How Can Parents Help Their Kids NOT To Lose Their Authentic Self

Why do so many children lose their authentic selves and what can parents do to protect them?

In this powerful episode of the Parenting Collective Podcast, Donna Moala sits down with Alexander Kopelman, social entrepreneur, advocate, whole-being coach, and author of For Real: Helping Children Remain Their Authentic Selves in a Limiting World, to explore how modern parenting can either nurture or unintentionally suppress a child's true identity.

As the founding President and CEO of the Children's Arts Guild, Alexander helped build a nonprofit dedicated to helping children discover, express, and develop their authentic selves through creativity, connection, and personal growth.

Together, Donna and Alexander unpack why children often disconnect from who they truly are, how shame and generational patterns quietly shape our parenting, and why raising emotionally secure children starts with our own self-awareness. They also discuss practical ways parents can respond instead of react, support children through difficult emotions, and create an environment where kids feel safe to be fully themselves.

In this episode, you will learn:

* Why children lose their authentic self

* How generational patterns influence parenting

* The hidden impact of shame on child development

* Why your child's behaviour may be reflecting your own triggers

* How to build emotional safety and stronger parent-child connection

* Practical ways to raise confident, emotionally resilient children

Whether you're parenting a toddler, teenager, or somewhere in between, this conversation offers practical insights to help you foster connection, emotional wellbeing, and authenticity in your family.

Follow Alexander Kopelman:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-kopelman-701547

Website: http://authenticityworks.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/childrensartsguild

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/childrensartsguild

Buy the book: https://forrealbook.org/

I would appreciate it greatly if you could please LIKE and FOLLOW this podcast and if you are not following me over on instagram, head over there for all of my top tips and advice around sleep and parenting @parentingcollective.au.  I also offer a free 15 minute phone chat to run through all your questions CLICK here to book your FREE 15 minute chat

Much Love 💞

Donna Moala 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode on the Parenting Collective Podcast. Have you ever watched your child pull away, shrink a little, and you quietly wondered, when did that start? So many of us are raising children in a world that's constantly telling them who to be, and somewhere along the way, they just can lose touch with who they actually already are.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

My guest today has spent his life's work helping children hold on to that authentic self.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Alexander Kopperman is a social entrepreneur, advocate, whole being coach, and the author of For Real, Helping Children Remain Their Authentic Selves in a Limiting World. As a founding president and CEO of the Children's Art Guild, he's helped children discover and express who they truly are through creativity and connection. So in this conversation, we explore why children disconnect from themselves and how shame and the patterns we inherit quietly shape our parenting and why raising emotionally secure children begins with our own self-awareness. Because so often our children aren't here to trigger us, even though they we feel like they are. They're here to reflect the parts of us still wanting to be understood or still waiting to be understood.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

So I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. Let's dive in, speak to you next week. Hello, Alex. How are you today?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

I'm very well. Thanks very much for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, welcome to the Parenting Collective Podcast. Super thrilled to have you all the way from New York. But to get us started, what I always love is for my guests to explain to their listeners a little bit about themselves, their journey, what they're doing today, their passion, and where they've come from.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Sure, thank you. I'm a writer. I've written 11 books now with other people and by myself. And my passion has always been around identity formation, youth development, personal and community empowerment. I've combined my writing work with work in NGOs and um doing personal advocacy. I'm also a uh whole being coach. Um my whole journey has been. What is that? What's a whole being coach? So there's a there's actually a school of uh coaching in the US that focuses on living a life that's consistent with your inner compass, with your own values. So for me, that's very consistent with my interest and authenticity when I had the opportunity. I went ahead and was certified in that modality. And that's it's it's a really nice complement to what how I already think and what I do. And you know, the work is is very much uh uh life's work, it's um very much a uh a part of my personal journey. I was uh uh born in the Soviet Union uh and grew up there until I was 13, came to the United States as a refugee with my family. The at the time the Soviet government was allowing a very few uh Jewish people to leave the Soviet Union, where conditions were not at all great for Jews. Um and my parents took the courageous step of applying, and we were very fortunate and we received permission to leave and made our way here to the States. And I've been in New York ever since. Um uh funny enough, I've now raised the native New Yorker on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Really? Our daughter is 19, and wow, it's a very funny, full circle moment for me.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Oh, amazing.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

That's that's a little bit about me.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, that's a a huge part, but a small part, which makes you who you are. And having a 19-year-old, you're still in it. And I'm sure you would yeah, and have memories of being young, younger in the Soviet Union, like 13 is not a baby, so the comparison would be a bit hard to even comprehend the comparison of what your daughter has experienced compared to yourself. Also makes us very different like it all makes us who we are, isn't it? So, like we were just talking about before the introduction, everything that I've been looking into with you, and and you've got an incredible book that's quite recent. You've got lots of different books, like you said, over 11 books. The latest book is titled For Real: Helping Children Remain Their Authentic Selves in a Limiting World, which is such a true reflection of exactly what I'm trying to explain to everybody over here in Australia. We're talking about the conscious parenting, all the work that you've been doing for so long is quite new here. And people really need to understand it, especially like I said, in the world that we live in now that is so not real, so much information being given to our children to make them not be their real selves. So that's what we've got to really understand as parents, we can still do that, can't we? So I think the thing is that I really wanted to deep uh deep dive into a little bit with that, and obviously that's been your life work, is often we can plot along, be independent adults, and then we have children, and even our little babies can be quite okay in regards to figuring out our authentic selves. It might be working quite nicely for us. But then when our kiddos get a bit older and things aren't quite as easy, like even toddler years, they start talking back, and all of these things that aren't all peachy. This is when our generational patterns might pop up. And generational patterns being things that have been passed on from generations, it can be great things or it can be not so great things. And often from our childhood, we think we're not going to do that. We don't want our parents, we don't want to do what our what we do our parents did, with no blame or shame for our parents all the time, or try not to. But what happens when we're in stress, uh those generational patterns tend to raise their heads. So instead of being shameful of them, it's like understanding them and then uh working through them to help our children. So often those children, or our children, when they start to become their authentic selves or trying to be, they can trigger us. If they're not the triggers, the triggers are within us, and they can often put the mirror up against us to figure out that things aren't so peachy with us. So your book really obviously deep dives into that a little bit. So when you say that raising an authentic kid starts with us, go into that a little bit more deeply for me, like in regards to what I was just saying then.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

I think what you're touching on is the um the process of development. You know, I think for me, what's very helpful is to think of adults as the developmental partners uh for children. Yeah, you know, children, if we think about you know, a small person coming into the world and designed to be a learning machine, essentially. And they're they're processing information constantly and trying to find patterns and understand what what what they're seeing, what they're hearing, get control of their own bodies. Um and the first people they rely on to for feedback are the adults immediately around them. Um it's a very, very essential partnership. And part of the partnership is providing children as reliable a mirror of their developing self as we we can. And if the mirror is distorted by whatever is coming up inside of us, that creates problems for the kiddos because they suddenly have to pay attention to not only what's happening for them, but the reaction that it creates in the adult. And if the reaction of the adult demands more attention, that's where the attention is going to go. And the message is that they have to keep themselves to the side or suppress, and they have to take care of the adult's feelings. So that's that's you know, that's the really difficult situation when it arises. So when I say that it starts with us, it really is our job as adults to pause, reflect on the ways in which we may not feel comfortable with ourselves as people or with ourselves as parents, and not necessarily fix it, but become aware of it, create the space between those those parts of ourselves and the way that we react to our children. And sometimes that can be challenging because our expectation is that we're going to respond immediately, that if a child's asks for something or if a child does something, that we have to be right there. And what I encourage parents to do is to just pause and do nothing for a second. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah, it even can't I I laugh about this to my clients. I'm just saying I literally bite my tongue still. If I might simply the pausing. So, for a little bit of a backstory for our listeners that have listened before, understand my backstory, but if this is the first time people have heard, the reason I'm doing this is through what happened with my parenting and where I came from. And uh we were traditional parenting, so do as we say. Our eldest was really compliant, easygoing kid, and uh we thought we nailed it. But what we were doing indirectly is do as I say and not hearing her as she was getting older, she was going more within, even though she was a really bubbly happy kid and we didn't see signs outwards, but as she got to teenage years and hormones and things happening externally, she became really severe mental health, which we talk about a lot. And our other children went through other things too. So that was a reflection on us. And again, you do go through that, oh guilt, like I shouldn't have done it that way. But we should never, I always take the word should out. We learn when we know, meaning with our first who didn't put that mirror up, it was okay. So if you're listening to this and your children's having a great time, don't change a thing. But when things start to feel not right, like your children are feeling stressed, they're disconnecting, then we have to reflect on as adults with our frontal cortex that's been fully developed, we have to figure out how to keep connected with them and model through that without that blame or guilt.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah. And I would add that in addition to the frontal cortex, the rest of us, you know, part of what I think the disservice we do to children and to ourselves is that we believe the hype of the brain, that the brain is the be-all and end all. And very often we know with other parts of ourselves, we know with our gut, we know energetically when something is not feeling right for us and for our kids. And so part of what I really encourage parents to do is to listen with their whole body, yeah, uh, be present as fully as possible, and then process intellectually as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

And I think when I talk about the prefrontal cortex, it's the amygdala again. We're talking about as well, that part of the brain, which is really quick reactive. So, you know, for me and my generational patterns that I didn't want to bring through is I'm a very positive, calm, happy person. But when things were getting stressful, I would yell or I'd cry. How embarrassing, like all of these things. But now I didn't understand what an amygdala was. I knew none of this. And so then that was that fight-flight response from when I was a child. So we took those those brain functions are usually that not quick enough to think. Well, we don't, we can't think it happens, but that pause allows us to feel it in our whole body. And you know, 93% or 95% of communication is our body language and tone. So that's a massive amount. If you just pause, bite your tongue for 30 seconds, you know, then that whole body reaction comes in, which is a yeah, which is a really good thing to think about, actually. I've never thought about it that way, but it is true.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think that if we were to ask our children what we say to them without saying a word, they would have some really interesting things to say.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Oh, yes. I mean, my my children aren't ever afraid to say anything, which is a really good thing that I've been told and what I have studied is that when your children uh have a voice, it's great because they've they feel safe. And I'm like, I don't sometimes. What about me? I'm an adult, I'm a human, I mean, I'm not just a mum. Um, so a little bit on what we're talking about with shame, because you do write a little bit about that, and shame is such a big word, isn't it? That we either don't talk about or we feel it within with our limiting beliefs, our bully in our head, but we would never talk about it. It is a human feeling. But the truth is, all of us, I would think, have been brought up somewhere with some shame. You know, even if, again, our parents tried to do the best they could and all different levels, uh, if you reflect on that, it usually typically comes from our childhood. And if you had an amazing childhood, that's lucky it might have come from a teacher in your early childhood. So, how how does that shame creation in your childhood, wherever that may be, sort of sneak into the way that we parent?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

I think it's important to understand what shame does. And as far as I'm concerned, shame is the most corrosive of all feelings we can experience. And the reason for that is that it becomes global. So there's usually, you know, a good reason to feel not proud of something, you know, something I did or something I said. And what tends to happen is that we then somehow make a global judgment about ourselves or are taught to make a global judgment about ourselves based on those experiences. Getting a four grade on a maths exam becomes I'm not good at maths. Very different things, right? And I I got angry when my sister bit my finger, becomes I'm an angry person. So anytime a feeling becomes an I am, yeah, that's a problem. And we a lot of us have those things that we carry with us into adulthood. And I think that when as parents we apply those kinds of global judgments, uh, I am not a patient parent, or I am angry, or it informs the way we parent because that's the position we're coming from.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

So I think that that's another place where it's really important to take a pause and to reflect on those beliefs. And for me, reflecting on beliefs is really useful when we also can understand where they come from, because that's the beginning of change.

SPEAKER_04 14:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

And so unspooling those beliefs from I'm an angry person to I sometimes get angry when I am stressed.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Because then I'm back in a situation where I can be in dialogue, dialogue with those feelings, and I can make choices about how I respond in any particular moment rather than I'm just angry. I'm an angry person. So that's the way to, as parents, to break that cycle. I think the other thing that comes up a lot when I talk to people, parents, particularly about our work, is that there's this drive to meet some external standard of parenting.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

It's got worse, totally. Yeah. And again, if if we stop and say, but what are you measuring yourself against? Where does that belief come? Okay, but I mean, how important is that? Like, are you trying to get more likes as a parent, or are you trying to right? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

So that's what's crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah. So I think that those are two key things about shame, but uh most importantly, is it's not making those global judgments about ourselves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah. And for me, again, my it when I'm coaching individuals in regards to this, I talk about shining lights on it, meaning it doesn't, it's not a diagnosis that you're an angry person or you're an emotional person, but I again reflect on my own lived experience of what I was sort of labeled as, and then I labeled myself and I had to untangle that, like you said. And it's like um shining the light of where it came from, why I'm human, and how can I pause and not react like that? And again, lived experience, I have been able to do that with a lot of work, a lot of research, a lot of study, a lot of uh personal work, and everyone can do it. Everyone can do it. If it's something that you um have that shame on, and shame is not a great word and a great feeling, we can shine that light on it and pause and redirect the way that we respond uh in regards to that feeling of shame, wherever, wherever it might have come from, you know. Um, and and when we talk about trying to stop it through generations, that's exactly what it is. It's like, oh, okay, we can change that, can we? Yes, we can. It's a muscle you build, it's something you have to practice. You're not going to get it right all the time. And the one time you do get it right that you've paused and you've thought about it and it doesn't happen, you're like, oh my goodness, that felt good. And then you do it again, and that's what happens.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

So it's all about that. Well, and if right, and if I may, you know, as adults in general, I think if we can prevent ourselves from ever saying to a child, you are such a so-and-so person, um, that goes a very long way to breaking that cycle of shame.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah. And again, I like to reflect on my story because now that I'm a parent coach and all of that, people will think, you know, was she always like that? Absolutely not. And there's still some absolute chaos in our home. But the re another big reason that we had to change our parenting is we indirectly, one of our children was a lot louder, had a lot more tantrums, you know. And again, society should be like, you know, that's not okay. That's naughty behavior, not understanding anxiety, amygdala, all that sort of stuff. Feel quite sorry for our daughter that that happened. But what happened is because she was so explosive, she was then indirectly labeled the black sheep. You know, we didn't say that to her, we didn't say you're the worst or whatever. She was the one getting in trouble all the time. She was the one saying, stop that, stop that. And that poor teenage kid gave it back to us because we indirectly did it. So we didn't even verbally say it. So again, when people are listening, if you've got a child that's a bit more strong-willed, that is not easy. It's not as easy to parent, but you've got to really try and figure out where that's coming from, and as parents, how to pause, model, and help them learn to regulate over time, you know, that's a really big thing. So, again, the other thing that we talk about was we don't have to be perfect parents. And again, I think we all think we aren't doing that, but again, on reflection, absolutely. I was wanting to do what society thinks, cookie cutter, do this, do the homework, go to university, and uh all of those pressures on us. And really, our children don't want that, they don't need it, they just leave they need a lot of love, support, and guidance and helping them become their authentic self.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah, a lot of the things. Absolutely. I it's it's it, if I may, it's learning to see the child you're given rather than parenting according to somebody else's standard that's um you know supposed to be good for any child.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Totally, totally. And like again, we are in we're in our own little worlds accidentally doing it, thinking that that's what we need to do. But if you go through things that again, we went through in regards to mental health, none of that matters. None of it matters. You've got to you've got to allow your child to be their authentic self, and then that's help with their mental health full stop, um, and then love and support them through whatever they authentically want to do. And that doesn't mean permissive parenting and not supporting them to do their best, and it's not anything to do with that, it's actually uh supporting them to do their best authentically rather than what we want to condition them to do. Um, so the other thing that we sort of talk about, and I think people get a parents get a little bit worried, and I have a lot of people reach out, um, when our children, who we were nice and connected to and everything was going quite nicely, all of a sudden start to pull away. You know, it's pretty scary for parents and they don't know what to do. And what would be your sort of best advice with that if they feel a little bit panicky that something has shifted?

SPEAKER_02 21:06

First stop and orient yourself to where the child is on the developmental continuum. If it's pre-adolescence and hormones are beginning to play a part, that's one conversation. If it's a three-year-old who's pulling away and going silent, that's a very different conversation. Um, so I think that that that is is key. Um the other thing I would suggest is not panicking right away. Um and getting support for yourself, talking about with a trusted person what it feels like to be worried about your child, to suddenly feel that you don't know your child. The way you thought you did, um, and that you may not know how to support the child in whatever she's going through. Um I think it's it's really important to release those feelings because if we get stuck in the worries, then sooner or later we're going to start acting out of those worries rather than out of the facts in front of us. Yeah, and I think that the other advice I would give is remember when the child was most at ease, you know, is it during a bath? Our daughter who still does this right before bedtime, will come and get very chatty. Yeah, right. You know, is that still happening or is that stopped? Um and without trying to be too intrusive or clingy, try to create those opportunities. You know, maybe go for a walk, um do something the child likes and that helps them relax. Uh so anything that and then ask what's what's happening uh without putting their judgments.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

That no judgment, yeah. And and I think the thing is too, as parents, we want to stay connected and close and we need to try and do that. But what I often always talk about is often as I'm not talking about teens mostly, still stay connected even they're not they're not giving you anything back. Because what I hear is parents like, well, they're not talking to me, they don't want anything to do with me. And I'm like, well, they probably do, but they don't want you to be intrusive. So stay connected, like you said, for girls, go shopping, they love that. Go for a car drive somewhere, make for get some food, you know, uh all of those things. But it honestly, you still have to bite your tongue as a parent. Let them talk. You can definitely ask, is it how are you going? Everything's okay, but don't expect them. You might know they're not right, but do not force it because that makes them shut down more, doesn't it?

unknown 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

I think the other thing that I would say is try to find out if they are talking to anyone. Okay. You know, is there a trusted adult somewhere else in the family? Is there a trusted adult in school? I think that if they're really not talking to anyone, that might be a sign that it's it's time to get some help. Yeah. Um, yeah, and I think modeling getting help is is really key. Um, you know, in in the States these days, the big phrase is mental health literacy. And I think part of mental health literacy starts with emotional health literacy and showing children that we all need help occasionally. We all need someone else to talk to.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

And I again, um, when I when I'm doing my coaching, that's what I talk about is age appropriately, you can talk to your children. Like if I'm talking to a woman whose husband's just left her and she's a real mess and she's allowed to be a real mess, you know, and then she's really worried about the children. I'm like, absolutely have the big cry and everything in front of them, but also you can be real in front of them, age appropriate, and just say, you know, mum's hurting and being honest with our children because often, or back in the day, our parents wouldn't. They wouldn't either show us emotion or they'd cry and they'd yell, and then you know, all of that sort of stuff. But age appropriately, having a human experience with your children and getting through it is the best teacher, isn't it? Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah, and there's so many wonderful books for kids of all ages that can help start those conversations. Oh, wonderful. Whatever, whatever we're going through. Yeah. Um that and whether we're going through it or they're going through it, just reading, and again, not just suddenly out of the blue reading when you don't normally read, but just reading together as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Implementing new things, yeah. And everything's everything can is changeable, you know. Like this is the thing, everyone gets stuck in what's happening. And I'm like, there's so many things that we can start to implement to to help with our family, you know, and it's such an important role, us being the parents. Um, there also the also the thing I want to talk about before we um say goodbye is um I wanted you to take us through your love framework, which is learn, open doors, validate, and engage. And I super I really loved that. It's obviously a reflection of what we've been talking about. So yeah, can you run through your thought process around that?

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Of course. Learn is really the posture of curiosity. You know, we we get these little beings who suddenly appear in our lives, and from the first moment there's so much to learn because they are learning about the world. And if we can step away from the idea that we are supposed to teach them, parent them, mold them, and sit on the floor with them and look at um the world through their eyes. A friend of mine was telling me about something that her daughter did when she was, I think about three or four. She went around their house with a camera and took pictures of everything from her eye level. And so it's like, you know, the the side of the counters in the kitchen and this, you know, the couch. But you know, that's that's how they see the world. If if we think about, you know, how children go through their lives, they're always like this, looking up at us adults. And so if the more we can sit down on the floor with them and see how what they're seeing and what they're learning, uh, the more we understand about who they are. And from there, we can then help them find opportunities to do more learning, to to discover new things. And it's not about taking them to the latest and greatest experiences or you know, the all the latest gadgets or toys or whatever. It's just about letting them discover the world in the way that makes sense to them. Another friend of mine was telling me that she started getting worried about her baby when she was about a year and a half because she would sit there for an hour on end and just take rocks out of a box and put them back in the box. And she started saying, and this is this friend is a teacher, said, Oh my gosh, is there something wrong with her? And they said, No, this is like, you know, she's just, you know, there's texture to the rocks, there's different weight, there's, you know, there's the motor movement. So those kinds of experiences, again, if we know our children, we can help them have more of those kinds of experiences.

SPEAKER_04 28:43

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Validating is as is what we were just talking about is sharing our experience of the world and our experience of being children. So I'm really afraid of needles, and I look away when I, you know, I have to have blood taken. And it was actually my daughter who taught me that you know, she, when she has blood drawn, lies down at the doctor's office. And I've never done that before. So now I I asked to lie down, right? So it's sharing those experiences of what it's like to be Cuban, and then finally engaging with children's ideas about the world. You know, they are philosophers, they have such big questions and such big ideas. And often what happens is, you know, when a kid comes to you and says, you know, what happens when grandma dies? We freeze because we feel as if we have to have an answer and we don't have an answer. And so we either deflect it, we say we don't talk about that, however, we handle it, most likely not in the most elegant way. The best thing we can do is to say, well, what do you think? Do you have a theory? Do you have a hypothesis? What story do you have in your mind about what happens? And it's incredible the kinds of conversations we can have with children when we ask those those questions. So that's that's the that's the framework of loving our kids.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Oh, that's beautiful. And it all sounds so simple, doesn't it, when we have these conversations? And I love having these conversations. But again, I working with my parents, I might give them some advice like this, and I think, oh, that's a good idea. We all think it just comes naturally, but the world we live in with too much information, we can't think for ourselves, and we're just busy, everyone's so busy, and it's just slowing down and being human, slowing down, getting to the children's size and age appropriate stuff, like you said. And it's a really beautiful time and it goes very quickly, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 30:35

It does very, very it goes extremely quickly. And I think that the less we try to be perfect and the more we are present, the more we can extend that just a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Absolutely. And I I remember when I was in the thick of it with the three kids at home, and I was like, you know, I can't wait till they're 18 and leave the nest, but now they're like 21, 18, and 15. I'm like, you don't have to go anywhere. It's okay. It's okay, just stay here as long as you want. Don't leave the nest yet. Life changes, that's for sure. Um, so your amazing book, where can people find that? I mean, I'll put everything in the show notes and things like that, but um, obviously it would be fantastic for people to go. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

We have a website for the book. It's called forreelbook.org. It's a US site. It looks like this.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yeah, it's gorgeous. Uh but it it can you can ship it to Australia.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Um, yeah, I believe that there are online services that will ship it to Australia.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

I will sort that out and put it in the show notes, but um, it's definitely a book that needs to be in people's bookshelves, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Yeah, and if you discover that people are having difficulty getting it, uh, we do have a distributor in McMillan, and we'll make sure that they're it's available.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Okay. Um I will look into that because I'm going to get one for myself to read about it. Well, thank you so much today, Alex. It's been a fantastic conversation and I love all the work that you're doing. And um, yeah, like we said, completely compliments what I'm trying to get out here in Australia about uh understanding ourselves at parents and doing the best we can. And again, no, we're not trying to shame parents and make them feel guilty. It's just for us to try to do the best we can for our children. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Absolutely. We have to support each other and thank you so much for doing your work and for having me on the show.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

You're most welcome. Have a nice day.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Thanks, you too.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Bye-bye. So if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave me a rating and review. I love reading all of your messages. Just shoot me a DM over on Instagram. It is parentingcollective.au. I also offer a free 15 minute no obligation phone chat. If you'd like to book one, head over to my website, www.parentingcollective.com.au, and request one there. So try to remember to be kind to yourself and always know you're doing the best you can every day, no matter what your day is looking like. Until next time, much love.