Allison Edwards’ "Growing Up Strong" serves as a pivotal resource in addressing the pressing issues of mental health and the cultivation of essential soft skills in young individuals. In this discourse, we meticulously explore various strategies to assist children in navigating the complexities of anxiety, disappointment, and loneliness. The episode emphasizes the significance of fostering resilience in students, enabling them to confront their emotions and embrace growth. We further delve into the five crucial feelings that children must manage before reaching adulthood: worry, sadness, anger, disappointment, and loneliness. Through the lens of Edwards’ insights, we aim to equip educators with the necessary tools to foster a supportive environment conducive to emotional well-being and personal development.

Navigating the intricate terrain of childhood emotions presents a formidable challenge for educators and parents alike. In my review of Allison Edwards' "Growing Up Strong," I explore the profound implications of her work for fostering mental health and developing essential soft skills in students. The episode emphasizes the critical need for educators to recognize and address the emotional hurdles faced by children, as neglecting these issues can lead to detrimental outcomes in their academic and personal lives. By elucidating the necessity of teaching children to manage their feelings—such as anxiety, disappointment, and loneliness—Edwards provides a roadmap for cultivating resilience. We examine the significance of creating safe spaces in classrooms where students feel validated and supported, while also encouraging them to embrace discomfort as a catalyst for growth. The episode ultimately serves as a clarion call for educators to prioritize emotional intelligence alongside academic achievement, fostering a generation of well-rounded individuals equipped to face life's challenges with confidence.

Takeaways:

• Allison Edwards emphasizes the necessity for children to confront and manage significant emotions such as anxiety, disappointment, and loneliness before they reach adulthood.
• The importance of instilling resilience in children is paramount, as it equips them to navigate life's challenges and emotional turbulence effectively.
• Teachers can employ the FIT method to assist students in identifying their emotions, rating their intensity, naming their triggers, and selecting appropriate coping strategies.
• Understanding the distinction between emotions and feelings is crucial; emotions are immediate and observable, while feelings are often conscious and long-term, requiring deeper reflection.
• The podcast highlights that fostering soft skills in students, such as empathy and self-advocacy, is essential to combatting mental health issues and facilitating lifelong success.
• Creating a supportive classroom environment where students feel seen and accepted significantly enhances their ability to cope with emotional difficulties.

Links referenced in this episode:

• beafunkteacher.com
• growingupstrong.com
• therapistaid.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Be a Funky Teacher
• Allison Edwards

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I'm coming to you with another Be a Funky Teacher podcast.

Today we're talking mental health tips for teachers, specifically what I learned from Allison Edwards in her growing up strong professional development session that we had here in my school district.

Now, if you vet, if you have never heard her speak, wow, it was a treat to get to hear her speak.

She brings so much insight into how we can help students handle big emotions that can, that can help them grow and how to deal with emotions that can also hold them back if they don't receive some intervention or some guidance on how to navigate some of those big emotions and feelings.

But first, let's start with three things I'm thankful for.

One of the things I'm thankful for is my ability to take photos with my phone.

I love capturing memories instantly.

It is such a gift.

I've, I've always been a picture taker.

Even when I was a young kid, my mom was a big picture taker.

And I have always been a picture taker.

I love capturing photographs, photos, interesting photos, photos of a moment.

And I know that my, my smartphone makes it so easy to do that.

Another thing that I'm thankful for is bright colors.

It just make life and the classroom happier.

I think of what I've done in my classroom here, setting it up to make it.

The colors pop.

Now the wall itself, when I came into this classroom, the wall itself was kind of like an off white.

Not a lot of colors pop in here.

I mean, it was, it's a great space.

It's a great canvas to build upon.

And you think about a canvas, when you get a canvas, what is it?

It's kind of like that off white or a complete white background.

And so it is just plain, just to the point.

And that's what my classroom was.

What I had an opportunity to do though is, is to use colors in very interesting ways in my classrooms, to make the walls pop, to make the classroom engaging, exciting through using interesting colors together.

And so I, I, I love bright colors that can help do that.

And the third thing is silly signs.

I, there's nothing like a good laugh to break the ice and to spread joy in a space I have in my classroom.

One sign that makes me laugh every time.

It's a no farting sign.

And boy, I've had a lot of teachers comment on it, laughing about it.

It's, this is, it's like, it's a random, you're looking, you're on.

Like if you're in my classroom looking around and kind of seeing the different resources on the wall that are used for teaching tools and then you come across a sign that says no farting.

And I also have other signs in my room that can make a person laugh.

Like, like don't pet like alligators or don't swim within, like with sharks.

Just different things.

Don't pet the, the fluffy animals.

And it's like bears.

It's just things that is this kind of playful and fun, this light hearted that can, someone can read them and it can make them smile.

It can, it can even make them maybe laugh to themselves a little bit.

Love, love.

Things like that.

All right, well, let's get into Shifting back now into Allison Edwards.

Talk about growing up strong.

Now, first thing that I appreciated was when I came into the, to the presentation space before Allison had started presenting, she, well, the, the school district handed me a book.

She's got a book and the name of the book is actually Growing up Strong.

Empowering Young Minds to Manage emotions, Navigate conflict and Embrace Growth.

That's the name of the book.

And just looking at it here, some of the big key areas that she addresses in it is she's got one chapter all about why feelings matter.

And she talked about in her presentation about why feelings matter, she talked about in a chapter about the five feelings that kids need to manage before age 18.

And these feelings are, I have to agree with them.

I have to agree with them.

They are, one is worry a feeling?

Two is sadness feeling.

Three is anger feeling.

Four is disappointment feeling.

Five is loneliness.

So worry, sadness, anger, disappointment, loneliness.

And it's interesting you look at another chapter about it's he's got a process for managing feelings, the, the fit method.

In other words, like identify what you're feeling, kind of rate your intensity, name the trigger and then choose a strategy for dealing with that feeling.

And then another chapter, another big chapter is Building Emotional Muscles.

Short Term discomfort for Long term comfort.

Isn't that an interesting thought?

Short Term discomfort for Long term comfort.

How to help kids manage short term discomfort at home and how to help kids manage short term discomfort at school.

And then just ultimately looking at mental health journeys.

This looks like a great book.

I'm.

I'm.

I'm looking at this book here and I, I'm excited.

I'm excited to dig into it.

I, I really enjoyed Allison Edwards her talk when she was here.

She's.

She was based actually so she was based out of Tennessee.

She lived in Tennessee for, for quite a while and now she, she moved her family to Portugal and that was interesting to hear her journey there.

Wow.

Is so what I, I'm going to do.

I'm going to spend some time here is I'm just going to go through some of the.

My notes from the presentation and, and just kind of like a kind of a reflective.

This, this, this podcast episode is more just kind of reflecting on it.

I'm kind of talking aloud my.

Maybe some reactions or some ahas or things that I liked that she said.

And maybe there's something as I'm kind of going through and reflecting on the notes that I took because I took so many notes here.

I won't share every little thing here, but maybe there's something that I'll, I'll share that you might catch your attention here as I just kind of go through and, and look at my notes from her from her talk from her presentation.

I listen.

She talked about seems okay.

She talked about how kids are struggling with.

It seems like kids are struggling to do hard things and that the.

There's a mental health need around that area.

She actually talked about the sur.

There was a surgeon general that said that parenting can be bad for your health because of you know, some of the challenges we face with, with parenting and, and how emotionally taxing it is.

And you know there's.

I love being a parent.

I love being a parent.

I love being a teacher.

However I do know it comes with.

It is emotionally taxing on us.

Emotionally draining.

We.

We do deal.

Allison had talked about there's so many challenges we face as educators around mental health and, and that even students don't even accept students have a hard time with.

With.

With resilience with.

And she defines resilience as the ability to manage uncomfortable feelings and the ability to oh and then and she talked about that that it's so important for young people to be able to, to manage discomfort.

And that happiness truly is a privilege.

Right?

Like, like it, it's not something that we're guaranteed in this life.

It's.

It's a privilege.

And that to, to raise kids who are strong.

Raise.

To raise kids who are strong, we need to teach kids that short term discomfort is okay.

Short.

And, and I, I see we're kind of looking through Allison's, the contents of her book and what she said in her, her presentation.

She absolutely stressed how short term discomfort can convert to long term comfort.

And, and to do a hard thing.

If you have to face a hard thing and, and then you can face the benefit of doing that hard thing.

That's where the true happiness is.

That's, that's where, where the happiness lies and that doing hard things is important.

That's, that's how Allison opened it was talking about the power of being able to do hard things.

Allison talked about really three types of models for how we interact with kids.

One is hey, buck up.

Right?

Got to get over it.

Hey, it's not a big deal.

Or, or you know, let's, let's stop crying now.

The, a second area.

But, but I think that I'm reflecting.

I think I kind of grew up in oh boy.

My, my parents were sometimes the buck, buck up, like hey, let's, let's go type of a thing.

I, I almost think they were, they, they were good about all three of these areas that I'm going to talk about that Allison talked about.

So sometimes they were buck up, sometimes they were the, the bubble wrap where I'll take care of may be too hard.

You, you, you don't have to go.

I, I think my parents kind of played around with that area when I think about my parents parenting style.

But I don't think that they, they.

That was really them.

The bubble wrap where I think like you wrap kids in bubble wrap and you try to protect them from anything and everything in life that just wasn't necess.

You know, they did a few times in life and, and I think they realized that hey, it's maybe that's not the best approach.

I think me as a parent too, I, I've experimented with that and that, that is not, not a way that I think is sustainable.

But I also think that the buck up doesn't.

So you have the buck up approach.

Hey, just get over it.

And you almost discard kids challenges.

The bubble wrap.

You try to protect kids from all challenges.

And then the third one that she talked about is scaffolding how can I support you?

Type of thinking this thinking of, I think you can do it.

I believe in you.

I, I, I think that's where my parents were mostly at.

And, and, and if we're being honest, I think most there, there, there's a lot of great parenting that goes on and there's parents who make mistakes and par.

But it doesn't work and so they try other things.

I think my, so I think my parents kind of experimented with all three of those, the buck up, the bubble wrap, and the scaffolding.

I think ultimately where they mostly were at, when I think about my parents and the, the support they gave my, my brother and me is the, the scaffolding.

I think they kind of floated between buck up and, and scaffolding, but they, they, they tried to do more scaffolding, but sometimes they would resort to buck up.

I don't know where your family, you know, think about your, your parents or your family or your guardians, where, where they were at.

You know, I think of even as a teacher, like, what type of approach I'm going to take as a teacher.

I, because you can apply these three methods at adults, any adults working with kids really, like, are you the, the buck up person?

Are you the bubble wrap person?

Are you the scaffolding person?

I absolutely want to be the scaffolding person where I think that you show love, you show support, but you're also not going to take away struggles from kids and take away those learning opportunities from kids.

I think that's what Allison was getting at with talking about these three models, which I found very, very fascinating, and that there's so many lessons that young people have to learn before they turn 18.

It goes back to managing those, those five feelings.

The worry, the sadness, the anger, the disappointment, the loneliness.

Teaching kids to manage those five feelings before they're 18, it's pretty powerful.

It's pretty important.

And then if they can manage those five feelings, they understand those feelings and they can manage them, they're going to be much more likely to have lifelong success.

Not a perfect life, not, not a life that doesn't have challenges in it, but a life that they know that they can do hard things and that, that they may face those emotions in life.

The worry, the sadness, the anger, the disappointment and loneliness.

But those emotion, those feelings won't drown them because we don't want kids drowning in their feelings.

And we do have kids who are drowning in their feelings and, and feel hopeless.

And we, we don't want kids to be in that state.

I, we Want kids to have, to struggle and to meet struggles and, and to work through those challenges and, and to come out successful.

And one of the things that that is sometimes misses that Allison talked about the concept that the world does not care.

Now kids think that everyone cares, but the world doesn't care.

And the world will bypass you by.

And that we have to be real careful about that.

People care, but as a whole, the world doesn't care is what she was, she was getting at.

You know, the world doesn't care about worry, sadness, anger, disappointment, loneliness of an individual and that, but, but kids think that it's, it's, oh, everybody cares or everybody cares about.

You know, I think of like, you know, like, like every person thinks they're special.

Right?

Like, I realize, you know, I think I'm, I'm, I'm a talented and gifted individual when it comes to teaching, but I'm not more, that doesn't make me more special than anyone else.

You know, it is, it's, I'm no more special than another human being, even though have some talents and gifts doesn't make me more special.

And that's, I think, where Allison was getting at.

Oh, this concept.

Oh, Allison talked about the importance of being stable at home but allowing students to have challenges in the world so they can go out into the world.

They can face challenges and obstacles, but then there's a stable home environment and how important that is.

Oh, the import.

I'm looking, I'm just going through my notes here.

And Allison talked about the importance of modeling boundaries.

Modeling boundaries sets kids up for success.

And so Allison talked about, don't be the educator that rescues and saves kids all the time where like, you don't let them face consequences of their own actions.

Kids have to face the consequences of their own actions.

And not that you're not there for kids and that you're not supporting kids, but don't bail them out or think that you're going to rescue them and that you're doing them a service.

You know, this is an area where, where I'm conflicted because I, I actually, I actually think that there are, you can rescue.

I don't, I'm, I'm kind of going back and forth in this, and I actually wanted to ask Allison about this.

I, I, I would argue that everyone deserves, you know, a rescue moment once in a while.

Not all the time, but because it can become habit really fast if you're rescuing kids.

But sometimes, hey, you know, I'll give an example.

You know, my, my wife has gotten or my daughter has forgotten something at, at home that she needed for school and my wife has gotten it to her.

Well, she's done that like once, maybe twice at the most in her educational career.

She My daughter's in high school but that's not become a habit and my wife made it very clear that that wasn't going to be something that she was going to do for her constantly.

And so she's helped her out a few times but has made it told her hey, this isn't going to happen.

This is not going to be a regular thing.

I think of you know, so, so I think once in a while hey, we got to help each other out.

Kind of kind of got to bail each other out once in a while to help each other.

I don't think it can be an all or nothing.

There is a little bit of a gray area but we have to be really careful not to let those boundaries.

Now Allison would, I think Allison kind of drew more of a tighter line on that saying hey, let's, let's.

We've got to really.

I almost got the feeling that, that Allison says we got to almost not do it at all.

And she's not here to ask that to right now.

But that was, that was one part of her talk that I kind of had mixed feelings on because I think that if you have a.

Just a good kid who's taking care of his business or her business and, and, and you know what they.

Sometimes a human being can be absent minded and and sometimes we need just a reminder we're doing because you know, is this sometimes we make a mistake.

We're, we're flawed human beings and, and I think that hey, you know, if we can help each other out sometimes with bailing each other out once in a while as long as it doesn't become where we depend on someone to rescue us all the time.

And so that's kind of where I stand in that.

But overall I, I think I, I have to agree with Allison that if you do she had this thinking that if you protect kids from struggles that they won't grow emotionally.

And I do think that you know, hey, if, if I'm rescuing kids all the time, if I'm looking at a way to rescue a kid on a regular basis, yeah, that child's not going to learn how to learn from that struggle and going to use me as, as someone who is is going to going to rescue them.

And in fact then I'm using that bubble wrap type of, type of, of approach to rescue A kid which isn't good if you're, if you're bubble wrapping kids all the time.

So looking here, continuing to look through my notes here, how she talked about how there's, you know, kids can, you know, if someone's dealing with.

She had talked a lot about anxiety and anxiety is ultimately like worrying.

Like if you have, there's long term consequences.

If you, if one of your strategies is avoiding something, if you have anxiety, if you're worrying a lot and anxiety ultimately is, Allison said it's a negative story about the future.

And so like if you, your approach to dealing with that anxiety is just going to avoid it, there's long term consequences with that that, that aren't necessarily good.

The, the now if you face a challenge, if you're worrying about something, if you have anxiety about something and you have those negative, you have that negative story going in your head.

But if you face it and you, and, and you don't avoid it, but you face the challenge or the obstacle that you got to go, go through your anxiety then will go down and your confidence will go up when you move through it.

And that you, you know, that, that was a great point that I, that it thought about because I, when, when I, when I've been worrying about something and I have faced a challenge, I, I completely have experienced that.

I know that there's kids too.

When I've had kids do big projects, performances and after the project or after the big performance, man, their, their worry goes down and boy are they feeling very proud of themselves and feeling very accomplished.

And that's, that's life and that's, that, that's a part of that worry and how, how, what will happen if you rise to the occasion and face a challenge.

So let me see here.

It's ah.

Allison talked about bursts of neuroplasticity and how, you know, we, we think about the brain changing when someone's really young.

You know, I mean like, but like those first years of life, the neuroplasticity where you know, kids are just sponges.

But Allison talked about the, a second burst of neuroplasticity happening when kids are teenagers and that they're going through weird stuff, their bodies are going through weird changes and that's an opportunity because of that neuroplasticity where we can shape it and grow it and create opportunities for students to thrive through helping them face hard things, through giving them support and, and guidance in those areas.

Allison talked about how the world has not been for you.

And I guess I, that was a Note I written down when she was talking more about how be careful like rescuing kids from their own consequences of their actions.

She also said that kids won't tell you when you're right and boy do I do I know that where, where if you know we're it's kind.

The joke is hey, kids know everything and, and parents know nothing.

Right?

It's kids won't tell you when you're right.

Like when once they realize you are right they're not going to come around and say yeah you were right, I was wrong.

That that's a very mature adult type of thing saying when, when a child says you're right, you know, it's so hard for them to do and rarely will that happen.

Allison talked about how important it is for, for early intervention teaching students like self advocacy, problem solving skills, empathy, self esteem, coping strategies, how to deal with worry that in providing intervention on those before they're 18 and how important that is versus like if you don't do any intervention at all and how if you don't provide any sort of intervention like the worst case scenario is kids will get into self harm.

Kids will get into substance abuse and screen addictions and displace anger or have avoidance facing things or it's like worry will consume them.

And so I think of I appreciated Allison saying that because does validate the, the work that I'm doing and, and there how I, I, I have always leaned in to mental health and trying to focus on not just teaching students academics but really looking at children as a whole children and recognizing that their mental health does matter.

Their, their emotional, their emotions and their feelings do matter and that we, we, we have to if you don't address that first and foremost and, and really layer that into a classroom there, there, there's going to be, we're not going to be as effective as educators as we could possibly have been.

And, and Allison actually mentioned too mentioned about how negative thoughts make ruts in the brain.

That's right.

Negative thoughts make ruts in the brain.

And I think of when you, when you have that inner dialogue and, and I tell fifth graders all the time that hey, that when, when you talk harshly to yourself I talk to them about their inner voice and, and, and how we are our own worst enemy because sometimes nobody talks harsher to ourselves.

No, nobody talks harsher to us than ourselves.

I, I talk to students about, and I talk to students about being aware of that and, and about being aware of saying kind things to yourself and encouraging things to yourself instead of calling Yourself a worthless piece of garbage.

And that inner dialogue where you put yourself down it, because those negative thoughts create ruts.

And I wrote that down.

I almost should hang that up in my classroom.

That negative thoughts make ruts in the brain.

And what do ruts do?

Ruts make a mess of something and they stay there, and they're hard to get rid of.

They're hard to smooth out.

Like I've had.

Had.

I've had different.

I. I just had.

Not too long ago, they had a fiber optic company was out putting some stuff in my lawn, and they ran this heavy equipment through my lawn and put big old ruts in my lawn.

And I wasn't very happy about it because those are hard to get out and those are damaging to.

To a lawn.

Well, negative thoughts damage the brain and really are hard in a brain and hard to get rid of and so kind of, you know, make that connection there.

All right, so going through more of my notes here.

Allison talked about emotions being more unconscious, more physical and short term and observable.

Looking here.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Emotions.

There, there you can see emotions.

You can see someone upset.

But feelings, Feelings can.

Are more conscious and they're more mental and long term, and they can be hidden.

So I think about, like, worry, sadness, anger, disappointment, loneliness.

Those are feelings.

And you don't always realize kids are dealing with them versus emotions.

You can clearly see them.

I, I appreciated Allison talking about the difference between emotions and feelings and that it's okay for us to have filler.

It's okay for us to have our emotions.

It's okay for us to have our feelings.

They're two different things.

But it's okay for us to experience both as long as it's in a way that is.

Yeah, I, and I think if she was here, she'd say, well, you got to be careful.

It's okay as long as it's done in a way that's not a destructive way.

Destructive to a career, destructive to another person, destructive to oneself.

You know, it's okay to be upset, it's okay to be sad, it's okay to be mad.

It's okay to.

It's okay to have emotions.

Once again, emotions are unconscious.

They're physical, short term, observable.

Maybe if someone's flustered about some changes in a plan, they're feeling their emotion or they're experiencing their emotions.

Right.

Versus the feelings that are conscious, mental, long term, and hidden.

I appreciated Allison differentiating those two.

And because that kind of gets me, helps me kind of break, kind of help Differentiate that the, the mental health aspect of what I'm seeing and what kids are experiencing.

Because if we can as educators, if we can help, if we can understand what kids are, are experiencing, it can help us to support them.

She, she had.

Allison talked about a full tank versus a half tank.

Like where kids are coming with full tanks, full tanks of this life.

Like they're, they're coming just filled up.

There's so much going on and, and they're, it almost like, it like life because of everything they're experiencing.

Sometimes kids will come and they'll show, you know, maybe inappropriate emotions were like, they're, they're being very aggressive and not listening because they're, they're so emotional.

And then, you know, you dig in deeper and there, there's feelings there that they have that, that are being, coming out through their emotions.

And so looking at full tank versus half tank is really interesting how you know, Allison talked about like, like exercise or going for a walk.

Like how do you get someone to like, maybe not like if someone's dealing with a lot, like how do you help lower that tank so it doesn't spill over and make a mess?

Type of, type of thinking.

And I would say like myself, I love, I enjoy going for a walk, but more importantly, I love to go for, I love to go paddleboarding, paddle boarding, stand up, paddling is like my jam.

Like I, it can transform how I'm feeling about something and I love it, love it, love it so much.

And it can just calm me and it can take my, my tank.

If I'm feeling very restless or very, if I'm feeling very, let's say if I'm, if I'm worrying, if my feelings, if I'm worrying about something and that's coming out through, maybe through.

I'm pacing a lot or I'm restless, my emotions, I'm, I'm, I'm maybe a little bit shorter with someone I can, I can navigate that full tank and get it more into a half tank by half tank, like getting rid of some of that so it doesn't spill in other people by once again taking care of doing something physically with paddleboarding.

So Allison talked about, you know, how teaching kids to, to, to do things that can, there can kind of take them from a full tank mentally to more of a half tank mentally.

And so then there's room for them to be successful and to do what they have to do.

Right.

Like, like I think of kids coming to school who are on full tanks.

They're going to struggle to come into the classroom and sit and focus on.

On reading and math.

And.

And so my challenge is to start thinking about, is there something I can do to get kids more into that half tank type of state?

And I also do some thinking on that because that everything that Allison said is so powerful, and I want to spend some more time on it.

Even though she's not here anymore and she's.

She's done speaking at our school.

My challenge is what can I do to take care of myself, get my tank when I'm feeling full to more of a half tank, and how can I help my students?

How can I support my students to get them to more of a half tank, where then they have space to.

To learn and to thrive in the classroom?

Now, Allison did talk about how kids will test you.

They will test you to see if you're safe.

And that kind of ties in with the feelings.

But when kids are really up in their emotions, if kids aren't feeling safe, they're going to test you.

But then kids don't really necessarily care about emotions, and emotions can scare people.

If kids are acting almost unhinged and almost erratic or screaming and yelling, you know, those are some emotions.

You have some feelings that are coming out as emotions that.

Some behavioral emotions that.

That are very scary if.

Or if someone is.

Has a panic attack and they just kind of completely freeze up, you know, the.

The.

Those that worrying really equates to someone having a panic attack is an emotion from.

Based on how I understand it being explained by Alice.

And then.

And then it.

That can get scary too, you know, if you don't feel like you can help that person.

So really interesting how Allison presented this stuff and put this together.

Allison talked about her own worries and her own.

How worry has really shaped her own life and how she worries about people.

And her worry about people has impacted her.

It's.

It's really.

And even her own worry led her to moving her family to Portugal from Nashville.

This because she.

She was struggling with.

With feeling like she wasn't meeting her own children's needs by not being there for them enough.

She was being there for all of these other people, these other children through her own practice, but not there enough for her own children.

And.

And because of that, you know, she made a drastic change, which I have mad respect for.

If she had to do what she had to do, that.

That's great.

I.

As I'm sitting here just looking through my notes here.

Yeah, I. I appreciated.

Allison talked about Harry Potter, the writing of Harry Potter.

And how J.K. rowling wrote Harry Potter in she wrote it during the worst time of her life when she was in the Harry Potter came from some dark feelings.

And, and actually J.K. rowling turned those dark feelings into something really fantastic through this Harry Potter series.

And so in that Harry Potter had some, her, some of her own mental health challenges.

And so don't.

And so just.

And so her point to that was, you know, J.K. rowling didn't avoid, didn't use avoidance as a strategy to deal with her own mental health when she was, had an abusive husband and was facing poverty.

She didn't face those challenges by avoiding.

She transformed her.

She transformed and made something really quite amazing.

And so I appreciated Allison saying that and teaching kids to use how to turn like a root feeling into a super skill.

Like if you have, if you're worrying, if, if you're feeling sadness, if you're dealing with anger or disappointment or loneliness, how do you turn those into a super skill, into something that can be beneficial and that can help, that can be helpful.

It's it.

So she spent a lot of that time.

She spent a lot of that time.

I recommend y' all need to get her book.

I do because she, she goes in depth talking about different strategies for dealing with those different, those, those key feelings.

The worry, the sadness, the, the ang.

Let me say it again.

The worry, sadness, anger, disappointment and loneliness.

She has a, she has a.

She.

Yeah.

I'm looking at her book again.

She has a coping strategy for at home and a coping strategy for at school for, for each of those five feelings.

And that it's so important to help kids so, so coping strategies can really help kids to take once how like a root feeling and turn it into a super skill in order to be successful.

Like J.K. rowling took her mental health challenges her the feelings that she was having and, and turn it into something that, that was transformational and impactful.

The Harry Potter series.

Right.

So that, that was, that's where she's, she was making that connection.

And so I, I, I am definitely going to spend some time in this book the growing up strong.

I'm saying if there's there there's a couple.

Allison talked about the importance of focusing on soft skills and, and promoting soft skills in our classrooms, spending time with soft skills and, and that she gave a very interesting statistic and be interesting to see where that came from.

I know she, she, she probably has a source to it but she said 60% of kids who drop out of school or school specifically College is because of mental health issues.

And now the biggest one that she talked about is anxiety, worry.

And that one of the things she said about anxiety and worry is you manage that by reciting stories.

So like rewriting those stories that, that, that we tell ourselves.

She talked about sadness is when kids focus on one thing from the past and not let go.

That's kind of sadness, depression.

If I. Oh, she spent some time talking about depression kind of is.

Kind of ties in with that sadness.

Finding it easier to point the one thing to blame over and over and over again.

Anger can be very harmful.

She talked about, because it's, it can, it can result from shame and guilt and jealousy and looking at what's underneath that anger.

You know, I, I have a thing in my, in my classroom that is pretty powerful that, that gets into, like what, what is.

And actually my grief therapist gave it to me when my mom died.

When my mom died, I, I struggled for well over a year with, with my feelings and I was afraid it was going to spill over into my emotions and showing up for my family as a leader for my family, as a, as a support system for my family.

So I ended up getting into some grief therapy because I, I wanted to get some guidance on navigating those feelings, navigating those emotions that I was having.

And one of the things, one of the, the feelings my grief therapist talked about was anger because I was angry.

I was angry at God, I was angry at just life because of my mom dying.

My biggest support system in life, my mom, you know, when I look now, now, you know, my wife is a mega support system.

My, my, my, my, my dad, my brother, you know, I, I have such a great support system in my life, but my mom was from, from.

My mom just knew what to say as, as a support system through my life.

She could just say just the right things and frame things in just the right way.

That.

It just was transformational to me.

She was, she was the ultimate when it came to like scaffolding.

I mean, she had that figured out.

I mean, she, we talked, I mentioned.

She kind of floated between.

Sometimes he had to tell me to buck up.

But ultimately she, she was the game when it came to, to scaffolding and, and helping support me.

I, I think she was ahead of her time in understanding that.

But I dealt.

One of the, one of the feelings I was dealing with is anger.

And, and so she gave me this, this, this.

I actually have my classrooms.

I can help when I'm working with kids.

What are some feelings that you have or like, what's underneath anger?

Like, what are some, some.

What are things.

Some things that can lead to that feeling of anger?

Well, here it says.

I'm looking at it here, and this is actually from a website called therapistaid.com and sadness, disappointment, lonely, overwhelmed, embarrassed, hurt, helpless.

Pain, frustrated, insecure, hungry.

Grief, anxiety, stress, threatened, tired, contempt, guilt, jealous, scared, shame.

Like, those are all the things that can be under that are underground.

And there's actually a picture of like an iceberg.

Like, you know, like in this, like the tip of the iceberg, you know, is a, you know, famous saying.

You know, you see just a tip sticking out of the water, you know, and a ship might see a, just the tip of the iceberg sticking out in like, ice cold water, and you see anger.

But then underneath that is this mega iceberg where a majority of that iceberg is actually underwater.

And so if you see a big old chunk of ice in the water, it is much bigger than what you're actually seeing.

There's so much more to it underneath the surface.

And so I have that visual in my classroom that I hung up for my grief therapist because I deal with sometimes kids who are angry, and it helps me to remember that, hey, there.

There's a lot more to a kid being angry than just being angry.

There's.

There's something more to it.

There was.

And so when I was dealing with, with anger as a feeling of my mom's loss, the grief therapist was helping me to kind of understand that.

And so I, as educators, we have to understand there's so much more to kids feeling angry than just, hey, kids are angry and they, they need to buck up and not be angry.

No, that there's.

We got, we got to do better than that.

All right?

So.

Oh, disappointment, disappointment, disappointment.

Allison talk.

You know, sometimes we face, we all face disappointment.

You can't get out of life without feeling disappointment.

Where your expectations.

Disappointment is when your expectations really do not meet the reality of a situation.

And so Allison talked a lot about how, how do you help a kid kind of do that?

Well, you look at like, if a kid, it has an expectation about something, you help them to re.

You help them thinking about what are some possible outcomes that could happen.

And one of the examples she gave is, is in, in private practice where she was helping a, A, a boy think about different possibilities.

I, I think it was up.

I think it was in her private practice, her helping a, a young man who is considering asking a girl to prom or so.

So this young man wanted to ask this young lady, this.

And.

And he just for a while had it, like, for sure she was going to say yes.

Well, they kind of talk through, like, what are some possible outcomes?

I could.

So they ultimately, when we help kids think, hey, what, you know, this is what you want to have happen.

What if this happens?

Well, what if that happens?

What if.

What if it doesn't happen exactly how you want it to happen?

Then what?

And that.

That is, that is okay to have to be thinking about different possible outcomes.

And that helps actually kids deal with disappointment when they've already thought through that there are different possible outcomes.

That is actually a strategy that, that I, I've gotten a lot better at through the years, and I've actually use that with my own children.

Hey, some possible.

What is this?

Okay, you want this to happen, but what if, you know, we talk about what are some things that could happen?

What's the worst that could happen?

What's the best that could happen?

Kind of go through that with them and, and through some of those conversations.

And we've got to do that with kids.

We.

We've got to do that with kids, and it'll help them to.

To kind of manage that disappointment feeling.

Disappointment is the ability to handle any result.

Don't get your hopes up like, like, you know, shoot for the stars, right?

Like, but.

But also being able to, like, if you're disappointed that you can handle the result if it's not what you want, and not without falling apart and then you.

Oh, and then this lonely loneliness.

Kids.

Loneliness is.

It really hits kids who don't fit in.

They don't have friends or family of origin or they don't accept themselves.

Kids.

And then kids can get into trying to connect with other people online and that no matter what kids are going through, we as educators, so it's so important for us to give them a safe, stable environment in our classrooms, thinking without approaching them with a critical tone.

And so, And I know I've had kids who are lonely and have faced some of those challenges.

One of the, One of the things, the best thing of all, I think what Allison shared was there's a message to send to all of the students that we work with.

This is the message.

I see you, I hear you, I accept you.

I love that.

I love that.

Well, we're helping kids to manage their emotions to, To.

To manage their, Their, Their.

Their feelings and to experience discomfort in the process.

We still need to send a message to our students that, hey, I see you, I hear you, and I accept you.

That was some takeaways there.

That, that's a.

Like, if you take anything else from my podcast, let students know that you hear them, you see them, you hear them, and you accept them.

You do that, and you're going to be so much more successful with students than if you don't do that.

And I am going to still be digging into this book, growing up strong and spending some time here because I don't know, this might be one of my.

My new favorite nonfiction books, and I haven't even read it yet, but I dig this stuff.

I see the power in it, and I want to continue to bring in this type of stuff into my classroom and that this approach that I bring into my teaching because I know it will impact students.

So with that being said, so grateful that I got to.

I actually got to meet Allison Edwards at the end.

I went up and shook her hand afterwards and let her know that I appreciated her.

I'm going to dig into her content even more.

This book.

Check it out.

I encourage you to check out her book Growing Up Strong.

I'm going to be digging in and reading it and.

And applying it even more.

As I continue to.

As I continue to.

To learn more.

As I continue to learn more, I can do better and still impact students.

And isn't that what we want to do?

We want to continue to learn and grow and impact students.

When we know better, we can do better.

Right?

So with that being said, I want you to remember to inspire greatness in young people.

And don't forget to be a funky teacher.

Bye now.

He's Mr. Funky Teacher yeah, he's Mr. Funky Teacher yeah, yeah, yeah.