Ep #153: Teletherapy Lessons for School Leaders with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge

Hello, empowered principals. Welcome to episode 153.

Welcome to The Empowered Principal Podcast. A not-so-typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host, certified life coach, Angela Kelly Robeck.

Angela: Welcome and happy Tuesday, my empowered leaders. And welcome to the last month of 2020. Thank goodness. You’ve done some amazing work in supporting students and staff this year while navigating a difficult time in school leadership. I am so grateful for all that you’ve done and for your teams and for your families this year.

It has been the Empowered Principal mission to ensure your mental health and emotional wellbeing with that of your school community. Know that your leadership capacity is dependent on your mental and emotional capacity.

I really want to hit home the importance of utilizing tools to help you process the emotions you’re going through and that we’re all going through this year so that you can, in turn, help others do the same. And on that note, today, I’m chatting with my good friend and fellow educator Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge.

She’s a certified school psychologist, an award-winning children’s mental health expert, and the author of her new book Teletherapy Toolkit. Dr. Ro is on a mission to change the way we view and treat mental health. Welcome, Dr. Ro.

Roseann: Well thank you for having me, my friend Angela.

Angela: I’m so glad we’re doing this finally. I have been looking forward to this conversation for so long. And here we are, we did it. we made it to 2020 and we made it to December. Here we are.

Roseann: Well, I’m so glad because you and I love to talk about all things school and education and so, to be able to do it in a podcast is pretty amazing.

Angela: It’s so fun. I’m so glad. Thank you for offering to be on the podcast today. So, let’s just dive right in. Why don’t you tell the listeners your story, how you landed in working in education and where you are today and the work you’re currently offering?

Roseann: Yeah, so I landed in the world of mental health because it literally was my calling. And I was asked probably as a five-year-old what I wanted to do. And I said I wanted to be a psychiatrist. And I didn’t know what that was. It just literally came out of my mouth. And then as I got older, I realized a psychiatrist really just did meds. So, I changed it to a psychologist and I went and got my doctorate in educational psychology and started working in schools.

I really loved it and I was one of those school psychologists that did testing and worked with parents and did counseling, and just, in a lot of different ways, pre-K through postgraduate programs in different kinds of districts and had wonderful experiences.

And what happened was, you know, when you’re good at something, people start saying, “Hey, could you do this for me?” And the next thing I knew, I was working more outside of the school than I was inside of the school. And I left and started my own private practice. And that sort of morphed into where I am today, which is I am the founder and director of Dr. Roseann and Associates, as well as the Global Institute of Children’s Mental Health. Which I founded in January of 2020, just out of my concern for children’s mental health.

And I’ve been doing this, next year, for 30 years. And I’ve been a leader in integrative mental health just right from the get go. I’ve been using holistic methodologies that are evidence-based. And today, I continue to work with schools. I do a lot of consulting. I’ve worked with schools this entire time in many different ways.

And things have changed, not just because of the pandemic. It is hard to be working in a school today. There is so much that needs to be done for the staff at schools, the families, the kids. There is a lot going on and our school leaders have a lot on their shoulders.

Angela: They really do. I mean, education isn’t just about education. As we have so learned this past school year, school leaders and teachers, the whole staff, they really provide so much more than just an education. They provide mental support, emotional support. They are out buying resources for kids, for families. They’re doing so much more.

We definitely know that we are not childcare in addition to – we are really an integral thread of our communities and that the needs of our communities are met through schools.

Roseann: I mean, really, absolutely. And you know, school leaders are mentors. And they’re the captain of the ship for the staff as well as these families. And sometimes, like today, in the world of COVID, I’ve been talking about the lack of corona curtesy in the world right now. And manners have gone out the window, and I’m never cool with that.

You cannot be in Dr. Ro’s life unless you’re respectful. And so, I don’t know, people are just – I can’t even imagine the punching bags, in some ways, that schools are – leaders are receiving a lot of accolades, but they’re also getting the brunt of people’s frustration. And I’ve seen a lot of educators in the field and I’ve seen a lot of educators also do things like, be like, “Our mental health of our staff couldn’t be more important than ever,” and are really rallying. I work with so many people, as you do, Ang, that it’s so different how people are handling things and approaching things.

So, today, I had five reviews. I do QED grade maps and we do neuro feedbacks. So, I have five reviews of current clients. And luckily, everybody made amazing progress. But two of them were, like, “This is the most amazing thing. I can’t even believe this. My kid said he’s a 10 and it’s life-changing what has happened.” And one person was like, “Well, she’s made progress but…”

People’s responses to things in the same kind of outcomes are so unique. And I just think that today, with the world of pandemic, you know, leaders are doing an amazing job. And I can’t imagine, having worked in a school like you, Angela, what they are facing on the day to day is a lot.

Angela: It is. It’s very intense and I love that – one thing about this podcast is we just tell the truth of school leadership. We’re not talking about the PC version of school leadership. We’re talking about the day to day grind and the crap that teachers, leaders go through. And what’s happened is because parents specifically are emotionally charged and they’re at their limits, that bleeds into blaming and attacking the teachers and the school leaders just out of frustration, out of pure…

Roseann: Yeah, they’re leading with emotions. They’re not thinking. And as a leader, I have a staff of 18, we had a meeting the other day and one of my own staff members literally started a conversation within a group of 13 people crying and just emotional lashing.

And everybody else was like, “Hello…” And this was a business meeting. This was not a meeting to discuss how we’re feeling. This was like, we’re doing this and this is what we’re doing. We’re supposed to get in and out. And we had already done all these other meetings and here we are with a bucketful of emotion. Doesn’t this suck?

So, what did Dr. Ro do? She shut it down. I shut it down. I was like, absolutely we’re not doing that. And it was good and everyone else thanked me for it because they didn’t want to hear it. And I think, what a crappy place to be because you’re getting school people that work for you. You’re getting parents. And you know, what are some of the best ways that we can handle it?

In that situation, I left out a lot of details. There’s a history of that. And I knew that I had to shut it down as if sometimes taking a moment to say I hear you; I absolutely hear you. Can we talk later? And what I said to that person was that was not okay. We need to have those kinds of conversations one on one and not in a group.

And I think the leaders today and what they’re doing in a school, they’re sort of building the car as they go. Because everything we knew was thrown out the window and part of the reason why I wrote my book the Teletherapy Toolkit is, like, for all the people that are in schools, for all the therapists, nobody was doing teletherapy, you know. And just like virtual learning, who knew that was going to happen?

Angela: Nobody. Nobody saw this coming. It’s crazy.

Roseann: Nobody thought it was coming. They laughed. They said, “We’ll see you in a couple of weeks.” I knew that had to be four to eight weeks. I know enough about viruses. But I think people were so angry. I did a big webinar that 8000 people attended with Pete Wright from Wrightslaw. He’s the leader in special education. I’m sure some of your administrators are familiar with his work. And people were angry. And Pete and I were like, schools are doing the best they can. It’s the wild west, educationally, right?

Angela: It truly is.

Roseann: It really was, you know what I mean?

Angela: It still is.

Roseann: It still is and it’s actually been so remarkable for me. I live in Connecticut and it’s a small state. And I think we have five major cities or whatever. And only one of the cities that I know actually hired and outside company to come in and teach the staff on how to use virtual learning.

Angela: Yeah, no one’s done it before, so we have definitely been building the plane as we fly. Schools really are doing the best they can. And I am impressed at how over the top most schools and most teachers have gone, above and beyond, in their quest to be connected with kids, to be as engaging as possible with kids, to be checking in on their mental and emotional wellbeing. And we can talk about learning gaps and instructional strategies and all of that. But really, right now, we’re just trying to have human connection…

Roseann: Connection, support the mental health of everybody. I think, you know, one of the silver linings of this pandemic is people realize mental health was bad before, and we better put some effort and concern here. And in the beginning, my favorite meme was John Amos – I don’t know if you saw this meme, but I hope all the educators…

So, John Amos, Good Times. Hopefully you’re old enough to know who he is. And he was a grumpy guy. And in the meme, it says, “The teacher wasn’t the problem.” Meaning that the teacher has been telling you there’s something going on with this kid. So, the parents got to see there’s something going on with their kid because they’re teaching. So, a lot more care and discussion.

I certainly had a flood of people coming to my center going, “The teacher told me something was going on and I didn’t believe it but now I see it.” So, I hope people are recalibrating with mental health. But some of the things that I talk about in my book – and these are things that are available for everybody and I have teachers using this, I have parents using this. How do you engage and stay connected virtually?

So, Angela, you and I have been using Zoom for a long time. And I think people are finding their stride. But as we are shifting back in this latter part of 2020, many schools are now going back to fully virtual, at least temporarily. And some states are still virtual. They never went back.

So, it’s really important, as you’re learning to set boundaries with kids and their families, let them know what you expect. Do you expect devices to be off? Do you expect the dog to not be in the room? Because just like we would in a classroom, we let the kids know what the routine and the structure is. And people have let that abandon it. And so, you have to educate parents about what good learning looks like. Because they don’t know.

Angela: Exactly. Well, it’s interesting how the topic of setting boundaries, like physical boundaries and then, you know, relationship boundaries, there’s a lot of boundaries that have to be established. And when you’re at school, teachers know how to set up boundaries for that classroom. Like, just the physical boundaries, but also just like the culture boundaries, how we will engage with one another.

And teachers have less, maybe, control over the capacity to create those boundaries because of what’s going on at home. What’s interesting is teachers are seeing that families have very different kinds of boundaries. Some have very strict…

Roseann: Very different, Angela. Some of my intakes – a lot of people show up at my intakes or a parent answers a phone call when they’re talking to me. Really?

Angela: Lots of different boundaries. Some pretty wide and far. Some nonexistent, right?

Roseann: So, my first ones back, I was like – because obviously, when I was doing intakes before via Zoom, those people wanted Zoom, so they’re comfortable with it and whatnot, you know, whatever platform you’re using. And then I was like, “We’ve got to set up some boundaries to let people know that the kids can’t be jumping on the screen and all this other stuff.”

And you know, what happened, Angela, it went much smoother. I established the boundaries, let them know. And I think that’s really important. And kids are responsive to this. And I think a lot of times, parents, you know, they think the school is going to tell them, the teacher is going to let them know. And so, I’m giving people permission, please set the boundaries. Please let them know.

And then we also, just like in a classroom, I would go in and a lot of times I was brought in to improve a situation for a child. And it’s the same thing virtually. We want to keep kids moving and engaged and stimulated. We don’t want to be sitting all day. We want to help them. That’s good mental health. And we want to establish that as a structure and a routine so that learning will increase and that students will be more engaged.

Angela: Right, so, what do you think is the biggest challenge that schools are facing right now?

Roseann: I think there are so many. I think some of the biggest challenges are that parents are – I think the kids, first of all, are doing amazing. Like amazing. I think the kids are following through, they’re keeping their masks on. They’re rolling with it way better than all these parents who are freaked out thought.

And not to get in a mask debate, all I would say on my social was, “your kids are going back to school and you’re sending them, be a role model. Put your damn mask on and stop doing that to your kids. They want to go back.”

But I think the biggest challenge that schools are facing that I’m hearing is that these kids are really struggling with, when it’s virtual, focusing, getting work done, and really producing at that level that they were in the classroom. That’s one of the biggest challenges I’m hearing from educators, kids, and their parents very consistently.

And so, the conversation is always the same. What’s your structure? What’s your routine? And that seems to be one of the biggest problems is that on the home end, they don’t have a structure and routine. And they sort of expect kids, “Well he’s old enough and he should just know to get his work done and get off on time and do all those things.”

And what I always wind up educating them about – and I’m sure this resonates with our administrators that are listening, is that you have to – no, we have to put that in place. Do some kids have that kind of internal clock? Yeah. But it’s not the norm. That’s the abnormal. That’s why classes – the first six weeks of school are learning structure and routine. I mean, that’s what they are.

But I think that’s what it is. And there are some kids that are really struggling with isolation. And I see a lot of kids that are struggling with stress and anxiety related to their parents’ stress and anxiety. Not to put this all on parents, but kids will look for our reassurance. They watch behavior. You know, it’s not what you say, it’s what you do.

And when a parent says, “Hey, I’m having a hard time but I’m going to do this, this, this, and this,” and it’s healthy, our kids are absorbing and doing that. So, does that resonate when you’re talking to administrators, that these kids are just struggling to engage in the virtual learning?

Angela: Yes, it’s, you know, step one is getting the technology that they need so that they can connect. Two is getting them to connect. And then three, if they are connected virtually, it’s keeping them engaged at a mental level. So, a lot of principals are saying, you know, the kids are online but they’re not listening or they try to turn off their video, you know. Because it’s hard to sit and look at a screen for six hours a day, or however long they’re on.

Roseann: Well, the same thing was happening with therapy. So, this book, the first book ever on teletherapy activities, the reason why I did it was people are sitting there and they’re like – I saw therapists doing Minecraft with kids. I saw therapists sitting there and thinking that they could just talk. That’s not how it works. You would never do it in person. You would never do it in the classroom.

So, you have to be visual and you have to be tactile and creative and engaging. And I anticipate there’s going to be some level of virtual learning in 2021 and 2022. This is not going away if we know the pattern of viruses. It’s typically three years. I know a vaccine is coming. But I think next year is going to be better, but it’s still going to be a pattern of this.

Angela: It is an unknown for the foreseeable future, and I think for evermore, school has changed.

Roseann: 100%, right? And who’s to say, maybe they’ll want to do virtual learning one day a week, Angela. We don’t know. But we have to challenge our educators. There are educators – my sister is a teacher. She was like, “Roseann, I didn’t even know what G Suite was. I knew what Google Docs was, but I didn’t know…” And she’s like – I sent her all this stuff and I was like, “Get onto this and add this.” And she spent all this time this summer doing all this fun stuff. She said, “Do you think the other teachers did that? They didn’t know. I have you to teach me that.”

So, never assume. I’ve learned that as a mentor, as a college professor. Give people the tools. Our teachers want to do the right thing. And some of them may be struggling with their own stress of their families or their own feelings of loneliness, whatever. This has been hard in ways that I didn’t anticipate in other people.

Angela: Yes. So, let’s talk about that from the school leader perspective. Can you tell us a little bit more about your toolkit, what some of those tools are, and how they might implement them at that site leadership level?

Roseann: Yeah, so our Teletherapy Toolkit, what is in there? So, first of all, I’m a big believer in the power of parent psychoeducation and also teaching kids about their own brain and body and empowering people to take care of their own mental health. Is that valuable for kids? Of course. It’s also valuable for adults.

So, it gives people tools for education and learning about themselves and what they can do. Everything from what is ADHD to what is guided visualization. So, it talks about the tools. And then there’s actual things that people can do.

So, for example, there is something called a SUDs meter. So, it’s subjective units of distress. It’s a great way for somebody who’s working with somebody that’s stressed as a point of check in before and after doing an activity. It could be a lesson. It could be a therapeutic activity. We’ll talk about this.

I have an awesome podcast bonus for free. If you go to teletherapytoolkitbonus.com, I have over 100 coping statements. And they’re things I’ve collected for over 10 years. So, even if you teach your staff about ways to cope – so, again, never assume people have the skills. Right now, people are so elevated and activated that you lose your rational thought.

So, supporting our staff to take care of their own mental health. And then teaching their kids about mental health and what they can do can be really empowering. And learning ways to cope – so, one of the biggest things I’ve seen in 30 years is not only the rise of anxiety. And I know everybody who’s listening is going to go, “Oh yeah, she’s right.” It’s also the lack of coping skills, the lack of tolerance, of stress.

Like, nobody wants anything to be uncomfortable anymore. There’s little resiliency. I talk about resiliency mindset all the time. I’ve even trademarked resiliency mindset.

But the coping statements are statements that anybody can use, a parent, and educator, teenagers can teach it to other people, where we reinforce ways to cope instead of saying, like, “You should just breathe it out…” which is great, but we also want people to recognize that stress is normal and we want to reinforce that you can get through it. And instead of saying, “I don’t want to feel any stress, I’ve got to take a pill for that,” that’s just ridiculous.

We need to focus on teaching people skills. We have a loss of skills, including adults. And that resiliency mindset is about looking at how you view stress, how you manage it, and how you recover from it. And I feel there’s such a breakdown with children with all three. So, role modeling that, really being explicit about that with educators. But again, you can use that, those coping statements, you can go to teletherapytoolkitbonus.com and you can download it for free.

Angela: That is awesome. The listeners are going to love that.

Roseann: Yeah, no, everybody needs free stuff. But lots of resources for not just our school counselors and therapists and whatnot. It’s just really action-oriented, usable stuff, 420 pages. This is not a light little book. This is really all these things.

And I work with some of the most challenging cases and this is how I feel. When you do things that work with the hardest cases, boy, this stuff works with cases of everyday kind of things. And kids, they’re going to be okay. They’re going to get through this and we’re going to get through this.

Angela: We really will. And we will be much stronger for it. and I do think – I was going to ask you what you think is a blessing out of all of this chaos. Because we are in a tsunami of change and a tsunami of chaos right now…

Roseann: Oh my gosh, are we ever, sister?

Angela: Yeah, we’re riding the biggest wave of our life. And I also thing from all of this will come some amazing fresh and new ideas and a revised way of approaching education. So, for example, we’ve been talking about SEL, or social emotional learning for decades. But it doesn’t seem to ever grip on and become a value, a priority. And I’m hoping that what we’re seeing is, without mental and emotional wellbeing, instruction’s not happening, right?

Roseann: It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters in life if your core is not there, you’re not happy and solid. And when we went into the pandemic, our mental health stats are frightening. So, 54.2% of children have a physical or mental health problem. This is before the pandemic. Over 50% were experiencing high levels of stress. And 30% are experiencing anxiety. And it takes on average 11 years from the onset of a problem before you actually get help. 11 years.

And now the pandemic has happened. So, we now see that two people can experience the same thing and have very different reactions. And it is our mindset. It is 100% our mindset. It doesn’t not validate the experiences. But we now are hopefully recalibrating and I do believe that is a silver lining. Even though, on the daily, I want to give somebody a shakedown for freaking out on me. It’s not my clients. It’s other people.

Angela: Of course…

Roseann: You know, and even though I’m a healer and I’m a hugger and all that other stuff, I lead with reason. And I am also a very grounded and chill person. And we need to take care of ourselves. I do something every single day seven days a week to get my nervous system, as I like to call it, to calm the heck down. And I usually use biofeedback or PMF. I meditate. These are all things – and there is no financial barriers to breath work and meditation. And we need to be doing this. we need to be teaching this. And we need our parents to get on board.

Angela: And we need to understand the value of it. Like, why invest my time in this? And I know some parents will be like, “That’s woo-woo…”

Roseann: No, it’s not. These are all evidence-based approaches. 40 days of meditation of 10 minutes a day rewires the brain.

Angela: Yeah, that’s science, people. Are we listening? And here’s what I’m going to say to you, school leader; this includes you. 10 minutes a day. Your brain is telling you right now that you don’t have the 10 minutes, that you’re too busy. And I like to pose the question the opposite way. What is it costing you to not invest the 10 minutes a day? What is the cost? What is the outcome of not taking care of yourself, not including your mental wellbeing, not meditating for just a few minutes a day? What really is the outcome of that decision to not take care of yourself?

Roseann: I mean, you’re using that time for something else. And when you take that 10 minutes, boy, there’s such a ripple effect on your mental health, on your physical health. And you’re able to tackle things. You’re able to love differently and your stress tolerance is completely different when we power down our nervous systems.

Angela: And just also, like, what is it about our mindset that we don’t prioritize mental and emotional health? Why is it always on the back burner? I really don’t understand why that’s happening in schools. And I do hope that through the pandemic it becomes the front burner. I’m worried that it will eventually slide back. The effort is what you’re doing, to promote that conversation to make it the priority.

Roseann: So, the question becomes, why aren’t educators taking care of themselves? And I think whether you’re leading a classroom or you’re leading a school or leading a district, we’ve all become convinced that we’re superhuman and that we are immune to stress.

And I’m here to tell you that your body knows no difference between good and bad stress. Dr. Roseann has a lot of exciting things going on. I wrote four books during COVID. And I’m going to have book launches all year. Oh my goodness, I’ve got to take extra care of myself.

So, we have to prioritize our own mental health and we have to stop believing that it’s the last thing we do. If you have to get up early to take that 10 minutes to pray, gratitude journal, be very intentional in that practice, you are protecting your brain, your body. You’re doing it for yourself. You’re loving yourself enough to be there for other people.

And, you know, the question then becomes why don’t parents prioritize this for their kids? And so, our cultural shift has been that academics come first. And time and time again, over these 30 years, people come to me and say, “Should have, could have, would have. I saw signs of anxiety for 10-15 years, but she had straight As, so I didn’t think it was that bad.”

And so, if we change that conversation and we really, really talk about that, instead, we’re pushing kids, “You have to be a straight A student. You have to have that…” You know, Angela, I didn’t have that growing up. We didn’t have that conversation. You could be a C student and it was okay.

And we’ve now shifted, we’ve inflated grades. We know this. we’re talking about it. we now have to shift back to our biggest priorities. And if we can’t learn that in COVID, we are in trouble. So, we have to – this is where leaders have to have these conversations.

And some of the ways that I get in there with parents is I talk about what are some of the qualities of the most successful people? Well, it’s typically not finishing college and grades. It’s things like having a really high empathy score. And that’s surprising to parents.

So, I like to come in with a language that they can hear about. But ultimately, no parent doesn’t want their child to be happy. And I think we need to focus on that. We need to find what kids are good at. And we also need to open up the door to other things in education.

Yes, I think kids should go to college, but I also think not every kid needs to go to college and I think we need to talk about training, trade schools and other things. And not every job and having a great income in life requires a college degree. And so, when we start talking about nurturing the awesomeness of kids and getting kids to be grounded and manage stress – when I talk about a resiliency mindset, people are blown away.

They’re not connecting the dots to it’s how you view, manage, and recover from stress that defines your happiness. And when I talk about this, they’re like, “Well, how do I get it?” I’m like, let’s do that.

Parents want to hear this conversation. They also want to talk about ways to do it. And that’s my specialty. Like, how do we do this? How do we teach this? And I guess that’s another conversation.

But I think that all educators have to do this for themselves and we have to incorporate. You’re right, social emotional learning, we’ve been talking about this for 30 years.

Angela: Yes, and I don’t think that we ever really thought about it in terms of the educators themselves. We always look at it with the students. But what I will say is that our brain is our most important asset. And it’s our job and responsibility as school leaders to protect that asset at all costs and to give it the space and the opportunity. When we self-care, our mental self-care, what we’re doing is we’re giving ourselves the opportunity and the invitation to think bigger, to be thought leaders, to solve problems we haven’t yet solved before, to be able to think outside of the box and to be able to contribute more, to create more value and to contribute more as leaders, which then inspires other people to follow us, which creates more influence and impact.

And we take our brain for granted. We take our mental health for granted, our emotional health for granted, and our physical health for granted. And I think the pandemic has shown us that there is a breaking point. There is a point at which…

Roseann: There is a breaking point and, you know, there are some people in this pandemic that have never had mental health problems, that are absolutely falling apart. And so, it’s also been a mirror that nobody is immune to mental health problems. And nobody ever regrets getting help. They only regret when they don’t. And the leaders out here know this.

But it’s the daily self-care that really protects our immune system. And parents, if we being in speakers, if we teach it and we bring it into the classroom, we teach the parents. I mean, parents are not understanding this. They’re not taking care of it for themselves. And so, we have to do that.

I also think corporations have a huge impact here, that’s some of the work that I’m doing. Because they do have an influence. They can provide support to schools and leaders who have a larger impact, whether it’s legislation. But things have to be different. We cannot go on in this way of such high-stress lives. And we have to start valuing our mental health.

Angela: Right. One last question for you. I hate to keep you long, but I want to ask this one thing. Mental health, I think one of the reasons in education why it hasn’t really caught on as a priority is because of the stigma associated with it, perhaps. So, what are some strategies that school leaders can use to help start conversations and to help make this topic a more mainstream comfortable – I think about it like you hire personal trainers in order to get your muscles stronger and nobody has a stigma attached to that. But for some reason, getting mental or emotional coaches or mentors or therapists, whatever the level of support you need is, something associated with that that feels like it’s wrong or something’s not right with you, what is your take on that?

Roseann: Yeah, I mean, being that I’ve worked in school, I’ve done testing outside of schools, I’ve been on different sides of the table, I think that this is a prickly thing because first, it’s multifaceted and I don’t have a quick answer, but this is really what it boils down to. One, we don’t have uniform education and training of educators. So, sometimes, they just don’t know the signs and they’re not able to articulate that early to parents.

Then, on the other side is that educators are often afraid to say these things to parents because one, with all these laws and legalities and are they going to be responsible for paying for the care and all that other stuff. But I am going to tell you that when we tell kids’ parents that their child is displaying a certain behavior early on, we paint the picture in a loving way, like, “Hey, Joey is completely stressed out over the littlest thing. We’ve got to work on this. This is important. If he can’t manage not getting blue paper in kindergarten, we’re in trouble, okay.” And you know what I’m talking about…

Angela: I taught kindergarten for 15 years.

Roseann: Exactly. And you say, let me tell you why – this is stress tolerance. So, let’s work on his stress tolerance. Let’s educate the parents about it. But again, school – and recommending, have you thought about working with a therapist? Again, people never regret that, you know what I mean?

And with teletherapy, there’s not a lot of barriers in terms of finding somebody and getting in there. But parents want to be guided. They want to be led. And we can’t just say go to the pediatrician because their pediatrician is overloaded and all these doctors are getting kickbacks from pharma. We need to leave them to people that can make behavioral changes, that they can learn something different. And then we can break this cycle.

And I think schools are doing an amazing job. I do think they do bring in a lot of social emotional learning. But we’ve got to go back to the parents too. Because we’re excluding them.

Angela: Yeah, it’s a team approach.

Roseann: It’s a team approach. So, I think that definitely has to change. And we have to educate them. I mean, there are so many parents that walk around and they have trauma. Again, also great parents with no issues that just don’t even know – these mental health issues, some of them are first generation due to what’s happening in our environment.

So, I think that that is what I’m hoping is going to happen. And we need to make an investment in mental health. And again, nobody is immune to mental health issues. And if the pandemic hasn’t highlighted that, holy-moly.

Angela: Yeah, the pandemic really did just kind of bring what was already there just up to the surface.

Roseann: Yeah, it definitely was an exacerbator that’s for sure.

Angela: Yeah, it’s not as if the pandemic created mental health issues. Or emotional issues. It’s just highlighting them and bringing them up to the top.

Roseann: Yeah, for sure. Some people may have been more functional, but there’s definitely some people that experienced panic attacks for the first time as they try to reenter the world. So, I think, again, I hope this is a period of recalibration and people saying, “You know what? I’m going to use this time to better my mental health, my physical health.” Which are very tied, you know, mind, body, spirit is not just an expression. So, I always focus on what you can do and there are so many amazing positive things we can do for our mental health at any age.

Angela: Exactly, oh gosh. And with that, where can listeners who want to learn more find you? Let us know all the good details.

Roseann: Yeah, so you can get my podcast bonus at teletherapytoolkitbonus.com and you can find out more about me and the Global Institute of Children’s Mental Health at childrensmentalhealth.com.

Angela: Awesome. Ro, this has been too fun. Thank you so much and I know we’ll do it again. I just love your work. I love you. I love your energy and your spirit. I love connecting with you. It’s just such an honor to call you a friend.

Roseann: Well, that’s just the sweetest. Well, thank you.

Angel: Yeah, and we’ll be in touch. Alright, take care. Thanks for being on the show.

—

If this podcast resonates with you, you have to sign up for the Empowered Principal coaching program. It’s my exclusive one-to-one coaching and mentorship program for school leaders who believe in possibility. This program is designed for principals who are hungry for the fastest transformation in the industry.

If you want to create the best connections, impact, and legacy for yourself and your school, the Empowered Principal program was designed for you. Join me at angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more. I’d love to support you in becoming an empowered school leader.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit AngelaKellyCoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.