Maria Aarts is in Australia for the first time in 6 years and joins us for a two part series to discuss the Marte Meo Approach. In part one, Maria outlines the approach, how it came to be and what her training offers others.
Maria Aarts is in Australia for the first time in 6 years and joins us for a two part series to discuss the Marte Meo Approach. In part one, Maria discusses the approach, how it came to be and what her training offers others.
A special thank you to Licensed Marte Meo Supervisor Italia Parletta for organising the interview. For those interested in Marte Meo training in Adelaide, please contact Italia at italia.parletta@gmail.com
Some resources were discussed in the episode and have been listed below:
Marte Meo International
Inaugural Words Matter Conference
Ayres' Sensory Integration Approach
[00:00:00] Michael: Well very privileged today to invite Maria Arts to the, to the podcast. Thank you very much, Maria, for coming in today for, for our audiences. Maria is the
[00:00:10] Maria: founder and director. of Martimeo International.
[00:00:14] Michael: Thank you much. I should always ask my guests to introduce themselves because they do a much better job than the host.
So Maria is in Adelaide for how long are you
[00:00:23] Maria: here? About two and a half weeks.
[00:00:25] Michael: Okay. And most of your time here is Training, or is it to also see some sites as well? Or I always
[00:00:33] Maria: do you always do because I work in 53 countries. It's boring when you should only work. And so I learned to know the people people invite me.
I learned to know the beautiful country you live in. And it's a good that is today, Australian day. So I had a day off. So, and that's why we could meet because there was not a big presentation like I do for infant mental health care or for other organizations. And I do masterclasses and masterclasses means that people come with the material where video material where they use my program.
Like, I was at Breyers, I think they call it, and they they showed me how they worked with the autistic children, with my program, and that's so touching to see that they understood it so well, and they put it in practice. Practice so well, and then you see a child who is totally isolated, afraid from other people and using, I call it naming, just what the child is doing so that the child feels I'm okay like I am.
They don't give me the whole time instructions, do this, but they say, are you doing all your booking? Are you? And then after a few weeks, I know it, of course. You see that the child think, Hey, I'm accepted. I'm okay. And then they come closer and then you see that beautiful professionals there, how they did it with such a fine tuning and how the boy came.
And then they always say he's not so alone in the world anymore. So
[00:02:01] Michael: you've given a bit of a breakdown of your, your method there, the Marameo method itself. So can I ask, One, how did it come about and how do you keep, I guess, the fidelity of it to keep it the same method, the same way for so many years?
How did that come about with you?
[00:02:17] Maria: I always tell it was a story how I got the idea. Perfect. I was young in 1976 and I worked with children with autism. in a child psychiatry home institution. The children lived with us, and I was very good in working with these children. So everybody said, you have such a fine tuning, you are such a good therapist, and in your therapy room, the children come to start to bloom, and so.
So, young and naive, I thought, yay, I'm good in it. Yeah, yeah,
[00:02:48] Michael: lots of confidence from
[00:02:49] Maria: that. And then, but then, on a Sunday afternoon, a mother came to visit her little autistic boy. Because once in the week they came to visit them. And then she came to, and she saw that I could communicate with our little boy.
And she started to cry. And she said, Maria, I'm his mom. It is my son. When you know how to communicate with him, why don't you teach me? And that's the start of Magdameo. Magdameo is totally about how to do. So how can you do it? So I started to analyze about successful interaction moments. In that time, in the seventies, we didn't have video yet.
Yeah. And then how to transfer it. Now it's so easy. I work in 53 countries. I see clips. They sent it from Africa, from. India or from Norway, Sweden, England, whatever, and I can analyze because I can see exactly, and I know what to look for. So I needed to start in another way. And then the parents said, could you not visit us one weekend in the month?
The children went home and I said, could you not visit us so that you can find out what we can use in daily life? Because I discovered that professionals have so much professional abstract information. Jargon and yeah. This is what we could not share. With normal parents, with people who have daily interaction moments.
So very quick, I had a goal to develop me information what was understandable for all the people, especially the ones who needed the most. Yeah. And it was usable in daily interaction moments and not only in professional interaction moments. And then of course I needed to find out what I do because the parents said maybe we could do like you do.
But copying a therapist is not such a good idea. When I was visiting the family, I saw, oi, oi, I lock up the room. I'm totally in the therapy moment in the world of autism. But when I was with the mama, she needed to answer the phone. There are other children. You must think, what did I cook
[00:05:01] Michael: this evening? So many things on your mind at that time, yeah, I can relate.
[00:05:05] Maria: So I started to find out how I could say, hey, light up a moment at this moment, do you see? When you could. Huh? And then I discovered. What do I do practically? And that practical information I started to transfer to the parents. And they said it was so helpful. And in that way, already started, I call it in Magdemeel, circle of love, because the papa and the mama had got that information.
He said, ah, my sister loves him so much. My mother would like to know him better. Could we join? Could I let them join in next time that you come? So, I always say the circle of love, I call people around the child with special needs who have information, who have energy enough, love enough, want to put energy in it, but don't have the information what to do.
So to share it with the whole circle of love around the child. Yeah.
[00:06:00] Michael: So, so a lot of that, I guess what I'm hearing then is the importance of. Parent education or upskilling a parent, not to become a therapist, but to become a parent that is able to understand their child or communicate with their child.
Obviously, all parents know their child best because they're the parents, they're the experts in their child. But, but to help give them the language or You mentioned about over 53 countries. My question is, how do you then translate or be able to communicate? Because obviously there's a lot of communication in the training.
So how do you do it over that many different countries and different languages?
[00:06:36] Maria: That's like we do per child different. We do. Per family different we do per social environment this different because I started so early so I have now all the four so I know how to do it. So for me it was also step by step.
I needed to understand what I was doing to be able to transfer it to different kind of parents. So when I have an idea from the parents I started with a family who lived in an. Villa? Do you say villa? It's a very big house. Yeah, yeah, villa, yeah. Villa? A nice house, yeah. And then I worked in the same area with a mama who had five children below six.
So it's a totally different work already. It was good for me because with that, they had all the time and everything was well organized. But this mama needed to take care for all these children at the same moment and still know how to deal with her autistic child. So it was very good that I realized already we must adapt to each child and each family and each social environment different.
And that means that every time do it tailor made. That was a good training because we got a lot of these children and later we also got more children in child psychiatry who were not born different but because the parents didn't have the skills to bring up the children and to develop structure or school readiness skills.
The child came in trouble and then the child was very special behavior or an ADHD child or so. And then you saw that it is, that was much more difficult to help the parents to be involved. Okay. And then we needed even to go on a different language level. So listening carefully, how do people talk to each other?
And using that words and not using words that you think, well, it's The distance. So I call it nowadays, when I come to such a family in the private area, when I was young, when I trained still, I call it coffee, cookies and the dog. Coffee, cookies and the dog. Yeah. First to say something, ah, you have this dog.
Yeah. They can start to talk and they think, oh, we are important. It's not I'm here. I'm a specialist. I know what to do. Yeah. And then you just say, and then I hear the language. Yeah, my dog, it's very important for me, I first had this dog, and we always, and then you must go, oh, then you walk, oh, that's clever to go for a walk, yeah, precise.
And so when the parents think, oh, we are already knowing, yeah they know us. And so about the coffee, say, oh, yeah, yeah, I would love to have a cup of coffee. Cookies. They look good.
[00:09:13] Michael: Like we're doing here. We had some Tim Tams before. They're all gone.
[00:09:16] Maria: Coffee cookies on the dog. That's right. To make first the connection because the connection gives the parents the idea I'm with you, but also it force a therapist to adjust to this situation.
And to keep, I always say, keep your head front, the back head, you must have the information about Martimeo, but in the front, you should keep space for this child, this family, this parent, and we help the parents when they have a child with special needs to develop, like you asked, special parental skills.
So, to say, like in my book, Autism, you see so beautifully, they have three children and two are perfectly developed, but Tom is diagnosed with autism. And then I say, in the book, and in the recording, what I have with it, I said, when you have three of these, I should not be here. Right. But you have this child with special needs.
So me as a therapist and a specialist with these children, I go to advise you what special parental skills you should develop to meet the needs of your child and to help him, because it's hard for children with autism, to social support him in the emotional and social development. And then you see all the steps in my book.
I made six sessions for parents and the ones who deal with autistic children. What are the most important moments to support extra the social emotional development?
[00:10:49] Michael: And I guess that's the, the biggest thing for all child development is to have that connection, that social emotional development. So, so it sounds, it sounds like through your, your method, your, Lifting up those moments.
[00:11:01] Maria: Exactly. Yeah. What we do, like I showed the principles of good supportive moments in that with the two girls who function well, I said, look here and look in this moment, your little girl is doing something and listen. You say, ah, you took the ball. Then she gets a language development support. Oh, Mama said, I didn't realize.
And Mama said, oh, can you show me some more clips? Because when you have a child with special needs, it's so hard to go to believe. It's already hard to bring up a normal child. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's so good that you can see I can do it. But because of the special needs of my child, I get a special training.
And the training is always very practical. In, we make film clips. Just five minutes and you see everything. Five minutes of daily interaction and then we show the moments where they do already something. And we call it when, what, and why. When, at what moment, what did you do, and then why. Why is that important for a child who has language development problems or other structure problems or so.
And that we do. But maybe I must tell you first how I got
[00:12:11] Michael: Yeah, I was going to go to that because when you mentioned you'd be doing it for, you know, over 40 years now as you said, when it first started VHS wasn't really VHS now is kind of obsolete, you know, so yeah. So
[00:12:23] Maria: yeah, tell me. First of all, we didn't have it, so we needed to do it just practical.
And you learn a lot per family and per child. And But then in America, they started to do video interaction analysis. Ah, okay. And I loved that. I thought that's something because my mother should say, I'm born a little bit special. I was four years old and my mama said, we always needed to remind you when you go to visit with us, other families, don't start to stare at people.
I always thought it's interesting. Interaction. Interaction. But they also know, and not only that I did something with them, but I was an observer. I thought, hey, the papa is saying no. Oh, interesting. And the child just is doing what he should. Now the papa keeps sitting. Oh, that should be totally different with us.
Or I thought, we laughed a lot in our family, we had a very big family, and I thought, hey that is a family, why do they look so nervous and why does he come all the time correcting, saying no, my father and mother were so clever only to say no when it's needed. For the rest I thought it organized itself, but when it was no, it was no, so I was so surprised that the papa said no, and the child did yes, and they just let it go.
But mama said, Maria that's not your problem. to, to stare at the people. Sure. And I tried very hard to stop that. But luckily my mother saw in Norway, in 1990 I started in Norway, and it was a project for Trondheim, in the north of Norway. And they asked me to train with my program, to train Parents and health nurses and the daycare workers and school and therapist and to see if that made a difference In three years, so I did that and at the end of the three years.
I didn't need to go on stage Because the people said now we go to show How we use your program for crybabies or to, to, to improve the quality of interactions in daycare. And they showed it, how much they have learned from me, to know what to look for. My mama was in the audience. So back in the hotel, to the hotel and taxi, Mama said, Maria, that was clever from you, when you couldn't stop it to make your job from
[00:14:44] Michael: it.
Yeah. And so it sounded like it was always going to be, you're always going to get into a path where observations, or looking at, and, and I, you know, I find myself, and I think everybody's guilty of it, watching people, or people watching when you're in a cafe, or an environment, people watching is just something that you do.
But. But it, it's that ability to then analyze that and to look at those moments and upskill someone that's where yours is a
[00:15:10] Maria: big difference. So in the eighties, I started then to observe a lot of parents with babies who are successful in it and detail. I could look. Can you imagine what a good life I have nowadays, I get films from India, from Africa, from Norway, from Australia, and they sent it by WeTransfer.
And so it comes in and I can, oh, ah, oh, and you can do slow motion when it's very interesting. Oh, oh, did that? Oh, did that? And after a while, exactly what you say, you learn to see a structure in it. So in a way. I can see structure in successful communication moments. When you use that as a frame, you see very quick when the parents say he doesn't obey me or he never wants to dress up or whatever.
But he doesn't want to eat. You know exactly how normally successful moments look like that. How do parents lead a child in in the morning rituals? And then you see, ah, yeah, they say a lot how they want to have it instead of do not. And when you don't come, we missed the bus. But they say the whole time.
They train a child in a model and say exactly in good tones, positive leading, how they would like to have it. When the child is used to that from early on, eh, then the child knows, Ah, this is a structured situation, then my papa mama have the leading. In a free situation, the child, eh, should have the opportunity to And to have their own initiatives, because a free situation, I call it the goldmine.
People are called, born, children are born with a goldmine, and that pops up. And then in my new learning sets, people find that on my website. In the new learning sets, you see how parents do it. So I film three years long three families in all kinds of different situations. Then I show how important it is in free situations to give space.
Yes. And to the child, to come in with their own ideas, to develop his own talents and to let it come from your gold mine. And that film is so beautiful. I showed it here a few days ago. And then the baby gets some space from papa. So instead of amusing the baby the whole time, just giving some space, have a welcoming face, inviting tones and then he waits a little and then little had that three months old.
She does. And Papa say, And then the baby hears that regularly. She knows I have a voice. I have something to say. And somebody listened to me. Isn't that a very basic idea?
[00:17:49] Michael: It's, it's the, I guess it's the heart of, of any, I guess that, that child development that that the, as you said, the voice or that that ability to be that self concept, that self idea,
[00:17:59] Maria: we know from brain research.
So I am so lucky that I developed this program and many more men's. People who are more theoretically, like a brain researcher, very well known brain researcher in Germany. When we are together on stage, I show this, what I discovered. And he says, when I show that first contact moments in the first year, he says, very early in the brain, you build up expectation models.
Who am I and whom can I be in interactions? And that's why I call it the golden gift to babies. That when you are able to give the child the feeling, when something pops up in me, an idea or a tone or an interest, others are with me. So they think, I have interesting ideas. So you see it with play initiatives, instead of amusing the child to wait, I call it attentive waiting, let the child play, get the hands out of the play.
And just say, ah, you do, oh, you took the other one with it, that you are saying, hmm, when my papa mama likes my ideas, I can be confident to make friends. Yes. Because I'm confident to bring in an idea. So all these years, I studied on. All these details and made, like you say, it's clever to find a structure in it because you can see a lot, but maybe when you see so much you get overwhelmed.
Absolutely. But all the people that we train in Magdemeo, they learn what to look for. Yeah. When there is a problem with structure, when there is a problem with connection, when there is to look for this, is this in the family there? When you have problems with a child. easily you go to correct. Don't do.
Don't walk away. Don't. No. Stop. Yep. Yeah. But the child, the social development problem of that child is I don't know exactly what to do in which moment. And like ADHD children lose very easily the track. When you say what they can do and confirm them. to say, ah, you can sit down. When I was a therapist myself, I came sometimes in ATID families, or families with such a child.
And then you always saw the same in the first film. And that the child is doing the whole film what he should not do and both parents to support each other said don't, don't run away, don't go to sit, don't put your foot here and then I always make the joke I said oh that was funny to look at your film because in the film your child shows the whole film that he knows what not to do and so I would like to advise you to tell him when he lose the track socially to say what he can do.
Yeah. And before he goes to do the wrong thing, you say, you can sit down. And when he does it, yeah, Dennis, perfect. And when they do it, you see immediately they come more connection moments, more structure moments. He needs much longer training as any other child to put structure in daily moments. So when you tell him what to do, he gets also in the model.
And so that kind of things. And you asked something about the cultures. That's true. In the government asked me in 1987 when I did develop it in In Holland, then they asked me to bring it to Israel and that was a good training because in Israel you have a lot of different cultures Yeah, they all come together so I worked three years there and I needed to work in different to five different areas and with a lot of different cultures and then you you know already ah In a way, you do also coffee, cookies, and the dog.
So I'm just sitting there. I'm there. And I always work together with people on the work floor there. I don't take a whole team and start to train them. But I must be able to adjust to them. Yeah. When I started to work in India in 1994, I just was with them. When I started to work here with the aboriginal people, I just, I'm working with them.
They have psychologists, they have daycare workers. I'm so proud of them, how they used my Matameo information. And they loved, of course, so much that I copied their whole nature. It's all very natural information because it's how it normally goes when it is not disturbed. So per culture, I take much more time before I start with an advice to film good functioning families in this culture.
[00:22:35] Michael: You mentioned before, or maybe it was off, off air that you had when you were here, well this time you're here, that you were doing some work with the, the briars. I would imagine that there'd be a number of, It's a lot of young people there who don't have a lot of language. And so when you're working with those who may be non verbal or language is extremely challenging, how do you apply your principles in that setting?
Particularly video, is it more looking for those moments of Movement or non verbal cues?
[00:23:04] Maria: I know, of course, the how you build up language. So I studied all these years, I even can't stop it, to look on all the details. So I know what do you do to help a child to start language. I know you should have a welcoming face.
So we laughed a lot. I was there on Monday, I think. And no, at, And then you saw that I know you should have a welcoming face. Whenever the child thinks, Oh, what kind of person do you look? I'm different. Then you think I close more. So welcoming face, inviting tones and only do naming. All parents, when they ever make sounds, but not yet language, we know the first bounding is always repeating the sounds.
So, we saw it now in that film, what they beautifully showed their work. I was very impressed about that quality. The child made sounds and then there's so that the child thinks, they hear me, I have a voice, I have something to say, I cannot use words yet. But, maybe it comes, and maybe not, it's not that all children learn language.
But we know how to start and to look how far we come. When you see them, then the child makes more sounds. And then you make more sounds, and at once you see instead of her you see her and then the child makes a variation and the children listen. Do you go in that variation? Did you hear I make a different sound?
And then you see the children get more, also in body language, you see they get more into the interaction. Instead of turning always away, what they can do easily, to go to see in the film in detail, he turns a little bit more. And then. Then we start naming. All parents follow the interest of the child.
Like in my learning set, you see six months old baby. He looks to the tree and to the leaves. All parents turn in that same direction and name what they see. So when the, the child doesn't look at you, don't force them to look at you, but follow where they look at, what they look at, and name it, give words to it.
Ah, you saw the cat was coming. It brings atmosphere and it brings language. When he has the chance to develop language, I showed him a process in Germany, three years. where the pediatrician said, I don't think he ever can learn to speak and at six years he started to speak. And so he, you, that's the most intensive support of language development.
There are children who can't learn to speak, but you have the best chances when you copy the nature. So what do parents do? They say, we buy a banana, we eat a banana, you have a banana, I have a banana, we still both And so it's so interesting that they keep the whole time using that word. And we know from brain research when children are very focused on something, you put ten words in, you have the best chance that the child develops
[00:25:57] Michael: that word.
And I guess what you're saying is that modeling is so important and the video feedback from the Marta Mayor approach obviously allows you to, to reflect on that because I could imagine, you know, and I've happened before. So as, as an occupational therapist, I am in the moment a lot. So a session is 45, 50 minutes and I'm, I'm working with that young person and we're doing activities and we're supporting language.
We're supporting motor skills. We're supporting a lot of the interaction. But. If I went back and reviewed that session, I would see lots of moments of feedback of, I could have done this there, or I noticed that child there. So I guess the benefit of doing it via video is that. The time pressure gets taken away because you're able to retrospectively look at the information with a fine tooth comb.
[00:26:47] Maria: And you only need to film three to five minutes. You see everything because there is a structure how you analyze. Okay, so that's your approach. And then I say, now I go to look when this young, young person took an initiative that you see it, that he can develop from inside, instead of to give him tasks, that he really tried something.
And you could say, ah, you try to climb through it. Then the thing, oh, you saw that I'm willing because then they are connected with their own life energy. Instead of that, you as a therapist, a lot, when I started with the work with people in your field like the, in Austria and then, and in Norway, then you saw that they had a plan and then the child was not motivated to join in the plan.
It's the number
[00:27:35] Michael: one thing we talk about in our therapy here is sometimes you can make these fantastic plans of what you want to do in a session, but. Don't get caught up on it because it's the child session. It's not that's very
[00:27:47] Maria: good that you realize that. And when you, like I said in the beginning, put that in your back hat, but in the front you keep, because then you can select this fits a little bit to my plan and you confirm it.
And then it started in the motivation and in the life energy of the child. When you get used to it, they own the, when they get. active in it, they take it with them home, I always say. Then you have more profit from one hour therapy. Yeah. When it's just here, they think you lead me and I do the therapy here, but you lose the 23 hours per day.
Correct. And that's why we work so intensively with the parents. I always say they Normal development even needs all the repetition 24 hours a day. So when we only do one hour, and we don't share the information with the parents. So in Norway in 1990, I did it with with such an institution. And I asked them to go to share the information, what they tried to do with children, and with severe handicapped children, disabilities.
And then I asked them to share that and after six months they said we have such a bigger results because the parents know that we try that leg who doesn't function that we do it like that. When the parents see how we do it, they kept doing it at home and the child developed much better. And otherwise we start the next week again and the child forgot it and didn't practice.
And it's not enough even for non, when you have young children, you see they practice and practice and practice. And then you think, so that's enough. No, up, down, up, down. They're saying, no, I must get that. So it's not enough to do it one hour a day or one hour a week. So that's why it's so important that I develop the information what's usable in daily interaction moments.
Because we have many more of these moments as therapeutical moments.
[00:29:34] Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And it's really interesting hearing you talk about The approach, the matameo, the theory, the practice. As a, as a as you know, listeners would know, we're a sensory integration trained sensory integration theory and practice organization where we use that the air sensory integration is as the main, I guess type of therapy.
We're not, that's not all we do, but that's, that's the main type of therapy and how we interact and how we work with our children. And one of the key parts of that is finding a child's intrinsic motivation and using that as, as the way that we work with that young person and, and looking for opportunities for what, what you're talking about sounds similar to our approach of adaptive responses.
So the adaptive response is the. Essentially, the, the, the system, the body system, the sensory, the integration of the sensory systems working together to make a change from one moment to another. So it could be, for example, someone sitting on a swing doing some movement and the swing moves in another direction and they adapt their posture, even something as small as that, they adapt their posture so they don't fall.
And that is the neurological systems working, interacting and going, yep, I anticipated that. I adapted and I
[00:30:52] Maria: changed. Can you imagine when you could use video and show it to the client? Yeah. Even, I worked at so much with Autistics and they love it, it's technical. To say at this moment you managed that and that's why your body is more and more healthy.
Yeah, a hundred percent. And when they do it to name it. Yes. Ah, I see. You were in that direction, but now you moved over there. When you don't have a video, you can name it in the moment so that they get it as a new self picture. Yeah. And otherwise they stick to the things they don't
[00:31:21] Michael: function with. That's right.
And, and, and as you, you mentioned, I keep thinking back to the use of video because for any child, not just, you know, our neurodiverse young children we work with, but for any child, they love seeing videos of themselves. They love it. They'll spend all day. They love it. A number of times this morning, I was in bed.
My, you know, I came back from a run and my wife was in bed with my son who woke up a bit early, but that's okay. But looking at a video of our time in Queensland and looking at just, Oh yeah, I remember doing that. And just how, how positive that is to reaffirm that was an experience I had. That's who I am.
I've been. That's
[00:31:56] Maria: perfect. Can you imagine? I showed yesterday Mohamed, a little boy who was so spoiled at home that he didn't do anything at school. And then he get the training in the, the school readiness skills. And then we show, I know exactly what children must have developed to function well, social, emotionally in school.
So you see very quick, Oh, he did not develop. his own solution model. So when there is a problem, the teacher must come. So that disturbs when you have 30 children. And then I showed how we helped him and how his mama was involved in the reviews, but also he was involved in the reviews. And he first saw, look, in this moment.
He's not doing much, but she, the Magdemeer therapist, found out the one thing is that he puts his material on the desk, on his desk. And then she said, Oh, you did already one step. You put it here on the desk. Now we go one step further. You can open it and you can Start and then, okay. And then he just trains that and he sees it back in video.
I manage already two steps. So he always say, you must make small steps. Yeah, that he keeps hope. And then his mama saw the first few sessions and he said, do you know what maybe. I took everything over. It's for us very normal for the boys had to do everything for him. And then because the atmosphere and such a review is so relaxed and nice that mama's a bore.
And then the boys said, no, we don't do that anymore. And mama, that you bring me the water. I go to get it myself. Because then I can do the things myself at school and then you see such a sessions four months and then he's function well in school So what we do in Martin mirrors reading the developmental methods behind developmental problems So to think when he does not function can say and you shoot and when you don't and you go out of whatever Just think he did not develop yet this School readiness skills.
Yeah, so we give him a new opportunity to develop it step by step and this review She can learn to know himself as a good student And then at the last review Papa Mama is both there and they're so proud and sitting there and they are Mr Three of them the sitting there we managed so they also have a successful feeling Because I realize all over the world that when there are problems with a child in daycare or with schools, I always see they share the problems with the, with the, with the parents.
I like that they share the opportunity to give them extra support to develop these skills, skills of being friends instead of hitting other children, the skills of function well in the school.
[00:34:43] Michael: So when you're. When you're training, obviously, as you go through the lifespan, you're training or working with educators or within the school.
How does that work for a school environment, knowing that the classroom has a lot of children? It sounds like it's still very one on one.
[00:35:00] Maria: Is that? But it can be, we have all these years, we developed also a school program. And then one thing is training teachers to be good in leading. Yes. Keep connected to children, to use a lot of positive leading, know all these elements, so we have checklists for that.
Yes. We train them in it because a lot of young teachers, one of the teachers, Joy, Joy is a licensed supervisor too, here in South Australia, and she told me about the teacher that she nearly cried when she needed to go to the class again, because she said, I don't know how to do it. Since she had the Magdemeo training, he said, I know how to connect.
Okay. And I know how to keep. In a positive way. The leading. Okay. By naming yourself. Yeah. Giving the children when they write behavior, confirm them, keep a little bit connected to them. Yeah. To give them a hand before they come in, eh, to feel, how are you, eh, and you, and
[00:35:54] Michael: so it sounds like you're having those, those one-on-one interactions.
You know a bigger space so you're still able to say if you've got because you know teachers these days It's a very very hard very very hard job is as yeah I'm
[00:36:06] Maria: sure you know it also and I was in in Germany in Germany We have Martimeo daycares, Martimeo hospitals, Martimeo centers for okay, so total centers Okay, have for people is the elderly care and then I was visiting them to give them, make a photo and have the Martimeo shields for on the, on the wall and make photos.
And then in the opposite, there was the primary school and the head of the primary school came over and he said, are you now Maria Aerts? I must come to thank you. Because since in this daycare, they use your program to support school readiness skills in a child, socially, emotionally, the last three years, from three to six, we have so much easier children in the classroom.
Interesting. So it must be start earlier, because mostly you discover he cannot go to school, you give him extra time. But what exactly? He must you do to help a child to develop the school readiness skills and how can you do it? In what moments? And because I studied on the heels on that. Yeah, I know.
Certain knowhow. Exactly. So people in the daycare prepare the children much better. 'cause there's too much attention. Can he, does he know the colors? Does he use his pencil very well? But that's mostly not the trouble. Yeah. Yeah. But disturbing the classroom, never know and asking a lot of attention. Don't listen when the teachers start to talk because you can't stop your own initiatives.
That you should have trained from three to six.
[00:37:35] Michael: It's, it's sort of speaks to the fact that, and I'm not sure in, in a lot of European countries, the school system looks a bit different. What happens in the classroom is a bit different, but I know here in Australia there are a lot of, a lot of children, neurodiverse children that struggle in the school environment because The school, the way it's set up is not.
Can, it doesn't help their learning or the way that they learn. But if you're able to, as you're saying, if you're able to identify their strengths or pick out those moments or allow them to gain confidence of, I am a important person in this class, then you might see some, see some change. Yes.
[00:38:11] Maria: First of all.
I worked also with the government to change certain school systems. So, in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, yeah. Yeah,
[00:38:18] Michael: I should do it. Yeah, you should do it in Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. You're here now. You may
[00:38:22] Maria: as well stick around and yeah. They invite me to help them into innovation for news care.
In my first red book, they wrote about that, how that worked out. That I always was one step ahead of them. They gave me permission to do something that nobody was allowed to do. And they always said you can't wait for the government. When I see this is needed, that we should do it much earlier, not to wait until the children are six and we discover they're not ready for school.
Yeah. What the normally the children who function well, what have they learned in the first years of their life? I studied on that and we started to introduce it more explicit in the daycares and that made such a difference. And then the children are more. Trained because they always say that two things very important if following, is to help the child to develop the inner world, eh, to develop your goal, mine, your own interest, your own talent to know who you are, all these things.
But leading is a neglected part. I think nowadays with modern parents leading you should do to help a child to adapt to the, to reality, to the outside world. And that's why the parents in my learning set is one part following and then I show in what moments can you follow, follow play ideas, follow interest, follow the tones of your child in the beginning.
So and the other part from learning set is leading. How to help a child in a relaxed way to learn to adapt to situations what must be done. It's not if you want it. So when a child is better trained in it, and there is a good balance, like we have on work, I must do now what I must do. Even when it's, I live at the seaside in Glenelg.
So I also could go for a swim. But you have an abstract to say, no, I go there. But when there should not be a balance, that they're always only under pressure, then you have a problem. And I think A lot of teachers complain about the modern children, that they are not used anymore, that they are not the center of the world, and that they must learn to adapt to situations.
So when we should start earlier to that, and at the same moment we should give them enough time to be connected to their own, to their own goldmine, then you much easier handle the situations. So I think there should be change a lot in the first six years, and then in the school system. But I, I helped we train also people in the Montessori.
Yes. Yeah. And they say, Martimeo gives us a concrete information, so it fits so well. It's complementary to that, they have the same philosophy. It's nice to hear that some kind of things were also born from nature, how we can follow each other better, but that you also, the leading and the following part, that it is in a good balance.
Yeah. And of course. I was so lucky to see the start and analyze what's up with this child. What is the developmental message behind the special behavior? Why does he hit other children in the daycare? Ah, when I see him playing, he did not yet get the opportunity to develop the play skills. He doesn't have an idea.
He doesn't have words with the idea and somebody else comes in. He feels you stay out. He doesn't think that's interesting. What would he would like to do? He cannot follow others. He cannot stay with it. He cannot adapt that the child, another child has ideas. So he's saying, I want to do, I want to be the boss and so on.
And then we go to work on that, supporting him in the development of play skills. And we include, we call it, the Marte Meo Parent Invitation Program. We say to the parents, we give him extra support in developing his play skills. So we don't say he does not play with friends, he hits other children, eh?
But we say, and then the parents say, Oh, what a good day he came. We, when he has an initiative, a play initiative, we give him the words because then he can use the words. That's a social invitation. And you say, I go to play with the cars. You can say, I join you. So then you see that you go to give that support.
You include the parents because then he has much more support moments. And then we, I can follow it. How is it after four weeks? How is it after six weeks? So the whole time I can look, is it exactly what we should do? So in the 40 years, I was. Even more detailed and better to understand when this is in this variation, we should do it.
The process line should be dead. So like life, it's not always the
[00:42:50] Michael: same. Yeah. Not, not linear at all.
You mentioned before also about having worked with. Child protection. And so, cause I guess my question is when you've got children, we see a lot of children who were in the department of child protection here who have experienced quite significant trauma and, and I see that and I think there's, there's a lot of difficulty in being able to repair those, those, early parts of life.
And you said, you know, you started six to 12, but the first three years of life are absolutely fundamental. How, how then would you, obviously the same way, but how, from your experience, how then would you apply some of these principles when working with some of these children who's, who's ability to connect or trust someone is really, really
[00:43:47] Maria: hard.
Now, that's something. In the 80s, I started intensively video interaction analysis and I could even more, instead of only observing in reality, I could make a film and study on it more in detail, slow motion, what happens. Then I worked in the same moment in the deprived area. So, I saw the mothers and the babies there, and I thought, Oei, oei, how much is lost already here, that the child makes a connection, and so.
So, I had a mama with a seven weeks old baby, and I said to the mama you can talk to the baby. And the mama said about what? And he doesn't speak. I don't speak. Yeah, but because they loved me. I said, do you know I'm studying on that and they said I thought what all you can study. Yeah, I said I started would you like to do it for me?
Because when he is in the belly, he hears your voice and when he comes out everything is different mama So that I understand in the belly and the whole world and I said, but when he hears your voice he think but That person I know. Mama thought, is that really true? I said, that's really true. I'm studying.
And then I said, would you like to do it for me? And then I had my first camera and then I filmed close up the baby's face when mama started talking and the Oh, I was totally lost, but now she's there. And it gave a very big reaction. And then I showed it to the mama, that reaction of her baby. She cried so much.
Because she could not imagine, herself, that she could be such a good mama. And that she was so important. So it's so important that they go to believe in themself. She was a, a child who was brought up in the children's home. Yeah. She didn't get the opportunity to develop that skills. So that mama was a clever health common sense mom.
In a way. She, she saw the effects that Maria. Treat us further. The neighbors, they also don't speak to the baby. You are here. Shall
[00:45:43] Michael: I invite them? Come on, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get everybody in this,
[00:45:45] Maria: yeah, yeah. So I said, community based working, and it came by itself. And then said, Maria, you should have done it when we were pregnant.
I said, you're totally right. We should have done it when you were pregnant. So I started in this area. I didn't have films then yet, but slides, to show how early that happened. And then I showed it and I, I, I said that when you, that the baby has tones and you repeat the tones, the baby knows they hear me, I have a voice, they build up more self confidence.
So many mamas said when I should have had that Maria. And parents, this, I could not imagine why you could abuse a child. And then the mamas told me, but Maria, do you know when the baby's asking something from me, what I can't give, it's painful for me. So they must stop asking for contact.
[00:46:39] Michael: I don't have an answer.
I don't know what to do. The only way I know
[00:46:41] Maria: how to, yeah. And then one mama said to me, I learned always so much in my book, I described how much I learned from children. And parents, cultures, different professional groups. And then she said, not only that, but it connects me with the pain, my own pain as a child.
So the child must stop. But now I know what to do and I can see on video, I can develop it. I don't need to repeat what happened to me. Yeah.
[00:47:08] Michael: And that, and I guess that, that's, that's that's incredible because what that, that puts a, I guess it puts a, an end or finds a pathway for some of those families who may have experienced intergenerational trauma where trauma from one family or next one.
We must break the circle. Yeah. Yeah. Have that. To upskill, and I think, you know, what you're saying and what the approach certainly tries to do is to upskill not just a child and a caregiver, but anybody that comes in interaction with that young person. Yeah, the circle of love.
[00:47:40] Maria: So that's. Because then you have more chance.
So we reactivated also. more positive relationships. So the network working that you thought, Hey, but there is a good one. A grandmother is a good one. And we, we included her in the information and they could share it. And because the information is very simple to understand, you can share it. When I say there's no therapy, people think, what did she say?
It was very good, but. But when I talk the language of that neighborhood and I say it in a simple way, people can share it. It's their information. When I did parent evenings, where normally nobody showed up, but then they heard it's me and you laugh a lot, the more people must learn. The less you must say and the lighter and we mostly make it more heavy because it's dangerous.
Yeah. So then I made little films in the neighborhood and I saw one papa with a girl with blonde curly hair and I filmed that and the girl tried to walk and papa saw that she needs support. So then I filmed closely that the child. came with the hand and the Papa saw it, and did it. I said, from who is this little girl?
Oh, it's mine. Very young child. I said, now here you do already developmental support. Yeah, I said, look here. Your child tries to walk. Yeah. She's try to walk and look. How, how attentive you were. She's saying, Papa, I need a little bit support. I don't trust it. And now look your hand. And then I stopped that picture from two hands.
The papa nearly cried. Yeah. And looked around. That's me. Yeah. Because they also not used to be somebody and to share with each other the good results. They have many more words. I go now to do a project with the University of London. It's sponsored by World Health Organization and it called. Words matter.
Maybe we must put the invitation under this because people can go come for free because it's sponsored by the World Health Organization. Come in. And then I tell about words matter, like black life matters. Yes. Children get so much aggressive language and how it damaged these children. And there are some people who studied on that.
But I would like to concentrate in my speech. It's online. Hmm. My speech, how we could give these parents, who got it themselves as children, how to break the circles and how we help the parents to find other language. When you have a film and a child is doing something and you can practice, what does he do here?
What can you say? Then you see. That the parents don't have good positive words, but they have some time to practice and we practice again and again And that once you see a week later in the film that practice it in the daily life. You say look here how quick you learned Listen to your voice. Look how your child looks.
Oh nice It's when mama talks about that like to me like that. Do you understand and that I would like so I could invite it's the 11th of April and people can just go to the, in the link to the World Health Organization. So that's
[00:50:54] Michael: like a, it's going to be done live, is it? It's live.
[00:50:56] Maria: It's live. Okay. Yeah.
And then they can join us and then they just can hear about Mato Meo and about all kind of researchers, what influence it has when a child hears only bad words, aggressive words. Yeah. But the people. They developed too many problem words. It was a big thing for me to help parents to develop language about good things in family life.
But with the video it was so easy. Ah, look, in this moment he was eating his food very well, isn't it? What could you say in this moment? Ah, you enjoy your carrots? Oh, yeah. Ah, you can. And then they think, I never heard that at home. No. Do you give yourself an opportunity to do it different with your child?
Because they love their children as much as anyone else, but they don't have the tools. So you just practice with them. And with the video they see at once, they think, show it me again. Like nearly like the mama couldn't believe that she was important with her baby. And they should not have a video, she should think, I'm such a positive person, I just tell her to make, to
[00:52:05] Michael: encourage her.
And it sounds very, you know, obviously very similar links with that circle of security training and that sort of support of that safe person and I take a risk and that person if, if. I feel they're safe, then I will come back to that person. And I guess
[00:52:19] Maria: and I like that they do it with the parents themselves because I'm a little bit afraid that they build circles of securities away from the parents.
So then you have this security, but not with your parents. And I like that they include also the parents help them to do it, but then having simple language, otherwise it's much too difficult to understand what you must and it doesn't fit to the models people have in the private areas. So I like that the Parents in the private areas that I can tell it to them how to build connections in simple language that they can understand like in India in 1994, they worked with people who can't read and write, but they understood each word.
They understood everything. They know how to do it. So, but when I should have a too complex program, I only should train the trainers again, but I won't directly because they don't have the money to have too many professionals. They are happy that they have something to eat in the villages. And I guess
[00:53:15] Michael: that's the other thing.
I know when, for example, when we. do an assessment or write reports, the biggest thing that we try and do is, is to reduce the jargon, to reduce the language, but, but put in the, the functional examples of this is this assessment item. This is what I saw functionally. What that might look like in real life is difficulty with dressing or functionally that socialization difficulty that you, you've told me about might be because.
The language challenges they're presenting with means that they might have difficulty understanding what the other person is saying. So you're absolutely right. I think if you don't put it to a real life example, or you don't use language that everybody can understand, then you're just a professional putting in fancy words that nobody understands.
And then nobody, nobody will follow on with that because as you said, one. hour a week of therapy is one hour a week. You've got, I don't know how many other hours are in a week when you, but all those other hours, whoever wants to do the math, all those other hours you have interacting, not just with, with family, with other people, with schools, with children.
And yeah,
[00:54:26] Maria: you can share that. That's why I called the circle of love and that automatically everything people say now after 40 years, how could you do that? But it's. It's just all about to realize that you let it exist. So I didn't make a plan, but I looked what is necessary and do I understand now? How to reach the people in the private area?
Ah, and the mom said, but what? Then I know, ooh, that's far away from the reality. Could I use the film to show them how important they are instead of correcting them? Eh, you should not, and children need. They just did things, I said, eh, eh, eh, putting a child in a pillow, in an And then giving the bottle and just all ready, but I knew when they get more connected to the child, they read better the signs of the child.
They love more to be with it. So parents say, I saw the first three years, they don't pick up anything. So we just handle them, put them in bed, keep them quiet. And we were happy they were quiet. The child comes in a daycare and says, Oh, she didn't develop language, structure, self confidence, connections.
Then you say, And like you say, then it's much harder. So I like so much that in all the areas we work in all the countries, we include immediately early intervention and prevention. I had one thing here also from Early Intervention Prevention. There were 200 people and Elisa Kulthardt, she organized it.
And there were 200 people to listen and they loved it. To show how you can use it in early intervention and prevention and really break the circles. And we as professionals should learn to speak in a way that people would love to hear it. Yeah. I, and that's why I want to speak in words matter. Not only for parents and that they do it, but how as professionals we talk to parents So you always say when you see it parents with a child with Down syndrome They mostly are too quick.
I can analyze the film to say oh look you are too quick You are too quick, but I also can say how good that we use video Because your two other boys, they were so quick, and you had the right tempo for them. Sure. But children with this syndrome, they need more time in each interaction moment. I go to show you how much time your daughter needs.
And then they see it. Look, see, still So thinking what does mama say? Yeah, and she needs more time. Could you give her that time then the parents feel invited? Yeah, instead of correct
[00:57:02] Michael: it. And I think that's the same like for a lot of autistic children. Well, a lot of autistic people can, it's a generalization I guess, but there are a lot of that that I do work with where Processing time is, is a real challenge.
And so giving that processing time or giving that time to listen to what has been said is a real difference between under, actually just even understanding what you've said versus. Jumping in too fast and it's moved on and they're going, well, hang on. I thought I heard that and you're a step ahead of them and being out of sync can be, can be really, really
[00:57:36] Maria: challenging.
And also what I learned from analyzing, there is a kind of social dance. I think that's very important for your work when you work with the body. I always see when, when people come join in, in the social dance at school. Playgrounds you disturb the whole time. There are people always standing in your way.
Yeah, they don't and that's social dance balance everything also inside sure and I think you know them more about them and I know And that's so beautifully when they can keep with you on track. They get a kind of social dance. It's it's it's relaxed Relaxing the child when you put in then some information can be taken in but when you are Two steps further, it's only stress in the body and stress in your brain.
And we know brains must be relaxed and attentive at the same moment to take in information. So it's so beautiful. The social dance in which video analysis is beautiful.
[00:58:29] Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, for as, as occupational therapists, we spend a lot of time looking at the sensory systems and one that is a lot more.
It's still developing is the internal sense, that interoception, right? We call it the eighth sense. And there's a lot more research and awareness of how important that is in foundations of regulation. So are you regulated? Cause if you're not regulated, then learning and everything, and you can't integrate the systems and you can't take in information.
And there's, and there's more and more, more and more coming out about that. And I think the, the more we look at. Research on, you know, as you said, you talked about brain science, the more we look at that, the more we understand how, how the brain actually works and how it registers or interpret information and how, you know, how, how hard it's working all the time and for children that struggle and there's connections aren't wired or firing as well.
They're constantly, constantly trying to battle against things. Exactly,
[00:59:29] Maria: exactly. It's hard work. Exactly.