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Mark Le Messurier's KEYNOTE SPEECH
(July 2023) for Inclusive Education Workshop,
Adelaide

Special Education Resource Unit (SERU)

TOPIC - The liberation of NEURODIVERSITY in schools
"The agitation between ethics and realities"

Understandings about the neurodivergent world are changing at light speed in the community, and subsequently in schools. These days, we are all appreciating that many of our colleagues, parents, and students, are neurodivergent. Yet, we’re at an awkward crossroads in education. Are you aware that the number of SA neurodivergent students, sent home, suspended, or moved on from schools last year were vastly overrepresented? Right alongside them were students with disability, with challenging behaviours and those experiencing disadvantage.

We know this highlights a struggle educators have with our most vulnerable group in schools. The truth is, most educators are good people, want to be inclusive and want to offer children hope and futures. A big part of this difficulty are the funding models. For a school to gain a few more resources and options to support students, educators are made to jump through time-consuming and hard-to-navigate administrative hoops. And, even when funding is achieved, it is often short-term, conditional and difficult to reestablish. One of my friends, recently wrote to me.

'We must prevent the unthinkable':
Youth mental health plea to Premier

InDaily

South Australia's Senior Australian of the Year has called on Premier Steven Marshall to commit to improving the "dreadful situation" faced by desperate parents seeking help for suicidal children, saying they are "regularly" turned away from the Women's and Children's Hospital.

Mark Le Messurier, a prominent counsellor, educator and author who has worked with struggling children and their families for decades, has written to the State Government urging the Premier to attend a rally on Saturday, organised by youth mental health advocacy group Parents for Change.

"More and more, children are being turned away from the emergency department at the Women's and Children's Hospital," Le Messurier wrote.

"The situation is now dire, and it is only a matter of time before the unthinkable happens. We must prevent the unthinkable.

"Parents and their suicidal children, sometimes children with Autism, are now regularly turned away."

Parenting uniquely - with "soft eyes and a warm heart"

KIDDO Magazine

Mark Le Messurier
Senior South Australian of the Year 2022

To begin my relationship with you I have a gift. It isn't one you can touch, but I'd like you to carry in your mind, forever. It's a kaleidoscope with the power to offer an emotionally connecting set of parenting attitudes and skills I describe as using our "soft eyes and warm hearts". Gently twist it, and it shifts your understandings from one perspective to a different and more insightful one.

I think of family as an intricate, dynamic, messy, and beautifully chaotic world. Not as a ‘happy Instagram family' or one characterised by ‘picture-perfect obedience'. Family exists to protect and nourish but the living in it is not always easy. When one of us is not doing well, none of us are. When we take out the kaleidoscope, twist it, engage our "soft eyes and warm hearts" we create wonderful possibilities from the chaos of family.

Let me explain how this might look in real life. What about the inevitable moment when you must intervene and call one of your children on an unsafe, careless, or selfish behaviour. In this moment, do you lead by lovingly reaching out, placing a reassuring arm around them, and warmly bringing them closer? Might you kiss them on the head, even if they're a teen, and say, "Oops, that didn't go so well. We'll talk later. Hey, what can you do to fix things for now?"

Anxiety is real … a few helpful tips!

KIDDO Magazine

Mark Le Messurier
Senior South Australian of the Year 2022

Welcome to the new school year. After being in somewhat of a COVID bubble over the Christmas holidays, and having online and staggered starts, returning to school is fuelling anxiety in both parents and children! Even some of the teens I work with are feeling a little wobblier as they begin to wrap their heads around the uncertainties.

So, my starting point is … "their separation anxiety is real" and here are 10 helpful tips. Just 10, it's not exhaustive!

1. Anxiety is triggered by feelings of risk, insecurity, and lack of control. It is usually emotionally driven and that's why being totally rational is not the only solution. This is our call to forge a poised, logical, and loving connection.

2. Identify what's happening and the triggers. Don't shy away from discussing their anxiety with them. Sometimes, just getting kids talking about their worries, validating their feelings, and pulling a simple plan together is a huge step forward.

3. Create a goodbye ritual. Goodbye rituals are a beautiful way to give them comfort and a constructive start to the day. It can be a special hug, a weird handshake or crazy dance you do together. A goodbye ritual reinforces that as we disconnect, our hearts remain with each other throughout the day, and we'll share our experiences when we reconnect later in the afternoon.

How can PARENTS achieve the best MENTAL HEALTH for their CHILDREN?

KIDDO Magazine

Mark Le Messurier
Senior South Australian of the Year 2022

Can we guarantee against mental health difficulties in our children? Unfortunately, no.

Some mental health issues arise from the unexpected twists and turns of life, and associated traumas. Others are well outside of our control and are heavily influenced by illness, disability, deficits, disorders, loss, conditions and so much more.

However, by incorporating these mental health hygiene principles into our lives, we give our kids the best chance to soak up these beautifully protective patterns. And if by chance, your child experiences a spell of mental health difficulty, this framework should aid their recovery immensely.

Here's an abridged 12-point checklist of mental health hygiene principles.

Point 1 – "A problem shared is a problem halved"
When the going gets tough coach your kids to share their thoughts with family and friends. Family and friends are such a blessing because their love reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously or perfectly, not to overthink, and always provide us with a sprinkle of optimism and a sparkle of hope.

REPEATING A YEAR LEVEL AT SCHOOL

KIDDO Magazine

Mark Le Messurier
Senior South Australian of the Year 2022

When a student is struggling academically, socially, emotionally, (perhaps generally), the possibility of repeating a year level is sometimes raised by parents or teachers around this time of the year.

This is tough decision because we never want to overlook the impact repeating a year level may have on a child's self-esteem, confidence, and subsequent development. Often the pros and cons are evenly balanced, especially in the short-term. The fact that a child is physically small for their age might be cancelled out by the fact that if they repeat, they will be in the same year level as a younger sibling. One parent may feel that by repeating their child will be helped, the other parent may feel that they will feel badly, and it will impact detrimentally on them.

Sometimes repeating a year level is seen as an expedient way to meet a child's needs. I've even heard it called giving a child, "the gift of time." Well, this "gift of time," is useless, even damaging without clearly understanding what the problems are, why the child has experienced them and what needs to be done to repair them. It is vital to implement an appropriate program or approach to address such difficulties during the year the child repeats the year level.

The miracle of children

KIDDO Magazine

Mark Le Messurier
Senior South Australian of the Year 2022

When I present workshops to parents and educators, I often show an image of a building, ‘under construction'. So, why do I do this? This is a visible reminder that our children; their brains, bodies, and spirit are in a precious process of construction. Their brains, quite invisibly, are undergoing a profound 30 year wire up.

Our children are genuinely naïve, experimenting, participating, and preparing for life. And as they learn and gather experience, they are bound to make poor judgments from time to time. It is what young inexperienced human beings do. You did it. I did it. We swung between being unbearable to virtuous in our search for identity, independence, and purpose. Developmentally, at every age, there is a clumsy and vital tension between our children seeking greater autonomy and living within thoughtful limits we have created. Our mission is to support them to learn through every interaction, observation, success, and mistake, in a shame-free, fully supported environment.

Consequently, this is the perfect time to treat children with a deep reverence around CONSISTENCY and PERSISTENCE. How do we model and build these important foundations?

Creating your resilient teen

KIDDO Magazine

Mark Le Messurier
Senior South Australian of the Year 2022

The years between 10 to 20 years are loosely considered, adolescence. It is an incredible time for human development because massive changes inside and outside the body occur. There are changes to the voice, the average girl will grow 24 centimetres in height and, the average boy 26 centimetres, there are significant brain changes which herald intense social and emotional adjustments. Also, during adolescence, there's the establishment of an identity, and the formal commencement of logical and rationally reasoned thought. And then, there's a sexual awakening, and along with this, comes the ability for your child to make you a grandparent.

Many myths abound about adolescence. The best one is that your child will run wildly off the rails, show appalling behaviour and there will be nothing but conflict. My view is that this age group may be challenging sometimes, but on balance are deeply rewarding, almost soulful, to parent and to be with.

Adolescence is a time of genuine vulnerability because with so many new brain cells looking to strengthen, connect and wire up, things get hectic in the brain. This, in combination with huge hormonal fluctuations, can leave your teen struggling with more difficulty regulating their emotions than previously. This is when many parents say, "Mark, it looks like my child has gone backwards!" They have not gone backwards at all; this is driven by a brain under a magnificent construction. And during this time, our teens need us connected and on their side.

Chapter 5 from TEACHING TOUGH KIDS

Mark Le Messurier

The control of student behaviour has always been a major component of an educator’s skill repertoire. Today, as teachers face increasing numbers of students with challenging emotions and behaviour, there is a clear expectation on them to expand the quality of how they go about man aging students (Applebaum 2008).

Every so often a teacher will find themself having to deal with the behaviours of one or two students who battle for attention and power. When challenged they’ll become defiant or loud, and occasionally vindictive and intimidating. Oppositional styled behaviours, from even just one student, can be a perilous time. Such encounters place a teacher’s reactions under the closest scrutiny of the class, and depending on their responses, either an atmosphere of care, strength and fairness is stirred, or the class can suddenly set itself against a teacher it perceives as mean and unjust. The tone of the classroom can quickly unravel and the confidence of students to learn and participate in a warm interactive class environment falls apart.

Dyslexia, reading failure, behavioural problems and more

Dyslexia falls under the broad umbrella of 'Specific Learning Disorders' (affecting 15 - 20% of the population). It is referred to as a learning disability because it can impede life socially, emotion lly and academically. Dyslexia affects about 10% of the population, although it is being under diagnosed. That's two or three children in every Australian classroom and its severity is on a sliding scale. It attempts to explain why a person can do relatively well (even really well because some dyslexics are gifted) in some areas of learning, but encounter unexpected problems in reading, writing and spelling.

The exact causes are not clear, but researchers agree there are structural brain differences in dyslexics that are likely to account for the way the brain develops and functions (Shaywitz, 2005). Dyslexic genes have been identified and the data suggests that if a dad or a mum is dyslexic their sons have about a 75% chance of being dyslexic too, whilst girls will have a 25% chance. However, current information suggests too many girls are slipping under the radar not being identified.

LIFE-SUCCESS lessons and conversations

Chapter 1: Building relationship with young people - March, 2017

One of the most satisfying experiences for relational educators is the opportunity to deliberately build humane connections with young people, and between them. We've learnt that there's so much more to teaching than simply imparting quality curriculum. Professor Maurice Galton in his book, 'Learning and Teaching in the Primary Classroom' alerts us that schools can very easily become lonely and isolating places for both children and adolescents (Galton, 2007)

Parenting & Stress: Developing Your Own Coping Strategies

Fawne Hansen is a wellness coach. Email - fawnehansen@gmail.com

She writes, "Raising a child can be one of the most stressful things we do, but there are several strategies that can help you to cope. Building support systems, establishing routines, and making use of professional counselling can all help."

This article is useful for first-time parents, or anyone for whom the stress of parenting is feeling overwhelming or too difficult to manage.

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)

Nicole Eglinton, Director and Principal Audiologist, Little Ears

The most common reported difficulty experienced by children with an Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is understanding their teacher in background noise (i.e. the classroom).

Auditory processing refers to how well we detect, discriminate and process auditory (verbal) information. It is often thought of as the brainwork of hearing, or in other terms "what we do with what we hear". An Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) (also referred to as a Central Auditory Processing Disorder) refers to an inability to make optimal use of what we hear. Children diagnosed with an APD typically have normal hearing and normal intelligence however have difficulties listening, particularly in the presence of background noise (e.g. the classroom).

Teaching tough kids

Posted on September 5th, 2013
SA Kids PARENTING MAGAZINE

Not too long ago, there was a perception that 'tough kids' were the kids who were a bit like the character Fonzie on the TV series Happy Days. The series ran between 1974 and 1984 and celebrated the relationship between teenager Richie and his family: his father Howard, a hardware store owner; Richie's mother Marion, a homemaker; Joanie, his younger sister; and tough man Arthur Fonzarelli - The Fonz, the Cunningham's tenant, high school dropout, biker and suave ladies' man.

I prefer to see 'tough kids' slightly differently. I think 'tough kids' form part of a challenging and growing group of children who find life tougher than most. They may have been diagnosed as being gifted or battling with specific learning difficulties, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Language Disorder, Auditory Processing Disorder and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Simmer down the anger

Excerpt from Australian Family Magazine, September 2012
www.australianfamily.com.au
Writer and Editor; Emma Reeves

When 13 year old Anton gets angry, he wants to punch holes in the walls. When two year old Jackson is angry he wants to smack or hit. Seven year old Jessica and her mum shout at each other when they lose control.

We can all get angry at times. It's just part of living alongside each other. But there are ways to manage anger so that it does not become an ongoing problem.

Both children and adults can feel anger sparked by irritation or frustration. The anger becomes a problem if it is happening continuously or if it sparks irrational behaviour or inappropriate actions.

Homework; does it matter?

A down-to-earth approach for teachers and parents Well, does it?

This article is written with educators and parents in mind.

It gathers an assortment of practical ideas to ease typical difficulties surrounding homework. What is presented is realistic advice, mindful of the kids who struggle with concentration, learning issues, or feel so fatigued by the time they arrive home from school that an emotional blow out over homework is just a heartbeat away. Students with learning or emotional difficulties do it so much tougher than those without. As a result, so do their mothers, fathers and teachers. Successful homework approaches depend on of educators and parents synchronising their communication and attitudes, and recognising that homework is a highly complex undertaking. Without us, the adults, pooling our efforts and understandings we shouldn’t be shocked when our kids become expert at avoiding and sabotaging it.

What’s happening in your child’s bedroom?

Parental expectations that are consistently higher than their child can achieve simply create antagonism. Ironically, bedroom tidiness is often the trigger for broader based friction. Decide how tidy the bedroom really needs to be. When you ask your child to clean up, think about whether the task is too big for them. If the mess is big enough for you to roll your eyes and think, "What a mess, where would I start?" then it's too big for your child to tackle alone, whether they are 6 or 16 years of age. In addition, it becomes more daunting if your child battles with spatial, organisational, distractibility and persistence difficulties.

Helping your anxious child: information for parents

Anxiety is a normal part of children's behavioural and emotional development, and as children get older, their concerns grow broader. A younger child may be worried about a spelling test, a soccer match, or catching the school bus for the first time. An older child may worry about a school camp, failing in a test, impressing peers or starting a new sport. These anxieties are common, even signs that your child's development is on track.

Asperger Syndrome: building social stories with students

The aim of Social Stories is to develop social understanding by helping children to 'read' understand social situations. Social stories provide information about social situations that the child may find confusing or difficult to understand. The situation is described simply, with a focus on just a few key points. The goal of the story is to explain confusing situations, make the child feel more comfortable and confident, and suggest some appropriate responses to the situations. It is important when introducing a Social Story that is introduced in a relaxed, positive environment where the student can "learn" the social situation before experiencing it: they are not designed to process situations after the child has made poor choices of behaviour. Situations from which the child withdraws, or attempts to escape from may be appropriate targets for a social story.

Social skills: developing your child's conversation skills

Most children develop age appropriate social skills by observing, asking questions, and interacting with a wide range of people who allow them to build a conversational repertoire to draw upon. For a variety of reasons, some children lag behind in this process. It may be due to temperamental factors such as shyness or behavioural reasons such as decreased self-control. Problems may be displayed with greeting, conversation building, lack of self-correction, timing, boundary violation, context, or some other social error. Having conversations with your child is the best way to model appropriate skills. In addition, you can coach your child to develop better skills. This handout provides some practical suggestions.

Listening skills: "Hey, are you listening"

Some children seem to be chronically bad listeners. It is crucial for a child to develop good listening skills in order to cope with the demands of school and as a basis for strong literacy skills. Good listeners are more likely to follow instructions, and to be able to express their ideas well in words. Listening is related to memory, too: it is very hard to remember something that you have not heard well in the first place. In fact sometimes poor listening is wrongly described as poor memory, particularly by teachers.

Tips to manage the emotion and behaviour of students

Tips to manage the emotion and behaviour of students identified with:

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• Asperger Syndrome

Due to their tireless work at the coal face teachers know what many medical professionals and parents are now discovering. That is, the face of each of these conditions constantly shifts, and what's more, it is not unusual to work with a student who battles with two or three of these conditions.
Download PDF file.

STOP THINK DO traffic lights in the classroom save lives!

A positive social climate in the classroom saves lives!
This sounds like an exaggerated claim, but long-term research and experience with children supports it. It shows that children who relate well together and make friends are less likely to have serious problems that ruin their lives; these include delinquency, criminality, drug dependence, school drop-out, low self-esteem and motivation, loneliness, depression and psychopathology of various types which may last into adolescence and adulthood.

Parenting Ideas for Today

It All Starts with Listening
I know that our children have many choices about whom they share their thoughts and feelings with. When they were in primary school, their parents most often heard about the events and concerns that were nearest their heart. But as they got older, parental ears were more and more often replaced by their friends and classmates, teachers and coaches and parents are increasingly left out of the loop. It's not easy, but it's natural.

Helping to Build Your Child's Self Esteem

Self esteem develops from children's experiences and how others react to them. If children have successful experiences and they get messages from others that say 'you are great' then their self esteem increases. If they experiences failures and negative reactions from others, their self esteem decreases.

BLITZ your Times Tables
Notes for parents and teachers

This program is based on three very important findings from the research:

1. NO ONE actually enjoys learning times tables - it's something like cleaning teeth or using sun lotion, your child JUST HAS TO.
2. Bribery works. Students learn faster if there is something they value at the end of it. Money preferably.
3. The best learning builds on success - that's why we teach Times Tables in such a funny order, not 2,3,4,5,6,7 and so on to 12.

The Explosive Child in Preschool

When a child's skills in a particular area lag behind, we know the benefits of providing extra support. In his book, Dr Ross Greene explains that "The Explosive Child" is not choosing to behave in this way, but rather has not yet developed the skills of flexibility and tolerating frustration. Thus our role, as with any developmental delay, is to help the child develop these skills to an age appropriate level.

Helping Brothers and Sisters Get Along

Actually, there is a great deal parents can do, since sibling relationships are shaped in large part by parents' attitudes and actions. Without intending to, many parents reinforce conflict. They may fail to set adequate limits on fighting, allowing one child to dominate. They may appear, from their children's point of view, to favour one child, place unfair demands on an older sibling or simply not listen.

Helping Your Child With Comprehension

Here are some ways that you can help your child develop the skills to understand, process and recall information when they are reading. Some ideas work best with readers and novels, and some work best with "information" texts. Some will even work with taped TV programs... maybe not with The Simpsons, though.

Helping Your Child With Homework

Homework is set for all sorts of reasons, not just because "that's what teachers do". It should be a chance for students to consolidate or revise work they have covered in class, and it provides opportunities for students to extend their skills in different areas of interest. Sometimes it will be interesting and engaging, and other times it will be just tedious and hard work. Homework demands self organisation and time management: these skills take time to develop, and your child may need support when they first start to do set homework.

10 "Hot Tips" for Managing Your Child's Behaviour

You've read the books, talked to other parents, and generally tried most things. Have a close look this week at how many of these strategies you use. Remember: the best way to change your child's behaviour is to change your own behaviour. All the best strategies involve setting routines, rewarding the behaviour you want to encourage, avoiding confrontations and modelling the behaviour you want to see in your child.

101 Cool Ways to Learn Spelling Words

1. Put your words in sentences.
2. Underline all the vowels. Make a graph showing how many times each vowel is used (that's a,e,i,o,u)
3. Same thing - only this time underline consonants (that's all the rest)

Angry Children, Worried Parents:
Helping Families Manage Anger

Parents worry when their children struggle with anger. Angry feelings and behaviour can be especially challenging for children who have learning and attention problems. To help parents address this problem, Dr. Sam Goldstein, Dr. Robert Brooks, and Sharon Weiss, have teamed up to co-author a new book, Angry Children, Worried Parents: Seven Steps to Help Families Manage Anger (Specialty Press, 2004).

Auditory Processing Disorder

Children and adults with auditory processing disorder (APD) have problems comprehending speech. The concept of APD is often difficult for parents, educators and other professionals to understand. A child with an auditory processing disorder has normal hearing and intelligence, but impaired ability to attend to, recognise, analyse and interpret information that they hear. This is probably because of the way the child's central nervous system is "wired". No one really knows why this deficit in sensory processing in the brain occurs. Previously, APD was often called Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAP-D).

Tips on Exam Preparation

The following are some useful pointers for preparing of the coming exams.

Organisation

1. Allow enough time to revise - start early enough that you don't run out of time to cover all the material before the exam.
2. Clarify exam format and requirements - make sure you know how long the exam is, where it will be held and at what time, what resources you are allowed to take in with you, and what areas of course content will be assessed.
3. Plan revision - structure your revision using your diary or a calendar so that all topics are covered.

The Dragon
That’s what I call my brother’s Asperger Syndrome

It was a dark and stormy night, and I lay with my eyes squeezed tightly shut. The lightning flashed so brightly I could see it through my eyelids. I burrowed deeper into my blankets. A deafening peel of thunder rolled across the sky, and I let out a small whimper. My imagination got the better of me, and I began to hear things outside the window. The howling wind became a werewolf, searching for its next victim, the tree scraping on the window was some dark stranger trying to get inside.

Friendship Quiz:
What sort of friend are you?

Most students think there’s little they can do to stop the bully, or a group of students demonstrating mean behaviours, without risking becoming a target or losing their own status in the group.

But really, there’s a lot YOU can do to become a better friend to everyone.

The first step is to understand what roles you may be playing in your group of friends. Take the following quiz and find out!

Dysgraphia: Compensating Strategies for Students

Most commonly, the term Specific Learning Difficulty incorporates the conditions described as Dyslexia (specific reading disorder), Dyscalculia (specific calculation disorder) Dyspraxia (speech) and Dysgraphia (specific writing disorder). This group of disorders affect language and learning and is thought to affect between 3 per cent and 10 per cent of the population. Such a diagnosis is sought when a noticeable discrepancy becomes apparent between an individual's intelligence and their acquisition of reading, writing, spelling and maths skills despite support by sound teaching practice.

20 SPARKLING IDEAS to inspire self-motivation in students

Research has also shown that the level of motivation a student walks into the classroom with can be changed, for the better or worse, depending on what occurs in that classroom. More than anything else, a quality relationship is what enables cooperative behaviours and motivation to be stretched and reshaped. Healthy connections bubble to the surface as a smile, a wink, a silly face, a nudge, a dare, a joke, a thumbs up, a kind or reassuring comment. The benefits arising from a quality relationship are remarkable, and are far more potent than special efforts to attack motivation directly.

REPEATING A SCHOOL YEAR: a difficult decision

When a student is struggling with their school work the possibility of repeating a year level is sometimes suggested by parents and/or teachers.

The decision is seldom an easy one as in most situations there are things to be said in favour of keeping the student with their age peers, and advantages in arranging for them to repeat a year level. Often the decision is hard because the arguments for either course of action are quite evenly balanced.