Break The Break Habit!

This week Joelle and Gillian took a look at a pattern where students might learn how to use breaks out of the room to self regulate (great!) but then might become over-reliant on this one coping strategy, contributing to extra time out of the class and also perhaps getting in the way of opportunities for belonging and co-regulation in their classroom community (not so great!) 

Often our over reliance on breaks results in lowered stress tolerance and stamina.  Often what the student is doing on a "break" is not directly related to their unmet need.  For example, if a student is worried and walking alone in a hallway, that is likely to make the worry worse.  If you need movement, a short walking break could be helpful.  If you are worried, you might be more supported by a task that distracts you from the worry or support in focusing on the task for a few minutes by working with a partner or an adult.  

We introduce a "Break the Break Habit" protocol in which we can teach students to identify the unmet need that they were hoping a break would address, self-advocate more directly for what they need, meet those needs in direct and efficient ways using a broader palette of coping strategies, and stay on routine while meeting the need (or return to routine as soon as the need is met).

Find us on Instagram!

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

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

Transcript

Hello welcome back to Stance of Curiosity. I'm Gillian Boudreau, and I'm Joelle vanLent. Hi everybody! Hi! I can't remember if that's how we usually start it, but I just felt moved to say our names today. I think it is how we start. Oh, okay, great! Good, good! It's so nice to be back rolling. We've been getting some cool feedback. People are using the Rumble Strip from season three, episode one. And we're back again to talk about breaks. So I have a saying, which I think most of what I talk about other people created, and I repeat it. I think this might actually be something I invented, but who knows? Anyway, what I say is break the break habit. And so What I mean by that is I worry.

I know you and I have talked about this; we worry that we might be over-reliant on one coping strategy for times where a student is restless, unfocused, stressed, anxious, or upset. Where we suggest that they, or they ask for a break, which usually means walking, being outside of the classroom, sometimes means going to a calming corner, a reset space in the room. But what can happen is if you are highly stressed and you ask for a break, and you leave and take a walk, and you come back and you got complete relief from the thing that was frustrating you, the next time you might feel medium-stressed and ask to take a break. and get complete relief. And the next time you might ask when you feel a little bit of.

So when we over-rely on leaving the learning environment and leaving the learning opportunity completely as a means to cope with, and we're not managing that in a thoughtful, proactive way, we can actually lower stress tolerance. Right, so it's almost like it reminds me of an OCD process too, how people get really, really stressed out. This is a bad example. This is not how hand washing OCD usually starts, but let's say that you really did get some sort of horrible, putrid, dangerous substance on your hands. You felt an enormous amount of anxiety about. that reasonably, and then you washed your hands, and you got really reinforced by enormous relief of huge anxiety, right? But then, over time, how OCD works is that you need to wash your hands more, and because you're sort of looking for that hit of relief that comes with the hand washing, right?

But you're losing your ability to tolerate distress. So you're just going to that one coping strategy more. And that might seem like a weird thing to bring in because we're not talking about OCD today, but I do see breaks sort of similarly, right? Here's something that maybe worked well once, or it can work well at a certain level of stress. But If we overuse it in different moments where other coping strategies could work instead, then yeah, for one, we may reduce stress tolerance. And for two, as much as we would want breaks to always be possible, sometimes you're in a situation where a break is not possible. And then I think the risk of using any coping strategy in a singular way is that, well, what are you going to do if that one's not available exactly?

And I think what we sometimes confuse is a strategy should be, in a menu of coping strategies, is not actually the intervention or the goal. So the goal is when a student is having a hard time remaining in a learning. Opportunity or a person is having a hard time remaining a healthy, growth-promoting opportunity. So that could be like a social experience or anything, right? Like it's something in life that we're assuming in this situation that what's happening, what's being offered to the person is healthy and that they're not able to access it. The barrier to access is maybe restlessness, hyperactivity, distraction, worry, anxiety, stress, something which could be caused by the experience because they're having like a hard time engaging, or it could be caused by other stuff that interferes with their ability to access that experience.

either way. Okay, so the goal is to help the, like, what we're trying to do is increase their self-awareness so they know, what do I need? What is my unmet need? I need to move, I need to feel less worried, I need a connection, which sometimes we call attention need, water. I need food. Like, what do I need? And then we wanna teach the student to, so identify the self-advocate effectively for what they need, have a plan that they're supported in directly and efficiently meeting that, and then either doing that while they stay on routine or returning to routine as soon as the need is met. There's this enormous inefficiency in going for a walk, taking.

a break where you leave the room, you go for a walk, or you go to another place, in like school for example, where there's a supportive person there, so you get a That helps if you needed to move and you got movement. But if you're so what I always think about is like if you're really worried and so you can't focus on learning and you go for a walk in the hall, now you're alone with your worry. And the worry could actually get worse, and when you return to the classroom, you could be even less regulated and available. If you needed food and you go for a walk and you come back, then you didn't meet the need at all.

So I think what's happening is we're we're saying when the student shows evidence of stress, give them a fidget or let them walk. That's like those are two very specific options on a coping skill menu, and we've missed the whole middle part in this plan of like how are we modeling and teaching what is the identify the unmet need, self advocate directly to get the need met, meet the need directly, and either stay on or return to routine with that need being like actually satisfied. Okay, that makes so much sense to me and I'm wondering how do we teach kids or how do we teach classrooms to foster the ability in kids to assess that unmet need, right? Because that brings that brings in interoception that bring that brings in mindfulness.

One thing that is tricky, right, is that you have to be able to access a certain amount of regulation to be able to stop and think about why you're dysregulated. So what if the adult in the room, or adults in the room, just were willing to take like a thoughtful guess? And what if they missed that? They missed it, and the student thought that adult noticed that I needed something; they cared enough to offer me an option. It didn't help. I feel like that's a really fine mistake. Yeah, me too. So, and it's kind of like parenting a baby or toddler, or parenting or supporting someone. who's not verbal or able to access their verbal abilities. So basically, you're saying you look fidgety.

Would you like to stand in the back of the room at our stand-up desk while we continue this together? Student goes to the back. Turns out they weren't. They were wiggly because they had to go to the bathroom, not because they needed to move their body. But you're just not, you're not going to, in the middle of a group experience, say, what do you need right now? If they don't, if they can't do that, or you might say, what do you need right now? They might say, I don't know. Then you just move right to, I'm gonna, let's try this. What if you sat closer? to me and helped me with this next activity. What if you went and got a drink of water and came right back?

You just came from outside, and it looks like you got sweaty. Like, I just think we need a move, right? Like, because it's the co-regulation is really like making a guess and seeing if it worked, and then you attune in over time. Working with that person, you get better and better at reading the cues, and then, therefore, get better and better at reading their own cues. Yeah, okay, I really like that. So, yeah, so it, and you know, so much of what we suggest here, right, does require that teachers are able to, you know, attune to 30 people at once. not easy, but right; if a teacher is able to build on their deep understanding of all the kids in the class, right, that they have an amazing knowledge of,

and they can kind of identify perhaps some, you know, let's say some early warning signs that a kid isn't, you know, doing amazing in that moment in the class, maybe they can offer attunement, right, be like, hey, I was noticing you; I was thinking about you. That's what we're, that's what we're communicating if we even offer a thoughtful guess, and then like, here's a thoughtful guess, right? So now we've got a bit of a connection, attunement need met no matter what, and then the kid can have a chance to be like all right maybe I'll accept this guess maybe I'm standing in the back oh in fact maybe now that I'm standing I realize I need to use the bathroom.

Let me go do that right or you know maybe now that that educator has talked to me a little bit in a kind way I'm realizing that I'm actually feeling quite emotionally vulnerable. Maybe I need to find somebody else I can talk to a little bit more in a kind way or just like Roger Brunson shared in our episode in season two. Maybe I need to like go to my notebook right and like do the writing that I do to hand my teacher later right I think that's awesome you know sometimes in thinking about this and how already impossible the jobs of educators are. I also want to think about how this could this be an investment for them to ultimately make their lives easier.

And it's reminding me, I think I just want to share the name of this training with you. I can't remember if I, but a few years ago I was, I'm just now remembering, I was asked to give a talk in a beloved elementary school we both know and love where there was, you know, some overuse of breaks outside of the classroom. And the title of the presentation was 'How do we keep these kids in the classroom and why on earth would we want to I love that, yeah, and I think like that's we're not asking an educator to stand in front of the room and read every single individual and proactively anticipate all their needs. What we're saying is when you have a specific situation where a person is frequently asking you to leave the room, which would probably be grades, you know, maybe four to twelve. Yeah, so they're always wanting a break or they're leaving the room or they're any age, and they're always wanting to take a break from the learning experience. So, you're already interacting with them because they're asking you to leave or they are leaving without permission.

When you do engage, what if it looked like a guess about what you might need right now, and would you be willing to try this? Can I have a break? So the other thing about building, we always talk about building stamina and perseverance. And so I think that the idea here is some kids, when they say I need a break, because they might explode in a way that might be unsafe, you are going to say thanks for letting me know. And they're going to go. But when they're not on, you know somebody who is struggling to that degree where it could get unsafe, what you're going to try to do is say yes in five minutes, or yes after we do, after I'm done giving instructions, or yes after you do one more problem.

or instead of leaving the room right now, could you try continuing what we're doing while standing? Or could you try sitting at your table spot while we keep going and listen to us from there? Or could you try doodling on this paper while I keep going and hanging in with us as best you can? So basically it's like how do we meet their unmet need a little bit and have them approximate what the group is doing to delay gratification and then over time build their perseverance toward before they get that complete relief from the demand, the task, or the demand? And that's ultimately so, so you're just making a really quick guess. And they will might say no, I need to leave, and you'd be like, okay, I guess I guessed wrong just trying to help.

So we're not getting in a power struggle. The goal was that you made a tuned gas, a gas at attunement. And you might be wrong. But again, like the worst thing that's going to happen, I think, unless it's somebody who really escalates, and you're going to know that, and then you have a safety plan, not a regulation plan or a safety plan combined with a regulation plan. Aside from those cases, the worst thing that's going to happen is they're going to think you cared and you tried to guess at what they might need, and you guessed wrong. Great, I'm willing. to be wrong on that all day. Because the message is, I cared about you. And I tried to help. Yep. And I was thinking about you.

So I really like that idea of the regulation plan versus the safety plan. Right? Because you know, most of my beginnings on figuring out breaks was for kids who also specifically needed safety plans or also specifically had one on one folks. And that was for a reason, right? That was because these kids were at risk of becoming overwhelmed in class, maybe to the point of being a safety risk for themselves or others, but also just to the point of creating a whole scene and experiencing themselves as potentially a bad. kid and having, you know, peers get really frustrated with them and just, you know, things that aren't going to help them build back their sense of basic safety and belonging.

But you, yeah, as an educator, you will know either if that kind of plan is in place for a kid or if we need to get that kind of plan in place for a kid because there will have been some big things that have gone on if they didn't take a break. Right? So we know kids who just really need a break. And in fact, sometimes the first thing, you know, also, sometimes we have kids who are like escaping the classroom or are bolting and things like that, you know, for that honestly, the First thing we do is we give absolutely unlimited breaks or we offer breaks all the time. And the deal is, yeah, no, actually, what we're trying to shape, the behavior we're trying to shape at first, is we know you're going to need to escape the classroom.

And the goal is now you just escape it to this particular place. Right? And maybe it even gets reinforced when you do that. So there's there's a wide range of ways that kids might need to use breaks. What we're talking about today are those kids who have not shown that they are at risk of having such an enormous behavior. If they don't take a break, that it becomes a big problem. These are kids who were actually working on helping them develop their just their discomfort tolerance in the classroom. So, one thing I really like about what you're saying is that in those, right? So yes, you can take a break. Yes, you can access this reinforcing or comforting behavior, but let's just see if we can do a couple of things first.

That also, I just keep being reminded of good OCD treatment that comes up a lot with compulsive behaviors and OCD too, right? It's like at first a person sort of is like, I know I'm going to need to check this stove, but are there some coping strategies I can use? Right? Is there some breathing I can do? Can I jump? up and down 15 times, right? Such that maybe at the end of that, like my distress will have gone down, or my urge to use this comforting behavior will have gone down. But if not, right, I've at least delayed the time between getting getting that reinforcement of checking the stove, or I've at least created a longer, longer amount of time between walking to the drinking fountain.

And even just stretching out those times in between using a break will help build distress tolerance and resiliency too, right? And like it reminds me of right after COVID when a lot of anxious families spent like three to six months with each other all the time and then had to separate to go back to school and work. And parents, when we were talking with parents, they were talking about checking their own, like, cell phone or texting their child or their family members constantly all day as a means to cope with the anxiety of being separated and back out in the world again. If you could schedule, like, I'm only going to text or I'm going to check my phone or I'm going to check the location of my loved one every 30 minutes, and then I'm going to do it every 45 minutes, and then I'm going to do it every hour, your brain adjusts to the input of that information.

And so if you're getting it every 30. seconds, it's going to start building up the desire for that reassurance every 30 seconds. Yeah, if you can tolerate and like the amount of time that a person can tolerate between engaging in the compulsive, a quote unquote compulsive, I so I'm using that word loosely right now, behavior, the amount of time that they can tolerate is person to person. So I'm just throwing out examples like five minutes might be an excruciatingly long time for someone as a starting point, or maybe 30 is okay. But like basically what we're saying is if you keep doing it more and more frequently, then you're actually moving your distress. tolerance and stress tolerance which we're assuming in all these scenarios you have somewhat of an exaggerated or irrational fear.

And you're letting the anxiety drive the bus and win by the constant checking. So you're building your sense of tolerance by making a rational decision in a moment of calm: I am not going to let anxiety rob me of, you know, enjoying a show or a movie or dinner with my family and friends. So I'm I'm I'm going to set an alarm, and I'm going to check my phone when the alarm goes off. And I'm just going to sit there and do nothing but not check the whole time till the alarm goes off. It's going to get increasingly. comfortable Yes, so you know when you, when you obviously, what if you have you have clinical anxiety and OCD? We want to make sure that people have a therapist helping them navigate that systematic desensitization process.

But there's a lot of situations that are not of that level of severity. And we're using what we do, which is, as psychologists, we use what we know in clinical situations, and we try sometimes to apply it to more general situations. And we can see that the way that people are being supported is making it worse rather than better, in a very unintentional way. People are just trying to help. But this is one of those. situations which is kind of rare to be honest with you, where I feel like we might be making it worse by offering the breaks whenever they ask in a situation where they're not actually gonna, they're not somebody in need of a safety plan. Yes, right. Because then it, I mean it does become like phone use for adults, right?

Like you know, a lot of times like for ADHD adults, folks will be like, how can I increase my productivity? Like what's going on? And a lot of it, right, is that especially for ADHD years, they might start to feel that buildup of pressure, right, or something got hard or something was boring or there was some level of internal. discomfort that built. And without even realizing, people reflexively reach for the phone because that's a that's a break for the adult brain, right? Like we look at something else, it's like we've gone to the drinking fountain. But also this can happen with kids too. Sometimes you go to the drinking fountain or to the phone just for like one hit of reassurance in the hopes that you can go back to work.

But then you get distracted on this whole other thing, right? Just like kids who might go to the drinking fountain, but then they might be out of the room for a long time doing other things. So you know, I think for all of us, we're all trying. to build that muscle of persevering even when things are uncomfortable, and we do need to use discernment, so we're not like white knuckling it or masking or harming ourselves through persevering when, like, we're really not okay or we're starting to hit a limit. But I think it's actually a good thing for all of us to practice persevering through mild to moderate discomfort rather than checking out. Right? And I think that, I think that if it were a middle or high schooler, I would imagine an adult saying something like, notice that you are leaving the room a lot or asking me to leave the room a lot.

I know for sure that we're better when you're with us, I know for sure that I'm worried about what you're missing because I carefully created learning opportunities for you. And so I'm going to try something, which is that I'm going to try to ask you to stay a bit longer before you go. Or I might offer you another strategy so that leaving isn't the only strategy that you have. And I'm wondering if you'd be willing to try my suggestion. And then, if you still need to leave, you still, you know, need to leave; like, you can walk out of the room at any time. This is free community. But I'm, this is my noticing, this is my concern, and this is my plan. So humor me, try it out.

And that's what I'm doing just in case you're curious about why I might be responding differently. That's the deal. And then you just leave it at that. And they will just just see how they respond. But like, I do think that you're going to wait until you think it's become a problem, right? Or you're worried that it's becoming a pattern. And then you're going to state intention. If it's a younger child, you could do the same conversation with different words and a visual, you know, and show them a menu of visual menu of coping skills, and show them somebody taking a walk and say, it looks like we're using this one all the time. So I want us to practice these. other ones. So I'm going to suggest these other ones. Sometimes

I think that it's all assessment too, right? So the teacher's like the kid walks out anyway, or then they get agitated. And it's like, OK, so then that's information, right? That sounds to me like information that you need to sit down together with you, the student, and some other supportive people, like a school counselor or a behavior specialist or someone, and really look at what's going on and make a plan that the student feels like they have voice in. It's information. But we're not blocking them from leaving. But there is clearly a wandering problem in a lot of our. middle and high schools. The wandering problem will get better when cell phones are off, in a way, bell to bell, beginning of the day to the end of the day.

It gets worse if the students are able to access their phones only outside of the classroom. So, if your rule is phones are often away from the beginning of class to the end of class, then the wandering gets worse. So, I will say that in the schools that have successfully, all the adults are holding the line pretty firm. We don't see anybody's personal devices from the start of the day to the end of the day. There is less wandering. People are in the room more. People are laughing more, talking. more playing, more enjoying each other, more learning, better. It's very clear. And I think that some people are going to be really antsy because that was their only coping skill, was that device. So I predict that we play whack-a-mole for a little while.

We reduce the personal device reliance, and then the wandering predictably gets worse is the next thing. Everybody's in the bathroom all the time. So that's why I'm sort of bringing this up now. A lot of schools in Vermont have done this: no personal devices from the beginning to the end of the day. And I'm getting a lot of requests all of a sudden for that, going well, but everybody's. wanting breaks all the time. Everybody's wandering; everybody's out of the room. Yeah, yeah, that's such an interesting one. It reminds me of also if a child starts out with a lot of physical aggression and then we help them with that, we start to see that go down. But then the verbal aggression spikes.

And it's like, yeah, it's going to go in a stage-wise way, but we're moving in the right direction. And a screen is a huge dopamine hit. That's a very reinforcing break, whereas wandering is like the next down. That's less reinforcing. That'll be an easier habit to break. We can replace that with other kinds of getting the needs met or belonging. In the community or things like that, I love everything you just said was so amazing. So I really love kind of leveling with the kid about what we're going to be doing. I also love the way that allows the adult to kind of take responsibility for our own urgency. So anytime we can kind of make it a me thing, like get away from judgments or like you need kind of stuff for kids, we're in better footing.

So that way to be like, hey, you know what? Here's a couple of me things. For one, my classroom is in much better shape when you're here because you're a really important part of our community. And for two, I don't know, I made these learning materials. for you I think they're good. I would be worried about what you're missing if you don't get to them. Here's you're allowed to leave. Very important because an amygdala that thinks it is trapped will react by fleeing. So we cannot crack down on this by saying kids cannot leave or their bolting instinct will turn on. So it has to be you can leave. Like I can't stop you from doing that. It's a free country. I get it. Free society for now.

But what you're going to notice me doing is offering you some other ideas. And might even say you might think these are silly ideas. Like this might feel kind of cringey but I might say something to you like hey you look antsy. Do you want to stand in the back? Or I might say something like, hey, you're looking blue. Do you need to do like some emo journaling for a second? I'll read it later. You know, just like, and I think you're right. The kids who have been leveled with in that way, they will feel respected. They won't have to wonder you why the quote unquote rules seem to have changed. They'll know transparently that they're not trapped, and that might give them the emotional, and they'll feel thought of.

And all of those things might give them the brain safety that they need to try something new, right? A safe brain is a smart brain, as I belabored. in season one So if a kid you know obviously if a kid is taking a ton of breaks they're feeling a little bit dysregulated because they're you know using some flee behavior. Right? So we need to treat them with respect. We need to treat them with belonging. We need to talk to them through like a kind relationship that will allow their amygdala to you know relax and not feel alone, to feel positively regarded. And that's where we can kind of learn and risk trying something new. Yeah. And like ultimately like we've talked at times about let them be self-oriented.

Like a stressed person is a self-oriented person because when your needs are very unmet, and you're stressed or scared. It's a very adaptive thing for all of your attention to shift to yourself so that you can deal with that perceived threat. And then once that perceived threat is dealt with, you can start being an empathic, aware person again. But so, you got to let them be self-oriented. And so when they say, like, I need to take a break, and you're like, I'm just worried that if you leave right now, you won't get what you need. I want you to get, I just want you to get what you need. And I'm wondering if you act like, I noticed that you didn't eat lunch. I'm just like to just walk, or I'm wondering if you need to be distracted.

because it seems like you're really worried about a problem that's going on. But if you go and track down that person that you're arguing with, I'm not sure. So maybe what you need is to be distracted. And if my brilliant teaching is not distracting enough, maybe you could just at least stay in the room and read a book for a little while. You're just spitballing. You're just brainstorming. And what you're saying is it would be terrible if you left here for a while, missed what we're doing, and didn't get what you need. Yes. Yeah. So like that's not good. That's not good. Yeah. So ultimately I want you to get what you need, and like, yeah. And I think that's another thing that we probably could spend a whole session on if we haven't already, which is like let them be completely self-oriented.

Don't talk right now about how they're disrupting others or they're distracting you or the negative impact that they're having on other people. That's a strike while the iron is cold thing. You can come back to that later and say when there's no problem and you're chatting with them about how you're trying to help. It's like, you know, another thing I have to mention is like when you're pacing and telling me that you have to leave and I'm in the middle of giving directions, starting class. It's really hard for for all of us. So, um, I need you to wait for me to be done getting the class started before I can help you figure out what you need sometimes. And, um, but that's not in the moment.

You can't bring up the negative impact on others in the moment that they're distressed without feeling dismissive, and they'll escalate predictably. You know, I think we did do one episode on that. I think it's called " Let Them Be Special." Oh yeah! And I think that will continue to be something that we touch on, you know, because, yeah, stressed people are self-focused, and schools are stressful environments. So, I think that's just a really important. Reminder that when we do see anyone around us, right, uh, kids or colleagues seem to become a bit myopic or a bit self-focused, right? To fire up our curiosity and be like, oh, that's what a really stressed person would do, right? What could be going on for this person, right?

And I, I like if if any of our listeners are people who have had lives where their needs are have largely been met and they've been in really, like, kind of well-supported situations. A good example that I give is if you went to college and left home, or if you got married, or if you had a kid, if you had a big life if you moved to another place, started a new, if you started a new job. When you had a big life stress that was positive, you were, if you think back, all you could talk about is yourself and what you were doing. And you were not, potentially not, the best friend to hang out with during that time, 'cause it was all about you.

And that's just because, developmentally, you were making a big leap. And so all of your resources were consumed by navigating that big leap. That's right. And exactly what is happening to our students, especially middle schoolers and like ninth graders, is like they are totally overwhelmed by trying to navigate the changes of life. And when we bring up other people's needs, they're like. Why do I care? Yes, yes. Do you have any idea what I'm dealing with? Yes, exactly. Exactly, yeah. So break the break habit. There's a connection here too, where if a kid kind of knows that maybe they're being a little bit ridiculous, they might be self-selecting out of the classroom because they might feel like they're being too much, right?

And again, this is not with big like super duper disruptive or potentially harmful things, but it could also be that there's a fairly self-aware kid who is like, I am totally self-absorbed right now. Like, my parents get frustrated with me when I'm this way. Why would this educator be any different? Why don't I? just opt out and stew in this on my own. But then, of course, I'll come back no better than before. So I think some of this intervention is also educators letting kids know it's okay, within reason, it's okay to be the way that you are right now in here. Like we can metabolize that, we can work with that. Like let's not make the answer be that, you know, you can't be around us and we can't be around you at the first sign of discomfort.

Yeah, and like how many times have you and I worked with really lovely families with, for example, an ADHD or kid where they have an incredible situation set up where when your body needs to move, you go move. And when you're talking a mile a minute, and I need to focus on something. I invite you to go somewhere else. Yeah, to do that. Or, you know, you can go and do any number of great physical activities when that's what you need. So the coping menu at home is really working and great, but does not translate to school. Yes. So when I feel like this, people invite me to leave. So I'll leave. Exactly. Differentiating context and coping menus, yes. Yeah, right.

And as you said, they might realize like the best thing right now for everybody is for me to go meet my needs somewhere else. And then they get really confused when that's... Yeah. Oh, that makes so much sense. Yeah. This also makes me think about that two by 10 procedure that I will often talk about, basically as a first line of defense for any kind of challenge between a child and an educator, which is just trying to find two hours, two minutes a day for 10 school days, in a just to sort of, you know, interact with and be in the presence of a kid, or just, you know, find your way over to their desk, or, you know, just kind of shoot the breeze, basically.

And it makes me think of this here too because educators might be thinking, like, when am I gonna be having these long conversations with these kids about like what breaks make sense for them at school versus at home or like and you know I think the answer is if you've got a kid who's taking a ton of breaks remember that that's already taking your bandwidth as far as managing the breaks and managing the ways that they're behind. And if you can lean in, even for 10 days in a row, right, to spend two minutes a day with the kid to use some of that time, right, to be like hey, here's what I'm thinking about, you know, how we might be able to have you in the classroom or why that might be good.

It doesn't have to be a forever intervention but you might find that kind of proactively choosing to spend a little bit more time on this kid for a short period of days. is gonna save you time in the long run rather than just, you know, managing these self-selected breaks and the fallout of same for you know several months. Right? And also, I think part of this is teachers, for very good reason, feel ethically obligated to follow a plan that's been developed for a student. And that's, of course, right. But sometimes the plan lists things like student can have a break whenever they ask, student can be offered fidgets whenever they ask. But I think that plan is made with the assumption that we would reconvene if those strategies are making things worse rather than better.

So if a fidget becomes a projectile. item in the room, then the fidget did not make the person more focused. It made everyone feel like they were dodging items. So that's, so it's like the goal was not the fidget. The intervention was not the fidget. The goal was that the person has strategies to effectively self-regulate to increase their attention. One method of doing that might be a fidget at certain times. So you can take the fidget away as long as you replace it with another strategy. You can pause the access to the fidget for a day, provide another option, and then try it again the next day, even better. Or if you're really worried about not following the plan to the. letter you could just ask for another meeting and say this is what I'm.

So I think nothing, none of these things are emergencies. Like that urgency really, this is not an emergency. It's like this is what I'm noticing. The breaks are happening all the time. I don't feel like I have permission to say no. Can we talk this through? So the question I get the most is what if it's in the plan? And I'm like great, revisit the plan. Revisit the plan, that's great language too. Yep, because all the people that made the plan are not you and the student are the two enacting the plan. That's right. The teacher and the student, yeah. And these need to be living. documents We need to make changes to them as needed. I love that. Well, there you have it, breaking the break habit. Yep. Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Gillian. Thanks, everybody, for Oh, sorry, what were you saying? I was just going to tell everybody to keep it up. Keep doing the good work. Keep it up. And we'll see you next time. All right, bye everybody. Bye y'all.

Thank you for listening to another episode of Stance of Curiosity. 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 Jillian Boudreau and Joelle Van Lett. Our cover art is by Aaron Lanou, and our music is upbeat indie folk by Twin Music. See you next time.