WEBVTT - This file was automatically generated by VIMEO. Please email info@talestoolkit.com to report problems. Um, I was really excited to hear Suzanne speak at the early education event a little while back. Oh, my power plan's not moving at the minute. Let's see if I can get in there. Oh, hello. I think we might have frozen, right? I'm just gonna chat it then. So, um, I'm really excited because I met Suzanne um, about a year ago now. Was it Suzanne? Yeah. At the, yeah, at the early education event. And, um, I think a lot of what Suzanne was saying really resonated with me. 'cause at Tells Toolkit we're all about that connection and creating interactions between children and the people around them. So a lot of what Suzanne really resonated with what we were doing. And actually there was a lot of what you were saying that made me kind of question some of the practice that I was doing in schools. So it was really interesting know from when I was a teacher. Um, but just wanted to say that Suzanne is a research scientist. She's got a real fascination for babies and the connections that they make. Um, she's based at the University of Dundee, um, in the school of Psychology. Um, and, um, there's, uh, been doing lots of fantastic training with lots of different people from all over the world and kind of got that word out to many, many people. And it's all about understanding the science behind emotional connection and how important this is for pretty much everything, health and happiness and everything else. So, um, Suzanne founded the organization Connected Baby, which works with parents and professionals to really kind of use that science of connection and she's a huge inspiration for many, many people. So I'm just highlighting a couple of the things here. So I have to watch her head doesn't get too big in a Santa hat, so, yeah. But there's so many, many things that Suzanne does, but I'm really excited tonight to, oh, uh, people can't hear me. Let me take this off. Can you hear me now? Is That better? Uh, and I haven't said much, but I'm definitely here. Yes. And Suzanne is definitely here, so, so, yeah. I'm gonna hand over to you, Suzanne, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make some notes. I've got my paper here, so I'll be kind of listening in and making a note of what people are saying so Suzanne can talk. And then at the end we're gonna have a little bit of time where we can ask some questions and chat through some things. So I'm gonna put Suzanne's PowerPoint up and I'm gonna hand over to you, Suzanne, 'cause everyone wants to hear you speaking. It is an absolute delight to be with you, Kate. And we decided to really push the boat out here for everybody and go in festive mode. So I'm in my Santa hat. You did Got my santa stuff on, And you've got your Christmas jumper on. I, I did have my Christmas jumper on. I'm gonna see if these work again, but I had to take it off 'cause I was getting too hot and teasing on. So yeah, now I've got all my festive stuff. I know it won't quite feel like the same weather for the, for folks in all the different countries who've come for tonight. Mm-Hmm. But, um, it, it maybe gives us a sense of at least what is happening here and with, with the fest of gear. Yes. So, um, and I thought that might be a nice counter to some of the tough questions that I really wanted to explore tonight, because we hear a lot about children's behavior and we hear a lot about behavior management. Mm-Hmm. And so in my kind of style, I wanted to see if I could help us to ask some deeper questions that would, that would help us to think through perhaps angles on that, that we don't always get an opportunity to. So I called tonight, kill's behavior. Curiosity is always more effective than control. And maybe if we want to, we can end up having a debate about whether always is actually the case. But I wanted to push us to think, because really I wanted to have this question at the, at the center of what I was gonna talk about tonight, which is why are we so quick in Britain to interpret children's behavior as misbehavior and thus to resort to punishment and control as a response. And of course, because people in other countries have also come along tonight, it actually lets us ask, is it just Britain where this happens? Um, how much does that happen in other places in the world? And indeed, actually, does that happen in Britain? I'll be very happy if people disagree with me. Mm-Hmm. Maybe some folks might say we're not that quick to interpret behavior as misbehavior. But I think there's a lot of evidence that we are. So for example, we talk about temper tantrums and people, parents often have gotten the message that punishment is a reasonable response to temper tantrums. We talk a lot about the naughty step. Those are just for ordinary situations. If we, uh, expand to settings, there are lots of schools in Britain who have, um, isolation booths as a form of punishment. And indeed our prisons have, we have some, our prison system has some of the youngest ages for being admitted to the criminal justice system and in the, on the globe. So thinking about pull, pulling all of those togethers is questions about why do we read behaviors misbehavior and bring punishment and control to that I hope helps us to think more deeply. And you might think, okay, Suzanne, why do you wanna ask those kinds of questions? If I go back a teeny bit in my career, you've already pointed to that, Kate, but I was a research scientist for nearly 20 years here at the University of Dundee. And I became increasingly frustrated that there was scientific information about the importance of connection that I thought that really the wider public really deserved to understand and to get to talk about and to think about in depth. And so it's eight years ago now, I resigned from that full-time position as an academic and research scientist. And I stepped out to try to speak more to the public. And indeed, I now find that I'm asked to come to speak to groups like these, the police, baby theater, mental health, child, minders, nurseries, education, politicians, about the same core information about connection. Mm-Hmm. And I like to point that out. Lots of people who've heard me do something live will will be familiar with that slide, but I like to keep using it because it helps us to understand that there's a really wide conversation going on. All of those sectors can weave together an interest in connection. And indeed, I come back to three key themes. One is that babies arrive on the earth already connected. We're born knowing the sound of the voices of the people who will be in our world. And then connection and indeed disconnection goes on to shape the development of babies and children's brains and indeed their whole body. So we are biologically shaped by our experiences of relationships. And then finally that if we get our, i our our minds around those two ideas, this third one, which is that society suffers if babies don't feel connected. And indeed if adults don't feel connected. So when you begin to realize this is about human beings, then the information that I might talk about with babies is as relevant to adults in their midyears or indeed to do with dementia. It stretches across the whole of our lifespan. And there's a whole lot in there that we could therefore talk about. So tonight I thought I might address three themes. One is this idea of behavior as communication, and then secondly the biology of behavior. And then to give some examples of organizations that have actually put that information into effect. Do you think that sounds good, Kate? Yeah. Okay. Yay. Alright. Kate, are you speaking? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, you're, yes. Now I can. And for some reason your picture's staying small, so I'm gonna click my picture off, but stay here So that people can see you. Yeah, that's absolutely very fine. Is that okay? Okay. That's fine. Okay. Okay. So if we look at behavior as communication, there would be lots of people who might be familiar with this phrase, which is that all behavior is communication. And I hear lots of people say that, but then sometimes people go, what exactly does that mean? What is behavior communicating? And I think the key messages that we need from that kind of phrase are two, which is that behavior is communication because it's communicating an underlying biological state. It's that biology that's driving the behavior of the children. And that secondly, therefore it's also often communicating a need that they may have of us. But I think we don't really get this, I think in our culture, we don't really get at a cultural level. Our cultural defi fault is that, is that behavior is communicating something underneath and often a need. I think very often we resort to an experience of behavior as misbehavior that then leads to punishment and control. So another way to put this is, I don't think that we're curious enough, and I don't say that to criticize us, but rather to, to try to help us to, to think more deeply. Are we curious enough when children engage in behavior, especially when it's inconvenient, it makes us frustrated, makes us angry, do we get curious enough about what the underlying biological state is and what their need might be? Because if we're not curious, then we're much more likely to stay in frustration. And so I'm wondering, do we get curious enough about behavior as communication? And so with that question that might prompt, okay, tell me a bit more about the biology that underpins behavior. Alright, so I use the language of saber tooth tigers and teddy bears all the time. And so for me, that's an analogy that is trying to help us to think more about that biological state when all behavior is driven by an underlying biological state, either of stress or of calm. And so as soon as you go into a stress state, you are using the part of your body, the systems in your body that would help you to stay safe. That, that you need to keep yourself out of danger. And of course, the more and more and more stressed you are, the the more your body thinks that it's in danger. And you would need that system if you were running away from a saber tooth tiger. And so with that analogy, I'm just trying to find a way to help people to stay in tune with that child is stressed, that child is threatened, that child is feeling afraid. And that's very often the kind of state that is underlying behavior that's driving behavior. So an example, an example of that, uh, might be a child that walks through the doorway into a classroom and before very long at all is starting to to, uh, to behave in a way. They're kicking a chair, they're talking in loud voices. They're, they're doing the sorts of things that can start to wind somebody who's in charge of a group of children that can start to wind teachers up. And because you are feeling frustrated, you might not be in a curious place about what is driving the behavior of that child. And yet that's what that phrase, all behaviors, communication is meant to try to help us to remind us. Now the antidote to a saber-toothed tiger system in your body is a internal teddy bear. That's the part of the body that helps you to comfort yourself and helps you to come back to a place of calm. Now. So if you put that into more traditional terms, what people often think of as scientific or medical terms, it's often the parasympathetic and the sympathetic systems of the body. But here's the trouble, I think that that language is often confusing for people. So what I'm trying to do is simply to find other language, other metaphor that helps us to think really quickly about what's going on inside our bodies. And so I think in terms of the saber tooth tiger system and the teddy bear system, the saber tooth tiger system is what puts us into stress. And indeed you need a bit of stress in order to get out of bed in the morning. Stress is not inherently bad. It's when stress pushes us further and further into place of threat or fear that, that you start to get into the kind of place that people often think of as a stressed state. And indeed, all of us probably live really lives these days that keep us in really stressful states. We probably live with more stress than is good for us, but, and so helping using that to think about what are the states that children are in that's driving the behavior that we're coping with those two terms, saber tooth, tiger system, and teddy bear system give us a, a quicker way of, of remembering to be curious. And those two systems are what make up the self regulatory system. That's really the way in which children manage their own behavior. And indeed adults manage their behavior as well. We use that phrase often managing behavior. I don't actually like that. I like to think in terms of comforting ourselves rather and, and finding our way back to calmer states rather than managing our behavior. But I'm just trying to give a really quick sense here of the kind of language that we might use to help remind us to come back to place of curiosity. Now I can see that some folks here are saying things like the saber-tooth tigers is the fight or flight system. They're absolutely right. So that's another way of describing this, that, um, and you would need to go into fight or flight system in order to run away from a saber tooth Tiger. Children can go into fight or flight in ways much more quickly than we might realize they might be in fight or flight. Uh, for reasons that don't make sense to us, um, that would surprise us. That's why I think if we can get more curious about the biological state is underpinning children's behavior, then we are reminded a lot of this, of this information that we get from lots of different sources and that the science is telling us. But that can be hard to remember in the middle of, of our days as adults, as teachers, as early year staff, as parents, when we get stressed, it's harder to remember to be curious about the behavior of other people, including our own children. Okay? So if you want to know more about that language, 'cause I'm just giving a taste of it. I've got a book on it called Saber Tooth Tigers and teddy bears. It ties the information about biology to the attachment system. And, um, and I think anything that we can do to give any of us more access to those ideas so that they feel, um, so that they feel accessible, not with big language like sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, which although they're accurate sometimes feel off-putting or scary for people. I really want us to find language that make these ideas, um, quick and easy and interesting for people. So if I come back to my original question, why are we so quick in Britain to interpret children's behaviors, misbehavior and therefore to punish and control? And if I come back to my early suggestion that I'm not sure we're curious enough about children's behavior unpacking those ideas, let me turn to some of the things that other people have written to try to explore these ideas. And I quite like the, the work of Michael Carson who sometimes writes for psychology today. And interestingly, he's based in America, so he might say, maybe it isn't just Britain that moves quickly to a place of punishment. This is a piece I love by him written in January, 2014 in which he was exploring the idea of punishment not really working. And you can see that the subtitle on this piece is punishment doesn't change the tendency to Engage in Punished Behavior. And if you want to know more about that piece, you can read the whole piece. I've got the, uh, the link there at the bottom. But he has this to say in that piece, why then do we punish children? And he thinks that we do so for two main reasons. And the first is this, that it looks like punishment works even though it doesn't. That because the child becomes inhibited in your presence when you bring punishment to a reading of misbehavior, that it becomes easy to think that if they're inhibited in your presence, they would also be inhibited in your answer in, in your absence. But he has this to say, punishment produces politeness, not morality. And the inhibited obedient child inadvertently reinforces the parent's punitive behavior by acting obedient. So we can get the sense that punishment works because in the moment the behavior changes. But if what we're trying to do is to nurture re confident, connected, empathic children who grow into those kinds of adults, what he's trying to help us to think through is that punishment doesn't bring the kind of long-term outcomes that we might have expected that it does. And indeed, that begins to highlight what kind of children do we want to raise? What kind of qualities do we want in our children? And are we able to think in the moment that we are responding to behavior? Are we able to think through those longer term question or do we become really absorbed just in the moment? Because here's the second thing that he has to say that I think really pushes us to a place of going, uh, do I agree with that? This is where it takes courage to think through some of the kinds of questions around the way we respond to behavior. He says, the second main reason that we punish children is because we are angry at them. Anger is the emotional state of finding damage to the objects of one anger to be reinforcing uncontrolled and disobedient children make everyone angry some of the time. And most people angry, much of the time punishment makes them cry or look upset. And those tears in that look are reinforcers when parents are angry. And then he keeps pushing us to think, which is why I like his work. If we weren't so confused about aggression, we could acknowledge our anger at our children and engineer a constructive application of it instead of pretending we're not angry and letting it loose as punishment. Instead as punishment. Instead, we fool ourselves into thinking that we are not angry at our children, that we are merely instructing them. And then this is the very scary thing he tries to help us to think about. We then get to enjoy hurting them with punishments, without feeling bad about recognizing what we are enjoying. Now, I'm pausing for just a moment because I think those are hard words to hear and hard words to feel and hard words to get curious about. And I think it's not just individuals, I think it's also systems. So we have lots of schools in the UK who have isolation booths as punishment for things like not wearing the full uniform, arriving at school, late, behaving in a way that the rules say you're not supposed to behave. And once children have broken a rule, our culture says they deserve to be punished, that there are consequences that follow. And yet if you, if you read the science punishment doesn't work, it doesn't have the impact that we often think it's going to have on long-term behavior. And so that's why I think the work of Michael Carson is so interesting. He's trying to push us to think about, in that case, why do we punish? What is it in a culture that encourages us to think about the meaning of behavior? And that encourages us to very quickly read misbehavior. And then once we've decided that the child is misbehaving, we feel entitled to punish and entitled to be angry. And yet that conflicts with this idea of all behavior being communication. So I'm just trying to take a risk tonight to try to help us to think about that more deeply. And it does feel a real risk for me because it's easier for me talking about these issues with an audience in front of me. And at the moment I'm talking to myself. So I'm, I'm talking to an image here of myself on the computer rather than being able to really have a sense of what the audience is doing with this kind of scary idea that I have tried to introduce, which is that a large part of why children end up punished is because we are struggling to deal with our own biological state and our own feelings about how we're reacting to whatever their behavior is. And once we get that far, that reminds me of this lovely quote image that you see a lot on, um, on social media that I have seen this often put out. It's by LR nos when little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it's our job to share our calm, not to join their chaos, but if we are not calm, we can't offer them calm. And so this under this understanding about the biological state that underpins behavior applies of course not just to our children, but applies also to us grownups. And if you want to know more about where this idea comes from, they've got a, it's a great book that LA nos has written called 2000 Kisses a Day, which talks about gentle parenting. And indeed, if you wanted to, you could extend to that, to, okay, what would gentle early year look like or gentle schooling look like? Gentle parenting tends to be an approach that tries to get us to think about what the meaning of behavior is and how we respond in a way that's, that draws on connection and relationships that's gonna have the kind of longer term impact that we often, that we want for our children. But that, uh, as a state of reading is misbehavior or punishment often doesn't help us to achieve. So actually one way to come back to this idea that I suggested earlier that I don't think we're curious enough about behavior, maybe we're also not curious enough about ourselves. Maybe we don't, maybe the, there are cultural factors that don't help us to stay self-aware about how we are feeling so that we can manage our own behavior or comfort our own behavior so that we can stay in tune with the child's needs and indeed become more curious about what they're feeling. So as I come keeping an eye on the time so that we can have lots of discussion, let me give some examples of some of the settings that I've worked with that have tried to put this knowledge into, into, into practice, into really deepening their thinking into how we could tell other people so that we could spread this knowledge more widely. Okay, this is an image from Lullaby Lane Nursery, which is near Glasgow here in Scotland. And this is what they did with that knowledge. They decided to be sure that they did plenty of cuddling because they understood that children of all the ages that come into their nursery, so that would be from, you know, could be from birth, but very often say from maybe six months all the way up until they go to school, about four. If children are in a stressed state, what do they need to help them? And one of the things that they make sure they do lots of at Lullaby Lane is that they cuddle their staff always have on hand cuddling arms that will help to boost a hormone called oxytocin, which I call the teddy bear hormone, which helps children to calm, which they can't pro, which they can't produce as quickly on their own as they can do with the presence of somebody else who's trusted. So oxytocin is really good for you, cuddling, therefore is really good for those children. But here's the trouble. Cuddling is something that makes us nervous in lots of systems these days because we're worried about inappropriate touch. And so although cuddling is really good for helping children to recover from stress, to recover from fear, to grow internal teddy bears that will help children to, to comfort themselves as they get older when they're older, our systems are afraid to encourage cuddling. And so one of the things that that means that's scary to think about is that by not cuddling enough, we may be causing harm to children in ways that we haven't considered. Now, should I use the word harm? The word harm is scary. And we often think of we off. We might not think of harm in terms of not enough cuddles. We're more likely to think about harm on the other side of that question on the side of inappropriate touch. But I'm just trying to help us to ask questions that let us think more deeply and to wonder if our reluctance to think about cuddling and to encourage it and to think about how you have enough cuddles to go around if you have a high staff, staff and child ratio. What if there's not enough arms to go around? What if a child comes into your setting and it was hard to part from their parents and they're cry and and they can't comfort themselves and they're still crying half an hour later, an hour later, four hours, and it's lunchtime. What do you do if a child needs cuddled all that time and there's not enough arms to go around? What if we don't think curiously and deeply enough about what we do to make enough connection available for that child? And if in not thinking about that we, we don't have enough cuddles on hand, if we, if we are not present, then we're asking a child to, to take care of their own stress. And the point is that an immature stress system, which is what babies and children have, they're not able to do that. So at Lullaby Lane Nursery, they put cuddles on the sign above their door to make sure that everyone understands that that is a key part of their ethos. And that came out of their understanding of the importance of connection, of attachment, and of the importance of being curious about what children's behavior is telling us about their needs. Okay, so if that's Lullaby Lane Nursery, here's a school, this is Patuka East Primary School in Glen office, and they did something different with their knowledge. The key story they tell is the way that they changed the language. They quit using the language of challenging behavior and they now use the language of distressed behavior. And that's their head teacher, Jenison, which some of you may have heard telling the story of how the culture in her school shifted as they used simply a different phrase. And the point of that phrase is that it helps to remind staff that even when behavior looks challenging, when when you, when you feel stressed by the child's behavior, that it's distress that is driving that. And if we can stay in a compassionate, curious place, even when the behavior is, even when the behavior seems really, I don't in your face and perhaps feels big to deal with. So if a child is throwing chairs, if a child is kicking the wall, uh, if a child is breaking the window, the idea that that is being pushed by distress helps us to stay curious about what is the biological state that's gone underneath that, going on underneath that behavior. And Jen tells the story of a child who was in care and who had received word that they were about to change placement, and that had put them into such a place of grief and distress, that it was driving behavior that looked perhaps aggressive to others, but it was really driven by distress. And so what partook East Primary School has discovered is that if they use the language of distress behavior, that helps 'em stay in tune with what that child is feeling. Okay, here's the story of another school. They adopted what they called Teddy Bear policies. They used their school funds to purchase teddy bears just like these so that when children walk through the door, they're greeted with really large teddy bears that they can throw themselves around. And that helps them to start to calm. And for some of the children walking through the door of the school is hard. They come from chaotic mornings, they come from mornings perhaps that are not predictable. They walk through the door already with high levels of the hormone cortisol in their system, which I refer to as the saber tooth tiger hormone. So thinking about the hormonal state that children bring with them to school from their mornings, in which we might not know anything about what happened to them that morning or what happens on a perhaps every morning for them. So their teddy bear policies in which they now use, they now have teddy bears in every room of their school, has helped the staff to think in new ways about what the children are experiencing, to be more curious about that, and to come up with creative ways to help those children to self-regulate and to come back to, to draw more on the teddy bear systems in their self-regulatory system, in their very biology. And on this slide, you can see the article that recently featured in one of the educational magazines in the country. And so I love that this creative way of thinking about children's needs is now featuring in more and more, um, publications that help other people to see the creative ways in which they've addressed that. And then finally, this is Tigers. So that's an organization that works with young people that're based in Glasgow, and they've done something really remarkable. They train young people in early years and in bitterness organization and in construction. So this is an image of some of their young people learning to hold down a job in construction, laying bricks, mixing cement, all those sorts of things that you would associate with construction workers. And yet what Tigers has decided is that it's important that they too understand information about their bodies, about their stress systems, and in this case, about the rupture repair cycle, about how important that it it is that if you find yourselves in conflict with another person and conflict puts you into a stress state, puts you into a saber-tooth tiger system, they have decided that it's really important that they also help their young people to understand the importance of coming back into place of repair, to coming back, therefore to being in alignment with each other, which puts you back into your teddy bear system. And I think it's remarkable that an organization that trains young people and largely young men to in the construction trade, would also be helping them to understand about their own physical biological systems and about the importance of relationships within that. And so these are just some quick examples of the way in which organizations that I have worked with have put this information into action, not simply because someone else told them to do that, but because they took what they were understanding of this and they put that into practice in ways that suited their organization. And I like those stories because I hope that it inspires other organizations and other leaders to figure out how they think this information matters for their organization and can then act on it to put it into action. And so in summary, if I come back to my question, to my title about children's behavior, that curiosity always being more effective than control, what I'm trying to say is that as the go-to first place, if we always go to curiosity about what their behavior means or indeed about what our behavior means, rather than going to a place of punishment or control or indeed even management of our own feelings, if we can go to a place of curiosity, then that's the, that gives us the kind of outcome that we want, I think for ourselves and for our relationships and for the long-term development of our children. And I'm delighted for anybody who wants to explore these often scary questions with me. Thank you so much everybody. Brilliant. Brilliant. Suzanne, I've got so much stuff here. I've got pages of notes. So yeah, there was some really brilliant kind of conversations coming through there. Um, one of the big things that people were talking about was they were talking about, um, getting that message to parents, um Yep. And that parents can often feel challenged by it and also around the adults that work with children and their need to feel nurtured just as much as the children before they can start to give that back. Absolutely. And I suppose that's what I've already been trying to hint at, is that this information, which we often think is about children Yes. The need for connection, the need for, uh, sense of safety, the, the need to feel nurtured applies absolutely as much to as adults Yes. As it does to children because we're all human beings. Yes. But many adults work in systems where they don't feel valued Yes. Where they feel really stressed where the, where the policies put adults into stressed states Yes. And leave adults o on leave us individually responsible for managed, for managing our own, our own behavior, our own react without, without putting in place a system that helps you to do that. Yes. And so we need, we need cultures that support adults Yes. In, in staying as calm as they can, as curious as they can. Mm-Hmm. Because if the adults can't do that, then we can't, then we can't respond to the children's needs. Yes. Yeah. And often, I suppose there's lots of schools that by having a behavior policy that will be the thing that people rely on. So the, that's what they use as a go-to, rather than asking these questions and being curious. See, and that's a great example, Kate, we call it Mm-Hmm. A beha, we call them behavior policies. Mm-Hmm. Or behavior management. And so the focus on the language of behavior, I understand absolutely where it came from because that's what we see Mm-Hmm. Is the children's behavior. But when you use the language of behavior, it says back to the adults Yes. That what we need to focus on is behavior. And what I'm trying to say is no, we need to focus on what is the need that is driving that behavior. Yes. And that's why the story of Patuka East Primary School is so interesting is that they were able to make a very simple linguistic shift Yes. Which helped them to, to stay more curious Yes. And to remember that their focus needed to be on the distress rather than the behavior. Yes. Yeah, that's true. And it's a really inspiring story because it was, they could make that shift as a culture relatively easy. It didn't cost them anything. They didn't have to get anybody's permission, they just looked at the language that they were using. Yeah. Yeah. And it's powerful how such a small change can make a big difference. It's such, it's so powerful, which is why I like sharing the stories of, of organizations who have put this information into use. It says that any, any organization can do that. Mm-Hmm. And indeed any individual could do that. Yes. So you could just as an individual, start using the language of distressed behavior, for example. Mm-Hmm. And let and start to see where that ripples. Yes. Another example that I, that I haven't talked about tonight is there are, there are teachers all over who are changing the way that they greet children as they come into the classroom. Mm-Hmm. Because they understand that that transition is really scary for some children. Mm-Hmm. And in some schools, they, you might be weaving that through the whole of the school or the whole of the team or the whole of the setting, but you don't have to wait for the whole of the team to do that if your whole school isn't doing that yet. Mm-Hmm. You could decide to do that for your classroom alone and start to see where that ripples. So hearing the stories of what other people in organization that's done, I hope is inspiring. Yes. Yes. And inspires confidence to try it. Yeah. And you've already got comments coming through here. So we've got someone who's saying, um, we'll use stress rather than challenging. Um, uh, someone saying they've got new behavior policy in their school. There's lots of people saying, I think already that this is starting to start to resonate. And Okay, so there are, there's other school, there's Basford Primary, which is another school in Scotland. Yes. And I haven't made a PowerPoint slide of them, but all of these are coming into my head. They no longer have a behavior policy. Mm-Hmm. They have a relationships policy. Yes. Someone mentioned that actually in here. And so you start to think really what's a relationship policy? What would go in a relationships policy? Can I have a copy of your relationships policy? Mm-Hmm. And part of the reason that we have behavior policies is 'cause that's just traditionally what we have had. Mm-Hmm. And you don't, if it's traditional and it feels normal, of course you just keep doing it. Yes. And hearing the stories that other people are doing, relationships, policies starts to let you be more curious about really? Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. What could we do in my organization? Yes. And it, it, but what the other thing that that does is it causes discomfort. There will be some people who may well be watching this Mm-Hmm. Who have an isolation booth in their school. Yes. So hearing that I have said the isolation booths damage children Mm-Hmm. Will make some people uncomfortable. Yes. And I want us to be uncomfortable if it gets us to a place of curiosity. Yeah. For many people it gets us to a place of defensiveness. Mm-Hmm. And I understand that because if we hear that we are doing something that could damage or hurt other people Mm-Hmm. Especially when we intend to do good Mm-Hmm. And especially when we're just doing what's normal for our culture, either our wider culture, 'cause I talked about Britain Yes. Or the culture of our school. These things are tricky and hard to hear. Mm-Hmm. And that's why I'm talking partly in a, you know, you can hear that my voice has dropped Mm-Hmm. Because I'm saying things that can be tricky to hear. Yes. Yeah. And yet, if we are not curious enough Mm-Hmm. Then we continue to do things that we did not intend to do. Yes. So there's something, you know, if we can strike a balance where we go to curiosity rather than defensiveness and, um, so that we feel like we have to protect ourselves Mm-Hmm. We we're actually able to put into we are, we're actually able to achieve the things that I think those of us who choose to work with children want to achieve, which is, you know, long term healthy development. Yeah. Okay. Then we need to rethink some of our traditional things like a focus on behavior and a focus on behavior management. And if that, if that prompts even uncomfortable conversations, I'm okay with that because I think we need to have those Yeah. We have a lot more science that we did not always have. Yes. Which help us to rethink some of that. And it, I think it, everybody deserves to have this information and take part in these conversations. Yes. Yeah. It's true. And I think sometimes, I mean, you tell me if, uh, you think different that schools, for some people it's about having that control or something they can use that they know, um, we'll get them those quick results. But I think a lot of it's about building relationships with those children, which takes longer. And it's about, like you're saying those kind of curious moments really kind of spending time. And I know in the discussions there was a lot of people that were saying that there's not time in that school day for those quality interactions and for that quality time. Okay. Can I, can I, I'm just gonna say more things that I hope help us to be curious and that are can be slightly uncomfortable. Yes. If, if you think there's, if you think that there's not time for relationships for connection Mm-Hmm. If you think that you need to get on with your lesson instead of thinking about your greeting of children at the classroom door Mm-Hmm. Then you are ignoring the biological needs that children Mm-Hmm. And human beings have for connection. Yes. So the story of my West Lithian schools with teddy bear policies Mm-Hmm. They have now had a real shift in the behavioral incidents that they were coping with. Yes. Yes. Because over time they have focused on shifting their culture. Yes. If, if, if we go for short term wins, you're only gonna achieve that with some of the children. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. And so if we want inclusive settings, we, we have to think more about this, whatever you wanna call it, the biological information, the connection information, the relationship information. And we need to help people feel confident enough about that so that they can have these more difficult conversations because some of this is pushing it sort of standard culture. Yes. And so, um, if I wanted to say something really strong mm-Hmm. And if that helps to give people something to push about, it's a fallacy to think that we can sacrifice the relational aspects of, you know, of children's ex, um, experience Yeah. And still have high attainment and all the other things that we want for them. Yes. We have to think at a deeper level and we have to find ways to stay these things that, that make us sit up and notice in new ways. Yes. Yeah. No, I, I completely agree. I think you're right on it there. Um, so there's loads and other comments coming in about kind of cultural oppose and leadership is key and leadership actually is really key. Like, I think, I think if anyone's going into school and give them this message and tell 'em what Suzanne's saying, I think tell all your leaders about what they're talking about tonight. But, but I think there's lots of brilliant comment coming through. Um, someone else was saying about, um, Brene Brown and about uh, the comment that she makes about thinking that maybe this is the best that they can do right now. And I know we were speaking about Brene Brown before, weren't we? We were. And that's, I'm so glad. Okay. I'm really glad that you've said that. 'cause I mentioned, um, the rupture and repair cycle when I was talking about tigers and the construction, and I always like to mention rupture and repair these days. Yes. Because I think it's the most important insight to come out of attachment work, and that is that it does not matter. Rupture does not matter as much as repair. Yes. Um, making up is always more important than messing up. And I think really understanding that there's a whole bit of science that can go, that comes with that Mm-Hmm. And I of course am just trying to give some of the key insights tonight. Yes. Um, and I have written about rupture repair. People can find that I've talked about that in other ways, so you can just google for it yourself. Mm-Hmm. That, um, that making up is always matters more than the messing up. So if you lose it with your children, if you have moments of difficulty, if you forget to be curious, if you shout at children, what matters most for long-term development and for the relationship is that you find a way to come back to repairing it. That you get back to a place of conversation. You might call that forgiveness. And that, that therefore that lets us feel relieved, that lets us relax. We do not have to feel perfect. One of the risks of this information is that makes us all more anxious and we're all already anxious enough. Yes. Parents today parent in really anxious, pressured environments. Mm-Hmm. The science tells us that getting back to repair is more important than any rupture. Yes. And if, if that, I think just lets us feel relieved and relaxed and we can stop worrying about being perfect and we can get back to a place of curiosity. Yes. Which, you know, which helps to open this kind of information up. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And there's a comment coming through here that actually sometimes the behavior policies and the things that are going on are often for the benefit of others, not for the child, which links with a lot of what you're Saying. Okay. So that's another scary idea, but let's explore it. Mm-Hmm. What, what if it's true that behavior management policies Mm-Hmm. Work better for the grownups than they do for the children. Yeah. Yeah. And they often, they often do. Yeah. So That's, if, if we can get curious about that Mm-Hmm. Then we don't have to feel defensive about that. Yes. And if we understand that people don't have to be intending to you, you know, it's not like you're setting out what, what is the, what could I do that would make things harder for children? Mm-Hmm. People set out intending to help Yes. To, to, to maintain or, you know, to do good things. And you can see me doing this with my being able to get curious about what could I be doing that intends to help that actually is creating more difficulty that is actually creating harm. Yes. If we can stay in that curious place Mm-Hmm. And not have to feel defensive and shame really. Mm-Hmm. Then, um, then we can make better use of this all this information. Yes. And so, so, so that's why things like the language and the things that we're talking about here, I think help to keep us in a curious place. Yeah, that's true. Um, there was a comment a little while back here by, um, Caroline, and she was saying about that older children can be quite dangerous and the links with the police and having to restrain. And, um, I know you've been doing some work with John who we're gonna be speaking to in the That's true. John Garen, and I know you, you've got something coming up before Christmas, but I dunno if you wanna touch on that a little bit. That's a great story. So, oh, it's Probably a new webinar In, in, um, so the Violence Reduction Unit, which is was originally part of Strat Clyde Police that John Carnahan and Karen McCluskey, uh, co-founded and were co-directors. And that started in 2004. And they approached the question of violence in a, in a new way and at the core of their message in dealing with, you know, with violence and Mm-Hmm. And that, um, and you might think of that as violent crime, but also violence more generally. So Yes. Um, uh, define violence broadly. Mm-Hmm. Um, they came to understand that relationships were at the heart of that connection was at the heart of that Mm-Hmm. And so that if you were going to try to tackle violence, you needed to do that through a relational lens. Yes. And they talk a lot about babies. Mm-Hmm. And originally they got given a hard time, but you're talking about violence and we should lock up bad people. Why are you talking about babies? And it's because they came to understand that connection shapes the way that you develop Mm-Hmm. And that violence is preventable. Yes. And that if we began to think of it as a public health problem rather than a criminal justice problem, yes. We could have new solutions. Yes. And, and, and, and therefore we would have new outcomes as well. But it takes courage to change the way that you think about a problem. So we, if we think of violence as about bad people, then it limits the way that you can think about and the kind of solutions that you can have. So that's another story of great courage Yes. About how they changed the way that not only that they approached problems, but the way that they helped other people to approach that, those problems in new ways as well. So hearing those stories inspires and gives other people confidence to lead in new ways. Yes. Yeah. That's good. That's really interesting. Suzanne. Um, I'm just thinking we're probably coming not far off the end of time, so if anybody's got any really kind of burning questions that they'd like to ask, while we've got Suzanne here, is there anything that you would like to know? I can see lots of people are typing there, Suzanne, are they? Well, we've been, yeah. We've been getting some brilliant comments through like some really interesting stuff. There was lots of talk around, um, like when we were talking about the contact and the cuddles, um Yep. Talking About males in school, um Yep. Yeah. And how that's balanced Ab Absolutely. Whenever I talk about the importance of cuddles and open up that conversation, yes. It's an extra, um, it's an extra difficult question for men in schools and for men in, in early years settings. Yes. Um, but if, if we're not opening up these topics Yes. These uncomfortable topics, then, then we, you know, then we can't tackle these things. So if we want more men in early years Mm-Hmm. Not, we don't need to just talk only about the need for cuddles, we also need to talk about what it is like for men to cuddle. Yes. Yes. Because we're scared we have got ourselves to a place where we're scared for men to cuddle children. Yes. What if we can't talk about that? We can't talk, we can't tackle it. Yeah. It's true. I used to, um, I had a school that we worked with a little while ago and there was a, a guy there who was, in early years, he was the lead there and he was doing his thesis on rough and tumble play, and he'd filled a room with kind of soft play and big pillows and cushions and stuff, and they just used to go in there and rough and tumble and be physical and Yeah. And it was lovely. Like there was a lot of girls in there too that would just go in and just kind of tackle and wrestle and that contact. And it was a really lovely thing to see them do that The, an awful lot of these issues are really woven together. Mm-Hmm. And, and they're nested. And so I just think the more that we can ask difficult questions, the more that it will pull strands so that we can Yes. Address some other difficult questions and Mm-Hmm. I'm, I am really happy if the way that I have expressed things tonight actually creates some discussion. Everybody does not have to agree with me. Yes. What I do think is that we need to, you don't have to agree with me, but you do need to know what you think. Yes. And you need to be able to have conversations about this. Yes. And you need to be able to link that to the science that we now have. That absolutely. Is we need connections, we need relationships. Mm-Hmm. In order for human beings to, to grow up in ways that are emotionally healthy. Yes. And if that insight is not at the center of our policies, then we need to figure out what we need to do in order to put it there. Yes. Because without that, we're not achieving what we want in our systems. That's true. Um, as a question here from, uh, Marie, would you change schooling? And if so, how Would I change schooling? Yes. And if so, how? I would put relationships at the heart of every single policy. At the heart of every single practice. I would read everything through a relational lens, which is about attachment, and therefore helps us to think about the biological state that Yes. You know, that is, that is being engendered by your doorway, by the colors of your walls, by the way teachers speak, by how stressed teachers are. Mm-Hmm. By all of that, I would think about relationships and how that shifting a biological state, and I would, I would put that at this center. Everything. I would put that to the center of every government policy. Of every local government policy. Yes. What, what would, what would a relationally led rubbish collection policy look like? And it sounds, it sounds daft except what would it look like? Mm-Hmm. If we put relationships at the center of everything we were doing as a society and we thought about the needs of our, of our young, uh, babies, it would benefit everybody. And we would start to solve some of our social problems really quite quickly. Yeah. Yes. But that is not how we do policy at the moment. And I'm doing my best to try to find ways to help us to get closer to that. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. I know my, um, my friend's daughter recently started university and I met her at the weekend and she was saying that it shocked her the amount of, like children, I say children, but people her age, sort of like 1920 that had mental health problems. She said the amount of people in university that are with me, that sit in their room on their own at night, that don't come out, that have mental health issues, that have depression, that are taking antidepressants. And I think what you're saying there about putting relationships at the core of everything, that's what's gonna make a difference, like long term. Yes. Kate. And we often think of those mental health problems as we, we we might tackle them in the moment that they happen. Yes. In other words, we, we know that mental health problems are going up, especially in adolescent. So we start t tackling that in adolescence. Yeah. No, earlier, I want us to think about it in a developmental sense. Yes. So I want us to think about, okay, what what was happening earlier in life all the way down to babyhood. Yes. And then I want us to develop policies, um, you know, tax spend. Yes. The way we build buildings. Yes. Understanding that the experiences that children have in their baby years Yes. And their early childhood is going shape the biological platform, if you want that word, on which later development will come. We do not take baby seriously enough. We don't take the need for supporting parents seriously enough. We don't take seriously Yes. What happens, uh, in communities that allows parents to feel supported. And out of that comes some controversial discussions. The funding of early years. Yes. Yes. Of the removal of family, um, family support centers. We would not be doing that if we truly understood how important babies were, babies experiences were. Yes. And how we will pay prices later in life. Yes. When we don't pay attention to that. So as, yeah. As money is removed from early intervention and that has been happening over the last Mm-hmm. Years here in Britain. It's why it's interesting to think about the, the folks from other countries that are here tonight, um, listening to this because they may have other experiences in their countries. We are going to pay the price for years and decades to come of the shift in that policy, which if I use strong language that makes that policy dumb because we will pay prices for that. Yes. And sometimes people have said to me, dumb Suzanne, you don't mean you don't mean dumb, do you? Because that doesn't sound very sophisticated. Don't you mean it's unwise? And I say, no, I'm dumb. 'cause we've got enough science to tell us that we should not be doing that. Yes. So the question becomes why are we doing that? Are we not curious enough? Do people not know the science? Is the leadership not strong enough? What is it that keeps us, do we not care enough? Yes. What is the real problem that keeps us from doing that? And let's tackle that problem and that will serve our children and ourself. Yeah. I was at a conference the other day, um, Suzanne and someone in the audience the tea, the person at the front was talking about this early years and why it's so important. And someone in the audience put their hand up and said, is there any research that we can do that would help us to find out more about this? And the speaker was like, we've got enough research. Yes, we've got, we've got research coming outta our ears. We just need to crack on and do stuff about it. That's why I wanted Kate. That's, we've, I could talk, you know, I could talk for weeks Yeah. About the research we have, but not everybody may not know about that research. Mm-Hmm. So if part of it is knowing about the research so that it gives people confidence to act on it. Yes. Okay. Let's tell people more about the research. Yes. And there's lots of people talking about that. I can see names like, you know, Bruce Perry, GABA mate, and lots of others coming up in the comments. Okay. Yes. But I don't think that is just the problem. Mm-Hmm. I think it's things like, we're not curious enough. Mm-Hmm. We're, we're, we're too busy to be able to think in the moment. Mm-Hmm. It means reflecting on uncomfortable things like Yes. The way I raised my children and I didn't know that. Or the way that I have practice as a health visitor or midwife or teacher Mm-Hmm. For the last 10 years or 20 years. Yes. And having to stop and rethink and forgive ourselves for what we didn't know. That's why I like telling the stories of other organizations. Yes. Um, the, the director of Lullaby, lane Nursery Mm-Hmm. If you were in the room with her, that's Pauline Scott. She would tell you she didn't used to know this. Yes. She would tell you that if she had known all of this, she would've parented differently. Yes. So if we could hear the stories of the organizations, the leaders, the parents Yes. Who are, who can tell the stories of that they didn't always know it. Yes. It gives other people permission. Not always to have known this. You only know what you know. Yes. You can only work with what you've got. It doesn't work to beat yourself up. Brene Brown would say that as well. Yes. So how do we help people to get past defensiveness and shame Yes. So that they can get curious about what they didn't know about, what they are feeling, about what children are feeling, about what other people on the street are feeling. Yes. How do we help to get to that place? Because that is part is that is part of what is keeping us from putting into place what we know. Yes. And then we need strong leadership. So we don't just need information about trauma or attachment or connection for all that. We need that science. We also need the leadership that helps us to put it into place. And that helps us to ask strong questions. Yes. And to do things that are countercultural and then to inspires other people to walk in those footsteps. Which is why I spend so much time telling the stories of organizations that have found ways to put this into place. Yeah. That's good. So I think we're probably coming to the end now, Suzanne, we've gone over so much to say tonight. We have that, that seems so sped by that hour. But I just wanted to say a massive, massive thank you for spending your time with us this evening and giving out so many key messages and a big thank you to everyone who came out in the week before Christmas. Absolutely. Yeah. Spend your evening with us. But yeah, Kate, big thank You. This, I want to say this would not happen, I've said on Twitter, but I wanna say here, thi this would not happen if you did not make this available free to the public. Mm-Hmm. You put investment in this for other people's benefit. Mm-Hmm. And that's a clear form of kindness that will ripple and ripple. And so I just want to say thank you, thank you for the opportunity to do this, but especially helping other people to know that you pay yourselves to make this possible. Mm-Hmm. And therefore you're really invested in finding ways to help people to get this. So thank you and Merry Christmas. Yeah. Merry Christmas everybody. So yeah. Right. Goodbye. Thank You. Everyone have a great, have evening connected Christmas, Great connected Christmas. That sounds good. And all. Get in and sort your policies out.