Podcast
Stance of Curiosity
Hosted by Gillian Boudreau and Joelle vanLent · EN
Child Psychologists Joelle vanLent and Gillian Boudreau tackle topics related to schooling in our modern times including navigating impossible expectations and the power of curiosity in education, empowering educators to redefine success, overcoming fear and shame and their effects on school communities with open dialogue, and balancing high demands with compassion and understanding.
22episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Staying Curious and Presuming Competence With Non-Speaking Learners
Apr 21, 202500:35:24Tap to summarizeGillian offers a version of the stance of curiosity that will guide our approaches with students who are non-speaking. Our culture is so reliant on spoken communication that we can have implicit bias that influences our social behavior to under-estimate the capacity of those who communicate via different channels. How can we change our mindset to presume the competence of non-speaking learners, while taking responsibility to adjust the pace, volume, and language that we use in our conversations without talking down? Joelle adds ideas related to problem solving including attunement, educated guesses, and modeling. Visual tools are brought up as a trusted go-to to augment communication. As always an open, curious, and flexible approach always serves us well. Check out this amazing video on using Collaborative and Proactive Solutions with non-speaking learners!Strategies for Autistic Students: CPS for Nonspeaking & Echolalic Communicators Stephanie & SarahAlliance against seclusion and restraint youtube channel 8/24/23https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDOq2JPyb8EFind us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →Let Them Be Special!
Apr 14, 202500:39:06Tap to summarizeIn this episode Joelle and Gillian talk about a strategy to support students who are seeking a connection from a teacher in which they have some kind of status or privilege that is atypical. This pattern often comes up among students who do not have the basic human need met of feeling special in some part of their lives. Sometimes this pattern comes up when students have family lives outside of school in which their parents are overwhelmed, the student is in foster care, or the student feels anxious about parental well-being. This can also come up when school-based trauma like bullying is happening for a student. In such cases, they may seek the grounding of special connection from the teacher without knowing what is driving their actions. This dynamic can also occur if the student feels chronically unsuccessful in school academically and socially. This pattern may begin with the student seeking out positive connection, being extra helpful, and being very charming. When the teacher inevitably sets a reasonable boundary for their relationship with the student, this can feel like a deep rejection rather than a helpful limit setting, as might be expected. When this felt rejection occurs, teachers may be surprised by a shift in the student’s engagement or behavior. The student may seek their attention through escalation rather than helpfulness. Recognizing that the student may need to feel special and creating a path to meet that need in a predictable and relatively insignificant manner can shift the dynamic to be one in which the student gets a regular reassuring dose and the teacher is not overwhelmed by needs inspired by factors outside of their control. Joelle and Gillian discuss scenarios and give fun examples for this approach. Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →How do you cope when uncertainty and change become constant?
Apr 7, 202500:41:56Tap to summarizeA liminal experience is a concept related to an "in between" time in which there is both familiarity and disruptive change. Joelle and Gillian talk about the impact of the many significant challenges of public schooling in the past five years including the COVID-19 pandemic, staffing shortages, budgetary changes, and the current political context. They talk through how to deal with all this, with the conclusions that:Grounding can be found in one’s values, core beliefs, and goals. Complex communities can create space for varied coping styles. We can be a source of guidance for our students not by being perfect in our responses but through being willing to be a transparent about how we are feeling and willing to learn from our own mistakes. Most importantly, our efforts are to reduce isolation and get curious about each others' experience so we can be the most consistent, affirming and regulated adults possible for the children around us. We take care of us! https://hbr.org/2024/11/how-to-lead-when-the-future-feels-unpredictable?ab=HP-bottom-popular-text-4Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →What if it's not the time to have an emotion?
Feb 24, 202500:42:50Tap to summarizeGillian and Joelle explore the theme of being humans in helping professions, and especially in schools when it can be important to stay “on” and present as fully regulated when in front of students. When we are experiencing big emotions but can’t show them, this can contribute to something called “allostatic load,” or the stress response our bodies and brains have to try to address a problem and come back to homeostasis. Joelle and Gillian consider an “emotional parking lot” to remind us of big emotions that we needed to “put somewhere else” during the day but may still need a chance to turn toward and feel before day’s end if possible. Joelle and Gillian also review the theory of “allostatic load” in general, and how compassionately noticing, turning toward, and offering some form of completion to our personal “road signs” of fight flight or freeze responses can bring us back to homeostasis more than chronically avoiding these can do.Here's the awesome book we mention during the episode:https://www.powells.com/book/-9781984818324/7-2?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAz6q-BhCfARIsAOezPxn0B9TRewy-G3rkTMIkiF2uP28q05CnyMeEnLydl1FA3W3xkXE3wYAaAjNbEALw_wcBFind us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →Why should play be prioritized in school?
Feb 17, 202500:36:16Tap to summarizeGillian and Joelle talk about the importance of including scheduled time to play in the school routine. Recess is unstructured child directed play and offers students a time for movement, fresh air, social connection, creativity, and a break from responding to task demands. Elementary school students also have semi-structured child directed play in which the teacher creates stations in the classroom and children choose among play options. These times are often called “choice” or “explore” time. Choice time includes the presence of the highly skilled regular educator who can model and teach emotional regulation and social cognition in situations that are typically highly motivating and quite natural. Joelle and Gillian wonder together if a noted reduction in semi-structured child directed play in the past few years is contributing to an increase in student dysregulation, low stamina, and overreliance on adult support to engage in the routines of school. If so, isn’t the solution well within our reach?Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →How and when to tell kids about an autism diagnosis?
Feb 10, 202500:38:01Tap to summarizeJoelle and Gillian draw on their years of conducting autism evaluations, and interpreting the results of these evaluations with children and families to share their perspective on disclosing this diagnostic information. Both note that despite the nervousness parents and psychologists both can feel before letting children know about an autism diagnosis, these conversations are typically somewhere between neutral and very positive for the children and adolescents receiving the information. Joelle and Gillian stress the importance of getting informing adults connected to a neurodiversity affirming stance that autism is not bad news, before as promptly as possible sharing with a child what we know about their brain, and offering a framework for healthy integration. Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →Vibe Check! Teaching the skills of self-monitoring and situational awareness
Feb 3, 202500:46:17Tap to summarizeGillian and Joelle talk about the skill of self-monitoring, which is an executive functioning skill in which one can self-evaluate and take a “bird's-eye view” to see how one’s emotions, thoughts, and actions are working to meet their goals. This goals is related to but unique from situational awareness, which is the skill of recognizing the focus, actions, and energy of a group of people. In both cases, the awareness of self and social context can inform how the person may need to adjust their internal state or actions to meet goals and successfully join groups. In this podcast, Joelle and Gillian discuss how to teach these skills and how our responses can focus on building capacity and self-determination instead of simply eliciting compliance. Strategies including mindfulness techniques and working through a sequence of steps to check the vibe when entering a situation are detailed in this discussion. With great appreciation and compassion for how hard school staff are working to respond and offer co-regulation, these ideas are intended to build self-reliance in students and prevent burnout in educators and school professionals. Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →Two More "Go-To" Interventions
Jan 27, 202500:35:12Tap to summarizeJoelle and Gillian continue some “greatest hits” of school consultation, with two more interventions they keep finding themselves recommending in their travels this year. A “parking lot” is a tool that can help with impulsivity and calling out in the group. Having an idea, then sorting through whether it is a helpful idea for the group in the moment, and THEN figuring out how to “shelve” and remember it for later if it’s not a “right now’ thing are an incredibly complex set of mental and emotional tools that kids need to model and practice before they can do independently. Teaching kids to externally and explicitly “shelve” ideas and information during learning time, and modeling to them that an important adult will come and sort through these with the student reliably, can have a huge impact not only on calling out but on the development of executive functions in general. “Going at the pace of the humans in front of you” is a practice of courage, confidence, and finding an important middle between absorbing whole cloth the aspirational and often too-fast ideas of those who set the frameworks for schools in the abstract, and feeling we have to “go rogue” or defy the system by ourselves in order to do what we know is right for kids. Joelle describes a process for staying curious both about the framework and about the kids in front of us, and collaborating with our teaching team and our admin to adjust the plan to meet the needs.Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →Our Go-To Strategies!
Jan 20, 202500:36:52Tap to summarizeGillian & Joelle share two of their most common suggestions when consulting with educators and clinicians working with kids. “Step over the behavior” helps us connect with the need and emotion driving negative behavior, shift engagement to be more positive for all, and protect us from taking on stress that is not ours to own. “Two by ten” is a strategy of spending two minutes per day for ten consecutive days sitting nearby and focusing on a student with whom you have a tricky connection. This can look like joining their action, asking connecting questions, and always looks like sitting next to and not in front of that person. In both of these recommendations, a key idea is to state your intention or rationale so that you can relieve the other person of having to decipher your goal and emotion. Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →How do we know if we are helping or making things harder?
Jan 13, 202500:41:50Tap to summarizeJoelle & Gillian discuss the tension between offering support and skills to help people build stress tolerance for growth promoting opportunities and validating and supporting those who are experiencing anxiety and trauma response. Essentially how do we balance nurturing someone who is suffering, with offering them an empowering and consented-to push? Specific approaches of worry time and trigger warnings are discussed as far as classroom strategies where this balance can be struck.Find us on Instagram! Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/ Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/
Transcribe →