Transcript for
Navigating family cultural tensions
Wei Gao (00:00): My parents actually have different parenting concepts and practises compared to what I would love to do. So sometimes it’s really good for them to practise the cultural knowledge, cultural celebrations, to actually help my children to increase their proud of their cultural identity. But sometimes it might cause a little bit conflict, so confusions for them.
Narrator (00:28): Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast.
Amanda Kemperman (00:33): Hi everyone, my name’s Amanda Kemperman. Welcome to part two of this two-part Emerging Minds podcast series on culturally responsive practise. In today’s podcast, parents and practitioners share their thoughts and ideas on navigating family cultural tensions when working with families with a different culture to their own. We’d like to pay respects to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We also pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia.
(01:14): As a part of our work at Emerging Minds, we are privileged to partner with a range of leaders who support the mental health of children and families in Australia. As a part of the development of our recent online course, Culturally responsive practise strategies for children’s mental health, parents and practitioners shared their thoughts with me. Throughout both of these podcasts, you’ll be hearing from Emerging Minds family partners Wei Gao and Renee Romeo, counsellor Etty Garabelli, and family therapist Pshko Marden. Wei and Renee are parents and Emerging Minds lived experience family partners, and they’ll share with us their experiences of navigating family cultural tensions. And practitioners Etty and Pshko will talk about how practitioners can respond to children, and families’ experiences of managing different cultural ideas and ways of doing things. We’ll start by hearing from counsellor Etty about families adapting in two different cultures.
Etty Garabelli (02:14): When you are from another country, when you migrate, part of you is here and part of you always stays in your country because your family, your language, your food, your friends, they stay there. Part of your life stays there. So you are present here, you are creating your life here, but there’s still things that are happening somewhere else in the world that might be affecting you.
Amanda Kemperman (02:39): And parent Wei shares how engaging elders in conversations can strengthen family understandings and responses while supporting children’s cultural identity.
Wei Gao (02:49): The elders actually can explain to the practitioner if they’re not fully aware how, why, and what. But the cultural authority, like the elders, can give a full explanation so the practitioner have the knowledge, they can support our children better. And then after that, because the stories are consistent both in schools and family, it actually gave the children strong identity and a confident… And it actually helps the whole healing process.
Amanda Kemperman (03:21): Parent Renee and practitioner Etty share some of the intergenerational and cross-cultural experiences of families who are adapting in a new country.
Renee Romeo (03:32): They grew up and went through the school system here, which their parents did not have the opportunity to complete education. And so it’s a different generation with opportunities and then they’re deciding what they’re taking and moving forward with and what they’re going to let go of, which is cycle breaking. But we didn’t have this word back then, cycle breaking. So that’s sort of what they were doing. But sometimes when you do that, people fear that they’re leaving their culture or they’re leaving their faith. And even I used to think that too. I was really worried, when my grandparents pass, I’m going to forget who I am, I’m going to forget language.
Etty Garabelli (04:17): A lot of communities, they are scared that their children are going to be removed from them, and then they’re scared of coming to you and telling you what’s really happening for them and for the children. So how do we create that equality within this room and that safety to open up those conversations? And of course we see it in the way they dress and the way sometimes the child refuses to speak the language. The child refuses to wear certain things that is particular to your faith or to your culture. And why is the child doing that?
(04:52): And I think it’s allowing once again that space for the parents and the children to come to a mutual understanding, because the parents have their concerns and they’re quite real. And it might be something simple as, for example, in many places of the world still, for women to be wearing a mini skirt is not safe, right? So I’m going to tell my child, “Please don’t wear a skirt.” Maybe here it’s safer, but I still have that fear that I brought with me from the things I have seen.
Amanda Kemperman (05:26): Pshko shares the dynamics he notices between parents who have migrated to Australia and whose children are growing up in Australia and their different journeys of acculturating.
Pshko Marden (05:37): The younger generation migrating here, they have more capacities to be flexible around the process of acculturation. A person is more absolute in their own culture and their own traditions and that’s influenced their way of thinking, their way of being in the world. And the other one is more open to the new ideas, having different experiences. And so that is ultimately create that cultural and generational gap. So how we could work together to create the space that is not compromising either of their… What’s important for both of them.
Amanda Kemperman (06:15): Pshko also identifies how tensions can arise when there’s differing generational ideas about family priorities.
Pshko Marden (06:23): So when there is I know I’m the adult, there is no sense of curiosity. What is there is they should follow what I say because I know better. When that ideas and practise has been suspended, create a space for curiosity about knowing what their children wanting to be, how they conduct themselves in life, what’s their way of responding to challenges and therefore their knowledge and their skills and their resilience. That would not become visible unless those ideas is being suspended and it’s being replaced by a sense of curiosity.
(07:03): So there is sense of confusion, there is sense of powerlessness against the dominant culture where then practising this power, it will be put on the family members. Because I cannot change the dominant culture, but I can bring all the powerlessness here and turn it to a power so I could, under the name of protection of the family, exercise that on my family and my extended family in this culture.
Amanda Kemperman (07:36):
Wei shares her experiences of raising her children differently to her parents and how this can be confusing for her children at times.
Wei Gao (07:44): They were born overseas, grew up overseas, spending their whole entire life overseas, so they actually practise the most traditional cultural things. So when they came here, it’s a cultural shock for them, but meanwhile what they bring to the family is actually cultural shock to the children as well. So my parents actually have different parenting concepts and practises compared to what I would love to do. So sometimes it’s really good for them to practise the cultural knowledge, cultural celebrations, to actually help my children to increase their proud of their cultural identity. But sometimes it might cause a little bit conflict, so confusions for them.
Amanda Kemperman (08:32): Wei now shares an example in her own parenting where she’s managed the difference between her parenting in Australia and her parents in China. She managed this communication between her parents and her children, helping her parents’ acceptance of this change.
Wei Gao (08:48): So my children have always saying, “You can’t be my boss, I’m my own boss. You can’t make decisions for me. I’m the only person that can make decisions for myself.” I think this is what they learned from school in Australia, but for my parents it’s like, “Oh my god, what are you talking about? You should consult with your elders first. We are here to provide the wisdom to you and you can’t be so rudely saying, ‘I’m not listening to you.'” And so I think that’s a shock for both sides, because I heard my parents complain, “Your children not listening.” So I think it’s very cultural comments, because when I was little I was expected to listen because the older generation is supposed provide wise suggestions, I always need to consult with them. But in Australia we want our children to be independent thinking, to have critical thinking skills, not just to listen or follow. We want them to be like that. A few, it’s not actually contradictory. We need to help them to understand.
(09:55): I think I would like to explain to my parents here in Australia, even me, I value how they can think independently, how they can criticise other people’s ideas or opinions. These are great skills they need to learn from school and they need to learn how to make wise decisions. But it’s a good idea to ask the older generations, you don’t even need to take their opinions, as in you find the balance point to help our children. Yes, make your own decision, but be humble and respect your elder generations. How hard for them to change. And I have to admit, it take many times, but eventually they did change. So for my parents, they slowly accept, yes, we would help or facilitate them to make the right decisions rather than tell them what to do. And it’s great for my parents, they slightly changing and I’m very happy to see them… Never too old to change. So happy to say we all actually agree on same common ground to support the children.
Amanda Kemperman (11:07): Parent Renee shares how creating a space for families and fostering understanding is powerful and can enable families to locate solutions to their own tensions.
Renee Romeo (11:17): Not necessarily wanting to problematize the situation that’s presented or a certain family member, but just having an ongoing conversation that sort of moves. I think that’s a really beautiful thing. But that happens with space and time without judgement , without problematization, and that’s a nice place to be when you can get there on your own, with a little bit of practitioners holding space or open questions without shame and judgement . And there are conversations after that session, had walking to the car and in the car driving home and then we’re on the bus going home or back at home with another family member as well where these conversations might continue, and then allowing that to just continue if families come back. So the conversations after the appointment are just as important as what’s happened in the session. So in the session it’s open curiosity, questions, thoughts, not necessarily rushing to decisions. And then there’s work that happens after the sessions.
Amanda Kemperman (12:34): Renee and Wei talk about how children may be held back from being included in some school activities and how practitioners can play an important role in supporting families explore families’ concerns.
Renee Romeo (12:47): Seeing children at school, right up until teens, doing things that you weren’t allowed to do and thinking that it’s just your culture, but not necessarily. So what we think is culture, it could be seen as cultural, but it could be other things going on. For example, school camps. If you’re not allowed to go on a school camp, you might think, okay, well in our culture we have strict parents. This was a narrative running through my head, but this was actually about child safety.
Wei Gao (13:21): I know they’re enormously busy with their daily routine and work already, but sometimes in the situation when the parents or the carers refuse for the children to participate certain activities, it’s definitely worth them to spend some time, invest some time and space to find it out, actually what happened and how to support the families. And especially if culturally it’s not acceptable, but we think in Australia it’s important for the kids to learn. So we need to find acceptable mutual way to support the kids to be able to participate.
(14:00): Once a practitioner has more insight of the cultural roles in certain activities, it actually help the practitioner to work on how to support the child best because we can have different levels of involvement of different family members, and so that they all feel valued in their own way and not be feeling I’m left out because I’m not part of this culture. Once the children say, “Oh, all my family member being involved,” they would feel empowered and they would feel, I’m actually cultural confidence about my other culture as well.
Amanda Kemperman (14:43): Pshko talks about how beneath families’ concerns lies values and aspects they hold dear and important, providing practitioners with valuable clues.
Pshko Marden (14:54): What sort of activities that they do together, what sort of events that they attend together, what sort of everyday interaction that they engage in and participate that signifies these values, the importance of keeping connected. And once we have and we pay attention to every daily actions and the details of what they do to keep connected, we will then have access to a wealth of everyday actions and ways of being with one another. The whole values comes from that practises that they do on a daily basis, and that’s based on those events. So it’s the values in itself, it’s not something exists theoretically in a realm, but it’s always underpinned by those act of love, act of caring, act of support that the family members do. They engage in those actions and they engage in those sort of ways of being that create the sense of what is important and what is being valued here. The values, they are not consonant and they’re not set to rules that it’s never changes, but it always, there is a movement and always that movement is what is helping the families to connect with one another.
Amanda Kemperman (16:19): Pshko also discusses the development of conversations stemming from family values that can facilitate a coming together of family members.
Pshko Marden (16:28): It’s a parallel tracking of the history where we track the history of the problem and we also track the history of the values. What made it value, how that came about, but what is it actually we value? What is it that is important for us? So rather than a particular idea about what my culture said, what is a traditional way of to think about that, it’s what is important in terms of how I keep connected to my family members. Is there something that we could both or all of us agree on and work on collaboratively? It’s not one individual’s task to try to fight against the problem because the problem has a tendency to overtake and try to affect everyone within the family. So working against the problem and trying to push against the influence and the domination of the problem, it requires all the family members to work together collaboratively and come up with an agreement about how they might kind of approach.
Amanda Kemperman (17:35): Counsellor Etty concludes by emphasising that her work with families is similar to working with children, where you build on strengths and draw from their skills, knowledge, and abilities.
Etty Garabelli (17:46): What’s working for the family and what can we build on? It’s a little bit like when you are working with a child, they know how to do a certain thing. How do we use this to build this new skill for them? That scaffolding that happens. So how can we understand what’s important for the family, what’s their values and all of that? So that I’m able to send this message based on what’s important for that family so that it makes sense in their context, not in mine. And I can only get to that point by getting to know the person that’s sitting in front of me.
Amanda Kemperman (18:21): Thank you for tuning into this podcast where Wei, Renee, Etty, and Pshko shared their insights on navigating intergenerational family cultural tensions. The second part of this two-part series on culturally responsive practise. For more resources on culturally responsive practise, you can enrol in the free online course Culturally Responsive Practise Strategies for Children’s Mental Health, available on the Emerging Minds learning platform. Thanks for listening and all the best in your culturally responsive practise journey.
Narrator (18:55): Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise. Brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health, led by Emerging Minds. The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the national support for child and youth mental health program.