Friday Q&A on Navigating Children Through Grief with Esther Marshall

0:00Hello and welcome to Made by Mum as the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman and I'm Georgia Dayton and this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits with five kids between G and I we have seen a lot we really have each week we'll be joined by some famous faces and experts and we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way in short we're the parenting podcast for you before we get started hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands and they're on Tuesdays and Fridays and it really helps if you leave a rating and a review You can also find us on Instagram.

0:34We're on at Made by Mummers. But for now, George, should we get into it? It's probably safe to say that we spend 90 % of our time worrying about our kids, praying and wishing that they are absolutely okay, worrying if they're not, thinking that they might not be. I mean, it's a bit of a minefield back and forth in our minds. So we really wanted to get somebody on the podcast today who is a total, expert in her field, but has lived and slept and breathed the whole experience. She is a children's author. She is founder of Sophie Says. She is a mental health advocate. It is Esther Marshall. Yay. Thank you so much for having me.

1:13It's so lovely for you to be here. Thank you. I really appreciate it. You sent such a beautiful email back when we were first chatting and you said that you've listened to the podcast for a really long time and we actually received your books. Years ago. Years ago. We've been reading them to our kids for a really long time. So it's lovely to have you sitting here. Thank you. Yeah. Well, my son is now seven, but in my mat leave with him, I would be walking him because he never slept. So I've been listening to your voices for years and years, trying to get him to sleep. So it's lovely to be full circle and now be on the podcast.

1:44Thank you. We're glad we could have been with you. And now you're helping us. So it really has come full circle. Just for the listeners, do you want to just tell them a little bit about your background? Because obviously you've written the books, which we've touched on but what led you to write them yeah of course um just so for anyone listening it's um quite a triggering story just in case anybody you know thinks of anything but there's mention of suicide grief and everything that comes alongside that but um growing up I was the eldest of three sisters um and me and my middle sister were 18 months apart and shared a room up until we were 12 and you know everything shared clothes everything we were like best best friends um and she was basically the one that was always out there in the front and I was always the shy one in the back.

2:31Until we kind of went to secondary school and everything kind of changed. And especially then when she went to medical school and kind of everything changed with all of the pressure that junior doctors are put under in this country and everything. And it was the lead up to COVID and she really started to suffer with being in A &E as a junior doctor with everything that was going on meanwhile I was also on maternity leave with my son and my background was in corporate and mental health diversity inclusion and I was trying to like read books to my son and we were like there's nothing out there like people were giving me gifts and I was like this stuff is just rubbish like I want to be able to read the stuff to my son that will help him in his life and so my sister said to me like why why don't you just write the book that you want to write like at work you do a lot of writing and she was an amazing artist so she's like I'll do the illustrations wow you do the writing and it'll be like a maternity leave project so I started writing it in the middle of the night while he was awake and I was feeding him because I was like I need to keep awake otherwise I'm going to drop my baby on the floor um and that's kind of how Sophie Says came about so we wrote um Sophie Says I Can I Will which is the first one um like a gift to my son of like you will meet women who are like your mom who are not like your mom but like listen to them and they will like bring goodness into your life and you can achieve anything you want regardless of who you are in your background and everything like that um and my sister then couldn't do the illustrations because she came quite unwell with like anxiety in the lead up with everything going on in COVID.

4:09And in the January before the March lockdown, mum came home and everything was very quiet. Normally my sister was at home before her. So she went up to my sister's room and my sister had stripped the bedsheets. She'd packed her whole room away and left a note on the bed to say, I can't do this anymore. I can't watch so many other people. die basically on my watch um I just can't do it um I know you're going to want to find where I am so that you can bury me this is where I've gone and my mom called me and was like screeching down the phone like I still vividly remember it um and I was like it's not happening it's not happening don't worry whatever I just like got in the car like went straight to my parents called the police um they came to the house in like five minutes and I had like everything ready to be like okay we're going to go and find her we're going to do this whatever and I remember the policeman I was like literally like up in his face like come on let's go let's go and he's like I need you to sit down and he just sat me down um he said I'm so sorry but we found your sister's body and she is deceased and in that moment like life just everything changed like I just I couldn't see I couldn't move like the scream from my mom I still when I go back there can't sit in the same seat in my parents house because it's just it's too much um and I just had a baby and everything around COVID and all that grief and everything um and I went home that night and I wrote the second book Sophie Says It's Okay Not To Be Okay and I just swore to myself that night like I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make sure that this doesn't happen to another family like ever like we need to talk to our children about all this stuff way before it gets to a point where it gets too much or they can't talk about it and that's kind of where Sophie says was was born out of and I left my big corporate job and I do this all day every day go into schools do workshop with kids and just make sure that they know how to speak about their feelings and everything with educational psychologists and teachers backing everything.

6:13Esther I mean oh my gosh I'm so sorry yeah it's it's that's possibly one of the worst things that we've ever heard I think on the podcast and for you to sit there so bravely and talk about her do you look back and I mean you must look back and question every single thing that she said do you in your heart remember any signs anything that she might have tried to say or that she couldn't say or what was going on with her yeah so we had quite a few trips to hospital where there were like major anxiety attacks depression um one where there was no space in the hospital so she had to come back and be at my flat while I was pregnant and I had hyperemesis I was throwing up and then the crisis teams were coming over to the house to like tell me how to like prepare my house for just or my flat just in case like something did happen yeah um so there were signs that she had like bad anxiety and depression but like if you asked me did I ever think we'd end up in this situation like absolutely never like never never and what about you you said that everything changed when you got to 12 what what what was what were those sort of changes yeah so we all went to different schools and she went to a school that because she was so intelligent like I'm not but she is and or was um I still talk about her like she's here see like um but I think it was just so much pressure in the school that she was at of like you will do it and they just kind of beat the personality out of and it was just all about the grades whereas the school that I went to wasn't about that and it and I really remember that changing like she we'd walk into a room and I'm still scared of walking into a room full of people but when we were younger like she would then be behind me and it was such a stark difference like she'd start to wear like baggy clothes and she's like the most beautiful like unbelievable figure that she had everything I mean she had everything going for her um and that's why it just it just absolutely it just breaks me every time I think about it and and being a new mum as well and having to cope with that because you can't you can't crumble I couldn't and and because we then literally went into lockdown and because of her anxiety she only ever wanted to talk on the phone I'd say to my husband I'd be like well it's fine we're going to come out of COVID I'm going to open the door and she's just going to be there so it was like delayed grief up all night my son was 14 months um and it was just trying to get through all of that and like that delayed grief of like thinking you're starting to move on with life and then you know when it's a suicide as well you have to have the police report they have to do a whole investigation that was then delayed as well because of covid so 10 months later out of nowhere we get this email in our inbox of the police investigation notes like and i just remember I read it and I actually I just threw up everywhere and it was because it they take you through like everything that happened on the day they go through like ccc for shit everything so like whenever it comes to january the 27th like it's the worst day ever because I literally play out that entire day of she was doing this she was doing you know like they detail everything because they have to work out whether there was anything untoward or whatever going on um so I just the whole thing for me there was just like a massive coping mechanism slash not coping of like I just need to be here for my son and I want to make sure that he's okay and he can talk about this stuff but I most definitely wasn't okay looking back on it and I guess yeah how is that you know the experience shaped you now as a parent but also I guess your parents as grandparents as well like how has you know I guess there's nothing can change what's happened but what are you guys doing you know going forward now to like you say make sure no other family goes through that again yeah so I mean our family was so open about talking about our feelings um and I had my second and then four weeks later my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer so my eldest we had quite a big age gap because we struggled and then had to do IVF and there I was a miscarriage and all different things in between, I think because of the stress as well.

10:30And then my mom actually passed away about six months ago. So we only had two years of her with this diagnosis. So then speaking to my son about like why Auntie Rebecca isn't here, why my mom isn't here. Like we're very open about it in our family. We talk about it a lot and we say like all the time, it's okay not to be okay. It's okay if he cries. Like we just want him to be able to know that this is a safe place for him to talk about his feelings. because I think everyone wants like their kids to be happy I come from a different angle of like obviously I'd like them to be happy that would be what we always want but I also want them to know that it's okay not to be happy and I want them to know that this is a safe place for them to talk about their feelings so when they're older and find other relationships that they have healthy relationships that they can talk about that and not have to hide it it's really hard as well and please feel free not not to not to answer this if it's too much but how we talk to our children about suicide as well because and and at what age because obviously it's such a big yeah a big conversation um my eldest sorry my middle daughter Luna she is very inquisitive because we take her to flaxstock every year and Caroline was a very good friend of mine right she really wants to know what happened and I talked to her about Caroline's mental health and how she found the world really difficult and etc etc but then but she can't quite understand it and I want to protect her from that because it's such a horror do you ever have conversations with your with your eldest about it does does he does he understand he doesn't know that it was suicide yet i will have to have that conversation with him at some point yeah i will have to for sure he does know that his grandma was cancer because he came to the hospital a few times to see her because they were so close um what age is he now eight he's seven seven so yeah she well yeah six months ago so i mean we my husband spoke about it a lot I mean she had wires coming everywhere the deterioration was horrendous but he kept asking like I want to see her and in fact the doctors were amazing when it got to like it really was near the end they actually unplugged everything we put her in a cab and she came back to the house and she got to hold I had then had a third we had like a miracle oh we've had IVF um six weeks six months in as I'm feeling unwell thinking it's something else or the stress and then oh by the way even though you don't have tubes and you're you can never get pregnant again here's a third so I've got a 16 month age gap um and my mom said you're having him because it's going to keep me alive for longer and she marched into the consultant office and was like you have to keep me alive so that I can see my third grandson being born and she did and she held him and so she said I just need to be able to come back and so she came back to the house and she saw all of them which was like such a moment um so at least he could then see her in normal clothes and not remember all of the everything but like poor kid like there's been a lot and in between that both my grandparents passed away as well there's been a lot of grief there's been a lot of grief yeah and so there are days where I am not okay and I cry and they know that they're like it's okay um it's they always say to me it's okay not to be okay and we talk about it's like why we've got feeling and affirmation cards that come like with the books as well we put them out we talk about them like it's just constant talking about feelings in our house and you're right there into schools having the conversations with you know young people what's the general feeling from them about how how to navigate grief how to navigate their feelings so I mean I do as early as reception so we're really trying to get in there proactively because we see all this stuff with reactive mental health and like once you've got the deep set issues and it's so much harder to come back from so it's very much around talking to these kids when they're what three four about actually understanding what it feels like to feel happy, sad, angry, frustrated, so that they can articulate knowing what those feelings are.

14:14We've got a program, it's like an eight-week program that we do with schools, and it goes through all about them, why they're unique, so they can be proud of themselves, but then understand. So when I do the like reception year ones, it's very kind of happy, they love it, we've got songs, the little bunny from the books comes out, they've got actions like they absolutely love it when you get to like year two three four you automatically see the difference in if they have or haven't learned about this stuff before and you can see already I mean the teachers tell me I'm speaking to teachers but you can see it from the kids as well like from speaking to them a year ago and they'd have their hands up and they're right at the front they're already at the back and you know twiddling with their hair and worried about what they're saying like you can see how this is just widespread I mean I would genuinely call call it like it's an absolute crisis in this country um with children's mental health dr dr alex was sort of saying similar things on tuesday he he was he was our guest on this week's podcast on tuesday and he was saying quite similar things wasn't he that people have just forgotten they don't have an understanding about that physical health yes but mental health come on yeah why do you think that is it's a mixture of things a lot has happened since covid so the kids weren't at school so when I do my book readings for kids now who are in like year one and year two and year three you can see the difference in that they didn't have that like entry into school and reception where they learn how to sit and share and be around others and you know everything at home was stress right parents are trying to hold down jobs or getting not having jobs or you know and then the cost of living crisis and everything that's coming in you know I've been to so many schools where you know I speak to their headmaster headmistress at the end and one of them saying they're all basically like glorified social workers now they're constantly on the phone because there was one school I got back in the car I was like bawling my eyes out they said they'd had a endemic where all of the kids were like starting to throw up I was like why and they got to the bottom of it it's like parents couldn't afford to put the ovens on and so they were letting stuff defrost during the day and then giving it to their kids and like this is the stuff that the schools are dealing with so like yes we can teach them maths yes we can teach them english but if you've got a load of kids in the class who are sick who are stressed they're seeing things at home that they shouldn't be seeing how on earth are you then going to teach them and then because of that that's then treated as that's naughty behavior sit down whatever they then feel that they have to you know back up their ideas or whatever go home act out come to school act out nobody else can then learn everybody else is then falling what you call behind and you can see how this is an absolute spiral that our kids are just growing up in a way whereby they're just not being supported enough and it's not the teachers the teachers have to do oh my god what they are being asked to do at the moment and that's exactly why I'm trying to do this in fact we've just set up a foundation whereby because the the schools were buying the program and I was like this is just so unfair I can't have like every single school needs this and so we're literally just giving the programs to schools so that as many kids as possible can have access to this kind of education because that we weren't taught it the teachers weren't taught it it doesn't go into any of their training whatsoever and then suddenly they've got all of these kids that are anxious that are acting out SEN needs have gone up by you know huge amounts and they're trying to deal with all of this stuff and you're sat in a classroom and you think how are they how can you do it how can you literally anyone listening who might want to recommend this program to their school or you know how do they go about doing that because I was just thinking exactly that yeah I mean if you come on instagram sophieses official or email me at contact at sophieses official.com I speak directly to the schools anyone you just tell me the name of the school we've had some unbelievable funders that have given us money for the foundation whereby we can literally just get this into your school they don't need to pay they don't need to anything we've we've written it with mental health professionals educational psychologists and teachers and it links to the pshe curriculum around the social emotional well-being so it's all lesson plans it's all completely done for the teachers we piloted it in 15 schools and we're like what do you need to make sure that you're not you know up all night writing lesson plans and this and that and we sat with them and we piloted it and we tweaked it whenever and we've now got like a proper whole amazing program amazing we'll be right back after this short break

18:53welcome back to this episode of made by mamas now where were we um esther we've got loads of questions here so let's try and get into some of them hi Zeri and Georgia my daughter is seven and has suddenly become terrified of school drop-offs she clings to me cries and said that her stomach hurts every single morning apparently nothing big has happened at school but how do I help her feel safe again without forcing her through it can ask to help oh yeah yeah I hear this a lot yeah there's a lot about getting them through the school gates and actually once they're in they're okay but we feel so hard like I remember seeing some of my friends kids and I was crying like oh I can't do it there's so many tools that that can help firstly I mean it's great sounds like she's talking and saying there isn't anything that's happened so hopefully that is the case and if the teachers are saying that then that's good um but like the feeling and affirmation cards that I have there's loads of others out there there's little love stones or anything but you can get them to pick one or like how they're feeling or how they like an affirmation or the love stones also really good you can put it in their bag and you say like mommy's with you I'm here anytime you need to look at it I'm here because a lot of it is this whole feeling of safety at home especially now school used to be this like unbelievable place but now because there's so much going on in the classroom kids are feeling it less and less they want to be at home so it's how you bridge that gap so for me and a lot of kids that we work with it's giving them something that then reminds them of home it could be their teddy it could be anything and putting it in their school bag and saying like anytime you need to look at it mommy's with you i'm here that's like one quick kind of thing that you can you can do that really helps and kind of gets them in through the door even if there's a few more tears but gets them there yeah i like the heart as well yeah the heart on the hand yes exactly yeah um someone here has put i suffer with chronic autoimmune illness so my health is up and down i'll be having surgery next year and my five-year-old daughter is showing some real signs of anxiety that I think stems from worrying about me but she won't can't really talk about it how do we navigate that yeah it's so difficult when it's something that's happening to you because you then don't want to worry them but I think what we don't give our kids credit for is they're actually I think more resilient than we are they are so resilient and so if you just talk to them like they are a normal person you don't have to tell them all the ins and outs about the surgery and how scary that might be but just say like this is what mommy has you know I you know just to clarify I don't I'm not a medic so I don't have medical advice this is just going on what I've experienced day in day out in the schools but um you know it's going to be okay you know mommy's a little bit sick but that's okay we look after our bodies and this is going to help mommy look after her body like it's just a way of framing it in like a positive way but that's not making it like everything's going to be hunky-dory but just so that they understand the steps yeah and then honestly just look at them and ask them like do you have any questions about this and see whether they might want to ask anything about it yeah it's I think we get so in our head of like how do I explain this how do I distill this down but it's it's it's literally like a it's a conversation it really doesn't need to be more than that I don't think yeah and asking them what they need to know because you might be thinking something completely different to what we do we we literally make this into like oh I mean the day that mom passed away I was like how on earth am I going to tell my son I mean it was just unbelievable their reaction I mean obviously he's upset and it was horrible but we need to I think give them more credit 100 % and we need to get a bit more like okay I can do this kind of like it's that they'll they'll be not necessarily okay but I also for us to then frame our mindset like it's okay that they're not okay how do we talk to them to make sure that they get to a place where they then feel okay yeah I actually really um really love and cherish the moments that we talk about my dad with my kids because he he died um 13 years ago so they never met him but the way they talk about grandpa peter and how we're so able to have this really open beautiful conversation that you know they want to know how he died they want to know what it was like for him they're asking those questions but I'm really open at talking to them about it but the way that they see it now like luna said something to the other day and she said oh I looked outside and I saw grandpa Peter in the trees um when the wind blew and that's how I describe it and she's really understanding that you can tap into it and you can feel him anywhere and he's got a photograph of him by her bed but I just I'm really proud of them yeah that is amazing that's that's you know they're so little still and that's the thing of where they actually they come out with this stuff and you're like yeah he's teaching me yeah like the the day that Rebecca passed away like a few of our our friends were at the house like with my parents and we're like how on earth do we tell everyone and we sent out an email and like in that moment like the everything went dark outside and then suddenly this rainbow came out um and so like whenever there's a rainbow like all my friends will send it to me and like the other day like one of the lights was shining like on the tv screen and you know like with a reflection like all the the little bits and my son was like mommy look auntie rebecca's there there's a rainbow and And I was like, oh, my God.

24:02Like, wow. Yeah. You know, it's things like that. It's really beautiful. Yeah. It will give them. I really do think it sets you up as well because you can't talk about life. You can't talk about death. No. Yeah. People are weird about it, aren't they? Yeah. So weird about it. It's like they existed for a really long time or not. And if you don't, it makes it even harder to deal with if it does happen. Yeah. Yeah. I really think that. Yeah. It's a grief coping mechanism. Like, I've done so much therapy on that. and like I know when it's getting to a point where like the grief needs to come and I can feel it and like I know exactly the songs to put on to like just let it out or whatever I need to do I mean I stupidly the night that mom signed up I've never run before in my life but signed up for London Marathon and got a charity place so I'm now like out running and like it's really helping the grief I just in the middle of a run just like bawling my eyes out and I think it's good for us as parents to be able to show our kids that we're also normal and we're also human so that they then feel like the person who's just asked this question to you that they then feel that they can come to you and ask these questions and they don't feel like they're being stupid yeah oh okay you're a real person too you're not yeah I think we all think we need to be these perfect human beings but it's like okay you're just also a normal person that I can come and talk to yeah and it's okay to not have everything figured out 100 % like everyone's learning it's everyone's first time yeah that's exactly why it's okay to make mistakes like I want my kids to know like it's fine if I do too like that's how we learn um let's move on to this one um my nine-year-old son has started coming into our room every night saying he can't switch his brain off he worries about everything uh it's exhausting him and it's exhausting us as well we've tried cutting screens earlier bedtime um meditation apps nothing is sticking what else can we do to calm the bedtime anxiety yeah it's very common that isn't it very common yeah I think that happens I think a lot of people don't talk about it but I think people like it's happening to kids who are much older as well yeah especially when like the kind of social media comes in and everything at that like at a much older age um the breathing techniques are unbelievable um so we've got some on our youtube channel like rainbow breathing hot chocolate breathing depending on how old the kids are there are some really fun ones that make it really exciting rather than it being like oh I've got to do this again um those I'd really recommend um there's other kind of like music as well that you can play that's also really good to kind of help them calm down but it's sometimes factoring it into that bedtime routine and I sometimes we start like an extra half an hour 40 minutes earlier because I know because then parents and this is kind of where the grief has helped me in that I used to be like oh my god it's 6.02 we need to be in the bath whereas now I'm just like if it's 6.20 and they're still not in the bath it's okay and if you build that in and they don't see you being as stressed they then calm as well I noticed that very much with me um so not to say that these people might be you know stressed but you know if we just build it into the day and try and make everything a little bit calmer it may well help in the night yeah I think sometimes as well you don't realize that you know I mean I'm so guilty of it but it's getting to seven o 'clock I know I've still got work to do downstairs or I know I've got to go downstairs and do something else and I want to hurry it up and then obviously it all goes wrong and then that annoys you more so then it feeds their anxiety more because they can tell you're like it's just and it's so easy to sit here and go oh you know make it more calm like it did but it actually is the only thing that works because they can everything breeds doesn't it with chaos how annoying is it though when they're still awake at 8 30 i know but that's the thing and then you've got to go downstairs because all of us i mean our day stops at like 3 3 30 so then from 3 30 to 7 i'm not working so then you need to get back up at 9 and that's part of where all of the anxiety and stress is coming from from all of us because you need to then go back to work i'm just more upset i can't go to bed at eight you are cutting into my absolute horizontal time please go to sleep we'll be right back after this short break welcome back to this episode of made by mamas now where were we my 11 year old daughter keeps panicking before birthday parties or play dates she tells me she feels weird in her chest and worry she'll embarrass herself recently she started avoiding all social stuff even things she used to love how do I help her build confidence without pushing too hard that's so hard it's so hard but if you think about like as adults right when you it's kind of like even though they see these kids every day it's like being pushed into one of those like networking events which is just like my idea of of hell and I'm sure a lot of others right they may see these kids all day every day but they're in their comfort zone when they're at school take them out of there there's clothes there's so many things that come to play um i've seen this with loads of kids it's fine if they don't necessarily go to the big social events what you don't want them to do is stop the smaller ones seeing their friends because otherwise that spirals so it would be like who are her closest friends and i'd probably recommend just to do small play dates with those so she keeps up those friendships if she's not but i know plenty of kids that don't go to birthday parties birthday parties is a whole nother world of social anxiety and how much it causes and also when you've got like older younger kids they're a sibling you've got to be here you've got to be there you don't necessarily have to go to every single one of them they're not going to be friends with all of those kids forever right I mean like how like my primary school friends like two or three right so I think I think you know you need primary school friends one yeah so exactly so I think we feel this pressure they have to go to every party every week and it's so much they're getting so much rubbish that they're eating there as well which then doesn't help the bedtime bath time and everything else that comes with it um it then probably hurts stomach from an anxiety point of view but also everything else um so i would just say you know just who are her closest friends and just keep doing play dates with those or activities with them or whatever it is hang out yeah hang out so that you keep up those relationships yeah and then it doesn't matter necessarily if she isn't going to those and then it doesn't become this big thing because i do wonder as well like with the birthday party thing as a parent you're like no no but you have to go because otherwise you're going to miss out but actually you'd like you're saying that you don't have to go and it's actually fine to not go and you can do other things yeah yeah yeah i finally got to that place now in year three where i'm like you don't need to go to that one yeah you're not that friendly with that person he's like yeah no i'm fine please don't go to that one because i And I don't have to take you now.

30:32Yes, exactly. This one's really interesting, but it says here, my 14-year-old's become very withdrawn. He's stopped playing football, barely talks to us. When I ask how he's doing, he sort of shrugs and says he's fine, but I know something's not right. Yeah. Well, that's the age, isn't it, as well? I think so many of us are so scared, but there's a lot. I mean, do you remember when we were teenagers? I wasn't moody. I was perfect. I actually asked my mum on the phone. I'm such a narcissist. I was like, what was I like when I was a teenager? and she was like well you weren't mean to me okay but you were you know you're sort of classic like couldn't get you out of bed yeah you were a rebel like I definitely pushed the boundaries but I think I was still sort of fun a fun rebel do you know what I mean like I don't think I went I don't I don't necessarily think every teenager goes through that like slamming doors no I didn't go against my parents yeah I definitely didn't but I probably also knew that I needed them to take me places yeah exactly actually yeah I won't know I won't miss this relationship up it's difficult isn't it when your teen or preteen stops talking yes very difficult the football thing for me would probably be more of what I'd concentrate on rather than the getting them to talk about everything that they're feeling at that point but yeah just getting them into that place where he could go out kick a ball or do something that would definitely help his head um rather than thinking oh my gosh he's never going to talk to me again because I think that will probably come back it but if he's stopping some of the activities that's the bit that's a bit more that's the problem that's the problem exactly so even if it's okay you don't want to go out with your friends and play football or you just go outside or wherever it is and just do some football yourself just so that he can get some time and then and then start building again similar to the play date kind of thing that we were talking about before like start small yeah um because some of these things seem so big but if when you kind of break it down and say right let's get you just to like go and kick a ball outside like then we can go up one and up and up and then hopefully get back yeah love that how important is it for like teenagers i guess specifically to continue doing hobbies because i guess that's really common you know like you hear about people kids who love football kids who love dancing whatever and then they hit their teens and then they stop yeah and actually that would might have been their coping mechanism or you know a different social group or it's not just about the hobby.

32:51I think it's the most important thing. All my sport dropped off at 14, 15 when I discovered smoking, drinking and boys. Literally, you know, it was everything to me and it just disappeared overnight. Virtually, went to a new school, didn't play sport. That was it. And it's so important. It is so important. Because I did, I mean, I was a tomboy until I was like 18. I mean, I played every sport. I didn't even know about but I got to university and was like oh my god hello boys hello um and then went on a different you know but um but school it was it was like I was playing sport all the time everything and I think it's so it's why I encourage my son at the moment and whatever my son and daughter are still really really young so whatever they're going to get into but like he wants to play football four times a week I will get you to play football four times a week I think it's so vitally important that they're out and about rather than just sitting inside and because otherwise that's going to spiral out of control once they get I mean I really hope he doesn't get a phone till a lot older but once they do and then all that comes into it then yeah yeah because it is it is like the whole I always see it as like different friendship groups as well and I think that's really important it's not like necessarily like the actual activity that's happening it's just friends outside of school friends outside of school having like a purpose having an outlet like just all of those that yeah be maybe good at something that or you know yeah whatever it is yeah i just i would really like push for teens yeah okay so should we have to wrap it up oh gosh we do i know yeah thank you so much for coming on thank you so much for having me i really appreciate it where can people buy the books yes please please go and buy the books i'd love this to be in like all of your houses um www.sophiesaizofficial.com go on message me how you find the books and I'm gonna be tapping you up to come into yeah definitely come and follow me and Sophie says official because I I talk a lot about obviously what I'm doing but also around like my grief story and everything else like that and being a parent and founding a business and going through grief so amazing thank you so much thank you thank you