Self Regulate, Empower, and Middle School Superpowers with Phyllis Fagell

What's going on everybody? I hope this finds you strong and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher and host of the teaching champions podcast. And today on the podcast, we're joined by Phyllis Fago. Now Phyllis is a school counselor. She has her own private practice serving teens and adults. She's a journalist making frequent contributions to the Washington Post. She writes a weekly column for PTK International. She's contributed to the New York Times The Atlantic, The New Yorker, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, and many more. She's also the author of Middle School Matters, and her newest book that's just been released is called Middle School superpowers. Now this is such an important conversation for teachers and parents. So after listening to it if you think someone would benefit from it, please share. Now as we dive into this conversation, listen, as Phil's dives into the importance of teaching tweens, strategies to self regulate. Listen, as she shares wife sharing social stories can make a huge impact on twins. Listen, as she explains why visualization can help our students handle stressful situations. Listen, as Phyllis explains what rough draft thinking is, and listen to all the strategies that we can use to help out our tweens. Get your pen and notebook ready for this one, my friends. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I am super excited for this episode. We have an absolute Rockstar with us today who is just a wealth of knowledge. So I can't wait to dive into this. I want to welcome Phyllis bagel to the teaching champions podcast. Phyllis, welcome my friend. Thank you. Thanks so much for inviting me to join you today. Yeah, so I'm excited. I mean, our pre chat was amazing. So I can't wait to get into it even more, Phyllis, for those that are not familiar with your journey. Would you mind sharing a little bit? Sure. So I initially thought I was going to go to law school, which I think is very funny. Now in retrospect, I ended up actually going into journalism, went to graduate school for journalism, worked as a magazine editor for a while, and then decided to go into counseling when I had kids thinking hahaha, that it was going to be a more manageable lifestyle, which also is funny to me in retrospect. And when I started, I did Elementary, and then I did High School. And it wasn't until I got to middle school, which was my third outing, my third type of school that I realized that this was something I wanted to write about, because there just wasn't anything out there. For me as a counselor, I also had my oldest was a first year middle school student that year as well. So I was living the middle school dream and writing about it at the same time. Excellent. Well, that middle school dream is an interesting age group. You know, everybody has their own little niche, you know, high school teachers, elementary teachers, and it seems like sometimes people try and stay a little bit away from that middle school. But the people that are there often love it. Now, you have an amazing book that's coming out. Actually, as we're taping it, it's coming out tomorrow, called the middle school superpowers. Would you mind explaining? Why write that book? And what is it all about? Sure. So in many ways, it's a sequel to my first book, which was called Middle School Matters. And that was intended to be kind of a 30,000 foot view of What to Expect When You're Expecting a middle school or covering everything from friendship to homework. And then I started talking to parents talking to schools about the phase about the book, and I was getting so many questions that were really in the weeds. And a few months later, we had this thing, this global pandemic, we had this huge spike in gun violence. We have so much political division, cultural divide, culture, wars, all of the things that we've all been dealing with, and it created a tremendous amount of stress and disruption, obviously, in everyone's lives. So when my students came back to school, I was looking at a very different kind of middle schooler. And so this book comes back down to sort of the nitty gritty details of how to be a middle schooler how to find people to connect with how to recover from a disappointment how to deal with growing up inside She's crazy turbulent times, and come out not only feeling strong feeling state emotionally well and stable, but actually feeling stronger for your struggles. Yes, and I absolutely loved it because it's something that is I was reading it something that I buy into wholeheartedly that just having those skills, having that toolkit developed to handle the things that are going to come our way. And as much as we want to protect our students as much as you want to protect your children. They're gonna go through some hard times. Absolutely. And teachers as well. And I think that kids are so sensitive to the well being of the educators in their lives. And I in part, write these books for the adults who have to teach kids to because we can't model the behavior, we can't self regulate and create that calm environment for them. Unless we're really familiar with these strategies as well. Yeah, so, you know, I love them. There's so many great ones. And I picked out just a couple that maybe we could touch on today. And but there's so many in the book, the first one that really jumped out at me, because when I think of like a middle school, child, you know, that 12, that 13 year old is, like belonging, and the friendships and the connections, and you had a stat that you put right there in the book that that just blew my mind about the percentage of friendships from I believe it was seventh grade to 12th grade. Could you share that a little bit? Yeah, sure, I share a few statistics in there, I think the one that you're recalling is that if you follow kids from seventh grade to 12th grade, only 1% of those friendships are still intact. If you follow kids from the beginning of the first year of middle school, to the end of that first year, only a third of the friendships are stable. Another sort of different, but equally kind of shocking statistic for adults is that 12% of sixth graders have nobody named them as a friend. And if you ask kids to name their best friend, only half of the people they name actually name them back. And as horrible as that sounds to adults, and in many ways, it kind of confirms their worst views about middle school as being this time to dread. It's actually really reassuring for kids, because at a time when they most want to belong, as you said, at a time when their friendships are everything central to their lives, when things don't go well, which inevitably, they all get dumped by a friend at some point or another. That statistic or that set of statistics really reinforces this idea that there's nothing inherently wrong with them. Specifically, it's just a time when everyone is figuring out how to be a friend and how to choose a friend. Yeah, so you know, there's something comforting to win, you know, like, it's not just you, you're not the only one. So how do you cope when students because you're right there in the mix in the middle school? And when you have students come and they have these issues? How can we help them. So we really have to understand the temperament of the kid in front of us. So there are some universal characteristics about middle schoolers, we know that they're insecure, we know that they're vulnerable, we know that they want to conform to the norm, often. And it's really hard to take risks, because you might embarrass yourself. Or you might do something that makes you drop a notch in the eyes of your peers, you might not want to try out for a team, if there's a chance that you might be the only one of your friends who doesn't get a spot on that team. And so one of the things we want to make sure that we're doing with these kids is making sure that we are equipping them with everything that they need in order to continue to take all of those risks continue to put themselves out there. And so that they can recover from the disappointments because you're right, those friendships are going to go awry, sometimes they're not always going to have things go the way that they hoped they would go. And we want them to be able to roll with it. So we have to make sure that they know that they are going to experience those lumps. Those take those hits along the way. One of the studies that I share in the book is about is from a researcher in Wisconsin, Jeffery Borman and he did this study where he had these social stories that were purportedly by seventh graders, they were actually made up, but they were the sixth graders that they read them to thought they were real seventh graders and in the social stories, and seventh graders said, when I first got to middle school, I thought my teachers only would like me if I got good grades, I thought that no one cared if I succeeded, or if I failed. But now that I've been here a year, I realized that it just took some time to adjust and everybody wants the best for me. And people don't only care about what my product is they want to see what that process is. And what he discovered was the kids who really understood that and embrace that philosophy, which the kids did after reading those social stories at a much more positive middle school adjustment and even did better academically. So we want to make sure that we are helping kids understand that those setbacks along the way those hits are part of their journey. Excellent. Yeah, those social stories like Just hearing that, that it's pretty powerful. Now, if I had a student in, you know, he's a good athlete, but he's scared to try out for like the team, or flip it, he tries out for the team, and he doesn't make the team. What are some things that you would suggest that I do for this job? Yeah. So you know, one of the things you can do, and I talked about this in a chapter that's on anticipatory decision making, is have them think in advance, what are option B, what's option C, you know, kids in this age group tend to think in all or nothing terms. So they may not make the travel team and think it's all over for them. But there are some other options. They could work out in the offseason and try to get stronger and try again, they could try out for rec team, they could look at different leagues, there's lots of different ways to go about it. What we don't want is for them to get so stuck in that self doubt that they opt out completely. And we want them to understand that you don't have to only do something because it's competitive. It's okay to do something you're really terrible at because you like it. And this is an age when we really want them experimenting and getting physical activity and having those outlets, because it's not easy being a middle schooler. So in addition to having those option B and Option C, I asked them to come up with something good about those other options, some positives, so that they are four armed with some ways to deal with it. And I also talk to kids about the concept of and this still blows my mind as an adult, this idea that we have no way of knowing if getting what we want is a good thing or a bad thing. And one of the stories I share in the book is actually about my own eighth grade son, and he's a baseball player. And he still had his braces on towards the end of eighth grade and really, really didn't want those braces on when he went to high school. And he was one of the last one still wearing braces. And one day at baseball. Sorry, one day right before baseball, he went to the orthodontist. It was the day he was supposed to get them off. And the orthodontist kind of shook his head and was like, Hey, I'm sorry, but it's really not time you need a few more months. And he was so crushed, then went to baseball, and he got hit in the face with a baseball. And it dented the braces and also banged up his whole face, we had to go back to the orthodontist because the braces were broken. But when we got even loosen some of his permanent teeth. And when we got to the orthodontist, he said the only thing that kept your teeth from flying, you're permanently from flying out of your mouth where those braces those braces, he really was upset didn't come up. So that was just a way of sort of showing him that you really don't have any way of knowing if getting what you want is a good thing or not. Yeah, I love that. And I think it's you know, it's so important that we verbalize that stuff to him to make it visible. Because sometimes things happen. And whether it's good or bad, but the the child doesn't really recognize it, because we haven't put a spotlight on on it for him. It's so true, or they're so self conscious or feel a sense of shame or embarrassment that they don't want to admit or vocalize that they're feeling really crappy. You know, there is this, there's another story to share in the book, it was a kid, since we're talking about sports. Yeah, he wanted to make a travel team that a couple of his friends were on already. And he was working up the guts to try out for this team. And then one day, he overheard them talking, saying that hearing those two boys saying that they didn't think he had a shot, that he was going to get cut. And it really threw him and upset him. And he wasn't going to try it out. And when I talked to him, I knew he was a very competitive kid too. And I tried to tap into his competitive instincts. And I said, I want you to visualize, you know, if you don't make that team going back to sort of that option of your options, see, I want you to visualize making another team in the same league and then going and playing them and beating them. Still try out for the league, even if you don't end up on their team. And he did go and try out. But we have to understand that in this age group. It's so easy for the smallest thing to discourage them. And they just won't put themselves out there. And they need us to very, very explicitly help them stay in that game. Yeah, I see. No, I'm a big believer in the power of visualization. Because yes, I think that is huge. Now how do you do it? Like what are some activities that you might do with the students that come to you with visualization? I know you just gave one example. Suppose there are others that Yeah, well, you know, I, there's imaginal exposure is you can imagine yourself being in that situation and walk through the We'll see what do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear? What are and then when in terms of the catastrophizing and kids not necessarily thinking in a way that's rational or reasonable, you know, going right to that worst case scenario, I might add, I might throw in some sentence starters like, you know, it's also possible that and giving them an opportunity to come up with some other other out possible outcomes, or at the end to say, some other possibilities are. And we might walk them, I might walk them through feeling the worst case scenario because often when kids imagine that worst case scenario, they realize that it's not as bad as they expected, or it is bad that they can handle it. And then we'll talk about what they need to do to handle that situation. In the in the book, I share a story about a kid who is afraid to go into the lunchroom was eating lunch in the bathroom. And they were afraid that if they went to the cafeteria, it would just be this over, you know, anybody who remembers middle school cafeterias, they can be very overwhelming. Places, not necessarily the most welcoming, everyone is so self centered and worrying about themselves, but you can feel like everyone's looking at you, or don't want you at their table and have a lot of fear. And so we in this particular story, the person who shared it said that she said to the girl, what is the worst case scenario? And she said that nobody lets me sit with them, that every time I go to a table, they say there's no room. And she said, Oh, no, that's not the worst case scenario. Social Worker, the worst case scenario is that you sit down and everyone gets up and walks away. And she was just injecting a little humor. And the kid understood her sense of humor and laughed. But what she was doing was two things. One was helping her figure out what she could do in that situation. So in this situation, she realized she could bring a book she could read, if she felt awkward when she sat down at that table that she can imagine that maybe when the food came, it would be less awkward, because she would have something to do. But she was also having her feel the feelings ahead of time, so that she wasn't experiencing that rush of emotions for the first time when she walked in. She was feeling them ahead of time so that she felt like she could handle it in advance. She prepared emotionally. Yes, that prep work. And they you know, I, I was reading your book. And one thing that popped out, there's so much and that you could take from a young kid all the way up to an adult. Like there's certain things that we're talking about right here. There's certain situations that I prep myself for before. Absolutely, yes. And I mean, I think one of the things that we as adults forget is how hard social risks are, or academic risks. Something like offering a wrong answer can be really, really scary to a middle schooler. And we can forget how scary it is because the way you extinguish anxiety is through exposure. And over the course of our lives as adults, we've had to offer answers in so many different situations, we've had to put ourselves out there, whether or not we want to. And so we have, to a large extent figured out how to manage those feelings, how to deal with those scenarios, in those situations how to recover if things don't go well. Middle schoolers, for the most part are experiencing it for the first time and at an age when they're acutely aware of how they stack up to others. So we have to really scaffold the risk taking for them as well. One of the other things you can do actually, if we're talking about risk taking is that there's a researcher, I love her TED Talk. She's a former athlete, she's now the president of Dartmouth College. Her name is I'm gonna mispronounce it, but it's sia en, Seon Bay Loc, B ei Loc, K. And she talks about how to help kids not choke under pressure, which applies to anything, it could be a math test, it could be a softball game, it could be giving a speech or trying out for the play. And some of the things that she suggests are kind of silly, but based on research, and middle schoolers love them because they're silly, because they are memorable. And because it gives them something concrete that they can try. So one example is to focus really hard on your pinky toe. Because if you are, let's say you're walking down the stairs, and you're focusing on how you use your knees and your ankles and your feet, when you're walking down the stairs, you're going to be super awkward walking down the stairs. Nobody ever thinks about their pinky toe or uses their pinky toe for anything. So it gets you on hooked. You're thinking about something that won't get in the way of your tryout or your performance. Another is to sing happy birthday. And I love sharing really concrete strategies like that with kids because number one, they feel empowered if they know there's something that they can do to help themselves in these situations. And number two, there's science behind them. And it's not me lecturing them. I can point to the studies where this was tested. So I have some credibility and they're willing to give it a try. No, I love that. That's so good. Now, do you practice that like so we might Second graders. And sometimes I just use it because they come in from recess and, and they're all fired out, they got that energy that I wish I could tap into. We would practice just some quick, like, take two to five minutes and do some breathing exercises. And I would always talk about we practice it now. So that when we really need it, in those moments, we've already got that down. Is that something that you would suggest? Yes, and I love that one in particular, because whether you're in second grade, I'm in the K eight. So I've been in a K eight. So whether you're in second grade, and you're coming in from recess, and maybe your feelings got hurt, because someone made you be the owner, instead of the Dog in the game, or somebody wouldn't play the game you wanted to play, or you name it, you were playing insect hospital, and the stick broke, it could be anything I love, second grade. Whether you're in that situation, or you're a middle schooler who's coming in feeling overwhelmed from wandering the halls, and maybe you got lost and couldn't find your class because the class was meeting somewhere else. And you'd forgotten or maybe you somebody had looked at you funny. And it struck you that maybe they were mad at you. And now you're ruminating about why whether they're mad at you, or maybe just a lot of people bumped into you and you're feeling just overstimulated, you also need that moment to collect themselves. I love this strategy. And this works for second graders or eighth graders or sixth graders, of giving them just a page from a coloring book and having them take a minute or two to color. While there while everyone is getting settled in. It just grounds them in their bodies before they have to shift gears and focus on whatever it is you're doing in that classroom setting. Yeah, so good. So good, just to ground them to take that moment to create some space. Yes. Yeah. And at any age, any age, yes. 100%. You know, I was just listening to he's the all time winning is college coach of like squash or some sport I've never heard of, but he was he was talking about, he puts out an Oreo cookie on a table when he's talking about two groups. And he was talking about your thought the one way for is your thought the cream is this space in between your thought. And the second way for is the action. So he said he tries to make it like a double stuffed Oreo cookie, what are ways that we can create more space between the thought and the action especially like when, when a child is is? Yes, yes, there are lots of energy. So just something that was me. Now, you also talked about what I really enjoyed in the book about like, being able to bounce back from like bullying and gossiping. But you also talked about when they're not the victim, but when they were the bully, or they were the well, you know, when I was a new school counselor, one of the things that I had the hardest time doing was calling parents and saying that their kid was being mean. And I felt like when I did that, maybe they would think I was saying the parent was a bad parent or their kid had poor character. And I really don't feel that way anymore. Because we know from research that the kids who are the perpetrators, the kids who are the aggressors, who are using meanness, and aggression, to get that social capital, are not acquiring the skills of likability that they need to be successful in life, to be able to make friends to be able to sustain a romantic relationship or to make good choices at work and have positive relationships with colleagues. And they even have more substance abuse, more depression, more anxiety, more failed relationships, there's even a part of the brain that is smaller in adults who didn't learn how to use empathy when they were younger, who used that power and meanness to get status. And it's the part of the brain responsible for empathy, which suggests that if you don't acquire those skills, when you're growing up, it's then too late because your brain is not equipped to create those synapses. So I feel like it is incumbent on us as teachers, as counselors as parents to call out meanness in real time. And, you know, not in a way to shame the kid, but just very matter of factly. Just tell them that's not okay. We don't do that here. Don't do it in front of other students unnecessarily. You know, you don't want to create an environment where they're not willing to take that support, but then talk to them about what they can do to make it right. And one of my favorite questions is to say, especially if a kid is defensive, and this comes from Katie Hurley, who's written a lot of great books on Social Drama, Social relationships and kids that to say, okay, great, it's 98% that other person's problem, but if you had to own your 2%, what is your 2% and what we're trying to do To give the kid a runway back a plausible reason for why they did what they did. So if they cheat, we might say, I'm guessing you did that, because you didn't want to admit you didn't know what you were doing. Or if they're vaping. In the bathroom, you might say, I'm guessing you did it because you really wanted to be friends with this group of people you're in that bathroom with. And we're not saying we approve or that it's okay. But we're giving them an opening, we're saying we understand and often that will help kids let down their defenses enough to have a conversation about what they need to do, to learn from the experience, make it right and move forward. Yes. One thing I noticed in your book is like the verbiage, how we talk to him how we phrase things to the young ones matters so much. It does. And for everything. You know, one of the interesting studies that I shared that really stuck with me is one that said that when you use the phrase rough draft thinking with kids, this is just rough draft thinking, they actually take more risks, they're more willing to put themselves out there, especially for kids of any age, who gets stuck and can't get started because they're perfectionist or because they're flooded with anxiety, or maybe their thoughts are just coming so fast that they can't sort them out. But we want to make sure that we are creating an environment and language is a big part of it, where we are making it safe for them to take those risks and get started. Yes, and I love that when you talk about like rough draft thinking that I love that. Now, you also I see that you lead with a lot of questions, instead of just like telling sometimes I think it is adults, we just want to tell them how it isn't direct it. But I know like, a lot of what you did was was with questioning and how you get to the answer. Yeah, you know, I think with middle schoolers in particular, they are really going to bristle if they think someone's lecturing them or telling them what to do, you know, I I know what to do. Thank you very much. You know, I know myself and I know what needs to be done. And so if we start from that place of judgment or criticism, or we know best, and you're not the expert in your own life, they're not going to be open to problem solving and what we really want, yes, we want them to take accountability for whatever when arrived. Yes, we want them to embrace our values and do what we think is right. But what we really want is for them in the long run to know how to do that thought process themselves and make good decisions and make hiring decisions. And a more effective way to teach those skills is through curiosity and questions. You know, I, I think I share in the book, some of the phrases I like are things like, Oh, I'm wondering if I've noticed that just trying to strip away that judgment when you're approaching them. And we often get it wrong. Anyway, one of the stories I share was about it was a sexting situation. And I talk about how to an adult who just was watching that unfold, they might assume that the boy had pressured the girl for the nude photos that the girl had, you know, done it only to please Him. And in this particular scenario with which, you know, I came at them with more of that sense of curiosity. It turned out it was consensual, yes, they had made a mistake. But the the adult assumptions would have been 100% wrong in every single way in throughout that whole scenario. Yes, and I remember that story perfectly. Right now. It's a wild one, right? It is a wild one. But it is like we make assumptions. But we have the mind of an adult, where they're coming from it as a mind of a child. And I think sometimes it's important that we take a step back and realize they're not processing things the same way that we do. Not at all, and we have to remember they want to do the right thing. They're trying to do the right thing. You probably remember in that particular story, they sort of knew you're not supposed to send these new pictures. So one of them were a beat a bikini top, and one of them were boxer shorts, you know, they're trying to get it right to mitigate the risk. And, you know, obviously went off the rails throughout that story, but it wasn't for lack of trying or lack of wanting to do the sort of smart thing. Yes. Oh, lesson learned. Yes. So one other thing I really want to dive into because I think like a lot of middle schoolers probably face this is like how to deal with like, hope and like staying positive during the hard times. Because there's going to be hard times for those those kids. What are some strategies that we can help you know, if my child or if I'm a teacher, my sixth grade, students just struggling a little bit during during a certain time of the school year. One of the things we want to do with kids especially I call them your syndrome, the ones who are just relentlessly negative. We really want them to be understanding that a setback is is temporary and situational and not permanent and pervasive. And then we want them to be focusing on what they can control and what they care about. And the actions that they can take going forward, rather than getting kind of stuck in the muck on whatever that disappointment was. So maybe they didn't get invited to a birthday party. And they're a little heartbroken and they're upset, or they feel like they in you know, they're not able to concentrate at school, and they feel like maybe they don't have friends anymore, and they're never going to have a social life again, that might be an opportunity to talk to, you know, first validate those feelings, you always want to validate the feelings that is hard, and it hurts as it should. So what what do you want to know what's important to you? What can you control? What can't you control? Well, you can't undo that you weren't invited. But could you invite someone else over who might have felt that same way? Or is there somebody who was at that party who you think wouldn't want to do there who might make you feel better? If you had a conversation with him about it? Is it possible that there's a missing piece here, maybe they did invite you and you didn't see it? I'm always trying to get kids to think about a little more expansively, rather than go straight to that worst case scenario. And I always preface that exercise, by telling them, I don't need them to believe the alternative explanations. Because what I'm trying to do isn't talk them out of how they feel. But get them in the habit of thinking more flexibly being able to exercise that cognitive flexibility. So let's say they come to you, and they're telling you that they this other teacher hates them, their PE teacher hates them. And you're not really trying to talk them out of that. But because that's not going to work anyway. But you can say something like, you don't have to believe it. But what are three other possibilities other than they hate you, that explain why they looked at you funny, in that last class or set a sharp, something sharp to you. And sometimes it takes them a little while to come up with alternative explanations. But maybe they'll come up with something like, well, maybe they had a flat tire on the way to school. Or maybe they were feeling really overtired because you know, they ran in a marathon over the weekend, it could be anything, but we want them to get in the habit of thinking about those other possibilities, because that will help preserve their optimism. Yes, no, that I love that, that that flexible. Thinking right? That's so good. Now, I want to dive in real quick about self talk to because I think that's such a huge thing. I think adults struggle with self talk. And so I can't even imagine, like what goes through the heads of a poor, you know, 1213 year old during tough moments that you have to really help, like help that self taught. So I love to go through the lies we tell ourselves, they're really their cognitive distortions that comes from cognitive behavioral therapy. And a teacher can even have a list of these lies, we tell ourselves up on the wall. And when you hear a kid using an extreme word, like always, or never, or they hate me to talk to them, or I'm going to fail, there's no point in trying to have them look at that list of those distortions. And they they're things like mind reading, all or nothing thinking forecasting, thinking you can predict the future and have them see if they can identify which thinking error they're making. And the way I explain it to kids is we think we wouldn't lie to ourselves, but we do all the time, right? All right. Middle schoolers in particular are relentlessly self critical. I would run worry busters groups. And in that setting, they would confess to one another what they were saying to themselves, they would body shame themselves, they would say very cruel things that they would never say to a friend. So one strategy, a teacher can also try and this is not in the book, because I've just learned it myself from a researcher at Western Michigan University a few days ago, is to reference yourself in the third person. Because it's actually in brain scans, it tricks you into thinking you are not talking about yourself. And you automatically go into this mode where you're, first of all trying to boost yourself up. And second of all, you find yourself giving yourself advice. Like, okay, I've been in this situation before, and this is what I did. But instead of saying I or me, you say something like Brian, might be Brian is feeling scared because Brian thinks that he's not going to make the team. But you know what, Brian has tried out for teams before and it actually wasn't so bad. And even when he didn't make the team he still had fun and ended up on a team eventually. And so it's that and then they might find themselves saying something like, Brian, you know, you should just try it out. You have nothing to lose. What's the worst that happens is you don't make the team but you're not gonna make the team anyway. If you don't try and so I think it's good strategy. No, I love that strategy. Like I've done because my self talk it's been I think, probably a lot of people can identify where am I So self talk has been awful. So I always heard that you have to speak to yourself rather than listen to yourself. Oh, I love that. I like that way of talking about it. Yeah, awesome. Well, there has been so much here. I definitely this book is just filled with gems. So I can't wait for others to get the opportunity to read this there. Phyllis. As we wrap up here, two of my favorite questions are any book recommendations or podcast recommendations that you might have? Or so last week, I did an episode of the podcast, Ed's not dead like education, it's not dead. And those are three school administrators who get together and talk about all kinds of issues related to education. And so that's worth a listen. And I have a colleague, who's a wonderful psychologist who's got a book coming out tomorrow, same day as mine, teens, and it's called the action mindset workbook for teens. And it's really about empowering kids to not get stuck to rather than have that pessimism to take action and change their own circumstances. Awesome. Awesome. And I'm gonna put all of your show or your contact information in the show notes, the link to the book, because this is a must have. Now, Phyllis, if you could have the listeners walk away with one thing. What would that be today? You can't help kids, until you're in a good place yourself. And making sure that all of these self care strategies that we often forget to do, that we are incorporating them in our own life, even if it's as simple as having one person in your life, who you designate as someone who's going to be your go to person that you'll talk to once a week about substantive issues, that making sure that you are taking care of your own use, getting out in nature, trying to get some sleep, trying not to be a perfectionist, trying to talk yourself out of that doom and gloom mindset when you find yourself telling lies to yourself. Because just as kids have a hard time not being relentlessly self critical. I think teachers also can find themselves falling into the same trap. Yes, that's so good. Thank you. For those words. Phil's this has been such a pleasure. I could talk to you all night long. So there's so much great things you You're doing such amazing work. So yeah, I've cherished this. So thank you so much that Phyllis, thank you so much for having me. This podcast is a proud member of the teach better Podcast Network. Better today. Better tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts at WWW dot teach better podcast network.com. Now let's get on to the episode. This conversation was so good, Phyllis is absolutely amazing. And what she's doing the message that she's sharing is so important. Now, this is the teaching champions tape, where I share three of my favorite takeaways from this conversation. And the first gem that I loved was how Phyllis talked about the value of sharing social stories, hearing stories of how others face similar situations to what the twins might be going through. And how these individuals were able to get through them is so important, because there's tough moments that all twins are going to have to go through. And it can be hard. And they can feel so lonely in those moments. But hearing stories, how others were able to get through those situations are empowering, and they can help give twins the strength they need. The second gem that I loved is how Phil's talked about imaginable exposure, walking our students through different experiences that they might be nervous about that they might be dreading prepping them for how to handle it, helping them be better prepared to handle the motions that certain situation might evoke is so powerful. And the third gem that I loved was when Phyllis talked about self talk and the power of talking in the third person. That is a strategy that even as adults, we may want to incorporate into our own lives. A big thank you to Phyllis for sharing so many gems. And a big thank you to all of you for being here for being part of the teaching champions community. We support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think someone would benefit from this conversation, please share and always remember, it doesn't matter if you're from rural America to urban America, to Canada to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on the same mission, and we're always better together. Keep being amazing my friends and edge ground to the week may step into your strength may step in to shine. And let's build our champions up. Have a great week everybody