Nov 16, 2022
This is an essential episode because Social Emotional Learning is not just for students with special education needs - everyone needs social-emotional learning skills!
Social-Emotional Learning, also called SEL, is an integral part of education and human development. It helps students and adults develop healthy identities, manage emotions, and feel empathy for others. SEL gives students the skills they need to build supportive relationships. Students learn the skills, attitudes, and knowledge surrounding social-emotional learning to make responsible decisions.
By establishing trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation, SEL helps schools, families, and communities achieve educational equity and excellence. Through SEL, we can help address various forms of inequality and empower young people and adults to create thriving schools.
It's helpful to start with a clear definition of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). A school-wide SEL program equips students of all ages with skills to achieve their own unique goals. It includes understanding and managing their emotions, nurturing positive relationships, making informed decisions, and feeling empathy. Learning SEL is critical to students’ success, both in and out of the classroom.
Dr. Judy Grossman joins me today to discuss what social-emotional learning is, why it is important, and why it is for all students! Dr. Grossman is the Associate Director of the Center for the Developing Child and Family at the Ackerman Institute for the Family. She is also an Adjunct Professor at NYU. Previous academic appointments include Yale School of Medicine and SUNY – Downstate Medical Center. Dr. Grossman has conducted special education policy research for the NYS and NYC Departments of Education and school districts in Fairfield County. She lectures nationally and internationally on the topics of family resilience, mental health consultation, and special education family-centered services. Dr. Grossman is an occupational therapist, public health educator and consultant, and she maintains a private practice in couples and family therapy, specializing in neurodiverse children. She is also a member of the Smart Kids with LD Board of Directors.
TRANSCRIPT (not proofread)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
child, parents, social emotional learning, children, feelings,
piece, school, understand, kids, feel, terms, iep, regulate,
grossman, special ed, episode, people, academic, learning,
behavior
SPEAKERS
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW, Dana Jonson
Dana Jonson 00:09
Okay, welcome back to Special Ed on Special Ed, thank you so much
for tuning in today. I'm very excited for today's episode, because
we have Dr. Judy Grossman, who is the Associate Director of the
Center for the Developing Child and Family at the Ackerman
interests Institute for the family. I got it all out that time. And
we're gonna talk about social emotional learning. So stay tuned,
I'm going to run my disclaimer before we say a word. And then we'll
jump right into it. The information in this podcast is provided for
general informational and entertainment purposes only, and may not
reflect the current law in your jurisdiction at the time you're
listening. Nothing in this episode creates an attorney client
relationship. Nor is it legal advice, do not act or refrain from
acting on the basis of any information included and accessible
through this episode without seeking appropriate legal or other
professional advice on particular facts and circumstances at issue
from a lawyer or service provider licensed in your state country or
other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. Great, Dr. Grossman,
thank you so much for joining me today, I was able to get out your
very long title. But I would love it if you would give us a little
background on you and why you are the one that I need to have teach
me about social emotional learning.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 01:19
Okay, first of all, thanks for having me thrilled to be talking to
the parents that are listening or whomever actually started my
career as an OT. And then went into academia and did some policy
research in special ed and became a family therapist. I mean, like
I've had many, many different experiences, my area of focus has
always been family resilience, even before we we use that term. You
know, years ago, we only talked about risks and deficits. But you
know, there's been a change a long time coming, and looking at
strengths and resilience. And I started a project for family
therapists to work, specifically with families with neurodiverse
children. And that's because all my experience has taught me that
there are layers to the work. So you may be a very competent family
therapist, or a maybe an excellent educator and special ed. But you
need the whole package. So if you're doing clinical work, that's
more than the area of mental health, you have to understand the IEP
and the different diagnoses. And on top of interested in family
resilience, very, most of my work deals with the parents, because
parents are so significant. And situations can be so stressful. And
they often search for skills or strategies to help them manage
their child's behavior, or even keep themselves regulated when
they're getting upset. So social emotional learning, and I'd say
it's a term that's been around since the 90s. There's a consortium,
researchers, policymakers, educators, clinicians, everybody that's
interested in evidence based practice, in terms of social emotional
learning. And after the pandemic, or I shouldn't say that we are
still in the pandemic, actually, right. We're not sure how it's
over yet. I'm actually getting up at COVID. Right now myself. So we
are,
Dana Jonson 03:45
I think we're over the initial shock of the pandemic, maybe that's
what we're thrilled with the initial shock.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 03:51
That's the one thing we've learned a couple of things. One is
children are struggling with anxiety and depression. And for some
even PTSD, this has been very challenging and continues to be very
challenging for students. Second thing we learn, which I know, the
past 40 plus 50, long time is that parents are so important in
supporting their child's total development, but particularly the
social emotional development because you're the model. You're the
coach. A lot of it has to do with your own development of social
emotional skills. And I think that the pandemic has raised
awareness that it's so important for schools to partner with
parents.
Dana Jonson 04:47
Yeah. And I think that's, I mean, that's how I sort of came to it
was I had an older child who was neurodiverse, who was not able to
identify her own emotions and feelings. And so as a family, we sort
of had to learn to talk in this way of explaining ourselves and
explaining our emotions and our feelings as they were happening in
sort of a way to help educate her. And what I learned was I have
three of my five children are have a traumatic background, and
they're adopted. And and so but what I learned through this process
was, it was significantly benefiting my bio, no typical child. And
I mean, I don't know that anyone in my house is neuro neurotypical,
but whatever you get, the idea is that these pieces, these pieces
that I was putting into place for a specific reason for a specific
disability for a specific need, actually applied to everybody in
the house. And that's how I started to sort of identify that and
now that as you say, the pandemic brought much more awareness to
the forefront. And, and I agree with you, I think it's critical
that we, as parents understand our role in that. Because when you
tell a child you need to be doing this, but you're not doing it
yourself. That's always my favorite when parents like Well, I'm
definitely getting them into therapy. And I'll say, Well, do you
have a therapist, and parents will say, Well, no, I don't need
one.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 06:21
So you've made a couple of really good points, then that one is,
this is universal. Every child and adult will have better live
success, if they have good social emotional awareness. They
understand can live with our own feelings, they can begin to
identify feelings and others and develop empathy. They have good
relationships, and most importantly, particularly with neurodiverse
children that the child can regulate. So emotional regulation,
meaning, you know, that don't have these uncontrollable outbursts,
but they can find ways to self soothe, and cope. And another piece
of that is CO regulation. So children who aren't able to do that,
the parent has to sort of be their prefrontal cortex and help them
regulate. So there are a lot of different dimensions to social
emotional learning. But the way that the state of the art so to
speak is that there are many curriculum, and many of them are
endorsed by Castle, which is this consortium for collaborative
social, emotional educational learning, and their school wide. So
you know, a school might be interested in paying more attention to
social emotional learning, and we can talk about what the research
says, and more and more schools are adopting different curriculums.
So it's helpful for parents to know, you know, what is your
curriculum, and social emotional learning?
Dana Jonson 08:05
The why would that be important for a parent to understand the
specific curriculum? Is it that the language is different depending
on the curriculum? Or how does that fit into what's going on at
home? Okay,
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 08:17
so it actually is less about which one, but knowing that they have
one. Okay. I think that what goes on at home should complement the
language that they're using in school. So there's not a disconnect,
in many, many ways to do this. I mean, I often do, training people
to do groups with parents and their children to learn these skills.
And the earlier the better. I mean, you can, you know, start social
emotional learning, with infants. Yeah. In terms of how you help
them. And your narrative, your storytelling always includes failing
words. So in terms of the steps in social emotional learning, the
the, I would say the first step is just labeling feelings, yours,
their husbands or partners, the other children in the family, and,
you know, take advantage of 24/7 teachable moments. Oh, wow, we see
those people there. They're having an argument. They, they look
like they're so angry at each other. Are you watching a movie, when
he's still kind because he keeps trying to help his friends, so
forth and so on. So this is something that can be done, woven into
family life. If you have a child and has difficulty labeling
feelings, you become curious. And let's say you're watching your
child doing homework and they're having a hard time. You can say
I'm wondering if you're frustrated. I mean, you're looking
frustrated to me, then how are you feeling? So you don't tell the
child, how he or she is feeling. But you probe who has a question.
And eventually children will be able, there'll be more in touch and
be able to name how they feel. And once you have a name, there's a
terminal name entertainment, that helps you feel more in control.
You know, if they just have this amorphous, let's say you feel
anxious, but you don't really know that that's anxiety. Right?
You're uncomfortable, you might have bodily signals, and you don't
know what they mean. And you might say, every night, my tummy
hurts, my tummy hurts. And well, that might be the signal for that
child that that means that you're worried that you're just
Dana Jonson 10:54
yeah, there's there's that goal responses that it's not, I think
that's an important piece, too, is to understand, especially for
kids in school, when you see a child, when I see a child who visits
the nurse a lot. My first thought is okay, that's anxiety. That's,
you know, they're fearful of something, they're worried about
something they're escaping from something like that, to me is the
first sign right? That that they've removed
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 11:20
themselves, actually, they, they may want to avoid something, or
escape, or they may just be overstimulated. And they don't
understand that. They just know they need a break. So that's really
the first step. I mean, until someone has some self awareness. And
when I work with parents, I always encourage a lot of self
reflection, because there's a term meta emotion. how people feel
about feelings. Yeah, so so people are not comfortable with angry
feelings that are not express them. Some people have a lot of
trouble handling when their child seems sad. Feelings are
feeling,
Dana Jonson 12:08
I think that's our natural response, right? Our child is that I
want you to feel better. So I'm just going to immediately try to
make you feel better. And Kelly, you you feel better. And that's
not a big deal. It's not upsetting. Don't worry about it. But what
I'm saying is your feelings don't matter. And that's where you'll
have to parent right, that's
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 12:23
dismissive, which is unethical. Because either say, your feelings
don't matter, or this feeling is like a feeling that we want to
talk about or notice.
Dana Jonson 12:35
And I find for parents, sometimes it's hard to see when it wasn't
our intent to harm a child, it's really hard to acknowledge that
what we did, because they think in the back of our mind that So the
worst thing we could do is harm a child. That's that's like our
natural reaction is to not do that. That concept is so
overwhelming, that our first response is to be like, no, no, I
didn't mean that. So it didn't happen well,
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 13:01
right? That's right. But the other piece to it is harming a child
is a strong word, no parent ever gets it all right all the time. So
sometimes it's about the repair. So you know, if you're learning
some of these skills yourself about our how to label your carrier
feeling and help your child label how he or she was feeling, it's,
the parent becomes more skillful. And if you recognize that you did
something that retrospectively feel you didn't handle, well, you
can be transparent. And say, you know, I was just thinking about
what happened this morning. And I'm really sorry, because you are
looking so sad, and I didn't really give you a chance to tell me
more about it. Would you like to do that? And the time, I'd say yes
or no, yeah, the thing is, a very important piece of social
emotional learning is this self regulation. And some parents are
not well regulated. And it my work, and my work includes research
and clinical, academic teaching and so forth. I always start with
helping the parent regulate, because if the parent gets triggered
by the child's behavior, and then they get upset, and they sort of
get aroused and Rabat, that's only gonna create this child's
dysregulation, essentially. So no matter what the first step is for
the parent, to stay calm. And I think it's very helpful for parents
to be explicit about it. Like let's say, you know, you ask your
child 10 times to do something, they didn't do it and you're
getting annoyed and you know, you're just sort of going up the
scale. You can say, you know, yeah, I'm going up the scale or I use
the monitors, killing thermometers, but whatever we want to talk
about. And I don't want to start yelling, you know, that's not
going to help us. So I'm gonna take a minute because I know it
helps me, if I take a few deep breaths. So you are you're modeling
for the child that you are working on controlling your reactions.
So rather than being reactive, you want to be responsive. But
you're modeling that. And, you know, you have to have a strategy.
One, one part is noticing when you get aroused, or the parent,
being able to monitor and knowing what's the point of no return, so
to speak, and at some point, forget it. They can't really talk
about it in a logical way. But then you have to know what to do.
And so, you know, I usually have family activities, where everybody
talks about the different ways they control themselves, or calm
themselves down, or cope with stress. That's a very, very important
piece
Dana Jonson 16:13
is a parent understanding themselves and being able to control and
regulate? Yeah, and it's, it's, it's, I find almost impossible for
me to identify myself, I have to be able to rely on, we have this
thing, and I'm very, like, I'm loud. My hands are always going I'm
all over the place. And my husband's like, super chill. And so my
yelling and his yelling are two different things. I remember he
wants raised his voice once, and the kids don't yell at Mommy. And
he his response was she yells at me. And they said, Yeah, but
that's how she talks. And it was funny for me to be like, Oh, they
so differentiate between us, like how I am compared to myself, not
how I am compared to him. And I just thought that was fascinating
to me that they had picked up on that little bit that they they
were aware, they didn't think I was yelling all the time, you know,
because there has been my personality. And I just, to me, that was
showing me how in tune.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 17:19
The kids are. Exactly. Kids are incredibly attuned to the parents,
emotional state. And like even toddlers, you could see a toddler,
if he sees the mom looking sad, go over, and you know, sort of
comfort the parent. Now, they don't even really understand what
they're doing. But it's, it's in the air. It's an exquisite skill
that children have. And, you know, parents might try to mask it,
which is hard. I mean, I'm working with a very depressed mom right
now. You know, she's doing her best to function normally. But I
can't imagine her children don't pick something up.
Dana Jonson 18:11
Yeah. And I hear that a lot too, with parents when they either they
have something major to tell their kids, whether it's a divorce, or
separation or move or what have you. And they've been waiting to
tell them for some reason. And I always ask them, like, did they
know? Like, did they know where they have set? And, you know, a lot
of the time it's like, oh, they had a sentence, or they were
relieved that whatever was was said, because they knew something
was coming. You know, like, they're just, I think we as adults like
to pretend that we're tricking them, but we're really not. You
know, we've we've trained them to tell us what we want to hear.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 18:46
Yeah. And, you know, we we want to protect them. Yes. That's just
an instinct. Can always, you know, that doesn't mean that you can
help them deal with, I often say anxiety is catching. You know, it
might be situation where were you just a word about it? And say,
you know, yeah, you know, you recognize that, you know, this is
normal behavior for mommy, which is different than normal behavior
for daddy. And that's fine. People are different. You know, the
thing about social emotional, oh, join us. Good question. I'm
sorry, I
Dana Jonson 19:36
was I was muted. I was just saying I think it's important for them
to be able to distinguish between personality and emotion and
feeling and my oldest is neurodiverse as nonverbal learning
disabilities so so it's very difficult for her to identify any of
those social cues that we take for granted. You know, but so to be
able to distinguish between them That's your personality, you're
fiery, and you're loud versus someone who's fiery and loud as me,
or mad or angry or right. however you define it, it's much more
complicated than we think. And we still take it for granted. I'm
curious, how do you approach families, because sometimes I run into
this where families say, they just need to suck it up. They just
need to get through, they need to get a tougher skin. And I've been
that parent, where I said, Oh, my God, my kids are snowflakes, what
is happening, but at the same time, I think about the pain that I
experienced, not being able to share my emotions with somebody or
not being able to identify them myself. So I'm coming from that
perspective. But how do you reach a parent who maybe doesn't see
that the benefit necessarily they know their kid needs it, but
they're not internalizing it?
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 20:58
Well, that goes back to the research of what we're learning. So
social emotional learning, which is the title that have sole users
this consortium, it could be called Emotional intelligence, or
emotional literacy. It's also referred to as non cognitive skills,
and in our schools are all about academics, and cognitive
development, language development, and achievement, which all plays
into it, right. But if a child is not regulated, the child is
distracted. If a child is in a stress response, if a child is
feeling anxious, they're not taking in the information. They're not
absorbing, and integrating what the teacher is saying. So there
have been over 20 years of research, I mean, way more short term
and long term studies, showing that there is a relationship between
better social emotional skills and academic performance. There is
relationship between social emotional skills, and relationships,
and self awareness, and behavior, in school and at home. So I
consider it What should I say, I never said this before the word
just came into my mind, like a nest, ah, this is social emotional
learning. And then you build all the academic cognitive skills. But
if you're not pressing, right now, you're not really learning
optimally.
Dana Jonson 22:51
Yes. And I, we actually experienced that as well, one of one of my
children, who, between evaluations, their IQ went up, and I'm using
air quotes that you can't see right now went up 16 points. And at
her age, that's not your IQ doesn't make that kind of lead BNL in
that short period of time, and she had gone from an environment
that was not safe to her in her mind, and had to spend not just to
enter into a safer environment, she had to spend a great deal of
time in that safer environment, before she became available for
learning. And that's how we looked at it because I was like,
there's not suddenly this, what was I, what I was thrilled about
her educational environment at the time is that it was meeting
those safety needs. And that was my only priority for her at the
time. And the academics came, you know, like, everything went up
when we only focused on making sure she felt safe. And that was our
only priority. That's when she did well academically.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 24:03
Well, you're you're exactly right. And, you know, safety is. What
could I say? Without that? Yeah, any of this is not going to
develop. So you know, children that experience a lot of trauma.
Number one need safety and trust in relationships. Another thing
about you know, trauma and how it relates to this. I think we
underestimate the amount of trauma people have in life. I mean,
there's a lot of studies about this now from trauma informed cares,
like the name of the game. It's a cat two days, it's the buzz
phrase, right? But let's just say your child has ADHD, there's a
separate from trauma, the extra energy that they need to pay
attention to stay seated to, especially if they're have the
hyperactive pace to modulate their body It is exhausting. And so
even that takes away from
Dana Jonson 25:05
learning. Right. And I think people forget that when kids are
exhausted, they don't roll over and go to sleep, they tend to have
a fit, you know, they tend to keep going in their exhausted state.
They're not aware enough to rest. And I think we forget
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 25:23
that. Yeah. And also, we see it in the transition from school to
home. Because, you know, the teacher will say, here's a behavior
problem, and we've been doing fine, and he has some friends, you
know, and then the child comes home and opens the door, and he has
a temper tantrum and totally escalates. And the parents thing
that's going on? I mean, is this different kids? In my family child
that's in school, very common number that I hear that all the
time?
Dana Jonson 25:56
How do you help schools bridge that gap? How do your parents and
schools how do you, you know, I have that happen a lot. Obviously,
with my clients, I have my clients or children with disabilities,
and a lot of the time they are holding it together to the best of
their ability from morning to dismissal, and then they get home.
And there's nothing left. There's, you know, emotional control,
there's no making the child happy. There's no nothing like they've
just been pushed over the edge. But the school is seeing a great
kid that's being social and talking to friends and doing their
work. And I'm in the parents are seeing a kid that's about to blow,
how do we help bridge that gap?
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 26:41
Well, a couple of ideas. One is, because this is so common. One
knows what you can do at home. So to be articular Babbitt and then
have maybe a transition ritual with the child, because you're
anticipating, and you make that obvious and you know, the ritual
might be what's the most common thing you can do with the child at
that moment? Is it to give them something to eat? Or is it to have
them do some kind of physical, aerobic kind of activity, whatever
it is, but make it over and think about, this is just what the
parent can do think about creating a coming home ritual. As a
therapist, when I work with families, everything is a suggestion,
because we never really know what's going to work. A lot of it's
trial and error. But for some families that works in terms of the
school. And I've been doing this work a long time, I mean, training
related service providers, because I'm also rotate training related
service providers and training, special educators and changing
psychologist and you know, people from different domains in this
area with different perspectives. Yeah. And the, there are so many
more opportunities for parents to get information that could help
them. I always say, don't pass the OT what she's doing to help the
child regulate in the classroom, because maybe she has some ideas
for you. I mean, there's not enough transparency and communication
between well, some parents and some schools do this very well. I
mean, you know, I did some studies in Fairfield County, and there
are some school districts, some districts, but there's some
communities that do it very well. I was still my work was in New
York City, and
Dana Jonson 28:53
different animal in New York City.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 28:56
And so, sometimes there's absolutely no communication and cancer or
our have a right to information. And they would benefit a great
deal because they want other ideas. Are there strategies? Is there
something that's working in school because there's a behavior plan
seemed to work in schools, that's something we should try it at
home?
Dana Jonson 29:23
Right. And from a, you know, from a specialist attorney
perspective, I would also look at that as you know, parent training
from a school perspective. Another thing that I often recommend for
parents is evaluations. And if they think that they are seeing a
completely different child than their school district, and they're
not able to bridge that gap, that either bringing in the private
therapists that they're working with to give their input or
collaborating with the school to get an outside evaluation, maybe
somebody who isn't in school because of people in school aren't
seeing But the parents are staying and the parents aren't seeing
what school is seeing the maybe we need somebody completely
separate, to come in and tell us where all these pieces connect.
And I find that to sometimes be the hardest thing. And once we can
make that connection, and everyone can see how all those pieces
work together and how home is impacting school and vice versa, then
we can start putting pieces into place. How would you advise
parents or teachers who think you know, we have a gap, we need to
bridge bridge this gap? Where can we get the information we need?
Who should they be going to for that assessment or
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 30:40
instruction? Well, you're talking about quite a few different
things. So that's probably, so let's see if I can answer it in a
way that's helpful. Schools are mandated to every child has an IEP
to decide on placement and services to enhance their academic
performance. That's as a threatened. I'm suggesting academic
performances is not as narrow a lane, as they say, I did special ed
policy research for a decade. And, you know, there's such
variability in terms of a school district partnering and believing
in strength base, partnering with parents in understanding what the
parents concerns are, what their priorities are, as opposed to, you
know, let's look at the IEP and look at the various specifics
skill. Now, sorry, think about all the trial, right. So parents
have a right to request a meeting, if a child has an IEP, parents
have a right to have the child evaluated, if they feel there's a
problem. Usually it comes from the school, suggesting to the
parent, however, I know, parents instinct, lets them know
something's not quite right. And so they need the validation. They
may feel for years. I just think there's something that he he's not
getting. And then grade three, you still can't read. He's very
frustrated. And he has a lot outburst in the parent knew, right and
we are diagnosing earlier and earlier or diagnosing. I mean now,
where it is approved to diagnose children as young as four with
ADHD, which was not the case before, but I know into a preschool
and look in the classroom and identify two to three children that
are neuro diverse. And yeah, I'm a preventionist. I mean, my
doctorates and a couple of Cal, but I'm all about prevention. And
if a child has a neurobiological disability, you really can do
prevention work in terms of his emotional life, and not feeling I'm
not good enough. I'm a bad boy. You know, I hear those things from
children all the time, and they're devastating for parents.
Dana Jonson 33:30
Yeah. But I think we don't realize too, that by calling a child a
good boy, indicates to the other children, then they are bad. Like,
I think they're little pieces of language that we we've become very
careless with our language, I think. And I think that is part of
our social emotional problem. Because when you're careless with
your language, you're sending messages that maybe you didn't intend
to send. And, and I think it's in my lifetime, that we've actually
as a society started to acknowledge that kids have feelings. You
know, I know, when I was little that was at the forefront of the
conversation, you know, and even my mom talks about when she was
pregnant, there was only one patient. Yeah, it was the mom. Right.
So it started right from there. So, you know, I think that we are
definitely coming into a new understanding even though these ideas
and concepts and knowledge have been around forever. I think as a
society, we have not been taking it seriously.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 34:31
Well, I think you're absolutely right. The power of language. Good,
bad, you know, really, you want to describe behavior, you know, Oh,
you did you finish that assignment very well. And you know, that
was great because you're being a good student or whatever. You you
talk about the behavior. I had an experience in 1971, which gives A
little bit of indication of how long I've been in the parenting
field. And we were doing a prevention program in Spanish Harlem
with little kids. And everything was about the children know that
colors, they know, shapes, and it was all conquer cognitive and
language. And I have worked in mental health. And so this was a
research project that really funded until I started saying to the
parents, what do you like about your child? I'm telling you, they
struggled with answers. So this piece of recognizing someone's
emotional life and how much that impacts performance and
relationships. I mean, even I do a lot of work and Headstart
programs, and 1965, the purpose of Headstart was to help children
develop social competence. It was an academic readiness. Because if
you think about right, you know, what do you need to be a
successful adult? Well, you may not need algebra, as much as
getting along with your co workers are having a decent round.
Dana Jonson 36:18
Yes. And I had that conversation, an IEP meeting the other day for
a kid who's super smart. And I thought, yeah, he is. But he also
can't make eye contact. If he doesn't like how you look, he will
tell you like, there are things that are not acceptable in society
that this child does. And regardless of the cognitive abilities,
they won't be successful. And that is what we're looking at when
you talk about education being much more global than academics. And
it is, and that's something that I remind IP teams of all the time,
you know, for a middle school, we're talking about a middle
schooler, and this kid does not have any friends, that is not
typical. And that is going to be more important to that student
than anything else. So if we're not taking seriously what kids take
seriously, then we're not acknowledging their feelings, their
thoughts, what's going on in their lives. And I mean, they're human
too, right? They this is their brains are developing to what
they're going to be as adults, now's the best time for them to
learn how to do all that stuff. I just don't believe that kids have
to be in pain to learn what makes it hard to learn. Yes, I think we
have that, right. Like if somebody if a kid is enjoying their
class, there's this question like, are they actually learning
anything? They seem like they're having too much fun? You know, we
have to think that's sort of a weird thing. Well, thank you, I so
appreciate all of this information. I think it's so important for
families and schools to understand that this this social emotional
learning piece, and you did touch on it, but it's also a little
different than emotional IQ, or those pieces like how will you know
yourself. It's more about social emotional learning, it builds,
these things can be learned skill develop, to
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 38:11
be modeled back to be practiced. I think the good takeaway for
whoever's listening to this is becoming more comfortable with
emotional coaching. And that's a term comes from John Gottman,
which really means no matter what's going on, you connect
emotionally with the child first. So you say, you know, I say
you're really angry because you're raising your voice, and I get
it, because your sister keeps taking your toys. So you're
validating how the child feels, no matter how they feel a feeling
is the feeling needs to be respected. So before you say, but don't
hit your sister. First, say, you know, label of feeling validated.
If you don't really understand if you can't make the connection
say, but what what's going on? Tell me what I don't understand why
you're so frustrated. And then you can give the couldn't give
guidance, you can make a demand, you can make a request. It just
means that the child feels understood, and they will listen to you.
And this goes for all relationships.
Dana Jonson 39:36
It takes them off the defensive. Yeah,
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 39:39
I mean, everybody wants to feel understood. And Oh, Mommy gets it.
Yes. And, you know, mommy's that. I should. I can't hit her. Okay.
That doesn't mean it's not going to hit her. It means that he has
to substitute right a different action for demonstrating has
Question for just sister.
Dana Jonson 40:02
I love that the way you phrase that it's it's about finding a
different way to express it. Right? You're identifying. I see you
feel that way I get it. That's valid. But doing that when you feel
that way is not how we do it. When you feel that way, you've got to
do something different. Let's figure out what that something
different is. And yeah, so it's looking at what's, what's the
outcome? I've said that to you before I do want the child to feel
bad about themselves? Or do you want to change the behavior, which
is the goal? And thinking of it that way? Because I think sometimes
we feel like that's character building as an adult, right. Going
through those tough things and toughing it out. But, you know,
wouldn't it be better to have the tools to get through it rather
than have it out? I'm not too proud to use, though.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 41:01
It's complex, but it is
Dana Jonson 41:03
it is. So So Dr. Grossman, tell me if somebody is listening to
this, and they're saying, Oh, my gosh, you speak my truth. You're
the only person who gets me and I need to talk to Dr. Grossman, how
are they going to find you, and reach out to you and find your
world,
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 41:18
I am only practicing on Zoom. Now. Since the pandemic, I gave up my
office in the city and I had to have an office here. I'm taking
select cases, because I also teach and so forth and so on. But I
can be reached at Judy.Grossman928@gmail.com
Dana Jonson 41:43
Great. And I will have that information in the show notes along
with the other other links to some things that we've discussed
during this episode. And I can't thank you enough it really this is
such an important a hot topic. And I came across it because I was I
attended a presentation that you gave and and I think that was well
attended as well. I really think that social emotional learning is
on the swing. Thank God in our community in our on our society. So
thank you so much for all the work you do, and for sharing this
information with parents.
Judy Grossman, PhD, MSW 42:16
Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. I'm happy to do it.
Dana Jonson 42:20
Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don't forget to
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review and you have a chance. If there's anything you want to hear
about or comment on. Please go to my Facebook page special ed on
special ed and find me there. I'll see you next time here on
special ed on special ed. Have a fabulous day. The views expressed
in this episode are those of the speaker's at the time of the
recording and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or
position of any other agency, organization, employer or company or
even that individual today.