Is There A Role for Shame in Shaping Student Behavior?

Gillian and Joelle discuss concepts related to healthy identity formation, belonging, and motivating behavior change.  There are many nuances in this discussion, such as the difference between feeling ashamed and feeling shame, the role of guilt as a "rumble strip" keeping us on track with our values, and how our language can either motivate positive growth or cement a negative/hopeless self-concept.  

We reference Brene Brown- https://brenebrown.com/articles/2013/01/15/shame-v-guilt/

We mention Adam’s Grant’s book- Hidden Potential 

Find us on Instagram!

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

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

Transcript

0:30

Hello, welcome back to season three of Stance of Curiosity. I'm Gillian Boudreau, and I'm Joelle Van Lent. Welcome back, everybody. We hope that you had a great time away from us. Yes, I hope that your summer was wonderful and that you are as ready as we are to get back into figuring out what we're gonna do with these schools and with these relationships within these schools. I have to say, Gillian, the vibe so far school year is really positive. Oh, that's awesome! I'm kind of feeling that too. Yeah, it feels like the most quote unquote normal year since COVID in terms of many adults being happy to be at work for various reasons. And I think kids. have been happy to be at school for a few years now, but adults also seem happy, and things feel relatively smooth, with always those few community members really struggling with that transition from summer mode back to school mode, and that's to be expected. We're there for them. But for the most part, things feel you really positive. Yeah, I would say it feels the same way in my world over here in Portland, that kids are didn't notice actually nearly as much anticipatory anxiety in my practice as I have in previous years. I think because last year already, as you were, was a little bit more of like kind of a regular feeling year. even those kids who were nervous, I find, are overall feeling really good about what they've found and how the school year is starting off so far. And given that we know that adult regulation is key to child regulation, right? That says to me that adults in Portland must be coming in pretty grounded as well, which is, yeah, admirable, given that the world around us does not feel so grounded right now. Yes, we are recording this in September 2025, and the world around us does not feel so grounded right now. Many schools are needing to do a lot of work to keep children from being pulled away due to immigration challenges. It is also a time. of year where in Portland schools sometimes need to close because of infrastructure difficulties and heat due to global warming and stuff like that. So we definitely are still living in a very 2025 moment, and yet adults and kids are finding ways to make the experience of schooling generative and joyful, which is amazing. You all are just being incredible rock stars out there, and I have a working theory, which is that it's not completely unrelated. I feel like there is something about the work that we do that is very hopeful and feels like you're actively doing something to build your community. And it feels like it's something that we can do in the midst of a lot of things that feel beyond our control or influence, that doing good work in schools or in mental health or in some kind of human service capacity feels like an opportunity to narrow your focus into something that is grounding. You have skills and resources, and you're part of a community that's working toward the same effort. So, I feel like a lot of people were looking forward to getting back to work because it feels actually really good to be doing what we do right now. Yeah, I think that's really true. I mean, it feels good to me as well. There's plenty of doom scrolling I can do about the news. And as I think we might've talked about on this podcast before. Given that I am not a political scientist or a climate scientist or any of those things, most of what I can do about what I sometimes call the horrors as they persist is kind of wait and wonder. But I think we're all very lucky as helping professionals because we have natural access to the purpose and accomplishment that Joelle talks about. We don't have to look very hard for something we can do on a given day that we're trained for and that's gonna help the next person. And also, even as we do think about how we're going to kind of help society on a broader scale, I think a lot of what gets talked about as far as imagining a more hopeful future for our country and for the world is community building. And so everything we're all doing to build healthy communities, to teach kids how to be in and foster those, to even just shore up and tune up and make better every human relationship in our lives, that does turn out to be world-saving work, especially right now. So that's very nice thing. Absolutely. So we have a cool topic that we wanted to launch in with season three. Speaking of healthy communities and how to foster them. Yeah, so Joelle, you… Yeah, you start. Well, you had come up with the… So I wanna invite you. to sort of pose the question, but then I will talk about how there's been a resonance in my community too, of thinking about this stuff. Okay, so what we wanna talk about today is shame. And a lot in this conversation has to do with semantics, like how do you define various terms? But one of the things that's been sort of coming up as a theme already, and it's like the third week of school and day eight, so we're very new into the school year. But one thing that's been coming up a is parents' ability to tolerate the of their children in a situation where it is growth-promoting stress, quote unquote, positive stress, which means the type of stress. that happens to all of us that is part of life that for a child is growth promoting meaning if adults align with them to face that stressor and build coping skills and self-confidence to navigate those kinds of stressors then we grow resilience through those opportunities. If adults swoop in and take those away then we miss that growth promoting opportunity. We might accidentally communicate to them that you're not capable of handling things like that. So related to that has been a conversation that's come up for me in parent workshops and discussions with parents and teachers around being ashamed. Shouldn't students? feel when they have been naughty or they've made a mistake or they've something wrong shouldn't they feel ashamed and guilty? And I talk about remorse and guilt as positive emotions. They're helpful to let us know. They're like the rumble strip on the highway. You're veering from your identity, from who you want to be. That behavior was outside of who your communities that you value, you know, don't admire that kind of behavior, including maybe your family. So you're veering. It's guilt, remorse, regrets, a rumble strip, and it helps you get back on track of who you want to be.

Then the question comes up: 8:08

is ashamed the same as guilty? Is ashamed the same as like, then shame? And if we interact with a child in such a way that we make them inspire a feeling of shame, isn't that going to be that rumble strip that makes them never want to do that again? That's a tricky area for me as a psychologist because in Brene Brown's research, she talks about guilt as, 'I'm a good person who did a bad thing That's helpful. It creates a dissonance between who we identify as and affiliate with, and what we just did. We feel really icky, and cognitive dissonance or guilt motivates us to right our behavior and get it back in line with who we are. Shame, as defined by Brene in her research. is I'm a bad person who did a bad thing. Therefore, there is no dissonance between who I am and what I did. Therefore, no motivation to change my behavior. If I'm an adult talking with a child who is naughty and I overshoot the goal of regret and guilt, and they actually feel like this adult is telling me that I'm a bad kid who did a bad thing, it's actually detrimental to their identity development, detrimental to their sense of unconditional belonging, and detrimental to their motivation to change their behavior in the future. It might actually inspire them to do that behavior more. So my answer to the question of shouldn't they feel ashamed. Is it depends on how you define shame and ashamed and it depends on how they received your intervention. And my opinion is shame is never good. Nothing good comes from shame. That is such helpful information. So one thing that I'm like repeating in my mind as I listen to you so I don't forget it and we can also put it in the show notes maybe if folks are having the same experience is the rumble strip. The rumble strip feelings are remorse, regret and, is that right? I almost want to, yes, there's others too, but like healthy negative emotions that are healthy, right? We don't want our kids to just always feel positive emotion. actually We do want them to sometimes be sad, disappointed, frustrated, and so in the shame, world guilt, regret, and remorse I think are positive. Yep, I think those are really great. We should almost just like even make a rumble strip and with like those three things. So you also brought up something really important, which did you use the word congruence, or did I layer that on? Oh, cognitive dissonance is what I said. I did. Yeah. Okay, right. So basically, I think what you're saying is we don't want to mess with a kid's that they are basically good. And I think I'm getting that term perhaps a little bit from kind of like Buddhist psychology. right But there's this humanistic psychology would say that in general humans are basically good. This is where we also get things like Ross Greene's, like you know, this is an unmet need, right? That like you know, this person wouldn't be behaving this way for no reason. So I am a humanistic psychologist, especially when I interface with the schools because it helps me in schools a lot to remember that folks are generally doing the best they can, right? And if somebody is acting in a way that doesn't seem to serve their best interests and/ or the best interests of those around them, that there's probably a good reason for that, whether that's a gap in like regulation and access to the wisdom brain or whether that's an unmet need or whatever that is. And I promise I'm going somewhere with this. It also reminds me of, so my kiddo just started second grade, and there was a welcome letter to second grade. I know that I like, loved, I learned so much from this welcome letter. I already adore my child's teacher, and I haven't even met them yet. But, you know, this teacher was basically talking about, hey, here are the norms of kindness in the class. Can you talk about these with your kiddo, right? And see if you can help them understand them and maybe get them on board. And I agreed. with you know it was just a culture of kindness and inclusivity. But one was that if there's something about a person's appearance that they couldn't change in 30 seconds or less, don't bring it up with them, right? So like, let someone know if they have something in their teeth, right? But nobody needs to know your thoughts on, you know, certainly like the color of their skin is a huge one, or even their, you know, their height or any of those things. Which, firstly, have you ever heard it framed that way? I thought that was so clear. I feel like maybe I have, but I'm not sure I've heard it in that 30-second way. That's great! Isn't that great? It like really helped me. It was so clear to me. And it was also I've been trying for to get that across somehow to my kid. And this was like, oh, this is what it is. This is what it is. And the kid was like, oh yeah, totally okay. So I think guilt, so basically, if our goal is not to ever rob somebody of the sense that who they are at their foundational, unchangeable elements is whole and good and okay, right? Which I would, as a psychologist, I would say yeah, people need to know that their foundational elements that are not changeable are good and whole or okay, right? And so guilt says I am good and whole and okay at my foundation. And there's something I can change that has happened, right? I mean, not necessarily. If you have taken someone's iPad and thrown that on the ground and now it's broken, you can't unbreak that, but you can repair that. You can find a way to replace the iPad, right? You can repair the relationship with the person. You can change that thing, that you can change that harm that you did. You might also be able to change some of the impulse that led you to do that harm so that you can come into congruence or with what doesn't change, which is that you are a basically good person who's foundationally okay. So I feel like guilt is like allowing a person to feel bad about that. which they can change and may feel better and more aligned in the future if they do change. Whereas shame, to me, seems like it's more coming at what might be someone's hard wiring, leading them to feel like who they are foundationally is not okay. They might either need to hide who they are forever, which makes me think of masking, which has really negative mental health outcomes. Right? So if, for example, we shame classically, if we shame an autistic child for not acting more neurotypical, right? Or if we make an autistic person feel bad for things that may be part and parcel of being autistic and may not be changeable, then that can lead to a deep down sense of my natural way is not okay. Maybe I can see if I can white knuckle it as much as possible for an hour here or there to act that they are queer, right? That's typically not something that somebody could or would change. But if you make somebody feel bad about that, that too is going to lead to terrible negative mental health outcomes. So maybe it's healthy to help a kid recognize where they are acting outside of their basic goodness. Yes, whatever that means to the community, but more importantly, whatever that means to the kid. And to feel that incongruence, right? And then take the agency that they have. to make that match up again, right? Whereas if you tell a kid that they are foundationally bad, which is maybe what shame is, then they only have two choices. One is to pretend to be other than they are in ways that aren't sustainable and will lead to mental health outcomes, or to just say, well, it seems like I'm bad and there's nothing I can do about it. So I guess I'm going to act bad for my whole life. Right, exactly. So there's a complacency then with behavior change. And the solution is that you just need to accept that I'm inherently bad. Like when so many kids that I have had the privilege to work with, who've had difficult caregiver trauma. so totally different situation from the autism examples that you're having caregiver trauma. And so you believe that you you internalize that sense of like I'm not worthy or there's something broken about me, which is why I was treated that way or not cared for. And so then when there's misbehavior, and we do a really good job of saying you're a trustworthy honest person who didn't tell the truth earlier, I'm really surprised by that. Can you help me understand what prevented you from telling the truth? I'm I am actually hoping to create some angst, some discomfort, which is that I'm sitting here believing in you to be honest in. you that behavior was not in line with who you are our relationship. And the motivation then is to is to resolve that feeling by being honest. And and that's how you get that you get the relief that you're seeking. But if you believe that you're inherently bad and the problem is that this adult just is misguided in thinking that you're a trustworthy and honest person, then you feel like the solution is on you to change your mind about me. And as and everything will be fine. And so I have kept relationships at a tense point by refusing to shift my belief in them as an inherently good person until they could shift their internal belief. to be that they are are an inherently good person. And it creates a tension that's purposeful in a therapeutic relationship. And we're trying in our roles to help parents, caregivers, school professionals, and other folks to understand that they are also wanting to keep that tension the table. Creating, inspiring a feeling of shame is gonna, for somebody who is autistic, inspire masking, which is at great cost to their mental health. And in somebody who has a trauma history, it's gonna reinforce a negative self-belief that's already quite cemented and hard to budge anyway. So every time we miss an opportunity to move that it's like a real missed opportunity. And then you have all kinds of other situations, right? That we could keep applying this to, like an anxious child or a depressed child or a teenager who's struggling to find an identity after bullying or feeling socially alienated. There's so many situations. I think what makes it— I don't get overwhelmed when I think about applying it to all those situations because I think in all those situations, shame is not the answer. Mm hmm, right? Shame is usually materially, shame is usually gonna make things worse. Shame is either gonna cause a person to kind of create a false self or to create a mask or an act that for one won't last. That won't lead to permanent behavior change. And for two, at worst, might make a kid suicidal. Masking and big false self is known to do that. Or shame will pretty so either way, right? We're gonna quote unquote make a kid worse if they're trying and failing to be different than they are. Or we're certainly gonna make a kid worse if they just decide, well, if you already think I'm bad, then I'm gonna act like it. So then we wanna think about, gosh, so I guess an adult who's best positioned to ask for a different type of behavior or to get curious about the not preferred behavior of a kid in their midst is someone who's really able to keep believing in that kid's inherent goodness while they are talking to them about this. And this gets a little bit more existential, but I feel like we kind of need to help foster in those helping kids, firstly, a philosophical belief that all kids come in basically good and then the ability to keep remembering that no matter how frustrating or jerky or maybe kind of bad kids seem to be showing up in a given moment when things really aren't going well. Yeah. And there are situations; they are rare, but there are situations where I have sat with a team, and a child or adolescent has repeatedly acted. in a way that caused harm to people, have been able to say in that trusted circle, I am actually really worried about this person's inherent goodness. And my very strong and sturdy belief is a leap of faith where we believe in them to be more than what their current behavior exhibits, is their best chance of not becoming what we're fearing right now. Yeah. And there's no negative side effect to that. No. Like what's the harm? Because we're still going to offer them the safety planning and supervision, the scaffolding that we believe they need until they develop more internal controls, et cetera. But as long as we're doing that, what possible harm comes from believing them. And I think that, like psychological safety, which Adam Grant talked about in one of his recent books, is that psychological safety for a child is that the adults that are interacting with you on a regular basis believe that you can be more than what your current behaviors would indicate. That is childhood and adolescence, right? When I was 13, if you had met me and talked to me for an hour, you would not have thought that I would be doing any of the things that I'm doing now. This is fascinating. Why do you say that? Give us a glimpse into 13-year-old Joelle. I was awkward. Let's just take some superficial. things right. I could not put an outfit together that I was trying, and I could not. And now I can put outfits together in ways that make me feel good about myself and good about where I am. I'm not talking about an outfit together that looked good according to fashion standards; I'm talking about selecting an outfit that made me feel comfortable and good about myself. I was always dressing in things and then feeling uncomfortable all day long. And so I think the definition of a good outfit is I feel good and I am comfortable in what I'm doing, and this is like who I am, right? So I couldn't do that. And then on a deeper level, like I was not good at humor I was really struggling to be a kind friend at times. I was going from super kind and overly, overly doing too much for people to like being kind of mean in my comments at times. I think I was typical 13, right? I think this is all like a lot of this is like what 13 year olds are. But like a lot of people who were important in my life interacted with me on a regular basis and didn't decide like Joelle's going to be a sometimes mean, uncomfortably dressed adult. Nobody thought that, I don't think so. Or if they did, they definitely communicated to me on a regular basis, you're gonna figure this out, you are gonna get this together, Joelle.

Van Lent colon: 25:24

sometimes mean uncomfortably dressed adult totally not. You know it's so interesting; I sort of wanna do some storytelling from my history as well because I don't think, and I talk about this a lot with parents and teams supporting more prickly kids, which I mean this might sound self-aggrandizing. I don't mean to say like, oh, everybody would be so relieved to know their kid might turn out like Gillian Boudreau. Like, I don't mean to say that, but I guess that is what I'm a little bit saying because you would quite specifically like if you. It's interesting; my kid is seven, so I'm thinking a lot about myself at. seven If you had met me at seven, you would not think, nor would you hope I would end up in the role that I have been, although it actually does make sense if you think about the skillset, because I was unfortunately somewhat interpersonally vicious as a seven-year-old. Because I had a fair amount of fiery anger in my body, I also already was pretty good at reading people and figuring out what was going on in interpersonal dynamics, and I didn't use that power for good. So I had a. And you probably had good verbal skills too? Yes, so I had a really sharp tongue, and I could find people's, I could, I guess, as a little kid clinically formulate people. pretty fast, and I had a real knack for saying, honestly, kind of the worst thing to a person if I was mad enough, right? And I am also very lucky that I was around adults. I'm sure some of them did, but many adults didn't say to themselves this girl is a monster," right? And instead, they were like I gotta believe there's a nice person in there, I gotta believe we can use these people skills for good rather than evil, though right now you're a little bit using them for evil," right? And if, honestly, if I hadn't had a lot of those adults, who knows? Maybe I would be like a really toothy lawyer for people who did it. Like, who knows what I would be, right? So It's a really interesting thing. Yeah, I think we, it's just a basic one. One of like a basic human need throughout childhood especially, is that I know adulthood too. I would argue like we need food, we need shelter, we need water, we need connection, we need, and we need people to believe that we can be more than our current behaviors exhibit. And that might even be the case as a 30 or 40 or 50 or 60-year-old, you know, like I talked to my dad who's 84. He's actually quite lovely at this age, but sometimes he's not being as cooperative as he needs to be. And I do believe that he could be more than his current behavior is exhibiting and hold him. accountable to that. And yes, so I think it's just human to human, right? It's like, oh, that wasn't your best work. And you know, I think about like the inner coach and the inner critic. And we talked about like amplifying the voice of the inner coach and minimizing the voice of the inner critic. And the example I use all the time is like you have a really bad day and you walk into your home and whoever you live with needs things from you and is coming at you, and you respond in a way that is really irritable and unhelpful. And so then you pass those humans and you go to what, your bedroom, and that you want the coach to be really loud and because The critic is going to say, " You suck. Stay up here, away from those people. They're better off without you The coach is going to say, " That was not your best work. Yeah, you are better than that. Wash your face, put some sweatpants on, and go back down there and be who, be true to who you are. Right? Because it's not excuse from accountability, of like, that behavior was not great. And that's where I think there's a fear that we're being too soft on kids. And that's why they're out of control. And I am not talking about being soft. I absolutely hold people accountable in a way that's

very clear: 29:51

not your best work. You're better than that. Try that again. I believe in you. It might have to prepare for that because that's not who you want to be in the world. Yeah, and it's it's incredibly motivating. And it's intrinsic now. So when I'm away from those people who offer me that support, I hear their voice in my head when I'm not being my best self. Rumble strip. This is not who I want to be or who the people who care about me believe I am. I'm gonna tone this down or shift gears here. Shaming punitive response is relies on that external presence to be actually there. That's the rumble strip, is the other person saying no, stop, no, stop, no, stop. And then when they're not there, it's all external. So it's that's a really good point too. Yeah, yeah, the desire for congruence, right? So the desire to believe that one is a good person and to have one's actions support that belief, that feeling of congruence is very inherently reinforcing, right? So if we, but you need two pieces, that's two parts of a magnet, right? There has to be a belief in inner goodness and then behavior that's in alignment with that. So why would you do any behavior that is in alignment with inner goodness if you don't actually have access to the belief that it's there? But if someone does help you foster that, it's there. Now we do have intrinsic motivation. because if I believe I'm basically good and my behavior is not showing that, that now feels inherently unpleasant. Whereas if I can get my behavior in line with this belief I have in my own basic goodness, that does give a dopamine hit, right? That actually feels good. The entire acceptance and commitment therapy genre is based on this, I think, right? That humans really are motivated toward a feeling of congruence. And I think that a positive congruence, like I feel like I'm good, and I feel like my behaviors match that, is more reinforcing than I feel like I'm bad and now my behaviors match that. However, that second one is reinforcing. in its own way too. Because, because congruence itself, right, is more calming than dissonance. Right. So there's times where we have to, on purpose, create dissonance. Yeah, it's like I'm I'm a I'm a terrible math student, and I did terrible on my test. So I feel pretty comfortable with that failure. So if we say you're a mathematician who's really capable, and I'm surprised that this assessment went the way it did, let's try it again. It's like, well, this is your problem; you still somehow believe I can do math. You just got to figure out that I can't write. And that might go on for a while, that dance. Yes, right. And so we're actually taking someone. from congruence or comfort and actually making them feel uncomfortable by repeatedly believing them to be whatever it is that they think they can't be that's good, like a mathematician, a writer, a reader, a kind friend, an honest person, trustworthy, whatever it is. And so a lot of I feel like this is honestly the core of a huge amount of my professional work in the plants that I recommend. It's like the student was naughty when they were out of the classroom, and so they don't have permission to leave the classroom without supervision. I'm like that's okay for a day, but then we have to start immediately giving them opportunities. to re-earn that trust. Yeah, because we have to say what you did the other day was not who you are. And so now I'm going to ask you to deliver these things and come back and stay on route and make good choices. And and then when they do that, then we give more opportunities and more opportunities. And they will, if they're really struggling with self-regulation, they'll probably screw it up again. And then we'll be like, whoops, pull you back closer. Right? And regroup, reground, reconnect, and then try it again. And that's the only way to create this intrinsic belief that I can make good choices when the adults are not standing right next to. me So it's like and like how we I definitely believe like how we talk about that like people will say like the worst thing that would happen in my childhood is if my parents said that they were disappointed in me. Why is that the worst thing? It's because they had a strong relationship with you, you valued your your relationship with them and you valued their belief in you. And you disappointed them with your behavior. It's an intense cognitive dissonance; you disappointed the person that one of the people that's most important to you because you acted in a way that's different from who they think you are and the affiliation. that your core values have. And that's incredibly motivating to shift your behavior. So that's a really positive stress moment where it's like, Oh, these people are disappointed in me. And that, right? And I'm motivated to kind of bring that back into alignment. How do we help the adults weather these storms? Right? So given I am, I mean it's like not anything faith-based that we're putting forth today. But some days it does require a little bit of, against all evidence, adhering to a philosophy, right? So sometimes I try to think about how can adults support each other in continuing to see and believe in a child's basic goodness because when it's when we're pulling a kid into that tension, right? So if it's been safer for that child to assume, no, I'm just bad, I'm just bad. And so the only congruence I'm going to find is if I do bad stuff. And of course, like good and bad is very interrogatable. Who knows what that is, but just for the purposes of time, right? So if you've got a kid who's like, well, I'm bad, so I'm just going to find congruence by doing bad stuff. And then we are the adults who are actually like, no, why don't you come away from that comfortable congruence by considering the very scary possibility? It's a big risk to assume to begin to believe that you might actually be basically good. Right? So we often happen have to spend, you know, weeks and months and sometimes years, um, being very stalwart in that stance while we invite someone into that tension so that they can eventually get over to the new congruence of, Oh, maybe I'm good and I do good stuff. So communities of adults have to really support each other in not falling prey to sometimes the kid themselves, um, trying to prove us wrong. Right? And so sometimes I will have adults think about, like, maybe being a care bear stare and just all like linking arms and like, you know, keeping each other. No, we know they're basically good. We're going to believe. they're basically good and like reminding each other. Um, sometimes I think that this is what's behind, you know, I really love when, uh, you know, an IEP meeting or a behavior meeting will start, uh, by sharing positives. Right? So even just starting with strengths, anything we can find, it also reminds me of like a gratitude practice is really helpful to rewire brains. Right? Human brains are mostly going to clock the threat or the negative because they're trying to protect us. So they'll do that about kids too. They'll make the negative about kids much more front and center, especially if we find it somewhat threatening. So kind of forcing ourselves as adults to be like, let's all just tell each other four to five positive things about this kid today because they're really making it hard for us to believe in their basic goodness. What are, what are some things that you recommend to groups of adults to support each other in maintaining that philosophy? Yeah, I think in terms of the student's plan, I do ask teams to think about like the the first two questions. I have first question is, um, does the student have connections that are authentic with people in this building or, you know, in their life? And if not, that's an emergency and more important than anything. else Number two is how often does that child or adolescent feel competent? How often do they have an experience where they're feeling like this is not only something I can do but I'm like good at this, I'm shining. This is my great thing. And if that's not happening rarely or ever, that's an emergency more important than anything else. So we create at least a couple times a day. This is the thing where they are the leader, the mom. Let's see. Did I just freeze? You did freeze. Okay. Okay. We can edit it out. You said the leader, the model. Yeah, the leader, the model, the person who's teaching others or even just doing something that is intrinsically inherently fascinating to them. So, they're even just feeling competent in an individual task, not necessarily giving to others. And then, if the adults who are in it with these kids for the long run are spending a lot of time with them, they could be doing those activities with that child. They have an opportunity to see them calm and thriving and connect with them in that context. I don't think it's it's usually not that hard to maintain hope and perspective when you are working with that child in smallish doses. I never really struggled with that an hour a week therapy. Nope. Or when we are getting to do assessments and we're with kids for even a couple hours at a time. Yeah, really great point. It's easier to maintain if you're in a role where you see kids in small doses. That might also be why sometimes on a team I'll find an SLP or an OT is a little bit easier to keep in. The children are six hours in a row, um, being barraged with messages from a kid that no, they're not basically good. Good point, right? So I basically like the parents, caregivers, classroom teachers, residential counselors, people who are spending hours and hours and hours with this person. They're the ones that the rest of the adults are going to need to circle around. You can you can. borrow hope from me if you're feeling hope. And also I often compliment them on their empathic ability because if you're starting to question whether they are inherently good, you're so connected to that child that you're feeling the way they feel about themselves. I love that intervention! Yeah, so good for you! Yeah, so good for you! Yes, yes. Sometimes I'll do the same thing. Like if adults are either feeling really hopeless about themselves in their work with a kid or just really hopeless about the kid, right? I'll— this is, you know, I do it so much now it's like cliche— but I will have adults just like do a brain dump of like, okay, what are all the bad feelings you have like about this kid or about yourself working with this kid? And then sometimes if we just like right at the top of that very same page, let's say the kid's name is Peter, you know, uh, Peter feels like they are. And then it's sort of like, Oh, this is probably exactly how Peter feels. They are They have in fact communicated their feelings about us, themselves to us the only way they know how, which is by giving us those feelings. Wild. Right? Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that that folks who are asking questions like, isn't there a time and a place for shame or being ashamed, I have learned so much in those conversations. And I think that those people who are asking those questions are working so hard to protect a child from going down a negative path, keep them on a good path. And I just, I love those conversations. Yeah, I think those conversations are coming from folks who don't wanna rob kids of the high expectations and the belief in their potential that kids really do need and deserve, right? And then I think the tweak that you and I are putting forth here is let's not go in the direction of giving a child the that they must have been awful inherently to do what they did, right? We just don't wanna ever say to a kid what you did. was so bad only a terrible person would do that. That's going too far. That's not gonna scare them away from never doing that again. That's going to make them worried that their only access to congruence is now by continuing to be bad. So we just need to stay in the realm of this is something that a good person might do if they were having a really awful moment. Let's try to understand what led you to this awful moment so that it doesn't happen again. Yeah, I think what you just said was really powerful. The only access to congruence is to continue to be bad. Right, if what I did was so terrible that only a truly terrible person would do it. I don't have a way back from that, and I think that's what you and I are worried people mean by shame. Yeah. But as long as we're on the rumble strip, anything that a person would have the ability to change and come back into congruence with a sense of basic goodness, we can work with that. Let's work with that very firmly. Yeah. Yeah, and I will say to kids when they challenge me on that, well, I actually am a psychologist, so that's my expertise. I'm not gonna share my paycheck with you. So I'm gonna do my job, and my job is to assess your inherent goodness, and it's there. I love that I do that too. We can agree to disagree, but you're not, I'm really. stubborn. And so you're not gonna change my mind on that. But let's try. I will also say to kids sometimes I'm just so curious if it's gonna be the 45th time or the 63rd time or how many times you need to try to convince me that you're not inherently good before you actually believe that all these behaviors are out of character. But I'll be here, whatever number it ends up being. I'll be here. That's so cool, Joelle. Just to predict that it's gonna take forever and be like, and I'm here for that. Maintaining, you know what you're maintaining while you wait in that tension. You're maintaining a stance of, that's right. And that's what we're here to do friends. That's right, yes. Thanks, everybody, for talking this through with us. Yeah, thank you, Joelle. So glad to be back, and we will see you all next time. Take care. Thank you for listening to another episode of Stance of Curiosity. Stance of Curiosity is an unscripted conversation between Jillian Boudreau and Joelle VanLent. While both are licensed psychologists, this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. The content presented should not be considered a substitute for professional psychological, medical, or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Listeners should always consult with a qualified mental health professional whenever needed for specific concerns or questions related to their personal situation. Stance of Curiosity is produced by Jillian Boudreau and Joelle VanLent. Our cover art is by Erin Lanute, and our music is upbeat indie folk by Twin Music. See you next time.