Shows
Stance of CuriosityWhat do we think about technology use among kids and teens now?Gillian and Joelle discuss their ever-evolving professional opinions on technology, social media, and video gaming use among elementary, middle, and high school students. While it may seem clear what schools should do in elementary and middle school, high school turns out to still be an area of debate. Joelle proposes that setting clear boundaries is easier than it may seem. Gillian offers nuance from neurodiversity-affirming practice and what she is learning from self-advocates. Our thinking may have even evolved during this conversation! Join us to see how your experiences line up with our current opinions. Find...2025-05-1942 minStance of CuriosityFinding Hope in Simplicity and Connection. Featuring our first *guest!*Joelle and Gillian welcome their first guest to the Podcast! Meet Roger, a teacher in the Maryland/DC area. Roger shares his approaches to supporting students in the context of heightened stress and certainty. He shares a strategy that utilizes routine, writing, and connection to support students to access learning even when they are contending with powerful emotions. Some themes that emerge include self-trust, sharing the worry, and always having a plan. We mentioned neuroscientist Dan Siegel's "Name It To Tame It:"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcDLzppD4JcFind us on Insta...2025-05-1252 minStance of CuriosityWhat is PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent Drive for Autonomy) and is it a new thing?Gillian and Joelle talk about the framework of PDA and how it can both reinforce approaches we have long-used very wisely, as well as inspire some new ways of understanding student responses and needs. As with any new concept, we can temporarily lose our sense of confidence and competence. The ideas offered by the PDA framework can also increase our depth of understanding of the capacity for our community to support all learners. Joelle and Gillian talk through some examples to play around with how the ideas offered through PDA can help us anticipate the reaction to various strategies and...2025-05-0539 minStance of CuriosityCommon mistakes to avoid and interpersonal tweaks to try when fostering connection with stressed kidsGillian and Joelle chat about frequent suggestions that they make to school teams to support students who are strugging to cope effectively. They talk about the specific ways that we can approach a stressed person to help assure their needs will be met, validate their emotions, and move forward together successfully. The strategy of replacing “You need…” with “I need…” along with other ideas helps align with the child against the problem, invite them to an alternate approach, and co-regulate. In the stampede of the public school pace, school professionals are working to intentionally set their own personal pace and adjust the...2025-04-2842 minStance of CuriosityStaying Curious and Presuming Competence With Non-Speaking LearnersGillian offers a version of the stance of curiosity that will guide our approaches with students who are non-speaking. Our culture is so reliant on spoken communication that we can have implicit bias that influences our social behavior to under-estimate the capacity of those who communicate via different channels. How can we change our mindset to presume the competence of non-speaking learners, while taking responsibility to adjust the pace, volume, and language that we use in our conversations without talking down? Joelle adds ideas related to problem solving including attunement, educated guesses, and modeling. Visual tools are brought up as a...2025-04-2135 min
The Stripped PodcastTSP #21 - Feminine energy 101 (what does it mean?)In this episode, we'll explore the concept of feminine energy, its dynamics with masculine energy, and the importance of balancing both in personal and professional life. Hi! I am Joëlle, a feminine embodiment coach devoted to guiding my clients to live more as themselves and to just dare being more themselves. This episode is about emphasizing that feminine energy is not tied to stereotypes but is about embracing one's true self. Through real-life examples, I illustrate how understanding and integrating both energies can lead to a more fulfilling and aligned life. 2025-04-1618 minStance of CuriosityLet Them Be Special!In this episode Joelle and Gillian talk about a strategy to support students who are seeking a connection from a teacher in which they have some kind of status or privilege that is atypical. This pattern often comes up among students who do not have the basic human need met of feeling special in some part of their lives. Sometimes this pattern comes up when students have family lives outside of school in which their parents are overwhelmed, the student is in foster care, or the student feels anxious about parental well-being. This can also come up when school-based tra...2025-04-1439 minStance of CuriosityHow do you cope when uncertainty and change become constant?A liminal experience is a concept related to an "in between" time in which there is both familiarity and disruptive change. Joelle and Gillian talk about the impact of the many significant challenges of public schooling in the past five years including the COVID-19 pandemic, staffing shortages, budgetary changes, and the current political context. They talk through how to deal with all this, with the conclusions that:Grounding can be found in one’s values, core beliefs, and goals. Complex communities can create space for varied coping styles. We can be a source of guidance for our students not by...2025-04-0741 minStance of CuriosityWhat if it's not the time to have an emotion?Gillian and Joelle explore the theme of being humans in helping professions, and especially in schools when it can be important to stay “on” and present as fully regulated when in front of students. When we are experiencing big emotions but can’t show them, this can contribute to something called “allostatic load,” or the stress response our bodies and brains have to try to address a problem and come back to homeostasis. Joelle and Gillian consider an “emotional parking lot” to remind us of big emotions that we needed to “put somewhere else” during the day but may still need a chance...2025-02-2442 minStance of CuriosityWhy should play be prioritized in school?Gillian and Joelle talk about the importance of including scheduled time to play in the school routine. Recess is unstructured child directed play and offers students a time for movement, fresh air, social connection, creativity, and a break from responding to task demands. Elementary school students also have semi-structured child directed play in which the teacher creates stations in the classroom and children choose among play options. These times are often called “choice” or “explore” time. Choice time includes the presence of the highly skilled regular educator who can model and teach emotional regulation and social cognition in situations that are typ...2025-02-1736 min
Self Directed107: Jessica Joelle Alexander | Danish Parenting Secrets: Raising Happy & Confident KidsSend us a textWhat makes Danish parenting unique, and how does it raise happy, resilient kids? In this episode, we talk with Jessica Joelle Alexander, bestselling author of The Danish Way of Parenting, about Denmark’s highly regarded child-rearing approach.The Danish approach to raising children is shaped by principles from Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872), a Danish pastor, philosopher, and educator who emphasized personal formation ("Dannelse") as equally important as academic education ("Uddannelse").In the second half of our conversation, we shift into the digital worl...2025-02-131h 28Stance of CuriosityHow and when to tell kids about an autism diagnosis?Joelle and Gillian draw on their years of conducting autism evaluations, and interpreting the results of these evaluations with children and families to share their perspective on disclosing this diagnostic information. Both note that despite the nervousness parents and psychologists both can feel before letting children know about an autism diagnosis, these conversations are typically somewhere between neutral and very positive for the children and adolescents receiving the information. Joelle and Gillian stress the importance of getting informing adults connected to a neurodiversity affirming stance that autism is not bad news, before as promptly as possible sharing with a ch...2025-02-1038 minStance of CuriosityVibe Check! Teaching the skills of self-monitoring and situational awarenessGillian and Joelle talk about the skill of self-monitoring, which is an executive functioning skill in which one can self-evaluate and take a “bird's-eye view” to see how one’s emotions, thoughts, and actions are working to meet their goals. This goals is related to but unique from situational awareness, which is the skill of recognizing the focus, actions, and energy of a group of people. In both cases, the awareness of self and social context can inform how the person may need to adjust their internal state or actions to meet goals and successfully join groups. In this podcast...2025-02-0346 minStance of CuriosityTwo More "Go-To" InterventionsJoelle and Gillian continue some “greatest hits” of school consultation, with two more interventions they keep finding themselves recommending in their travels this year. A “parking lot” is a tool that can help with impulsivity and calling out in the group. Having an idea, then sorting through whether it is a helpful idea for the group in the moment, and THEN figuring out how to “shelve” and remember it for later if it’s not a “right now’ thing are an incredibly complex set of mental and emotional tools that kids need to model and practice before they can do independently. T...2025-01-2735 minStance of CuriosityOur Go-To Strategies!Gillian & Joelle share two of their most common suggestions when consulting with educators and clinicians working with kids. “Step over the behavior” helps us connect with the need and emotion driving negative behavior, shift engagement to be more positive for all, and protect us from taking on stress that is not ours to own. “Two by ten” is a strategy of spending two minutes per day for ten consecutive days sitting nearby and focusing on a student with whom you have a tricky connection. This can look like joining their action, asking connecting questions, and always looks like sitting next to and...2025-01-2036 min