how I set up that room, that it's not like you know, I'm on one side and you're on the other. Like simple things like that that say, like, listen, we're together about this, your kids at the center, I want to hear, it's really important to hear from all of us. Bring that information that you have that you know like it's really valuable in this situation. But for me, if I'm if I'm trying to reclaim my trust, if I'm listening to this and I'm like, oh my goodness, that's so right. I haven't listened to this like gut instinct that we're created with to be able to respond to my child anymore. How do I get there now? How do I start reclaiming trust as a to myself?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

One of the things that I always say to parents um before we even start working together is what information have you got already that you can bring? Oh, I love that question. Yeah. Um and sometimes they might immediately respond with, Oh, I've got a diary of stuff that I can share with you. And sometimes it's like a file comes out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some don't. And for those who aren't who don't, I'm like, okay, well, let's just maybe try and reflect on some things that let's try and work on that list today. Let's try and maybe focus on your reflections, your memories, your observations of your child a day. Let's gather that. Right. That's a nice, kind of robust, kind of case history type approach. But then I'll give them a little bit of homework and I'll say, Right, uh, we'd like you to go away and maybe just note things down. You can open up the app, uh, the notes app on your phone. Yeah. You can grab little notebooks, yeah. Um, which are in the goodie bags. Yeah, your little promo. Your cookie friends, um, piece of paper, whatever it is. Yeah, just reflect on things. And just note down what note down things. I was like, if you can start to notice what your child is doing and write it down because there's a lot of invisible mental load going on, particularly when you're uh a primary caregiver that oversees a lot of general day-to-day admin of life and school and groceries and work and washing uniforms, yeah. Yeah, uh, it can be hard to hold all of that. So I would suggest um noting it down in some way, whether it's keywords, note down, and things that can be really helpful is day of the week, maybe the time of the day, and things are happening. And I always say, don't just note down the difficult times. Like, I mean it's very easy to note down the meltdowns and the difficult bed times. But actually, what if your child, when do you notice when your child is at their most regulated? What are they doing? So good, yeah. Observe what they're doing. Are they is it before the pastry framing park during the park? Is it cuddles? Is it sofa time? What is it?

SPEAKER_01 21:05

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Um and start to note those things down.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

We use a little phrase a lot. Um we talk about of like notice and wonder rather rather than like jump in and assume. So I often use that when I'm talking about like if I'm delivering a training and I'm like, listen, you're gonna hear about one topic intensively here. So I don't want you to jump in and be like, oh my kids have ADHD, because you're now hearing intensely about one topic. So I need you to notice things about them and wonder gently rather than jump in and assume. And I always say, like, oh, that gives open heartedness because I always say, and some of you in this room might be sitting listening to this topic and going, Oh my gosh, that's me. And statistically, that probably is a few of you in this room. And but again, notice and wonder rather than jump in and assume. So we use it in that context, however, I also use it in the context around with young people, and I think that really links in well to what you're saying. Notice and wonder about Your kid.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I also think that's really good advice for experts and professionals. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Because we shouldn't assume, and actually that underpins a lot of what I so as you know, I've developed a theory called the social activity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, communication of emotions. And the biggest thing I say is don't assume. But I like the way you phrase that. Yeah, notice wonder, don't jump in and assume. Because I think we do jump. Yes. And I think that needs to be we do. Yeah. And I and again, this comes back to what I was saying earlier about noise. It's like we're we come into meetings, particularly if you're a professional, you'll come in, there's an expectation on you to have answers. And I think you mentioned this the other day. You mentioned the magic wand. And I was like, oh, I'm so glad that you said that. No magic wand. There's no magic wand. Saying it. It is a process, and it takes time. And I always say to parents, when they come to me, I'm like, I won't have the answers straight away. And I might not have the right answer for a little while, but but it's not me. You're not coming to me for the answers. We're you're coming to me because we're going to work together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

And we're going to work out what's going on for you. You know your child better than I do. Yeah. But I also come with years of experience. Right. It's going to be limited to my niche and my my remit as a professional. I do have, yeah. But I've got something I can offer. And there's value in that. For sure. But it but I don't monopolize or hold, I'm not the holy grail. Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not coming in with my magic wand. I'm not going to be like the guru of your child. We're going to work together.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Um, Laura Crowley, who is one of our other keynotes and will be on the podcast as well, she commented on this and I, with uh a kind of thing that she uses around it, and I thought, oh my gosh, that's so good. She was like, I say something similar, but this is really curious. She's like, it's great the way you say it, but I say something similar of I'm not coming in with my wand like Glinda, like a little wicked reference, a magic wand like Glinda, but I am kind of like Mary Poppins because I've got a bag full of tricks that I can't help you with.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

And I was like, oh, that's it. Laura nailed it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

I've got a bag full of like tricks and tips and expertise, but it's not a done storage.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

And we'll find out which of those tips and tricks work for your kid, and we'll work through it together. Because I always say to parents, if I suggest something, like if we're having a consultation, yeah, and that's made me think of something, and I'll suggest, I'm like, you have absolute permission to say this isn't going to work for your child. Yeah, I give the parents the permission to reject it. Sometimes they say they're not sure. I'm like, have a go, try it at home. Try it, let's see. And if it's not working for you, we can look at why it's not working. We don't have to disregard it entirely, but we could look at how we can adapt it because maybe there's something that it didn't fit in with your culture at home in terms of how your family dynamics are, the timings of whatever it is. So it's not you, it's not it's not working because you can't do it. Maybe it's not working because it doesn't fit.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yeah, yeah. I think there's so much in that. And listen, again, could keep going and keep going. But I think that key thing, just takeaway there from that, is turning down the noise, tuning into yourself, notice your regular your own nervous system and how you're treating it, and do that whole like check-in notice within things with your young people and just like spend time and observe of how because you will know and notice so much about them. Yeah, and you don't always, yes, people like us are there to help, but you're there and you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

And I think if we have time to talk about one last one, go on, give it away. But um, I just feel like this is also a really important thing. So I used to, I used I mean practicing yoga for 20 years, and I was teaching it for eight years.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

I just stopped. Yes, that was really recent, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

One of the things that I always say is is we lose our sense of our ability to play, I think, when we become adults. And there's something really powerful in play because when you play, you're not afraid to make mistakes. It's kind of part of the art, isn't it? It's part of the process. And you learn something new as you're evolving because mistakes give you opportunity to learn. Right. And I think we need to play more with our kids. I don't mean, I mean, I can't do role play, imagine, play with my kids. That's not how I play. I haven't got that imagination. But there's other ways that you can play with your kids, and it might be through reading books with them, or it might be time for you to play, you know, like something creative for yourself. And that might be through your love of baking, DIY, dopamine dressing, how you like to dress. It might be, I just took embroidery and I'm absolutely loving it. It's like that, it's I mean, it is ticking that RRB box for me entirely in a very healthy way. And what's lovely about doing creative tasks like that is it's one really proactive way to step away from the noise and to reconnect with yourself because through these creative, playful tasks with your child or on your own, you're reinstilling that sense of who you are. You have that productivity, you're discovering what you enjoy, and you're expressing yourself through your clothes, through your art, through your baking, through your reading. Maybe you do like playing McGabby's dollhouse with your kid and doing that. I mean, kudos to you if you can do that. It's not my thing. I can reenact an episode, but that's about it. But that freedom of then giving yourself that and there's a lot to observe in those moments, too.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Very true. You do notice and you learn a lot, and also that regulation of yourself and your young person. Regulation, absolutely. Listen, thank you, Emma. I yeah, it's so much like food for thought with within that. And in our second part, we're gonna be talking about emotional communication, a big love of yours. Um, and yeah, I know there's a lot there to take away for people listening as well. And we're gonna keep our little quick equips to our second episode, so be sure to tune into that. But that is gonna be it for today's. Um, I hope and I know that you've heard something that inspires you that you can share with others, or just remind you to, I think in this one, not only that you're not alone, but trust yourself. Yeah. Trust yourself. Emma, thank you so much. We'll have you back for part two. Okay. Part 22.