SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. Kim Hopkins has spent 25 years working with kids everyone else gave up on. And she's about to tell you why everything your school is doing about behavior is probably making it worse. If you've ever had a kid melt down over homework, shut down during a test, or refuse to do something they're pretty capable of, this conversation is going to change how you think about it. Welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college prep without wasting thousands of dollars and years of time. But here's the thing nobody talks about what happens when high-achieving kids start falling apart, not academically, but behaviorally. And that's what we're going to dig in today. Um, that's why I'm thrilled to have Kim Hopkins here. She is a licensed clinical social worker, CPS trainer since 2007, and the director of learning resources and support. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, gotcha. Title Title Change Lives in Balance and the Nonpro Nonprofit Founded by Dr. Ross Green, author of The Explosive Child, and co-host the CPS podcast with Dr. Green and has trained schools and families across the globe on a model that's changing how we think about kids or kids' behavior. Kim, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Absolutely. So all the way in from uh New England, right? New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yes. Yeah, well, we're finally seeing a little spring, which is nice. It's been a long winter breath.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yes. Well, I the the kid, I mean, I'm a little I'm coming down with a little bit of a cold just because we've gone back from snow to 80 degrees like three weeks in a row. So it's just insane. But anyway, again, thank you for joining us. So uh, you know, you've been doing this for 25 years and working with kids in residential facilities, foster homes, therapeutic day schools, homeless shelters. What makes you gravitate gravitate towards the kids everyone else found the most difficult to work with?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

That's a great question. Um my mother asked me back in my twenties when I was first entering the field, you know, because I had, you know, I'd had my nose broken in a restraint. I'm like 25 years old. It's like, what are you doing? And it's a valid question. I just think I always had a deep empathy for the experiences of these kids and um who wanted to help. Because I very fortunately had an amazing upbringing and just wanted to help those who didn't. And um, I was not trained this way initially. Uh, I was trained the way that most people are trained, you know, behavior modification, you know, ferrets and sticks, rewards and punishments, and um found very quickly that it wasn't helping. So I wasn't having the effect that I wanted to have when I came to the field. Um, and was so grateful to find Dr. Green's work. And it was completely life-changing, um, both professionally and personally, to just really be able to help kids and families the way that I wanted to. It's the most effective thing I've ever tried on in my professional lives.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

So you also you said you work alongside Dr. Ross Green, the guy who literally wrote the book about explosive kids. What's the core idea that most parents and educators still don't don't understand about why kids act out?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Well, you know, and for good reason, because there's so much messaging. And in his new book, Dr. Green kind of gets into why there's all this messaging going around and the capitalism aspect of it, right? But we're all messaged that kids do well if they wanna. And if they wanna do well, they do well. And if they don't want to do well, then they simply don't pull it off. And that it's our job as the adults who care about them to make them wanna. And we make them wanna by rewarding the behaviors we like and punishing the behaviors we don't, and then we cross our fingers and hope for change, right? But that's not actually the case. All kids wanna. They might be really skilled in convincing us that that's not true, but it's our job not to believe that. They want to do well. Life goes better for them when they're doing well, right? We certainly suffer when they're not doing well, but they suffer more. And so really understanding that this is not about getting under your skin or being disrespectful, right? It certainly feels that way. But the root of this is that they are struggling to access the skills they need to pull off doing well. So it's not a choice, you know. I hear that language a lot, like, well, they're just making the choice not to do well. They're not playing with a full set of skills, which is backed by decades of research, like 60 years of research telling us when kids aren't doing well, they're lacking the skills to pull off doing well. So if they're not playing with a full complement of high-level cognitive skills to pull off doing well, then it's not a choice. So we want to believe that kids do well if they can. And if they're not doing well, what's getting in their way? And that sets us off on a different intervention pathway.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

All um behavior is communication, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

That's true. That's very true.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I think I mean, so I mean, I I've implemented, I've started PBIS at a couple couple schools I've uh worked with, and that's one of the biggest um the biggest things. Even in a meeting today, I was talking to teachers about, you know, there's such a rush to be punitive with kids regarding behavior, and not that we have a bad school, we don't. But if we're expecting something but not teaching, and I think that's the biggest change in education over the last 25-30 years is parents used to teach these behaviors. We're now, you know, they're teach how to behave. I'm sorry, we're now it kind of falls upon us as educators to do part of that in terms of modeling that act like kids don't just come ready-made, ready to behave, but a lot of this, a lot of the acting out comes from not because they can't, because some other signals is that what you find?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, I think that I think that in many cases kids pick up, and it might not be from home, but kids pick up what the expectations are, what what would make us happy and how they should conduct themselves, right? And I think that they would like to ideally achieve those expectations and meet those expectations. And when they're not, we need to think about what is not allowing them to do that, right? What's you know, kids know they're not supposed to rip up a quiz and run out of a classroom or you know, scream at their parents and throw a dish. Like they know that that's not okay. And yet, as you said, that behavior is communication. Now, some kids are not very lucky in how they communicate, right? I have two kids, they're um quite lucky in how they communicate. They're having my daughter, she's almost 16, she's very lucky how she communicates that she's run into a problem that she's struggling to access the skills to solve. She's lucky because she's a cry or soaker. When she's crying or soaking, she's communicating to us that she's having trouble solving the problem, right? My son, who's 10, he's still lucky, but he's less lucky than his sister because he's a screamer, hitter, thrower. Thankfully, not at school, but at home, right? When he runs into a problem, he's having trouble solving we see screaming, hitting, and throwing, you know, less throwing these days, which is great. But that's still communicating, you know, and it's less lucky because we start to get our hackles up a little bit, like, ooh, what's going on here? And then, you know, the kids I worked with when I found this model, super unlucky because they were trying to hurt themselves and everybody around them in various ways, right? But all of that behavior says the same thing. Whether you're crying or sulking or you're punching someone, that that behavior is communication. It's saying there was a problem that came up that I didn't know how to solve because I couldn't access the skills to solve it. It's the same message, regardless of the behavior.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

So when, you know, I think this is going to surprise our audience is that most parents listening will have high-achieving kids. Um, AP students, straight A's, kids on track for competitive college, they're thinking this doesn't apply to me. Why are they wrong?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Uh I have one of those. I might actually have a budding second one of those, but I have one of those. You know, the kid who's, you know, a sophomore and is like begging us to go look at schools already and we're behind and that and loaning up her schedule with as many AP classes as she can. And I use the model with her. Absolutely. Because, well, all kids struggle at some point to meet expectations, right? We call those unsolved problems. All kids have unsolved problems. You know, my daughter recently, we were talking about how she has some difficulty getting to bed by 10 p.m. That is our expectation for her, given who she is and what we see works for her. I mean, every parent's gonna have a different bedtime expectation for their kids, as they should based on who they are. But for her, we find that 10 p.m. is kind of the sweet spot, right? To be able to give her the energy for the next day and all that. Now, if we just what we call use plan A and consequence this behavior where she continues to stay up past 10 p.m., right? We're all we're saying to her is we don't like what you're doing. So we're gonna take away this, or we're gonna take away that, or we're not gonna let you do this, right? All that says is we're unhappy about this. You're not meeting our expectation. She already knows that. So we're not really saying anything, you know, we're not really doing anything. Um, what we need to do is problem solve with her collaboratively and proactively, proactively meaning not at 10 p.m. We want to be talking about this outside of the unsolved problem. And we want to work together with her to understand her perspective, share our perspective, and then find a way to bridge the two perspectives. Her concerns, our concerns, how do we work this out? In doing that, not only will we solve the bedtime issue, we're gonna give her experience solving problems. And there's a lot of skills training that happens when we do that because ultimately, as parents, we want our kids to be good problem solvers when we're not around. And if we continue to solve problems for them, they won't get that experience solving problems that they need. Um, and especially with high achieving kids, they want, you know, this is a very respectful model. They have a say as they should. We have a say too, right? And we're not gonna pick a solution that doesn't work for us. We're not giving our power over. Couldn't even do that if we wanted to, right? We're the parent, we're in charge. We're the teachers, we're in charge, right? It's just using it a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

So walk me through. Okay, I'm sorry. I got feedback. Sorry. I don't know what it's like, I don't sound like you're talking. Um walk me through what a typical school does when a student acts out, because I think that's important in terms of like, what does a typical playbook look like and why doesn't it work?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Oh, sure. Um, so in schools, what we're taught to do, right, is a kid acts out and then we turn to our, well, before we turn to our rubric, we probably do something like redirect them or cajole them, right? Oh, come on, you know, you know that you need to get started on your math quiz. Like, come on, let's go, right? You know you want to, you know it's good for you, right? So we try to do that kind of gentle insisting. Typically, what happens then the behavior increases, right? So it goes from just not doing the thing, the quiz, to maybe now I'm being yelled at, right? Now there's an escalation. So then I'm doing something a little more firm, right? And I'm saying you need to do this. And if you don't do this, you'll be heading to the office, or we'll be calling home, or you'll be missing recess, whatever it is, right? The the stick that we're often that continues to make things worse. And now maybe the kid is yelling more or threatening or something like that. Depends, right? And now I'm in like de-escalation mode. And I ask this of every school audience that I talk to who drives in New York hoping they get to de-escalate an escalated kid. No one, right? No one, no one's hoping that. Even people who feel they're good at de-escalating are hoping that because you don't know how it's gonna go. Once the kid is escalated, what worked last time might not work this time. We're we're too late in the intervention, right? All bets are off once kids are upset, but now we're in de-escalation mode, whatever that looks like. And if that fails, if we can't de-escalate the kid, then we do whatever it is we do when we can't de-escalate. Is that clear a room? Is that involve the SRO? Is that um seclude or restrain? I mean, there's all kinds of things that are happening in in some states, we're paddling kids, not in your state and not in my state, but in 17 states in the United States, we're hitting kids. Oh yeah. Hitting kids on their bodies with a stick of wood, um, around 100,000 times a year. That is still practiced in the US. Um, so that's the typical sort of escalation, but it doesn't have to be that way. As soon as we can predict, you know, hey, last time we gave a math quiz, Joey had trouble taking the math quiz, getting started on it. As soon as we know that, we can predict it that it's not gonna go well. So let's get ahead of it, let's be proactive, let's talk to him about it, collaborate with him, find out what about this math quiz is challenging or difficult or isn't working for him, so that we can understand his perspective. Right. And then we can share our perspective on why it is important to us, right? So ours doesn't trump his, though. They're held equally, you know, what's not working about it for Joey, what's important about it to us, and now we come to a solution that works for both of us. You know, it's gotta be realistic, it's gotta meet Joey's concerns, gotta meet our concern, right? And that's a very different way to work because now we're preventing all that behavior that none of us hopes to deal with when we're driving to work, right? So we're in the, you know, the behavior prevention mode and and crisis prevention mode as opposed to crisis response and and de-escalation, which is just too late.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

And um like I mentioned about PBS, it's it's probably the most widespread framework in schools right now. A lot of parents hear that, think that school is progressive. Like, what is your take on PBIS?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Uh we actually do have a one-pager on our website comparing our model to the PBIS model, and we have one pagers comparing our model to other popular models. But the main thing about PBIS, it can be done in concert with CPS with a few thoughtful points, right? Because PBIS really, as it's derived from ABA, which is very traditional behavior modification, right? It really is about behavior and focusing on behavior. And when they say teaching skills, they really mean teaching behavior, like teaching how to sit at one's own desk and, you know, teaching how to come back in the classroom after recess and teaching how to get started on a quiz. When that's not really our focus, our focus is on problem solving collaboratively with kids so they get experience in the skills that they need to be able to pull off those expectations, right? It might be flexibility, adaptability, managing frustration, right? All kinds of skills that the research has shown. And this is not research on our model, although there's plenty of that. This is research, you know, from multiple disciplines that tells us that kids are struggling to access skills. That's why we see behavior. And so the focus of our model is a bit different. PBIS tends to be a lot more behavior focused. We don't think that focusing on behavior gets the job done. Behavior is just the signal, regardless of what it is. So you we need to kind of move upstream from that of what, right? Finding problems that kids struggle to access the skills to solve. And that's why they ended up displaying a behavior. Um, and that's our focus. The tiers, I mean, well, let me go back and say that the you know, data collection that PBIS um is kind of famous for. We're we're all about that. I understand data collection is important, and data is a great way to show kids are making progress with interventions. The tiers, um, you know, I think it's interesting to kind of divide kids into three tiers. We kind of don't think that you need necessarily a different intervention at each tier. Our intervention works at each of the three tiers. So in that respect, we're kind of like, do we need tiers? That's sort of something that we're questioning often. The other thing I would say, PBIS is very into like rewards, and rewards are just the opposite of sticks, right? You can't reward a kid into being able to get started on a math quiz. You know, if if you can, it's short-lived. It might work for this one, but it won't work for future, right? Rewards aren't solving problems. It's just it's just the opposite of a stick. I mean, we all want the reward, of course, but that doesn't solve problems or teach skills.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

So you're mentioning skills about like a kid, the difference between a kid who won't and a kid who can't, because I think most adults default to the kid is willfulness, right? So what is that big difference that makes a kid between a kid who just can't and a kid who won't?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

You know, we don't know, we always say this, Dr. Green, myself, our colleagues, we've worked with hundreds of thousands of kids at this point, have never met the kid who can access all the skills they need to pull off doing well, who just is like, meh, I'm not done it today. Right. So, in other words, we don't know kids who have the skills they need, but just don't have the motivation to pull them out. I've never met that kid, right? So, you know, the kids who won't I don't know those kids. There's always something. There's always something behind it. There's always something that we can, we call it drilling. We can drill for information and understand what is getting in the way. So something that I learned from another parent years ago that I love, you know, she said that when she's approaching a behavior, and this is for teachers too, you know, really challenging yourself to think this kid is having a hard time, as opposed to this kid is giving me a hard time. It's a whole different mindset shift, which will yield a more productive, gentler, but effective intervention. So I think that's a really important distinction.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

This episode is brought to you by Supported Tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focus on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. So what does it look like in schools that actually teach this, that actually model what we're looking for? How do we how do we move collectively to those models?

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah, I think that um we're often saying to schools who want to start on this journey, start small. You know, it takes time, especially if if you're like me and you're coming from a 180-degree different place than this model is, right? Um give yourself grace, it's gonna take time and start small, meaning, you know, maybe a group of six or so people who want to use the free resources on the website. You know, Dr. Green started Lives in the Balance with two main objectives in mind. The first one is to give his model away for free. Then go on that website, watch videos, download things, all kinds of resources. Use it, you use it as much as you'd like, pick it all apart, have discussions about it. You know, what are you learning? What are you seeing? How could it apply in your setting? Or some people like to do a book study. And, you know, the first book he wrote for schools is Lost at School. That's usually the one I would recommend if you're just starting. Um, and there's a free book study guide on the publisher's website, which you can get from us if you want to contact us through the Lives in the Balance website. Um, but you know, picking apart that book and seeing again, is is Joey Kid in the book, like your kids? Is there anything different? You know, um, and talking it through and just starting to have those conversations about the way we've always done things, the way we've always been taught, is it getting us where it needs to get us? Right? Is this actually good for kids? Is it working? I mean, how many detentions do we need to give Joey before we decide detention's not getting it done? Right. And seeing that the more interventions we do that are like that, you know, behavior modification interventions, we're actually pushing the Joey's of the world away, right? So starting to plant seeds, have those conversations, use the free free resources on the website, maybe do a book study. And then if you get kind of interest and like let's dive into this a little bit, right? Then it's about first starting with the assessment of skills and unsolved problems, our ASIF. That's how we sit down as adults and really kind of get a 360 view on this kid's day at school, right? And predict using that tool to do it. But what are all the expectations that this kid reliably doesn't meet? Maybe not 100% of the time, but reliably doesn't meet. What are all the expectations we have here at school that this kid reliably doesn't allot? As soon as we can predict that, we can get proactive with our interventions. And a lot of people think it's not predictable, you know. Um this this kid is we never know when she's gonna block. The assessment of skills and unsolved problems will help make the kid predictable. It's designed to do that, it's a really powerful tool. And I always say this because I cringe when I talk to people about a piece of paper and another assessment, right? Because I remember drowning in paper too when I worked directly with kids and families and I resented it because I thought it took away from my ability to help them. But this is the single piece of paper that I mean, I discovered it 25, 28, I think now years ago. Um, and have never turned away from it. And it it actually helps me help kids and families. So I say that knowing that everybody's got too much paper, but it really is a very incredibly useful tool. So the ASIP helps us to get our lenses on straight. Our kids do well if they can lenses, it makes the kid predictable. Now we have a list of unsolved problems or unmet expectations. Now we can figure out what are we gonna work on first. Because although this model is incredibly effective, it isn't magic. So if you have a kid who has 30 unsolved problems in the course of their week at school, we're not gonna work on them all at once. What we are gonna do is prioritize you know, what are our biggest fish here? What should we dive in on first? Maybe pick no more than three at a time per kid. And now we gotta actually start having problems-solving conversations with kids. We call it plan B as opposed to plan A, which is traditional discipline, or plan C, which isn't the model, but is actually kind of useful. That's when you might table an expectation temporarily. A lot of good reasons to do that, especially if it's being driven from the ACP from the gate. We're like, okay, we know what our priorities are, these are the ones we're gonna problem solve. Everything else we're gonna temporarily table. We're gonna do plan C to make room and space to be able to actually problem solve durably with the kid, right? Because we don't want to pile on them. That doesn't work for anybody. Um, and then it's just about practicing our plan B skills with kids. And we again have lots of resources, video examples, a downloadable plan B cheat sheet, which has the three steps of plan B and the language you want to use. There's another companion cheat sheet. There's all kinds of things we've tried to put together for people to kind of self self-teach themselves how to do this, right? And ultimately, if folks want more than that, we do offer some virtual trainings and we do also do some coaching and consultation with school teams who want a little help to grow their skills a bit more quickly or or uh if they're having any obstacles to doing the learning. So that's a that's a typical journey of a school who's implementing the model. And then things get fun because once you start solving problems with kids, you're extinguishing behavior. Um people at the beginning think there's no time to do this, but once they start extinguishing behavior, they're actually saving time. Then things get interesting, and then we start looking at policies and procedures. And are they are they serving us or are they not? And they're just there because we've always done it that way, right? And and it it becomes really neat to see a school kind of grow and wrap around and change their culture around the model.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

So if a if a parent is at home and they're having to deal with their kid having a complete meltdown over homework or stressed out over tests, what can they do right now to help get them unstuck?

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yeah. We call this an ask the kid model. Ask them, you know, let them know that you're not mad, they're not in trouble, and it could take some work for you to get there, right? But you want to make it comfortable for them to tell you what the real deal is, right? If you don't, because I always say to kids, if I don't know, I can't help. And I would love to help, but I can't help you if I don't understand. So ask your kid what is hard about and I'm sorry, was your example a test, right? What's hard about this test? Oh yeah. Or the homework that you're struggling to do. What's hard about it? What doesn't work for you? And just be real open-minded and listen and clarify, right? One um strategy we use, we have, as I mentioned earlier, drilling strategies for how we try to get the information we need. But one of them is just reflective listening and making a clarifying statement. Reflective listening, all that is is saying back what your child says to you and ask and then asking them to clarify it, right? So if they say, Well, you know, I just don't know this stuff and I don't want another bad grade. Reflective listening is so you feel like you don't know this stuff and you don't want another bad grade. Tell me more, right? It's not brain surgery, and yet when we're doing plan A with kids and doing the behavior modification stuff, we're not listening at all, really. So it is different and it feels good to them to be heard and understood and validated. We have other drilling strategies too, other different ways we like to ask questions. Again, there's another cheat sheet on our website you can print off of all different ways you can ask neutral, non-judgmental questions so that you can try to understand what's going on in your kids' brain, right? How are they thinking about this? Because that's the thing we can't observe. We can observe their feelings, usually, we can observe their behavior, right? But what we can't observe is their thinking or how they're perceiving the um unsolved problem. How do they perceive this math test or how do they perceive this homework that they're struggling to get done? We want to know everything we can know about it, because then we can help them solve the problem in a more adaptive way that also takes into account our perspective on the situation, what's important about it.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

So can you give us like a real example of you know a potentially smart kid, like a kid that's doing well and basically goes a fraw, right? They're just they're at a point where they're they're having a breakdown, they might not they might not have might be having even just a low-key crisis. Let's let's use an example of a high achieving kid, right? They've been a great student their entire high school career or entire school career, and they just reached a point where they it has just become too much. The expectations, the pressure, too much, they're breaking down. Um, and you know, we you have parents that just don't know what to do. Like it's just like walk us through um it step by step, and what does it actually sound like for that like that parent? Like, can you almost coach them, if you will, of how to get a kid unstuck? So it's not necessarily an aggressive behavior, it's maybe withdrawal, it's it's just depression, it's it's just stuck, it's stress coming out in a bunch of different ways, or anxiety coming out in a bunch of different ways.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Yeah, still communication, right? So the first thing I would do is I would try to get a list of all the things they're struggling to start, complete, attend, right? All those expectations we have, like what all the different ways that they're sort of breaking down, as you say, like all the things that they're having trouble doing, that they even they used to do, right? So we get a list because we're not going to work on it all at the same time. And then I would say pick something from that list that's a priority for you, right? What might it be? Do you have an example specifically, or do you want me to make one up?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I have one. So I have a kid I'm thinking of that's probably so a kid in my mind's taking six, seven, eight AP exams junior, senior year. You know, they want to get into top colleges, their SAT score, it's spring, they're a competitive athlete or a bunch of extra curriculars. It's just like pow, pow, pow, pow on. And then, oh yeah, by the way, dude, do everything perfectly, and so you know, don't, and just you should just be able to get through this without anyone actually ever teaching them how to do that. So I guess my qu and so now we reached a breaking point where they can't, they just stuck and they just can't, and it has become either like depression withdrawal or anxiety, stress, and and they're they're just it's just change in behavior. What what would you how would you coach a parent for that?

SPEAKER_01 31:49

So if say one of the things they can't do, because we like to be real specific, so there's probably several things that they're stuck on and not doing, but say they're just not going to class anymore. And say they're not going to five or six of their classes. I actually wouldn't talk to them about all of them at the same time. I would actually just pick one. And I know that feels like counterintuitive because we want to solve it all, we want to solve it all now, right? Because we care about the kid and we're helpers. You'll get farther if you just go, let's just talk about science. You're having difficulty getting the science class lately. What's going on? Right. And that would be the introduction to a proactive plan B or CPS conversation with a kid, right? And if the kid says something like, I don't know, I just I just can't do it anymore, then I'm gonna say, you can't do what anymore? Like I'm I'm gonna be asking questions, I'm gonna be using W questions, I'm gonna be doing reflective listening, I'm gonna be doing lots of summarizing, I'm gonna be doing a lot of trying to understand how they're thinking, right? And maybe we're gonna hear things like um an example of something I heard not too long ago was they're gonna find out on fraud, right? Or some sort of thinking like that. You know, that likely is stinking thinking, right? An inflexible and inaccurate interpretation or cognitive distortion, right? That that's not based in reality, but that is their thinking. And if we think about it, this model is sort of loosely based in cognitive behavior theory where you know there's a stressful situation. We first have thoughts about it, then we have feelings about it, then we have behavior about it. The thoughts are the first thing. And there, and again, the thoughts are the things we can't observe. So that's what we need to get from the kid. We need to understand what their thinking is. When they think about setting foot in science class, what do they start worrying about? What does their brain start saying? What do they start telling themselves, right? And if they're thinking something like they're gonna find out I'm a fraud and I don't know what I'm doing, that's important for us to know. And we wouldn't know it unless they told us, right? And so I'm gonna work to clarify that, make sure I understand that, make sure there's nothing else, because there could be other things too, right? And then I'm gonna let them know what's important to me about attending science class, right? Maybe something along the lines of you've worked so hard and you've come so far and you you're making all kinds of progress. And I know that you have goals for yourself, and I just want to make sure that you feel good about you know still meeting your goals, right? And now we've got to work to solve this problem because going with my example, if this kid's negative tape turns on when they think about attending science class, and again, I'm not discounting the other classes, but I'm just laser focused on science, because there might be something specific to science that we'd find out that's different than math, that's different than geography or whatever. Um, and that would all be found out through some careful drilling. But in my example, if all we find out is they've started telling themselves they're a fraud and people are gonna find out, right? Then our solution needs to help them kind of pause that tape and challenge that thinking, right? And maybe replace it with something, or maybe come up with like some sort of visual reminder or some other words to say, or something that helps them pause that tape. Because if you think about it, we all have negative tapes that kick on, you know, like I might be in a rush to get somewhere and miss my exit. And my first thought might be like, Oh, you're so dumb. How could you have done that? Now you're gonna be late, uh, right? Now I have skills though that kick in that say it's an honest mistake, everybody's done it, they're gonna understand, don't worry about it, right? And so then that tape shuts off and I can still function. We need to find the thing that shuts that tape off, right, so that they can still function. Now that doesn't mean that the goal is that they continue to do all the things that they were doing and they don't change anything about their goals or anything like that. That's not the goal at all, right? It's just to get our concern at arrest. And our concern is we want you to be happy and healthy and keep making progress and learning, you know, at whatever pace that is, right? So, and that's kind of a nuance of the model. A lot of adults think CPS is about getting our expectations met. It's really not. It's about getting our concerns addressed. We have concerns that drive our expectations, right? The why behind it, why is it important for kids to get to class time, right? So I think I think we went pretty far with that one. Did I leave it?

SPEAKER_00 36:35

No, I mean that's that's it's you know, I I kind of boil down to like the lack of one understanding any type of structural coping skills, right? So like we don't know how to really work past different parts of stuck, but and how we can do it ourselves, but no one's actually taught us how to do it either. Right? Like the worst time to teach a kid a coping strategy is when they're in crisis. And usually that's when they need it the most, right? I mean, that's is that what you see as well?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

What's interesting about coping skills, I'm glad you brought that up, because I spent a large part of my early career teaching coping skills. What we find, although they're fine to have in the arsenal, they are a little late, right? Because by the time you need it's I agree with you, like teaching them when you're not upset, because when you're upset, you don't we don't learn anything, right? But when we are upset, now we're trying to remember that coping skill that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. But ultimately, if it does work, it just helps us feel better, but it doesn't address the issue that got us upset in the first place. So to us, it's a little bit late, and we would love to solve the problem that got them upset in the first place. You know, I'm always saying I'm near Boston, so I fly out of Logan Airport. And these days there's a lot of delayed and canceled flights, right? Yeah. It's wonderful if I'm sitting in Logan and I get that announcement. It's wonderful if I can cope with the frustration that that will bring and not yell at anybody, right? That's great. Even better, and this is what we want to teach kids anticipate problems before they happen so you have solutions so they don't become upsetting, right? So the way I want to handle Logan Airport, when I am booking my flight, I'm already thinking about don't book the last one of the day, right? What are the alternative airports to go into if I if I can't go into the one nearest where I'm going? What are the alternative modes of transportation if I can't fly? Because I have to get there, right? They're expecting me. And so that way, if I hear now your flight's canceled, I'm like, all right, I've got other plans, I've got other solutions. I'm not even that upset because I already know what I'm doing, right? And so now I don't have to cope. And that's a little bit of a just uh distinguish, losing my words now, it's getting late. It's a little bit of a um different way to be thinking about coping skills than I used to many years ago.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Yeah, my background, I thought I was out of school as an administrator for like we did TCI and we did the sanctuary model.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

So we're all I was a TCI trainer before I found this.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Yeah. So, you know, kind of like just the DS the escalation ladder and making sure that was coupled with the sanctuary model trial and reform practices, but just we had kids had safety plans, so I mean, but they didn't always use it, but it was one thing that still stood up is like okay, teaching what are your coping strategies before the kid actually gets to crisis. Now, obviously doesn't always work, but it's at least something tangible. So um that's I mean, I'll end on this too. I'm always before we get to lightning round, is that I I I talk to a lot of kids uh in meetings with their parents, you know, 504 plans, IEPs, behavioral things, and that's I would say it's becoming way more uh prevalent in terms of I hear anxiety, depression, and then I go, cool. So how are you working through that? And they have nothing. And the parent thinks, well, because it's all confidential, because it's therapy, they just I send them to a therapist and they fix. I'm like, what's said in therapy is confidential, but you're absolutely within their right to be like, How do I help my kid? Or what are you guys working on? And it's like if they're not working on anything with your kid, they're basically have a license to steal from you. Like, how like where when did become when did therapy become no strategies to like actually get kids unstuck? And that's I see that as like a group uh of so like there's this mental health crisis. If you can if you can navigate services and get your kids into mental health services, therapists, psychologists, great. But then the second thing is there's like there's this huge disconnect.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah, when we are working with families to help them learn this model, the goal is to have them in the room together. Sometimes it can't start that way if the relationship's contentious, but that is absolutely the goal because the work doesn't really happen in the office so much as it happens outside outside the session.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

I uh there was an accident on the interstate last night. I was coming home from an event, and it was just like literally dead. It's like it used to drive because I used to be live in DC. Trove drives me nuts to come to a complete stop. I just lose it. Last night was the first time I didn't lose. Um, you know, I I maybe I've set a choice for it or two, just like, but I'm just sat there. I'm like, what am I gonna do? There's nothing I can do at this point. So growth from me, Kim.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Hey, I'm right there with you.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Uh let's move into lightning rounds. So you don't have to offer any explanation, just five quick hitting questions. First thing that comes to mind. Does that sound good? Sounds great. All right, one book every parent of a struggling kid should read. Raising human beings by Dr. Ross Green. There you go. That's my plug there. Worst advice you hear parents getting about behavior right now.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Uh he needs a sticker chart or something comparable, like for an older kid. You need, you know, that kind of feedback because stickers do nothing. They just tell kids what we do you we what you did we liked or what you did we didn't like, but they already knew that. So we're wasting our time and we're not not partnering with our kids, and we need to be.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

They get kids through the doctor's office, though, too.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Maybe the first time, but then we can solve the issue and then we don't have to worry about my kids still like the stickers from the doctor's office.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

That's they know they're getting they know they're gonna get our stickers. Right, right. One one thing parents overthink when it comes to discipline.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

They worry about what their extended family and their friends and their neighbors think about what they're doing for their kid. And I think no, you know your kid, and you have a family culture that is different than other families, and that is okay. And you know, you gotta do what's right for you and your family.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

How about one thing parents uh one thing?

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Uh, the impact of their words. I think that words are really, really important. And even when kids are acting out, especially when they're acting out, we can feel like they don't care what we think or they're being disrespectful to us. And then what we're not really thinking about is like, oh, absolutely that's not true. And so our words are ultra important, especially when kids are kind of having such a hard time or in crisis, and really do stick with them and and make an impression. So um, and and yeah, we get overwhelmed and we're not perfect. So do what you need to do to you know get your emotional bucket filled so that you can choose your words carefully.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

If you could tell every school principal in America one thing, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Behavior rubrics don't work and rewards and consequences don't work, and there's tons of research on that now. So you've got to support your team. Your team has not learned to do it a different way because that's not taught when you're becoming a teacher or a school social worker or counselor. So you gotta focus on professional development because we got to do it differently if we're gonna be doing right by kids.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

All right. Well, with that, uh we're gonna come to a close. Kim, thank you so much for being here and making time out of your day. What is one question you wish I asked, but I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Oh, that's a good question. Let's see. I don't know. We talked about so much. I guess maybe um how I why did I even look at CPS in the first place? I I really only touched on that a little bit, but something I like to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Oh, gosh. Well, I hope you'll come back again. We'll let me get into a little more juicier topics. I'll kind of battle you with uh the PBIS model and my back on it too, but we could we could do that. And uh for parents listening, you know, educators listening, where can they find out about more about you and uh the podcast and all the things you stand for?

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Uh that would be the Lives in the Balance website, which is livesinthebalance.org. There's a ton of resources on there, all about the collaborative and proactive solutions model, but also all about our advocacy efforts on behalf of kids and their parents and their educators and their providers. There's a lot going on that we want you to know about. And if you can jump in and help, please do. Yeah, and be in touch. We've got the podcast, the newsletter, you can contact us all from that website.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

All right, awesome. Kim, thank you so much for joining us, and uh, we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Thanks so much, Joan. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

You too. Thank you for watching the Supported Learning Podcast. We will see you next time. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.