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KindlED
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments. Powered by Prenda, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle curiosity, motivation, and well-being in young learners. Do you have a question, topic, or story you'd like to share with us? Get in touch at podcast@prenda.com.
KindlED
Episode 64: Trauma-Informed Education. A Conversation with Alex Shevrin Venet.
Alex Shevrin Venet shares how educators can build unconditional positive regard that helps children feel valued regardless of behavior, improving their ability to regulate emotions and engage in learning.
• Trauma affects behavior by triggering stress responses that appear as choices but aren't really choices
• Co-regulation (calm adults helping dysregulated children) precedes self-regulation
• Restraint collapse explains why children often "fall apart" after holding it together at school
• Children behave better when they feel safe, not when they're punished or shamed
More about our guest
Alex Shevrin Venet is an educator, author, and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches graduate teacher education at Vermont State University. Alex works with educators around the country to strengthen their trauma-informed education practices, with a focus on empowering teachers to create systemic change.
Connect with Alex
Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education
Becoming an Everyday Changemaker
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About the podcast
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
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When we're under stress, we get dysregulated, which means our emotions are overwhelming us, and so I might look at that kid and say maybe they're dysregulated. And so this conflict is not about making a choice to be mean, but is about I can't handle the stress that's going on for me right now.
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the Kindle podcast where we dig into the art and science behind kindling the motivation, curiosity and and mental well-being of the young humans in our lives.
Speaker 3:Together, we'll discover practical tools and strategies you can use to help kids unlock their full potential and become the strongest version of their future selves.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Kindled Podcast everybody. We are talking about trauma-informed education today. Adrienne, what is your perspective on trauma-based education? What do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is a pretty hot topic. We just were at a micro school retreat and it was like the number one requested topic was how to handle trauma, how to recognize it, what do we do? And then as I started researching, I realized, oh, our micro schools already are trauma informed environments and I don't even think these guides realize that they're already helping kids that have experienced trauma and, honestly, those that haven't. And then when I think about trauma, I think about like when I was younger I did hear gunshots a lot, and like in the neighborhood that I lived in, and so anytime as an adult, a balloon pops, any kind of really loud noise.
Speaker 3:My body I have tried so hard to heal this, I've had therapy my body completely, like starts to shake, I cry, and then the people that pop the balloon or whatever feel absolutely terrible. But I think it's important for us to understand like it's nothing that they cause. It was something that my brain is just telling me that hey, you're not safe. So it's just a response that we have. Do you have any experience with trauma or any stories about it that come?
Speaker 2:to mind. So I know we've talked a little bit about this before, but I think there's a difference between like I like the phrase like capital T trauma and like lowercase T trauma, where it's like all of these big, intense traumas like hearing gunshots I would say it's really intense. I have not had that same experience. I think that there are. There are smaller ways that we stress the brain, which is really kind of what trauma equates to, and so I think I've had lots of opportunities to experience that Um, but not I wouldn't say I've experienced a lot of capital T trauma, Um, but it doesn't really matter much in like the response to either of those things Right, things which is what we're going to learn more about today. Who are we talking to today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Before I get to that, there are three types of trauma besides big T and little t that I would like to address just before we jump into our conversation is acute trauma, and that's what you're talking about the sudden intense. And then we have chronic trauma, and that is just prolonged, not getting our basic needs met, not getting our psychological, emotional needs met. And then there's complex trauma, which is a mix of both and it's complex, and so it's just really important, as if you're a teacher or you're a parent, to be aware of these things and then to what we'll learn from our guest today is that it really comes down to relationship. We are talking to Alex Chevron-Vernette.
Speaker 3:She is an educator, author and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches graduate teacher education at Vermont State University. Previously, she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school. Community college instructor and after-school teacher in the upper elementary grades. Alex works with educators around the country to strengthen their trauma-informed education practices, with a focus on empowering teachers to create systemic change. She is the author of the best-selling book Equity-Centered, trauma-informed Education and the new follow-up Becoming an Everyday Changemaker Justice and Healing at School. Let's go talk to Alex. Welcome Alex to the Kindled podcast.
Speaker 1:We are so excited to have you here today. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on, of course, so let's dive right in.
Speaker 1:Tell us about your background and how you came to the work that you're doing. And so in my teaching program I had kind of thought, oh, I'm going to be a public school teacher, right, because that's what they prepare you for, right, that's what they talk about, that's what my internships were in. But the job market here in Vermont was not super great during the recession and so people weren't retiring to free up those teaching spots for newer teachers, and so I started expanding a little and looking at some different settings, and one of the job listings that I found the teacher role was called counseling teacher, and the job listing said you can have an education background or you can have a counseling background or you can have a nontraditional background. But here's what the job is, and it described a school where students were there to get their social and emotional needs met, where teachers were cross-trained in counseling skills so that they could be part of that support, where every student had mental health support, and I thought that sounded great. So I ended up working there for close to a decade and I started as a teacher.
Speaker 1:I later moved into more of a leadership role and I absolutely loved it. It was great happenstance that that's where I ended up. It was sort of the small type of school that is doing a lot of practices that now we call trauma-informed education. But you know, when I started that wasn't necessarily a word for it, it was just this is what we're doing. And so toward the end of my time there, I was feeling really invigorated by time that I would spend with the teachers at my school, or if I would go to a conference or, as I did, grad school, just in teaching other teachers about some of these practices. And I was also interested in what are other people doing with these things? How are other people incorporating these supports into their settings? And so from that school I transitioned into mostly teaching teachers, which is what I do now, and really my why comes down to helping teachers feel supported in the tools they need so that students feel unconditional acceptance in their school environments. So that's me in a nutshell. I love it.
Speaker 2:Okay, tell us more. Like how do you define trauma-informed education? What does that mean? Give us a definition. I know there's lots of different things floating around, so, like, what does it mean to you?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 1:So to me, trauma-informed education are the practices we use to transform the whole school environment, so not just for students but also for the teachers and for the families that are related to the school and the community.
Speaker 1:And the trauma-informed practices are about responding to those who have already experienced trauma and making it a better environment, but also about preventing trauma from happening inside of schools and related to schools, and then also trying to create practices that would make our world less traumatic. And that part sounds a little bit more like dreamy, but I think a lot of teachers get into education because we want to build the next generation, we want to have students who are engaged in our democracy. All these like big ideas, and so I just add disrupting trauma to that right. How can we help shape students who are engaged in making things right when they do harm, in speaking up when they see something wrong, in using power wisely, all those pieces. So there's really a bunch of different components to trauma-informed education, and what I often will say to educators and other people interested is that it's a really big project and so no one person is going to tackle all of it, but we all just have to find our way to tap in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you said some phrases that really jumped out at me. So you ended your background story with how you came into this work and really wanted to provide unconditional acceptance, which I find profound. And then also you kept using the word respond, and that makes me think of okay, we want to be adults that can respond to kids' behaviors instead of react to their behaviors. And then you also use the phrase disrupting trauma instead of react to their behaviors. And then you also use the phrase disrupting trauma. So the reason why or how I found you was you were on the cult of pedagogy and you were talking about trauma-informed education and I was preparing a talk for some of our micro school guides. And, katie, what topic did you do? So I did trauma-informed education and you spoke on.
Speaker 2:You're really putting me on the spot here, Adrienne. I don't remember what I talked about. I talk about a lot of things.
Speaker 3:I can remember your illustrations, but they went really like hand in hand together.
Speaker 3:That's why I brought that up. But so I had like searched the internet for trauma-informed education, and your interview was so profound to me because I was like, oh, this is how every classroom should look. This is how I feel like every adult should have this information, even if they're a parent or they're a coach, an educator, and so I, just because of all these things that you're talking about unconditional acceptance, you're being responsive to the child, and the biggest thing is, you're disrupting trauma I just can imagine what a better world we would have if we can do these things, you know, and starting where most kids spend all of their time in their childhood, which is in school One of the pieces that is really important to me in my work is this idea of being equity centered and making sure that, as we're talking about trauma in the classroom, that it's really grounded in this idea of equity, which to me means that everyone is getting what they need in order to fully engage in their educational experience in an affirming and safe way.
Speaker 1:So not everybody's getting the same things, but you might get something different than me because we have different needs. And so that equity centered piece of it also is looking at disrupting things, like you know, tropes that minimize the humanity of some of our students. And so I bring all this up, because sometimes, when people talk about trauma in education, they actually use it in this way that further dehumanizes some of our students, where they say, oh well, those students from that neighborhood in our school district, they must be bringing all their trauma to school, those kids from this racial background. Well, of course, they must be experiencing more trauma. So we have to be trauma informed, and to me, that's not.
Speaker 1:It's not okay, because it's just adding more and more deficit onto students who are already experiencing that deficit narrative, and so what I ask people to do is make a shift from how do I figure out which kids are experiencing trauma and then try to, you know, use a special behavior program or something just for those kids and instead, like I said, it's about the whole community. It's about recognizing that we contribute either to worsening trauma sometimes it gets caused in schools or sometimes we just ignore the impact. But we don't have to do that. We can also create communities of support and safety. We can also increase that acceptance. You know, we can do all these things to shift the narrative to a strengths-based perspective, and so it's important to me that we make that shift from. It's not about okay, which of my students has trauma and how do I fix it, but instead how do I fix this world and this school system that has been traumatic for these kids and take responsibility for our role in that.
Speaker 3:That's what drew me to your work, because our micro schools are really set up already in a trauma informed way and it's not about pointing out, like you said, the individual kids, but the entire environment is great for all learners and all kids and it's you know, having that respect for the child and not, you know taking your authority and you know crossing the boundaries of, you know control and to see the little child that you are educating as a unique individual, a human that deserves, you know, respect and kindness and all the things that we're wanting as adults as well. So I I really was drawn to that and as I was going through the presentation with our guys, they're like oh, I already do that. I didn't realize I are, you know, I'm already implementing these things, like in my classroom, so it was really powerful.
Speaker 2:All right, let's dig into trauma informed education a little deeper. You mentioned that there are several like core principles of trauma informed education, and I would just love to know what those are. Can you take us through, yeah?
Speaker 1:So some of the principles. Well, let me back up. There are a bunch of different schools of thought about trauma-informed education and there are some basic agreements among most of them about things that are important. So, for example, every school of thought around trauma-informed education says relationships are everything right. So we have to build strong relationships, not only between teachers and students, but between the students, between teachers and families, between families and the community. You know we have to. I talk about as a web, right, we have to have this really strong web of relationships. That's a big piece. There is the principle of empowerment or agency.
Speaker 1:No-transcript Trauma can make the world feel really unpredictable and stress increases when we feel like we don't know what's going to happen and you have to spend all this energy figuring out am I safe, rather than being able to settle in. So the more that we can make school environments predictable and have routine, it adds to this feeling of safety. And then the fourth thing that I often focus on is flexibility. So even with that predictability, we want to make sure that we're being responsive, so recognizing that we all have hard days, we all have easy days, we all have times when we need more support or less support and building in routines to be responsive to that, because most schools are very not flexible. They're very rigid in what you have to show up and do, how you have to act. You know what support is available, and so that flexibility piece is huge.
Speaker 1:So there's these sort of I call those the four priorities and those are things I ask people to focus on, both in their you know, maybe your classroom design, or if you're doing an activity, or even as a family, if you're taking a trip and you're thinking about, okay, how can I, how can I increase the predictability during this week?
Speaker 1:That's going to be really different. And the flexibility and the flexibility how do I make sure everyone feels connected and safe with each other and how do I make sure there's still that sense of agency? So those are sort of those four priorities, but then, outside of that, I also encourage people to be thinking about these principles connected to if we're in this equity-centered version of trauma-informed education, then we have to focus on things like making sure that we're being anti-racist and anti-oppression, that we're disrupting those harmful narratives, making sure that we're being strengths-based, making sure that we're being you know, I talk about being systems-focused, so not just on we're going to fix everything if these individual teachers have a professional development session, but also maybe the school policy needs to change, maybe the structure needs to change, and so there's those pieces as well that, you know, just can live around those more day to day things and make sure that we're keeping our focus in the right direction.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And so how would you say trauma affects student behaviors, their engagement, their academic performance? Like, how can and and I know we don't want to point out the individuals that necessarily have gone through trauma, but it is important to understand that some behaviors have you know they're not in control of, because there could be, they could have experienced something that is causing those behaviors. So are there certain signs that you know teachers can look out?
Speaker 1:for yeah. So one of the things I really try to drive home whenever I'm training like trauma 101 with people is that there are so many different impacts of trauma and you could be looking at it right in the face and not realize it at all. So you know, of course we might think like, okay, a student who's always crying or is really depressed or anxious, maybe they've experienced something. Maybe a student who's really angry. But you also could be working with a student who is working really hard to be absolutely perfect. They are doing all of their work. They are the most polite kid ever in the whole world. They always are friendly and help all their classmates, and that child could be experiencing trauma and kids are actually surviving by doing their best to hide it, and so that can feel a little frustrating to hear because it's like OK, but I want to help these kids. How am I supposed to do that if I don't know? But what that leaves us with is a couple of things.
Speaker 1:One is this idea that trauma informed practices are universal, right, that we want to make sure everybody is receiving this sense of care and empowerment and predictability and all these things.
Speaker 1:So another piece to this is that if we can't actually know what's going on behind a student's behavior, then we have to think differently about everybody's behavior. And there's this question that I really like. I picked this up from a really great book called Trauma Responsive Schooling I think is the title, but you can fact check me on it. It's about trauma-informed education in rural elementary schools. It's really great. And in that book they talk about this coach in one of the schools and this coach had a question for when she was working with teachers where she would ask them how would you respond differently if you knew this behavior wasn't a choice? How would you respond differently if you knew this behavior wasn't a choice? And I love that because it really asks us to reflect on what are the assumptions that we're making about any behavior and then what are our actions from that. So if I see a kid kick his classmate and say you're a poop head right, like just classic, you know fighting with your class or something or lots of things worse.
Speaker 3:You never know.
Speaker 1:So I have a couple of choices, right? If I say that student is choosing to be, mean, that student is choosing to, you know, violate his classmates, personal bubble, all these things, then how am I going to respond? My response might be well, if he's making that choice, then I'm going to ask him to make a different choice. Maybe I'm going to punish him or take away a privilege because I don't like the choice that he made. I'm assuming that he was kind of in control of making that choice and therefore when I drop down a consequence, he's going to connect that to the choice that he made. But if I reframe and I say well, what if that behavior wasn't a choice, then I have to look at it and go well, if it wasn't a choice, then what was it about? And so then I might connect it to something like okay, I know from learning about, you know, trauma-informed education and child development that a big struggle for a lot of kids going through stress is staying emotionally regulated right, and so when we're under stress we get dysregulated, which means our emotions are overwhelming us.
Speaker 1:And so I might look at that kid and say maybe they're dysregulated and so this conflict is not about making a choice to be mean, but is about I can't handle the stress that's going on for me right now. And so if I give a consequence, that consequence is kind of going to glance right off of me because, like it, there's just no connection between I feel so overwhelmed I can't even think right now, and then all of a sudden I can't go out to recess. What's that about?
Speaker 3:Right Like there's, there's no logical connection for that student, and so, and especially can I interject there, especially if the brain is seeking safety, and then you say, okay, you can't go to recess and the reason why the child was behaving in that way is because you know they're again.
Speaker 3:We're constantly seeking for safety and then we take something away, even more than guess what. It makes sense why those behaviors are bigger and this reminds me of Dr Ross Green is kids do well if they can and there's a difference between a can and a won't. I have to tell myself that all the time, because I have a child with challenging behaviors and lots of dysregulation challenges, and so I'll just say it to myself like he would do well if he can. He could do well if he can. He needs you to stay calm right now, and that just helps calm my own nervous system. Instead of, okay, I'm going to take everything away, I'm going to you know you no longer have any toys, because that's not going to help the situation, because he's not doing it on purpose. It's because his brain is not feeling safe in that moment.
Speaker 1:Exactly so when we have that lens, then I look at the kid and I say my first priority is to help this kid get regulated and to help them feel safe again. And so that might look like let's take a walk together real quick. It might look like, hey, you want to go cool down for a second. It might look like you know, I still want to say something in regards to the safety and like hitting your classmate, and so I might make one sentence in the moment. But when kids are dysregulated they're not processing a lot of language in that moment. So you regulate first and then, when you're back in a state where the kid is sort of feeling safe, feeling connected, feeling regulated, then you can follow through on hey, you really hurt your classmates feelings, that wasn't OK what you did. Then you can process it.
Speaker 1:So the next question that I always get when I talk about this is well, okay if I knew that it wasn't a choice. But what if I picked the wrong thing? What if actually it was a choice and he was just being mean and kicking on purpose and just being a jerk on purpose? And here's my thing If you get that thing wrong, if you get your response wrong and you say it was a choice and I'm going to respond as such. But actually it wasn't.
Speaker 1:You're going to make things worse because you're going to make a kid who is already feeling dysregulated and unsafe probably feel more dysregulated and unsafe through your response of being harsh, dropping down consequences, whatever it is. If you get it wrong and you come in with hey, is everything okay with you right now. Do we need to take a break? Let's all take a minute and calm down. Let's come back to this when we're in a better space. You haven't really done any harm, right? If it was a choice, that just means you're giving the kid a few extra minutes and you're going to come back to it anyway. And so that's what I encourage people to think about is try to guess on the side of more care, more support, more grace, right, because that, to me, is always going to go better than guessing on the side of more harshness, more consequences, more you know, yeah and what you said at the beginning was relationship.
Speaker 3:Everything should be rooted in relationships. So if we're throwing punishments and consequences and, you know, a harsh tone even, which can be a consequence to kids, we are just destroying that relationship. So even if you know it's a choice or not a choice and this reminds me of Dr Mona Delahook who wrote Beyond Behaviors, and she talks about top down behaviors and bottom up behaviors so bottom up behaviors are out of the limbic system. It is that fight, flight, freeze. You know that's your stress response. And then top down is when the frontal lobe is, you know, engaged. There is some choice there, there is some logical thinking.
Speaker 3:But we know for top-down behaviors that happen, the brain really is not developed in that way until a lot later. So we're talking like four, five, six-year-olds. The chances are that it's a top-down and it's an actual choice is very, very slim. And so what we can do, regardless if it's a choice or not, is to really attune to that child and help their nervous system get to a place of regulation and again all rooted in connection and relationship, and that will then turn out to help them with their behaviors as they get older and as their brains develop more, and so do you have any more to like?
Speaker 3:speak on that, Like the top down versus the bottom up behaviors yeah, Especially in trauma, because I'm wondering if trauma disrupts that too and being able to engage in those. You know the frontal lobe.
Speaker 1:Yes, trauma absolutely does disrupt that, especially very early childhood. Trauma in that sort of zero to five range can really impact brain development. And then you know, as you grow and go through school, trauma that happens at any age. It just puts you in this persistent state of when there is a threat of danger. I'm going to go into my survival mode, which can look like those fight, flight danger. I'm going to go into my survival mode, which can look like those fight, flight or freeze behaviors. But for the person who hasn't experienced trauma recently or has processed through it, they're not as attuned to those signs of danger, whereas if you are more sensitive to those signs of danger, you're just going to go into that way more easily.
Speaker 1:So, for example, if you've ever been in a room and there's all of a sudden a really loud sound that happens very suddenly, you might notice that most of the people in the room kind of you know, just like look over their shoulder, kind of like what was that? And you might notice that a few people in the room jump out of their skin right. And it's not because those first group of people were stronger or better or anything like that. It's because the second group is just more sensitized in their brain to protect themselves against a possible threat. The day is going and it seems fine, and then all of a sudden they have booked it out of the room or they have crawled under a table or they're yelling at you for no apparent reason.
Speaker 1:It might be that something's happened that has just sort of triggered that survival brain, and so that's where this piece about flexibility comes in to just recognize that we just have to meet kids where they are in those moments and recognize that it's not that they are pulling us off track or that they have destroyed our agenda or anything like that. It's just that this is the response they're having right now. So what do they need in this moment? And all of this really brings me back to this idea of the structure piece, and what makes me so interested in something like a micro school is because traditional schools are not set up to allow teachers to actually meet students where they are when they are in survival mode. If you have one teacher and 30 kids right, you are going to really struggle to meet a kid where they are when they need that extra support, and so alternative structures can be really powerful for actually meeting students' needs.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's really hard as an adult that maybe doesn't have complete control over our own nervous systems, like we're experiencing these unprocessed triggers as well, to like be able to sit in these as well, to like be able to sit in these, especially in a classroom of 30 kids, to be able to show up to these situations as a regulated individual. Do you have any strategies or techniques you give teachers to help them stay regulated?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so important because you know it sounds like you both might already be familiar with the idea of co-regulation, but for anyone listening who isn't, the idea of co-regulation is that when a kid is dysregulated, they actually don't magically have the skills to bring themselves back into regulation by themselves. The way that they learn that is by co-regulating with a grounded adult. So the classic example is right when a baby is crying, their parent picks them up and rocks them and maybe talks to them or sings or hums and sort of uses their soothing to soothe the kid. And we have to remember that that skill building actually needs to go all the way through till your brain is developed in your 20s, right? So the high schooler who is really upset and can't seem to calm down, at the end of the day you know, as a parent you're co-regulating with them If you go outside and you throw the basketball around together and you sort of bring in some rhythm and you're talking in a gentle tone and you are sort of just getting in a space where they're picking up some calm from you. And so the thing about co-regulation is that it also works the other way, where if and you know, I think most people have experienced this where if you are keyed up, then the calm person around you is going to join you in being keyed up. Keyed up, then the calm person around you is going to join you in being keyed up. And so what's difficult as an educator and, I imagine, as a parent, is that you have to really reach deeply so that you are not joining them. They are joining you in calm, they are joining you in regulation.
Speaker 1:And so, for educators, the thing I think is most important is that it's a process and you have to be gentle with yourself, because there are going to be times where you can't make it happen. Right, like you're going to be snippy, you're going to have a bad day, it's OK, you can try again. But to really think about what's in your toolbox Right Are there, and it's different for everybody. Right, and it's different for everybody right. Like some people really like breathing exercises, some people really like yoga stretches that are really quick and I can just do them while I'm standing in front of the room. Some people have a little phrase they say to themselves, like you were saying with the like okay, kids do well if they can.
Speaker 1:That's part of your regulation strategy is I'm going to keep myself from flying off the handle by grounding in this thing I know to be true, and so to build that toolbox, I encourage educators to. You know there's so many ways right now, right, podcasts, instagram, going to therapy, talking with your other teacher friends about what works for them, looking at there's a ton of stuff online, you know. Go to Edutopia, go to. You know different education stuff. So I think just this it's more about keep it as a task that's important and really think what can I do this year to build out that toolbox?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to mention real quick on episode 13 with Andy Martineau, connect Method Parenting. We talk a lot about this and she gives a lot of great illustrations to help you access that higher sense of self. Is kind of like what you're talking about and in my family my kids are used to me saying your amygdala is starting to hijack my amygdala, like you know.
Speaker 3:They know what that means. And then that just saying that it helps their brain start to calm down helps my brain start to calm down, and then we really can get to a place of co-regulation. What do?
Speaker 2:you say to parents who like there's a big push towards like independence and sometimes people think that like attachment or co-regulation or this like need to provide this calm nervous system so that the child can like kind of borrow your nervous system. Essentially is like almost creating a like codependence or weakness in the child and the child needs to like toughen up and like do it by themselves and like control themselves and like you know that kind of rhetoric around that. But like that's how I was raised and like before I had my kind of like parenting shift. Like that's how I was parenting too. So what do you think about that?
Speaker 3:How do you coach people who are in that space and, alex, would you say that that causes trauma in the brain too, having that disconnect with the adults?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think what's important for parents to know is that stress is a spectrum and there are types of stress that are healthy and help us grow. And then there are types of stress that in the research they call it toxic stress, which can cause trauma and is basically when the amount of stress overwhelms the tools that you have to cope with it. And so healthy stress might look like I'm going to let my kids struggle with something for 20 minutes before they ask me about it, and I'm going to say why don't you try to figure it out yourself first? And we all can think of times when we've grown that way.
Speaker 1:Right, you have to fall down when you're riding your bike, to learn to keep your balance, all these things, but you don't want to have a bike crash that really hurts you, right?
Speaker 1:And so, as a parent and as an educator, what you have to do is, again with this word, attunement, which really is about knowing and being present with the kids be attuned to when that line is crossing over into that toxic stress and you can tell, because you can see kids not handling it right when it's overwhelming the tools they have to deal with it, when they are feeling that like survival response and self protectiveness when they are feeling unsafe.
Speaker 1:That's not a helpful kind of stress. And I would say that you know, reading up on this idea of this stress spectrum and really thinking about how can I just try to do this balance and again, you're not always going to get it right, sometimes we're going to rescue kids too early and sometimes we're going to let it go for too long but to just try to notice and reflect with kids right like are hey, are you proud of yourself that you figured that out, or do you wish I had helped sooner? Right, when kids, when kids get old enough to talk about this stuff, bring them into the process. So I would say that that that's how I would respond to that concern that you know we, we don't want to do things just for you know, this idea that throwing you out to the sharks by yourself is going to build up your strength is not really rooted in the science behind stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like not rooted in science. I think that's been my biggest like converting factor and like accepting this, cause my brain is just like so, so focused on like personal accountability and choice and like all of this. So it's like been a big shift for me personally to be like, okay, that wasn't maybe a choice of the child made, they weren't, weren't trying to be intentionally mean, like doing the mental work for me to relabel those things has been the thing that like enables me to maintain a regulated nervous system in those moments and I just think that's like a really important shift. And I think a lot of people out there like just don't know how to make that shift happen, cause we're still thinking about our own behavior and I it sounds like we don't believe in free will or choice.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, when we say this like that's a little bit of an extreme. It's like what we're saying is, when you're in your survival, like stress response is activated, like you don't have access to your best self right, like I can't if you have just almost been hit by a car, and then you have to make like a life, a life altering decision, like you're going to make a poor decision in that brain state, and that's what we're saying, like let's understand where the child is in their body. So it's hard as an adult because it's hard, it's hard to have empathy for a child who's in their stress response system a lot, because as an adult, like I, have control over my environment. I get to choose what I do every day Like I can.
Speaker 2:If there's too much like sensory, like, I can usually change that you know where, as kids don't have a lot of access to that level of control and so they're really being thrown into whatever experiences they're getting dropped off into and although we do our best to make those situations kid-friendly and things like that, they're still going to have these moments where, like, they're just in their stress response system and it's given me so much more empathy for them when it's like, oh, I can feel this in my own body and I know that I'm not my best person and I can give myself. I love how you said um uh, air on the side of grace. What was, what were your exact words? I was so much better than that.
Speaker 1:Um, that sounded good, but what you're saying reminds me of, like the thing I would invite, if you want to build that empathy even further, is think of going to the airport where you have very little agency and control. You have to walk through the TSA line. You don't get to change how slow and fast it is. You have to follow exactly where to go. If your flight gets delayed, sorry, there is literally nothing you can do about it besides just sit there. I don't know about you, but when I walk into the airport, before I even check in or anything, I'm already in my stress response.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so what you're?
Speaker 1:saying is right. So for kids it's like being at the airport all the time, sometimes, right, they don't get to choose where they're going. They don't get to choose where they're going. They don't get to choose if the flight's delayed, you just have to sit there, right. And so if we think about it that way of like, okay, am I my best self when I'm waiting for this flight and I am going to miss my connection? No, right, so just like building that. Okay, that's where kids are at. And that ties back to this idea of agency and empowerment. You know, the less that we can make everyday life or school feel like you're waiting at the airport, right, the more choices you have, the more that you're allowed to say no, I don't want to do that, or yes, I do want to try this thing. You know, the more control that we provide and really build in, the more we're going to help draw out of that survival state so often.
Speaker 3:I would love to get your take on this, because we're talking about the stress spectrum. You talked about disrupting trauma and kind of attunement and noticing like how much stress is too much stress. So I have a friend she just returned to the workforce last week as a preschool teacher. So she's been at home with her kids for six years and she had a parent send her this article and she sent it to me yesterday and it's called After School Restraint Collapse.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's an actual coined phrase of whenever kids get home from school and they're losing their minds, having big meltdowns. So I would just love to pick your brain on this, especially in the context of trauma and the context of how we can help disrupt that. Like, is that okay if every single day a child is coming home? I mean, it had really great tips. It had tips about how to connect and keep yourself calm and work on yourself first, kind of like what we're talking about. But then it did say something about set a plan and have the child set a timer and they're allowed to go lose it by themselves in their room for 20 minutes, and I was like I don't know if that you know, cause I don't know, I just struggle with this a little bit. Cause cause you speak on that and have you heard of this before this restraint collapse, even that term. I'm like, oh my gosh, we've even called it this.
Speaker 1:So I would love to you know, pick your brain on this while we have. You know, I've heard the term before. I haven't done a lot of reading into it, but I'm familiar with the basics of it and it reminds me as well of in the neurodivergent world. So autism, adhd, there's this concept called masking, which is when neurodivergent people, including kids, will spend a lot of energy trying to follow the social norms and it takes a lot of energy and it's very exhausting. But the restraint collapse piece. I mean, if we follow this airport metaphor, I'm just thinking about when I get home from the airport, like well, what, let me ask you, like what do you want to? If you didn't have to take care of anybody when you got home from the airport, what would you do with, like, your three hours when you first got home from a hard airplane journey?
Speaker 2:Sleep, or like eat some yummy food, or just like go exercise.
Speaker 1:So, like that's your restraint collapse, right, you just spent all this time not being in control, having to nod politely at the agent while they told you that it was going to be another three hours, whatever it is. And then those times you know I'm thinking of when it's like that for me if I'm traveling for work, I get to the hotel, I order the Uber Eats and I turn on the TV and I just want to, like, lay on my back for three hours. Right, that's the same idea as restraint collapse, right it's? You've spent all this energy keeping it together and then you need to fall apart a little bit.
Speaker 1:So this idea of letting the kid go and just sort of be whatever that looks like, I think that's a great strategy, because the idea is, when other people's expectations are on you, when you're trying to follow the social norms, when you're trying so hard to stay regulated and remember, as a kid you don't have the same skills as an adult to do that it's exhausting. And so for a kid to be able to just exist in whatever way and not have someone saying, you know, don't make such a mess with your toys, not have somebody saying, you know, directing what your play looks like, but what about the co-regulation piece, you know, and that's where I struggle, of just having them go experience this by themselves?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's where I struggle, but then also it's like they're not making a choice to go be in this environment all day long. If I'm booking a flight, I am I know that that's coming up, whereas a child it's other people saying you have to be in this environment all day long. So I'm just curious what you think about that.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think the co-regulation piece versus having time on your own. It would again just be an attunement thing, right, like? Does my particular kid seem to be helped in their regulation when they have time alone? Or is my kid one where we're going to snuggle up and watch Bluey for half an hour before we get into chores and homework or whatever it is, and so yeah, but I think it's a great concept for people to be looking at and to be thinking about. What is that transition from home to school? Thinking about what is that transition from home to school?
Speaker 1:And as a teacher, I think that something we can do from our end is how can I add in moments where kids don't have to be on so much, right, like? Are there times of quiet? Are there times of choice, play? Are there times where you know if a kid does want some space and not having to be navigating all the social relationships? Are there times where they can be, you know, playing on their own a little bit and you don't have to share the toy or whatever it might be?
Speaker 3:So adjust the environment during the day, so they're not in this state of chronic stress all day long. And then they're coming home and exploding is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 2:It's like those places in the airport where you can go and it's quiet and they have like comfortable chairs. It's like we need to create those spaces. But I think, um, what I'm hearing you say is like make sure home doesn't also feel like an airport. You know, like if you have to be at the airport all day like, I'm hearing a few different things, like let's change it, so the airport or school is maybe not so much like an airport, um, and then when they get home, like let's allow, let's realize like they need some time.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think it's important to have like high expectations of kids and, um, but like if the expectation is that you never lose your patience or never make a mess, or never get loud, or like like those are unrealistic expectations, right, it's like being the person at the airport who's like do, like saying all the things and like delivering all of those boundaries constantly, and then like those people are trained to handle people losing it on them, right, because that's a stressful environment. And like it's like we, we expect that there are going to be some people who can't handle that, and not that that's right or wrong or anything, but like that's just how it is. So that's like teachers don't get that. Yes, same like training of like. Here's how to handle, you know, a really upset child. Like that's not in teacher school.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what. I come in and train them on. Right, I'm glad you brought up this word. I'm glad you brought up this word expectations, because I want to circle back to a word I used at the start which was unconditional. So this phrase unconditional comes from this phrase unconditional positive regard, which I didn't make up. It comes from Carl Rogers, who was psyched.
Speaker 3:Yes, Okay, beautiful.
Speaker 1:So unconditional positive regard to me is the foundation of all of this that we're doing in trauma-informed education. I wrote a definition of trauma-informed or, sorry, I wrote a definition of unconditional positive regard which goes like this it means that your stance towards someone else is I care about you, you have value, you don't have to do anything to prove it to me and nothing is going to change my mind. I care about you. Right? So that foundation of right away, like and I think this is especially important for teachers and students right, just starting from a place of, it's a given that I care about you. Then, also, moving to, it's a given that you have value. Every person in this classroom, every person in this school, they are valuable, they have strengths. You don't have to prove it to me. This is much harder because in a lot of schools, we're constantly asking kids to prove their value Totally. You know, if you come to class, you have value. If you do well on the standardized test, if you are a good collaborator, you have value. So the shift here is even if you mess everything up, even if you have a terrible day, even if you never do your homework, even if you are mean to people, I am not going to change my mind, that you are valuable and I'm not going to stop caring about you.
Speaker 1:Okay, that all sounds nice, but what about expectations? What about consequences? And, to me, unconditional positive regard is actually how you have high expectations and meaningful consequences. Because if a kid feels safe enough to know that nothing I do is going to change the fact that you care about me, then they are safe enough to try stuff and to mess up and to keep trying it, as opposed to going into that toxic stress of if I mess this up, everything is ruined.
Speaker 1:Right, so that kid who kicks their classmate and is having a hard time, if they know that I hold them in this unconditional care, then they're going to be more willing to work with me and to try out some regulation and to get in a better space and then to talk about how can we make this work, whereas if they think that I am going to kick them out of the classroom for the rest of the year or that I'm going to stop liking them as a person, that might then spiral them out. Right, everything is over, everything is the worst. I'm terrible because I had this hard time and my teacher hates me now right, it just escalates things, and so that, to me, is the root of all of this is that when we have that unconditional care, it actually allows us to have higher expectations.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's not. What I hear you saying is that it's not that those things, it's not that we're cool with violence in the classroom.
Speaker 1:The way I put it is unconditional positive regard doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want Like there are still expectations and things but it means that if you harm other people, if you're having a hard time, I'm not going to dispose of you. You're still valuable, You're still part of this community and there's nothing that's going to change that.
Speaker 2:Which satiates the brain's need for safety, which allows the prefrontal cortex to stay online, which enables that child to make a better choice and to like listen to logic and reason, whereas, if you like, make them. There's nothing scarier to a child than feeling like they're in trouble or they're in the doghouse or there's distance between them and a primary caregiver, because that is where they get all their needs met and that's something that puts them immediately into their stress response system. I was just teaching a class to a bunch of teens and I was like what's stressful to you? It's about stress. And they were like meeting expectations.
Speaker 2:And I just kept asking why is meeting expectations stressful? It's like, well, if you, if you don't meet them, then someone gets mad at you or like is disappointed in you. I'm like why is it? Why is it scary for someone to feel disappointed in you? And like we just kept asking why and they all kind of agreed that it was like this question of value, like I need to feel valued, because value value their safety and being valued. Right, if a lion were to show up, like who's the teacher going to save? Like definitely the kid in the front with all the answers that can behave themselves right, they like that child the most.
Speaker 2:So not being that kid, not being liked by a teacher, is not safe because the child's brain is looking to that, to that teacher, for safety cues, right. So we accidentally get like we want to hold to personal accountability and expectations and all of these things that actually kind of invite us to act in a very harsh or sharp way. And then that kind of starts us on the cycle of creating an environment where kids can't actually meet those expectations Because we're assuming that it's a want, or like it's a want to, not a, I mean, we're assuming that it is a choice, right, and then that puts us in this um, automatic state of like, labeling and judging which escalates our behavior, makes it so we can't cover. It's just like a big ball of cycle. I hope that, like I feel like we've- been through the cycle like three or four times now I'm like okay, listeners, are you getting this?
Speaker 2:Like it's not about this thing is right or wrong or like anything. It's like it's about not getting into the cycle so that you can actually address the problems, set the expectations and help kids develop the skills that they need to meet those expectations.
Speaker 3:Yes, and, and a big piece of this is self-awareness, because, as the adult, if we're not aware of our own behaviors, our own thoughts, our own beliefs about ourselves, our beliefs about the kids we talked about what we're believing in that moment then none of it all, it all breaks down.
Speaker 1:So it really starts with our own behavior first, and then we look at the kids' behaviors and how we can show up for them in a better way yes, and and related to that self-awareness piece, you know there's not a dichotomy here of you know, okay, well, if the kid wasn't, you know, in total control, then well then it's all on the teacher to change the environment. And if the kid was in total control, then the teacher has no accountability. You know, it all lives somewhere in the environment. And if the kid was in total control, then the teacher has no accountability. You know it all lives somewhere in the middle. And even if a kid is in a place where they were dysregulated and that's where their choices stemmed from, you can still work with them on reflection. So, like one really simple thing that I've done with kids who maybe had a blow up during the day or something else went really wrong, is we'll draw a timeline on a piece of paper and it starts at when I woke up this morning and it ends at right now. We're sitting and making this timeline and we mark up the whole day. You know we put on there okay, here's when you kicked Johnny's chair. And then we go from when I woke up to when I kicked Johnny's chair through now what are all the things that happened.
Speaker 1:And so they might say, okay, well, when I woke up, you know I was supposed to have oatmeal for breakfast but I was running late, so I just grabbed a Nutri-Grain bar and I don't really like Nutri-Grain bars, so I didn't eat the whole thing. And then I was on the bus and someone was annoying to me, and then we had math and I hate math. And then when Johnny made a face at me, that's when everything's fuzzy in my brain and I know that I wasn't supposed to do that, right. And so then what we can do is say, okay, now let's go back and let's circle places that you could have made a different choice, but let's also circle places where somebody else could have made a different choice or where somebody could have supported you in a different way. So then that allows them to go.
Speaker 1:Okay, like you know, depending on their age, maybe it's I needed to have my alarm earlier, or maybe it's I needed dad to wake me up 10 minutes earlier, maybe it's hey, I wonder if dad could buy me different cereal bars so that I want to eat the whole thing. Maybe it's, oh, like in this math part. I know that I've already talked about this with my teacher. I was supposed to tell her before I got overwhelmed Right. So even though in that moment the kid was in survival brain, you can still build out that reflection and that's really powerful.
Speaker 3:We could do this as adults, Exactly. Oh my gosh, when my behaviors start to get out of control. This would be really helpful. I want to print out time-lapse. I just put it on my desk so that I can go okay, this is why I'm feeling this way and this is why I have so much stress on my body.
Speaker 2:It's also super valuable as an empathy mechanism here to realize that, like the kid's not losing it over that one thing One time I know I've told this story so sorry, but we were on the way home and my daughter was like it was bedtime, we'd had people out too late and it would have been a busy day and someone had given us milkshakes or something and hers didn't have a cherry on it, some very little thing, and she started losing it because she didn't have a cherry. And we were starting to get like like my narration in my brain sounded like I can't believe she's so entitled or she's so ungrateful for the whole milkshake that she's having, that she's focusing on what she doesn't have and I hate that idea. I don't want to raise a kid that's like that. So I'm going to get super sharp and I have to correct this behavior right. And then I didn't, don't worry.
Speaker 2:I remembered that she was not crying about the cherry, but she was letting out the stress of every injustice and stressor that she had experienced that day. And this was just her essentially restraint collapse, um of her giving it, giving in that's kind of not, but not a good phrase, but like it was too much, like in that moment it was too much right and so it wasn't really about the cherry and it didn't mean anything about her moral character development. It just meant that she was done and she needed her mom to wrap her up into her favorite blanket and put her to bed and not be mad at her, you know which is what happened, but and that's so related have you all seen the idea of the window of tolerance?
Speaker 3:Yes, adrienne talks about this a lot, dr. Dan Siegel.
Speaker 1:Yes. So it's the same idea, right, that on another time your kid may have had a missing cherry and gone. Oh well, that's too bad, I wish I, I wish I had the cherry. But in that moment her window of tolerance was too small for the size of that stress. And so, even though the stress seemed really small, her window of tolerance was like eency, weency, right, so like it overwhelmed her. And it reminds me a lot again.
Speaker 1:Whenever we talk about these concepts, I'm always thinking about what's the version of this for us as adults, so we can tap into that. So the one I always use when I talk about window of tolerance is if you've ever gotten a nice fresh cup of coffee, you're walking out of the coffee shop, it slips in your hand and it drops on the sidewalk. Sometimes that has happened to me and I'm like that's too bad, I'm going to go get a new one, or I don't have time, whatever, I'll go to work. Other times, when I've dropped that coffee, it is the end of the universe, right. It's like this is the last straw. I cannot deal with this, everything is wrong.
Speaker 1:I can't believe I dropped my coffee, right, and so it's that exact same situation. It doesn't mean that I don't have skills as an adult, but it means that my window of tolerance was just too small for that stress, and so, again, just putting ourselves in those moments to go. What I needed when I dropped my coffee was not for someone to tell me well, you can afford coffee. Why are you so mad about it? Lots of people don't get to have coffee like exactly what you're saying. What I needed was, in that moment, to use my self-regulation or to have somebody with me. Go, hey, it's okay, we can get another coffee.
Speaker 3:It's fine. Yeah, and that reminds me, in eighth grade we had a tire fire right down the hill from our school and fire was literally dropping from the sky. Kids were running every. I mean it was insane, and it's a kindergarten through eighth grade, so it was a lot of students, a lot of teachers, so it was a lot of students, a lot of teachers, things like there was fires just starting all over like campus. It was pretty a very traumatic event.
Speaker 3:And I remember I had a brother in first grade and I was in eighth grade and I was just like I need to go with my brother, I don't want him to go on the bus, like I need to go get him and I'm running and my backpack was completely filled with books and papers and folders and it must've been open and I'm like running down in front of the school and it opened up and there were just papers and books flying everywhere and in that moment my window of tolerance was this big and I remember just like, by the time I got to his classroom, his teacher even though it was chaotic and I'm sure it was super chaotic for her her window of tolerance was bigger and she was able to just wrap me in her arms.
Speaker 3:It's okay, here's your brother, like everything's going to be okay. And so I'm just so thankful to Mrs Hinkle for that moment, because it was a very, very traumatic event. And I want to circle back where we talked about. So, with trauma-informed environments, we're talking a lot about the adult and us having this mindset. I mean, we talked about this whole conversation, but then you know so, web of relationships, power and agency, predictability and flexibility, want to like wrap up this talk about trauma-informed education and how teachers can start applying you know these concepts to create a more you know, accepting environment in their classrooms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know there's so many entry points. You know one teacher might hear all about this and think you know what I need to really work on communicating that unconditional acceptance to my kids. Another might really be thinking about those four areas and going, okay, I'm really good at that predictability, but I'm not so flexible and so let me see how I can build that more in. Another might connect back to you know what I said about we want to have trauma not be caused in schools and be thinking about, okay, some of the ways that we cause trauma in schools are, you know, when we let a bullying dynamic go on too long, or sometimes even in our curriculum, if we're teaching outdated or biased information and that is causing a kid to feel badly about themselves or their culture. And so, because there are so many different entry points, what I really encourage educators and parents to do is to really just reflect on what is the piece that I just want to pick up and start with, because to make trauma-informed change in our school system it's going to take everybody.
Speaker 1:It's going to take a lot of work at different parts, right. It's going to take school boards making policy. It's going to take school leaders using different hiring practices to get you know teachers who want to carry this forward. It's going to take curriculum writers and change in standardized testing all these different things and so, because you are one person with one life, there is only going to be so much on your plate one life. There is only going to be so much on your plate. So where do you feel excited and empowered to start? And so I often just encourage folks to spend some time with some of the resources I have books you've mentioned some other really great books throughout this conversation and scholars who are writing about this stuff. There's YouTube videos, all these different things. So spend some time with it, do that reflection and then just think about where do I want to get started and then just keep revisiting it and I'll kind of pull our corner to make a change together.
Speaker 3:This has been such a great, great conversation. Thank you so much. You mentioned so many things that were new to me and I'm excited to go okay, because I do have a child with big, big, big emotions and feelings and sometimes it is hard. I talk about these things all day long, but sometimes it's hard to actually embody that in my parenting. So, thank you, this is going to help me be a better parent.
Speaker 3:So I really appreciate it and I hope our listeners, you know, feel value um and feel that they're valued too, like we were talking about. So this is a question that we ask all of our guests who is someone who has kindled your love of learning, curiosity, motivation or passion?
Speaker 1:Oh, great question. My mind just immediately jumped to my. I'm going to forget if it was which grade in elementary school, but I want to say it was Miss Pirelli in maybe second grade and that was when we started doing. Did you ever do bound book projects where you would write a little story, but then really it was just like they bought a fancy little book for you to draw it in and it just really sparked my excitement about writing and about reading. And I still have those little books and now that I have written books of my own I can like really trace it back to elementary school and having my teachers sort of build up my identity as a writer. So that has absolutely sparked my love of learning. I love that.
Speaker 2:How can listeners learn more about your work?
Speaker 1:So I have a website, unconditionallearningorg, and the best way to engage with my work is I have written two books besides the ones that I wrote in second grade, and so those two books are Equity-Centered, trauma-informed Education, which really talks about all these principles and ideas and things for the classroom. And then the new one, which just came out this year, is called Becoming an Everyday Changemaker, and that was written because a lot of people read the first one and said I want to get started with all of this, but there's so much to do. How do I really make these changes if I feel like I'm just one person, or maybe in a district where this isn't popular, how do I get started? And so the second book is more of a guidebook for making change, so I recommend reading them both together, but there's also lots of links on my website for other short articles, podcasts, episodes and things like that. And yeah, I would love to connect with everybody. Love that.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for coming on the Kindle podcast. This has been an amazing conversation, thank you.
Speaker 3:That's it for today. This was such I mean, we say this at the end of every episode this was a really awesome episode. I learned so much from Alex. I'm so thankful that she came on. What about you, katie?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was really cool. I think she put kind of a different look on it, a different spin than I've usually heard, so it's really interesting to hear her perspective.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. We hope that you can take these strategies and tips and apply them in your classroom or in your home or on the field, and so if this episode was helpful to you, please like, subscribe and follow us on social at Prenda Learn. If you have a question you'd like us to address, leave a comment and email us at podcastprendacom. You can also join or you can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, the Sunday Spark.
Speaker 2:The Kindle podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy for you to start and run an amazing micro school based on all the ideas that we talk about here on the Kindle podcast. If you want more information about becoming a Prenda guide, just go to Prendacom. Thanks for listening and remember to keep kindling. Thank, you.
