Content warning: This episode contains discussion of physical and verbal aggression directed at parents and caregivers by young people in acute distress, including descriptions of property damage, physical assault, and extreme verbal behaviour. Please take care of yourself as you listen. Hit pause whenever you need to, and come back when you're ready.

If you or your family are in immediate danger, please call Triple Zero (000) for assistance. 

If you are feeling overwhelmed or distressed, please reach out to Lifeline. 
Call 13 11 14, text 0477 13 11 14, or chat online at lifeline.org.au.

This episode is a collaboration between School Can't Australia and Yellow Ladybugs made possible through funding from the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building Grant.

This is the first of two special episodes with Yellow Ladybugs, who are dedicated to the happiness, success, and celebration of autistic girls, women, and gender diverse folk. Leisa is joined by founder Katie Koullas and Natasha Staheli for a conversation about something far more common in our communities than is ever openly discussed: what happens when a young person's distress is expressed outwardly in ways that are frightening and isolating for families.

This episode talks plainly about young people throwing objects, punching holes in walls, physically hitting parents, and using extreme verbal language. It names clearly from the outset that all of this behaviour comes from a place of acute distress, from a nervous system in full fight response, from a child who has often been trying to communicate unmet needs for a very long time.

Katie, Natasha, and Leisa explore why this happens, why it so often lands on mums, and why instinctive parenting responses like sending kids to their room can actively make things worse. They cover the PACE framework (Playful, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy), safety planning, the realities of involving police or child protection, the impact on partnerships, and what repair after an incident can actually look like.

This is a conversation wrapped in shame for too many families. You are not alone. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Yellow Ladybugs Safety Plan Template:https://yellowladybugs.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/YellowLadybugs/IQBakAfYPN5_Sa7vDqFR6b8ZAUayZhsJcXpemWtLhY-_52s?e=Fveiii
• PACE Strategy, Yellow Ladybugs Podcast Ep 4 with Dr Alberto Veloso:https://open.spotify.com/episode/5XoCkUD6qPus0GHHkGQZVv?si=UVXSM-ojTbyStOsKBMuyjA
• Dialectics and DBT panel with Sonny Jane Wise and Sarah Hens:https://vimeo.com/1215986538/b08abd3258?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci
• Yellow Ladybugs: yellowladybugs.com.au
• Dr Alberto Veloso, Relational Minds: relationalminds.com.au

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If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Content warning: Tammie briefly mentions suicidal ideation in this episode. We also discuss instances of violent behaviour stemming from dysregulation and overwhelm.

Tammie is a School Can't mum raising an autistic son in rural Victoria. When mainstream school stopped working for her son, there were no alternative schools, no specialist programs, no hybrid options within reach. The choice was mainstream or nothing, and for years, she kept choosing mainstream because no one ever told her she didn't have to.

This episode is her account of those years: the Groundhog Day mornings with no sleep behind them, the evacuated classrooms, the Child Protection call she received because her son wasn't attending school, the moment she turned up after an hour and a half of trying to get him there and found his aide wasn't in that day. And the realisation that eventually came: "I thought I was failing him by not sending him to school. I realised I was failing him by sending him."

Eighteen months after pulling him out, Tammie describes a completely different kid. He sleeps. He's regulated. He's happy. He recently told her he'd like "some friends I can touch." Eight months of gaming and sleeping and complete decompression came first. And she now sees that as the best thing she could have done for both of them.

Tammie is also honest about what's still hard: the social piece is genuinely unsolved, and rural isolation makes it harder. But she's clear on her priorities. Mental health first. Everything else after.

Her message to parents still in the thick of it is direct: take them out for a term, six months, a year — you can always go back. Almost certainly, you'll see a change. And ask yourself honestly whether your child is actually learning anything in the state they're in.

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If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Kristy Forbes is a neurodiversity advocate, former classroom teacher, PDAer herself, and parent of four PDAers. She's also a School Can't kid — she left school at 15 — who has since built an internationally recognised body of work supporting PDA families. She brings all of that to this conversation.

In this episode Kristy answers questions asked by the School Can’t Australia community in their peer support Facebook group. 

The questions cover a lot of ground. How do you figure out if your child is PDA when professionals don't know much about it? Does the label even matter, or is the more useful question just: what is their nervous system protecting them from? How do you handle sleep, eating, and basic life tasks without everything turning into conflict? What does a healthy parent-PDA child relationship actually look like? And is "maintaining authority" even the right frame? What about goals and aspirations when the act of wanting something can trigger the very resistance that stops it happening?

Kristy shares experience from her own lived experience as a PDAer herself and as a PDA parent. She talks about how we do the best we can, but still get things wrong, and the importance of the repair that follows. And why she thinks modeling being human is more useful than modeling perfect regulation. And she ends the conversation with something this topic doesn't always make room for: what she genuinely loves about being a PDAer.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Kristy’s website with with free resources including self-care guide for adults in crisis and free PDA masterclass: https://www.kristyforbes.com.au/
• Kristy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_kristyforbes/
• Kristy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inTunePathways

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If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Pete Wharmby is a neurodiversity advocate, autistic adult, and former English teacher in the UK. He brings a perspective that's genuinely rare in this space: he's been on both sides of the classroom, as a student who masked his way through school while quietly drowning in anxiety, and as a teacher who,without quite knowing why,  instinctively ran his classroom in a way that felt calm, fair, and safe for the autistic students in it.

His new book, Different Minds, makes the case that schools don't fail autistic young people out of malice. They fail them because the system was designed long before autism was understood, and has been stubbornly slow to change since. 

In this conversation with Leisa, Pete works through what that looks like in practice: the monotropic brain that's just getting into the zone when the bell rings and forces a subject change; the sensory assault of that same bell; the collars and ties; the disconnected curriculum that gives neurodivergent brains nothing to hook onto; and the attendance obsession that pushes kids into burnout and then punishes them for being burned out.

Pete also discusses research showing that non-autistic people often have an immediate, unconscious negative response to autistic people,including teachers, and argues that awareness of this bias, not blame, is where change has to start.

His message to teachers is simple and delivered with characteristic patience: when an autistic child or their parent tells you something is difficult, just believe them. Don't make them prove it. That default of belief, he says, would change everything.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Different Minds by Pete Wharmby: https://www.amazon.com.au/Different-Minds-Autistic-School-Children/dp/1785046225/
• Pete’s website: https://petewharmby.com/
• Pete on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pete_wharmby_books/
• Pete on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Petewharmbyauthor/

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If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Content note: This episode includes a description of family violence during a period of acute distress for a young person.

Frank is the first grandfather to share his story on The School Can't Experience Podcast. Over several years, Frank was deeply involved in supporting his daughter and granddaughter through one a difficult School Can't journey. His grand daughter, a young girl who desperately wanted to be at school but simply couldn't get there, and whose distress escalated into crisis. But who found a way through and has gained entry to her Melbourne University course of choice with an ATAR of 89.9.

Frank speaks with honesty about what it was like to watch his daughter's job, wellbeing, and mental health erode under the weight of it all; about the moment he lost patience while trying to get his granddaughter into the car, and also about the "Cone of Silence Milkshake Sessions" that eventually became part of keeping their relationship strong as she found her path.

He also shares the line that changed everything: his granddaughter telling him and her mum, "You're backing the school instead of me. I'm on my own." That moment forced them to ask whose side they were actually on, and once they answered it honestly, things started to shift.

The path forward included stepping away from psychologists who weren't getting to the root of the problem, stopping the pressure to attend school, leaning into what she loved (horses, in particular), getting her into distance education, and encouraging her to get a job at McDonald's  which gave her something school never had: a sense of purpose, earning power, and the discovery that the behaviour tolerated in schools simply wouldn't fly in a workplace.

Frank's message to other grandparents is clear: take your foot off the pedal, stop sending the message that the child is to blame, and start listening. And when your family is in the dark times — there is a way through.

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If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Most parents advocating for their School Can't young person have sat through a meeting about adjustments and accommodations and wondered whether any of it would actually make a difference. Dr Haley Tancredi's research asks a simpler question: why don't we just ask the student?

Haley is a speech pathologist and senior lecturer at QUT's Centre for Inclusive Education, where her research focuses on student consultation, the practice of directly involving young people in decisions about the adjustments and supports they receive at school. She joins Leisa to talk about why this matters, how to do it well, and what gets in the way.

One thing that surprises most people: consulting students about their adjustments isn't just good practice, it's a legal requirement under the Disability Standards for Education. Haley explains what that obligation actually looks like, why it's so rarely met in a meaningful way, and how genuine consultation is very different from ticking a box at an IEP meeting.

Haley shares examples from her research of what changes when students are properly consulted, including a grade eight student whose behaviour profile shifted dramatically once her teachers understood what she actually needed, and a student who said simply "I wish my teacher wouldn't talk so fast" and what happened when that teacher heard it.

The conversation covers practical approaches for consultation that don't rely on a student being able to articulate their needs in a formal conversation: mind maps, visual tools, menus of options, photo diaries, whole-class feedback mechanisms, and the accessibility and pedagogy scale Haley developed for students to give sliding-scale feedback on how accessible a lesson was. There's also a strong thread on Universal Design for Learning, the myth of teaching to the middle, and how feedback tools that work for individual students can, and should, be offered to the whole class.

For parents whose young people are struggling to get to school at all, Haley has some thoughts on how consultation can still happen, and why hearing from disengaged students about what makes an excellent teacher is one of the most useful things a school can do.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Student Consultation Practice Guide — research.qut.edu.au/c4ie/practice_guides_student_consultation
• Academic paper: Meeting obligations to consult students with disability — https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13384-019-00341-3
• Accessibility of Pedagogy Scale — qsurvey.qut.edu.au
• Academic paper: Investigating the impact of Accessible Pedagogies —https://eprints.qut.edu.au/251891/
• Video: It's My Learning and I Have a Say — cru.org.au
• Dr Haley Tancredi on LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/haley-tancredi-a239b7165

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If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Content note: In this episode, Laila shares her experience with suicidal ideation during high school. She speaks about this with honesty and care. If you or someone you love is struggling, please reach out to Lifeline on 13 11 14, or if you are under 25, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

Laila was school captain in year six. She loved school, had great friends, played sport, danced ten hours a week, and pushed herself to perform in everything she did. By the first week of year seven, she couldn't get out of the car.

In this episode, Leisa is joined by Laila, now 23 and thriving, and her mum Alex, to talk through what their School Can't journey looked and felt like from the inside. 

Laila and Alex talk about:

• the exhausting tension of desperately wanting to be at school and being completely unable to get there. 
• the six months in year seven of sitting in car parks, rebuilding trust moment by moment. 
• the year ten meeting where the Director of Curriculum essentially told Laila to give up and leave, and about Laila accepting her graduation certificate from that same person two years later. 
• the role COVID online learning played in making year eleven and twelve survivable. 
• what happened after: a gap year, an Open Foundation course at Newcastle Uni with no ATAR required, and eventually TAFE and a Diploma in Interior Design that she loves.

This is a story with a very happy ending. But it's also an honest account of how hard the middle part was, including a period of serious depression and suicidal ideation that Laila speaks about with characteristic clarity and courage.

Key practical information mentioned in this episode:

• HSC Pathways: In NSW, students can complete HSC over five years with fewer subjects; https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/hsc/rules-and-procedures/2026-guide/students-atypical-circumstances
• Open Foundation programs — available at universities including Newcastle; no ATAR or HSC required, more information on the university websites.
• TAFE - often recommended as a supportive environment for School Can’t young people, flexible entry, valuable credential pathways

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If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Millie Carr is an educator, inclusive outreach coach, and late-diagnosed AuDHDer who has spent years supporting schools to build more inclusive environments through her Unmasking Education work. She's also a parent, her daughter, diagnosed autistic in grade one, is now in year 12 and completing Virtual Schools Victoria after years of high-masking at school took its toll.

In this conversation, Millie and Leisa dig into what masking actually is and why assuming it's a conscious choice gets us into trouble. Masking can be entirely unconscious, and for many of our young people it's not just adjusting behaviour for context. It's a full-scale suppression of natural responses just to get through the day.

Millie introduces the Coke bottle analogy to explain what's happening when kids hold it together at school and explode at home or, just as concerning, hold it everywhere until burnout forces a complete shutdown. She also talks about the students who are even harder to spot: the perfectionists, the ones who never ask for help, the ones who seem to be doing brilliantly until they suddenly can't get out of bed.

The conversation moves into what schools can practically do differently and Millie makes a compelling case that the answer isn't more IEPs. It's Universal Design for Learning: building classrooms where every student has access to choice, where supports aren't singled out, and where the culture normalises different brains working differently. She describes her own classroom capacity check-in as one example of how that can look in practice.

For parents who've been told "she's fine here, it must be something at home" this episode will be both validating and useful.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Unmasking Education on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unmasking.education
• Millie’s website: https://www.unmaskingeducation.com.au/
• Millie's masking course  Classcover Learn: https://www.classcoverlearn.com.au/course/masking-and-unmasking-in-the-school-setting
• CAST Universal Design for Learning framework: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
• Novak Education Guide to Universal Design for Learning (UDL): https://www.novakeducation.com/guide-to-udl
• Ilume Learning: professional development in UDL: https://illumelearning.com.au/

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If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

We're wrapping up our school holidays break with this foundational episode, and if you've only just found us, this is a great place to start.

Dr Ross Greene is the founder of the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) model and the author of The Explosive Child and The Kids Who Aren't Okay: The Urgent Case for Reimagining Support, Belonging, and Hope in Schools. 

His core principle, that kids do well if they can, sits at the heart of how School Can't Australia approaches support for families, and it comes up again and again in the stories parents share on this podcast.

In this conversation, hosts Leisa Reichelt and School Can't Australia's Louise Rogers talk with Dr Greene about what CPS actually looks like when a young person is struggling to attend school. The model starts from a simple but radical premise: school avoidance is a behaviour, not a problem. The problem is whatever is making school hard — and you can't solve it without asking the young person.

Dr Greene walks through the three-step CPS process — the empathy step, the define adult concerns step, and the invitation step — and what each looks like in the messy reality of a child who won't, or can't, talk about what's wrong. He also covers Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C, and makes a clear case for why putting some expectations on hold isn't permissive parenting — it's strategic prioritising.

If you're still in the early stages of understanding why your young person is struggling, or you've been trying to "fix" school attendance without much luck, this episode will reframe how you think about the whole situation.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Lives in the Balance — free CPS resources: livesinthebalance.org
• The Kids who Aren't OK (book) - https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-kids-who-aren-t-okay-ross-w-greene/book/9781668203903.html
• The Essential Conversation by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot - https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-essential-conversation-sara-lawrence-lightfoot/book/9780345475800.html

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If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

We're taking a short break over the school holidays. We'll be back with some great new episodes very soon! Meanwhile, here is a classic listener episode in case you missed it, or worth listening again.

Esther Jones unschooled all three of her children and now supports parents around the world through their own unschooling journeys via courses, her podcast, and her book, The Parents' Guide to Unschooling Yourself.

In this conversation, Leisa and Esther dig into what unschooling actually is (and isn't), why so many families find their way to it through the trauma of School Can't rather than by choice, and why the biggest stumbling block is almost always the parents, not the young people.

In this conversation they cover: the difference between unschooling and simply doing school at home; what "enough" actually looks like when your child is in burnout and spending their days gaming; how parental anxiety and the need for proof of learning can quietly undermine the very space you're trying to create; and the link between parental self-compassion and nervous system co-regulation.

Esther also shares what happened when her own children, raised entirely outside the school system, eventually chose to re-enter formal education, and what that tells us about the long-term outcomes families worry about most.

If you're contemplating the possibility of home education, feeling like you're failing, or struggling to let go of what learning is "supposed" to look like, we think this episode will help.

Resources from this episode:

• Esther Jones’ Website - https://www.esther-jones.com/
• The Parents Guide to Unschooling Yourself - https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-parent-s-handbook-to-unschooling-yourself-esther-jones/
• The Unschool Space (Facebook) - https://www.facebook.com/TheUnschoolSpace/
• The Unschooling Summit - https://www.theunschoolingsummit.org/

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If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.

If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you

You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on [email protected]

Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...