Pod Insights All In The Mind What to know about kids mental health About this episode Developmental paediatrician Dr Billy Garvey has seen a lot of kids with behavioural issue over the years, and there are ten things he wishes all parents understood about their kids mental health.
From insecure attachment to separation anxiety to emotional difficulties – he gives us the low down on why kids get labelled ‘bad’ – and what’s really going on (usually).
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode first aired in February 2025.
Guest:
Dr Billy GarveyDevelopmental paediatricianAuthor, Ten things I wish you knew about your child's mental health https://www.penguin.com.au/books/ten-things-i-wish-you-knew-about-your-childs-mental-health-9781761345838Podcast co-host, Pop Culture ParentingFounder, Guiding Growing Minds https://www.guidinggrowingminds.com/
Credits:
Presenter/producer: Sana QadarSenior producer: James BullenProducer: Rose KerrSound engineer: John Jacobs
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0:38 Speaker 01 Growing up, Billy Garvey was what you might have called a bad kid. But that would be careless because if you paid attention, you would see what he really was, was a struggling kid.
0:53 Speaker 02 My story is essentially that I was brought up by a single mum in one of Australia's most disadvantaged communities.
1:00 Speaker 01 That would be Frankston in Melbourne's South East.
1:02 Speaker 02 She worked three jobs as a waitress. She had her own mental health struggles. She found it really hard with three boys. So we often had the power cut off or not have food in the house and things like that. But she just worked a lot to try and make up for that.
1:17 Speaker 01 Against that backdrop, Billy says he was a pretty angry teenager. He was angry at the world.
1:23 Speaker 02 And I was kind of frequently told that I would never amount to anything. I clashed with educators a lot. I clashed with authority. So I was doing a lot of risk-taking behaviour. That culminated in my school saying, "You're out of here." And then none of the schools actually in the area would take me because of my reputation.
1:44 Speaker 01 So, yeah, like I said, what some people might call a bad kid.
1:50 Speaker 01 But at a certain point, things changed for Billy. He started working with kids at an after-school care programme, the same one he used to attend, which, funny enough, he hated back in the day. But that job led him down a path nobody expected.
2:06 Speaker 02 And I worked there for six years and I saw like some of the most difficult or disadvantaged children, bad kids so to say, in that space. And most people who did that went on and became educators.
2:18 Speaker 01 But he realised he couldn't do that. He didn't have what it took to be an educator. But he liked science, so he thought, why not give medical school a shot?
2:29 Speaker 02 And like everything in my life, I just snuck in. I got a mark just good enough to sneak into every bit of my university and things like that.
2:37 Speaker 01 And Billy is now Dr Billy Garvey, a developmental paediatrician in Melbourne, working with kids struggling with behavioural issues, just like he did.
2:47 Speaker 02 I'm really lucky that I had a couple of key people who were like, you know, you can be whatever you want to be. And that really changed my story because I, I had just a couple of protective relationships throughout my life that really sheltered me. And so that's, that's the beautiful thing because I, I spent more time in clinic trying to advocate for that than I do writing scripts for medications or giving kids diagnoses.
3:11 Speaker 01 Billy has now distilled what he's learned about children and their behaviour issues into a book called 10 Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's Mental Health.
3:24 Speaker 01 This is All in the Mind. I'm Sana Qadar. Over summer, we are replaying some of our favourite episodes from 2025. And this week, we revisit our conversation with Dr Billy Garvey about raising kids, from toddlers to teenagers. We find out why they sometimes behave badly, quote unquote, and what it can mean for their mental health.
3:57 Speaker 01 All these years later, Billy still remembers the day his mother found out he'd been kicked out of school. His father was back in his life at this point in time and he had helped Billy get into a new school. But his mother didn't know this until one day.
4:13 Speaker 02 She saw me catching a different bus to school in year 11.
4:18 Speaker 01 She was not happy.
4:20 Speaker 02 My mum was a really firm, really interesting like. A feminist, really independent, you know, really bright. Neither of my parents finished high school, but she was kind of really firm and strict. And I often see that in clinic where parents are really struggling with kids and their behaviour and they're trying to put more pressure in and become more strict when actually connection is what those kids need. Um, and that, you know, she didn't know any better. I'm, I've done 14 years of full-time university in this space and I still struggle with my own kids, you know, about how do you actually do this and how difficult it can be at times. Um, and so, you know, I wish that I could go back and help my mum, but it's just, it's not something I can do. So I try and meet those parents in clinic and actually be helpful.
5:07 Speaker 01 So you are, as we said, a developmental paediatrician now. And you write in the book that emotional difficulties, like explosive tantrums or anxiety or aggression, that kind of thing. Emotional difficulties are the number one reason you see kids in your clinic, which I found kind of surprising. Is that the bread and butter of what developmental paediatricians do?
5:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, it really is. So we know that kind of especially the cohort of kids that I see, up to 50% of them will have emotional difficulties. And that doesn't always mean they have a mental illness, but that a lot of parents and professionals are really struggling with those emotional or behavioural difficulties in kids. And we kind of, when we think about looking at the evidence around this, we know that, you know, a third of parents say that mental illness in kids is best left alone. And the majority of parents would say they don't know where to go for help. So it's really worrying that there's actually evidence about prevention, about how do we prevent emotional difficulties, trauma, like, you know, all of the mental illness that we see in the community or how we respond to it. But it's just really hard to access that support.
6:14 Speaker 01 How is what you do as a developmental paediatrician different to what a child psychiatrist might do?
6:20 Speaker 02 Really good question. Child psychiatrists are really important and I almost did dual training in child psychiatry, but time on a six months working on a child psych ward turned me off it because a lot of those kids, like, you know, it's, it's really, really challenging. And all those kids, I wish that I'd met them years and years earlier. And as a developmental paediatrician, we meet a lot of kids earlier. Um, kids with mental health in Australia, um, the most likely medical specialist they'll meet is general practitioners, and that's about 35% of them. Twenty four percent of the kids with mental illness in Australia will see a psychologist. Twenty one percent of them see a developmental paediatrician, but only seven percent of them see a child psychiatrist. It's really hard to see a child psychiatrist in this country.
7:03 Speaker 02 And as a developmental paediatrician, we, in a similar way to child psychiatrists, we think holistically about kids from a developmental perspective. So we don't say is this autism or not. We think about like what's going on in this kid's life, what has their experience been from even before they were born? And then we also do things about diagnosis and prescribing medications. But actually, the bits that I love about it is not those things. The bits that I love about it is what are we actually going to do about it? Because the the label and the medication usually doesn't help that much with those things. It's the kid that's in front of me and learning about what they're struggling with and then equipping all the people around them in how to support them.
7:46 Speaker 02 That's the really cool bit. And you see these kids that like almost everyone's given up hope and then you see it in turn. It's a it's a beautiful thing to be a part of.
7:56 Speaker 01 Okay, well, let's run through some of the specific things that you write about in the book. Things that you wish people understood about their kids' mental health. Let's start with number one, that attachment is where your child's mental health starts. So we've done episodes on attachment before. It's, you know, a fascinating area. But I'm keen to hear from you why you think this is one of the key things that people need to know about their kids' mental health.
8:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, so the two biggest predictors of your mental health will be your temperament and your attachment. So temperament is set. About twenty to thirty percent of kids or adults have a sensitive temperament, big response to stuff, like get overwhelmed easily, all those things. I have a sensitive temperament. I've always had one and I'll always have one. It doesn't doom me to mental illness. It actually gives me the opportunity to connect with people really well. But that is set. Your attachment is not set. Your attachment is how safe and secure you feel in the world and how you feel loved and deserving of that love. Most of that is subconscious, like we don't think about it much, but it's how much do we trust relationships, you know, how much do we value ourselves? All that comes from that attachment.
9:02 Speaker 02 We can pick kids in our unsettled babies clinic, for example. You know, who might be struggling with an attachment perspective because they weren't able to be with their parents when they were born because of a medical illness or something like that. Or parental mental illness, like twenty to thirty percent of mums have postnatal depression, that can make it really hard. Also, we see a lot of kids through the child protection system where they've had fracturing of attachments. You know, five, six year olds that have been in ten, twelve different homes in that time. And so they have insecure attachment. They will either like be really anxious about relationships and really worried. And that at a dysfunctional level, not struggle a little bit to drop off, but really anxious about all of their relationships.
9:46 Speaker 02 Or they'll be avoidant. And, you know, I see both profiles. I saw a gorgeous kid yesterday who has had severe childhood trauma. And the first time she met me, she's hugging me and over familiar with me and all those things. And because she doesn't have that, and that's what happens to her. And if we don't sort that out for her, she'll struggle with that for the rest of her life. So that's kind of where it's really important. A lot of people think our attachment kind of, you know, it happens in the first few years of life, but that's not true. And I don't know about your personal experience, Hannah, but I've had periods in my life where I've become quite insecure about relationships because of a loss of an attachment figure, such as, you know, the death of my mum in my twenties, that made it really hard. A bad breakup can make things really hard.
10:30 Speaker 02 You know, and then we kind of just either avoid relationships or we remain quite superficial or we get anxious about losing other ones. And that's personally happened to me and it happens to a lot of the kids I see in clinic. And it's never, it's never too late. I've met a lot of teens where they're seventeen, eighteen and they don't trust anyone and they just want to fight the world like I did. And often I try and find key attachment figures for them, just as we would a little above.
10:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, tell me about that. So when you have like a five, six year old who's got insecure or avoidant attachment or a teenager. How do you repair a child's attachment style when they're still a child?
11:06 Speaker 02 So it's really just, it's about relationships. So the kids will test relationships, especially if they've had a loss of them. And that's why a lot of these kids are acting out so much because they think, well, this person's going to lead me as well, so I'll be violent and aggressive. And I'll challenge and threaten the relationship because I'd rather have some sense of control than try really hard and then in six months' time they're gone as well. And so what we want to do is think about how can we make sure that no matter what happens, that kid feels like I'm here for them. And we have to, the evidence would show us that you really just need a few key relationships, like that in your home and outside of your home. To non-parental adults that take a genuine interest in you is what the evidence would say
11:49 Speaker 02 is necessary to protect mental health, but also to heal trauma from mental illness. So how do we like foster that? And it's really important, I think a lot of people, when a child is misbehaving or struggling, whether it's like extreme violence or it's just having a tantrum, for want of a better word, they will withdraw support and they'll at the worst withdraw love. But actually that's when kids need it the most. They need to go, it actually doesn't matter what I do, this person is here for me. And that's the most important thing that we'll ever do for kids is show them that we are unconditionally there. And we don't prove that when they comply by saying, you're such a good boy, you're such a good girl.
12:32 Speaker 02 We prove that when we're really struggling with how they're behaving because they're not listening to us or they're a different kid to what we thought they were and things like that. We then have to lean into them. And it's not about being permissive and saying, I'll let you do whatever you want. It's about saying, I'm, I'm here and no matter what happens, nothing will ever challenge that. And then kids start to feel safe and secure in the world, just like you and I do.
13:02 Speaker 01 So this sort of ties into the second thing you write that you wish people knew about their kids' mental health, which is that there is always a reason behind a child's behavioural issues. Talk to me about that. At what point should parents be concerned about their kids' behaviour and think it's worth discussing with a doctor?
13:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, so I think when parents know their kids and trusting your gut is a really important thing. So I think if you're like, "I'm worried", that's the time. That's the time to tap the maternal child health nurse, they're phenomenal in the early years, the GP, the early childhood educators, I do a lot of work with them, they're really important as well, and say, "Hey, I'm a bit worried that Billy's having a bit of a hard time and he seems to be getting distressed, especially it wasn't like this a month ago. And now he's having a lot of difficulties. How's it going here? What do you think?" And we know, for example, when we think of anxiety, there are what we call normative or typical life course aspects of that. And the separation anxiety is really common in toddlers. They will often struggle to separate from primary caregivers,
14:06 Speaker 02 but in primary school, if they're still struggling with that, it can be a clinical diagnosis. And the average age of separation anxiety, for example, in this country is seven. So seven-year-olds that struggle to separate from a primary caregiver because of how anxious they are, that is a concern. Whereas over time, kids that start kinder, for example, or childcare, if they get better over time, that's a really good sign. But I think any time a parent is struggling, they should feel comfortable to seek out help from a professional because we know that lots of people just go, "Nah, it's because I'm a bad parent and this is my responsibility, I need to get better at it." But that's not true.
14:44 Speaker 01 And so when you say there's always a reason behind a child's behavioural issues, you've talked about anxiety and a couple of other things. What are the most common reasons you see behind behavioural issues?
14:53 Speaker 02 You had to guess, guess anxiety, because a lot of manifestations in the younger years of anxiety is agitation, anger, aggression, outbursts. So I'm lucky I don't have to guess, we can do assessments to figure out what is underneath it, but that's the most common thing. Sometimes it can be things like we've already talked about, sensitive temperaments, that's different to anxiety, it can be insecure attachments, it can be fragile self-esteem.
15:19 Speaker 02 It can be like that there's something else going on, such as a learning difficulty, or maybe the child is neurodivergent and we're not being sensitive enough to how they experience the world from a sensory perspective. And so that's the assessment process that we go through. Sometimes it might be ADHD, that they have real difficulties with impulse control, or they can't follow instructions because their working memory is poor. And, you know, what we're looking for is how do we learn what this child's strengths and vulnerabilities are from those perspectives? And that's how the diagnosis helps me. Every kid with ADHD is unique and different. But the beautiful thing about those kids is that they are very creative, you know,
16:01 Speaker 02 but they, they really struggle in worlds that ask them to sit still for a long period of time, or give them a set of instructions in a specific way. And a lot of parents will say, like, drives me crazy, I tell him what to do, I tell him to go get his stuff and meet me in the, at the car with everything ready for school, and I find him doing something else, and I don't know why he's not listening to me. And he's not intentionally doing that. He has a deficit in his working memory, which means that he can't hold, you know, multi-step instruction in his head just off being told it verbally once. And that's the cool bit. Once we figure out it's that, we go, awesome.
16:35 Speaker 01 Right.
16:36 Speaker 02 Let's work on that. Let's build skills in that. And let's make sure that this kid also isn't constantly working on something that they struggle with and suck at initially. Let's make sure they have success in the other things that really matter to them, that they're actually good at. And that's how you develop secure self-esteem. And that's often like the sporting field for a lot of kids, or creative outlets. School can be quite hard for that.
17:02 Speaker 01 This is All in the Mind on ABC Radio National. I'm Sana Qadar.
17:09 Speaker 01 Dr Billy Garvey is a developmental paediatrician, and he's the author of the book, Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's Mental Health. So today, we're running through some of those ten things.
17:26 Speaker 01 Okay, I want to jump ahead to the seventh thing you write about, which is respect. And you write that mothers will often ask, how do I get my kids to listen to me? And fathers will often ask, how do I get my kids to respect me? Why did you include this topic in your list of 10 things?
17:44 Speaker 02 Because I hear about it so much. Like, you know, over 20 years, those are common things that I get asked about, you know, why don't they listen? And why don't they respect me? And understanding that that changes developmentally through a kid's life, like the three, four year olds can't kind of understand the perspective of others, especially when they're struggling. Whereas five, six year olds can start to learn that and making sure that we don't set kids up to fail. Understanding that teenagers, for example, will go through a window of risk seeking and other relationships with peers will become more important than parents and caregivers and educators. So that's a normal thing for them to move away from that a bit. And we should let them do that instead of kind of trying to rein them back in. The interesting thing is when we think about any skill that we're learning, especially around emotional development, we have kind of multiple
18:29 Speaker 02 ways that we can do this. One of it is role modeling it and saying like, see how I respect other people. That's because everyone deserves that. And that's how I think about them. And I say, thank you for things. And I make sure I'm checking with people and, you know, all of that stuff and not forcing the child to do it, but actually giving them the option to learn why it matters to you. So we don't, we don't pick what kids believe in from a moral or ethical perspective. We guide them through it. You know, we don't say, you will be a good person, you will be nice to people. We say, this is what I do. And then even in our narratives and our play very early on, you know, when we're reading a book, for example, instead of just following this script saying like, how do you think that little boy's feeling? Oh, he's happy. Why do you think he's happy?
19:12 Speaker 02 Oh, because he's been invited to the birthday party. And you explore that with them. And then that person's sad. What do you think they might need?
19:19 Speaker 01 And just sticking with empathy for a second, keep in mind it is learned in stages.
19:24 Speaker 02 You know, little babies have empathy. Everyone thinks that it develops, you know, years later. But everyone who's looked after multiple babies know if one of them cries, the others will too. And they're not hungry. They're not tired. They're not in pain. They don't need a bit of change. But they're just picking that up from another bub.
19:40 Speaker 01 As kids reach about 18 months old, they gain something called egocentric empathy.
19:45 Speaker 02 We'll see another kid get hurt and they get distressed and they need help. You know, they need support and they need a cuddle. And it's quite interesting because they're picking up this distress and help seeking. Then interestingly, they will go over to that kid but be like, "This is what I need when I'm struggling, so here's the teddy or here's the hug or whatever." And they can't pick up that the kid's like, "I actually don't want to be hugged by you. I don't know who you are or I don't feel comfortable."
20:06 Speaker 01 Then by late preschool and early primary school years.
20:10 Speaker 02 They will start to be able to conceptualise, "This kid might need something different to what I do. And what's it like for Sana? She's having a tough time. I wonder, like, what I would need might be different to what she needs."
20:21 Speaker 01 And then by the middle primary years, the final stages of empathy kick in, where kids, if they're developing typically, gain abstract empathy.
20:31 Speaker 02 Which is like, they can care about things without them being in front of them. And that's why a lot of parents will see that their kids will become vegetarians and things like that because they learn about animals.
20:43 Speaker 01 In the book, you write about a 12-year-old boy named Omar, who you worked with, who was having issues in this area of respect and listening. Can you tell me about Omar and why his mother brought him in and what you did?
20:55 Speaker 02 He's a gorgeous teenager who kind of was, um, I still remember he was just so, he was so confident and he was so funny. And he had like, he actually had really secure self-esteem. But the, the challenge was that he was quite kind of self-centred and he was really stuck in that more egocentric empathy of a younger age. And because he'd had developmental trauma and things like that, so these were kind of coping mechanisms where he was just like, "I just need to look after myself and that's what I'll do." His mother was really struggling, like, multiple kids, single parent. You know, amazing, amazing woman who was really struggling because of how defiant he was. And he was starting to flare with antisocial stuff and just didn't really care about anyone else.
21:38 Speaker 02 And he actually was really looked up to by his younger siblings and even other people in the community, but he didn't really see that as a strength of his. He saw like how tough and the class clown and he'd play up and he'd get in trouble and all those things. And so what it was about for Omar was about changing that narrative and giving him really gentle opportunities to see where he could be helpful in relationships and for him to feel good about it.
22:04 Speaker 01 One strategy Dr Garvey deployed was to get Omar and his mother to write down three things they each wanted the other person to do or to let them do. Three specific, realistic things that could happen at least once a week. Omar chose more video games, time with his friends and sleeping in on the weekends. His mum chose Omar helping to prepare dinner, doing his homework and spending time with his little sister. Billy then asked Omar's mother to explain why she thought Omar had chosen the things he chose.
22:39 Speaker 02 And it was really validating for him because it was like non-judgmentally, which is really important anytime we're supporting kids, we need to make sure there's no tiny bit of judgment because it'll push them down. And so he was really validated. But it was interesting because then I asked him to do it and he was kind of like, oh, she wants me to help out more because it's hard, she has to do lots. And you could see him kind of understanding it. Why do you think she wants you to be more involved with your little sister? Because my little sister really looks up to me and really gets a lot out of me. You know, it was this beautiful realisation that like it wasn't this magic one thing that we did, but over time, getting to know him and then helping him really gently develop the skill of perspective taking and what's it like to be someone else and what's mum's
23:23 Speaker 02 experience like, what's the little sister's experience like. And then we kind of talked about the educators that were trying to help him and him just battling them. And he does, he's got a great relationship now at school, he's got leadership roles. Like that was another important bit for Omar was that instead of kind of always having consequences for bad behaviour at school, actually the educators gave him a leadership role and he really filled that because he was so confident. And then he was actually this really protective factor for the classroom and the playground and started looking after other kids because it harnessed the good stuff in him. Instead of kind of him being the class clown that was always messing up, he was, he became the person that kind of was a leader and looked after other people, including the younger kids at school.
24:08 Speaker 01 So it sounds like all these strategies for safeguarding one's child's mental health and like, you know, managing behavioural stuff, it's all long-term, kind of slow change stuff. There's obviously no easy fix, but yeah, it's sounding like it takes a lot of time.
24:23 Speaker 02 It does, but I think the quick fixes stuff can still be helpful, which is just like, you know, prioritise the relationship. Like that's, I would say that multiple times every single day. Connection over correction all the time, or relationship over rules. And like, there's so many parents out there that just do not enjoy their kids.
24:40 Speaker 01 Yeah. So can you tell me about that? Because how do you know whether prioritising the relationship over rules is heading into like permissive, no boundary parenting kind of thing? Because like, I think that's the fear for a lot of people.
24:51 Speaker 02 Totally. But imagine if like your partner or one of your friends, that most of the time you caught up with them, they were like, you need to treat me better, you need to like, listen to me more, you need to be more organised, you need to text me back sooner, you need to not show up late. Like you just stop hanging out with them, wouldn't you?
25:09 Speaker 01 Right.
25:09 Speaker 02 You'd just be like.
25:10 Speaker 01 That sounds like a miserable way.
25:11 Speaker 02 Cool, I'm actually, I'm busy.
25:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:13 Speaker 02 But we do that to kids all the time.
25:14 Speaker 01 That's so true.
25:15 Speaker 02 You know, we just, especially the kids that are struggling, 90% of the time they hear from us is like to rein them in, have a go at them, stop stashing stuff, like, why aren't you listening to me? And it's like.
25:27 Speaker 01 Oh my God, I feel like you're talking about me. Can you tell I'm going through some stuff?
25:32 Speaker 02 Oh, it's very easy to say this. It's hard to do it. So I'm constantly, I'm humbled every single day about, you know, the advice that I give and then I come home and struggle to do it.
25:40 Speaker 01 Right.
25:41 Speaker 02 But the point is, it's not, it's not about doing it perfectly, but it's just, that's where the money is, that you still do that, but you do it really targetedly. For example, don't, don't go in to tell a kid off or try and get them to do something differently, if you actually don't have the time and space to support them.
25:57 Speaker 01 Right.
25:57 Speaker 02 You know, and just go, cool, this is, I can't actually, this is not the time, this is the time for them to just get in the car because we're running late, but I've got to make some time for getting in the car being something that we're good at.
26:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay.
26:10 Speaker 02 And it won't be because I'm shouting at you, or I say it louder, or I say it the fifth time, the kid goes, oh, okay, yeah, cool. Oh, sorry, I'll get in the car. You know, that's, that never works, but yet we do it all the time.
26:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
26:22 Speaker 02 But if we say, hey, what's this kid actually struggling with? And it's usually something like emotional expression or autonomy. The kid is getting annoyed and I'm putting in more pressure and tighter boundaries and saying, we have to go, come on, quick. And if I actually just gave them the option to have an emotional expression, then they'll be fine. Or I give them some sense of autonomy, no, do we get in the car or not? But why don't you pick a toy, your favourite one, it's going to come with you in the car. And if that doesn't work, then you go, is it an emotional expression that they're struggling with? And I think so many times we roll in and we're like, this is what's going to happen. Um, but there's a little human that's still learning how to be in the world. And we need to go at their pace some of the time.
27:07 Speaker 01 Given how your childhood was and, you know, you were kind of going off the rails a little bit, but then came back. Do you feel like through working with the kids that you work with, you're trying to kind of heal something from your own past? Or, you know, help kids that were like you?
27:22 Speaker 02 Definitely, definitely, yeah, I really am. And a lot of my colleagues would say that too, is that it's healing doing this work. Part of it is like I, you know, I feel so much guilt and shame about the way that I was and how I made things harder for my mum. Um, and that I'm not able to acknowledge that or apologise for it, or obviously go back in time and be different and actually support her. And I think it's probably seeing her struggle so much with stuff is one of the reasons that I went into this space, because now I'm highly trained in it and I'm skilled in like parental mental health, because I see it every day, um, parents that are struggling with that. And yeah, I'm totally looking for, you know, kids that are like me in trying to, you know,
28:06 Speaker 02 make sure that all of the amazing educators and caregivers and everyone out there in the community knows how to catch them, how to spot flares and how to bring them back. That's, that's why I do it. It's, you know, it's a, it's a selfish thing. It seems like a selfless thing, it's a selfish thing. I, I do it because it helps heal my own trauma.
28:27 Speaker 01 But a good kind of selfish, a selfless selfishness.
28:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. Sometimes I wonder, I'm like doing all this advocacy work and leaving my partner to parent our kids on a Friday night, what a hypocrite.
28:41 Speaker 02 This is really important that you do this. And then I'm off on the TV or something doing it and thinking, what a hypocrite. But hopefully it's, it's actually helping get stuff to people sooner. Cause that's the whole point of it is like, it's such a long way. We should be sharing the evidence and doing it more.
29:00 Speaker 01 That is Dr Billy Garvey, developmental paediatrician and author of the book 10 Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's Mental Health. That's it for All in the Mind this week. Thanks to producer Rose Kerr and senior producer James Bullen and sound engineer John Jacobs. I'm Sana Qadar. Thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.
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