Takoha is bright and full of beans but his parents suspect he may have ADHD. They are unsure about getting him tested and want to understand how they can better support him.
Video / Faultline Films
Made with funding from NZ on Air
Neuroscience educator and child councillor Nathan Wallis tackles the challenges facing parents today with a unique and Māori tikanga approach.
Through understanding what’s happening in your child’s brain, Wallis equips parents and caregivers with practical commonsense advice.
Kids Don’t Come with a Manual delivers real-life examples, logical and realistic tikanga-based strategies and innovative behaviour modification tools that help parents work with their children, not against them.
Wallis is joined by his Aunty Hinewirangi, who gives her whakaaro thoughts and knowledge from a Tikanga Maori perspective.
Nathan Wallis and Aunty Hinewairangi. Photo / Faultline Films
Each week Wallis and Aunty listen to a whānau who have reached out for help. After having a korero with Aunty Hinewirangi, Wallis heads off to meet the whanau.
He has a chat with the whānau to get a fuller picture of the issue, and how he can best support them.
Once Wallis has come up with a game plan, he brings the whanau together for a hui to get everyone on the same page.
Episode 1 features Tammy, a teacher and single mum who is raising two boys and co-parenting with her ex-partner Lewy, and his new partner Jade.
Their eldest son, Takoha, has a lot of ADHD traits, but a wariness of the ADHD label and the ways in which ADHD children can be treated has held Tammy back from getting a formal diagnosis.
Tammy wonders if her son Takoha is missing out on having a constant father figure and wonders if his sometimes disruptive behaviour comes from this. She’s also concerned about how to get consistency in responding to Takoha’s behaviour across his two homes.
But Takoha has a good relationship with his dad and sees him regularly.
Wallis says the fact Takoha is only playing up at mum’s house and not dad’s suggests he’s just pushing boundaries because he knows he can. Wallis sees this as a positive.
“It means he can control his behaviours.”
ADHD is something Wallis knows a lot about.
Neuroscience educator Nathan Wallis. Photo / Faultline Films
“I have ADHD and what it meant originally as a child I think was just that the kid was naughty. We have really advanced our understanding of what it is. It is a psychological diagnosis though so it means there is no particular blood test or brain scan that is going to show you that you have got ADHD.” explains Wallis.
Wallis wants to help Tammy, Lewy and Jade build a tool kit that works to avoid anything punitive and instead focuses more on positive strategies that will work when emotions are really big.
One strategy Wallis employs when a child’s emotions get the better of them is based on validation. The idea is that by naming the emotion the child is struggling with, the child will feel listened to and therefore is more likely to respond in a positive way - as opposed to just being told to “calm down” or threatened with punishment.
Wallis explains that brain scans show the amygdala, the angry brain, has reduced electrical activity when it’s calmed down. Strategies such as validation are designed to cool down the amygdala, giving us better control of our emotions.
“If we want our kids to listen to us, we have to listen to them.” says Wallis.
Tammy, Nana, Jade and Lewy get together for a Whanau hui. Photo / Faultline Films
Wallis talks about how managing the behaviour is really about modelling the behaviour. It’s as much about the interactions we have with others and how those are framed as it is about teaching good behaviours from bad.
Wallis believes this is more of a Tikanga Māori approach. Rather than seeing the child as a problem and saying let’s change them, he suggests banding together as a whanau and developing a cohesive and consistent response that validates how Takoha is feeling will likely result in improved behaviour naturally.
Kids Don’t Come with a Manual. Watch the full episode on Māori+, Mondays 7.30 pm.
