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.  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.  

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Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/

Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/

Transcript

All right, welcome back to this dance of curiosity. I'm Gillian, I'm Joelle. Hi everyone, hi. We're so glad to be back with you today. Um, okay. So Joelle, tell me again about the brilliant thing you were saying about this skill, right? So all the way from kindergarten through high school, lately this school year people have been talking about specific concerns around student behavior or student need for adult regulation and the skill that seems to be the thread that connects all of these various concerns is what you could either call self-monitoring, which is an executive functioning skill where you're as you're moving through A situation you sort of have a bird's eye on, you of

yourself, and you're noticing as you're acting like either maybe you're having a conversation, maybe you're telling a joke, maybe you're entering a room, maybe you're driving a car, whatever it is, you're what you know, what you know, what your action is, and what your goal is, and you're noticing are all are your actions serving you well in accomplishing your goal. And like if you're telling a joke and somebody's face shifts unexpectedly, you might shift gears and like wrap it up quick if you realized oh this is not the right joke for this audience, you might wrap it up quick and then change the Subject without having to stop and actually like process or what, and if you know, so, so that's self-monitoring, and then that, I think, I've also heard it called situational awareness, which might be the same skill, or situational awareness might be just a little bit different, but it's a little bit different.

But it's a little bit self-monitoring. How I've heard situational awareness spoken of is like when you're entering a room for example, a student is out getting some support, returning to the classroom, and just walking in, kind of like with a kind of like um presentation, and not noticing the vibe of the group so um, I thought. Of an example of how I might not have exhibited situational awareness or self-monitoring: one time I gave a big presentation, which requires you to be in presenter mode where you're like animated and you're projecting your voice and your energy is really high. So I did like a two-hour presentation, got in my car driving back to my office, stopped at a gas station filled up my car, went into the gas station to buy and I was talking to everyone.

I was really at a loud volume; I was very animated. I got my snack, got back in the car, and I was like 'I don't think that that like voice volume energy or like like manner of interacting matched The grocery store vibe at all, and I don't know what other people are thinking or feeling about it. I don't know what other people are thinking about it; I don't know what other people are feeling about me. It doesn't really matter, but I need to like take some deep breaths and like tone it down. Um, after I've been giving a presentation before I have my next like human interaction, so what I was doing was like totally appropriate for the for the first situation, but not the second.

Oh okay, so that also means we're talking about the executive functioning skill of shifting uh-huh, right? So, so far, what's involved in this, right? We've got, like, you know, self-monitoring situational awareness shifting. I don't use those, but I do feel the need to share a very recent self-monitoring problem where, hilariously, my 'catch' made it worse as it sometimes does. Um, I had a little bit of a cold and no, it actually wasn't a cold; it was allergy so my head was a little foggy and I had a little bit of a stuffy nose. And um, I was at a coffee shop going to my office and there was a little bit of a stuffy nose and I was at a coffee shop going to my office and there was a song on the loudspeaker that I really hadn't heard since I was like four.

It's it was this very deep 80s, like you belong to the city, there's like all this saxophone in it, but as a little girl I really used to just like strut around my house feeling like I like belonged to the city and to the night. Um, and so internally I got like really excited to hear this song, and there's this one part you know that just has this like nice wail to it, that I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I didn't know that I was at risk of singing along to it in the middle of this coffee shop but I forgot that with the stuffier nose I wasn't gonna have you know. Usually I can sing really under my breath because I do.

need to sing all the time, but it actually came out rather loud so it was a bit of a 'you belong in the middle of this' and the gentleman next to me visibly jumped. Nice nice and then what I did in response to him visually jumping was I said, 'I'm supposed to say to my head, I said it out loud: Don't sing! Don't sing! Don't sing! Oh, you did like self-talk right? Like, out loud, not in your thought bubble. I love it; made this gentleman even more nervous, and then I fled. Yeah, I'm fairly certain I made all the people in the gas station nervous either about was i okay or maybe should I be driving a vehicle. I'm not sure like but i it was pretty... I was...

I Was pretty like I was still the center of attention, yeah, yes, right. I had been presenting, yeah, yeah, right. So obviously it can happen, like even when you have this, I think that's a really important point. Like, we and I typically are because, like, we're psychologists and we have helping professional jobs; we practice the skill of shifting and matching the situation and our conversational partner. We practice that constantly, so we were trained with that, and we practice it, so we're actually probably both, especially good at that. And then yet, still there's moments where we totally like aren't; we are not exhibiting. A skill that we actually possess, so lots of situations are coming up where I feel like students are being told that they're disrespectful or they're being disruptive.

But I don't actually think they have the skill. So when you say someone is being disrespectful or disruptive, I think that means you know that they have a capacity for self-monitoring or situational awareness and that they are aware of what, how, what they are doing is in fact going to disrupt and not match like the group plan and and that you're doing it with the intention of causing others to feel bad or not be able to um engage, you know, like accomplish their goal which is and i think i'm watching um students faces kind of look around like like what like a classic example is students walking across room students has low situational awareness student trips over a student who's sitting on the floor and in processing student says that other person came out of bed and they're like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so

nowhere yeah well no they were like sitting there the whole time but like you're you were not aware of them so from your perception it was shocking that like a person was was there so it's just i just think it's really important to like back Up and teach that skill, and then always just assume that it was you in the coffee shop or me in the coffee shop or me in the coffee shop gas station, and if we had needed some kind of redirection or support. It's not like Jillian, you're disrupting everyone's coffee or you're being so disrespectful to the entire coffee shop. You would have felt horrible and and it would have been really hard for you to shift your behavior and recover if if the if the person next to you instead of being startled had turned to you and said 'you're ruining everyone's coffee experience' or even like 'shut up right' or anything sort of combative or Aggressive, right?

I'm like, 'Oh my god, there's so much in this now my mind's going so quickly.' Thanks for bringing this up on purpose. One nuance on the on-purpose part is that I think it's really tricky because I think the start of most behaviors like that are a lack of self-monitoring, but then I think if it does result in a lack of self-monitoring, then it's a lack of self-monitoring-a negative response the person may double down out of shame and anger. So, I I really have a lot of compassion for educators, that is like of to some degree, of course we would assume that this is volitional because as a defensive strategy it might come volitionally. But, it or it might there might be a secondary game, so I didn't mean to come in like a bull and it's trying to

shop, but everybody started laughing and now I realized, like, bull in a china shop entrance makes my friends laugh, which is a dopamine burst, quite rewarding, so then the second, third, and fourth time there is actually some intention behind it. Oh, right! So, it's like, what do we do about the fact that at the beginning, it's almost never intentional? Right, like we're all having perceptual challenges all the time even as adults, right? Let alone for one, our kids, and for two, are let's face it, right? Still processing the developmental Gaps of the the years of intense COVID time, um, so like I'm almost thinking where do we catch it right? Like what would the ideal be?

Would the ideal be that we all are just so regulated and so ready that if I sort of go back to like the language of like unexpected behavior, which someone who works a lot with autism like, it turned out that there was some difficulty with expected, unexpected, and we ended up just using that for good versus bad. But if we, you know, so that model maybe ended up drifting into just new words for but if we really do come back to thinking of the true meaning of unexpected, right? Folks are startled initially. When someone's not reading the room or when someone is behaving in a way that doesn't match the group plan, right? And so it's like if we can catch our first startle and create a classroom community that kind of recognizes sometimes we're going to startle each other.

Right here's some healthy ways to respond to being startled. I think we will entrench some of some of these behaviors less because there'll be folks will be less likely to be so startled that they hysterically laugh or to be so startled that they like lash out at the person. Right, but yeah, what do you think about that as far as like where to catch it in the chat? Or in the chat or in the chat or in the chat or in, and how to catch it there, yeah, so I think like first response is going back to what I said in the last podcast or two podcasts ago, maybe step over the behavior right, so it's like I'm gonna like you're in the coffee shop and you're singing and and then you're talking to yourself to not sing I'm gonna ignore that and I'm just gonna say I'm gonna try to um bring your awareness to where you are because I'm gonna so I might step over what you're doing and say hey Jillian

how's your day going so far, you know what kind of what coffee did you order, so I'm bringing your attention, grounding you. And bringing your attention to time and place, then later I might say, like, when we're in the car, if we're at the coffee shop together, and we're driving away. I might be like, 'Did you know that you sang in the coffee shop? That was like pretty funny! I think that you might have startled the guy sitting next to us.' We could laugh about it and then be like, 'Oh well, whatever. You can go to that coffee shop again, but like with the child who comes into the classroom like a bull in a china shop, it would be stepping over the behavior and just helping them...

you know. Can I show you what we're doing? I'm so glad you're back; we're better when you're with. Us and you ground them in like you basically just coach situational awareness here's what we're doing how can I help you get started and then later right strike while the iron is cold because you said if you give feedback in that moment especially a feedback that implies they're intentionally disrupting they're going to double down so it's just bring teach them what how what you would want them to do um what you know what do you need how can I help? We're so glad you're back, let me show you what we're doing and see if that's going to work for you right now then once you get them engaged later on during snack during lunch later.

On, you can be like, 'you know what earlier when you came back. I was noticing that we were actually all kind of silent, reading, and your energy was pretty high, probably because from you maybe you were like on a movement break or something, so your energy matched what you had just been doing, not what you were about to do, yes. So, what I want to do is institute a vibe check. So, I created this visual, which I'm happy to have us link um with this podcast; it's a visual on the door and when you're returning to the classroom, it says 'vibe check' and it has a picture of a group of stick figures with a shared thought bubble, and then it has a

the voice volume like um but it has like it would be okay for a middle schooler to see it like whisper outdoor table talk and then it has um just like a vibe kind of like single symbol so the idea is you get to the door you open the door and you look in you come back out in the hall and you say what is everybody thinking about what is the voice volume and what's the vibe which basically means like what's the energy can i match that as i walk through the room and then walk in so then you match that as you walk in then it's also up on the wall in the room so that if somebody um raises their hand during a lesson on algebra and they say um did anybody get The new Call of Duty-it's like, okay, so are we're all thinking about algebra, you're thinking about Call of Duty.

Can you park that for now? You know what I mean, when is it the right time and place to bring up Call of Duty because it's not it wasn't an inappropriate comment; it just didn't match the vibe. So then it's like, can you? You can point to that. Can you Matt do you think you can if they can't? Right if my energy is really high and the group's energy is really quiet and focused and I can't match it then I have skills and cope life strategies and tools to do what I need to do to get my needs met so I, I'm excited to hear what you have. To say about that, so I'm excited to hear what you have to say about that.

See this resource too, so and so I can just look at it, and anyone who's listening to it by the time you listen to it, you can as well, but I'm just still going to ask us in this moment having not seen it; I'm so curious. What is a good way to like it? Is the vibe itself on like a numerical or color-based scale, or like how do we... or is it more like there's a vibe at which the classroom usually is right? Try to remember what that vibe is and come back to that. Um, no I well I just wrote the word vibe like I have to experiment it a little bit with voice volume could also be Looked at as um, energy level, so like, you're walking in the classroom and everyone is doing um, a greeting where they're walking around the room and greeting each other.

The vibe is, you know, pretty like, you know, kind of maybe on a zero to five scale that's like a three to four energy. Everybody's moving around, we're all talking at the same time in like, a kind of like, conversational volume that's very different from you walk in and it's silent reading time. So I think what what happens is, you know, it's a symbol to like check what is the group thinking about, what is the voice volume, and what's the vibe which is energy. But also, I kind of wanted to say it could be the emotion, like we're all serious about something important or we're joking, we're playing a game. I see so it that makes sense, so it's it's less of a it's less of a sign on the door indicating what the vibe is when kids walk in and it's more a reminder that these are the three levels on which it's like externally queuing, monitoring.

These are the oh, because I wanted to mention that, so I think I think self-monitoring and situational awareness, you know just as they sound work together but are different right? So one is like where I am at personally, right? So self-understanding that's like metacognition thinking about our own thinking that's like interoception which is being able to read and understand our own internal cues right and and then situational awareness is more and then what do i understand about where everybody else is at and i think this tool is actually really skillfully like blending those uh so it's so i love that visual on the board because it's you know it's sort of like hopefully you

know especially if a kid was on a movement break right hopefully someone is there with them that person may be able to help them kind of like check their body right or maybe has has helped them think About where their body and their thoughts are as far as getting ready to enter the classroom, and then the next is 'Oh, right!' And then remember these are the things to keep an eye out for when you first come into a space so that you you know how how to be right. I love that differentiation and like self-monitoring is often the most important thing to do when you're in a classroom is to actually start thinking, 'You know how do I think this?' And then sitting at their desk looking forward, I hopefully know that my teacher will let me pull over an hour or two of myillas before I get in class, and then today I will try to calm down.

Either sit at My table spot, desk or be at a standing desk in the back of the room where I can move around a bit until I'm ready or maybe I'm not ever ready to go today and sit at my table spot. I hope that a student would know from a teacher, everybody's thinking about algebra; I can't stop thinking about the worry that is swirling through my brain but I could be a participant observer which means maybe my plan is to be in the room and my voice level will match and my vibe will match but my thoughts are not going to to match and the way to get my thinking to shift is going to include being in this room for a little while and that's my hope.

So, I'm doodling, and I'm trying to shift my thinking, and my brain is either cooperating or not, but like that's my coping option, and then I'm hopefully not going to get redirected if I'm asked a question, and I have no idea what people are talking about, and I agree with you, so much compassion for teachers because they have 15 to 25 students, and they can't know what everybody is thinking about or needing. They can only know what they designed the thinking and what they're thinking about. So, that's my hope. Robert Benson, Manaphaetfica, a beginner and then they're creating some universal strategies for people who can't manage it, that would allow them to get their jerome stove needs met and not disrupt the Community Manaphaetfica-Seite. Well, yes, okay, that's so beautiful.

I'm now thinking about two things. One is a vibe Robert Benson Manaphaetfica D Beginner match thing. I once saw brilliant educator do that, I want to share. Robert Benson Manaphaetfica-Seite. And then there's the truth that public schooling is really hard because there are some kids whose nervous systems are so on fire or who are in such a state of fight or flight that they're not ready to consider the needs of the group because their own needs feel to them to be so intense. Um, maybe I'll just start there. Because I wanted to speak for that too. So yeah, the, the, the goal here is know where you're at, know where the group is, and be interested in harmonizing those. Right. So then use some tools to harmonize. Right.

And if you can't today, that's okay. Right. And I think maybe that's where the key is. Because I have had the privilege to see so many kids in schools, the hard work of everyone involved move from a place where initially, you know, being in crisis is inherently a very self-centered experience, right. Moving from a place where I'm sure they would have started by saying, 'I do not freaking care what anyone else or what the vibe is,' what I can tell you, I need blah, blah, blah, right now to getting to a place where maybe they are even like setting a vibe or maybe they're community leaders.

Right. And I think maybe that's one of the beauty, beautiful options or beautiful goals of public schooling is like, let's all practice being in a group and then let's try to get our nervous system safe enough that we can access like altruism and community-mindedness. Cause at first if folks are too stressed there, it's easy to go very self-centered, but even if a kid is in a self-centered place. Sometimes I will go to a bit of an 'okay', well, what's in it for you? Because usually being more aligned with the group plan ultimately is what's more in it for them. If only because then their day will have less hassle associated with it, or if only because then they will not potentially miss fun things later. Right.

Because they are dealing with challenges that came up now. Right. So I think I just wanted to bring that into like, it's great to be off-ramp of. And if you can't, that's okay. And we specifically have the space and the staffing and the tools and the programming so that you can be on a little bit of a different program if you need to. And, and also with kids who are really in fight or flight, it sometimes can work to be like, I hear you saying that you cannot handle one more hassle today. Let's think about what a hassle having to go to the principal would be. So, you know, a little bit of like more of like a help me help you mindset at the beginning. Yeah. And I think a lot.

Another phrase I say all the time is let them be self-centered. They're either in that space because of stress or they're in that space developmentally because, in a, in a chronic manner, their needs are not being met. So, you let them be self-centered. So instead of saying you're disrupting the group right now where they will actually panic because that makes them think that you are more concerned about everybody else than them and they are desperately dealing with an unmet need. So they, they're going to dysregulate further. So instead of that, you say, I'm, I'm, I'm noticing that you need some things. I want to read your needs can be met here, but not like that. There is no comment about the negative impact of the behavior on others, unless you are, unless you can assure me that they are fully regulated, not stressed, and have the developmental capacity of situational awareness.

Yeah. So instead of that, you say, I'm, I'm self-monitoring and they are choosing to make everyone around them, you know, distracted and off task, then you could say you're really negatively impacting the group right now. And I, I still might not even do it in that case. Cause I'm just still not really ever into like, um, holding the mirror up to the negative consequence. I would still like, even in that scenario to say, what do you need right now? And how can I help you get that need met? So it's like basically. Approaching them with you have a need and, and we're like the reasons why you would shift to match the group plan is because we're better when you're with us.

We miss your voice when you're not here; it's because it's a really great skill for you to learn, even when you are stressed that you could be part of a group and have you – you deserve an education, just like everyone else here. And how could you access it? Even though you are stressed, what does that mean? But you just let them be self-centered and make it all about them. Yes. That's so beautiful. Right. So let them be self-centered and also recognize that the self-centeredness is a form of, and will lead to more panic. If we do invoke the needs of the other students in the class, even though right. As an educator, I might be feeling so upset and so urgent.

I might be thinking more about the other kids than about this one kid, because I might be feeling really uncomfortable. And I'm like, okay, this is so unfair to me that this is, you know, kind of like upsetting the apple cart. And, and even still to remember that that is only going to make self-centered behavior worse because self-centeredness is actually a deep fear of not being prioritized or not getting a need met. Right. So my dream is that teachers would introduce this skill, whatever you want to call it. You could call it a self-check. You could call it, um, metacognition, depend if you were with high schoolers and you wanted to appeal to their more sophisticated, um, you know, curiosity, whatever you introduce it. And then you say, You go many places.

All of you go many places all day long. You go from here to unified arts or specials. Some of you go to sports practices. Some of you go to afterschool programming. Some of you go to part-time jobs, hang out with your friends. You go many places in a day. And there's a skill that helps you. You notice what the group is doing and, and shift your voice, volume, and thoughts and energy to match the group when you want to be part of the group in order to benefit from what the group is doing. So I'm not telling you that you always have to match what's going on around you. Sometimes you shouldn't, but I want you to have the ability to do that.

If it's a group that you want to be part of an experience that you want to be part of. So we're going to practice that ability. And here's how we're going to practice it is we're going to do these vibe checks and it'll benefit you, you know, you know, in, in lots of times in your life, then somebody is not exhibiting the ability. It's like, Ooh, this would be a great time to practice a vibe check. Do you think you could take a look at these three steps and see where we're at and where you're at? And, and could, is there a way you could get your need met and be with us? Yeah. So it's just like the rationalization is that this is a skill.

But I'm not telling you that you have to join my group, my class, like you're going to ultimately, you have the agency to decide if you're going to be part of my class today or not part of what I'm offering and what I've created. But I want you to have the skill to join a group. If it's a group you want to join. If it's a group you want to join. I love the agency in that. Yeah. So it's capacity, not compliance. Capacity, not compliance. Yes. Say more about that. I love that. So we're teaching kids. Capacities. Capacities that they then should have full agency over enacting when they want to. So not swearing. I want all of my students to know how to not swear when they don't want to swear.

I don't want them to just not swear because that's the rule. And if they break it, they'll get in trouble. That's compliance. There are times where you should swear your head off to protect yourself or to be funny because it's totally matching the group vibe. You're hanging out with people who love to swear and find it an amazing way to communicate. And so swear away. But if you're with a group that you actually want to be part of and swearing is not the vibe, I want you to know, I want you to have the ability to shift so that you can express your thoughts and your emotions and your passion and your frustration in other ways besides swearing, so that you can be part of that fully, you know, in that group.

Yeah. So you don't. So you don't close doors. Right. That you actually might want to keep open. That makes sense. Right. Yeah. And then once somebody has that capacity, they'll move on and maybe they'll go to high school and they'll use it or not. I'm fine with that. I just want them to not swear, I guess. I don't want to swear. And we've never practiced situational awareness and not swearing. That's not something you can just decide to do. You have to actually practice it. So, yeah. So compliance is totally a fragile system, totally based on some kind of external mechanism of control. And as soon as the external mechanism of control is gone, there is no skill. No skill. Yeah.

I was also thinking about like, you know, so we're asking kids to sort of match the vibe of the room when they walk in. Yeah. I also when we have the ability and honesty and staffing to do it. I've also seen it work really well to find a contained way. For an adult to match. The energy of a kid coming in, kind of catch it and swoop them down. So this, I think, honestly, I've seen this work best. In co-taught or teen-taught classes. So I think most often I've seen a really skillful BI or paraprofessional or special educator do this. Not that a classroom teacher couldn't-a classroom teachers do it. It is. I will name it is easier to do if you're not the only adult in the class, but, but there, I can think of a particular special educator who was a genius at this.

And, you know, they, they knew all the kids in the class really, really well. So they, what I'm going to describe as a bit of a social risk. And I almost always saw it land because they did know the kids. But they were really able to tell when. Like not so helpful behavior on the way into a class was an attempt to kind of do a fanfare of return. Yeah. It was a sense of being excited to be back and aware for an excited response back, even if it wasn't well done. Right. So you, you wouldn't want to do what I'm about to say. If a kid is genuinely enraged to be back, right. This, this horrible thing to do, but if, if, you know, if you really kind of feel like, yes, this is not the best behavior, but this is, there is an element of excitement in this.

I have seen really skillful adults make their bodies really excited, but really quiet and like, and like Muppet over. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and that can really, you know, then a kid doesn't have to stop being excited, but. Yeah. Right. And you can excited whisper. Great. That's not going to be a big issue, you know? So that kind of thing can be really good too. Yeah. I call that the hook and pull. So if somebody's lying on the floor and I come over like, 'Hey, let's do some jumping jacks.' That's going to be annoying because my energy. Mismatch their energy too much. And if they’re coming in all bubbly, laughing hysterically from a movement break, and we’re trying to do quiet stuff, I could come over and be like, Whoa, great to see you.

Awesome. So it’s like, you, you, you approximate their energy and then you pull them down or up by shifting your energy to see if, if you can like kind of tether and bring them where you want to go. But you’re totally right. I think that I’ve seen so many people do this. So. Intuitively and beautifully. It’s super annoying. If you’re told, if you don’t come closer to where they’re at and then bring them down, they feel embarrassed. It’s less embarrassing. If my teacher also got excited. And then we kind of went from excited whisper to like zero voice together. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right. Because another possible thing to do would be kid comes in excited. And we, as the adult, double down on all right.

Now is when we're reading quietly. Which is the right cue, but too much of an energy mismatch to have that cue land. You might need. Right. You know. Right. Yeah. And I think it's, it's like you, then you're now you're on an island and what you want to do is turn around and walk by right back out of the room. But if the teacher can join your energy and bring you toward what the group is doing, you feel welcomed and brought, like brought in. And instead of like. Like, you know, I don't know who you are, what you're doing, but this is what we're doing. It's like, okay, I guess I don't belong here. I can't do this. So, yeah, that's a great, I'm glad you thought to make that connection.

That's cool. Well, that's awesome. Anything, anything we want to say about like, okay, how to develop that, you know, there's the skill of like knowing where I'm at in a moment. Maybe that's what we should talk about more. Cause I, I guess you, I guess you've already given examples for developing the skill of. Remembering to try to read the room. Right, ability to read it correctly. I think it's just a practice thing, but the first skill is even just remembering to pay attention to the room. And I would, and it's sort of, Oh, go ahead. Sorry. I was just thinking like, when you, you walk in and you're like, yeah, my vibe is totally different from this group. It doesn't mean you have to leave and do something before you return.

It's just like. Like, I'm not even sure that kids are noticing what the group is thinking about the voice volume and the energy until they're reprimanded or redirected. And so it's like first notice it. And then it's, it's, I kind of want to say, fake it till you make it a little bit. It's like, can you just be with us knowing that it might take you a little bit of time to be fully locked in to what we're doing, but let's go through the motions and see if you like. Like, what's, what's like, maybe you come in and you, maybe you need to go to a standup desk or a calming space to just watch what's happening a little bit before you're ready to join. Yeah.

It's like, maybe it's the skill of let's attempt the routine. Yeah. Even for hopefully a finite amount of time. Yeah. Routine feels like a mismatch from where you're at internally. Like, like I can even think of an example from grad school, right? Like that. Maybe I was like a little bit giddy in the hall with a friend. Right. And then you needed to walk in. And sometimes in grad school, what's going on is, you know, like a lecture about something really horrible. Right. Or it's a case consultation and someone sharing something really heavy. Right. So certainly in my own body, you know, it's sort of that skill of like, I'm feeling the levity bubbling and fizzing through my body. Yeah.

And I'm just going to be present with the discomfort of feeling that levity while also slowing down my body motions, taking a new book and just really trying to quiet my energy to be respectful of like what's happening here. And it's like, and then it really is true that if, you know, if I can hang in with that for a few minutes, okay, then I'm kind of locked in. But it, it's almost like there's so many skills here. So there's knowing where you're at. There's knowing where the group is. And then there's almost having the faith to take a few minutes and tolerate the mismatch. Right. Trusting that getting into the routine might help you lock in rather than sort of blowing out at the first sign. Right.

And so like, that's a perfect example of compliance versus competency. You want to be part of that grad school class. It's important to you to be part of that class. And so you have the capacity to shift. Your. You know, all of those different factors of your internal being so that you can participate in the class. It's not that the class is energy is right in your energy is wrong. It's, it's that you have a skill to recognize I'm in a, I'm in a totally different state than this group. I want to be part of this group and I have the skills to tolerate the discomfort shift, my breathing, et cetera, to match the group so I can engage and be part of it. So that's.

That's like you said before the beautiful thing about public school is like let's all try to figure out how to be together in all these different ways that we are like, ultimately, that's the hope is we teach executive functioning skills is so that you'll have them, and then you'll be able to use them. It doesn't really matter who's right and who's wrong or, you know, you know, in a situation is that this is practice ground for learning how to be part of groups, and you also should have self advocacy skills so that if you don't want to be part of a group. You know how to get yourself out. Yeah. Oh, I love that capacity over compliance. Okay, so then, so we offered some concrete I love that vibe, you know that sort of vibe check thing on the work.

If we were to think concretely about okay, how can I help kids build the skill of kind of self-monitoring right and knowing where I'm at. You know, like, Joelle has been dealing with this for years. I do have a bias to like go back. To mindfulness, but I do think that this is a place where it is appropriate. I think it is about knowing how to pay attention to yourself. That's all self-monitoring really is is remembering that you are an entity that can be to separate even from like your thoughts or anything like that. So, you know, when I'm trying to help kids develop self-monitoring, I try sometimes it's as simple as sensory stuff. Right. I might try to get them to find like three things that they can tell their body is touching.

I might ask them if they're breathing more in their belly or their chest. I might ask them if they can tell how fast or slow they're thinking. So, anything you can do just to give kids that kind of mind blowing first idea that like there is a mean. And then, a witness to that can win. Because I think a lot of times where we're not getting self-monitoring is kids have not. Kids have not almost like split into two that way. Yeah. Still just so deep in there, like moment to moment experience, especially if that experience is a little bit of lady that they haven’t yet built, you know, in the mindfulness world where we might call more of that witness consciousness.

So I think it’s really using the sensory realm to teach kids to get curious about what they’re experiencing moment to moment. Right. And I think that. The reason it’s coming up so much in my consultations and evaluations is because the students don’t have that ability, and the adult that's present is doing that co-regulation for them. And I've actually realized that I don't think that that the teachers or school staff need me to teach them how to co-regulate. They're very good at that. What they need is for me to teach, how to teach kids to self regulate because they cannot be the surrogate frontal lobe for 25 people all day long. Like kids have to do. They have to learn. So we like, we have to make these skills explicit.

And then model them and then repeatedly practice them so that the the student can sometimes receive co-regulation, which is lovely. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just not always available. Yeah. Sometimes they get co-regulation. Sometimes they can actually self-regulate more independently because I think why it's coming up is that we're we're like right now when we're recording this podcast, we're not that far into the school year and people are really tired already. When I observe them, they're doing beautiful work. It's just not sustainable. It's not sustainable. What do you think about this as a really concrete skill? So and I got this from the couples therapy world, but there are certain couples therapists who actually. Have couples check their pulse period throughout the session and if if the heart rate is at a level that indicates dysregulation,

which maybe we can attach to the show notes, there is some data on that, although it varies person to person on what your baseline is, but you know, there are couples therapists who will be like, well, everyone check your pulse. Okay, so no, we're actually we're not going to dig further on this right now. Right now. We're going to access some regulation that is still co-regulation. However, one. I have really. Had success teaching kids about interoception in schools, especially if they tend to be a little bit more like kinetic or energetic-is them doing some wind sprints, which they definitely want to do right and practice taking their pulse because even pulse is a way you have to pay attention to yourself, you know, you and you can also tell a lot about how you're doing by how fast your pulse is.

So I wonder about that. Not that you're going to have like 25 high schoolers get up and do wind sprints at the same time. But that could be something that you periodically be like, 'okay, and everybody check your pulse.' Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Write down where you're at. You know, like if, if your heart rate is like above X, like. Yeah. Take some breaths. That probably means you're a little too amped up to be learning right now. Well, you know, we'll come back to you for the rest of you. Yeah, I mean, hope the hope is you have, you teach self-monitoring and then you teach self-regulation and there's a menu. So you, we've practiced various things. Like I could imagine high school and advisory could practice. A mindfulness technique. Take your pulse.

Like there's all these different, we could practice them. Could go to a standup desk. Do a walkabout where you dump your walk. A walkabout is my nickname for you. Dump your water bottle out in the first water fountain. And then you fill it with a little bit with every water fountain in the building. And then you come back. And so it is, you, you have a menu of skills and you pick a skill. If you're, if you're self-monitoring indicates that you are not able to, to be with the group plan. It doesn't mean you have to leave the room, but what are your skills and options? And so I think you just keep introducing and building that menu as you move through the school year. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. Because of the precious time of our lovely listeners, but thanks so much. That was a really fun conversation. That was awesome. Thanks, Jillian. Thanks everybody. See you next time.