Stop Anxiety Ruling Your Child’s Life with Sue Stevenson, founder of U-Turn Anxiety

Sue Stevenson is the founder of U-Turn Anxiety and has a unique approach to helping children and adults deal with anxiety. Sue is a wealth of information and has provided some free resources below and she has some great videos on her website as well about this topic.

Sue's website - https://www.uturnanxiety.com.au/

2 Free Resources from Sue are listed below. 

Top 25 Ways to Calm Your Mind & Body PDF https://shrtlnk.co/bGpHJ

5 Steps to Combatting Anxiety PDF⁣ https://shrtlnk.co/7pEq8

Transcript

Joel Kleber: 0:00

Welcome to the lived experience podcast. I'm your host, Joel Kleber. And on today's episode, I'm interviewing Sue Stephenson. Who's from U-turn. Anxiety. Sue was a really fantastic interview. And she helps that children and parents with anxiety issues and from someone from her experience and really good education background has great to get here to insights into what's been going on in schools and. It's quite amazing. How this sort of stuff is not taught in schools, or they're slowly starting to teach it in schools, but nowhere near as much in, as we all know, anxiety and depression amongst children and teenagers on the rise. And there's various reasons for that, which we'll talk about in the interview as well. But Sue's got a whole bunch of great resources on our website, which is U-turn anxiety.com that you, which we'll put in the links as well. Just a quick personal update for me. Yeah, the podcast was pretty dormant. I think from around October was my last episode. In seal now. And that's the student, a lot of things. And a bit of burnout with work and everything, then trying to come back and edit and record and arrange interviews. It can be quite draining. Plus I've got all these other projects and do it at the same time. So it just comes down to a time thing as well. And also just probably not getting the the guest flow where you've got someone constantly coming to you every week, but making it easy. It's been a bit harder as well. But yeah, look in 2024, we're going to keep plugging away at the episodes. I really want to focus on stories of people with bipolar or grew up in families with bipolar or serious mental illness and share those stories because I think they're really valuable. There's not a lot of good content out there online. The reason why I know is because my YouTube channel, the most popular video is about, how to deal with parents, with schizophrenia with Missy, from America. And that's the most viewed video. And that sort of tells me that's the sort of content we should be doing. And going down. So I'll be trying to do more of those as well. So please make sure to contact me via the website, lived experience podcast.com. Now with enough of that hope you have a great 20, 24, and I hope you enjoyed the interview with Sue Stephenson.

Sue Stevenson: 1:48

I really thought there was something wrong with me. I experienced extreme anxiety in certain situations. I had developed what I described as my false self, masking what was going on the inside. And I know that there are many young people who are masked. Pain on the inside, and I'm talking about emotional pain here. Whether that pain is coming from their external environment that's causing a lot of stress for them, or their disposition, they've got an anxious disposition, or there's other things going on. There's a whole lot of reasons why a child might be emotionally in pain.

Joel Kleber: 2:33

And today I'm joined by Sue Stevenson. So thank you very much for joining us today on the Lived Experience Podcast. Now. I always ask this as my first question, but you want to just start off with your own lived experience and tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sue Stevenson: 2:44

So I grew up in a family of a household with seven kids and two parents, and it all seemed quite, I don't know, normal, traditional. However, because it was very conservative kind of upbringing, I found myself a very shy, timid, anxious little girl amongst various variations in my family, all different brothers and sisters, but a very academic father with high expectations and a mother who was very straight. I found that throughout my early years. And my whole childhood, I didn't have a great relationship with my mum. It was a lot of friction, but I didn't know why. I later found out that, the old story of I was an accident. But not only that which seems strange because I was number five of seven, but not only that, I had always had a sense that I was unwanted. Now I know that my parents probably loved me as much as they possibly could. But the reality of it was, I was a very sensitive child who was born into a family with a mum who was not coping well with the five children, under eight, basically, and was under a lot of stress. And I now, in all these years later, I have learned that I was experiencing significant anxiety in my whole childhood. I now believe that my mum was a highly anxious mum and was finding solace in staying at home and having more children. But it was actually, she was in a perpetual cycle of creating, wanting that to stay at home and be safe and secure and avoid going out in the world. But also creating stress by having more children that she couldn't really cope with. So as much as, it's not that unusual a story, I guess, I've learned a lot about myself because really for four decades, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I really thought there was something wrong with me. I experienced extreme anxiety in certain situations, and I had developed what I describe as my false self, masking what was going on the inside. And I know that there are many young people who are masking pain on the inside, and whether that pain is coming from, and I'm talking about emotional pain here, whether that pain is coming from their external environment that's causing a lot of stress for them. Or it's their disposition they've got an anxious disposition, or there's other things going on. There's a whole lot of reasons why a child might be emotionally in pain. And I now know that I was in emotional turmoil probably, 24 7. I was really feeling like no one understood me, no one was able to meet my needs, particularly my emotional needs. Yeah, I felt very misunderstood and I felt like I didn't fit in and I felt like there was something wrong with me. So it wasn't until I was a parent raising my daughter that I started to see the same pattern happening. And she was a very distressed teenager by the time, things had got quite out of hand. I realised that I needed to do something about this myself, rather than rely on my daughter to change and rely on her to keep the dynamics of the household calm. I realised I needed to be that person. So I started to go on a personal growth journey and I started learning about myself and rediscovering myself. It's been an exciting journey and it's been a journey of leading me. To become very passionate about helping young people thrive in a world, in their world where they may feel turmoil as well, for whatever reasons. I want kids to, every child deserves the opportunity to be able to thrive, and I've discovered how this can happen, and I believe that every child needs a support network around them of adults who know how to bring the best out of them. And unfortunately, I believe that our society is It's severely lacking that I believe that where many of us are stuck in the old traditional paradigm of, suck it up, you'll be right, and overlooking the child's needs and the child's emotional needs because the adults don't know how to meet. So I'm very much about skilling adults up, the key adults in children's lives. Who can support them and bring the best out of them. And I know that you've got I know about your experience, I only know a little bit, I but, I understand there are many kids who are living in a household where the adult. It's not able to meet their child's emotional needs very well because they're struggling to meet their own needs. And I'm well aware that this is a really big problem. And one of the biggest problems is that our health system is set up so that if a child is under stress, the child goes to see a therapist. And our system thinks if they're lucky enough to get a therapist, our system thinks that their therapist will fix the problem, yet it's not fixing the child's environment and their surroundings and it's not helping them in that regard. And so the key adults in their lives are still not getting the support they need to be able to support the child. Does that make

Joel Kleber: 9:07

sense? It does, and I think it would take a very special or aware parent to actually acknowledge that they could not meet their kid's emotional needs, because I presume if you do a straw poll of every parent, they'd say, yeah, of course, it'd be very hard for someone to actually have that sort of introspection to, to know that. How do you deal with that? Obviously you work with parents at the moment who get it. But how do you communicate? So I think, just from a general, from hearing you speak, obviously this would be very extremely prevalent in a lot of households. And no one would know, everyone would just go oh, that's just the way families are, or that's just the way it is. And then, get on with it, which is the Australian attitude, I guess. So how do you deal with all that?

Sue Stevenson: 9:44

Yeah, look, a lot of it is about educating the And there's a lot of work being done in some work being done in schools and in and with children about building their emotional awareness and helping them to feel their emotions, et cetera. There's a little bit of emotional work going on, but the adults have never had it. So what we're finding is that the adults who are teaching it actually don't know it themselves and don't know how to do it themselves. I am definitely coming up against parents who want their child fixed, but they don't want to look within, they don't want to look in the mirror and see that they may need to skill up themselves. It's all about my child's got a problem, fix them please. So I very quickly turn that around, that mindset around. No one is going to, I'm not able to support a parent who's not willing to change themselves and how they're functioning as well. That can be problematic because there are many parents who can't see that or don't want to change because change seems hard. Band aiding is short term, quick fix short term gratification. You get it fast, you get fixing it, but it doesn't work. So we keep trying to band aid. But that's like trying to put a bandaid on your heart when you need heart surgery. It's not going to fix the problem. So it can be, you can have some short term improvements, but long term, the only solution that I have found, because I worked in student wellbeing as well in schools and I work with kids. And to be honest, if the parents and the educators and the key adults. And the child hasn't got that support network of adults in their world. It's almost impossible for any work that a therapist is doing in a tiny little fraction of their week. It's almost impossible for that to have. A huge influence and it's nothing against the therapists, they're fantastic human beings. It's just that they need to be supported by the child's environment and the adults in their world too. And the therapists don't have time to support the fam, the parents as well as the child. Our system is, we've got shortages of therapists everywhere. So everyone's time poor and no one seems to have any time. But I'm right here. To help parents and next year I'm going to be helping educators as well because I want to start skilling up those adults so that then they can raise health, emotionally healthy children. And so that then they are becoming our leaders of the world, emotionally strong children who can cope in this very modern, fast paced, information overloaded world, which can be quite overwhelming if you don't have what I describe as emotional competence.

Joel Kleber: 12:54

What is emotional competence then? Can you just elaborate for the people what that is?

Sue Stevenson: 12:58

Great question. So a lot of people use the term emotional intelligence, EQ. I believe in emotional competence because it can be built. Emotional intelligence kinds of is finite. It's how intelligent you are, but it, I believe that emotional competence can be built. You can build those skills. So emotional competence is your ability to be able to handle emotionally challenging situations. With maturity, with emotional maturity. Okay. Yeah. So rather than be reactive, be responsive. So take a step back and respond mindfully rather than just react. And try to sweep that discomfort under the carpet and just move on. Does it make sense? It

Joel Kleber: 13:50

does, yeah. A lot of my listeners have had parents or have been raised by a parent with a mental illness like bipolar or schizophrenia, so if, and obviously there's a lot of stress and in stressful environments that they lived in or have lived in, it seems as something that, I think there's something like this would be very beneficial because, people get anxiety going home so they don't want to go to see their parent or. The environment is so important, I just don't think how people understand how important it is, especially just in your learning, like going to school after being stressed all night, all day, and then unexpected to perform. It's very unrealistic and a very hard standard for anyone to achieve when they have a highly stressful environment at home, like a lot of my listeners have had, or do have. Yes,

Sue Stevenson: 14:33

and what it does is when you're in that stressful environment, your brain is on guard. Your brain is in self protection mode. You're in survival mode a lot of the time, because it's really hard to relax when you've got stress in your home environment. So if you're used to being in protection mode, And it's what I describe as fear thinking. So you're in self protection fear thinking. It is really hard to concentrate and think really clearly and rationally and be open to learning because you've got a big problem that you're dealing with. that you have to address on a daily basis and to be open to learning and be relaxed enough to be able to take in everything else that's happening in the world can be really challenging for kids. It

Joel Kleber: 15:26

does. What could that then a young person then do if they want to take some responsibility for themselves and not have to rely on their parent? Unfortunately, a lot of young people and even young adults and adults have to just take ownership of it sometimes. What could, what are some things that they could. Then do on their own, or what would you recommend they maybe do, read, or what are some things that

Sue Stevenson: 15:45

you can recommend? Yeah, great question. I do believe it can be invaluable for a young person to find an adult mentor. To find an adult that they connect. It could be a teacher, it could be a footy coach, it could be anyone. It could be an auntie or an uncle, someone they can open up to and can connect with. Because that person could be a really key adult influence for them. Because I believe every young person deserves to have a trusted guide in their life. And it could be a counsellor. It could be someone. It felt like that. It could be that they see a psychologist, that person, it, what I encourage though is that it's not just a therapist, that it is someone who they have regular contact with so that they've got this mentor. Now that might be hard for a young person to Find that person. However, what I encourage them to do is think about someone you've got, you get along with, a teacher you connect with, or maybe you're part of a club and it's someone, a parent, maybe it's a friend's parent that you connect well with, and begin to have an open conversation if possible, and just be brave and have an open conversation enough. That you connect with that person and suss out whether that person, you feel safe and you feel secure around that person and they lift you up. One of the biggest things for young people too is to be around people who lift you up, not be around people. Who drag you down, who are also troubled, who are also, I know we're often drawn to people like us and that can be fine. We can hang out with people like us who might be suffering similar experiences and I totally get that's, that builds connection. It's also great to be around people who lift you up so that you're not feeling like Dragged down and you're not being constantly reminded by the problem and helping people that help you to feel good and bring the best out of you. I'm not talking about people who ignore it, who this is a big secret with. I'm talking about being around people who help bring the best out of you so you feel good in that setting. Does that

Joel Kleber: 18:22

make sense? It does. Yeah. And it's just a pity though sometimes unfortunately young people will have to take. Ownership of this and drive it themselves, which can be very difficult, especially because you've got to be really mature to do that, especially as a younger person, to try and seek these sorts of things out if you're not lucky enough to have someone who actually can maybe step in and do it for

Sue Stevenson: 18:40

you. Yeah, 100%. And this is why if you have got a counsellor or a youth worker or somebody, Or a teacher, and you are brave enough to say, I can't have conversations like that with my mum, or I'm not able to do that with my mum. It increases their awareness of, Oh, this kid needs some support here. And it just increases their knowledge and understanding of, oh, this kid's dealing with a lot more than the average kid in my classroom or the average kid on the footy team or something. And it just helps them realize. So if it. If they can be brave enough to say, oh, yeah, I can't talk to my mum or my dad about those sorts of things, it just helps them to increase that awareness.

Joel Kleber: 19:30

Now, in Australia, there's obviously a lot of awareness that's done around depression and anxiety, but it's very, I feel, very surface level. People say depression and anxiety, refer to a hotline. That's it. There's nothing more from an awareness point of view with conditions like bipolar, schizophrenia or young carers and things like that. In regards to anxiety, I think a lot of people just Assume it's adults only. It doesn't, it only affects adults, right? So can you just talk about how it affects children? And what it just provides some education around it. There is why I asked this because I've had a guest on before and he talked about depression and anxiety when she was 13 I posted as a reel. So I've got like 60, 000 views. It went pretty well, but I had a lot of negative comments mainly from men saying, 12 year old, 13 year old, what can, what do you have to be anxious about? You don't have to pay any bills, blah, blah, blah, all this sort of stuff, right? And That sort of attitude. Do you want to just touch on that sort of stuff about the how anxiety does affect children. It's not just limited to adults and maybe the attitudes around it and just how serious it can be.

Sue Stevenson: 20:26

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Look, there's the old attitude. Oh, what have you got to worry about? You've got everything you want. You've got everything you need. You're a kid, just go and enjoy life. Stop worrying about it as if you've got anything to worry about. We've got all the stresses. Adults can be that. I call it adult arrogance. Just saying. And, I believe kids feelings, kids matter just as much as adults, but we're all humans. We're just a different age and a different size or a different color or whatever, but we're all humans with all needs. So children have the same needs as adults. And even more because they're trying to figure their way out their, figure out the world that they're living in. So children there's quite a few reasons why anxiety can come about. However, there's one very big reason. And that is that if you're dealing with trauma. Now many people describe trauma, think trauma is, a massive abuse or something like that. Trauma can be having your emotional needs bypassed. If you've got a child who feels like their feelings don't matter, particularly if they're a sensitive child with big feelings, which is someone with what I describe as an anxious disposition, if they're in a household of people who are not really meeting their emotional needs. So all those emotions are getting stuck and trapped in their body and they, that is coming out as anxiety and they're becoming a very stressed, anxious little human being. And yes, they might be good for a controlling parent or someone who's just pushing that aside and saying, suck it up princess, or you deal with it or whatever, and bypassing their emotional needs. But I can promise you, that child, that is not fixing it. Again, it's like a short term relief for the parent because they don't want to, the reality of it is that parent is feeling uncomfortable with that emotional moment. They can't deal with it. So they're just pushing it aside. But the reality of it is the child's needs need to be met and they're not being met. So any child that's got needs not being met, it's going to come out as a problem. And I talk about the anxiety continuum. We all feel anxious from time to time. That's normal human behavior. It's normal human emotional state. Some of us, around about, it's believed, at least 30 percent of the population have an anxious disposition. 30 to 40 it's now believed. And that can come about because of a range of different reasons, particularly the trauma of having your emotional needs bypassed a lot of your life. And then if they don't get the support they need, it creeps up the scale and it becomes problematic. And then if that, they still don't get the support they need, it can become disordered. And we have a whole lot of humans in this world being diagnosed with disorders. Because they have not had their emotional needs met at the get go and they've had adults who haven't been able to meet their emotional needs. And many adults, look, a disorder is something that's been happening for a period of time. But you can still have disordered behavior when a parent, when an adult is very reactive or is being aggressive or is ignoring their child's needs and they're worrying more about them, that is disordered behavior. It's dysfunctional. And many adults don't realize how dysfunctional they are. So in, they might be thinking you've got nothing to worry about. That actually is dysfunctional. That's a dysfunctional way of thinking. Children have plenty of things to worry about, especially if they've got an adult who's not meeting their needs. They're lost. That child's lost and is feeling like they're on their own. They're feeling completely helpless and slandering and they've got to figure it out themselves without the trusted guidance that they really need. A lot of parents are meeting their kids external needs and their physical needs. They feed them they, do, they have a comfortable house, they might have cars and they might have all the things, all the bells and whistles. But the reality of it is, if you're unable to meet your child's emotional needs, then you're creating an anxious child. Actually creating anxiety in a child, because that child's got every reason to be fearful of not having their emotional needs met. Being on guard, being good and developing all these traits, as in people pleasing, to keep mum or dad happy or whatever, or to keep the harmony in the household. That's a huge one, especially for kids who have got parents with mental illness. They're trying to keep the harmony. That's their role, to try to keep peace in the household, or to try to keep things as smooth as possible. They're suddenly doing adult things. As a child, because the adults are unable to be able to do it.

Joel Kleber: 25:58

Now how is that something then that can be turned around? Obviously, maybe the parent's got no interest in it, and then the kid develops to 18, 19, and then they what's the sort of things that then they could do, or then maybe people might be listening to this who are 40 or something, and maybe go, and geez, And that really resonates a lot with me. What are the things that they can do or what should they be looking to do?

Sue Stevenson: 26:17

Right now my main audience is working with parents with kids. But next year, so that's 2024, which is just around the corner. I'm really wanting to help adults that have anxiety, kids I'm helping kids anyway with anxiety, but I'm more specifically geared toward them, not through their parent and give access. To all people who are impacted by anxiety and who need some support and can rebuild themselves again and start feeling good about themselves. I often have up here, start to love yourself again, start to trust yourself again, start to believe in yourself again. That's what this is all about. So that we're, so they, the, when we love, trust and believe in ourselves, our anxiety and stress levels really subside. And we start to know what's possible for us. And it's not clouded by all the stress and the anxiety that we've experienced in our childhood. Yeah, so they can look up our website. And contact us and have a look at the resources, we've got some free resources. I've got 25 ways to calm your mind and your body. I've got 5 steps to combating anxiety. I can share those links with you if you like and people can look at them and they can make a start there. I'm, in January I'm developing a video series for young people and I'm and a video series for adults with anxiety. And adults who want to help kids with anxiety as well. And

Joel Kleber: 27:54

what about then, the adults then? So how does you'd have to, I would say an adult who comes to you for help is pretty, maybe, they're pretty in tune, they might realize it and they want to get better, but how is that sort of transformation is there any examples you could provide, someone coming in maybe a little bit resistant or something like that, and then Seeing them change completely and embed in the benefits that's flowed onto the

Sue Stevenson: 28:15

household. Yeah, so do you mean for an adult or a kid? Yeah, from an adult's perspective, yeah. Oh, from an adult? Oh, I've had plenty of adults who have come to me thinking that the child needed help. So coming through that angle, but also I've had adults come to me and thinking you can't teach an old dog new tricks. You're not going to be able to change me kind of thing. And I've been told that quite a few times. And boy, I can't you can't fix me. My, my history's been a disaster. My life's been a disaster and many of them have been on medication. They've been diagnosed with range of different disorders. But once I start working them, with them, I'm about. Getting, addressing the root cause of what all the stress has been for them in their life. And I'm not talking about, they don't have to relive the trauma. It's about getting to the root cause as in, your emotions have been bypassed. We need to help you rebuild. your emotional competence. We need to help you rebuild yourself, rediscover yourself, and see what's awesome about you. To bring out the real you and let's start discovering who that is. And that's super exciting. So I've definitely had adults who have just told me that it would never work. And then. In a few sessions, they're like, Oh my God, I've had whole families, like a dad who was suicidal, was splitting with his wife, had a couple of kids. And he just completely was able to turn his life around and re, rebuild his marriage and his family. He's just the happiest. He's just been in all the time. He just can't believe how his life has been turned around. So that's one dad. I'll look, I'll pretty much every single person I come across if they're up for support and they're up for the growth journey, they discover a whole new person and they love it. It's bringing the best out of them. I've had kids that haven't. They haven't been so shy, they haven't gone to school, they haven't been avoiding school. They've been able to end up speaking in front of a whole assembly and doing things like that. Huge transformations in kids. I think so often we don't realise what's possible. I help them believe in themselves again and believe what's possible.

Joel Kleber: 30:36

Sure, and I was going to say, you don't have to give away all your secrets, but let's say that gentleman, for example, how does that, how does a session look what are some things you do, or is there exercises, or how does that sort of, do you want to maybe just explain to people what sort of

Sue Stevenson: 30:47

For me, every session is not stock standard, as in, I don't just say, Oh this is session one. This is what we do in session one, session two, session three, because every single person presents to me. It presents to me as a unique person, unique circumstances, unique story. So I'm really good, I now know, I'm really good at picking patterns in people. Be that someone, often only needs to speak to me for five minutes and I can already tell. Where they could do with a little bit of support and I support them as long as they're willing and we start there. So I can pick a pattern that just by their language that will help them shift their beliefs about themselves and help shift their beliefs about their own life and what's possible for them and we can start there. We can start wherever they feel comfortable. Sometimes it's what do you think? What would you like to start with? And I'll ask them, what's your biggest thing, your biggest problem? Let's go for that. Let's see if we can smash that out of the water first. And they'll tell me what their biggest problem is. Quite often, most often, the biggest problem is not really the real problem. There's another problem underneath that, and then a problem underneath that, and a problem underneath that. And when we get right down to the root cause, we can smash the whole lot out. We can really change things and completely transform the way they're doing. So a session will be them coming to me. And we, yeah, we look at, I want every, I want to ask them what it is they want to get out of the session. And by the end of the session, I'll say so what do you think? How does that feel? Have we addressed that, that thing that you said at the beginning? It's very rare that we haven't addressed. I I don't even, can't even think of a time when we haven't, where the person hasn't come away feeling completely satisfied, that they think, wow, this is cool. Because I want them to feel excited about what's next.

Joel Kleber: 32:53

I was going to say, in your experience as an educator for 30 years, obviously working in schools. Yep. How do schools, what should schools be doing in regards to this sort of stuff? Because as you said, the world has completely changed. Back from when I was in school, especially with technology and different things like that. For example, a good example is if someone's getting bullied at school, for example, it might be physical or words or whatever, they could go home and not gonna get a, they don't have to deal with social media and stuff, whereas now it seems to be if a child is having, or a teenager having any issues at school, it's gonna follow them online and they almost can't escape it. How this, how should schools start looking at this and what should schools start be be doing more from your perspective? Because obviously teachers got a lot of, a lot of things to worry about. There's so much they've got to do. In an ideal world, from your perspective what should schools or the education system be doing in regards to this sort of stuff?

Sue Stevenson: 33:41

Ooh, in an ideal world? Yeah,

Joel Kleber: 33:43

and then I'll do, I'll go with what you're saying.

Sue Stevenson: 33:45

Okey dokey, rightio. Firstly, I believe that as much as teachers are under a lot of pressure, I totally get it. And there's a lot of regulations, so schools can be very over regulated, I believe. But as, and I get that and I honor that and acknowledge that. There is, though, a key to having. Success, successful relationships with kids in your classrooms and having, bringing the best out of them. And that is connection, building connection with your kids. Now, many teachers will say, Oh, we haven't got time for that, we've got to get through this curriculum, we're running rough. I'm going to I absolutely argue against that because I was a teacher in the system and I believe it is so worth putting a few minutes into connecting with the kids and connecting with the children around you and getting to know them. In fact, give it a few, a couple of weeks. Like I know they say, yeah, we can't waste two weeks on this or waste three lessons on that or whatever. Yes, you can and it's not wasting. It's absolute gold and you're connecting with your kids, you're building trust, you're getting to know them. And when you get to know your kids and you really trust them and they trust you, they're going to feel safe and comfortable in your classroom. They're going to respect you, they're going to really like you because you give them the time of day. And they're going to learn 10 times faster than you trying to skip that process. That might sound like it's not achievable to many teachers, and they'll go, Oh, yeah, but you weren't there, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but. Yeah, but, there's an excuse. When you're a teacher and you're caring, you're, you've got a responsibility for kids in front of you. I want the teachers to have the mental. Emotional and behavioral flexibility to be able to meet the kids where they're at. And every child in that classroom is very different. They've all got a different background. They're all at a different level. We can try to fight that and say, I haven't got time for that. But if we keep fighting it, we're bypassing, just like parents are bypassing the kid's emotional needs. We're bypassing it, and if we bypass it, we're not earning their respect, they're not trusting us, and they're not believing in us. So it's a, it's about building strong connections with the kids that you teach, and then they learn so much faster. It doesn't take as long to learn the curriculum. Because they're eating out of your hands, because they love you, because you're the teacher that bothers to get to know them. You're the teacher that stops and slows down and is curious about them. Instead of, come on, we've got to do this, we've got to do that, we've got to do that, without, it needs the care and the compassion to go with it. It's a, it's just part of the formula of successful teaching, to have care and compassion. I know that if you've got teachers listening, that they might think, oh, what does she know about this or, we're all caring. We care. Of course we care. Yeah, you care. That's right. Good. And there are many teachers that do this. And the difference between a great teacher and a good teacher or an ordinary teacher is their ability to be able to adapt to the kids in front of them and meet the kids where they're at. Does that make sense? No, it

Joel Kleber: 37:24

does. For sure. I was going to say how would you. Then recommend they would build connection, is it something where they would individually maybe find out something about each kid, what they like, and then maybe ask them a question about that, or how would, what are some, what would be some strategies for them to build that connection?

Sue Stevenson: 37:39

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so I can give you an example of a teacher that I worked with and I was supporting, and she said, I just cannot get this, she's a, she's a right little so and and she just disrupts every class of mine, and righty and she was just giving me the whole thing. And I taught this girl, and I found that, yeah, look, in the beginning, she was hard work, but once I connected with her, we connected really well. So I knew that it was possible. So I said to her, I said, you're really struggling. I can't teach her anymore, she's impossible, righty right. And I said, Let's just find one positive thing about it. Blah! I can't think of anything, writing about it. And I said, come on, I want you to dig deep. What's something positive? Just one thing. And she started to I've come up with a couple of things. I said, okay, she was struggling with that a little bit. I said, okay, what's one thing she's interested in? Just one thing. And she said she likes Fords. That was, she, Ford was, we still had Ford cars then. And she said she likes Fords. And I said, oh, I said, don't you drive a Ford? And she said, yeah, I do. I said, I'm talking to her about Fords. Or start connecting with her, bring the topic up or something. And she said, Oh she did say one day that she liked my car and I said, Oh, try it. Let's start finding, tuning in, because I'd describe it as tuning into kids wavelength. It's like dialing into their radio station. There's static until you tune in and then you're playing sweet music. So I said, I suggested this to her anyway. She did it. She came back with a smirk on her face. She said, Oh, she said, I talked to her about boards and she said, Oh my God, she was just off and she was happily off and racing talking to me. She said, I've never had a conversation like this with her before and I know this might sound obvious, but this is what happened. And then within about a month, this teacher and this student were like this, they'd connected. Because we need to connect on their level, too often we want to, we expect them to come to us and meet us where we're at. But we're the adults, we need to meet them where they're at. That, they just had the best relationship after that. It was fantastic.

Joel Kleber: 40:18

That's great to hear. It's a good example too. Yeah, thank you. I was going to say, now Sue, you just with anxiety, like anxiety's got a lot of awareness now with depression as a general sense, but beyond that, like I don't think people know about they've got it, how to treat it, or what they should do beyond that, and they probably don't maybe realise how serious it can become. I only learnt how serious it can become because I had a guess on his mum. And anxiety and chose it to end her life and she, I didn't realize how serious it was until I interviewed a school friend about that, I didn't know about the consequence of it. So it's really serious stuff. Beyond the awareness that's going on at the moment, like what's actually, what should someone do should be, what more should be done from your perspective?

Sue Stevenson: 41:01

Yeah awareness is good, but what I see happening in this world is anxiety being treated at the surface level. And I believe that there's a lot of band aiding going on, so we're treating what we can see. And in fact, a lot of people don't even realize that behavior in kids is anxiety, behind it is anxiety. They don't realize that it's anxiety presenting itself in a different way. At the top of the iceberg, we might see kids stressed, we might see them acting out, we might see them having meltdowns or emotional outbursts, we might see them isolating themselves and withdrawing. They're all the things that we see on the surface, and we see that as a problem, and we try to treat The digital device overuse, or we try to treat the tantrums, or we try to teach treat the disruptive behavior. So we're focusing on the behavior that we're seeing, but we're not focusing on what's driving the behavior. What's driving the behavior is what's going on in here, and what's going on in here. That's what's driving the behavior. And we can give kids detentions, or we can Send them to counsellors and all this stuff and unless people actually address what's going on in here and help them heal and help flip their thinking to more helpful resourceful thinking, more positive, more possibility thinking, unless we help them do that, we're going to keep seeing this behaviour over and over again. So in schools. I cannot tell you how many schools I've met with, where they've got a five page behaviour management plan on a kid, and none of them are addressing what's going on in here and here. So they're just chasing their tails. And it's more stress and more stress. And the child's had enough. So quite often we find young people just leaving school because they don't trust the system because the system Doesn't trust them, and everyone's been focusing on the behavior, but not what's really going on in here.

Joel Kleber: 43:16

And surely there's a bit of research that's been done on this. Is that available to schools? And if it is available to schools, why don't they implement it? Because I agree with exactly what you're saying. And you're the expert on this and you'd have so much experience in this, but for me it's there would be a lot of research and scientific studies around this sort of thing and about how to do this, but why are schools Why, I don't know, all, I speak for all schools, but, at least for my students, why wouldn't they look at implementing this sort of stuff, or why wouldn't they change their teaching approaches, or the way they teach, train teachers at university even about this sort of stuff, or is it something that is

Sue Stevenson: 43:47

happening? Okay, what a great question. Reality Obidiers. We don't know what we don't want, so we don't know what we're missing out on and we don't know what we're not doing for kids and for teachers, etc. So when we approach a school, schools can be really tough to even be open to this. Because they want it to be revolved, if anything, they want it to be, you do a workshop for the kids. It's the students, do a workshop for them. It's not do a workshop for the teachers, or we don't need that. We don't need that. The kids do this with the kids, so there's a little bit of that going on. And there is plenty of research, there's just loads of research to show that when you support the adults. And in fact, it's pretty recent to be honest, most people don't realise the power of empowering the adults so that then they can empower the young people that they're taking care of or they're responsible for. Schools can, again, put up the barrier, and when we're putting up a barrier, it's actually our own fear and our own anxiety coming up, and our own protection, because some schools are, I'm going to be honest. I believe, are afraid that they may be exposed of not knowing this stuff. And I've been, I've approached many wellbeing people and I've approached many principals and they've said, Oh, we've got a wonderful wellbeing team. They're amazing. And I'm, so you haven't got anxiety, kids with anxiety in the problem, in the school then. So you're pretty set. Oh no, we've got a number of children with anxiety and our wellbeing team are doing a wonderful job with them. I challenge that because if they are, why have you got so many kids anxious? So the reality of it is there are many schools, they don't know what they're missing out on. They don't know the possibility. Many people are still quite close minded about learning more. And about improving their skill base because, again, I'm from a school system. There can be a lot of academic arrogance as well and, we know. Who are you to come and tell us how to, work with kids or what to do? Actually, I can really turn things around for you if you let me or help me show you how it could be done. A lot of teachers and people in the school system don't like to hear that they might have some crack.

Joel Kleber: 46:27

Which is very ironic, because they expect the kids to be open minded, want to learn new things, and yet the teachers are the most closed off, generally, and the school system's a massive affliction of that, like the way the school days are structured still based on what we know about how people learn and stuff is just, it's so

Sue Stevenson: 46:40

outdated. I'm going to say it's archaic, and I couldn't, and I'm not going to say I couldn't get out there fast enough, because I love, love, love working with kids, and I love that component of schools, but the institutionalized mentality. I've just realized how institutionalized it can be. And when we're institutionalized, that's the thinking that we're in, and we don't realize what's out there. So that, that can be problematic, but I encourage schools and teachers, because some schools are very open. Some schools want this, they want to improve. It's really important though, that we. That we don't just say, oh yeah, we did that anxiety program over there, so now we're done. It's all about building skills. It's about building the skills to be adaptable to these kids. It's about building the skills and not being afraid to do things a little differently. I got told off. For swaying from the curriculum because I was doing these sneaky bits of personal development stuff in my classes Often and the kids loved it and they would beg me to do it again And I got told off. What's that you were doing over there? That's not on the curriculum and it's, Oh, for heaven's sakes, this is the stuff that matters. Really, you don't know what you don't know. They don't know how helpful that is.

Joel Kleber: 48:11

Yeah, no it's amazing. And I think I think it's hilarious. I do think it's very ironic how, schools and universities expect kids to be open minded and alone, and we're here to learn. And when they don't need to apply that sort of mentality to themselves, they're completely shut off or, I think it's amazing. And I also find it amazing that there's a lot of research and data around this sort of stuff yet. You, there's no implementation of it or trying to at least implement it or make changes based on that just to try things. I think it's crazy, you're in our business where I work, if there's new studies or research or. Findings and we can implement to make things better. We'll try it You know if it fails before works fantastic. Whereas with schools, I just think it's so stuck in there It's so stuck in I don't know the 50s or 40s about the structure of the day and you gotta learn this and that and What we need to learn now is so much different to what it was even 10 20 years ago You know, you've got kids have got chat gbt they can use they don't need to read anything anymore Yeah, like you need these other skills these emotional coping mechanisms these other things mental these mental Life skills. Life skills are way more valuable than what it is, than what doing trigonometry is. Life skills

Sue Stevenson: 49:14

are an absolute reflection of success. If you've got life skills, you're going to succeed. If you've got academic skills, there is no guarantee you're going to succeed in life.

Joel Kleber: 49:26

I heard something the other day, Sue, and it was that the top 2 percent of people of IQ earn significantly less than people who report the same sort of equivalent EQ. There's actually around a hundred, I think it's like a 250, 000 US difference between those type of people, which just shows you the importance and how much more further you can get in life with someone who's emotionally really intelligent and smart compared to just someone with the IQ. That may be deemed book smart or very high. It's just in the real world. It doesn't match up to who will have the more success, which I find schools still think that's the other way around.

Sue Stevenson: 49:59

And we're suppressing children. We're suppressing young people by keeping them in this box that we think some, the curriculum was written by some. A person, an academic who thinks that this particular subject is super important for a kid to learn in their life. Whereas most of the kids can access that on the internet in a heartbeat. And they don't need to sit through a whole term of, I don't know, geography or maths

Joel Kleber: 50:25

or whatever. They'll get it from a TikTok video. They'll learn more about, they'll learn about a subject from TikTok. Yeah. It's

Sue Stevenson: 50:32

not content. It's not content anymore. We've got to let go of the content. You can learn content in a heartbeat. I've seen kids dick around at school for 13 years and everyone thought that they were terrible academics and they've gone and achieved incredible academic feats after that because it was following their passion. When you're following your passion, you want to learn. Absolutely. We need to be encouraging kids to follow their passion.

Joel Kleber: 51:05

And I definitely think school's geared towards, a lot of blokes, men, want to do things they learn best with their hands and stuff and then to expect people to sit in the classroom for six, seven hours can also be very difficult and to be focused. It's crazy how there's all this stuff out there which is saying, things should be different ways. And why do you think Australia's so backwards in that? Because obviously, I presume, I don't know too much about, let's say, Sweden and these other sub countries, it may be a bit more open to this sort of thing, but I would say, why do you think Australia is so reluctant to this sort of stuff? Because, at the moment, everyone's got mental health's important, no one questions that, right? Depression, anxiety, no one questions it. But in regards to implementation, beyond that awareness, or that surface level awareness, it doesn't seem like there is. Much happening besides maybe a counselor in every school and stuff, which I've seen. But other than that.

Sue Stevenson: 51:54

A lot of talk about mental illness, and there's a lot of talk about, we need to increase awareness and that kind of thing, but I don't think there's a hell of a lot of doing. And I think a lot of the reason is because. We keep, and I'm saying we, because I think the generation, probably my generation, are sitting back and thinking really, it's not that bad. Everyone's, we're a pretty wealthy country, we're doing pretty well, and. They're not seeing a big problem because, again, it's behind, it's underneath the iceberg. That's what's driving the problems, but they're not seeing that. They're just saying, Oh, we got, we better get, we better address the mental health people and problem and just educate and develop more therapists and have more therapists. So we're band aiding, but we're not addressing what's underneath. But when you're in a fairly affluent society, you don't really see that this is a really big problem because you're thinking, oh, it's not too bad. And I think we're getting caught up in justifying. That we're doing all right, that we're doing really well, and we measure success in schools by result. We measure success in schools by we measure it by attendance, and that's dropping significantly, so schools are getting a bit worried about that, but we measure results in a very academic, shallow, surface way, but it's not, how often do we really measure children's happiness and fulfillment? How often do we measure that? And I think Australia struggles with this because we have, we are in a very lucky country and so many people have so much on the outside, but we're not, we're overlooking what's going on in here. What's really going on in here, because I can tell you, you don't get happiness. Externally. You get happiness from within. I call myself the inside out lady. It doesn't start out there with wealth, and cars, and houses, and the school you go to, and labels. It starts in here.

Joel Kleber: 54:08

Absolutely. So much stuff put on external validation and people think that those positions will make them happy, which they don't. As you said, self esteem is so important. I think it's one of the most critical things that someone who doesn't have a strong self esteem, doesn't matter what they'll still have, they'll always have that. Good sense of self and respect and love for themselves is number one over any external Possession or seeking validation and you don't need that if you have that in the end of the day and you can pursue Things that make you happy, which is definitely the

Sue Stevenson: 54:34

key. But if we've got adults that are still suppressing The generation below us and we're still suppressing them We're keeping them at bay because we're a superior race. We're superior we've still got that, then we're going to have 70 and 80 year old presidents and prime ministers, yet we've got 30 year olds who could run our country better. I know that for sure. I know that we've got young people who are so capable and so competent. But they're being blocked by the archaic traditions of the people in leadership ahead of them. 100%. And I believe that's the biggest problem that we've got in our society, particularly in Australia and certainly in the USA as well. And it's happening in schools, it's happening in all our major institutions in the health system, it's happening because it's being run by older people who are in this traditional mindset of we're the power. Do as I say and it's not all encompassing. It's not embracing. It's not about empowering. It's about Using your power in negative ways. My mum says big

Joel Kleber: 55:49

gap, I agree with you. And it's crazy how we don't, we have a lot of data evidence based decisions aren't made quite often or not. They tend to be more political or as you said protecting some sort of institutional or the gap or their Whatever they have in between and I 100 percent agree with you Sue. I was going to say, so we've gone for around an hour, I've got another one at five o'clock, which is great. I could talk to you for a long time. But I was going to say, do you want to plug all your socials and your books, because it's great that you've been an author as well. I think a lot of people say they want to be an author, but they're actually going to do it's another thing. So well done on writing a couple of books. And do you want to, yeah, just talk about, plug where people can find you and find those books as well. Yeah,

Sue Stevenson: 56:26

sure. So my books, I'm a co author, I am on a mission to write my own book now. I'm a co-author in those two bits. Yeah. One of them is called Women Leading the Way and the other women's called She Speaks and people will find me on U-Turn Anxiety. Got this in the background here. So U-turn www dot u-turn anxiety. So that's our website. We also, I'm happy to share a couple of links with you in case anyone wants to download a couple of freebies 25 ways to calm your Mind and Body. Five steps to combat anxiety and there's a few other things too that I can share with you. And, look, I love what I do. Anybody who contacts me, I will support the best way I can. Anybody. That's just what I do. I, some people say, I used to wonder how people could love their job so much that they didn't care whether they got paid for it or not. I'm fortunately in that position now. I really don't. Don't care. I just want to see someone be able to, I want to be able to change somebody's life in any way I can. Thank

Joel Kleber: 57:33

you very much Sue for your time today. We appreciate

Sue Stevenson: 57:35

it. You're so welcome. Thank you for having me Joel. I've really enjoyed our chat. I know we could talk for hours.

Joel Kleber: 57:40

No worries. Thanks Sue. Thank you.

Sue Stevenson: 57:43

Bye.

Microphone (Yeti X)-4: 57:50

So now you haven't what a lovely person, suis and a lot of great worksheets doing and helping out a lot of, not only children, but parents as well. Understand the children a lot more, which is really, really important. Um, and you can check out U-turn anxiety, Google Sue's name as well. She's got a lot of good content. That's online to really good information because as well on your website, but a big thanks to Sue. If you enjoyed that episode, please make sure you leave a review at living experience, podcast.com or on Spotify or iTunes or wherever you get it. And I hope you have a great week until the next episode. So thank you for listening today.