Transcript for
Skills for working with dads in the early years of parenting – part two

Roger Currie (00:00): We’ve tended to rely on mums and women to do that nurturing role, that particularly in the domestic family violence space, women have been supporting this area for too long. It’s nice to have men starting to come in and go, okay, this is our problem. We need to fix it, we need to support, men have to support men to fix this issue. Patriarchy, I think tells us to disconnect from everything, particularly ourselves, which is really traumatising in itself.

Narrator (00:27): Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast.

Vicki Mansfield (32:06): Hi everyone, my name’s Vicki Mansfield. Welcome to the second episode of the two-part Emerging Minds podcast series on practise skills for working with dads in the early years of parenting. In this podcast, we continue our conversation with Roger Currie and Mark Hoppe from Family Support Newcastle. In part one, Roger and Mark spoke about supporting dads in their transition to parenthood, how they work with dads to tune into children’s needs, and the group work skills that they’ve developed in their group work practise with dads.

(01:06): In this episode, Mark and Roger will explore the importance of practitioners being curious about dad’s role in the child’s life and in the family system even when they’re not presenting as the primary client, how collaboration within the village around the child promotes child wellbeing, and share their practise wisdom about the relational skills of holding a therapeutic alliance with dad, and being an advocate for infant and toddler’s mental health needs. So Roger and Mark, when you’re working with families in general, why it might be important to make dads visible in our assessment conversation when mother and child are maybe the presenting clients or if there’s been family domestic violence.

Mark Hoppe (01:54): What comes to mind there is around David Mandel’s work and the Safe and Together Model, where it’s very much about making men visible, and that perhaps historically, in cases of domestic and family violence, there has been a lot of emphasis on the mother and why hasn’t the mother done A, B and C, and dad remains let off the hook and invisible. So it’s really looking at that accountability and responsibility in that sense, as a partner and as a parent, and that dad has a really active role there and choices to make and ways to show up in that role. I guess that’s one thing there that’s really important, that they’re visible. And also just I think from, I know in other situations there’s dads that I work with where they’d like to be more visible and they don’t feel visible enough. Say for example, with the school or whatever in cases of separation. So making dad visible is really important.

Vicki Mansfield (02:50): And so in that, I hear Mark that in some ways there’s also some responsibility for us as practitioners to be asking and being curious about dads.

Roger Currie (03:01): Absolutely. Yeah, I think it’s very important. Whether we’re all living under the same roof, we’re still a family, mum, dad, children, and again, extended family. I think that’s a system and we need everybody’s input from the system. We use this analogy with dads a lot with cars. You’ve got the system that runs the vehicle. If anything doesn’t work, or you don’t know how it works, then the system doesn’t work. I think it’s the same with dads. Dads are part of the system. They have an impact on the system, whether it’s a positive one, negative one, healthy one, unhealthy, and they need to be considered and supported as a part of that system. If we’re just dealing with one part of the system, then we’re not benefiting the whole system. I think if we’re trying to keep children safe, then everybody that is a part of that system and part of that child’s life needs to be supported to support the child.

Vicki Mansfield (03:45): How does collaboration with other professionals or services help keep the safety and needs of the child in mind?

Mark Hoppe (03:55): I think it’s really important, and I suppose the main thing there is having other voices. So if I’m working with dad, I’m only getting dad’s perspective, and so it’s really useful for me to hear the other perspective, to hear perspectives that have come from mum, to hear what’s happening for the child, just to build a fuller picture basically of what’s really happening here.

Vicki Mansfield (04:16): And from your experience, Roger?

Roger Currie (04:19): Sometimes the children might be acting differently at home as compared with what they might be acting at school. So sometimes investigating that discrepancy, what’s going on, what’s happening in the children’s lives where they act differently in different places. If we’re talking to health professionals is trying to find out whether there’s some sort of diagnosis that might be missed, or something physically that’s impacting the child. Yeah, so it’s just adding to the story and finding out what’s happening for all of the family. Sometimes even with dad talking to other people in his life can add to the story, and it’s generally just to get more information so we know how we need to work with dad, what’s going to support him the best.

Vicki Mansfield (04:54): So in his work with men, Alan Jenkins talks about being accountable to women and children, but also maintaining empathy and curiosity, which I think is something you’ve mentioned in terms of unconditional positive regard as well. When we spoke previously, you’ve mentioned the swimming between the flags approach when working with fathers, can you explain to me what that means?

Mark Hoppe (05:16): Yeah, so the swimming between the flags, they talk about swimming between the flags and the two flags, one being empathy and the other being essentially, I suppose challenging questions. So this side is around accountability and responsibility, and this side is empathy, and it’s just feeling into where one should be between those flags at a given time. And I guess staying between them and not swimming too close to one, you’re going to lose the man and not staying way over there so that there’s no challenging. So for me, what feels really important in that work is forming rapport, and that man gets a sense of trust and safety and that they feel seen and heard and met. That for me lays the foundation that it’s safe enough then for if I’m going to say something challenging, we have enough of a relationship there that it can hold that, simply because if I do that without that, I’m going to lose the man and then we’ve got nowhere.

Vicki Mansfield (06:13): If we run with the metaphor sounds like the foundation is you need some solid sand that you can go in the ripper one way or the other, but you need that relational solid foundation.

Mark Hoppe (06:25): Yeah, I think it’s really important. I think it’s amazing from that position how challenging you can be because that groundwork’s there, but I think if we jump in quite too close to the challenging end too quickly. Or if a man’s feeling that there is a judgement in there, whether it’s articulated or not, it might just be in there, then I think that that muddies that water a little bit and makes the work difficult.

Vicki Mansfield (06:53): And how is it being conscious and being in the flags, what helps whether you’re maintaining that foundation and how does a practitioner attuned to that?

Mark Hoppe (07:06): Yeah, what a great question. I think that’s just a felt sense thing as well. You’re present in the situation, and you are feeling where the man’s at and you can feel if you’re losing, the more obviously there can be really obvious signs where they jack up. I think that’s just a feeling into are you pushing too hard or did that land or did it not land? And there may need to be some backpedalling or an adjustment if you feel like you’ve pushed too hard.

Vicki Mansfield (07:33): Yeah. So in lots of ways what you’re describing is that being attuned to the non-verbals and repairing if it’s not landed correctly and being immediate about it, so it is a felt sense. How do you hold that tension, Roger?

Roger Currie (07:50): Yeah, I guess I’m constantly thinking about who do I speak, do I speak for the child here? Do I listen to dad here? What else is going to happen here? Bit of a guessing game. Am I going at the right pace? Are other questions appropriate? Are the comments appropriate? Where is dad? Sometimes he might amp up, he gets a bit confronted with either something he’s thought about or something I’ve said, and he sits up and, “That’s not fair.” Okay, so then we need to bring it back, go back to the empathy side. So yeah, there’s a lot going on. Yeah, sometimes it’s dad takes off with a story or something that’s happening in the moment and it’s like maybe it’s useful to unpack where that might’ve come from. Help them understand why they’re behaving like this now. Sometimes it was a protective response back in their past and they’re still in that protective response now, so it’s joining those two up.

(08:37): What I mean by that is dad as a child might have been had a traumatic childhood, so are very angry and confronting, but that’s what they’re doing now because they’re protecting themselves from what might be coming at them. It’s helping them understand that that’s a protective response. I think that’s really useful sometimes is that it’s a protective response, not a bad behaviour. I mean, bad behaviour can come from it, but initially, it’s a protective response. I don’t like being confronted with whatever’s coming at me, and so helping them understand that it’s a protective response, but we can behave differently. And again, sometimes our children can confront us and amp us up and we do that protective response and we growl at the children. Okay, well, there’s a better way of doing that. Yeah, you’re confronted by the child’s response, but we don’t have to get angry or get confronted, we can calm that down and then hopefully respond more appropriately with their child.

Vicki Mansfield (09:26): Can you tell me more about how you unpack or explore the confronted or protective responses?

Roger Currie (09:33): I find the whiteboard very useful in drawing a picture, but I like to jump up on the whiteboard and draw stuff. I think dads get a picture then of what’s going on. I use that neurosequential model of Bruce Perry that the brain processes and develops from the base of the brain up to the top of the brain. I find that useful in explaining to dads that we’ve got to feel safe initially, and our children have to be safe. If their base of their brain isn’t safe, then we get into that fight, flight, freeze behaviour. Then the next part is our connection part of the brain where we need to connect with people. Relationship is really, really important.

(10:10): And then we can start problem solving and often, we all do it, we problem solve first without calming the brain down, or calming the lower part of the brain. It’s trying to flip that thinking. We need to regulate ourselves, regulate our children, calm our nervous system, calm our children’s nervous system, we need to connect with one another, love one another, attach with one another, and then we can problem solve. But yeah, we always go to problem solve. We always want to solve the problems, get this done and dusted and then we can get on with our life, it’s not that simple.

Vicki Mansfield (10:42): How did dads respond to that sort of discussion and the visual representation of it?

Roger Currie (10:49): They seem to really enjoy it. I still find them coming a couple of several sessions later, still problem solving. I said, “No, no, we’ve got to turn it around,” and they get it, but it’s just what we do. But I do find they’d find it very useful and I think they also find it useful that this is how we all function. So again, normalising it’s not just me, I’ve got a problem as a dad, I’m a bad dad. No, no, we all act like this. Everybody that’s got a brain, we’ve all got a brain, we all act this way. So I think that’s useful for them as well. It also helps, I believe, helps them connect with their children. When they’re flipping their lid and dad’s flipping his lid, okay, this is both of us flipping our lid, we’re both doing that normal responses. It might not be appropriate because we’re yelling and screaming and stuff, but at least we can feel like we’re both in the same boat. What do we need to do? We need to regulate, calm down, and that sort of stuff.

Vicki Mansfield (11:39): It sounds like it’s a great way of giving a language and an understanding to it.

Roger Currie (11:45): I also think it helps them connect with their past, particularly in the traumatised situations where they’ve had trauma in their lives. Your base of your brain is not safe, you didn’t connect with yourself or with your parents because the next part up of the brain. I think, again, it draws that picture that’s useful for now, the past, what’s happening between our children, I find it useful to explain a number of things.

Vicki Mansfield (12:10): So it helps them make meaning do you think? You mentioned before about knowing themselves, do you think that making meaning is an important part of the work that you do?

Roger Currie (12:20): I think sometimes part of that process of healing is actually understanding what happened. What happened to me? Why doesn’t this make sense to me, or didn’t it make sense? So trying to make sense now it’s like, oh, okay, that makes sense. I think that’s really useful. And again, connecting to their kids. When I often ask parents, particularly in parenting programmes, how often do you ask your children? What were you thinking? Say their kids aren’t thinking, they’re stuck in their survival brain when they’re in the fight, flight, freeze, they’re not thinking. So stop expecting our kids to think, because we are often not thinking as parents if we’ve lost it as well.

Vicki Mansfield (12:54): And what you’re describing is the making meaning of it in a top brain thinking, brain sense of it, but also in a physiological, physical way and having a physical way into it sounds like a good concrete way of accessing.

Roger Currie (13:09): Yeah, so how do you feel? And often in your body, that tensing up and the grinding of your teeth or the sweating or whatever, those are responses to you not feeling safe. I think again, that gives a sense of, oh, okay, that makes sense. Just helping dads understand what they’re experiencing in the moment, and sometimes that’ll happen in the room. Dads will get upset and I’ll say, “Do you see what’s happening?” And they go, “No, what?” I’ll say, “You sat up.” And they go, “Oh yeah, I did too.” And so I’m able to, “What happened?” And then they can connect all that, “Ah, that’s going on.” So that’s useful.

Vicki Mansfield (13:42): What do you like best about working with dad?

Mark Hoppe (13:46): I think there’s a real gift in that, in meeting somebody, meeting them with unconditional positive regard and without judgement and just making space to see them and hear them and meet them where they are, I think there’s something really powerful in that. When we’re talking about say, domestic and family violence and from a gendered perspective and a patriarchal perspective, we talk a lot about accountability and responsibility, and we talk a lot about power and control for men. But I also think that the experience of patriarchy for men is very disconnecting. So men are trained into be strong, disconnect, don’t feel, don’t be gentle, so I think being able to provide some kind of gentle invitation to that for men for me feels really rewarding.

Vicki Mansfield (14:37): And Roger, would you like to add anything further about your favourite things about working with dads?

Roger Currie (14:43): I think being a dad and a male supporting dads and males, I just find that good and useful. I think we’ve tended to rely on mums and women to do that nurturing role particularly in the domestic family violence space. Women have been supporting this area for too long, and it’s nice to have men starting to come in and go, okay, this is our problem. We need to fix it, we need to support, men have to support men to fix this issue. Patriarchy, I think tells us to disconnect from everything, particularly ourselves, which is really traumatising in itself. So I think being part of that process of being able to connect men back with themselves, with their partners, with their kids, with their family. It’s a long road sometimes, it’s a hard road, but I think being able to be part of that is special. I suppose you could say it’s an honoured place to be.

Vicki Mansfield (15:34): What are the three take-home messages you’d like our audience to walk away with today?

Mark Hoppe (15:40): I mean, I think that lots of the dads we see have had a lot of trauma in their lives, and so the nature and the quality of the connection they’ve received hasn’t been great, and I think sometimes we expect people to show up in ways as a parent that’s actually completely foreign and unfamiliar to them. And so like we were speaking about starting to give them a sense of being met and heard and seen and not judged, and I think it’s amazing how that can lay the platform for transformation.

Roger Currie (16:13): Bring dads in, yeah. If you’re working with mum and the children, what is dad doing? Where is dad? And even if he’s not with the family, he’s separated, he’s got another family or whatever, what’s he doing? How’s he interacting with the children? Bring them in, talk to them. Even if it’s just a phone call, they don’t have to specifically come into the organisation or into the building, but find out about them. I think the other one is too, is don’t be put off by the gruff. I think sometimes we can be worried about the gruff, it’s just a protective strategy. Listen, how can I help? Be curious. Yeah, often we’re not curious. We’ve got an idea in our heads that we know how it is, so be curious.

Vicki Mansfield (16:48): What fantastic parting messages. Thank you Roger and Mark for being so generous, and sharing with us your practise skills for working with dads. There are many important points for reflection and examples of practise skills that our audience can consider in their roles.

Narrator (17:06): 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 or Youth Mental Health Program.