Episode 9 Play and Video Interaction Guidance; an interview with Hilary Kennedy

 This week our guest is Hilary Kennedy. She is a leading developer of video interaction guidance called VIG in the UK, an educational psychologist and an honorary research associate at the University College of London. She has co-edited 2 books. 

Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) is an intervention which builds positive relationships through filming and feedback sessions. It is a strengths-based, brief intervention that promotes attunement, sensitivity, and mentalization in relationships. The principles and practice can be used to work within any relationship.

https://www.videointeractionguidance.net/what-is-vig

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/video-interaction-guidance-a-relationship-based-intervention-to-promote-attunement-empathy-and-wellbeing-miriam-landor/4731563?ean=9781849051804

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Transcript

This transcript is created during the editing process, and unfortunately, we don't currently have the time to correct errors, so please read it as a representation of the conversation.

Play and Video Interaction Guidance with Hilary Kennedy

Philippa: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode with me, Philippa, and this week my guest is Hilary Kennedy and she is a leading developer of video interaction guidance called VIG in the UK, an educational psychologist and an honorary research associate at the University College of London. She's currently a freelance VIG trainer. Working with Blackpool Better Start for the last five years. She is developing VIG new training methods and is involved in international VIG developments in Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Tanzania, Ecuador, and Mexico. 

She has co edited two books with Miriam Landor and Liz Todd, I'll put a link to those in the description of this podcast, in case anybody wants to go and [00:01:00] read more about what we've been talking about.

So thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Hilary, especially when you are So busy, and plays a big thing in VIG. We will talk lots about that. But first of all, I just wondered if you can just tell me about play for you growing up and has it always been important 

Hilary: to you?

Yeah. Well, growing up, I was the oldest of four and my brother and I were quite close in age. And I really think we were left to play an awful lot on our own in the garden in Surrey, where we lived in our, we had a playroom. We had our two bedrooms in the playroom and I don't think our parents ever came. Upstairs to play with us. I really think once we were three or four, we were playing on our own and then we did board games and things with our parents, but not that sort of. messy play and all the, all the sort of nonsense that we got up to. We also spent a lot of time outside on our little bicycles cycling in the woods, which I'm sure wouldn't be allowed now, but we cycled around.

[00:02:00] So we had a lot of fun, my brother and I. And then when I was eight, twin brother and sister were born, and then we really got very keen on playing with them. So we took them everywhere. We took them sledging, we took them on London buses ourselves. We were sure we would be now put into care for doing these things.

We took them to London Zoo ourselves. We played with them. We loved them. We, saw them develop. So that's how I got my interest, I think, really in, in my whole world of art. Helping children develop when I was about 10, we moved to Suffolk. 

And so my adolescent and you, the time off that was in Suffolk? 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: My father did work in London, but we hated it in London 

because you couldn't go out and play on our own.

Yeah. And that 

Philippa: is a big difference, isn't it? And other people that I've interviewed and Julia and I talk about the difference between being outside, that imaginative play, that creating things. Yes. Compared to where we are now and some of that is that you couldn't play in the [00:03:00] streets certainly the games that we played because it's so busy now isn't it with cars and buses 

Hilary: I know it's very very different and when we had our own four children we decided to live somewhere right in the countryside so they could just go out and play safely.

in, sort of wild, wild areas without us taking in the cars anywhere. So that they, I've always been keen on the children having, freedom to develop their own games and not be too heavily supervised by adults. 

I think partly why, because my mother didn't really supervise us. So I got, that was my sort of model.

Philippa: Yeah. But I'm guessing there must have been kind of structures and boundaries that kept you safe in a way that you were playing independently maybe, but there was a way of making sure you were safe. 

Hilary: Oh yes. Oh yes. Well it was in the house we were safe because we had adults in the house, my mother and my mother didn't work.

So she was at home, busy, always busy in the kitchen. [00:04:00] 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: Cause I think it was a lot to do then. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: You had to wash from scratch, washing machines didn't really exist, when I was young. Twin tubs, maybe. But, really it was a very different, sort of environment.

So we were, I mean, we were kept safe, except I, I still wonder about us being out on the Heath bicycles. It wasn't on roads, anyone could have been there, but I don't think people thought like that then. I think they thought children are safe because they know what they're doing. We were given a lot of trust and I think we became quite capable, quite young.

Philippa: Right. And then you said you then had twin siblings and there was a quite an age gap and you became a bit of a parental 

Hilary: figure for them. Exactly of course, it was nice because there was my brother and I, and then we had two twins, so we had one each, we carried around and played with.

So, they were really important to us. 

Philippa: And then after school, you went into education psychology. You didn't start doing the BIT 

Hilary: [00:05:00] No, no. What I did first of all was, I was at Cambridge and I read maths. And I found that really hard. And when I finished, I went straight to do primary teacher training.

Cause I thought I really like young children. I'd done some voluntary work at Cambridge with young children. It's what I want to do. So I did primary teacher training and then I started teaching as a primary teacher. And then when I got up to Scotland, I saw an advertisement for someone because I switched actually to psychology from the maths.

And I saw it was an advertisement for an educational psychologist and it needed two years teaching. And, a degree in psychology, which is what I had. So I applied for it and got it. And I've never looked back really. I had my four children while I was doing this work, work part time. And I always focused on the under five. I always focused on children learning through play. This is in Scotland. I moved to Dundee. I moved to Scotland when I was about 22. Okay. And stayed there until I was 60. 

Philippa: Wow. 

Hilary: And we still have our home there.[00:06:00] 

Right. Okay. So that's our main home. We haven't sold it yet. And that's a big home with all the garden and, play, wild play places. And now the grandchildren are up there enjoying those in the school holidays. Oh, 

Philippa: that's, that sounds fantastic. So you went into educational psychology, you worked part time.

Yes. What led you then to move on to video interaction guidance? 

Hilary: I had to retrain at one stage because a qualification came in that you had to do a master's degree to do educational psychology. So I enrolled on this when some of my children were young and part time and there was this wonderful professor, Colvin Trevathan, who, looked at mother baby interaction.

He was the one who really loved the thought of, babies playing games, they played teasing games. He looked at them in great, great detail. And I got very inspired by him and he ran a conference and he asked us as, trainees at the [00:07:00] university saying, well, who would you, Would you come and help me run this conference?

And hand out the conference process proceeds and, help people have me at lunch and things. So I said, yeah, I'll do that. Volunteer for that instead of a free place at the conference. And, it was a two day conference and it was called families can change. And it was three speakers from the Netherlands.

And they showed VIG working. 

Philippa: And what year was this? Cause families can change. That's quite a, innovative, I guess, at the time that you were talking about. Yes, it was 82. Yeah, 82, 83. We were quite stuck in the early 80s, weren't we, about. Yes. 

Hilary: In sort of behavioral management of things and children being, taught rules and yeah.

So it was, like a breath of fresh air. I, because I'd been really involved with Covent of Athens thinking about the importance of the relationship between the parent and the child. I mean, people thought he was crazy because he thought babies could, initiate fun games with parents, from a very early [00:08:00] age, but people thought he was like round the bend because he didn't.

they thought he was just imagining it because papers were thought of as being a sort of blank slate that you then taught things to, whereas he viewed them as equal partners in the interaction. 

Philippa: Which is, at that time, I know like people maybe in their 20s and 30s who were listening now, really they, That concept in the early 80s was really thinking out of the box, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was 

Hilary: revolutionary and it wasn't believed. And you were really, he was really an outcast from sort of some scientific gatherings and things because they thought he was fudging his data. And, and he also talked a lot about changes in the brain, but of course there weren't the brain scans to back up what he was saying 

 but I really believed what he was saying, particularly as by this time, I'd had four children and seen how they developed in the first six weeks and eight weeks and by six months, they were amazingly, assertive. I really believed what he was [00:09:00] saying.

Philippa: And that must have been so exciting, Hilary. 

Hilary: Yeah. 

Philippa: Because, like nowadays, Even now that we're still learning all this stuff about, neurological impact in neutral it's much more widely accepted that this is what happens. At that time, it must have been so exciting to be

It was.

Was he, I remember him talking about how twins were communicating with each other in the womb. And then of course, as I got twin brother and sister, I was interested in that because they were very close and still are. And again, people thought it was clear. Now it's been shown that the twins brains are, there's all sorts of evidence that they're communicating with each other before then.

Hilary: I went to this conference and I came out of it and I said, This is it. This is what I want to work on now. I worked at that time, I was an educational psychologist working in the under fives. Most of our children were referred in at sort of 18 months to two when they developed, autism, cerebral palsy, or very delayed development for no particular reason that we knew.

[00:10:00] And they were referred to our service and I had a wonderful home visiting service that worked with me, that went to the parents and helped the children. Parents play with these children, help, like portage workers now. And they were a great team, three of them. And I went straight back to them and I said, we've got a training this video interaction guidance, because this is going to really help the parents connect with their children.

It's going to help with language development. It's going to help with emotional development. There isn't anything, I really was saying, there's nothing, this really is the nub of how we want to help people. We'll help them really play with their children. So they were very keen. 

Philippa: And which is very very different than educational psychologists now.

They just don't have the capacity to do that, do they, from my experience? 

Hilary: Well, I think there's the local authority educational psychologists at the moment are completely swamped with statutory assessments. And I was terribly fortunate living in Scotland because we got ourselves right out of the statutory assessment, oh, like 40, 30, 35 years ago.

And [00:11:00] people said it would, it was a silly thing because we wouldn't have any jobs anymore because if they don't need us. They wouldn't pay us, but that wasn't the case. So we were able to do intervention because assessment doesn't really provide a change. And so we were allowed to do intervention in Scotland.

And there are now in England, a lot of independent educational psychology services that do intervention. Quite a few of those are trained in VIG, or trained in VIG, and lots of other methods. Within the statutory sector, we do have some educational psychologists that are managing to use VIG in dynamic assessments, assessing through play, but it's really tough.

Because of such, as you probably know, there's a lot of pressure on special needs. I was very lucky in those days that we had a lot of freedom to develop new methods. And I had a boss, Helen. Helen was absolutely brilliant. And she really believed that, She supported us to what we want to develop.

So I and a colleague, Raymond Simpson decided we wanted [00:12:00] to learn how to do VIG. So we were supported to go to the Netherlands every month. We had free supervision, but we had to find some money for our flights, which we did from the Scottish office. And we got there, we delivered VIG to families.

teachers in schools in this first year and we learned how to do the method. We were super, very, very carefully and it was absolutely, we just saw such changes. So can you just 

Philippa: tell us what VIG is then? 

Hilary: Yes, right. It's a very simple idea. Suppose you've got a mother who's saying to you, I don't think my baby likes me very much.

I think they're looking away from it. They won't play any games with me. Just look away. But when dad comes home, they seem to be absolutely fine. And I'm, I really feel rejected. So that's Quite a common referral. So you say, right, okay, obviously you listen to them really carefully, connect with them and say, I'm going to suggest something really strange.

I'm going to suggest that I think the best way I can help you is by doing a [00:13:00] tiny bit of video of you connecting with your baby in any way that you think you can at the moment. And you'll find we're going to find ways forward together. So you get a sort of hopeful thing. I'm just going to be taking tiny bits.

And I know that when I video, it won't be just like you are normally because everybody changes to the video, but that doesn't matter because what I want you to do is to try to just follow your baby a bit. Don't rush. Don't rush. Just have a look and we'll just start from there. And, nearly always. They connect slightly better because you're witnessing and quite often people whose babies are looking away from the things or spending time That's cleaning up the kitchen and doing other things because they don't think their baby really needs them So they're not spending the time with them.

So they're not going to know them in the same way So you're getting interested in getting to know them getting to know their baby And you get a little bit of video and you might have a still of the baby looking towards the mother Stills are very [00:14:00] helpful. And then you might do a little bit of video when the baby is looking towards the mother.

The mother looks back and the baby smiles back, and then the little maybe little turn taking goes on. 

Philippa: Mm-hmm . 

Hilary: We've got these principles of tuned interaction and guidance, which we're looking for in the videos. Then you go back the next week, or it could go the next day if you had the time, but probably most professionals could go back the next week and show them other, these little clips and you just show them and you say, what do you see?

We don't tell 'em what's in the clip. We ask them, what are they seeing? So they might look and they might say, well, that sofa is so dirty. That's what I see. Right, 

Philippa: yeah, yeah, 

Hilary: yeah. Oh, I wish I'd put another cover on before we did the videoing. Because interestingly, most people want to show themselves off the best as they can.

So you'll say, okay, I actually hadn't noticed that, which I wouldn't have done if I had taken another video. I wouldn't be thinking about it, because I was thinking about the baby. I was thinking about what's going on between you and the [00:15:00] baby, because I think something really special is going on. So let's look at it again and see what you see.

Now, try not to look at the sofa. And think about the baby, and then they stop and say, Oh my goodness, she turned towards me. And I'm always thinking she's looking away. I say, OK, let's go back and see what did you do just before she turned towards you. And she might say, Oh, I saw, I just went Hello, because you'd asked me to connect with her, so I just said hello to her.

Tell me she's hearing you, and then she turned to you, and then what did you do? And then you look at it moment by moment, like Colburn Trevarthan taught me at Edinburgh University. You look at it moment by moment, and they start getting amazed by what they're actually doing to connect with their babies.

And you're trying to do two things. You're trying to attune to them, so you're trying to have A tuned relationship, which means that we want to give them space to talk. We want to be playful and fun with them. So it's not a heavy [00:16:00] session. They're not trying to get answers right. We're trying to celebrate what they are doing with them.

And, some people think that actually is quite healing for people who are feeling low morale. Then we're trying to get them to see this, do just the same thing with their babies. So we're trying to see them, how they're tuned to their babies, how they, connecting with them. And it's the same theory for both.

So. I'm, if I'm the VIG practitioner, I'm following the attune principles and we're encouraging the parents to follow the attune principles with their babies. And those basically are to be very attentive to your baby, to create space so they can make initiatives to you. 

Give time. Yeah. Not just rush in and try and do it for them, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Because quite often if you leave space, the babies come in, if they're not doing anything, just to name gently something to them, just perhaps sing a little song or something, but not putting any pressure on them, [00:17:00] perhaps try a little toy that they might like, but just gently, so to keep space.

So you're not like trying to hurry them. And when the baby comes in to receive that initiative, whatever it is, it might be looking towards you and you look towards them, just tiny initiatives. And as children get older, of course, children are making verbal initiatives and to respond to them. And that's the, those are the three keys.

And then not the last thing links into all your play, because once you've got a response to an initiative, you then can take turns. And that is the development of games. 

Philippa: That back and forth 

Hilary: Yes, exactly. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: But you can't really encourage people to sort of just start straight into the playing the games.

They need to, first of all, respond to initiatives. If things are broken down, they're feeling they don't have a connection, they need to to build it up step by step a bit and not just set them straight into playing with games. Quite often if they start using too many rattles, and I'm talking [00:18:00] about babies, or even with older children to have too many toys even, they are not really connecting with their babies.

They're trying to get them interested in their, I don't know, electronic toys are a complete nightmare. For the video interaction guidance. Because you've got this other voice going on, the child is pressing it, but they're not really connecting with the parent. So that's one of our things, is we really prefer not to video using electronic toys.

Sometimes we have to, if that's the only thing, and if that's what the mother really wants to try, because these have been bought for Christmas, then of course you go along with it. But, in general, play with people is what we're really hoping for, along with toys. 

Philippa: Absolutely. 

Hilary: So at the end of the session, you ask what have you been proud of, what have you been pleased with that you've seen today? What do you like about what you've seen today? And you write it down with them and hand it to them.

Like, this is what we've achieved today. And what do we want to film next time? What will be the next steps? What do you want to develop? So we're putting them in the driving seat of their learning. [00:19:00] And they have three or four sessions only. Three videos and three shared reviews, or four. And we see an enormous change, research shows an enormous, enormous change in parents confidence and in the way they're enjoying their children.

So that's, and it can be done with any age group, including, adolescents. 

Philippa: Fantastic, because the episode that Julie and I have just recorded, It's come from one of our listeners who talked about not having joy in play and the guilt that comes with that. 

Hilary: Just feeling overwhelmed by that.

I know. And people can feel there's such a pressure on them, parents who want to do well. The health visitor will come round or they'll go to a parent, just play with your children. It's so important you play with them, otherwise their brain's not going to develop well. And this, there's a lot of pressure on parents to try to do things.

And they can really feel like going through the motions, but they're not really connecting. And what VIG can do is [00:20:00] really help them connect in a really genuine way, because they can see the joy. You need to start seeing the joy on the child's face and then they feel, oh, I can do it.

Philippa: As children, as babies, are there reasons, that are common, or more common reasons, why maybe the play has got interrupted, 

Hilary: there'll be all sorts of different reasons. I mean, obviously, a sort of very obvious one is serious mental health issues around the birth, psychosis, depression.

There'll be some people Who are, they've been looking forward to this baby and then it's actually, they're completely shattered. They are not necessarily depressed, they're just completely exhausted with the broken sleep.

Which can make you feel like you're going slightly mad, when you're actually fine, if only you could get some sleep. And, I think that then, triggers them feeling that they're not managing [00:21:00] and the sort of thing you were talking about there. And in that way, their child isn't getting the same responses to their initiatives because the parent is exhausted.

And then the child stops making those initiatives and makes perhaps initiatives that are like crying, which is distressing. And, it gets a vicious circle because the child is not developing. The brain will not be developing so well. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: And therefore they can end up looking as if they are children who can't really play very well, but actually they just didn't get that experience early enough.

So that's the mental health issues. There will be a very small proportion of babies that are born with a social communication difficulty. It's not a lot, but there will be some children who are going to be quite severely on the autistic spectrum. But that's very unusual. Like half percent of the population, if that.

It's not what people are talking about now when they talk about everybody's autistic. It's not that. It's babies that [00:22:00] really can't make connection. And that's very unusual. And you can pick that up very early on. You can pick that up if children are not following a point, at about one, you can really know that could be a difficulty.

So, then the other, I think probably in this country, the biggest reason is that people are just trying to survive. They are cold, they are damp, they're moving house, they are homeless. They are living in a safe situation. They're having to look out for their mothers and fathers, looking out for their own safety.

They may be involved in drugs and alcohol. In that way, the child is, not developing the social communication skills, not because the parents don't want to, but because their main priority is to get their child some food and to keep them warm. Dry and well.

Children who are on the street or in accommodation, which is very unsuitable, are very often ill. So there's all these hospital, emergency [00:23:00] hospitals with respiratory things, in that situation, it's so difficult to prioritize play. And I certainly wouldn't be able to as a parent myself.

Philippa: No, 

Hilary: You need to have the foundations in place. 

Philippa: Absolutely. What you're talking about is poverty and deprivation people making choices, aren't they? Between can I put the heating on? Can I feed my children? Having to work multiple, part time, zero hour contract jobs.

Hilary: I think what we need is, what, we need all those Sure Start centres back. We need places that parents can go with their babies when they're little, six months. 

So the idea of the, previous labor government was that there should be a center for every parent to go to with their child, and it would be integrated with the health visitor working there so that you could go, afterbirth, antenatal classes.

Everything all in one building. There'll be a nursery school, for the three to fives, two to threes, toddler groups and all sorts of things. [00:24:00] And within that, the speech and language therapist had sessions there and, all the immunizations took place there.

And they were a wonderful hub and they were. Nearly all closed down. 

Philippa: I remember mine had a toy library. Yes, toy library. Yes. Fantastic. They were amazing, weren't they? So you didn't have to be able to afford, one of those little slides or a little kitchen. No.

You'd borrow it for a week or two and then swap it out. So people who. Weren't financially affluent, their children could still access some of these toys to help them 

Hilary: develop. Yeah. There are still some of these places who are run by the voluntary sector.

At the moment, the government have got these family hubs that are opening, which in a way is a replacement for, the Sure Start centres, but they're only in 75 local authorities and not that [00:25:00] widespread, but it's at least a start. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: And I'm very much hoping, I've just got onto a 1001 Critical Days committee, which I've just been elected onto it, so I'm really pleased because I, we are a sort of powerhouse to persuade the government to Well, tell us a bit more about that then.

What's that? Well, there's a organization called the 1001 Critical Days, which is from conception to two, and the importance of those days, and the governments have all tend to forget the under twos. And the person like Jillian King's The Education, she's not really thinking about the under twos.

She's saying we want to get the children coming to school able to speak. Unless they're reminded, they actually need to get the zero to twos. 90 percent of the brain development goes on before two. 

Philippa: So 

Hilary: we need to get the parents interacting with their children and other adults in these nice centers.

Philippa: away from the poverty they're in, where they can be warm and dry and have access to the toys that they need, [00:26:00] as you say, and toy libraries and books are very important in all this. Libraries are very important. So this, group that I've just been elected onto, There's a 10 organizations on and we will be, working on select committees, I hope, which I've done before or, going direct to department health and social care and trying to get them not to forget about putting interventions for the under twos. 

Do you link up with schools? 

Hilary: All the VIG in the UK, it's promoted in all sorts of areas, including nursery schools, schools, family hubs, speech and language therapists using it in their clinics, clinical psychologists using it.

People are supporting people, domestic violence, helping them wherever they're living. So they might be living in a hostel, the child may be in care, but when they meet each other, looking at the relationship. We try to deliver VIG in the environment the parent and child are in.

By the professionals that they know. So you train. Uh, kind of external You've got two and a [00:27:00] half thousand people in training at the moment. 

Philippa: Wow. 

Hilary: Yes. So it's big. It's getting big. And it started off with me and this person, Raymond. We trained two people each. And now it's just, it's every year it just gets bigger and bigger.

Philippa: Right, okay. And, you talked about research. What is the research telling you? 

Hilary: Raymond and I started research in our first five families, measuring before and after, looking at the videos before and after.

We've got numerous PhDs being done studying VIG by universities all over the UK. So we've got data from that. We've got, some research has been done, for example, by a team in Hertfordshire, That looked at, 40 mothers before and after, and did all these standardized measures on depression and anxiety and connections with their children.

And that was done to show that organization works. We've got the papers written. We have a database, which is just about to be launched from our [00:28:00] website so you can find out all the papers. There are lots and lots of things written, in the book.

There's a chapter on the research and that was up to 2011, of course. And I've now done a new chapter for this Colman Traversen's Festschrift, which is something for when he was 90. There's a bit of chapter in that about update on the research, all the research. It's too detailed to go into now, because it's so wide ranging. You can do VIG in homes for the elderly. Encouraging, really good connection and fun. Let's describe a project in Dundee. This would be, you'd be interested in this that we did. That in, in this, care home in Dundee, the staff took a course on VIG and then Sandra, my colleague was backing it up with video and video feedback.

And they were being encouraged us to follow their, Follow their, residence, when they were interested in things rather than trying to say come on let's do this, so one woman just started singing a little bit, a little song to herself. And instead of thinking, Oh my goodness, she's singing to herself and she's not really [00:29:00] concentrating on the crochet we're trying to do, they just encouraged it just to copy her, just to join in with the song.

And she started singing more. And this is someone who wasn't speaking, but she sang all the words of that song from her past. So it's about developing what people's people have got still and doing it by connecting with where they are. So they feel heard and then they somehow, her memory, once the, once more music came back to her.

She started singing and then everybody was joining in. It was amazing video, 

Philippa: good 

Hilary: old Scottish song. There are a lot of them new in the home. 

Philippa: Wow. So that's just using that playfulness and helping the caregiver or the resident worker to be attuned to where they're. Not trying to 

Hilary: get to where they wanted to get to, their agenda.

I think play is very much about having a joint agenda it's not [00:30:00] about trying to get people to come somewhere, it's about having a space between you and enjoying it. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: And that's what the VIG films are trying to do. 

Philippa: Do you think, I suppose I just wondered, with, Social media and, the way that families are portrayed in movies and, on different types of social media, there's this idealism that we play and that we get our children doing all these amazing things.

Mm hmm. Is that reality? 

Hilary: No, it's not. I think it's not from, and if it is, it's somebody's putting an enormous amount of effort into it. And maybe it's not, that's why I started off saying, I don't think my parents really played very much to me yet. I was, I've been perfectly successful in my life.

Because I think probably they spent a lot of time with me till I was two or three. And then when my brother was born, they spent a lot of time with him. And then by the time I was five, we would play together and we [00:31:00] had paints and all sorts of things in this playroom.

I can remember it, still, we had lots of play materials and I'm sure they were interested if we came down and said we've made this and look at this, my mother wasn't thinking. Now I think we're going to have a craft afternoon like people are thinking they've got to do now.

Philippa: Yes, yes. 

Hilary: It's very interesting. My daughter, I've got two daughters with grandchildren and, both of them, probably just from my own model, have left the children spend a lot of time, occupying themselves. And they're all very, very good at focusing at school and, motivating themselves to work hard.

Particularly one of them who's married to a Scandinavian, they really believe in the outdoor play and, there is just an amazing amount of play going on in that house and when they can't go outside, they're making all sorts of, zip wires for their teddies and there's almost no social media allowed at all.

So I'm not really thinking about that, because they're so busy with all these activities they have creating, [00:32:00] worlds out of cardboard boxes, and all this sort of thing. 

Philippa: So do you think that children are being encouraged to spend time and develop play themselves is an important part of that development rather than being entertained 

Hilary: all the time.

I think it's really important. Somebody said that actually it's very important for children to be from time to time a little bit bored and then having to think what they're going to do with the time and plan what they'd like to do. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: There's so much emphasis on, and particularly with both parents working this club, after school club, and then this one and this one, there's sometimes there's no time.

Mm. For children to be self-motivated. 

Philippa: Yeah. And do you think that Sometimes, what I wonder is sometimes we do. So much with our children that we lose the connection. Yeah. Because we're moving from one thing to the next. That we don't spend time enjoying [00:33:00] what they've achieved. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they go and do their painting on their own or they go and build the Lego on their own. Own or the den and, and we take them a snack and say, oh my gosh, what an amazing den . And actually we are in the moment rather than thinking, okay, pack it up. Now we've got scouts or we've got . I know. Exactly. 

Hilary: Exactly.

So it's I think when you're, filming people with VIG and you're, often saying you don't need to do too much, just let's see what they start with, and they just say, Oh, this is such a relief. I thought I had to do all these things to be a super duper parent and I'm all the time I'm feeling I'm failing.

Philippa: Yeah, 

Hilary: And then once they realize that what's important is them connecting it doesn't have to be over a game. It can be just as you're in the kitchen. Just chatting to them. Simple things can be and you can have quite a lot of fun. Just like Singing songs, I think there's a lot of great, they often come back, I notice they come back from school with songs, [00:34:00] and you don't really know them.

And I think that's what, Sure Start Sentences did very well, that they always sent the words home. So you knew how to join in. I think just, these sort of joining in where the children's interests 

Philippa: Absolutely and I just think that, it gives parents permission not to have to do it.

 Often I'll say with parents, no, it's okay if you spend all day in your pajamas on a Saturday, building Lego, playing dens, watching a movie together, making popcorn. In there. pants and t shirt and walleys in the garden those things are perfectly okay.

You don't need to be taking them to all these amazing super duper things. Because the connection I suppose happens much more naturally and regulated in some ways because 

Hilary: It's making me think of the sort of core VIG principles, which maybe would be nice [00:35:00] to just to put across to people if they're interested, it's very simple, this is what Colman and Tavarthan, you start with love. So you've got love's the first sort of thing, that's the connection, loving, and just going backwards and forwards, and then there's play. So we've got love, play, and then the work is always led by the adult.

The play should be joint. So you should be leading and following both ways. And the love really is following the other. 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Hilary: yeah. So when you say work, would like clubs and things 

Philippa: that come into that? Anything you're trying to do, 

Hilary: work would mean anything like trying to, give the child a name for a, if they're looking at a book and they, and you, you tell them a new word, that would almost be you're teaching them in some way, which is not, there's nothing wrong with it.

It needs to be done. But if a parent always, saying, what's that, what's that, what's that, then the child looks away because they can't be bothered to tell them what they think it is, even if they know it, [00:36:00] they lose interest. So we're thinking in VIG that when.

working. We talk, use this word you, I'm sure you use it for in play. Scaffolding. The child's learning. Yes. 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Hilary: so you're going from where the child is and giving them a little bit more. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: Yeah. In their zone of interest. And it's very relaxing. I didn't know any of these principles.

I don't know when I brought up my four children until I got, James was my youngest was seven when I started learning about this, I knew the ideas of it, but I hadn't really made, it wasn't so clear till I did, I came across this VIG and now as my grandchildren, I've got six grandchildren and, I knew it from the moment I started looking after them.

How relaxing it was. I didn't feel at all guilty just sitting on the sofa waiting to see if they came along with the book. Yeah, 

Philippa: yeah. 

Hilary: Whereas if I had my own children, I would have been thinking, Oh, I've got to arrange some friends to come round and I've got to, do this and I just was so much more relaxed.[00:37:00] 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: And I still am with them. I just go along with whatever they want to tell me, talk to me about. It's really a joy. 

Philippa: I do theraplay and I talk lots about being in the being. So being in our body rather than our head. Yeah. That's what you're talking about is, is the love.

Then there's the play, which is about just being in your body and feeling that connection, feeling whatever it is. And then there's your work, but that's being in your head, which is, yeah. where the questions come 

Hilary: Yes, also keeping children safe would also be work, you can't just follow the flow all the time.

You've got to say, come on, you're on the pavement, can't walk on the road. There are things that adults need to lead on. 

Philippa: Yeah, there's a structure, isn't there? There's a house around it, there's the, this is the rules, this is the boundaries, you have to go to bed, you have to eat your dinner, you have to, so it's not about saying there's a free for all.

No, no, definitely not. In play, what I think you're saying is there's in play. Yeah. [00:38:00] There's a lot more about noticing the signals that our children are giving us. Yes. And responding to those signals. Yeah. Rather than thinking, okay, we need to, put in place all these amazing things for them to do.

And the responses to the signals 

Hilary: No, you don't need to be attuned all the time saying, Oh, yes, the initiative may be, I wanted to have something from the biscuit tin. VIG is not meaning you'd say yes, just say, I see you want that, but the answer is, that's not for now.

So it, you can have a tuned response with guiding. 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Hilary: and all these routines that you were describing keep children safe, and it keeps them knowing what's going on, and then the space between is all for play. 

Philippa: Yes, yeah, and you don't always have to do the play that they're initiating, do you?

They might want to get all the paints out, and you've only got ten minutes before you're going out to Granny's for dinner. You can still say no, can't you? But I guess Of course! 

Hilary: [00:39:00] Yeah, you're saying now and acknowledging that they'd want to do that and you probably would say something like well Maybe we could do that on Saturday morning when we've got some time 

Philippa: Yeah 

Hilary: Get them out and we get the plastic sheet out and you know So that would be an attuned response and then of course, you've got to try to do it on Saturday morning And that's 

Philippa: My last question, it really is about parents, about how do they find this, especially if they haven't experienced it themselves, because that's again what we've, I suppose, learned through doing this podcast and talking to people, is that people or, adults don't always know how to play or want to play or have experienced play as, as 

Hilary: children themselves.

So this comes o over quite commonly, someone will look at the video, they'll see themselves playing with a, say a xylophone with their child or something, and they're having [00:40:00] a go with them. They're enjoying it. And then they'll look at you and they'll say, I haven't, that never happened for me. I never had any, I can't think of a single moment when I was doing that with my parent or my, you know, and, and you, of course, what we have to do is attune to that and receive that.

But then you can say, but look, somehow you're managing to do it here without ever having experienced it. That's amazing. There's something inside you and sometimes they'll say, they'll say, actually, I think that my granny did do some things with me, but I can hardly remember because she died when I was three or something.

And you say, well, maybe there's something inside you that is nurtured by that. And we, we can be appreciative that they're managing to do this despite the fact that it hasn't been easy for them. Of course, they can be so proud that they're doing it. without having had the experience themselves.[00:41:00] 

It's a big, so much more difficult for them. And I think that's why I think parent groups for some of these parents is very hard when everybody's saying, you go and play with your children, then come back next week and say what you've done. And some parents come back with all this love, Oh, we did this.

And then the other parents come back and they don't usually come back because they just feel that they don't want to sort of say that. They haven't really done that because it, it's not what they're used to. I think they need more individual help to start with. And then when they get their confidence up, they can join parent groups.

Philippa: Yeah, 

Hilary: you know what I mean? 

Philippa: Do you think parents 

Hilary: can learn that 

Philippa: play? 

Hilary: Oh, definitely. I think it's intuitive in us all when we're born. So I think it's still there. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: I think it's very rare that sometimes we get very complicated, very unwell parents or parents who've been generations of, severe learning difficulties or something in Dundee, I'm thinking of.

Amazing. what they can do with a little bit of help. Right. 

Philippa: Okay. [00:42:00] 

Hilary: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really, I'm very hopeful. I don't think expect a miracle, just a small change. What we've got to do is note small changes, but remember to that person, that small change is enormous. 

Philippa: Yeah, 

Hilary: That's fantastic. Remember, not that they've reached the level of thinking that they're fantastic with their child, but they're doing things that are really working a little bit now. They weren't doing anything that was working when I first saw them. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: So that's also a big change. 

Philippa: Yeah. I will put a link to your website in the description.

Yes. What if people wanted to find out more or were interested? Do you do introduction courses or 

Hilary: how, what, how would they go about finding? The first thing to do is to look at the website and find out about the training. And if they really think they want to train, they can. There are all the training courses, they have people to sign up to.

They're nearly all online, so they're quite easy to access. If they just want to find out more about video interaction guidance, on the top right, there's a thing [00:43:00] called, Contact Us, and they can send a message to us, and saying, could someone talk to me about this, and somebody will get back to you.

Philippa: Okay. And do you need to have any, professional qualifications to do VIG? 

Hilary: We have family support workers. We have people without any professional qualifications. We have people who are psychologists and psychiatrists. And when they come on the course, they are all equally valid learners.

And we don't find that any one group do better than another group. I think that the more you are better at connecting with people, the better you'll do on the course, to be honest. 

Philippa: Yeah. 

Hilary: So, it's about that person's It is. It's about their Yeah, I'm willing to learn the technology, which isn't very hard, but you do need to be willing, you have to be able to want to take a video on your phone and be able to transfer it to a computer.

Philippa: Okay. That's, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Hillary. This has been amazing, and I'm sure our listeners will [00:44:00] absolutely love listening to this. So thank you very much. Well, thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed it. And you know, we'll 

Hilary: maybe we'll meet each other again. I don't know, Philippa.