Kristi McVee (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Conversations with Kristi podcast. Now today's guest is someone I met recently in person at a Bikers Against Child Abuse presentation. Yes, BACA. And the minute I met her, I thought, this woman is something special. Now, Dr. Louise Mansell is a clinical psychologist who moved from the UK to Australia just four years ago. And she spent her career asking one big question. Why are we waiting so long?
to teach kids how to understand and manage their emotions? Good question, right? And rather than just talk about it, she went and built something, something called Tedology.
In this episode, we talk about early emotional intervention, why kids can't just get rid of worry and how Ted, yes, an actual teddy bear is doing things in children's mental health support that I genuinely didn't know a bear could do. This one's warm, it's real, and it's made me think about my own parenting differently. Let's get into it with Louise.
Kristi McVee (00:56)
Good morning, Dr. Louise, how are you? so when we met, which was, it feels like it was yesterday, but it was only, was a couple of months ago now, it's like nearly three months ago, I think. We met at a Bikers Against Child Abuse presentation that the guys from BACA actually asked me to come and that's how we met.
Dr Louise Mansell (00:58)
Good morning. I'm good, thank you.
Kristi McVee (01:15)
And the minute I met you, you're such a beautiful person. You were so lovely. And the guys had told me about you. They actually asked me to write a letter and ⁓ my gosh, did I do that letter? Far out, I can't remember. But the guys asked me to do a letter to help support them because BACA supports children who are going through court in regards to their child sexual abuse cases. I don't know even how I got in touch with them. They contacted me and here we are.
but I bent you through that. And ⁓ when I heard about your story and a bit about your teddy or your Tedology. I was like, this woman, she's amazing. I love, I just love people who see something that is lacking and they find a solution. Like more of us need to do that, right? So I'm so, I'm so grateful that you.
Dr Louise Mansell (02:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Kristi McVee (02:03)
said yes to joining me on the podcast because I really want people to know more about you and about Tedology. But before we get into all of that, could you just tell my listeners a little bit about who you are and how you got to here and then we can talk about the beautiful Tedology purpose mission that you have.
Dr Louise Mansell (02:05)
No, thank you.
Yes, so it depends where we start, I suppose you'll tell by my accent straight away. I'm not Australian. I moved to Australia four years ago now. Prior to that, I'd been working as a clinical psychologist in the UK. But I'd always had an interest in it. I feel like I'd always been a psychologist in some form or another. So my mum had anxiety throughout my whole childhood. And I remember helping her, actually helping her at eight years old on a fairground ride. She was having a panic attack.
Kristi McVee (02:25)
Yeah
Dr Louise Mansell (02:47)
And I just knew how to help her. And I did. And that just became my role then. It was always CT mom, CT brother. It was just what I did. So when I, at 19, read the job description of a clinical psychologist, I wasn't studying clinical psychology at the time. I just read it and thought, well, that's what I'm supposed to do. It was that obvious to me.
Kristi McVee (02:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (03:11)
And then I just set about doing that for 10 years before I qualified then to get that.
Kristi McVee (03:15)
Wow. Yeah, because a
lot of people don't realize you have to do a lot of study to get into clinical psychology.
Dr Louise Mansell (03:22)
Yeah,
and a lot of experience in hospitals and that's it was so invaluable though to just work with people. That was the advice I got if you want to get into this work with people in whatever capacity you can and that was my favorite thing to do. So throughout the whole training you get exposure to all different areas of psychology but for me it had always been this idea that if we can teach children emotions earlier, if we can teach them how to manage
difficult feelings earlier, we can change generations if we can get in there early. And I suppose I knew, I'm quite creative anyway, I knew that we had to do things differently. I knew this couldn't be a matter of seeing a psychologist one-to-one and seeing all the children that need the support.
It had to be bigger than that. It had to be something that you could do at scale. So I went through a phase of kind of online parenting before online parenting was a thing. So that was in 2010 with Matt Sanders, who's actually Australian, the founder of Triple P. So I did my doctorate thesis with Matt Sanders. So I was always supposed to come to Australia. But always really focusing on that. How can we get these messages that I'm learning on
Kristi McVee (04:19)
Yeah. Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, definitely.
Dr Louise Mansell (04:38)
doctoral training, like how are we waiting this long to teach people this stuff? We need to be teaching it so much earlier than we were. So that early intervention always appealed to me.
Kristi McVee (04:50)
What's crazy to me is that, and a lot of parents and a lot of people can probably relate, is that you were kind of adulting from a very young age. were having to support your mom through her anxiety, which her generation probably didn't even have the language around this. And she probably had no idea what was going on. She just felt really anxious and really scared. And you were supporting her from a very young age because obviously it's innate in you to support and help people.
And I can relate to that because I feel like I've been, helping and supporting my family for my whole life as well. And, you know, and it's no wonder we go into these careers where we're all like, well, we're doing it for our family. Why don't we do it for everyone kind of thing? Yeah. So with.
Dr Louise Mansell (05:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And it was, it was
that idea that on this training course that, on the, on the clinical psychology training, you're given these ways of helping people with panic attacks, with worries, with general anxiety that are a matter of a number of sessions. And I'd seen my mom struggle with this for years.
Kristi McVee (05:50)
Hmm.
Yeah, I know.
Dr Louise Mansell (05:54)
⁓ thinking we
need to be telling people this and that's always been my thing like how why are we not telling people?
Kristi McVee (06:00)
Why doesn't everyone know what we know? I think also it's the same with me. It seems so simple and easy because when you know why you need it, it's easy to do, right? And it's not something, not some big scary thing to learn. I really find with, I think you hit the nail on the head, we need to learn these tools earlier just so that we can learn to support ourselves to have the.
Dr Louise Mansell (06:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (06:24)
the skills to be able to support ourselves so that it doesn't become a problem that becomes bigger, that we are struggling to thrive, basically. We're struggling to thrive. We're affecting everyone around us. We're affecting our families, our kids, whoever. I also think some of these issues, as a young person, we tend to squash them. And then as a parent or an adult, or an older, like, you get to your 30s or something, you're like,
why is this coming up now? It's because we spent so much time ignoring it or pushing it away and trying to just get on with things. If we had dealt with it back when it was a littler problem, or not a problem, but you know what I mean, a littler challenge, then it wouldn't be such a big problem. And I think we're seeing that with our kids as well. Our kids' anxiety or generalized anxiety and being scared because we haven't...
Dr Louise Mansell (06:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (07:14)
As adults and parents, haven't had the tools given to us, so then we're not giving them to our kids. But their fears start off as very little things, but then they keep growing and growing and growing until they've got school refusal, until they're not able to do anything or leave the house. And that's because we possibly didn't catch it early enough.
Dr Louise Mansell (07:16)
Yeah. Yeah.
you.
Yeah, and I think that's one of the really important things to think about is that it's that idea of helping children and families understand there's something you can do about this feeling. There's something you can do about any of the feelings and it isn't distract yourself. And that's me on a bit of a soapbox of the, obviously, the unfounded advice that's around for parents.
Kristi McVee (07:44)
Yes. Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Louise Mansell (07:56)
Back when I started this 15 years ago, there wasn't that much talk about emotions and, you know, child psychology. And it was kind of this thing that you went to, certainly in the UK anyway, that you went to hospital to sort out, to a CAMS service, which is where I was. Now there's a lot of noise. There's a lot of books and there's a lot of noise, but it's not always the right noise.
Kristi McVee (08:08)
Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (08:17)
And especially with worry, the amount of children I'll see who say I want to get rid of worry. We want to be able to manage worry. We can't get rid of worry because we're not safe if we get rid of worry.
Kristi McVee (08:22)
Mmm, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think that's because we haven't spent enough time really talking about, you know, I think a lot of us are scared to feel. Feelings equal and I can speak from experience with regards to like the men in my life, feelings equate to they're either too big, or there's not enough, there's no in between whereas
Dr Louise Mansell (08:36)
this.
Kristi McVee (08:47)
I've been seeing psychologists since I was in my early 20s, probably 20, 21. And the reason for that was because I knew that I needed help to understand what I was feeling because it was either really big, or I was numbing it. There was no in between, there was no healthy feeling. And so I went and started seeking help and guidance back in my 20s. And I was talking to someone about this the other day, I was like, I've seen probably
in excess of 20 different psychologists over time, right? And ⁓ yeah, and because some of them fit, like it was explained to me a few years ago, quite a few years ago, ⁓ that psychologists are like shoes, not all of them fit. And I was like, so you so you keep trying.
Dr Louise Mansell (09:27)
Yeah, that's nice.
Kristi McVee (09:34)
until you find the right one. When that someone said that to me and it was a psychologist actually who said it to me. When a psychologist said that to me, I was like, that gives me permission to not like and stick with every psychologist, right? Because sometimes we stick with psychologists that don't match us and don't match our vibe and don't make us feel like we're understanding anything. And then we feel like we're the failure. Whereas it's just not the right fit.
Dr Louise Mansell (09:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (10:00)
So I think, yeah, I think with regards to this, I think your mission in regards to helping children with some skills and tools that gets them, well, gives them the tools to help regulate their emotions and help them understand that, yeah, we can't get rid of all emotions and feelings. They're here to make us safe.
Dr Louise Mansell (10:17)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think on that kind of idea of preparing yourself for adulthood, I then specialised in childhood trauma, which is kind of where our work really started to overlap when I heard you speak and working with children in the care system and knowing the importance of
having that space and that safe person to be able to talk to, but really recognising how hard it was for those children who've had those experiences that they either didn't feel safe talking to people because people had harmed them. But the other side of that is they often didn't have, they didn't even have pets to talk to. So it's...
Kristi McVee (10:43)
Mm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Louise Mansell (10:56)
It's really, really important that, yeah, we understand emotions, we understand how to name them, talk about them, how to calm them. But there's this real important piece that's often missing is how do we process our experiences? Because when emotions are coming back up and you're trying all the strategies that you've been, that typically we've been told now, they're often not.
Kristi McVee (11:09)
Hmm.
Yeah, we're getting, they've
shared with us, yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (11:21)
Yeah, but they're often not the processing strategies. They're not the write this down, talk to somebody and why you would do it. We understand why we eat vegetables and we understand why we drink water. We need to be understanding why it's so important to.
verbalise or write down or play or do something with emotions, you can't leave them stuck inside your body, it's very harmful. But that was a real gap for lots of children, but particularly for children in care from my perspective, because who is getting that information? Who are they telling? Who are they talking to? Where are those feelings going? And then the impact that has on their physical health.
Kristi McVee (11:41)
Yes. Yes.
Dr Louise Mansell (12:00)
and their future with is, you know, the research on ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, tells us that that's not an okay thing to have experienced, but then to keep inside your body. And when I worked in the area of child protection, I would say it's one of the hardest areas to work in because you're asking children who've been harmed by people to trust you. Yeah, to trust people. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (12:22)
Yeah, trust, to trust people. Yeah, exactly. It's the same with me. It's the same with,
you know, being a police officer and sitting across the table and asking your child to tell them in detail what.
Dr Louise Mansell (12:29)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (12:33)
their abuse was and how it happened and who did it and expecting someone who, has possibly felt like no one's safe and it's not safe to talk about because it could mean that they lose their home. It could mean that their family gets further abuse. Like there's a lot of different factors that stops children from talking and not have and yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (12:34)
Yep. Yep.
Yep.
Yeah,
even in therapy, children would not be able to tell me things because of the implications it would have. They couldn't tell anybody because of the implications it would have. So it was...
Kristi McVee (13:01)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (13:06)
It was twofold really with Tedology. It was thinking that some children will really benefit from this. Most children, I believe, need to know. I've put essentially what I would want children to know about emotions, both how to regulate them, but also how to think about them into a teddy bear, knowing that some children will benefit from that, but some children will need it.
Kristi McVee (13:28)
Yeah. And I, you know, I'm thinking back to my own childhood and I've had a lot of guests on my podcast who I think when you, it's when what you needed as a child, you then go and find and create for other children, right? So I needed someone to talk to and I needed someone to have conversations with me. No one had conversations with me and explained the world to me. So what do I do? I go and teach people how to have conversations with kids that help them feel safe and empowered. You went and created a teddy bear that helped you, helped you
Dr Louise Mansell (13:41)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (13:57)
do the things that you were doing for everyone else and possibly potentially needed for yourself, but you didn't have the space or the person to listen to you. And I think that's what we do. But going back to one thing that really stuck in my head when you said it, pets. How many of us talked to our pets when we were kids about what we were going through? Your family dog, your cat, I had a horse.
Dr Louise Mansell (14:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (14:19)
And I remember
crying into my horse's mane about how I had no one. was alone. I was feeling scared, like no one was with me. And my horse was my safe place. And so I think we underestimate how important pets are to kids. And when there's no pet, it's their teddies or their toys that, you know, they're just an inanimate object, but really they provide a space, a safe space.
Dr Louise Mansell (14:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And was kind of knowing that my dog was like, my dog was the most important thing. ⁓
Kristi McVee (14:52)
Oh gosh, makes my
heart hurt how many of our pets have probably carried our soul, carried all of our worries and our fears and our tears, all, you know, and they're no longer with us. Like, oh, you made my heart hurt when I thought about it. I was like, my poor horse, he carried all of my sorrows.
Dr Louise Mansell (14:57)
you
Yeah.
Yeah.
But then you are left with that as an adult and as a parent myself, like to recognise my own emotions, I have to really work on that because there wasn't a space for me to have emotions in my family. So I was a good girl. I was just a good girl. And then you get to be a parent and you realise in, gosh, I'm going from nought to a hundred in no time at all because I'm not noticing it.
Kristi McVee (15:19)
No.
Yeah, same.
Yeah, yeah, there's no there's no pickup of feelings. I think I see it in my husband a lot because he never had he wasn't allowed to feel right like and it's not his parents fault. It's not like but when we know better, we can do better. And so my husband has watched me go through this journey and then he's like, ⁓ and then I'm naming, ⁓ feelings and emotions. My daughter names feelings and emotions all the time because she had that
Dr Louise Mansell (15:47)
Yep.
Kristi McVee (15:58)
conversations, we talked things through, we had conversations about, you know, when she was feeling anxious and nervous, what it was, and why sometimes our body tricks us to think that we're dying, but we're actually okay. you know, so having all of those conversations, he's watched us and then he's going, ⁓ I actually don't recognise it before it happens. Whereas, and sometimes I don't, if I'm extremely triggered or my PTSD flares up or whatever happens, there's no regulation.
Dr Louise Mansell (16:18)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (16:27)
So, you know, but imagine all of the kids if they had regulated conversations around this and then they were able to recognise it, they're able to help themselves with the tools that you've created in the Tedology, Teddy, imagine that, like how many kids could be so much healthier and happier throughout their lives no matter what they went through.
Dr Louise Mansell (16:39)
Yeah.
I know that... Yeah.
Yeah. That was the whole mission, I suppose, when I started this and realising it didn't exist. And it was with all the advances in technology that made me think, hang on a minute, there's all these advances and children are stuck with the same bear that they've had for a hundred years.
Like we need to enhance the humble bear and that was my kind of like, how do I enhance it? ⁓ And then children like worked with me, over 40 children in Perth worked with me to create how that bear looks, the fact that it has sensory tags, how its paws are designed, ⁓ what it says, every aspect of that's designed with children. The beautiful thing about designing it with children is they're brutally honest. So quick.
Kristi McVee (17:08)
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
I know I look I freaking love kids.
I was saying to someone the other day like, it's funny because I don't work with children anymore. I don't have but I love my friends kids like I love spending time with random kids in the shops. Like, if I see some kid having a meltdown, I'm like, yeah, you go. I'm like, I'm not even faced by behavior because to me behavior is a formal language. Kids are trying to tell you something.
Dr Louise Mansell (17:50)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (17:52)
But the thing is, that it's how we help our kids understand what they're feeling is gonna make a difference for their adulthood. So let's talk about Tedology and talk about Ted because when I opened the box, okay, so I saw you with this box and this is obviously an audio, but you can watch it on YouTube as well. So we've got Tedology's box here, right? And when I saw you had Ted there, I didn't really look at it, but I was like, I've gotta get it.
I gotta get one. And so I opened the box and I was so impressed by Ted. Like I said, I've got a daughter who is or DHD, so autistic and ADHD. We didn't know about her. I had no clue about this, right? When she was little, I just was like, that's my girl. She likes to sing a lot. She was stimming all the time. She had certain things that she would rub between her fingers. We laugh about it now, she's 18. We laugh about it like.
Dr Louise Mansell (18:18)
He
Kristi McVee (18:45)
we found, we're packing up our house at the moment and we found her blankie. And I remember she used to rub it on her lip and like, and that was her soothing, right? She was self soothing. So when I saw Ted and I saw that Ted's got these little, like these little ribbons and you're talking about the pores are soft. Like I'm thinking from her perspective, her childhood, you know, some parts of it crackle, like the sound, the ears, like I'm just.
Dr Louise Mansell (19:08)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (19:11)
doing it right now if anyone at home is wondering what I'm doing, I'm touching Ted. And you know, like the paws are heavy, but the actual weight of the Teddy is a very good weight because Teddy needs to, you know, if you're laying on your bed with Ted on your stomach and you're trying to do breathing or whatever Ted's talking you through, you've got that right. And so I was really impressed with Ted. I've just got to say that. And Ted sits up if you need Ted to sit up and talk to.
Dr Louise Mansell (19:29)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
Kristi McVee (19:37)
Yeah, I'm kind of jealous that kids get to have this.
Dr Louise Mansell (19:40)
Adults are allowed it. There's been a surprising number of adults who've bought the bear for themselves. My mum being one of them obviously shouldn't play it. I did send it for free. But yeah, adults have used the bear and that's potentially something we could think about in the future that people mention a lot to me. But obviously my initial thoughts was how do I get this to...
Kristi McVee (19:42)
So tell...
I would have made her pay full price. No, I know what you're saying.
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (20:07)
to benefit as many children as possible. How do I get this in children's homes so that they can, yes, receive the sensory comfort that engages them so much with the bear. Children love this bear, but it's been designed with children. And every aspect of it, why one of the tags is looped, why one's ribbed and why one's soft, there's reasons for that because you'll know from your daughter.
Kristi McVee (20:12)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (20:32)
she would have had a preference for which tag and whether she has a looped tag to twist around her fingers or whether she kind of just kind of does this on that. And our hands and mouths are the most responsive to sensory input. So that's the quickest way to calm us down. So that's why, that's why you see that behavior, but it's also why you see children biting nails. It's not a clinical problem. Yep. And often
Kristi McVee (20:35)
which yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's a skin picker and nail biter.
Dr Louise Mansell (20:59)
you know, the amount of money, I suppose, that's been made on getting things that taste horrible for nails, rather than recognising that as that person seems to need more sensory input. And that's why they're doing this. It's not something we're ever told, like, you're struggling, sweetheart, or what's going on? Do need this?
Kristi McVee (21:05)
Yeah.
My husband does that too. He's a skin picker and nail biter.
Dr Louise Mansell (21:24)
or should we just go outside for a little bit, stop biting your nails or parents put awful stuff on them. You know, when I tell children, say, yeah, people who bite their nails, it's because your brain likes it, because it calms it down. Like all of a sudden the shame about it and it makes more sense and then parents can understand that actually that's an early indication that something's feeling a bit unsettled. It's only the same as...
Kristi McVee (21:30)
Yes.
But yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Dr Louise Mansell (21:48)
Yeah, it's only the same. like if a hair's on our arms standing in when we're cold or we look, we can sense that. We don't tell people to stop. We don't tell them to stop shivering. But anything emotional, we're often, children often told to stop.
Kristi McVee (21:59)
true. my gosh.
I know, it's really, I mean, look, I'm on the other side of not, you never stop parenting, but I'm on the other side of childhood with my daughter. Like she's literally 18 and moved out of home and that's a big jump for me. And she's like, yeah.
But obviously I gave her enough tools and she feels ready. if she comes home, she comes home. If she doesn't, she doesn't. She might be like me and just keeps going from thing to thing. But you know, like I look back on my parenting and I'm like, there's so many, ⁓ there was so many warning signs and opportunities to help her. I did, I feel like I did a fairly good job because I knew enough, but now looking back, especially with her autism and ADHD, I could have definitely supported that better.
And so, you know, I guess some of us like, how amazing is it that some of us didn't have it for ourselves. So we don't know how to do it for our kids. But now we've got like, Ted comes with like these feeling cards, right? And like, we've got a deck of emotions in the pack. And like, the thing is, is that we were never taught how to, we just had angry, happy and angry when I was growing up. Like, and
Dr Louise Mansell (22:55)
Yep.
Kristi McVee (23:06)
I used to get told off for my face all the time. My face is very emotive. So when I was a kid, I used to get told off if I wasn't happy about something, but I wasn't allowed to say anything, right? So I was brought up with, you're not allowed to speak back. You're not allowed to talk back to parents or kid adults, right? But my face would say what I was thinking because I was like, and you know, the whole, window will change. Like if you keep looking like that, the window will change and your face will look like that forever.
Dr Louise Mansell (23:27)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (23:31)
Everyone knew what I was thinking. But yeah, the cards are like, you know, you've got Ted with embarrassed and happy and all of these cards and you've got some games that kids can play with them and you as an adult can help your children understand the different feelings because feelings are just feelings. There's nothing wrong with feelings.
Dr Louise Mansell (23:41)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think, yeah.
And it really, I designed that in a way because one, it would help with that kind of emotional literacy, but it's the difference of showing somebody a card when they're feeling a certain way as a way of teaching them just doesn't, doesn't sit with me in terms of compassion. Like if somebody showed me a card, imagine our husbands, you're feeling frustrated and they got out a card to show you like that wouldn't be what I would want.
So it was taking, not doing that, not using these cards as a, is this the feeling you're having, but actually using these cards in play outside of those moments, but using play as a way to talk about those feelings. Because when you're playing games, you're getting a whole host of feelings.
Kristi McVee (24:27)
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (24:33)
but it means that because it's in play, they're tolerable. So children who can't otherwise tolerate the feeling of anxiety, and that'll be true for some children, but very true for children with trauma. It's a very overwhelming feeling, as is embarrassed guilt. All those feelings are very overwhelming to talk about initially outside of play.
Kristi McVee (24:41)
Yeah.
Mmm. Yes.
Good point.
Dr Louise Mansell (24:53)
So we
can talk about them in these games. You can even talk about feeling guilty that you're winning. It's to bring those words into a child's vocabulary, into the world, literally getting them onto the table, but in play, because that builds the foundations for them talking about them outside of play.
Kristi McVee (24:59)
Yeah.
They're every day.
Yeah, because I in my conversations with kids cards and in body safety education, we talk about early warning signs, right. And we had this conversation when we met, you know, kids who have trauma and have had, you know, have had a history of abuse, sometimes they won't even recognise early warning signs because their body has is protecting them from their feelings because the feelings are so great and so big. ⁓
our brain and our body disconnect and we can't feel them. So some kids will not feel early warning signs. And yeah, and it's hard because you now have to reconnect those things back together. And when they feel so strong, who wants to feel that? Like sometimes it takes a brave person and an aware person to want to reconnect back with those feelings.
Dr Louise Mansell (25:42)
Yeah. ⁓
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And that was... Yeah. Yeah.
And I think, you know, it's really important that people who can do the job for children with trauma like you and myself do it, because it's not something everyone can do. And children will know if you're genuine when they've had those experiences very, very quickly.
Kristi McVee (26:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (26:16)
It's really funny that you say that you were told that about your face because my mum, mum, she used to say, what's wrong with your face? That was her emotional, emotional coaching, because my face tells the story. And she'd say, what's wrong with your face? Thanks mum. Yeah, that was her compassionate approach. It's just my face. But there probably was something wrong with it. But you can't, that's not the way to get a conversation out of a child, it? What's wrong with your face? ⁓
Kristi McVee (26:29)
Yeah, what's wrong with it? It's just my face.
Yeah, like thanks for the safe space momo.
No, well, I had a sergeant pull me up and say, Christie, you might not be saying what you're thinking, but your face is telling us all what you're thinking. And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, yeah, I just watched your face screw up. And literally, I could read your face. And it was like, F you to whoever was talking to me. And it was another sergeant or something. like,
Dr Louise Mansell (26:43)
What's wrong with it?
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (27:03)
I was like, ⁓ because you need to learn how to control your face. I was like, I mean, that was early on in my career. I think I did get better at it. But still, I don't think I have complete control of my face. But yeah, I'm okay with that now. ⁓ With regards to so here's the thing. Ted goes through a whole range of things Ted goes through. Like, I think it's 10 different
Dr Louise Mansell (27:06)
There's no chance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (27:26)
activities. I haven't got the book out at the moment because when you get the box with Ted, Ted has all of these little like packages in there and there's a welcome, there's a little welcome pack and it has a naming certificate which I was like super excited. I have a name to my Ted because I have a purpose for that but I was like ⁓ this reminds me of Cabbage Patch Dolls because we use because Cabbage Patch Dolls you used to get a like certificate with a name on it and everything. Anyway back in the day I'm old enough to have
Dr Louise Mansell (27:47)
⁓ yes.
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (27:54)
one. But yeah, you get a naming certificate so you can name your Ted. I think that's beautiful. Like it gives ownership and like autonomy to the child who's getting this toy, this this support toy because they get to like give their Ted a name, they get to decide who they are, they give them a personality, it creates that connection with them.
Dr Louise Mansell (28:03)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's the idea that it's yours, it's your safe person that before you're ready to talk to people perhaps, before you're ready to tell mum and dad, you've got it to talk to. And that spans so many children, you we can think of those in the most need who are in the care system or with trauma.
Kristi McVee (28:23)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (28:35)
But right through to children anyway, can sometimes find it really hard to talk to adults about it because we're very good at giving advice as parents and it can shut down the emotion. So most of the time when I'm working with, you know, families who are struggling with things that most people are struggling with, but they've come to see me because they want to get the most for that, the best for their child. I'm still often supporting parents to hold back from the advice.
and do the listening. It's really hard. I can do it in work, but I can't always do it with my own children. I try because I know what I'm supposed to do. But when it's your own children, you've got that emotional investment. It's really hard to be that quiet listener because you want to fix it. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (29:04)
Yeah, I've been very bad at that. It is very hard.
in your own life. Yeah, it's easier with everyone else. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I struggle with that.
Look,
I'm the first person to admit like, you know, sitting across the table from other people's kids and hearing their stories and supporting parents in what to say and what to do is so much easier than when it's your own children. So I totally understand parents who are like, I'm trying, I'm really trying, but it's so tough because we've got programming, we've got conditioning that we have learned from our own families and parents. it takes, it takes effort and energy to change those patterns. So I totally get it.
Dr Louise Mansell (29:40)
Yep.
Kristi McVee (29:51)
So one thing that was interesting in what you said though is for kids to practice with their TED before they can say it to someone else. Now what's really interesting about that is in my experience if children didn't disclose abuse to me or didn't disclose abuse, sometimes they would come back maybe six months, 12 months, two years, five years, they would come back when they felt safe.
Dr Louise Mansell (29:58)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (30:12)
And when they had the courage or they knew what to say, because they maybe in the moment, even though that there was evidence that something might have been happening or there was a disclosure or a mandatory report that said this child, we think this child's being abused, sometimes they didn't have the language or they weren't ready to say something. So when they were interviewed, they said nothing.
they do need practice. This is why one of the things I teach is that we need to give children the language and the opportunity to know when something happens, this is what we do and it's okay. And so talking to Ted, it makes so much sense because kids will practice with their toys, with their horse, like my horse.
Dr Louise Mansell (30:45)
Thank
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think when I thought about the 10 different activities for, for the Tedology Bear, it was the idea that, yes, at some point I want to get children who need to process and talk about emotions and their experiences, and to a point that they understand that that's a really helpful thing to do. And I always do this kind of pyramid idea because that's your, your top end. When you're starting to do that, that's when other things,
Kristi McVee (31:13)
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (31:18)
It's still bothering you. But actually that's the hardest bit to do and most adults walk around not having therapy for that reason. Yeah. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (31:25)
Yeah, to talk about it. I've got a few people in my mind right now that like seriously need therapy, will never,
or hopefully will seek it out one day. But they're just, it takes a lot of courage to go and get it.
Dr Louise Mansell (31:37)
Yeah, a lot of courage because sometimes we know it'll bring things up for us but we don't know what we're going to do with those feelings.
So I wanted technology to, one, give children the language by teaching them through the cards and through the games it does when you press its tummy. But then also, how do you calm down when you've got the difficult feeling? Because then you're going to be more equipped to think, I can handle difficult feelings. I know what they're called and I know what to do with them when they're in my body. So I am now in a position where I can actually talk about it. And I really noticed that through my work in...
Kristi McVee (32:05)
so good.
Dr Louise Mansell (32:11)
as a psychologist because you would often get children who might be referred and then told they won't engage or they've disengaged and I used to hate that because that was just a missed opportunity because someone's done too much or how else would I say that? When I used to hear they've disengaged from services, they've disengaged from therapy or they won't attend
Kristi McVee (32:17)
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (32:33)
It's often because it's overwhelming. It's not because they're not willing to do the work. We just have to help them feel resilient and confident enough that they can handle the work. And by the work, I mean any sort of any therapeutic work.
Kristi McVee (32:42)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, look, I saw a lot of disengaged youth and children in coming to even talk to a police officer. And of course, what do you think if they're not going to talk to a psychologist or they're not going to engage with someone or if they have said something, it's usually like thrown out and then they retreat back in and they leave it like they literally basically batten down the hatches and put their armor back on because, know,
Dr Louise Mansell (33:08)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (33:14)
They're in survival mode a lot of the time when they feel like that and a disengaged person in my mind is someone who feels like they're not safe and they just put they've put all their armor on to keep safe and that's all they're doing and the longer we allow this to continue or the longer that it takes for them to find the right person or the right therapy or the right whatever right that's the safety the
Dr Louise Mansell (33:26)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (33:39)
the thicker those walls get, the thicker that armor gets. I mean, I would, yeah, I personally, put my daughter in therapy from about 10 years old. And so the main reason was is because I knew that I was struggling by that stage in my own position as a police officer, but also,
Dr Louise Mansell (33:41)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (33:54)
I started therapy at 20 because that's what I recognized I needed from all of my own experiences and what I was going through. However, my daughter was showing signs of anxiety and showing signs of like withdrawal and all of these things. And I was like,
I need to give her someone else who is safe. I need her to have another safe option. And I started her at 10 because, even maybe, I think it was a bit earlier, because I was like, I wanted to know that it's okay to go and get help. It's okay to go and talk to someone. Mom and dad aren't always going to be safe people. If the situation's not, you know, if we're not being the supportive people she needs, she needs to have someone else in her team.
Dr Louise Mansell (34:32)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (34:33)
So it's really important that kids have multiple avenues to talk to. Grandparents are really great if they're the right grandparents. Sometimes grandparents aren't. My daughter had her grandmother who she always sat and told stuff to and her grandmother would come and tell me like, oh, she told me this. And I never brought it up with her, but at least I knew what was going on. So grandparents can be amazing. Aunties and uncles can be amazing. Family friends can be amazing. But when kids have nothing.
Dr Louise Mansell (34:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, or it can, you know, even if they have like the amount of children I'll see who have suffered a loss that we just don't talk about a lot, the amount of children who've either lost a sibling or a parent or a grandparent who's been their person. And it's again, it's sometimes really hard to talk about those things because that's not a child who hasn't got anybody to talk to. They've got lots of people to talk to.
Kristi McVee (35:13)
Yeah, that makes sense.
Dr Louise Mansell (35:24)
and lots of loving people around them, but this is a difficult topic. So you get that in loss and bereavement, you get in separation if we think about the levels of separation and divorce. So one of the main catalysts for terology was working with a little girl who's from separated parents and said, I just wish my tennis could talk back to me.
Kristi McVee (35:28)
Yeah.
well that's a grief as well.
Dr Louise Mansell (35:50)
I was thinking, I don't know about the talking back to you idea, but yeah, they could do more than they're doing, couldn't they? Because that was her outlet, having a very hostile separated family. And whoever you talk to, they're both very loving parents, they adore her, but there's a loyalty that plays out.
Kristi McVee (35:59)
That's who she talked to.
It's and
the child is torn between two.
Dr Louise Mansell (36:12)
and the child's
torn, so then they don't tell anybody other than the teddy. But it's still important that they're telling the teddy because that's processing it. And when we say something out loud, as you'll know, it takes it to a higher level of our understanding, and that's when your brain can sort of resolve it itself. So the more we talk about or draw or play out,
Kristi McVee (36:30)
Yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (36:35)
emotional experiences, the better our brain is able to resolve them themselves. And that's what we want to encourage.
Kristi McVee (36:40)
Yeah,
yeah, and I see that in okay, so if I relate that back to my policing, right, when I was able to have conversations with someone, whether it be and I mean, not just conversations, quality conversations, processing, feelings and emotions, I was able to process what I
receipt like because everything that I did was trauma in the police, right? So that was trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma, like whether I go to a road traffic crash, or I go to talk to a child that's been abused or I've been to a sudden death, whatever it is, it's all trauma. If I was able to have a good conversation with someone who helped me process what I was feeling, whether it was sadness, whether it was, you know, hopelessness, whatever it was, then I was able to move on and do my job better.
because I was able to move on to the next thing and not be dragging that with me when I wasn't. And it happened really quickly when I shut down from being able to talk to my colleagues or to someone else and I wasn't processing it. That's how PTSD really was able to like, that's how anxiety started. That's how the PTSD started. It really like latched on and it became like this like
like this weight on my shoulders on my head, it just held me down, it made me feel depressed. And I think you're right, like I know now a lot of people in my, in my world are like, Christy, you need to be moving your body and you know, processing your emotions and doing your things. And I'm learning this even six years after the police that the body stores all of that memory. And so if I haven't moved it through, then how am I meant to expect it to not keep coming back and, you know, feeling it all over again. So
our kids are no different. They're just little people who need to process. I think, yeah, I think that.
Dr Louise Mansell (38:16)
Yeah.
And when the words are
so hard to find and sentences are so hard to construct and, you know, and I think about the amount of time sometimes it'll take me as a psychologist in a session with a little person to really get to what it is that's worrying them. That's an awful lot of time and skill, if I dare say, to get them to a point where they're able to do that. We couldn't expect a parent to do that.
Kristi McVee (38:39)
It is good.
Dr Louise Mansell (38:45)
because it takes a lot of time for them to even understand it themselves. And they need to be able to just play that out with all their toys and talk to Ted about that. until they've got the sentence that is actually what they meant to say, that's taken me an hour in therapy to get to, but we can't just keep putting more psychologists in every school for everyone. We've got to do something earlier on. We've got to do something at scale.
Kristi McVee (39:10)
Else.
Yeah, there's too many kids that need this.
Dr Louise Mansell (39:12)
so that we were getting in there early.
Yeah, we're getting in there early. I could work, I could see seven, eight clients a day, every day without advertising any of my services. That's how busy our services, the waiting list are closed for our service and many others. And I was really aware that I'm sometimes seeing children and teaching them things that if parents were given the tools to do it, could do it. Not the really complicated stuff.
Kristi McVee (39:38)
Yep.
Dr Louise Mansell (39:40)
them doing the complicated stuff. And I think the dentist model or a physiotherapy model, we take children to the dentist when we need to and absolutely we should be doing that and doing the check-ups and everything but in the meantime we are helping them brush their teeth.
Kristi McVee (39:42)
Yep.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good analogy.
Dr Louise Mansell (39:56)
Because
we've been taught that it's important, we've been given the science of what happens when you don't. We've been given the correct toothpaste and the brushes of how to do it. And that's what I if we can do this every day, it will reduce that kind of bottleneck of all this, all the psychology waiting lists and all the demand for services so that actually that's being used effectively. It's being used for the children who need it.
Kristi McVee (40:21)
Yeah, and look.
Dr Louise Mansell (40:22)
And at the same
time, parents feeling empowered. As a mum, there's not much... Not as a mum. Feeling like you don't know how to help your child is not a good feeling. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (40:31)
It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking
and it's debilitating. Like there's times that my daughter was struggling at school or struggling with bullies or struggling. And here I am feeling like, you know, I'm meant to be able to protect my child and I can't help her with how she's feeling when she's feeling abandoned or rejected by friends or she's got anxiety because she doesn't like her teacher or, you know, and, you know, we do our best and we try really hard, but
Dr Louise Mansell (40:36)
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (40:59)
Again, some of these things, like I knew from experience, I couldn't protect her from all of that. All I could do is help her, support her, make her feel like she wasn't alone in it. Because one of the things that one of my other guests said recently, and he's a psychologist as well, he's a doctor as well, and he said, we're not, it's not our job to slay the dragons for our kids, it's to teach our kids to become dragon slayers. And I was like,
Dr Louise Mansell (41:21)
Yeah, like that. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (41:22)
Whoa, like that is, you know, like literally that is what we have to do because I know that we, and same with, you know, teaching them body safety and stuff, like we can't be with them. We can't put them in a bubble 24 seven. We can't make, we can do our best everywhere we go, but we also have to teach our kids how to live in the world and how to help themselves and support themselves. And I think that's one of the things that I loved about Ted more so because I know that there's so many kids who can't say what's happening and can't.
verbalize what's happening, but Ted can hear it and eventually they will have the words and the sentence or the language to be able to then go share it with someone else.
Dr Louise Mansell (41:58)
Yeah,
yeah, and feel ready that they can tolerate those feelings because they know how to manage feelings.
Kristi McVee (42:06)
And you're the best person because you obviously have got a lot of experience with children with trauma and the psycho and you know, seeing kids in in in your clinic and stuff like that. You've obviously got a lot of experience in this space that you are able to see. Like like I said at the very beginning, I love people who fight, see a need and feel it like we don't because I'm an actioner. I'm a person of action. Like if I see something I'm like put my hand up and like I'll go and do it. I'll help. I'll do whatever.
So for me, anyone who goes out of their way to create something for the greater good of anyone, but especially children, a hero in my eyes.
Dr Louise Mansell (42:42)
Yeah, it's been such a rewarding process to do it and I'm really looking forward to seeing where it goes and the amount of children it can help and the amount of families really that's kind of why I gave this full parent guide with the bear because there's something, yeah.
Kristi McVee (42:52)
families.
Yeah, I'm just like, there's a companion guide and
in the companion guide, it's beautifully, by the way, whoever did your graphic design, beautifully, like it's very appealing and explains it very well. And yeah, beautiful. Like it's just such a well-made product. And I know from my own experience with this, it's, you you breathe and you bleed this project and you're like, I just hope, and you, it's like birthing another child, right?
Dr Louise Mansell (43:20)
Yeah,
yeah. And then it's all the preparation, then it arrives and you can't, what am supposed to do now?
Kristi McVee (43:26)
So how can people find ⁓ your Tedology, Ted?
Dr Louise Mansell (43:30)
So we have the website and tedology.com.au but we're on Instagram and Facebook as well. We've got sessions coming up about hear more about it. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (43:41)
I'm going to be promoting Ted more and more as I go. No, I really do believe in what because again, I know parents and families are struggling to get their kids support and help. The lists are so long that, you know, it breaks my heart when I see families who just want to help their kids and they can't. look, Ted, Ted.
Dr Louise Mansell (43:44)
thank you.
Kristi McVee (44:03)
Ted is not a replacement for proper psychology or counseling or therapy, but Ted might give you some support in between. Ted might give your child the voice to speak up and the tools to regulate and help. So, yes, I will be screaming from the rooftops about Ted. You're welcome. And I'll put everything in the show notes.
Dr Louise Mansell (44:04)
No.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you so much. ⁓ I suppose we've got
what the beauty of TED is that families can obviously get get technology for their homes. We've got grants in place with BACA as you've helped with ⁓ and on NDIS for many.
Kristi McVee (44:33)
Yeah.
Right, well that's good.
Dr Louise Mansell (44:37)
So there's lots of
different avenues, grants to get this to families. So that they can start that journey and...
Kristi McVee (44:42)
Amazing. All right.
Dr Louise Mansell (44:46)
I notice as a psychologist when the families have got technology it does make it so much easier to do the work because they've just got this resource that will talk them through it rather than I suppose when I was doing clinical work with all children you're always finding ways that they can take what they've learnt with you and generalise it into life a bit like the dentist example again if we can teach them to do this at home
Kristi McVee (45:05)
and practice it.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Louise Mansell (45:11)
then we'll start to see the biggest difference and we need to be seeing the biggest difference with one in three children struggling with mental health difficulties. We need to be doing something that makes a difference on a daily basis.
Kristi McVee (45:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, because this is the thing you go into your see your therapist, you talk about your problems and what's making you upset and anxious and worried and all of these things. You leave there. And then what right so Ted is the in between part, the part that supports kids in between and maybe even just supports kids in finding a little bit more comfort in their day. So
Dr Louise Mansell (45:35)
Yep.
Yeah.
Kristi McVee (45:45)
Amazing, Louise. I'm so glad that you came and spoke to me. I will put every bit of information in the show notes. again, if anyone wants to find out more about Tedology, just tedology.com.au. And if you do have NDIS or you do have there is grants and there is an NDIS. I think I personally I wish I had had a Ted for my daughter. I think she would have been obsessed with him. Actually, you know what?
Dr Louise Mansell (45:46)
Thank you, you too.
I wish I'd have had a Ted
for me. ⁓ Yeah, we had a dog.
Kristi McVee (46:11)
Me too, I needed a Ted. We were lucky with our dog and our horse. ⁓
I'm just thinking now, I wonder if my daughter, my 18 year old daughter needs a Ted. ⁓
Dr Louise Mansell (46:21)
The
Ted at Curtin University at the moment in the lab helping doctors there just regulate apparently between sessions. get these amazing stories from adults and families every week about what Ted's up to. I know, I know I do. I need to get better at that. I need to get better at that.
Kristi McVee (46:31)
That's amazing.
you need to share them on your Instagram and on. Please do. I think that's part of people
need to hear these stories because now I'm starting to think I am not using Ted to his advantage. But. All right. Thanks, Louise.
Dr Louise Mansell (46:46)
No, definitely do.
Bye.
Kristi McVee (46:49)
If today's conversation resonated with you, I'm not surprised because Louise is talking about something that most of us never got, the tools to actually understand what we're feeling and do something useful with it. And now she's putting those tools into the hands of children, literally. Ted is not a replacement for therapy or professional support, but he might just be the bridge that helps a child find the words, regulate in the moment or feel a little less alone. And that matters more than we can measure.
You'll find all of Louise's details and links to Tedology in the show notes, including how to access TED through NDIS or grants, if that applies to your family. And if you found this episode helpful, please share it because every parent, carer or educator who listens is one more person equipped to help a child thrive. Thanks for being here. I'll see you in the next one.
