Weekly WINGS
Wisdom and Inspiration Nurturing Growth and Success
If you’ve been part of the HSI community for any length of time, you most likely believe in non-punitive, trauma-informed, compassionate, neuroscience-aligned practices (or want to learn more about them).
You are dedicated to supporting the children and families that you work with to build connection and collaboration instead of focusing on compliance and control.
You are a heart-strong hero doing your very best to stay regulated yourself while you co-regulate and support children with dysregulated nervous systems.
Or you are someone who wants to be a trauma-informed changemaker and a leader as a trauma-informed specialist, educational trainer, or parent coach.
Congratulations! You are making a HUGE difference in the outcomes and life trajectory of young people, which will have an amazing impact for. years to come!
But there’s still a problem….
A lot of people out there still just don’t get it.
They may think that you are using permissive parenting or that you are just “coddling” children in your home or classroom instead of “preparing them for the real world” where they might have a boss that isn’t as compassionate as you are.
They may think that all you are doing is raising spoiled brats who get whatever they want and never learn the consequences of their negative behaviors.
It can be frustrating when you know what is right for your child or student, but others in your family or those you work with see your approach as part of the problem, not the solution.
The philosophical struggle is real
Some of you are starting a new school year as a teacher or parent with a whole new team of educators who are entrenched in traditional, punitive, rewards-and-consequences disciplinary practices.
If you are a parent trying to convince the school system that your child is in need of specific curricular modifications or accommodations, you may be feeling frustrated that so many educators and administrators don’t seem to understand the trauma-informed paradigm.
And if you are a teacher who is dedicated to nervous system friendly, non-punitive practices, you may feel like you a a salmon swimming upstream in a punitive school climate that is fixated on codes of conduct, PBIS, no-tolerance policies, and traumatizing practices like seclusion and restraint.
And in many schools, parents and teachers engage in the shame-and-blame game where teachers blame parents for sending children to school who don’t comply with behavioral expectations, and parents blame teachers for being the cause of so much trauma in the school setting for their children.
Breakthrough Conversations
How do we begin to have conversations with other adults who have a fundamental difference of opinion or philosophy about home and school discipline?
Should we engage in arguments and get into heated battles with those who don’t get it?
Or should we take a different approach?
I believe we need to consider conversations as opportunities for a breakthrough.
As Justin Michael Williams explains in his work on transformational social justice, it’s essential for growth and change to engage in breakthrough conversations with people when we are in conflict.
Instead of “calling people out” for their ignorance or lack of understanding, we need to “call them in” to conversations and then “call them forward” into transforming their mindset by setting an example of compassion and reciprocity in our interactions with them.
This kind of conversation takes a lot of courage and commitment, but the results are well worth the effort!
Use the Spiral with adults, too
When we are working with children, we can use the Spiraling Stages of Growth to assess and address what is going on in the current state of the nervous system as well as the general trajectory of growth and healing over time.
We can also use the Spiral as a framework to consider where we are in relationship to those we are in conflict, and then assess and address what the best approach might be.
For example, if you are talking to someone who is highly dysregulated, anxious, or angry… this person needs the calm co-regulation of stage one before they will be able to have a conversation with you.
If you have an established relationship of trust with an adult, you may be able to move right into a Ross Greene style collaborative “Plan B” conversation to proactively solve problems together instead of trying just to “get your own way”.
And just like the Spiral goes in circles, you may need to have multiple conversations over and over until you are able to move up to the next level of growth and mutual understanding.
Start with compassion – always!
The key to any interaction with someone who just doesn’t get it is to really listen to what their concerns are with deep compassion.
It’s not helpful just to clobber people with our opinions and make them feel bad about what they know or don’t know. As the saying goes, “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
Most of us didn’t know about trauma, healing, and nervous system regulation when we first started parenting and teaching. It took patient guidance, research, reading, and a whole lot of lived experience to get where we are today.
So we need to have the same kind of patience for those who just don’t get it… YET.
Remember that’s the magic word when it comes to growth: YET
Just because someone doesn’t get it today, doesn’t mean that they won’t ever get it… and just like you, they might become a heart-strong hero, too!
Of course, we always need to keep the needs of the children first and foremost in our hearts and minds. It’s absolutely ok to be clear about what our children need and to be a strong and vocal advocate to protect a child who is in a traumatic or potentially traumatic situation at home or at school.
We just need to use our intuition to know when this kind of “Mother Bear” energy of fierce compassion is necessary, and not to over-use it simply when our own nervous systems are vulnerable to dysregulation.
For those of you ready to take these kind of breakthrough conversations and student advocacy to the next level…
You can become a Trauma-Informed Specialist, Certified Parent Coach, or Certified Educational Trainer and provide practical, compassionate support for families and teachers to support the growth and healing of our most vulnerable and challenging children.
Last chance to join the August cohort!
If you are passionate about using your lived experience to become the compassionate, trauma-informed, healing-centered leader that children, families, and teachers really need today, then we would love to talk to you about joining our one-of-a-kind certification programs!
These programs provide the tools and strategies you need to become a confident expert who can be a role-model and trauma-informed changemaker in schools, communities, and families.
Many of our graduates have also found that the program has made them better parents and teachers of their own children!
Scholarships:
A limited number of partial scholarships are available on a first-come, first-served basis to those with financial need.
Download and read the brochure, then click the button below to schedule a Zoom meeting (choose “meeting – 30 minutes”):
Reach out to Support@WingBuilder.com for more information!