The Invisible Backpack: Is my child the bully?

 Imagine every student walks into school carrying an invisible backpack. What might be inside it that their classmates cannot see? 

 Michelle Steiner is a writer, speaker, photographer, and paraeducator who uses her personal experience with a hidden disability to encourage, empower, and educate others. Through Michelle’s Mission, she shares her story to help people better understand disability, inclusion, perseverance, and the importance of seeing beyond what is visible. 

Most people meet Michelle Steiner's story through the headline moments — the professors who doubted her, the degree she wasn't supposed to get. In this episode, we go smaller and more useful. We sit down with Michelle to yes, discuss overcoming, and also advocating and believing in others.  And today we talked about recognizing disabilities in the people around us and supporting them, the impact of bullying.  

Michelle’s story reminds us that inclusion is not built through grand speeches. It is built in classrooms, churches, workplaces, crowded stadiums, and ordinary conversations. It begins when we stop assuming, start listening, and make room for the parts of a person we cannot immediately see. 

The “Am I Doing It?” checklist

 Parents can ask their children:

•  Is there someone your friends regularly joke about? 
•  Does that person laugh too, or are they laughing because they feel trapped? 
•  Do you use a nickname they never chose? 
•  Have you excluded someone because they act, speak, learn, dress, or move differently? 
•  Do you treat someone’s accommodation as an unfair advantage? 
•  Have you shared a photo, video, screenshot, or private message to embarrass someone? 
•  Have you ever said, “We’re just joking,” after someone looked uncomfortable? 
•  Do you behave differently toward someone when your friends are watching? 
•  Have you stayed silent because you were afraid the group would turn on you? 
•  Is there someone who becomes the automatic punchline in your group? 
•  Would you say the same thing if their parent, teacher, or your own parent were standing there? 
•  How would the story sound if the other child told it?

   Avoid asking only:

“Were you bullied today?”

A child may automatically say no.

Try:

•  Who did you sit with? 
•  Did anyone seem left out? 
•  What made people laugh today? 
•  Did anyone get embarrassed? 
•  Was anyone treated differently? 
•  Did you see something that felt wrong? 
•  Did you do anything today that you wish you could redo? 
•  Who made school easier for you today? 
•  Whose day did you make easier? 

These questions turn on the lights in rooms children often forget to describe.

https://www.michellesmission.com/

You can find me as David Monsour a.k.a. Disco Davo on most social media applications as well as my contact 
davidmonsour.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

All right, hey, welcome to the Closing Time Podcast. I'm here with Michelle Steiner. And Michelle is a writer, a speaker, a photographer. I love a lot of your photos that you have on your page. People can check that out. A paraeducator who uses her personal experience with a hidden disability to encourage, empower, and educate others. So she has a I'm gonna call it a movement of what in her website is Michelle's Missions. So Michelle, tell me about Michelle's mission. What is your mission?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I'm gonna be happy to. My mission is to be able to encourage, empower, and educate people with and without disabilities. And on my website, I provide information of my life, a lot of it sharing my experience with having a learning disability and writing about that using a lot of nature analogies. And I also put a lot of my photography on there on my walks because I'm not able to drive. And it's just really to be a resource for people with and without disabilities, and maybe somebody might even have a family member that has a disability as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Awesome. Well, I guess the world is changing in your favor with all the self-driving vehicles. And have you tried those yet? Are you comfortable with uh Waymo's and the Teslas and all that that's going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I have I've heard of them, but I have not tried one of those yet. No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

I haven't either. We saw them in the park, they had them displayed and the cameras all around. I was like, I'm in Atlanta. You're in Pennsylvania? I'm in Pennsylvania, yes. Okay. So we see them in the city all over the place. We found them where they all got stuck in somebody's neighborhood. They all just kind of pulled up and kind of got trapped blocking each other out in, and they were just driving around a cul-de-sac. So it's funny now, but I think it's uh, I mean, the technology's moved so fast. I think, I think it's coming, and it'll hopefully be advantageous for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

You're correct. So today I I I found this word. I want to talk about the invisible backpack. And what that is, is we're gonna talk about bullying. We're about to start going back to school and conversations you can have with your kids, thoughts that they can have, whether they're in elementary school, middle school, or high school. And obviously, I want you to tie in some of your experiences of what are what are people carrying in their invisible backpack that you can't see? What is going on in their lives that is, you know, whether it's a learning disability, whether it's abuse at home, whether it's financial struggles or they haven't eaten. There's just so many things that we don't know what they're carrying in their invisible backpack that may cause them to act a certain way. And are we compounding that by, you know, calling out those odd behaviors, if you will, or those differences and maybe not being sensitive to it, that we don't know what's going on in their lives. So tell us a little bit about your story and and how that little analogy that I just made up works.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Well, we definitely don't know what a person truly is carrying. And that is one of the things I work in the school as a paraeducator. And sometimes when students come in, actually, with all of them, we don't know what they might be carrying. A lot of times we think we know what's going on, but sometimes there can be abuse, sometimes there can be a disability, sometimes it might just be a family problem that they're having at home. And a lot of times our kids just carry this stuff and we don't understand maybe why somebody's acting that way. We may not understand why somebody responds in that in that fashion. So I think that that is one of those things that a lot of times our students do carry with them. And I've had that experience with having the the invisible backpack as well. I people are not able to see that I have a learning disability. So when people look at me, I and I tell them I have a disability. A lot of times I say, Well, you don't look like you're disabled. And I have to explain Where's your wheelchair?

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Where's your crutch? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, that that's what they're looking for, the wheelchair. They're looking for the crutch. And I have to explain that some disabilities are ones that we can see, some are ones that we cannot see. And it's been like that since I've been in kindergarten. I was diagnosed with having one when I was very young. My teacher was I was very fortunate that she caught on that I was having difficulty with math. I had a lot of trouble with tying my shoes, writing my name, and she recommended that I get tested for having a learning disability. And it was sure enough, I have one and I had to repeat the grade and I had to go to a different school. And I can't remember, we're still in our still a public school in our district, but I had to go and have specialty instruction and also have accommodations. And the really unique thing about, well, I shouldn't say unique, the one thing about my school district that I was at, it was very small, very close-knit if you were one of them. And everybody could see that I went to learning support for classes, or if I was in the classroom that I was really struggling. So it was very difficult for me throughout those school years, struggling academically and socially, a lot of bullying, even from a very young age. And as I got through school, it got a lot easier for me academically. I was in all regular ed classes except for math in a resource room, but it really got harder for me socially. And it wasn't until the backpack started to work a little more in my favor whenever I realized I wasn't making a connection with my peers. And I found a group outside of my school district that was an arts group, and the the students didn't know me, they didn't go to school with me, so they couldn't see the disability. And I found some acceptance and I carried that backpack with me after I transitioned out of that group, and I found a writing group for adults. And that's whenever people could start seeing some of that, or I let them know about some of those struggles. And this group got to watch me grow as a writer and a person. 30 years later, we still meet once a month to talk about our writing, and we're still in each other's life, lives, and they encouraged me to talk about that, to talk about my life with a disability. And for so many years, I I wanted to hide that. I I wanted to keep everything in. I didn't want anyone to know. I had one, and I put that on the shelf, and I wrote some really bad poetry and some other stuff I wouldn't want to share today.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

And but but I heard you speak about how I guess you graduated and you graduated with self-confidence and something that you maybe didn't know that you would ever have. And that could be a big deal because we talk about yours was diagnosed, but there could be kids with dyslexia. I mean, I don't think we we realize the home lives that there could be kids that are dyslexic that their parents aren't paying attention at all, it's not diagnosed. Not every school system has the teachers that would even pick up on it. And even if it's not dyslexia, even if it's the math disability that you have, or even if it's a small one, that eats into your self-confidence, which could cause you to act out in different ways, whether it's you know, misbehaving, or maybe it's just not trying at all and failing, and then you come across as dumb when you're not dumb at all, you just you know don't learn the same way as other people.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Exactly. And that I think that is the big thing. A lot of parents might be hesitant of getting their child diagnosed because they don't want to label them or they don't want them to appear different. But my mom and dad explained my disability to me from the time I was a young child. And from what I was hearing with my peers was far better than what I was, I mean, for what I was hearing from my parents was far better from what I was hearing from my peers. And it's one of those things. Sometimes we might look at a student and we think that they might not be smart or they they don't care. And the point might be if they're struggling with learning or they're struggling with other issues, we might have a child that might have already has given up and they might think, well, what is the point of putting forth the work? I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail a test, I'm not going to do well in the class, I'm not going to be able to get an an A on my report card, or I'm not going to be able to be successful. So a lot of times our students don't ask for that support. And sometimes we don't have teachers that can recognize that, or parents that won't recognize that. I I know with my work in schools with students, a lot of times we will have students, it's gotten better that do have disabilities and they have individualized education plans or a 504 plan if they don't have qualify necessarily for a plan with goals, but they still need to be aware of that, of what's going on. But every I swear we will get that kid that'll come in the classroom and we will wonder why they don't have any kind of services whatsoever. And sometimes they might not, they might even test out of that too. But the child still has a disability. So I'm pretty good about going over and recognizing a lot of our students. I can remember there was one in particular had a lot of behavior issues in the classroom. And I would go over when they had a test and I asked him, I said, Can you read this? And he said, No, I can't read it. And I would go over and read the test aloud to him. And I mean, he still had a lot of issues in the classroom, but somebody was really going, I was trying to go in and to be able to help him as much as possible. And I I think some of those behavior issues come when that student is either not identified or they're not or they're not getting the services that they need in the classroom.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Well, I I'll tell my quick little story, and then I really want to dive into maybe how how we can teach our kids to recognize some of this in others, how they can maybe encourage, or how are their parents that might be listened, how they can advocate. I know that is a big buzzword in the education system, is parents and the kids have to learn to advocate for themselves, and and really want to talk about bullying and things that you know we think we all think of bullying from the movies where they're punching you in the face and saying, give me your lunch money, or you're fat, you're ugly, you're that. And there's so many different ways you could be bullied. So, but I I to go back to what you said earlier, you were talking about the stigmas and of of having a disability or whatever, and my son had speech issues, he was just slow to talk and just couldn't. So we had speech therapy. Somebody told us about it, and the county paid for it, and they went to sign us to sign us up, and she was like, Are you sure you want to do this? I was like, Why would I not? Like the way she was asking it was why would I not? She was like, Well, this is special education. I was like, like, special ed, yeah? I was like, Why would I not? She was like, Well, there's a lot of parents that will not sign their kids up because it gives them the stigma of special ed. And I was like, Are you crazy? My kids struggling to talk, of course. And now my son is top of the class, he's going into high school, and he's in all super advanced classes and just driving, and that all has to do with it started with the confidence that he got by those speech therapy classes. Because if he would have started kindergarten, first grade, still not able to talk. I'm sure he would have been a little more quiet and probably didn't participate and probably not be where he is. So that just to call out that that stigma is still out there, and shame on you parents for not doing what's best for your child because you're worried about you know a label or whatever. Sure, there are probably other reasons that I don't know about, but sometimes you know about the result again. So, what what about advocacy? Because it sounds like that's what you do, is you help. How can kids recognize that, or how can parents recognize what's something small that that me as a parent can recognize that my son's not just lazy, they're not just not doing their homework or whatever that situation, because you know, we have issues where our kids just one does everything they're told it's all easy, and the other one just resists everything. What could be happening that we don't know about? There's a reason why they're not turning in any of the sounds.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

One of the first things I would say with parents is to be on the communication with your child's school and for the school to be on communicating with the child's parents. I had the privilege of running into one of my first learning support teachers a few years ago, and I had that chance to thank her. And she said, Well, it was also your parents too. And if my teacher had a had a concern, she would call the school, or she would my excuse me, she would call home. And if my parents had a concern, they would call the school, and both of them came together to work on my behalf. So I think that was a big factor that somebody can do in school. I also think that another really important factor is having the parents not give up on the child. My mom and dad, we spent lots of long, often tearful homework sessions together. And my prepared my mom and dad never gave up on me. And I eventually we came to the point, I just had to do the best I could do. That means that I had to go to school, even though I wasn't going to do well on the test, or I wasn't going to get I was having trouble with a peer. I still had to go put forth the effort, but it wasn't expected to be perfect. And I think that's what gave me that permission to not only fall when I needed that, but also to succeed, because I knew that there just wasn't that pressure on me. And they really advocated on what was on my best behalf. And they would even ask before I went to a meeting. We didn't, I didn't get a chance to go to my IEP meetings as students do now. But my mom and dad would say, We're going to your IEP meeting. What's something that you want us to talk about? What are you concerned with? And I they would bring up the, I would tell them and they would bring up those concerns, and then they would get back to me on that. So I think that's a really important thing with families. And I think it's also important to listen to for teachers to recognize maybe if a student is falling behind in a class and to have that open line of communication is so key. I think with students, it's so important that they learn how to speak up for themselves. That is something that I really work with my students on. As my job as a paraeducator, I do help students with their work. All my students know I cannot help them. I can help them with anything except for math. Yeah, like it's just not going to happen. And a lot of times I'll have a student in the classroom and they are so hesitant about wanting to ask for help because they don't want to be the one that appears like the kid that's doesn't know what they're doing, or they might be afraid of the teacher. And I say, Well, I'll go up with you. Come on, let's go and do that. And I think that's so important that my students learn how to do that because for all of them, one day will leave me. And I hope and pray every one of their dreams comes true. But for so many of them, their disability is going to stay. So it's so important that they learn how to speak up for themselves now. And that's been how I've been able to be successful in my life. I've had people that have told me I would never go to college, I would never get my bachelor's degree, I wouldn't be able to have the job that I wanted. And what I had to learn how to do was to state what my need, what my needs are. And once I talked about that and I figured out what services I was going to need and how to get to that place, that's when I started to have the success of my life. And it is really something that never gets easier, but I get better at it every single time I have to speak up for myself.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

That's awesome. So I think we we often like I hear that and go, who would ever tell a child you're not gonna be able to do this or you can't? Like we think who would have the audacity, but it does happen. It probably happens a lot where adults think that they're helping by giving somebody, hey, let's go ahead and folks over here because you're not gonna be able to do that. But I don't know. That's I'm I'm glad you were able to overcome that. Let's talk about, let's assume that let's assume that the child the teacher didn't pick up on the disability, or maybe we wouldn't be in this position. So then the child maybe going to the teacher, the teacher's like, you're fine, sit down. If you didn't act up, if you paid attention. So maybe they ignore that child trying to advocate. What is their next step? Well, what's if a kid really feels like, hey, I don't get it, because I kind of understand it, but I'm not doing well when the test comes. Like, what is their next step if their teacher, because there's especially middle school, and I've heard this middle time, middle school teachers are where teachers go to die. It's like not the best teachers are in middle school and maybe or they're tired, or maybe just have a bad teacher. What is their next step? They go straight to the principal, I mean to their mom, to their counselors, I guess they're other middle school counselors. I guess there are. But what would you say to their teachers?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

I would probably encourage them to talk to their parents and just tell them I'm really struggling and I don't understand what is going on. But I'd also recommend that maybe they talk to the guidance counselor about things like that and really go in and try to get that ball rolling because parents can, but I I think it's really important that they talk to their mom and dad because I think getting those testing results, at least getting in with the school and seeing if they have anything that they could possibly do to help, or if what the reason is. And if and if that doesn't seem to give you any results, then there are private pay options outside of school districts that people can do. There's psychiatrists, there's psychologists, I mean, there's the child's pediatrician. The parents can kind of be able to maybe get an understanding of what is going on. So we can best help that child, and then mom and dad can go in too and know with the school what their rights are. And that's another really important thing, too. If you feel that a parent that has a child with a disability and they're not getting the services that they need, it's really important that there are advocacy agencies that are out there that can help work on the behalf of the child.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

So I I know a lot of this comes back to self-confidence, but let's let's go back to the kid again where how does the kid know that they're not dumb? They just have a disability. Like how do they because I know if I'm this sounds horrible, but it's just it is if I'm dumb, I'm not gonna go, hey mom, I'm dumb. I can't do this math. You're just gonna be quiet and and act like it's because I don't turn. You would act, you'd rather be called lazy than dumb. I would think most people. So how do they know? What can they tell that what can a kid know? What can a parent maybe recognize that it's a disability versus maybe that's just not their skill set? Maybe they're just not gonna be good at math versus you have a true disability that is fixable or accommodatable if that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

I think one of the first things though is with having a math disability. A lot of times people are simply bad at math and they they don't have a disability, but if they put forth the tutoring, they put forth a lot of the work, they can at least go through the class and get a C or they can squeak by with that. For me, it's well it's a lot more than just being bad at math. Even if you give me a calculator, it's there's still a chance I'll get it wrong. And I think it's I mean, it's one of those things, just that it's not just being bad at it, it's truly having a a disability. And that was diagnosed. I mean, that is one of the things they can all agree on whenever they do uh evaluations that I definitely have a disability in math. But I think one of the first things, though, though, is if a parent finds out that their child is to is to get it cleared. Maybe their child is just bad at math and might just need to have a little bit of extra support or just might need a little a little extra work on that. But if their child has a disability, I mean they can get a lot of services as well. So I think it's the first thing is if you have any kind of concern, it's just getting that evaluated and seeing, okay, are they just bad at math or is there something else going on that we can do?

SPEAKER_01 21:47

How is that evaluation?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Is that a third-party company? Well, officially the psychiatrist can uh evaluate, but for services in a school setting, you can have the the school psychologist can do that to evaluate if for a learning disability they can go and test that in the school. And it's not necessarily one that you're going to as an adult, you have to get tested again for that, which I went through and sure enough, I have I do indeed have one. But the school. Psychologist does that now. If it's attention deficit disorder, then in most cases, the pediatrician has to write that up and can put it as having that for a school as well. Autism, I believe, is also one that a psychiatrist has to evaluate on. So it depends on the disability, too. The best thing is to just find ask the school as the or the pediatrician.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So and to clarify for people listening, you know, you keep saying a math disability, and that sounds like me just blaming, you know, whatever. But you have a diagnosed math disability. I believe it has a name to a few other podcasts. It's a there's a name for it that truly causes you to struggle with math. It's not right, exactly. So it's something that somebody out there could be seeing and right.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

It's it's actually called it's called dyscalculea. But if you will look on the evaluation, it is specific learning disability in math. But that if you that's what a lot of people know is dyscalculea. And it's where I have a lot of difficulty with just how numbers work. And it's a specific diagnosis along with uh with that. I also have limited hand dexterity in both of my hands. We didn't find that out until I was an adult, and then I have visual perception issues in both of my eyes, but it affects my brain, not my eyes. So it's more like my reaction time, my processing speed, not my vision.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Have you tried GOP1s? Because they're fixing everything else. I've just had some. I have some ideas.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

It's in my brain though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

But no, it his is his it it fixed a lot of his. Oh, he he kind of talked about it and talked about some of the science that he was reading that they're researching. I don't think it's here now, but yeah, it's not one of the sciences down the road going to a lot of things. Yeah, it could fix alcoholism, gambling addictions, different things that are brain issues that that could that are further down the road.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I just yeah, it might be further down. Yeah, I haven't heard that, but I mean, yeah, that's definitely something we don't know what somebody's going to come up with. I mean, or what what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah. So let's jump right into to bullying. So I'm sure you experienced that. I'd love to talk about, you know, for parents that are listening, what's what let's talk about how they can identify maybe if their child is the bully. Because that I think that's the one thing we don't ever look at because when we're not around our kids when they are bullying somebody, because we would smash the crap out of them if we saw them doing that. And I know as adults, I know for me and my guy friends, we make fun of each other all the time. And in some really horrible ways, we are making, but we're really good friends, they could take it. And maybe that doesn't translate when you're making fun of a kid that's really insecure about it at school. So how has that affected you? Or just maybe something that a parent can identify in their own child or or say, or what advice do you have for people that may be dealing with it? Anything you want to address on that?

unknown 25:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I can remember when I was a young child, I wondered, well, what was wrong with me? And it wasn't that I was perfect, it's not that I wasn't mean to other people, but I think that one of those things that it was about me finding that right connection, that right, Trav. And to anyone who's being bullied, there are people out there who will love you, who do care about you. You just may have not have met them yet. And I think that that was one of those things was finding that writing group, finding that other arts group. And that's what really uh what really mattered a lot of my life, and that's what taught that accountability. And I think it's also important to identify bullying versus just somebody that's mean. Everybody has something where you might have said the wrong thing, I do that, everybody has, but when it's happening, when you know that upset somebody and it's happening all the time over and over again, then that's a bull, that's a bullying situation. And I there's really good ways that people can handle some of those things as well. One of the first things to do is if you know that someone's trying to upset you, and I tell this to my students, I I work with middle school-aged kids, so we see a lot of that. Sometimes it could be in the lunch table. And that's something I had experience with too. Nobody wanted me to sit with them at lunch, or somebody was really picking on one of my students that I would be working with. So what I would tell the student is, well, you can go report that to the office if you want to. I said, but here's something that you can do in the meantime. If you find that these people are being mean to you, go find another lunch table to sit at. And if they're going to ask you about it, just say, Oh, I'm just trying out some different tables. And that really helps too, because that that's a real subtle way if the person is just trying to get attention. And that that is one of the things I can remember taking that student to the principal. And the principal, she was saying, Oh, yeah, the Steiner told me to go look for some different lunch tables. And she goes, Yeah, that that's good advice. Well, that's that's what we want. A lot of times I I can, it's it's about that attention. And if they know that it it bothers you, some kids will do that because they want to see a reaction. I had a student whenever I was, well, actually, another peer, whenever I was in high school, that she always made fun of me. And she was getting to the point where she was going to threaten to kill me. And nobody really wanted to do anything in our school. It was very well known that they staff did not handle and my school district did not handle bullying well. And I was seeing an older guy, and he goes, I think she's just doing it to get a reaction from you. Just next time she says that, just be like, Oh, okay, thanks. Have a nice day. And I'll never forget the incredulous look whenever she was screaming all these threats at me. And I just looked there and said, Okay, have a nice day. And she just stood there with her mouth dropped open. And I was fortunate that it didn't happen that she really was serious about carrying through on that. And I know that there is a lot of students where that does happen. And we are at a point where we have to really take a lot of that seriously. But what I would say to parents, though, if you know your child is being mean, work with that and just say, well, that's not very nice. You don't have to be best friends with everybody, but we do have to be kind to other people. And there are certain people they they have maybe have a thicker skin and we can get to joking around with each other. And I think that's that's okay too. But I think a lot of times we have kids who bully because we have parents who do that as well in a lot of cases. So sometimes it's just maybe parents watching what they might say to their child or about somebody else when the kid is an earshot. And I also think with bullying, it's really important that people learn how to handle that because unfortunately, bullies never go away in our lives. We're always gonna have somebody that maybe we don't get along with, someone that just even gets under your skin. And it's learning how to deal with those things in a very positive way. And like I said, not everybody, you're you're not gonna be best friends with everybody, and that's okay, but we have to learn how to be kind and we have to learn how to work with each other.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

There's a a lawyer on Instagram that does all these videos, he does really good on how to react to people. If I knew his name, if I you might have seen him, he's been very popular. But he talks about things you can say to people like how did you expect me to react when you said that? Like he has quips, like what what was your purpose of saying that out loud? Like it makes them like do whoa, hey, that's that's not the reaction I was expecting. And it was pretty cool. I I haven't tried any of them, but a lot of them were meant to diffuse situations, expected, especially you know, when people were trying to bully, it reflected it back on that person and and really emphasized the fact that did you really mean to say that so ugly? Like things like that. Did you mean that to come across so so mean? And it makes it makes that person stop and think, Oh wow, it's not really funny. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

And sometimes I mean that can be someone's just being short or having a bad day. I always think too, I can't control the reactions or I can't control the actions of another person, what somebody does or somebody thinks. But I am in control of my actions and how I choose to respond to something.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah. Well, I I I wrote a list, I got some help online, but I'm gonna read this of some questions that parents can can ask their children, you know, when they come home from school or at any time. Yeah, and there were different ways of of asking to get to the point of are you being bullied or are you not? I just thought they were really good. So if this helps anybody, and then just when you know, there's like four or five. Let me know if you have anything you can add to it. Um this one one was it said, Who did you sit with today? Like something so simple gives them the space to, oh, I sat alum, or I, you know, instead of were you bullied today? Nobody wants to answer that, but it gives them something up and up. And then this one was good too. What made people laugh today? Yeah, there's so many times as parents out there we know who asked, How was school today? Good. What'd you do? Nothing. Yeah, so it says, Did anyone get embarrassed today? It's a good one too. Because they're you know, it gives them the opportunity to tell a story. Did you see anything that felt wrong? They can answer that any way they wanted to, and then two more, anything you would redo about today. Right. That leaves it open for them to tell something. Maybe they didn't step in when someone else was bullied, or maybe they were the bully and they could talk about it. And then who made school easier for you today? I love that question because then maybe they did stop and think, and and hopefully, I think the idea is to if you start recognizing people that made school easier for you, maybe that you will start making school easier for other people. Right. Compliments, I do encourage my son. I remember at least once a week to say, find somebody that does not get compliments and acknowledge something they're wearing. That's something. Right. Is that a new shirt? Did you get a haircut? Somebody that you never talked to, not your friend group, somebody that's chin is down, or somebody that no one talks to because they're shy or whatever reason, and just acknowledge something about them. I like your sweatshirt, I like your shoes on. Yeah, that's a good one. And if I'm hoping that if I repeat that to him at some point, even if he only does it once, he will make he'll make school easier for somebody else. That's the goal. So anything you want to add to that, or another way to do that is what's one sentence that you would have parents say to their kids before we went back to school?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

So I would say, I would say how well, you might even want to, once they're back in school, how did you fill somebody's bucket today?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Did anybody take anything out of your bucket today? And or how did somebody fill your bucket as well?

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Yes. We had a preacher that talked on that and it was I think he might even wrote a book about it. And I just absolutely loved the concept because you just you think about how people just slowly might be taking out of your bucket, or maybe they're just your bucket's overflowing because you had a great day. And then did you fill anybody else's bucket on the day you were, you know, you were full? And yeah, it opens up a lot more conversations. And none of this do I currently do, but now, based on my research for our conversation, I've got some good things to hopefully talk to my son about. Exactly. Well, then this is awesome. You're you are incredible for everything that you've done that you've taken your disability and used it to help other people and to advocate for other people, and and you're back in the school system and teaching, and you're thriving. I just love that. So I I really appreciate you coming on and talking to me, and I appreciate all that that you're doing for other people. Sounds great. Yeah, so thank you. Well, come back in time. Anything you want to end with? Any things you got going on? Yeah, obviously, tell us again your website and sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

You can find me at my blog, ww.michelle's mission.com. I have a couple writing projects and a couple of projects that'll be coming up and some publications that'll be coming up in the future.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

A lot of podcasts. So your art, I know you po publish, post a lot of it on there. Is it any of it for sale or is that just for pleasure and you just like having it?

SPEAKER_00 35:39

We have a couple. Well, there are some links to a few anthologies that I am a part of, and some other publications with that. That people, if they want to purchase the book, that they're they're more than welcome to do that.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Awesome. Well, thank you again. And I just I encourage everybody out there to be intentional with this stuff, which means taking being proactive, having conversations with your child, recognizing don't assume that your kid is perfect and don't assume that they're seriously flawed. Because it could be something simple that you can just adjust and and change directions and and watch them thrive somewhere you never expected. So y'all have a wonderful day.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Thank you so much.