Jaimie Abbott: Well, my guest today is Samantha Kurowski. Now, Samantha actually went through my paid to speak course. It's how I met her and she has a really interesting niche. And I always say, for paid to speak, if you want to stand out as a paid speaker, the more niche you can be, the better. And Samantha certainly feels that, that brief. I'll tell you a little bit about her before I welcome her onto the show. So Samantha is a practical, intuitive and educational speaker who knows how to engage her audience. She is passionate about improving family health through supporting parents. As a parent educator with a clinical background in emergency nursing, she knows how to connect with all different parents and create a safe space for receiving support that they all deserve, despite their own insecurities and sometimes defensiveness about such a personal topic. Now, Samantha has a knack for getting people out of their comfort zones enough for positive change to occur. I speak from first hand experience because Samantha actually did a coaching session with me when I was meant to be helping her and the tables turned and, it almost became a bit of a session for me as a parent and struggling with all the different things that, that parents deal with. She certainly brings humour and personal anecdotes about her own successes and failures in her own parenting journey to entertain and inform. Samantha Kurowsky, welcome to Pitch Perfect.
Samantha Kurowski: Thank you very much for having me. It's so lovely to talk to you again, Jaimie.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, I just had to have you on the podcast and I guess, you know if someone says to you, what do you do? What's your response when people sort of ask you that question?
Samantha Kurowski: So to be honest, sometimes I find it really awkward to say what I do because I worry that people will think that I'm judging them if I say that I support parents and help parents and mentor parents and the opposite is true. I think in the absence of a village in the society that we live in, I'm that part of the village that's, you know, a, support for parents so that they feel confident, they feel competent and then they've got the capacity to just be their best selves and, you know, in. Sometimes that means them looking their worst with me. So then they can show up as their best for their parent and that's perfect, that's fine, yeah.
Jaimie Abbott: So just say like, I'm a parenting expert. If you had to really sum it up like, I mean, it's really tough. I know you've got all these qualifications and you're into your associated protective behaviours international and you also, are a circle of security facilitator and I've done that course actually when we. And my first child was, was quite young. so, you know, are you a parenthood expert? Would you sum it up and be confident to say that I say that.
Samantha Kurowski: But I say that tongue in cheek because I guess the more you know, the more you realise you don't know. I say I'm a parent support worker and I provide parents with support and.
Jaimie Abbott: Skills and I guess that in itself is fairly broad. So do you, specialise in parents who are just struggling with all things parenthood or perhaps they might have a special needs child? or is it just all of the above?
Samantha Kurowski: The people that come to me? So like if I niched down, my niche has come to me. It's not something I've gone out and sought, but most parents have in some way shape or form a neurodivergent household. So with or without diagnosis. So, when your child has challenging behaviours, it is a lot of it is a much more lonely experience for parents and those are the parents that tend to be help seeking because they can't just go to their neighbour and go, oh, you know, because it looks different and it feels different and it is harder. Their experience is harder and lonelier. So they are the people that tend to come to the group workshops or the one to one support.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, it's really interesting. Do you think, I. That it's. People are, I don't know, they sort of contribute to that loneliness because they think there's no one who's going through this like me. I mean, you see, other families who seem to have it all together and they've got, you know, children who, have no sort of special needs. And you think, wow, I'm really alone here. I don't want to sort of put my hand up because I'm embarrassed. I mean, what's the reason for that, do you think?
Samantha Kurowski: I think absolutely. People don't want to share their most vulnerable side. And when we rock up at school, drop off, you know, we put on our smiles, you know, we're not still yelling at the kids, you know, like it was, you know, to get into the car. When you get out, you've taken your breath and you're bringing, you're presenting your best version and. And maybe we shouldn't. I know. I'm very honest, you know, I do wonder if, you know, my peers at school think, well, you know, you know, you're late a lot of the time. Like, are, you a parenting expert? Like, well, yes, I. Because this is real life, you know, I'm not going to pretend it's okay. That was a hard morning that did not go to plan. That routine needs to be tweaked. And yes, yes, yes, I think we contribute to our loneliness. I also think we're too busy.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, definitely. before I ask you lots of practical questions, I just want to take a step back and ask, how did you get into this? Like, what sort of made you think, this is what I want to do, this is what I'm passionate about, and importantly, this is what I'm good at. How did that kind of all come about?
Samantha Kurowski: So that didn't have a lot to do with me. That had, mostly to do with my friends. So I. My nursing career was, you know, fine. I loved, you know, learning what I did. I loved the, you know, high intensity environment, but it was never my passion or vocation. And when I had my first child, I was really looking forward to taking some time out of work and then re entering the workforce in a different way, but I didn't know what that was. So when I had my baby, and, you know, when you have your first baby, you've got no idea which way is up. you know, struggling with all the things. People started coming to me for advice about their own children. I remember, when he, he must have been about eight months old, and a girlfriend of mine's talking about, you know, teen troubles with her teenage daughter. And I just turned her and I said, why are you asking me? And she said, well, you just seem to know. I was like, I don't like why. And I obviously as a friend, I listen, so that's possibly, you know, half of it, but I remember what it's like to be a teenager and I, you know, we just inquire. But that was all intuitive. That was not with any qualification, really. So it kept happening and to the point where, you know, even friends with children the same age would just be. Yeah, one friend said, I was having a really hard time the other day and I just took a breath and thought, what would Sammy do? And then I did that and then everything was better. So I just started reading parenting books so that I could throw out the advice, you know, so we had a bit more evidence behind it and then they said I should write my own parenting book. And I thought, well, that, you know, here comes my imposter syndrome. No, I can't. And, just started doing the courses and doing the facilitator training and going, oh, I'll run a few groups and. And it's just progressed from there. But I loved being at home with my children, which no one expected of me, you know, I thought I'd love my children but struggled to be at home with them. But I did love it and, I think I found my vocation in motherhood but that doesn't pay very well. So I've just sort of, you know, made a career out of it and I love it. Like, it really fills up my cup and it's a really exciting thing that I get to do this now.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah. And I guess now the more experienced, you're just getting experienced every single day that goes on because people are coming to you and you're seeing a variety of different problems. It's interesting, being a parent myself and having kids later in life. you know, I'm 41, 42 actually soon with a four and five year old and there's no manual when it comes to parenting and you really feel like you're just faking it. I think just having someone like yourself just to be able to speak to and just get advice, even if it's just your opinion, I feel like it's just like a North star to have someone like yourself who deals with a lot of different parenting issues. So well done, you for, loving what you're doing and being that sort of that guiding North Star for a lot of mums and dads out there. you are based on the WA side so the western australian side of the country, and so I guess where you're located and your business is called Southwest parenting, you're dealing with a lot of families who work away or perhaps live apart from their children. What kind of challenge does that provide for a household when you've got a family maybe doing fly in, fly out, sort of working arrangements.
Samantha Kurowski: So huge, huge, lots of children, that's all they've ever known. And so they're quite, they feel quite safe and secure in their attachments because that's the routine. But when it's new or when other things happen in the family, there are other crises and that attachment's not secure. It's really challenging for everyone. It's challenging for the caregivers that are left at home that have their own sort of routine separate from the other parent. And it's really, challenging for the other parent to live two lives as well and sort of change, you know, their role in half their life away and then half their life at home. And it's hard. So, you know, my advice, I do not give explicit advice. You know, you should be getting up at seven and doing this first and doing that first. It's all about communication. And what's tricky about communication is sometimes you have to lift comfortable things and if that comes from your children. Hey, mum. Hey, dad. I really hate it when you go away. I don't feel safe when you go away or, you know, whatever it is, those are really alarming things to hear and the. And dealing with that impulse to have to change it for your child, you know, because if you say, well, they're not happy when I go, I have to change that. But this is my job and this is how I provide for you. Well, you don't want to have that conversation because you don't want to make that change.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, interesting.
Samantha Kurowski: So this is where. This is where we just need to get better at being uncomfortable and sit and listen, and sit and listen and keep listening and keep listening and keep listening. And then the solutions find themselves because you are more connected. If you can be brave and listen to all those really hard, icky feelings, well, then you can start problem solving with your child. And it can be so simple, you know, it can be a new teddy bear and you're like, I'm, never buying another teddy bear because there's 50 in the house and none of them get played with. But that special one about that special conversation, that's connection or symbolic for the child of connection. It might be, you know, to have a routine that when you see, like, I don't know, the moon, like you go out and say goodnight to the moon at night and because you're both looking at the same moon, there's lots of rituals of connection that you can do when you're apart and rituals of reconnection that you can do when you're together. and it doesn't have to be a big thing.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, I love that. It's interesting. Yeah, I relate to that. I mean, I've spent the last eight months living and working in Jamaica away from my family and, I didn't realise how much an effect that would have on particularly my youngest. He's got high great deal of emotional intelligence and, as soon as I came back, he proclaimed at his daycare, because I surprised him, he said, no more Jamaica. And he keeps saying that. And for the last couple of weeks, I've been back now for four weeks he's been saying, where are you going? Where are you going? Every time I just go to the toilet or something, something, And then that's kind of now sort of progressed into you going to work. And I sort of turned to him recently and I said, I love work, mummy loves work. Just so you know, because I really didn't want him to associate negative things with work, whereas it says, oh, mom's going to work again. So I made sure he knew that I love it and it's not a negative thing. And he's actually stopped saying that now and he's a bit more accepting. Like, this morning I had to go to a business breakfast and he said, you going to work in a very positive, accepting way. So that was a fluke, for me to sort of to have that conversation with him and for him to change his mindset around that. one of the things you do teach about, where you talk about in your keynotes is protective behaviours and specifically how to teach your child skills and things they need to know and how to let them safely master these skills. What are some of those skills that children, you think need to know?
Samantha Kurowski: I'm trying to be succinct here and, that's not my greatest strength. So they need to know what is safe and what's unsafe. Yeah. They can't protect themselves if they don't know. It's a problem to be able to do that. yes, you have explicit conversations about what private parts are, what appropriate behaviour is, you know what, you know, who, is allowed to be with you, you know, if you're in the bath, say, you know, so, you know, washing and drying private parts. Well for little children, you know, that might be grandma if she's helping you out of the bath. But for ten year old children generally, you know, if they're developing, typically it's probably not necessary anymore and not okay anymore. So that's a bit of it. But the big bit and the hard bit is to teach them to listen to their bodies. Yeah. Listen to their feelings, listen to their feeling cues and to develop an association and language if possible, around those feeling associations. My tummy hurts. Oh my tummy hurts. I wonder why that is. Is that because I'm feeling hungry or is it because I'm feeling scared or is it because I'm feeling nervous? And to create that thought pathway that really clearly identifies what that feeling means. And the really hard bit, and I hate to break it to everyone but the hard bit is letting them practise that because they not going to go, my tummy hurts, I feel really nervous, you know, to my bedroom, you know, and that's obviously they're going to say, when you're in a rush, oh, you know, my tummy hurts or mummy, you're going to work again. I don't feel safe and you don't want to listen to it then and you don't want to hear it then, but it's you that comes back and it's like, okay. So in the moment you might not respond, you know, with your. Oh, you're tuning into the feelings and talking about it because you're in a rush. Because that's when they blurt things out and not when you're ready, when they're ready and that's hard. But it's at least if you notice that you can revisit. Yeah. It's not about being perfect all the time, it's just about taking mental notes. So they will practise their protective behaviours with you. That's the hard bit. And to let them and to respond. The other thing is as much as they will say to you when you're rushing out the work, out to work something and you won't respond appropriately because this is life. The. And this. I have a bit of a personal. I find this a bit triggering to talk about. It's the persistence you must teach your child to be persistent. Yeah. When you've told somebody something and they dismiss you, try again. So don't listen again. Try the next person you feel safe with. When they don't listen, try the next person. Because. Because this is life. People don't hear the subtleties of your communication a lot of the time, you know, as an adult, let alone as a child, when you might not even understand what has happened that makes you feel uncomfortable. And adults do not want to hear tricky things from children. They want children to be happy and blowing bubbles and they are so much of the time and they want their adults to be happy, so they do it to comply so that we all feel happy. So persistence is a big one. So in schools, in curriculum, if your child goes to school, they will teach the safety hand. So it'll be the thumb will be your primary caregiver, that's the person you can go to, to. And then there'll be other for safe adults that you can go to when you have, when you feel unsafe. And it'll be, you know, your other parent, maybe a school teacher, maybe a coach, maybe a grandparent, depending on their age and stage, you know, as they get older, they'll teach, you know, going to the police, how to call the police, other safe people, things like that. But the persistence is the big one because most likely even if you do all the right things, listen to your body. Explicit teaching about behaviours, they won't have great language to communicate it and they won't communicate it at a great time. And also, as much as I've used, you know, an example about, you know, Bob coming into the bedroom, it's little things often. Yeah, it's not always big scary things. Yeah. But it's still, important to listen to because that's putting all those neurons and synapses in place about how we have a difficult conversation about these feelings. So if anything terrible did happen, they'd have the capacity to communicate it and then they can recover from the trauma.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, I'm sure for those who are not watching the video because I'm recording the video as well. If you're listening to this podcast, Samantha, are you really?
Samantha Kurowski: Because I looked. Yeah, I do like to hear.
Jaimie Abbott: I should have told you that, you are 930 in the morning. We're recording this, Sydney time, which is I think, what, 07:30 a.m. western.
Samantha Kurowski: Australia 730, which is not a problem. It's just because, And yesterday I was ready, here and I looked nice, I did my hair, I showered, I did everything. And this morning I was like, oh, whoopsie Daisy, you look great. You were great.
Jaimie Abbott: But if you're listening just to the audio only, you did break up a little bit there, which I won't edit out because it was when you were saying something incredible. But Samantha is standing on a rock, on her property at the moment.
Samantha Kurowski: Yeah, this is my rock, and my dog's in the background just waiting for me.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah. Just in case, you know, people can't see and they're just listening to the audio only. yeah, that's because you're in a remote location. That's the best part. You get the reception. one other thing I do want to talk to you about, and this is really what sparked my interest to get you on the podcast, was your stance on screen times. And we were talking about screen times and how you only ever hear how they're really bad for children. Reduce screen time, get them off the screen. That's bad. And you don't necessarily, necessarily have that concrete view, do you? And do you want to maybe tell me a little bit about why screens can sometimes be a good thing?
Samantha Kurowski: Yeah. So, to be clear, my personal feelings about screens are, ah, all those things. Like, I hate seeing my children zombied out in front of a screen. I, you know, I think there's so much disconnection because we're all scrolling through our phones all the time. How much sleep do we lose because we're going down, you know, YouTube or Instagram, rabbit hole. I do have all those feelings, but objectively or professionally, when you go, I'm having conflict with my child around screens, we need to take a breath and, and move out of that emotional fear spiral that it's all bad. Yeah. If you're going, it's all bad, it's all bad. It's all bad. And your voice is slightly shrill then possibly that more to do with your own feelings than actually the issue at hand. So, you know, you and I are connecting. Yeah. Via devices. So connection, you know, it connects us to support services. You know, I can do support over Zoom. You know, I can market my business. I can. Whatever connection I can call friends, I can, my children can Facetime grandparents. Yeah. Connection is something really, really healthy and constructive that screens give us.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah.
Samantha Kurowski: As the children get older, you know, when it's connection with friends that's still really good, it's extra important for them. Teens, you know, they, you know, they live and breathe for their community, their peers. But there might need to be some boundaries. Yeah. Middle of the night snapchatting with friends is not healthy. It is not healthy because they're not sleeping. Yeah. It's replacing sleep. It's not healthy because then they're all making poor choices. And that's where this bullying stuff comes in. So in the bedroom alone, at night, not okay. But connection is healthy. So it's. So the reason that, you know, I pushed the point is if you're going to put a boundary and you need to know your whys, and it's not because screens are bad. It's because you have had time with your friends, and now it's replacing sleep. And sleep is a need that, you know, competes. You know, it's a primary need. So is connection. And the teen will say, well, I need connection, and it's true. And so it's important to validate that response. Yes, you do need it, but you also need sleep. So m there's this, you'll find this jar video where this person has a jar and they put in the big rocks the things you need, you know, your sleep, your food. And then you put littler and littler, pebbles in, and there's heaps of space in there. But the things that you need, the sleep, the food, the exercise, you know, those primary needs, they're the big rocks. If you put all the little rocks in first, you can't get the big ones in, but you can in reverse. So that's what we would teach our kids. So connection is a big one. The other one's like creativity, you know, if you're creating photo, remember, you know, we had cameras, you know, we had film, we had polaroids. We, we took photos. Yeah. Now we do it on a device, you know, and that is memories. And that is how you, know, especially older tea. I guess a lot of the conflict comes with the older kids, or a lot of the scary stuff comes with the older kids, you know. So, you know, the photos, the memory building, the creativity for us, it'll be creating projects that we don't understand, which will be really hard, you know, creating digital images, creating, projects, you know, using, I don't know, canva coming. Canva I understand, but perhaps not till recently. So creativity is really healthy on a screen, you know? And so if your child is creating content for whatever, a school project or for fun, their passion project, that is a healthy use, consumption is the one that's not healthy. But, who doesn't like to sit down and watch a movie and who doesn't like to, you know, watch a couple of episodes of something or, you know, if you're a sole parent and, you know, have come home from work and you want to cook dinner without, you know, interruption. No, it's not great to have the tv as a babysitter. But this is your life, and you have to, you know, create the capacity that you need to show up. And if they're happy for 20 minutes, and you're happy for 20 minutes, having a bit of separation and a bit of consumption helps that, well, it's your decision and your life. If that's okay for you, then that's okay. No, like, there's no, it's no one's responsibility to say that that's bad. Yeah, it is your responsibility to be aware of, you know, how, you know, having screen time late at night might impact melatonin production and sleep, and sleep hygiene. But you know, that awareness informs your decisions. It's not a rule. M and I think I'm missing one. What do we do? And we communicate and connect. We create. Oh, and learning. M yeah, it's a hype of learning. So those are good things.
Jaimie Abbott: Does child watch Peppa pig count? Is any of those connection, and learning.
Samantha Kurowski: So I can tell you that my child has had his skin glued together twice, his chin, like when he split his chin opaque, glued together twice under Peppa pig anaesthetic. Because they, my small children did not have any screens. It was like family movie once a fortnight. That was it. And so when you did, you could do anything to him. So go to the hospital. I had worked at the hospital. They passed me some glue, I took it home. Peppa pig anaesthetic. I could do anything to the child. It was great.
Jaimie Abbott: I think, my four year old watches too much peppa pig that he actually now talks with an english accent. And I blame, a couple of his shows that he likes. One Steve and Maggie, and the other is Peppa Pig, and they're both english accent shows. So I think I need to, Yeah, if he's going to watch more, maybe watch some more australian shows.
Samantha Kurowski: Yeah, maybe. Or, you know, like, if he's developing the accent, then maybe that's time to go. Oh, he's, you know, he's not learning from me anymore. But you've got, you know, you're well spoken, so you've got a bit, you know, of an international. Not a typical australian accent as well. So maybe he's getting it from you. You're just blaming Peppa pig. But, you know, that's the thing. If we are busy, if our kids are watching too much tv, well, you know, too much. I put that in, like, little air quotes. what do we do about that? Well, let's inquire. Yeah. If we think that they're so consumed in tv that it's rubbing them of connection. Or we're the adult. Let's create connection around that. Let's ask them what happened in that episode. What was the funniest bit in that episode? You know, what's your favourite character? and create the connection after the fact.
Jaimie Abbott: You know, that's a good idea. Timely advice, Samantha. Is there anything else further you'd like to add which we haven't touched on? during today's episode?
Samantha Kurowski: I would just like to impart that everything and everything, like bad things are going to happen in your child's life and that is okay. And that, you know, and tricky things are going to happen. Yeah. Your kids aren't going to, you know, comply with all your house rules. You're not going to be your best all the time. That's okay. It's all about that communication and that collaborating and coming up with solutions together as much as possible from as early an age as possible. You know, really builds that connection and safety with your child so that they can talk to you about anything and they can raise any of their concerns because they're used to it. They're used to raising their concerns about the argument about putting your shoes on before going to school because they were safe to talk about that. So then when they're teenagers, they can tell you about the icky Snapchats they were getting from their friends or whatever it is by the time they're teenagers. Yeah, that's it.
Jaimie Abbott: Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on to pitch perfect today. Lots to think about, lots to do, lots, to digest. Really, really grateful for your time and sharing your wisdom and knowledge with us. So thank you.
Samantha Kurowski: Thank you.
