Listen to this episode on Spotify & YouTube
Aditi Shirali is a psychologist in Adelaide. She did her bachelor’s in Mumbai, her master’s at Bangor University in Wales, her internship in Greece, and spent part of her school years in Doha. Her clients here are 99.5 percent local Australians, aged five to 77. On 11 October she is putting on Voices In My Head at Star Theatres. It’s her second show. The first was for adults. This one is for teenagers and their parents, and tickets are sold as a parent and teen combo.
We talked about the show, then about our own parents, and it went further than either of us anticipated.
Why teenagers and parents end up competing
Aditi says teenagers have a weird competition with their parents. They try to impress them and achieve things for them, and then the parents say their girl has lost the spark. Until about 12, she says, kids copy you, which is why you love them so much. Then the hormones arrive. Her show is about how parents talk to their kids, because the way you talk becomes their inner voice.
She gave a plain example. Before the show, she told her son she’d be unavailable for a couple of weeks. He went and told his dad that Mum was stressed and to leave her alone. Aditi says that stayed external for him. If she’d told him to go away, he would have decided he was the problem.
The critical voice
Aditi hears her own mother’s voice in her sessions with clients, questioning her, “What do you know to be advising these people?!”
Her suggestion is to look at your parent as an individual. I said my mum’s name on the show. Sarla.
Projection
Aditi’s first job was training a room of Aussie tradies and one older woman. She kept looking to the woman for validation and joking with the men. She went and got a coffee and realised she was treating her like her mother. She stopped. Awareness, she says, is most of it.
India, Australia and rent
Aditi’s view is that people are people. Australian families are involved, just differently. Grandparents come to her asking what they can do for their grandchild, but they usually do a day or two a week, not five. Indian families take each other for granted, she says, and also always show up.
I have words about Australian parents charging their kids rent. Aditi’s view is moderation. Her son does chores and writes what he earns in an account book, and it goes into his own account when he’s older. Full rent is cruel, she says. A token amount that gets saved for the child is fine.
Hitting, and the noise
I asked her about parents hitting kids. Her answer is no. She separates it from containing a child mid-tantrum. Hitting gets you a fearful child or a rebellious one.
Racism and what Aditi tells her kids
Aditi once walked into a training room and heard two white Australians talking about how white Australia was better. They apologised to her during the break. She asked where their grandparents were from. Her point was that everyone except Aboriginal people comes from somewhere else. Her kids have had comments made to them. She tells them the people saying it don’t know enough, and that the divide is political and sits with leadership.
Book Aditi
Voices In My Head is on 11 October at Star Theatres, Adelaide. Tickets are on Eventbrite, or through the link in Aditi’s Instagram bio. She sees clients online on weekends and works from Okay Psychology in Adelaide. You can DM her on Instagram.
Aditi Shirali: Instagram | T.E.A. Connection
Naina – Instagram: instagram.com/naina | Website: naina.co | Spotify: The Naina Experience Podcast | YouTube: @nainaredhu | Come on the podcast: naina.co/product/the-100-podcast
