Collaborative and Proactive Solutions: Can it work for even our toughest challenges such as truancy?

Gillian and Joelle sit alongside parents and educators to consider how to support a student who is chronically refusing school.  What happens when the student realizes we cannot force them to go?  What happens when we’ve done everything we can think of and they are still not going?  The common pitfalls of feeling panic, incompetent, and deflecting blame are counterproductive.  CPS is an alternative approach that can help us avoid those responses and remain engaged with the child/teen as they navigate their path out of a stuck place.  

Plan B Organizer: 

https://thinkkids.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Plan-B-Organizer_ThinkKids.pdf

Collaborative and Proactive Solutions website:  

https://livesinthebalance.org/

Find us on Instagram!

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

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

Transcript

0:27

Welcome to another episode of Stance of Curiosity. I'm Gillian Boudreau. I'm Joelle vanLent. Hi, Gillian. Hi, everyone. That reminded me of something. So listeners, I hope you enjoyed the previous episode. Our camera had frozen in the midst of it. And I actually did what I was a pretty seamless job doing some editing, which we almost never do to stitch it together. Although I only did it in one spot. And then later I was like, wait, was there a second spot? And if there was, I apologize, but. One thing that I didn't manage to edit, but that made me laugh was that I don't. One of us said something when we were first turning the recording on last time. And I didn't do anything with it because mostly the intro music covered it over. But it was so funny. I was a little bit late with the transcript. So I actually did the transcript when we're recording today and like quickly stuck it in there. But the transcript heard that slight bobble at the beginning too. And it thought that one of us just said "Adam?" We're starting. What I heard was you say 'cloud.' Because you always talk out loud to yourself. Put it, record it in the cloud. So I heard when I listened to us. Which is... Something that I do sometimes to make sure that we're making sense. Of course, that's helpful. And it started with cloud, and then it went into our introduction. But that's what it was. It did Adam. At all. With a question mark. Uh, that you're right. I was saying cloud. Well, okay. No, Adam here. It's a lo-fi. It's genuine vibes here on this Dance of Curiosity podcast. That's right. And we were so proud that you actually did some producing. Yeah, I did a little bit of producing because we're learning new skills every day. Yep. All right. So. Um, I... was thinking about collaborative problem solving. Love it. And I also have been having lots of conversations. It's March, which means that one of the things that comes up a lot is students who are not coming to school. Especially, maybe, high school students. Who are not coming, and now we're starting to feel a real sense of urgency. I think that those conversations are always very rich. And I feel like sometimes we're listing the things that we do to support a family when there's a student having trouble showing up consistently. But I think sometimes what we're also needing to talk about is what it's like to bear witness to that? Yeah. Yeah. Truancy is a really interesting one. I mean, I work with a lot of educators and I also work with a lot of parents, right? And I think. Yeah. Truancy is a place. I mean, adolescence is a place and also truancy is a place where sometimes a kid really can recognize the limits of what we can actually make them do. Hmm. Which, you know, as a... person like myself, who's existentially invested in personal freedom. On the one hand, I'm like, well, you know, it's good for people to recognize the limits of what others actually can and can't do to control them. That's a person who you want in society. That's great. But also it is really scary. I think, for educators, for parents, and for the kid themselves, in a world where, as we talked about last week, it's terrifying for a kid to realize. That you know, the adults don't have full containment around them anymore. And a high schooler who simply refuses to go to school is a classic place where everyone can kind of wake up and be like, 'Oh, gosh. Looks like the jig's up. They're on to us.' What do we do now? Right. And it turns out that you can't make somebody who is in middle or high school go somewhere. No. You cannot force the body to go somewhere. You can influence. You can heavily influence them. And there's a lot we have a lot of strategies and approaches and ideas that we do creatively to support. Someone who's not going to school. And ultimately, they can just not. Yes, ultimately, they can just not. So, you know, I think. I was just looking up the jig is up to make sure that's still okay to say. It turns out it is. So we don't have to edit this out. I was like, oh no, where did we get that from? Let's go look. Yeah. So, you know, I think. Maybe I'll start. Maybe I'll start with the parent side, just because that's like, you know, and then we'll get to the school side, but. I find on the parent side, you know, oftentimes it's when people will reach out to a child and adolescent psychologist, right? If somebody isn't going to school. I find that for teenagers, people will like really get pushed toward finding therapy if somebody's not going to school. And for kids, it's similar to like, if somebody was potty trained and now they're not right. Those are the two things it's like— either, either there's poop around or we can't get the kid out of the house. Those are the times when people go to therapy. And, you know, so one thing that parents will often say is like, you know, firstly, should we try to make them? Is there any way we can make them? Like, have we been too permissive? And then the first step is like, 'no, there's actually no way we can force a person to do most things.' Um, And then sometimes I think parents won't always know, and school professionals know this all too well. But that there really are a lot of alternative paths, right, to getting a kid through a tough school semester or a tough school year. Right. And those, of course, include. You know, there can be like tutoring, which can still keep a close connection with the school, right? There can be half-day programs. Like, you know, I have worked with many a magical. You know, school counselors or special educators, especially on the high school level, where it has been pretty magically possible to condense, you know, if there's been a ton of missed assignments. I love when folks can be like, 'What if we gave you one compendium assignment that would give us the gist of whether you kind of learned something?' And then, you know, so on the one hand it's. It's amazing how flexible, and I think it should be flexible because sometimes a teenager will have a really hard year. As far as getting kids, you know, kind of moving along the track. So I think parents will first panic because they're like, 'Oh my gosh, maybe I'm going to get in trouble. Maybe there are no other options.' Maybe now my kid is just not going to progress in school at all. So my first step is to be like, this actually may not be as... black and white, huge catastrophic deal as you think. And then... we start to grapple with the fact that given that, yes, we can't and shouldn't make anyone do anything. What are some models for... solving problems collectively in a way that benefits all? Right for motivating positive change. And one of those is collaborative problem solving, which we'll talk about today. But what are you noticing? Comes up, you know, so I was sort of talking about how panic-inducing. Truancy can be for parents. What do you notice as far as the big feelings it can bring up? And school professionals. I mean, I think that. The school teams that I work with, which are all public schools in Vermont, elementary, middle, and high school,

we always first assess: 8:02

is there something happening? in the school environment that is stress-inducing or creating a resistance to going. And there sometimes are, and we address those things. And so that doesn't feel hard. It feels like we can... assess and do a lot of good information gathering and we can change a lot about the dynamic in the environment at school or accommodate it. We can. To do, we can have a very slow start. We can do an on-ramp. We can do all kinds of things. When that has happened, and we feel assured that when they get here, they are. They actually are okay. And engage in learning and do okay. And then they just keep not coming or coming sporadically. That's where I feel like the school team starts to get overwhelmed and really concerned because now it feels like the problem, quote-unquote, which is never a person, but the problem of not coming is... outside of our control. And I think that's often how parents feel too. They feel like maybe it's something that's going on at the school or I can't, you know, people are. Expecting me to get my kid to school and I can't do that very basic thing. I think it feels there's shame that gets triggered. We know nothing good happens when we are feeling shame. No. So I think that all the adults get worried, feel a sense of maybe urgency. I think that there are situations where it has become so chronic that there's actually a sense of desensitization to not going so now the school team feels like the family is not feeling urgent about it and so then they get panicky about it. It's like we you know that thing we talked about last time where we yes polarize each other and so I think one thing we know, like when you said your starting point is to start brainstorming, there's lots of ways to do school. There's lots of ways to learn. The most effective part of that intervention is that we're offering people choices and options so they're not feeling backed into a corner. I also think that when we start panicking, and feeling urgent, it makes people that are resistant or shut down more resistant and more shut down. Yes, I think that's right. I think that's right. Yeah. Like in the context of, um, you know, highly sensitized nervous systems will sometimes talk about, like, startled, trapped, and shamed as the big, as the big three that can make somebody stuck or make them react. But I think that actually works for. Almost all humans, especially humans in a tough situation, right? It's startling for everyone. If a kid stops going to school, that's not what we expected. That's not what we wanted. We, you know, I think parents can feel really trapped if it's like, 'Oh no,' either we get this kid to school, which we don't have a way to do, or, you know, their life is going to be ruined or we're going to be in trouble or there's, you know, there's not no choice in how we can do this. And then that can lead to deep shame, right? And certainly if a person is feeling all three. They are likely to be enough in survival mode that behavior will start to be more short-sighted and, let's say, more adversarial than it might otherwise be, less collaborative. Right. So, like, if we're going to encourage people to take a collaborative stance, my vision of collaborative problem solving is that you're, like, I think I might have said this in a podcast before, but you're in like a driver's ed car. And you're in the driver's seat, you're in the passenger seat as the driver, teacher, but the. the child—student— is in the driver's seat and they have their hands on the steering wheel and gas and brakes. And so you have an extra brake in case there's a crisis. And otherwise, you're just talking through the decisions and offering helpful coaching. You're co-regulating emotions because they're driving a car and they're probably nervous. So you're doing lots of co-regulation, lots of assurance. You're self-regulating to be stay calm. Then you're thinking through what the person is doing, but ultimately, they are in control of like where we are going and how fast. All of that. So I think about that and I think about how, when we get mad at each other, that is... Like we, as the adults? Yeah, right. Or when we get mad at the kid, right? Like whatever. Thank you. That's going to be counterproductive. When we start to feel like my competence as a parent or an educator or a school counselor or principal is contingent on them attending. And we start to get counter that we start to panic a little bit and get all kinds of emotions. And that's not productive. So I think one thing we want to do is we want to be aware of what are the pitfalls. So one pitfall is we can't start to feel panicky and urgent, but we do want to be concerned and active. Right. We want to be engaged. Yep. And then we can't start measuring our competence based on that outcome. Mm-mm. No, and that's such an easy place to get hooked, I think, in any kind of human service of which parenting is one too. Right. But it's so hard because we are told that we're responsible for the well-being of another person. Right. But we also really can't control what they do, right? So it's easy to get yourself into such a setup where it's like, well, by definition. I'm only a good parent or I'm only a good educator. If this kid does the thing that we all agree will be best for them. And if they don't do it, then I am incompetent. And that is such a setup for the adult, right? Because there are many situations where kids won't do what's in their best interest, regardless of what a great job the adult did. And that's actually also not a great setup for a kid, right? If our self-worth is hinging on what the kid does, we are a little bit vulnerable to maybe like coercing them or to really pressing them in a way that isn't ethical. Because, like, our own like, our own like deep psyche can be like, well, I have to experience myself as good. And I'm only good if they do this thing. So I really have to find any way that I can to get them to do this thing. And now the kid is in a situation where they're being driven by an adult agenda. So I like, I like how you're describing. Yeah, sort of the process of working through a problem together, getting on the same side of the problem. As sort of being in that driver's ed car. Um, And I also like that because There would be room for the driver's ed teacher. To name, if they had a need. Right so so yes, like the the child or the student driver is in the driver's seat literally, and they are making the decisions within reason, right? About basically they're making all the decisions about. Where Just in this metaphor, are there two steering wheels or just two brakes? Just two breaks. Okay. Right. Great metaphor. So yeah. So really, all the, all the adult can do is a little bit kind of shut the whole thing down if things get dangerous, but otherwise. Yeah, what direction we go, where we go is up to the student driver. Um, And I think that is a good metaphor because ultimately, especially what a teenager does is up to them, right? There's nothing we can do to change that. What I love about collaborative problem solving is it does give room for the, not only for the adult to coach and sort of Socratically ask good questions and sort of, you know, help a kid see what might be best for them. But it also includes the adult experience, right? So it gives a chance, let's say, for this driver's ed teacher to be like, 'I actually have my own unmet need in this moment as a human. Which, who knows what it is, which is like, maybe all of a sudden, like I need a bio break or all of a sudden I really need some food.' What if we pulled over here? Right. So it also gives it. There's, I think, what's important in these processes is that there actually is room. For the adult experience too, but that we find a way to simply lay it on the same table as the kid experience, take as much of the hierarchy as we can out of it so that we can work together to find a solution that will work for everyone. So in the case of truancy, right? Like. There is an adult agenda there, right? The educators and the parents, yes, they think it's best for this kid to go to school. Also, you know, if I were to make that a me thing. As either a parent or a school professional, both hats I could wear on a given day. I kind of do have a need to feel like a parent who's doing everything they can for their kid. I also have a need to feel like a school professional that's acting ethically. Within my understanding of what's best for child development. So that does actually give me a bit of an unmet personal need. If I'm not at least trying. To support a kid in accessing their education, and I think there's something, you know, so in this collaborative problem-solving model, we'll put our trustee plan B organizer in the show notes today. We'll also say that you can go to livesinthebalance. com. We'll also put that in the show notes. These days, I think we're calling it collaborative and proactive solutions because I think another company might've bought the term collaborative problem solving, but I tend to use both interchangeably. uh so now yeah. But yeah, so it's this whole model where we might say to the kid, and truancy is a great example, hey. You're not going to school. That's a pretty big deal, right? In this model, we sort of assume that no behavior is happening for no reason. And that it is likely related to some kind of unmet need. Or some kind of lagging skill, right? So that could apply in so many ways for truancy. And a lot of the things that you described the school team sort of assessing for and, you know, switching around, that's sort of like, did this kid have an unmet need for a snack at the beginning of the day? And were they giving up and wanting to go home because they were exhausted and starving? Did this kid have an unmet need to not be in the same homeroom as the person who's been bullying them for three years? And if we, in fact, put them in a different homeroom, would they have an easier time starting the day? Does this person have a lagging skill? Around organizing themselves in the morning to get to school on time? If so, you know, how have we helped the parents kind of scaffold them in that? So, you know, we kind of talked to the kid to be like, 'Hey, you're not going to school.' This must not be for no reason. What's your experience of like the 'why' on that? Is there anything that would make it easier for you? Do you know of anything that's getting in your way? Right? We get out all that on the table. Like what are your unmet needs here? They might even be like, 'I have an unmet need for more downtime. I have an unmet need to play Fortnite all day. That feels like. a need to me right now.' Okay. We put that on the list. All right. No bad ideas here. And then the adult gets to sort of be like, 'Cool.' So I might have some lagging skills around knowing the best way to motivate you to want to go to school. It's possible that I have some lacking skills around talking to you about your school experience so you don't feel sort of shamed or hopeless about it. And I certainly have some unmet needs around. Need­ing to be sure that I'm doing everything I can to get you the education that you need. And this can often be a way to just get all of that on the table, then create a few. Possible solutions that might be very creative, especially if we're really taking as equally valid that somebody might have an unmet need to play Fortnite as that somebody might have an unmet need to feel like a good parent. And we see where we land. Right. And if you're. If you're... But part of what's helpful about the approach is that as hard as it is to put aside your sense of urgency or your sense of like. embarrassment or shame around this. When you're sitting next to the person, and I would encourage you to actually sit down at a table next to the person. I'm that concrete about it. You have a piece of paper in front of you. I encourage adults, regardless of the age and competence of the child, I encourage the adult to scribe. And you're on your because you're writing out what they're saying, sitting next to them, which feels physiologically as though we are facing the problem together. So when you're doing that, you're also approaching something in a way that's encouraging you. Structurally, to put aside your you know, urgency and fears. And you're writing down what? The main thing is that we've agreed to discuss, which is that you're not going to school. And then we're listing all the reasons and all the barriers to going. The child/ adolescent may or may not agree with you that going to school is the ultimate goal. So, as you're talking about the barriers, you want to figure out if there's a shared goal that we could both agree to. For example, you might be saying, 'I need to feel comfortable.' Hmm? And the adult might say, 'I need you to go to school.' So we have to figure out, you know, how to merge those. You're brainstorming and then you're playing out different scenarios. So you're saying that you're. Your strategy is that you're just going to. To at nine years old, you know, drop out of school and never go again. So let's play it out. Right. And in this approach, it's— in part. you're teaching somebody how to engage in an exercise of future orientation. And really play out the scenario that they're suggesting behaviorally. And look at the pros and cons of that. And then you're picking another strategy. So one path is that you'll never go again. Let's play that out. Another path, which maybe the adult or the kid, teen suggests, which is that you go every day, 100% of the time. Let's play that out. Which might be a way to get to some of the barriers that they haven't been able to identify, and so on. And then, at the end of this meeting, where you're looking more broadly at the situation. Your goal at the end of this meeting is not that they agree to do the thing that you want them to do. Mm-hmm. The goal is that you have broadened thinking. You've increased their... um, their awareness of the situation and that you've helped them engage in an exercise of future-oriented thinking. And then you walk away from it. And then you come back at it again another time. It's a series of conversations. I suggest people to put a timer in front of them. Mm-hmm. Somebody who is in a situation where they're making concerning actions or decisions that you're sitting down with them. Um, you know, any kind of long, drawn-out conversation is probably going to be too much for them. Yes, exactly true. You know, we've scheduled psychotherapy to be 50 minutes only because that's what works for us, not because that's actually how kids and teenagers who are struggling optimally face problems. It's multiple short doses. Yes. Or we approach. Look at it together for a little bit with curiosity and openness back up, approach back up. So you want to remember what is the goal of this interaction. How long is it going to be? And I'm going to tell, we're going to agree on that and put a timer in front of us and wherever we are, we're going to just pause it. Yeah, we have to do that with fidelity. Yeah. And then. And then the goal, if they left feeling like you. Listen to them. And part of what happens when you write down what they say word for word is that they realize that you're paying attention. Yes, that you're really listening. And that you're hearing them. Right. And whether or not you agree with it, you're writing it down. That's another important thing to say is that we can really take down another person's ideas. We can really get them on the map with our own ideas without implicitly agreeing with them. Right. And I think you're... through that process as the adult supporting that. That person, whatever your role is— parent, educator, whatever— you're going to get better at not getting urgent, panic, demanding, rigid, you know, punitive. Yourself. You're going to get better at. broadening your thinking and you're going to get better at realizing the reality which is that I can influence and support them, but I cannot force them. I can influence and support them, but I cannot force them. Yes, that's right. And I've really been surprised in processes like these. I mean, sometimes it's like, what can we possibly do other than? this approach, because we can't make people do things. But I've been amazed that even seemingly highly recalcitrant and unmovable kids and adolescents. If they, just as you're saying, even if they're just brought to a table and... asked to say their piece and had someone write it all down. That can go such a long way. Also, a lot of times we do uncover barriers that we wouldn't have thought of and that are pretty manageable to remove. Yeah, and just like you're saying with the... driver's ed teacher has the ability to include their needs in the process you could come back to this visual that you're working on and you could say so I just need to add a few things which is that today I got two phone calls at work asking why you weren't at school. Oh, exactly. I felt really... ashamed and embarrassed that I wasn't able to get you there. Yep, I had to interrupt a meeting. Yep. And I, and I'm thinking that they're could i think it's i think that you know, depending on how old the child is, like. I think that they might be making reports because there is a truancy mandated reporting process. And I'm feeling very anxious and worried about that for our family. And those are real factors. Those are real factors. And they get to go on the list. And that's the thing, right? Is that if we're not... if we're not fully prepared to really hear out a kid. And to really try to see as valid whatever their sense of their own unmet needs are, even if they might sound ridiculous to us. Then we're also not really in a place to level with them about what's going on for us. Right. And if we're not able to level with them about what's going on for us, then all that stuff is going to get pent up. And it's going to come out either in, you know, passive-aggressive comments or in. Overblown reactions to what's going on when we finally do say something about it. So, you know, this is really, I think, a safe container. Yeah. Like, if, if we get good enough at hearing kids out, there will also be room for us to say the truth about why not beyond what's right and wrong. Just for me as a human, this is sucking for me because of X, Y, and Z. We need a place to put that and we need an ethical and teenager-friendly way to give kids that information so they also understand the impact on the system that they're in. But this is a process to do that without creating shame. Right. Right. When. When you're working through that, and and you find the i think the other pitfall that we named is that the adults that are involved can start getting upset with each other. It sort of feels like either you suck or I suck. Kind of feels like those are your two choices. Shame and blame. Right. So I, I think. One of the things that we do... want to be clear about is that the public school or the school, whatever the school is, when if we get a student in the door, there's a lot that they can do to be creative. There isn't a lot they can do. When they're not physically there. There really isn't. Yeah. I mean, right. Like the scope of influence of a school just does not extend that far beyond the building's walls. Right. And so, if the main barrier is sleep, for example, they're not— they're sleeping during the day and not at night. We cannot allow them to sleep during the day at school because that, you know, makes it easier to sleep at night if you can nap all day. But there's not a lot that a school team can do about that. We can teach them about sleep hygiene. We can give them, I've had teachers buy kids alarm clocks and pillows and noise machines. Yeah. All kinds of things. Yeah. To try to help them. And, um, but ultimately, I think that's where I, I feel like that's when it comes to me— as the consultant or psychologist doing an evaluation is like. What are we going to do? Because, and I think sometimes the parents are feeling like they, it's out of their control too. Even though they are physically at home. Yeah. So, you I do one of the things I encourage is I think we want to sit at a meeting as adults and really be clear about, like, what is each of our roles and what can and what what can we do? And what's yeah, what's the scope of our influence, all of us in our from our particular seats? Right, and I think those are hard conversations sometimes. Like, I think when a parent hears a school team say, 'We've done, we're doing, we're never going to give up.' We are in it with you unconditionally. We can't think of anything else that we could do. Yeah, yes. And we have referrals and we have agencies that we could think of that might offer more support than what we can offer. And we can help you make those referrals. I think sometimes you have to be really clear. There's no more is going to come from us on this. I think that's going to inspire. Distress in the immediate, but I think it might unstick a family who might be resistant to psychotherapy or other services. I also think that a parent needs to be really clear about when you call and tell me that my kid's not there, which I know. Right. I feel like you're expecting me to do something about it. And I feel like I also am doing everything that I. Yes. Okay. So. You're talking about something so interesting there from a systems perspective. Which is the idea of like holding the anxiety, right? That there's only so much anxiety about a certain issue. And that caretakers can hold that anxiety so much that the person for whom it might actually belong to doesn't or can't experience it. So this is a, everything for me boils down to truancy or like toileting, I guess today, apologies to our listeners. But I remember... I had a wonderful professor, Harry Siegel, one of my first psych professors, and he sort of taught me about family therapy. And he was telling us about how it's possible. For parents themselves to get so anxious and make it, make it such a personal responsibility issue for them about whether a kid gets toilet trained that the kids just. kind of on easy street, just like just not motivated at all. And the parents just get more and more whipped up and the parents are tying themselves in knots more and more. And the kids just like more like unbothered. Whereas it actually is in many ways in the kids' interest to, you know, they'll have more freedom. There'll be more that they can do in the world. Like they'll be more comfortable physically. If they can, you know, figure out some toilet training. And, you know, and oftentimes when we coach parents. Not to like dump the anxiety or the responsibility for that on the kid, but to only hold an appropriate amount, right? To be something like, 'Hey, look. As you have seen. We're so excited for you to be potty trained and we really want that for you,

but we also recognize: 32:46

This is really your decision, man. And if you're not ready, you're not ready. And we know we're going to relax a little bit on it for right now. Maybe it'll happen.' Maybe it won't. And oftentimes that's where you will see, you know, in situations where all the physiology is in place, where this kid is ready, where there's no huge trauma going on. You will see a kid begin to hold the anxiety themselves and be like, 'Oh.' Well, if, oh, if no one's going to worry about this for me, then yeah. You know what? How are we going to, sure. Let's do some potty training. And I think that sometimes a school team can hold so much anxiety that we end up disempowering a family to do the work. Just like sometimes parents can hold so much anxiety that they end up disempowering a kid to do the work. Right. So, like if. If in our communication with each other. If we were able to start a meeting with a parent saying, 'I just need to know when you email and call me. Are you expecting me to do something? Yeah. It feels like you're expecting me to do. something and and then I and the school team maybe could say, 'When you don't call us back or email us back.' It feels, we don't know how to read that. And that feels, you know, that's making our stress higher. So it's just like when you do this action. It makes me feel, right? Like, could you fill in the blanks on that sentence? Could we start that way? And would that potentially prevent us from displaced? Like displacing shame into anger and responsibility onto someone else or getting into an unproductive bind. So it's sort of like when you do blank, it makes me feel blank. Or when you do blank, what is it that you're hoping for from me? So like some clarifying. Sentences might be really helpful. And that also sounds like collaborative problem solving between school team and parents. Right. Right. It's like, we're actually on the same side of the problem that we all would love it if this kid would go to school. Right. We actually all might be feeling like we've exhausted everything we can do. We might be unwittingly all feeling shame. And passing off blame back and forth. When really the same side of the problem here is, oh gosh, what does it mean if all the adults around this kid have tried everything, right? Do we have to actually kind of grieve that together and feel the weight of that together? Mm-hmm. And then where would we go from there? Mm-hmm. And I think some of the—varied snippets of what we've talked about before— apply here. For example, if the person is not at school, we do need to make it nurturing and boring. Yes, whatever they're doing otherwise. Right. So I do recommend, we know from a lot of research that external. To the family punishment or internal to the family punishment doesn't usually unstick people who are very stuck in a chronic truancy. We do know that. Something like technology is not available until the time that the school day ends. Yes. It makes things very boring. I do know lots of kids who will literally sit and do nothing. Until 3. 30 when all of that comes back on. um but it is a way of shifting the angst back to the person who's who's maybe in in more control of this so it's like yes. Privileges are paused and you're in control of whether that's a day or a month. It's up to you. Um, I think we have to be really careful and thoughtful about administration of those like paired experiences. For example, I think with toileting, for instance, there's absolutely appropriate times to have the person, the child, be involved in the stripping of the bed. You know, the tasks that are related. And then there's times where that's absolutely not appropriate. Yeah. So I think we have to, you know, that's case by case in terms of pairing that. So I'm hesitant to give, throw out a lot of examples. But generally speaking, nurturing but boring is a good rule of thumb if someone's sort of on strike. Yeah. Something that we believe they are actually capable of doing. And that sort of harks back to one of the points from the previous episode as well, right? Is that... Yeah, I think like... If a person needs nervous system care, then let's really give nervous system care, which... In many cases, doesn't look like the most entertaining video game on earth. In many cases, you know, might be a screen if a person can just handle screens right now, but then is it? I don't know. Is it a guided meditation? Is it you're sitting next to a trusted person? A lot of the things that will help if a person is in nervous system burnout. Thank you. Are nurturing but boring. Yeah. And my belief is that, Yeah, if a person really needs that, then they really need it. Mm-hmm. But the beauty about it being more nurturing than just 'Oh, this' would be really exciting for anyone you know, like, um, is that, Once the nervous system heals. Mm-hmm. the person hopefully will get bored enough to go do something more stimulating, frankly. Yeah. And I would wish for parents and all the adults that are supporting this person. to be able to ask themselves, like, what do I need? Do I need more ideas? Of what to do? Or do I need somebody to talk with me about how hard this is? Oh, yes. Right. What a great question. I think it's almost always the last one, especially for adults who have been. you know, handling the same situation for a kid for even more than a week. Right, right. Oh, that's a great point. There isn't really, there's a pretty clear list. I mean, we could be creative. It's a long list of things that we can do, but it isn't. It is a list that's fairly well known. These are the things we do and we go through them. And. um Almost always when a team wants to talk to me about this, they've done all those things. Yes. And so then I say, I don't have other ideas. And I. I feel like when people want to talk to me about truancy, it's one of the areas in which I feel the least helpful with strategies. Yes. Because people usually have already figured all those things out. I'm the most helpful when they're willing to talk about how you're sitting with that you haven't been able to move. This situation. That you're seeing. The potential consequences and your talking to the person about it and it doesn't shift there. You know, action. What what does it mean for this to be something that you might not be able to effectively change? How are you sitting with that? And I always remember when I. First, what left graduate school and I chose a job that I loved, where I worked with the highest risk—quote-unquote— teenager. So that means teenagers who are engaged in very dicey behaviors. And I love. Love, loved that job. And I had a couple of those. Lovely young people make really bad decisions. So I reached out to one of my grad school professors and I was like, 'Turns out I'm really bad at this job.' Here's what happened. And his response was. So you thought you would... pick a population of teenagers that were making really risky decisions and have a hundred percent success stopping them from doing that and I was like, 'I guess I might have thought that.' Then you need to either quit that job or change your mindset. Oh, that's such great advice. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And you know what? I bet that then made you more effective with those teenagers because the magic of emotion contagion says that if an adult is feeling like crap about their level of success with a kid. Yeah. They're going to spread some of that sense of frustration, shame, blame, and helplessness to the kid. So the reason that what you're doing is actually a very helpful intervention is that if we can get the adults to work through this murky stuff to get to some level of peace, that like, oh yeah, I do feel really out of control. Like I'm not doing my job, that I can't get this kid to do this. Um, I'm not going to give up on them, but... Yeah, I guess, you know, if you can get an adult to just some level of slightly calmer, slightly more processed, or slightly more worked through. About their feelings about the situation, even if the situation hasn't changed, they're then going to approach the kid in a more peaceful, in a less emotionally reactive, with less of a crackle to their emotional energy. Yeah. That's going to siphon off. Some pretty significant percentage of the ambient overwhelm that was probably contributing to this kid getting stuck. So it's actually so important. Yeah, and I mean, I have the privilege of being in the presence of so many adults, parents, and people who work in schools while they're in action. With kids and watch what happens. And you see this sort of like stance that I was able to have after that conversation with my professor. Um and and really continue to evolve in my career. Where somebody's going to say, 'I might do this.' And you can be totally interested, concerned, and curious and say, 'You might.' But your whole self-worth isn't wrapped up with whether they do or don't. And then you're in a much stronger place. Yeah. To work with them on it. Oh, that's the key. I remember, I'll leave you with this visual. I was with a middle school principal. With a kid who was really, really angry, and we were in the front entryway, and he was looking at the principal and walking towards the door and sitting on the ground and walking around the principal's lovely, lovely man. And the kid walked over to the fire alarm and he said, 'I might pull this.' And the principal said, 'You might.' And then he said, 'And then what would happen?' And he was like, 'Well, then we would have a fire drill and I haven't had one yet this month.' So you'd help me check something off my to-do list. And the kid sat down on the ground and cried. Oh, honey. Which was what was underneath the anger was deep, deep sadness, right? And it's like, I can't make you mad. I can't make you argue with me. I can't get you into a dance. And the principal was just like, I'm not going anywhere. We're in this together, buddy. He had said that. He had said that multiple times. You're okay. I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere. And then he was like, I might pull the fire alarm. He's like, you might. He's like, well, then what would happen? Then you would help me check something off my to-do list. It's like, I can't make this guy get mad at me. So he felt completely out of his tools and sat and cried. And that's when we got to like, what's going on, bud? Wow. Like, why are you so sad? Yeah. That makes me want to cry. I know it's really powerful. And I always remember that image when I'm in that moment of like, somebody's about to do something that would be really big. I always remember that moment where he was like, 'You might.' And I just still here be here with you. Right. Yeah. And that it's very disarming because I think when kids figure out that we can't make them do stuff. We feel disarmed, but we can disarm them back in a loving way by saying, 'And yet we'll still be here.' Right. We'll still be here. Just not, not as the tyrant, but as the support. Yeah. Well, there you have it, folks. Yep. Thanks, Joelle. Thanks all of you for the amazing work you're doing. Yeah. Thanks, Gillian. Thanks everybody for hanging in. These are, I think, these are disheartening situations. I appreciate people are hanging in. Me too. These are some of the hardest ones. And next week will be our final episode of season four. So, and then we, I think, we'll sign off for the school year and be back in the fall. So definitely tune in next week. And we'll see y'all then. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Thank you for listening to another episode of Stands of Curiosity. Stance of Curiosity is an unscripted conversation between Gillian Boudreau and Joelle Van Lent. 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 Van Lent. Our cover art is by Aaron Lanou, and our music is upbeat indie folk by Twin Music. See you next time.