What do we do about sexualized behaviors and words in schools?

In this week's episode, Joelle and Gillian discuss how we tend to conceptualize, and what we tend to recommend for "breathtakingly inappropriate" behaviors and words that can come up in any classroom, but particularly on the middle school and high school level.  We discuss the role of social media as having the capacity to bring folks down darker "rabbit holes" when they are mentally dissociated and somewhat vulnerable to assimilating information outside of their values, and the ways in which children might find themselves exposed to material that normalizes a lack of consent in words and behavior.  We talk about how kids might bring repeat these to/at each other or adults as a "counterphobic" response to material that they didn't know what to do with or how to process.  We also talk about the importance of clearly labeling harmful behavior as such, rather than subsuming it under the vague and over-used category of "unexpected" behavior.  We talk about how sexualized behavior and comments among adolescents is often more about power than sex, and consider ways to bring in healthy power dynamics where unhealthy ones have contributed to inappropriate and harmful behaviors.  We also talk about the importance of balancing clear limits with positive regard for students, intact connection with students, and a communication of trust in their ability to learn and grow, especially at adolescent ages when peer approval is likely to come with a higher dopamine reward.

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

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

Transcript

0:31

Hi everyone, welcome back to Stance of Curiosity! I'm Gillian Boudreau, and I'm Joelle VanLent. We're so glad to be back. Thanks all for joining us last week, and we can't wait to continue the conversation today. We hope everyone's school year is rolling along as smoothly as possible. Yes, it's gorgeous, gorgeous weather in September in Vermont. It also is today here in Oregon; we have that in common. Oh, nice, lovely! Yeah, we're having September's the best month of... Yes, in Vermont it is. I have a September birthday, and when I lived in I always felt like Vermont was throwing me a party. It's a great place to have a September Bday. Yes, happy. birthday Thank you. So last week, for those of you who may have missed it, you could go back and check it out. We essentially talked about the role of shame, if any, in shaping student behavior, and particularly kind of a shame versus guilt conversation. And today, I think we'll be a little bit in the same vein because we're gonna talk about something that can bring up a lot of shame for humans and, in particular, fear and survival responses for supporting adults, which is sexualized behavior in schools that can happen at any age group at all. But I think today I'm seeing it happen in my practice the most in, like, the middle and high school. level I don't know if that's true for you as well as far as just the chronology we'll focus on today. Yeah, definitely a theme already this school year, middle and high school. Yeah, and I think that part of this is a time and place in terms of the times and places that it's coming up, that feels the types of comments, the types of behaviors, and the time and place in which they're being exhibited all feels really surprising and really concerning to adults. I think the word surprise is really important. Yeah, I've been called in to consult on several of these concerns at several different schools recently. And the, yeah, the prevailing reason has been that adults are shocked, right? So I'm hearing things like, we've never seen this before. This group of kids has never done this. We've, let's say, never seen this on the sixth grade level. The things, quote unquote, that adults are responding to, often, at least in my practice, seem to be related to, I think, like TikTok trends. Like, not TikTok dares necessarily, but an example that I just learned about through a consultation recently, I think is called like a "sus hug," which I think is Gen Z for suspicious hug. So one might see kids, sort of, everyone's got a backpack on, everyone's got all their stuff on, but it's a little bit just like a sidling up next to or behind someone and sort of embracing them in a slimy manner. So it's those sorts of things, right? That I think adults in my practice are being like,

literally: 3:39

first, what is this? Secondly, why is this coming up in a community where we haven't had to deal with this before? And then I think a reaction to both surprise and also something like sexualized behaviors, which can understandably cause adults to is often to call a consultant like you and I, which is great. But as well as I think to become somewhat reactive and punitive just to try to like shut it down, shut it down. Is that what you're seeing too? Yeah, for Sure. And what I the examples that have been brought to me are comments that I think I myself labeled as outrageously inappropriate. And clinical term. Yeah, sometimes I try to validate how people are feeling and let them know that I'm hearing them with my descriptors. So sometimes I'll say it seems like that student was breathtakingly, or it seems like that was an outrageously inappropriate comment. And one of the things that I try to do because I think in our very good intentions, we overuse the word unexpected. Oh, that's such a good point. Yes, let's talk about that. Right, so we have lots of things where years ago anything that we didn't want or think matched our group norms, hopefully agreed upon group norms. But anything that didn't match those we called inappropriate. That's inappropriate. Like interrupting is inappropriate. Burping during a class meeting is inappropriate. And then throwing something at someone is inappropriate. So there was really good work to call something unexpected versus expected to sort of, I guess, remove shame and negative connotation, to the neutralize it a little bit. Or I would add, at least to try to remove judgment. Yeah, right, exactly. I did not expect that. You're owning it as, like, I did not expect you to do that. It is sort of what Aaron Lanou would say is maybe sort of like approaching with Social humility. And what is it? Confusion with a good attitude. I did not expect you to do that. Tell me more. Yes, curiosity. And this is in the season two episode with Aaron Lanou on social humility. I think he used the phrase which I think might

have come from Carol Gray: 6:16

curiosity is confusion with a good attitude. Right, exactly. So that was great, and really good work happened to shift our language then. And this is just Joelle's; I think we took it too far. So then we started labeling everything as unexpected, and there are still behaviors. that are inappropriate and unsafe that I actually don't think should be labeled as unexpected. So I think now we were confusing students because we were calling stomping on someone's foot unexpected when that's actually unsafe. Yes, great point. Yes. And making an outrageously sexualized joke with hints of violence in the middle of a sixth grade class is outrageously inappropriate and also arguably unsafe; calling that unexpected is problematic too. So I think yeah, it's like harmful, right? If we think about restorative practice work, I think a couple of things about expected unexpected language. So first, I think it was developed as a way to kind of take out judgment, right? But just sort of try to foster some social humility and be like, hey, you thought it was a good time to take out a bubble wand and blow bubbles. And I was expecting that we would do math right now. So let's figure out, let's just both get on the same page. But I think one, I think it drifted back into being used as a I do think that folks started saying unexpected when they meant negative, right? Or I started using unexpected to mean behaviors that you categorically shouldn't have done. So for one, I think we lost the initial intent anyway of trying to remain judgment neutral. And also I think you're absolutely right that we did start using unexpected to mean anything from I was surprised to you're being annoying to you have actually harmed somebody in our community. And that's not a skillful or precise language. Right? So then I do, I think that one thing I encourage teams to do is use all three labels and calibrate each other around the same. Because we definitely have widely different definitions of what's unsafe, for example. So let's calibrate each other, especially with a specific student that we're all working with more closely. And then call it, sort of call it what it is, is what I say. And what are the three categories you're referring to. Is it unexpected? Would be like blowing bubbles during math; inappropriate, which would be like burping loudly with some intentionality during like the teacher's full group instruction. And then unsafe would be like stomping on someone's Got it, okay. Unexpected, inappropriate. And it sounds like, you know, within each team and especially surrounding each student, we're getting, we're trying to get clarity and get congruent as our previous episode on just getting clear in our language about what do we all mean in this scenario and for this student. So they're getting a consistent. message Right, so what I heard was scenarios this, as we returned to school this school year, scenarios in which it seemed as though there might be some community members that were saying things that I mean I don't think I am completely naive. I am a child psychologist; I work in schools. I hear a lot of examples, and I do a ton of observation, and somehow the students largely pretend I'm not there or don't even notice that I'm there. So I think I see a lot. And the things I've been, that have been reported to mewhen the adults are around, they are forgetting not to do it when the adults are around. And I think it is at a level that is surprising. from an age group that is surprising. And so there's just a concern about it's not so much about how do we respond in the moment. That seems to be something that we can work on, but largely I think reasonable think what it's just like what is the more like community understanding of this and how are we bringing those students in community closer to help them think about what they're doing. Cause we don't wanna just shape it so they get better at not doing it in front of us. Like I'm more concerned that they're doing it at all, cause it's not the kinds of jokes or comments or language that I would deem to be safe for anybody of any age. To be honest with you, adult, even to be saying, to be laughing at, to be connecting around, it feels concerning. Yeah, it's ugly stuff, and it sounds like there's a distinct lack of consent, right? In all of the in what's said in front of whom or in what's done to whom, right? And that's anyway you slice it, that's bad, right? Yeah, and do you think, like, I know you and I have awesome shared and also varying ideas about social media? It's certainly not all bad, but like one of the theories that I have is that maybe this is happening because people are spending too much time on social media, which is a dissociative activity. Yeah, I mean, I think social. media is also still fairly unregulated. And so I think that, yeah, I think sometimes you and I may differ on like screens and certain types of like games that folks might create a community around. But I think one place that we almost never disagree is that there are certainly corners of the are not that don't have a lot of regulation to them and that do kind of toward the lowest common denominator. And I think that that is it's really harmful for kids to end up in those when they are about sensationalistic things, when they are about jokes at the expense of others, right? Anytime that they are about not taking into account the humanity. of someone else, which I do think some darker corners of the can spiral towards. And so, yeah, I mean I think that if there are places on the internet where kids are learning that it's okay to make sexualized comments to or about people who haven't consented to that, or to come up and put their body on or near someone in a way that they haven't consented to, I 100 believe that that's bad. And that probably, if kids are spending a lot of time on social media unsupervised or without a healthy adult there to help them understand it, then I completely agree that we can get into places that we don't wanna be and that we probably wouldn't be. without social media. Yeah, and I I think we probably will at some point this season talk about the good things about social media because I actually think there are many. But in this example, I do think there's the amount of time, the fact that it's dissociative. Yes. And because what seems to be happening is when an adult is redirecting you, you're angry, you're feeling some emotion about what an adult is wanting you to do. It seems like, with the lack of impulse control or self-regulatory capacity, what's on the tip of their tongue is outrageously inappropriate. Ooh. Directed at another example is a joke made about an in front of. that adult and peers on the tip of their tongue. So I guess part of what concerned me is it's just like it was just like the first thing that came out, the first thing they thought of. And I'm like, how is that the first thing you thought of? You are 11. Yeah. So it makes me think about rehearsal, right? Yeah. Because I wanted to ask you more the connection you're making about the dissociative quality of social media and how it relates to this. But now I wonder if what you mean might be, and correct me if I'm wrong, that kids are having the opportunity to a little bit go into some kind of trance while they are absorbing really unkind language. and really unkind positions that are being shown to them over and over on a dopamine-rich screen, that they end up rehearsing those reactions or those words without even knowing it until that does become the first thing that comes to mind if they feel threatened or if they get into conflict. Is that kind of what you're? Yeah, I mean I think like when you think about dissociation it is a healthy human mechanism. Our brains have the capacity to dissociate. And the two main ways that we might use that in a sort of healthy brain way, one would be if we're really bored we would daydream. The other would be if something horrible is happening. our brain can leave and come back. Like if you're falling down a flight, your brain might, when you've landed at the bottom, and you did not, it was you were not unconscious, but you don't actually remember falling. Yes, and it, your, so your brain sort of makes a very quick decision

on your behalf: 16:59

we don't need to remember this, so we're not going to store it and doesn't always happen; sometimes our brain makes a different decision, like we need to remember every every bit of this so that if it ever happens again, we can protect ourselves. But sometimes that happens, so those two dissociative things. Some people, like I think on a, there's The research shows that some people just are naturally more, um, like dissociative, capable of dissociation or not, and there's a lot of information about how a lived experience contributes to your degree of dissociation and the way that you coped with it. I am very good at dissociating; I've learned so, like, for example, I don't enjoy, uh, horror movies because I have a hard time remembering that this is not real. Me too, and then I have nightmares after. I think that I have a theory, which is just my theory, that people who really enjoy horror movies are, are, the whole, all the while able to remember that this is a movie. I bet you're right. and they like feeling excited, and they like feeling scared, but they're like they're they're really clear the whole time. Um, so I'll like lose track of time in a movie. I get I can like hyper focus, like there's the flow state that ADHDers can do, and it's like the hyper focus that's also I think related to your dissociative ability. So I think that being on social media and video gaming is a dissociative task, which means it appeals to whatever degree of capacity you have. So you can watch video after video, and you're on YouTube, and you could go in one video to the other. You're on reels; you can go from one video tothe other before you know it a lot of time has passed and the way where your algorithm takes you is what you ended up being interested in or watching more and it can get really dark really fast yes and and then it can be really sort of like fascinating it's sort of like what what am I listening to and then if groups of kids are sharing those with each other it there's in this idea that like this is funny or provocative or what just nothing different from what kids you know kids have been doing forever is like look at this yeah I think but like I think that um that the access so quickly to such unregulated stuff is different yes I think that's right I think there's a there's there's a life-giving there's like an affirming side to this, which is that when kids see things that are too much for them, um, they do try to find a way to process it, and sometimes they try to process that through maybe unconsciously without even knowing what they're doing, like sharing the worry, right, or trying to get it in front of other people, like maybe peers. So maybe this actually starts as a way, even though the middle school or high schooler or high schooler can't say it, to be like, oh man, I ended up down a rabbit hole and I actually ended up in a pretty dark place; like, can you hold this with me so I'm not alone. with it but because adolescents can be somewhat counterphobic, which means they can actually sometimes run toward the thing that they're most scared of or pretend pretend that they're totally fine with the thing that they're most scared of. Right, we actually might end up with a lot of adolescents unwittingly sort of peer pressuring each other into decent desensitizing themselves to that which they maybe were only sharing amongst themselves in the first place because initially they got kind of freaked out by it. Um, right, and so the dissociative quality comes into play here because of the amount of time that kids. can spend kind of down these rabbit holes, sort of passively rehearsing these things mentally, without necessarily even actively choosing to do so. Is that what you mean? Yes, and I think that all of us, even people who tend to be more on the less dissociative leaning end of the continuum, can totally lose track of time. Yeah, on social media and streaming, because it's made for that. Well, right, is there, isn't commercials, um, that every however many minutes, like take a break and remind you that, like, you might need a snack? And oh, by the way,

it's 4: 21:15

45. So right, and it's also, it's trained to keep you watching, right? And that's sometimes. What I think about the reels or the TikTok stuff too is like, yeah, of course, the longer you watch, the darker it might get because it it wants to keep you watching, and it knows that humans are compelled sometimes by, uh, not super positive things, right? Right, so I think that, um, a couple things that I've noticed, one is in most of the examples that have been run by me, which there were many last year and some already this year, in most of the examples, when somebody talked to that student, uh, one to one away from peers and said like, " What was your goal there?" Yeah, the goal, the goals were usually to be funny or to get the adult to leave. me alone or I I don't know like I was just angry and then we name in a way that is carefully delivered to not be shaming we name impact usually it's clear that they way overshot theirgoal yeah like I did not intend to make my teacher feel unsafe I did not totally yeah I did not intend to like offend all my entire like community or or what um break laws you know that's like some of it's we have to say it's like sexual harassment so like what I've tried to say is like I think we need to make sure that we this behavior in another context such as a would be potentially illegal in some cases right sexual harassment or getting fired in some Cases get you like they would be relationship-ending with some people. So, we need to let them know that was actually really kind of a big thing to say. And tell us what your goal was. Tell us if you knew that that was going to be what you were going to say or the impact. And we want to learn from it and hold you unconditionally in community. But if we under-respond, then we're actually setting them up to take that behavior somewhere else and actually get fired or lose a friend or in really big trouble. And so it's like we can be too unconditionally accepting. I guess not too unconditionally accepting, but we can under-respond in terms of. the severity or the seriousness, which is exactly why I say we need to call it

what it is: 23:59

unexpected, inappropriate, unsafe. Don't call that unexpected. That was not unexpected. That was actually unsafe. Yes, that was well beyond unexpected. Yeah. And then we have to figure out how to build a new habit. So it's actually a bad habit. It's really serious, but it's a bad habit. So building a bad habit, like I just looked this up the other day, it takes an average of 66 times to build a new habit. OK, that's good to know. No, sorry, not to break a habit, to build a new habit. OK. And so we're going to have to do a lot of role play to reduce repetitions when you're wanting. to be funny or you're really frustrated of what's going to come out of your mouth. Yeah. So that you get your needs met, that people want to be in community with you, that you don't inadvertently or advertently cause harm, whatever it might be. And so the intervention is the practice of the replacement behavior. The practice of the replacement behavior. With the clarity that you are both unconditionally part of this community, that behavior is absolutely not tolerated here. It also makes me think about bi-directional understanding. Maybe the best adult stance is I am quieting down my own survival brain that might lead me toward rage at you or might lead me toward catastrophic panic, imagining that already you're on track to ruin your life because you did this one time. And I have to be horrifically punitive, right? So maybe it's like, OK, I'm going to calm down. As an adult, I'm going to calm down my survival brain so that I can be available to learn because a safe brain is a smart brain, both for adults and kids. And what I'm trying to learn, just as you've done a beautiful job in these examples of, is yeah, what was this kid's goal? What was this kid's? To what degree did this go? It's still also unexpected to them, right? And we have to start there so that we can usually In most cases, come to the conclusion that, ah, even still, this is a good kid having a hard time, right? And when they see us, know that and get that similar to last week, right? When they see us come back into recognizing that a person can still be basically good and have done this wildly inappropriate thing that scared all the adults a lot, right? That's the position from which they can receive. We can help them understand why this was really bad and what ramifications this could have in the future and why it's important to figure out a new way, right now. But I don't think kids are ready to hear that from any adults who haven't been able. to stay calm enough to fully understand where the kid was coming from or to trust that this probably was not just straight-up evil and maliciousness on the part of this child. Yeah, and I think that a lot of things have changed in my 25-year career, and a lot of things have stayed the same. And one of the things that has stayed the same is that you can trust a group of humans, especially kids and adolescents, to create norms that are gonna align with what we would want. So if you bring it to the kids and you say, what are our collective norms around the way that we want to feel when we're in a classroom together, we're joking around when we're learning Do we want everyone to feel safe? Do we want everyone to feel respected? Do we want every emotion to be welcome, but the expression of that emotion to feel accurate and to get needs met? The kids will come up with the norms that you want them to come up with. That has not changed. That has not changed and that's so affirming. Yeah, in my experience that has not changed. Yeah, mine too. And the more weirdly, it's so funny, right? Because we do have to call a spade a spade, We do have to name when behavior is unsafe and unacceptable. Though we also, it's funny, and we do need to care about kids unconditionally. We can't always trust them unconditionally. Like, for example, if a kid does something like this and we just say, oh, that's okay, honey, I trust you'll never do it again. Well, that's not a good idea. We shouldn't trust kids that far if we haven't helped them figure out how to do something different. But we also need to trust groups of kids in a way as much as we can to participate in, to some degree, being self-governing and coming to those norms on their own, though hopefully with adult scaffolding that makes sense. Because I think, especially in adolescence, when, and I think you have helped me understand this too, in adolescence, kids are really shifting over. Belonging is always. one of the highest ticket items for the survival brain. Like belonging is always one of the most important things for our nervous system to decide whether we're safe or not and whether we need to go into survival mode or not. But little kids clock belonging based on, are the adults mad at me? But adolescents really start to clock belonging based on, are my peers mad at me? Or am I in good standing with my peers even more than adults? So if we don't show up as adults who can be understanding, right? If we don't show up as who can have some sort of trust in the wisdom of kids and collaborate with them, I think we're gonna lose them because that's just gonna send them even further into kind of only caring what their peers think about them. And if this is, I don't know, it's I feel like a group of adolescents who are invited by calm adults to connect to their deeper wisdom will come up with their own norms and will start to kind of self-govern their own community more effectively than adult punishment, let's say, could ever do. But I do think that peers who feel given up on by adults who might've gotten freaked out and decided that they're all bad or unsalvageable, they might spiral off as a into deeper into the behaviors that we're concerned about. Do you know what I mean? Yeah for sure And I do think that the dopamine boost that you might get from peers laughing is potentially, at times, worth the adult anger Yes, it's so powerful It's so powerful but I think, again, when we really break it down, they didn't, they might've thought it was worth the adult getting frustrated or annoyed with them but they, in every example I've been part of, they were not intending to make that adult feel unsafe at work or around them or harmed in some way And so that's where I think it's like oh, like that wouldn't be worth it in the moment And I think that when we try to strike that sweet spot between shaming, alienating, and bringing you in and looking at your behavior together that's so important. But I do think there's another part of this which I feel like as a you and I are asked how should we respond? And so we're doing a great job of saying how do the adults and does the community respond to the student. There's a whole nother part of this which is that in the meantime we have these adults that are the recipients of this or the adult in the room when this played out. And then the question is what do they need to feel safe moving forward? And some of them, and you can't really predict it like based on the situation, and it's like sometimes they're just fine. And Sometimes they actually need another adult to be present for a little while. Sometimes they need somebody to help them have that group conversation around commitments. Sometimes they need other people to say that was absolutely completely unacceptable. Sometimes they wanna be the one to say that because it feels disempowering when other people do that. So I don't think we can make any assumptions about what the adults who are these scenarios forward are gonna need. But I really think we need to have that stance of curiosity around, okay, we've talked about the student and what the student needs. How are you? Who do you? wanna talk to about how this was for you whether it's this group right here right now or a certain person. What do you need to move forward? Because part of how we make the job of a school professionalwho can be available in specific ways that feel supportive, not disempowering. And we need to put that constant immediate response of like, well, there are other people. So we all just have to suck it up. Like, well, there are other people, actually. And what we're asking for is it probably actually going to be quite doable. Yes, that's right. And and maybe short term if we put it in place fast, right? If we don't sort of waste time being like no. we can't, sorry. And then you know this because we also need to think about what is the, you know, sometimes we'll talk about what is the, what are the other kids' needs for repair, right? Or what could the person, the kid who did the thing, do to repair? But some of this is also about what does this adult need for repair? And sometimes that can be, you know, with the kid, but other times this, this adult needs to repair their sense of safety at work overall. And having, having some backup for a while, having a second adult in the room, even if it's just for a certain point of the next, you know, the next few days, can make a big difference. Yeah. And I think this is an example of where in our training as a mental health professional we get lots and lots and lots of clinical training and supervision around self-disclosure and when it's appropriate and when it isn't. And it's so clear in our minds that you only self-disclose information about yourself or information about your emotional and reactions to your client when you believe it is in the best interest of that client and central to the intervention and not going to make you more vulnerable than necessary. So it's, and you never do it impulsively. It's always something that you might talk with a valued colleague about thinking. about sharing how they're making me feel when they make these comments or whatever that none that isn't talked about in the world of education at all. No, it's so true. And it's such a dicey thing. I mean sometimes that that's can be a whole year of mental health school, you know? Yeah, it's a lot, it's a big deal. And it's like pretty, like, boundaries wise, it's pretty infrequent and very thoughtful and never impulsive. I try to slow teams down too and say like, well, wait a minute. Like what do we guess, knowing what we know about this person, what do we guess they would think and feel if we said you actually freaked out Mr. So and so? Yep, I think. they might find it pretty cool or pretty funny sometimes, in which case we are not going to share that. Right? That's right. Yeah, that's time and place too. Yeah. And other times, it's like that's actually going to be really powerful. We're guessing. So we're making a group guess and we're thinking about that. And it's another way that we protect people in this work is like, well, wait a minute before we share how you're making me feel. Let's really think through like, is this going to be what's best for the student? What's best for the adult? What's best for the student? Part of an intervention that's going to be helpful and not leave the adult too vulnerable. Like those are the sort of things that you have to tick off before you think about doing that. Yes, I think those are very powerful. Yeah, that's really useful, that. Yeah, I think that's a very granular way to think about it. I also want to, in my constant way, once again zoom out a bit and also recognize that especially when we're talking about sexualized stuff, and especially in these examples, we are talking about that the issue is that it's done without consent. It's at the wrong place in time that could make somebody feel uncomfortable. I think that that's, as with all things that include a loss of consent. Right, it's usually less about sex itself and more about power. One thing I think about with adolescents where this stuff is happening is to talk and think about power. If you have a kid who is doing unhealthy power grabs, perhaps we could see behaviors like this as one. Is there space to bring that into the room, right? To say that this is actually an unhealthy use of power. That's one of the reasons it's really harmful. Also, are there ways that we can help these kids get more access to healthy power? Just sort of the classic things that we might put in the recommendations of our eval reports, right? If there are kids that are doing. this a lot this might seem counterintuitive, right? But are we making use of their real talents, right? Are we giving them opportunities to feel powerful and helpful? Do they have access to altruistic actions? Do they have access to spaces where they actually can be an expert on something? Or can we find ways to give more voice and choice in ways that we, as the adults, sign off on? It might be a naive hope, but it works in many cases, right? In the hopes that if this is about power, if we give someone healthy power, they will have less need to grab unhealthy power, and inappropriate sexualized behaviors in schools are often an unhealthy. power grab. Yeah, I think that's a really important thing to think about is what is really at the heart of this. Is this somebody who has some kind of a pattern of behavior that is a flag for sexually inappropriate future patterns, or what? And I think a lot of times you're absolutely right. What's behind this is about power, which can be in fact really concerningwhen you talk about it being about power. I think a lot of people who work in educational and human service realms have a lot of tools and strategies for talking about that. You know, it seemed like you wanted to feel in control, or you want to feel power. We can give you healthy. access to that. Not like that. Come over here instead. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's really helpful. Yeah, it's so tricky, and it's so stressful because it does spin up all of our adult survival responses. Yeah, you know this stuff is like, yeah, you know, really creepy, creepy and scary and makes everybody uncomfortable. So it's it's really hard to navigate the survival brain as a, you know, as a professional in these situations too. Yeah. And I and I think that one of our core strategies to stay healthy in this work is to share the weight of responsibility and share the worry. So when you bring these examples to a, if you did not handle it in the way that you wish you would have had you to do it over again, you're in very good company. Yes, these are very surprising moments. Yes. If you did say or do a really skilled thing in the moment of getting such a surprising comment, kudos to you; you are that is the exception. Yes, most of what we usually see, most of us are going to totally mess that up. And then we're going to bring what happened and what we did to a group of people who are going to care about all of us, the adult and the student and everybody else, and help us think through a path forward. So I really do want people to know that like if this is happening in your realm of work you are in very good company. Unfortunately, if you totally messed up, you're in really good company. Share the worry, you know, share the weight of responsibility, and we'll, you know, figure it out together. Yeah, that's such an important and true message. I don't think we could end on any better note on this one. Yep. Well, thanks for talking it through, Gillian. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Yeah, thank you, Joelle. And thanks to our listeners. And we'll see you all next week. All right, take care. Thank you for listening to another episode of Stance of Curiosity. Stance of Curiosity is an unscripted conversation between Gillian 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 Gillian Boudreau and Joelle VanLent. Our cover art is by Aaron Lanou, and our music is upbeat indie folk by Twin Music. See you next time.