Stance of Curiosity
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.
Episodes
18 episodes
Who's Afraid of What? What to do when team interactions get dicey
Gilian shares her strategy of processing adult interactions that don’t go as expected, including at times conflict and defensiveness. Stepping back to consider how fear may be inspiring our responses and re-approaching the interactions wi...
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48:14
Social Humility: Replacing confusion with curiosity. Featuring Aaron Lanou!
The podcast welcomes our second guest, Aaron Lanou! Aaron is one of Gillian's longtime favorite colleagues and thought partners, and you can read all about his work here:In brief, Aaro...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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55:18
What do we think about technology use among kids and teens now?
Gillian and Joelle discuss their ever-evolving professional opinions on technology, social media, and video gaming use among elementary, middle, and high school students. While it may seem clear what schools should do in elementary and mi...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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42:52
Finding Hope in Simplicity and Connection. Featuring our first *guest!*
Joelle and Gillian welcome their first guest to the Podcast! Meet Roger, a teacher in the Maryland/DC area. Roger shares his approaches to supporting students in the context of heightened stress and certainty. He shares a stra...
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52:41
What is PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent Drive for Autonomy) and is it a new thing?
Gillian and Joelle talk about the framework of PDA and how it can both reinforce approaches we have long-used very wisely, as well as inspire some new ways of understanding student responses and needs. As with any new concept, we can temp...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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39:09
Common mistakes to avoid and interpersonal tweaks to try when fostering connection with stressed kids
Gillian and Joelle chat about frequent suggestions that they make to school teams to support students who are strugging to cope effectively. They talk about the specific ways that we can approach a stressed person to help assure their nee...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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42:07
Staying Curious and Presuming Competence With Non-Speaking Learners
Gillian 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...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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35:24
Let Them Be Special!
In 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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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39:06
How do you cope when uncertainty and change become constant?
A 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 y...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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41:56
What if it's not the time to have an emotion?
Gillian 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 b...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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42:50
Why should play be prioritized in school?
Gillian 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 br...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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36:16
How and when to tell kids about an autism diagnosis?
Joelle 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 des...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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38:01
Vibe Check! Teaching the skills of self-monitoring and situational awareness
Gillian 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.&nb...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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46:17
Two More "Go-To" Interventions
Joelle 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 callin...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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35:12
Our Go-To Strategies!
Gillian & 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 engageme...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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36:52
How do we know if we are helping or making things harder?
Joelle & 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. Es...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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41:50
Navigating Impossible Expectations: The Power of Curiosity in Education
In which Joelle and Gillian think they are doing a dress rehearsal for the first episode but surprise themselves and the world by identifying a bit of a mission statement of their work and of this podcast thereby stumbling upon a real ep...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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46:19