About This Episode I'll be honest, at the start of this year, I very nearly wrote my own son off as "just being a teenager." Miles had started high school, the homework wasn't happening, the pushback was constant, and that explanation was sitting right there, easy to reach for. You know the one. But there's this framework I'd come across a while back that kept nudging at me. And instead of asking "what's wrong with him?", it made me ask something different: what does he actually need right now? When I looked at it that way, it was obvious. New school, new faces, everything unfamiliar; his sense of belonging was on the floor. I don't think I'd have seen it without the Circle of Courage. That's really where this conversation starts. The Circle of Courage is a way of understanding what children need to thrive - four things, held in balance: belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. It draws on Indigenous First Nations child-rearing wisdom and pairs it with developmental psychology. And once you've seen it, you honestly can't unsee it. So I sat down with Tamryn Batcheller-Adams to talk it through - a psychologist, author, and my colleague at TomorrowToday. Tamryn has two master's degrees in psychology, she's a mum of two, and she has this rare knack of taking something that could sound very academic and making it feel like a chat over a cup of tea. She's also refreshingly honest about how hard this is to actually do – including in her own home, with her own five-year-old, this very week. What I love most is that it isn't about fixing what's broken. It's a strength-based way of asking where a child is struggling, and why, and then quietly building from there. It's not a marker of success. It's the pathway to it. In This Episode We Talk About Why "what's wrong with this child?" is the wrong question and the one worth asking instead. The four things every child needs in balance: belonging, mastery, independence, generosity. How one quadrant quietly gets over-invested in while another goes neglected and why the whole wheel starts to wobble. Tamryn's honest story about her own five-year-old falling apart over spilled juice and what was really going on. Why belonging has the biggest ripple effect of the four, and the huge opportunity that hands to schools. The difference between a child being seen and a child being known (it's bigger than it sounds). Why "hey, we missed you yesterday" from a teacher can land harder than the loudest war cry on the field. What real co-creation with students actually looks like and why it's freeing for kids but quietly threatening for the adults. Why giving your child chores was never really about the chores. Where a school or a family might actually start with all of this. A Moment That Stuck With Me "I'm getting frustrated with her behaviour, but her behaviour is a communication to me about something else that's going on for her." – Tamryn Batcheller-Adams She was talking about her own daughter – normally so steady, suddenly in tears over the smallest things. Her instinct, like any tired parent's, was "stop it, what is going on?" And then she caught herself. The behaviour wasn't the problem to be fixed. It was the message about the thing underneath it - a move on the horizon, a brother with a complicated medical history, something she'd sensed but couldn't put words to. Such a simple reframe. And yet we fall into the trap constantly. Mentioned in This Episode The Circle of Courage – the framework at the heart of this whole conversation. Four needs: belonging, mastery, independence, generosity – drawn from Indigenous First Nations child-rearing philosophy and paired with developmental psychology. Worth a look if you've ever watched a struggling child and sensed the usual explanations weren't quite it. Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Our Hope for the Future – the book that put the Circle of Courage on the map, by Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg and Steve Van Bockern (1990). Worth knowing: the framework came first, and the book followed. And while the title points to youth "at risk," the ideas apply to every one of us – those four needs don't stop mattering when you grow up. TomorrowToday Global – where Tamryn and I both work. She consults and coaches on leadership internationally, and brings this same psychology into schools, families and organisations. About Tamryn Batcheller-Adams Tamryn is a psychologist with two master's degrees, and she's spent her career working right where psychology meets real life – with clinical patients, with parents, in schools, and with leaders across more than twenty countries. She's based in Cape Town, she's a registered Enneagram specialist, and she's a co-author of Mavericks: How Bold Leadership Changes the World. What makes her perspective so unusual is how easily she moves between the theory and the lived reality of it. She'll explain the developmental psychology behind a framework and then, in the same breath, tell you about the morning she and her husband sat down to work out why their daughter kept dissolving into tears. She knows the research, but she parents in the same messy trenches as the rest of us, and she's generous enough to say so out loud. She's also clear-eyed about schools, and unafraid to name the hard part: that building a place where every child feels known, not just seen, asks a lot of teachers who are already stretched thin. She holds both things at once - the ambition and the compassion. Connect With Tamryn 🌐 tomorrowtodayglobal.com 💼 LinkedIn: Tamryn Batcheller-Adams 📖 Mavericks: How Bold Leadership Changes the World (co-author) – available here Connect With Jude & Future Smart Parent 🌐 www.tomorrowtodayglobal.com/schools 📸 Instagram: @judefoulston 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/judefoulston 🫶 Community: Raising Tomorrow Some conversations change the question you carry around with you, and this was one of them for me. If it shifted something for you too, share it with a parent or teacher who could use a gentler way of looking at a struggling child. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
