The NottAlone Podcast
Real talk about mental health with Dr Orlaith Green and Dr Maddi Popoola
Series one, episode one: Real talk about young people’s mental health.
Episode description
Join hosts Dr. Orlaith Green and Dr. Maddi Popoola, co-founders of NottAlone, as they open up honest conversations about mental health and wellbeing on The NottAlone Podcast.
In this episode, we’re talking about young people’s mental health. Find out what you need to know about the mental health challenges facing young people today, how to have an effective conversation about mental health and what makes the biggest difference when a young person is struggling.
Transcript of episode
Music: Whatever you’re going through, I hope you know you are not alone…
Maddi: Ey up! Welcome to the NottAlone podcast. I’m Maddi.
Orlaith: And I’m Orlaith.
Maddi: We are the co-founders of NottAlone. We’re both also educational psychologists and we’re both parents. We are so thrilled that you’ve clicked onto this podcast to join us as we delve into all things mental health and wellbeing.
Orlaith: Let’s face it, we all encounter challenges and tough times in our lives. So, we want to talk about these experiences in the hope it helps others and reminds you it’s okay to not be okay. No matter what you’re going through, you are not alone.
Maddi: We will be having real conversations about mental health. Some topics will be challenging and may be upsetting, so please do listen with care.
Maddi: So, Orlaith, first podcast for NottAlone, The NottAlone Podcast.
Orlaith: Here we are. It’s really exciting, isn’t it?
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: This is one of these things, Maddi, where you said, I’ve got a mad idea, and I said, yes, I’ll do it, whatever it is.
Maddi: Sorry about that. It’s great. It’s going to be great. I’m really excited to be able to just share all things NottAlone, with listeners and to, for me, it’s about, it’s about sharing experiences, you know, having people on that have got lived experience of mental health and, just to make sure that listeners out there feel like they are not alone. That is the key message. Yeah. So, who’d have thought we’d be here doing a podcast?
Orlaith: Yeah, I was thinking about that today on the way. What you, what’s your best hope for this podcast?
Maddi: I guess to reach as many people in, in Nottingham, as we possibly can.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: With the message. And beyond that, you know, it’s not just about Nottingham. I mean, NottAlone is a resource for people in Nottingham, but I think the messaging for this can go far and wide, can’t it?
Orlaith: Yeah. And that idea of not, feeling like you’re not alone is really important. I think it sounds really simple, but I heard a guy talking on, social media recently and he was saying people say around mental health struggles, just reach out, just talk to someone like it’s nothing. It’s a really big thing, isn’t it? It’s really hard to, like, reach out and make that first contact. And so hopefully the website NottAlone is a place where people can go in the first instance. Do you know what I mean? There’s information.
Maddi: Yeah. It’s a bit easier to reach out to something online than a person as well, I think, sometimes. But, yeah, I guess when we started NottAlone as well. It was very much about… So, we’re, we’re obviously psychologists and we work with children, so it was about, how we can create a resource for children and young people. It’s obviously developed now into something, that’s much bigger than that because it’s for all ages. But thinking specifically about the topic of children’s mental health, It’s. It’s, last 10 years, I guess. Don’t you think it’s become something that we talk about more and more?
Orlaith: Definitely, definitely. I think there’s a lot more awareness of what mental health is. There are more people talking about it, which is good, right?
Maddi: Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I was. And I say when I were a lass! When I was younger, we just didn’t really. We didn’t really think about it or talk about it, you know, like, it wasn’t something that. I don’t think growing up, I would have ever heard words like anxiety or depression or any of those kinds of key terms that we use and hear quite widely now. And I think there’s, there’s kind of an idea always in my mind of like, is, this something that’s always kind of been a challenge, but we just talk about it more now, we’re just more open about it. Yeah, we, you know, we encourage children more to talk about.
Orlaith: Yeah. And I think, the modern world, you know, with globalisation, with the online world, young people are exposed to content that they wouldn’t have been exposed to much earlier, at a much earlier age, in terms of videos, things they listen to, things that they talk about with each other. And a lot of that is creating a sense of pressure for children, isn’t it? You know, there’s reasons why some content, some ideas, we try to protect our kids from them, we try to sort of keep them safe and wrap them up in cotton wool, because there’s really hard stuff in the world. And so, for me, some of it is about exposure to serious adult issues at too early an age.
Maddi: Definitely. I, it’s funny, I was thinking about this the other day because, I’m sure many of the listeners would have watched Adolescence by now. As a parent, it’s just absolutely terrifying, isn’t it, to watch? But one of the things that it really brought up into my mind is the absolute fundamental difference of being a young person now to what it was like being a young person when we were younger. Right? So, we’re both parents, we’re both, of an age. So, we grew up in an era where, you know, my first mobile phone was the 6210 and we played Snake on it and you know, that was it. I remember when I was about, I think I was about 15 and my parents went on holiday or something, I can’t remember, and it was like the first time I’d like been left by myself. But as a result, I think to make them feel a bit better about going away without me, they gave me this huge brick mobile phone.
Orlaith: You need two hands to hold it.
Maddi: Exactly. But that was my first experience of having a way of kind of texting or like communicating and if you think about just the difference now in terms of exposure, so we’ve had a tech technology revolution I guess, and the exposure to more grown-up things. And I always wonder, and I don’t know what the research is around this, but I always wonder. You think about the developing brain and from child, you know, from literally from infancy because you know, you and I have both got three-year-olds as well. Yep. Is he three now?
Orlaith: He’s two.
Maddi: he’s two. Little people! But you’ll notice when they get on a screen they can, they can zoom in, can’t they? And they can zoom out. They know automatically what to do. How? Well, it’s because they’ve seen us do it, haven’t they? Children learn from copying, you know, from, from their adults. So, if you think about the developing brain, particularly when we get to adolescence and the impact that some of that content can have on the biological makeup of somebody’s growth, it’s, it’s insane. And I did read somewhere about the average age of a girl starting menstruation, being younger now because of the exposure to the adult world.
Orlaith: So that idea of like nature, nurture. Yeah. Both have an impact on each other. So, the social interaction, the social world actually having a biological impact, on teenage girls.
Maddi: Yeah. And I think what I, what I’m finding hard at the minute, having a 13-year-old myself, right. Is how do we as adults start to understand that world? How do we understand it? How do we understand the impact of that on mental health and psychology of growth? Because we never experienced that. And the generational divide I think has never been as big.
Orlaith: Yeah. And I think one of the biggest things is, sounds so simple but so powerful, listen to our kids. Like truly listen. Ask them what it’s like. Ask them what’s going on. And I think because they have a social life now on social media that as, as a parent you, you don’t know. You know, like we used to do things that our parents didn’t know what we were doing.
Maddi: Me? Never!
Orlaith: You’d be out and about, right? You’d be somewhere, you know, if, if someone, if someone walked along and saw a group of teenagers drinking, they’d see the behaviour, but so much.
Maddi: They wouldn’t record it though.
Orlaith: Exactly. But so much of it now is like on, you know, WhatsApp groups, online. You don’t know what’s happening. Some of our kids don’t know who they’re talking to, if they’re talking to, people on games or online. You know, there’s loads of scary stuff. But. We want to get to a place where at least they’ll tell us what’s happening. You know what I mean?
Maddi: It’s so true. I was, again, I think it was something on the back of, news feeds around, you know, Adolescence. But I was, again, I was reading online. There’s never been a more important time to not leave your teenager alone. And when I say not leave them alone, I mean it’s when your kids reach a certain age, right, you start to think they need you less because they don’t need you in the way that your little person needs you anymore. And it’s a weird feeling as an adult because you start to think, oh, like, I can go to the shop and I don’t have to have anyone to look after them, you know, like they could do alright by themselves, you know.
And then they start secondary school, and they go out to secondary school and, well, they’re getting there and back by themselves. So then when they ask if they can just go out in the evening to like, wherever, you can’t really say no because, well, if you’re allowed to go to school, you know, so it’s all those things where you feel like that line between yourself and your child is just growing and growing and growing and you – there’s a bidirectional relationship because you start to feel as a parent, like, well, they don’t need me. So, you back off. And they’re telling you to back off too. That’s the other part of it. They’re telling you they don’t need you anymore because they’re going through this developmental stage where that’s how they feel. But there’s never been, I don’t think, a more important time to, to know and to listen.
Orlaith: Like properly listen, really.
Maddi: Yeah, exactly.
Orlaith: Those basic psychological skills that we’ve learned around sitting with them, looking at them. But interestingly we know that from lots of children, from lots of research. Talking with children, sometimes trying to look at them stops the conversation.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: So, it’s those ways of starting conversation but without necessarily making eye contact. So, like go for a drive in the car, go for a walk, sitting beside each other on the bed and looking at something or like cooking together. And it’s. So, I think lots of parents worry about like asking the wrong question, saying the wrong thing, not knowing what to say. If a child says, you know, you know, my friend has been self-harming, what do I do? You know, parents and lots of staff in school as well have a panic, don’t they? What if I say the wrong thing?
Maddi: It’s big. Self-harming is a word.
Orlaith: Absolutely. But I think the thing you should all, the only thing you should worry about is how to start the conversation because you know, there’s some new things happening. You know, things like self-harm increasing in teenage girls for example. That’s a new trend socially. But the thing about talking and listening and connecting with teenagers, that’s not new. And every parent knows how to do that. You know, it’s: an instinct, isn’t it?
So, it’s, I think one of the things that we want to get across in NottAlone is just that idea of connecting, isn’t it? Having a conversation. And we’ve loads of advice on the website, don’t we, about starting conversations, how to get started. And then most of the time you can follow your instinct. I think then at the other end of the conversation, that’s where NottAlone comes in. If you do get stuck and you don’t know what to say or you don’t know what help
Maddi: where to go to get help.
Orlaith: you go to the website, and you’ve got there videos, information and signposting to local services who we’re hopefully going to have on the podcast.
Maddi: Yeah. What would you say to. So, I think one thing that a lot of people listening might, might say is that my teen rejects me. So, you know, you try and start the conversation, you try to ask the question, you try to kind of find out, you know, where they’re at, how they’re feeling, but they’re continually rejected.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: Because that’s what teens do. Like not all of them, not all of them. But you know, it’s, it’s a typical, I think, I don’t know, something biological where a teen, they kind of just like, they just want to be left alone, just leave me alone, just get out my personal space. You know, like, especially to their parents. Like, what, how, how do you deal with that as a parent, do you think?
Orlaith: Good one. I would say be persistent. So just keep going, keep trying and don’t push it too far each time, do you know what I mean? And. And get some. So, psychologists, we have scripts all the time, don’t we? Little sentences to get conversations started, or little sentences to respond to children’s behaviour rather than what they’re saying. So, things like, I can see that you don’t want to talk about this today, I’ll ask you again tomorrow. You know what I mean? So that you are backing off, but at the same time you’re saying to them, I’m here for you, I’m showing up for you. And then as well, I would say, I can see that you don’t want to talk. Let’s. Let’s just watch telly, do you know what I mean? So that you’re still with them. And I would say as well, and this is one of the things I remember the most from our training. Stick with the silence.
Don’t try to fill the silence, right? So, you ask the question, the silence, wait, and then wait some more, and then wait even more. And that’s when you get the nuggets, isn’t it? You know, you’ll know from working as a psychologist, it’s giving people that space, isn’t it? And teenagers need even more of it, I think. What do you think?
Maddi: They need a lot more processing time; I would say all of those things. And the key thing is, as a parent, you see. So, as you’ll know this as well, you have your own little person. But, when you’re a parent and you’re thinking about all these psychological techniques and tips, the minute you are triggered emotionally, it all goes out the window. And I think for me, one of the key things is that persistence and not, trying your best to not be triggered yourself.
So, remaining emotionally regulated as a parent, I think what we tend to do is ask the question, get the rejection. ask the question again. Get the rejection. Ask the question. You know, we go up this, right? And then, right, if you don’t show me your phone now, you’re grounded. You know, like, we go to that place, don’t we? We go to the point, we go to punishment, and then,
Orlaith: you match the energy.
Maddi: You’re matching the rejection energy. So, I think the, the key thing is to try to do exactly as you said, to, to you know, okay, I can see you’re not ready to talk about this now, but we’ll, you know, we’ll try. We’ll ask you again tomorrow. Or, do you know what, as you were talking then, Orlaith, I was thinking, actually, I was. I was a difficult teenager. And what really, really matters in the end, when I look back, is not my parents getting it right every time.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: It’s not that.
Orlaith: You knew they were there for you.
Maddi: They were there.
Orlaith: That was the thing, isn’t it?
Maddi: And they love me.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: And that’s what matters.
Orlaith: Absolutely. And there’s a piece of research where they looked at all different types of talking therapy for kids and they, analysed what is it that actually works. And the kids didn’t remember what the adult did or the techniques they used or the questions they asked. They just felt like they were really listened to, like genuinely that the adult was there for them. They had their back, they wanted to know what they had to say. It felt like what they were saying was important. and that is the thing, that connection is the thing that makes the difference, and it makes you feel like you’re not alone.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: And that is the lightbulb moment for kids, isn’t it? Because usually when you’re getting that rejection, you know, maybe swearing and “get away”, it’s usually a deep-down sort of shame response or a fear response, isn’t it? That there’s something going on and you’re really embarrassed or you’re really worried and you know it’s bad, but you don’t know if you can talk about it. And that’s kind of the most worrying place for our kids to be in.
But also, it’s where it’s some of those things like that rejection, it’s actually showing you that they do want to talk about it, they do want help, they do know something’s wrong. Because if they were, you know, cracking on with life, you know, doing risky things and they thought it was fine, they’d probably be more open about it, wouldn’t they? You know, as soon as they are thinking it’s something that needs to be hidden or it’s something that. I don’t know if I can talk to my mum or dad about it, or my carer, it’s, there’s something in there.
Maddi: It’s an acknowledgement that it’s not feeling okay.
Orlaith: It’s not feeling okay. Exactly. And I think, for. I think give our kids credit as well, I would say that’s another big thing, you know, how they can help each other. And that was one of the things we wanted to build into NottAlone, wasn’t it? Because sometimes they’ll talk to their friend before they’ll talk to us. Right.
Maddi: I would always have spoken to my friend before, and adult as a kid, always.
Orlaith: And those are some of the questions, aren’t they? What would you, what would you tell your friend about this? You know, if your friend had the same problem, what advice would you give them? That’s sometimes a nice way in to start the conversation as well, isn’t it?
Maddi: Yeah, I wonder, sometimes I do wonder as well about, about the fact that we do talk more about mental health now. And I still, I still think, I don’t know if it’s. Again, I don’t know if it’s generational, but I think certainly our generation, right? So, I still think there is some stigma there around mental health.
Orlaith: Definitely. Yeah.
Maddi: I think it’s getting, I think it’s getting better for young people now because I think they’re more likely to talk about, talk about their mental health. What do you think about, the kind of labelling culture around mental health? When do you know, like if, if someone says, I suffer with anxiety or I have anxiety, for example, Because I know that this is something that, as a psychologist, for me. Of course you do. We all have anxiety, right? We know, we know this. But I think there are, there is a trend, isn’t there, around, around now, people saying I have anxiety and kind of almost like labelling themselves based on very, very normal experiences and feelings or a normal response to a very challenging situation.
Orlaith: Yeah
Maddie: Yeah, I guess, I guess. What do you think around, around that culture of talking more about mental health?
Orlaith: I think whenever someone says I have a label or I am a label, so I have anxiety, I am autistic, I have ADHD, you know, I self-harm, whatever it is. I think that the next question needs to be what does that mean for you and what help do you need? Because any conversation where it’s, I have a label full stop, it doesn’t help anyone, does it? And actually, it also closes off, help to people who maybe don’t have the label. So, what does it mean to you and what help do you need? I think there’s some sort of, listening to the person in there, which again is the thing that makes a difference, right?
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: And so, if you talk to someone and say I’ve got anxiety, what does that mean to you? And you talk to a teenager, let’s say it means that when I’m in the classroom, I feel really worried, and I think everybody’s talking about me. And you can talk, you can talk about that then. And then you can ask, what help do you need? And it might be, I need to sit at the back of the classroom so I can see everyone, so I’m not worrying about what’s happening to me.
That’s a practical thing that you can change. If you’re a teacher, you can do something about it. If it’s a conversation, I have anxiety, full stop. Potentially it’s hopeless. There’s nothing you can do.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: Don’t put any demands on me, don’t ask me any questions. But then how do they learn? And I think it goes back to the thing we said as well about a child talking to you and telling you what’s wrong. We can’t fix everything for them in the moment because we won’t be with them all the time. But we need to give them the skills to say, to be in a situation and say, this is not okay. I feel anxious, let’s say I’ve got some ideas I can try and then if I can’t figure out how to manage it, I know where to go to for help. That is really the best we can hope for, isn’t it?
Maddi: Yeah. So, I guess if you’re a parent or a teacher or any professional working with a young person who, Because I guess there’s, there’s, there’s something about. I have anxiety. And like you say what, what that means to a person. Because we all have anxiety, don’t we? We all. That’s a very, you know, caveman natural instinct that we have all got as humans in order to, for us to survive.
Orlaith: And in some situations, it’s helpful.
Maddie: Helpful.
Orlaith: You’re getting chased by a bear.
Maddi: You should be anxious. Leg it!
Orlaith: You need the adrenaline. You need to leg it.
Maddi: Get out of there. Yeah.
Orlaith: Exactly. If you’ve got a deadline and you’ bit anxious, you’ll work, you’ll be focused, you’ll work harder.
Maddi: Yeah. And in situations like you know, one-off stressful situations like job interviews or like if you’re a young person, for example, exams, if you’re about to sit an exam, that anxiety and the rush of cortisol, etc. Actually, some of those hormones are meant to help your brain focus, right? So, a lot of it is purposeful. I guess when we’re thinking about, about that in a more kind of more frequent, more intense way with anxiety or something like depression, when you know, it’s, it’s something that affects your everyday life.
And it’s something that is intense enough to mean that you’re not doing activities that you would want to do and enjoy. I guess that’s the difference, isn’t it, between, you know, someone having anxiety around normal situations and then someone perhaps, that kind of impacting on their life. One of the things that, I know, I know yourselves, in your services as well, is a real challenge for us all at the moment is anxiety around school, isn’t it? Yes.
Orlaith: Yes, about school, going to school. Called various things, isn’t it? Anxiety related non-attendance,
Maddi: EBSA, ARNA,
Orlaith: EBSA, Emotionally Based School Avoidance, all these acronyms. But it’s basically feeling so worried about school that you can’t even bring yourself to go.
Maddi: Yeah. And I guess if there’s any parents out there struggling with. We have a child who’s highly anxious around school, and it’s multifaceted. I think we may not have time in this, in this show to cover everything, but I think we could.
Orlaith: We could talk about that one in one of our episodes.
Maddi: I think so.
Orlaith: It’s something parents have asked us about, isn’t it?
Maddi: Yeah. Yeah.
Orlaith: Thinking about children’s mental health, you know, what’s happening now and what can help. It always brings me back to the psychology of resilience.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: And the idea of taking risks in a safe environment, getting through the risk and the challenge and then bouncing back. And I think we need to really think about that in how we support our young people in terms of their growing up, developing their resilience. So, there’s this idea that resilience is something that you’re born with. But I think one thing I’d really like to raise awareness of is that resilience is a process. You can’t actually develop resilience without adversity, without the risk. And it’s the process of facing the challenge and learning from it and bouncing back.
And I’m sure that you have met people, you’ve met kids, you know in your work and in your life, who’ve been through really tough times and they’re so impressive and resilient, aren’t they? They come to school; they’re smiling. And actually, for some people, when they’ve been through that cycle of face a challenge, bounce back, it makes them more resilient for the next one. But there’s something, I think, with our kids, you know, reminding ourselves that they need to take risks.
And I think in this modern day, when there’s. There’s so much of their day to day, which is not tangible. It’s all online, you know what I mean? There’s not. They don’t have as much stuff anymore. They don’t spend as much time outside in the mud and making things. And so, there’s something about that, isn’t there, pushing them outside their comfort zone. Get messy, make mistakes, do something scary, go to somewhere where you don’t know people, get on a bus to a new place, but do it within a safe conversation. You know, I’ll go with you, or we’ll talk about it later or, what are you worried about?
I think a lot of parents have that protective instinct. You’re worried. So, let’s take school for an example. You’re worried about school. Oh, you don’t have to go. Because they don’t want to stress them. It comes from a good place. But what it does is it takes away the chance to face the challenge and to learn from it. So, I think that is part of the discussion and in all of our services on NottAlone, the things they do is they get children out there, don’t they? They run groups; they get them doing new things. And that kind of brings us on to NottAlone Live, which are the events where we try and we do that in the events, don’t we? Shall we talk a bit about them and how we want to like, raise awareness and what those events are about?
Maddi: Yeah. So, I mean after we developed the website, I guess it was another one of my brilliant ideas where we –
Orlaith: Are you noticing a trend, listeners? She’s the ideas woman.
Maddi: Where I guess we wanted to bring the website to life, you know, and we wanted to again, like, I think, so I was thinking about so many things when you were just, when you were talking just then. And one of the things that is really important in that, I think, is this idea of facing adversity and challenge. Right. So again, if you think the difference, the key, one of the key differences to growing up now is to growing up as to when we were growing up is that, so like when my daughter goes out, right, I’m. I text like every half an hour. I track her phone. I used to go out for hours, yeah. And I’d be back before the streetlights went on. And that was it, you know, that was it.
Orlaith: I couldn’t contact you.
Maddi: There was no way to contact me. And I, I think now, God, like, how did my parents cope with that? You know, like, not knowing. But they did and they had to because it was a very, very different world. And I think, I think because we, we know more about dangers now, we’re a lot more aware of different things that children could potentially experience and go through when they are not next to us and close to us. And that includes going to school. I have to say that as well, because school, isn’t a nice place for a lot of kids right now. and I think it’s important to acknowledge that. However, if you don’t allow your children that space to make mistakes, I nearly swore then, producers would tell us off!
Orlaith: Not like you, Maddi!
Maddi: I’d be in big trouble. would have to have a beep button. But, if we don’t allow them that space to make mistakes, to get it wrong, how are we. How are we ever going to teach them how to bounce back and be resilient? and, yeah, so NottAlone Live is very much about what in the community in Nottingham can our kids go out and access? What groups have we got? You know, like, what the local offer is in terms of, I don’t know, there was all sorts.
There’s all sort there isn’t there, dance workshops, there’s football, there’s DJing and crafts, all the different kind of things that kids can go out. The local youth clubs, the local libraries, local youth groups. So, all the things that can go out, they can access and meet new people, go and be, you know, somebody that they perhaps can’t be when they’re at school. You know, like drama groups, all those kinds of different things that they can access. And I know that for a lot of kids that’s a bit, a lot of it will be a bit of an eye roll, like, a bit lame going along and having to be with adults and all that kind of. But you know what?
As if you think about it, now when you look back on being a kid, like my dad always used to say, it’s character building. Everything is character building. He used to send me off to these things. Like, he made me play the flute for years and I hated it. but he made, you know, he made me go, know, I’d come back every time like, I hate it there. I don’t want to go. Like, I hate my teacher, you know. But he’s like, you committed to this and you’re going to go back, And I did. And it was character building because I had to go every week and do something I don’t really want to do.
Orlaith: Exactly.
Maddi: But I became. I became really resilient to those feelings of not wanting to do it. And, you know, it’s okay. It’s okay if your child is going to do something that their props don’t like or like school, for example. Building the resilience to that is very, very important.
Orlaith: Definitely. And I guess one of the things to teach kids is that when you find the thing that is your thing.
Maddi: It’s so important.
Orlaith: You don’t care if who’s there, adults, friends or whatever like you, let’s say you love making rap music. If you find the place where you can do that, you don’t care who’s there. You just get lost in it, don’t you?
Maddi: Yeah, completely.
Orlaith: And actually, you see, you know, they NottAlone Live events that we run where all of those young people from across the city and the county come together, you can see them light up, can’t you? You know, someone’s like, I’ve been in a craft session. Look what I made. They don’t care that they’re talking to you, and they never met you before. You just. They get that confidence as a sort of a, distraction because they just love the thing they’re doing.
And I think there’s another idea there about that you’re not alone thing, because even if you have a medical, mental health disorder, condition, whatever language you want to use, you don’t always need only therapy or you don’t always need only medication. And I’m not saying that those things aren’t helpful, and for some people they’re essential. But there’s so much other stuff, isn’t there? And that’s the thing around NottAlone. There’s the people in your life and, there’s the things you do in your life and the things that you enjoy, they all help your mental health as well.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: And I think particularly in the current age where there’s a lot of pressure on services like CAMHS, educational psychology services, mental health services, parents will know about waiting lists, schools will know about not being able to get the right support. But there’s loads that we can do in talking and listening to young people. And also, through all these activities, things that you can do without even talking. I think that’s the great thing about doing things with your hands, singing, climbing. If you don’t want to talk or you’re not ready to talk, you can sort of get your emotions out through some of these activities, can’t you?
Maddi: Yeah, I think ultimately as well. So, when you think about, again, the idea of resilience and, and children who perhaps have been through quite, quite severe adversity in life, you know, children perhaps have gone through the care system or, you know, have perhaps had parents dying, etc. It’s like really, really, really challenging circumstances. When you talk to people who have been through that, there are two things that, they. There are two things that they’ll identify as being things that saved them. The first thing is a person.
Orlaith: Yes.
Maddi: A key person. Like, oh, well, you know, that. That person made me feel like I was worth something. And it doesn’t have to be a therapist. It doesn’t have to be. It’s just a person, isn’t it?
Orlaith: And sometimes they can’t even remember the person’s name.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: They can just remember how they made them feel.
Maddi: How they made them feel. Exactly. And the second thing is finding their thing. So, I read a book once, I can’t remember who it was by, what it was called, but it was, it’s a guy who was a boxer and again, you know, been through the care system, been through a world of abuse, but found a boxing club outside of his kind of life in school and whatever, and a boxing trainer. So, there’s a trainer who was the person, but then there was boxing, which was his thing. And I think for young people who are often really struggling, as you said, like, you know, people who are finding just daily life very, very challenging, they often don’t have a thing.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: You know?
Orlaith: Exactly. Something about it belongs to you.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: You do it just because you like it, you’re good at it.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: Or even you don’t even have to be good at it. You just enjoy spending your time doing that thing because it brings you peace, it brings you excitement, maybe.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: And then often it’s the way into friendships and new relationships and going out for people who are quite closed off or feel anxious.
Maddi: Yeah. And I think, you know, we talk a lot, don’t we, in. In psychology, about motivation.
Orlaith: Yes.
Maddi: So, three key determinants to that. So, the idea of competence, being good at something.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: Relatedness, having people around you, good people around you. And then this idea of autonomy. So having choice. Having choice in your life. And actually, I think that when you are a child and young person, particularly as you kind of transition into your adolescence, those three things don’t come in abundance.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: And the reason for that is because, there’s very little autonomy in their lives. Right. They don’t really get to choose that much about what’s happening to them.
Orlaith: Because they’re kids.
Maddie: They’re prescribed to quite a lot, aren’t they? We prescribe to them. Parents don’t give them much autonomy. You know, they don’t. I think we had a lot more autonomy when we were kids. And choice, relatedness, you know, when you think about relationships, a lot of that is digital now.
Orlaith: Yeah. Relationships are so different now than they were when we were growing up. But there’s also, I think, a risk that we, because we didn’t grow up in that type of relationship world where things are digital, we don’t understand it as well. There’s a risk that our generation can think that everything about it is negative, but there’s actually loads of positives there, isn’t there?
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: So, if you take, for example, children who are too anxious to go to school, they can stay connected, they can still talk to their friends on social media. And, you know, in the past you couldn’t have done that if you didn’t have a phone. And there’s also, if you live in a place where no one is interested, let’s say, in anime, you can go online and you can find loads of people who make videos about anime, who talk about it. Do you know what I mean?
Maddi: Yeah. And I guess, the pandemic taught us that, right?
Orlaith: Definitely.
Maddi: It changed everything because we didn’t have much choice around social communication, did we? So, I think that changed the world a little bit as well. And we know, especially kids that are struggling to access school, that’s got much worse since the pandemic because there was kind of a little lesson there of like, well, I can connect and I can get those feelings and I can do that without actually being in a school building. So, I think, I think that’s probably been a trigger for, you know, a lot of people preferring that way.
Orlaith: Yes.
Maddi: Of socially communicating.
Orlaith: Loads of our, resources on NottAlone are digital, aren’t they?
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: So, there’s text services, there’s online counselling from some teams, there’s messaging boards and things like that, all of which are led by mental health professionals. They’re safe. You can know that your child is speaking or contacting a trusted professional. But for some kids, that is going to be better because they just might feel like it’s too much to go and see a therapist.
Maddi: Yeah. And I’ll be honest, it is. You know, it’s like you said about, especially for a certain age of young person sitting, the thought of sitting down, having a serious conversation about your feelings.
Orlaith: Yeah, that’s a lot. Absolutely.
Maddi: It’s a lot, you know, so I think, I think, yeah, absolutely. Using a digital platform for that.
Orlaith: So, shall we wrap up today and have a think about what is the impact of all of this. So, we’ve been talking today about just raising awareness of mental health needs.
Orlaith: Trying to get NottAlone out there. How to talk to kids, how to understand what’s going on. What do you think is the impact of it, the impact of our work? What difference does having this conversation make, do you know?
Maddi: It’s just. This is going to sound really cheesy, but it’s anyone who’s listening, parents, professionals, whoever you are, you’re not alone in this. Like we – I’m a child psychologist. I find it really hard sometimes to know what to do.
Orlaith: You find that people think, oh, you’re a psychologist, you must be a perfect parent.
Maddi: Exactly. Like when it comes to it.
Orlaith: Absolutely not. We don’t know what we’re doing!
Maddi: Yeah. When it comes to your own kids, it’s a completely different world because you’re so emotionally involved and attuned. And I think what I, what I want people out there to know. And same with professionals, you know, like, it’s hard. You are, if you’re in a school, you’re seeing these kids day in, day out and you know, you can feel their pain, you can feel their pain. So, what I want the message to be is that you’re not alone in that. And there are resources out there, there is help that you can get. and, and it’s okay to talk about this stuff. It’s okay to not know what to do.
Orlaith: Absolutely. I think you’re right. And that’s the point about NottAlone, the website, isn’t it? There’s advice and information and help for the young people on there. But you can also view the website as a professional working with young people and you can also view it as a parent or carer. And I think that’s important, isn’t it? Because you are not alone either.
So, you’re trying to tell the kids that they’re not alone. You are not alone either. And there’s help and advice and information. I totally agree with what you’re saying about it’s okay to not know the answer. And that’s hopefully where NottAlone comes in. Your young person says, what can we do about this? Who can help me? I don’t know. Let’s have a look on NottAlone together. Let’s find out what’s out there. What’s it going to be like? I don’t know what that group is. Let’s have a look, let’s talk to them, let’s go see them and let’s have that conversation. I’m not sure, but they can probably help.
Maddi: Yeah, and don’t be afraid to get it wrong. It’s alright.
Orlaith: It’s okay.
Maddie: We all do.
Music: Whatever you’re going through, I hope you know you are not alone…
