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Superpowers for Middle Schoolers with Phyllis L. Fagell
49 Plays1 year ago
On today’s episode: Author of 12 Middle School Superpowers, Phyllis L Fagell, joins us to discuss the plight of tweens living in a post-pandemic world and how parents and teachers can help them find humor, derive meaning from painful experiences, and feel a sense of belonging. Phyllis is a nationally board-certified school counselor, author, and therapist who works with kids and families in private practice.
Topics:
02:15 The plight of tweens in a post-pandemic world
05:05 Social Media’s impact on tweens
10:00 The 12 Middle School Superpowers
12:00 The importance of humor
15:50 Development from elementary to high school
21:00 Building courage incrementally
23:00 Deriving meaning from painful experiences
25:45 Super Belonging
28:00 Optimism for supporting kids moving forward
You can purchase 12 Middle School Superpowers at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Target. To learn more about Phyllis’s work, visit phyllisfagell.com.
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Transcript
Finding Meaning and Self-Discovery
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when somebody is really dejected and they really can't find any meaning in experience, if nothing else, it was a vehicle for your own self-discovery.
00:00:08
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It was an opportunity for you to learn about yourself.
00:00:11
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And if you can do that kind of post-mortem and really think about what you learned or gained or can avoid it even in the future, then it won't be for naught.
00:00:21
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And I think it's important on that optimism front that kids don't feel like these experiences are for naught.
Podcast Introduction
00:00:30
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Hello everyone, welcome to the How to Have Kids Love Learning podcast where we explore ideas and strategies for parents and educators to help students thrive.
00:00:38
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I'm your host, Ed Madison.
00:00:40
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I'm a professor and researcher at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, and I serve as the executive director of the Journalistic Learning Initiative, a nonprofit organization that empowers middle and high school students to discover their voice, improve academic outcomes, and engage in self-directed learning through project-based storytelling.
00:01:00
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And I'm Ed's co-host, Beau Brusco, a former English language arts teacher and multimedia journalist.
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And it is my pleasure to introduce you to our guest today, Phyllis L. Fagel.
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Phyllis is a nationally board-certified school counselor, a therapist who works with kids and families in private practice.
Introducing Phyllis L. Fagel
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She's an educational consultant, author, and journalist.
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She is the author of the best-selling books, Middle School Matters, and her recently published, Middle School Superpowers, which we'll get into today, and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post.
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She also freelances for publications like Psychology Today and CNN.
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Her ideas have been shared in outlets such as the New York Times and Edutopia.
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Phyllis speaks at schools and organizations nationally and internationally on a broad range of topics related to counseling, education, and parenting.
00:01:50
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She lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and three children.
00:01:53
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Welcome to the podcast, Phyllis Fagel.
Challenges for Today's Tweens
00:01:56
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How's it going, Phyllis?
00:01:57
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Good.
00:01:58
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Thanks for that nice intro.
00:02:00
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And the list goes on.
00:02:02
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It really does.
00:02:03
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You do so much in the industry, in the field, and I'm really excited to talk about your work today.
00:02:09
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What's it like to be a tween today, would you say?
00:02:14
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What's life as a middle schooler like these days?
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As both a parent and a school counselor, I can say it's very different than it was for those of us who are parenting kids in this age group.
00:02:26
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They are not only trying to deal with
00:02:29
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all of the instability that goes along with growing up and going through puberty and being a young adolescent, but they're also living in a really complicated time where so much of their life is online, where they have taken a hit to their social skills because of the pandemic and for some kids, prolonged isolation.
00:02:46
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They are witnessing everything that's going on in society, including racism, divisive politics, increasing gun violence, and
00:02:55
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Not surprisingly, there's been a big increase in mental health
Impact of the Pandemic on Development
00:02:58
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issues as well.
00:02:58
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You know, when you, in your book, Middle School Superpowers, you kind of mentioned that there has been a big shift since the last book you wrote about middle schoolers, right?
00:03:06
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And just for people listening, you define tween as ages between, is it 12 and 14?
00:03:14
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So I defined it when I wrote Middle School Matters as 10 to 14, but I'm really adding on 15 right now.
00:03:21
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I think if you talk to anybody who is educating or raising a ninth grader, so many of them are presenting with the skills of a 14 year old or even younger.
00:03:31
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And so I've expanded that range to 15.
00:03:34
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And I think that's really prudent considering the pandemic.
00:03:38
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One of the lines from your book that really struck me from middle school superpowers when you're talking about children going through the pandemic essentially was actually a quote that you got from, I think, a 12 year old girl in
00:03:53
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She said something to the effect of, you know, there was no easing into it, just poof.
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You're, you know, 12 years old now.
00:04:01
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It's like she said she felt like she had a lease on being 11 years old, that she never really got to own the experience.
00:04:07
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And hearing that from someone so young was, I don't know, it just really impacted me.
00:04:14
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Can you talk about more on what's going on psychologically in students?
Social Media and Its Consequences
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Sure.
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So that was such a poignant quote.
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because it really eloquently relayed exactly what all of us, I think, are feeling, that time kind of lost its meaning.
00:04:30
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We lost these years in many ways in terms of processing it the way we normally process time.
00:04:36
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But imagine you leave, and when you come back, not only has time elapsed, but everybody you went to school with looks completely different.
00:04:44
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And kids in this age group are maturing at such wildly different rates.
00:04:48
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And so for that particular kid, it came with a pretty big dose of loneliness as well.
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Wow.
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Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the impact of social media because, you know, particularly I know in our own household, our boys were in middle school when Snapchat was becoming a thing.
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And this whole notion that you could put something out there and it would disappear gave students and young people a license to put things out there that they would otherwise maybe not have.
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And I know also that the Seattle Public Schools, for example, is suing the tech industry because of just the
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the damage that they are noticing in their students.
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So what are you finding out about social media or what's your take on its impact?
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Well, as a school counselor, it definitely keeps me in business.
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It is a big part of my job because whatever happens outside of school invariably leaks into the school setting.
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So there's really this blurring of the lines between in school and out of school.
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And I think part of the issue with social media is this particular age group because
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their empathy is still developing.
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They have a hard enough time making good choices face to face.
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And then you add in what I call interference, you know, jealousy, anger, sleeplessness, and the list goes on insecurity.
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They're much more likely or wanting to impress somebody.
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They're much more likely to make a mistake online.
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They don't have the same kind of ability that adults have to predict the outcome of their actions.
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So I'm not even sure it matters if it's Snapchat or Instagram.
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whether or not it disappears, they're making these kinds of mistakes and they're impulsive in these, in this kind of way.
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And mistakes too.
00:06:28
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You, you talked about something you referred to as the ripple effect of social media.
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Do you want to kind of give us a little synopsis of, of what the implication is there?
00:06:39
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Sure.
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So I think we bring all of our own assumptions and when we see kids do something mean online,
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we often think that they were setting out to be malicious.
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And sometimes they were just curious or clumsy and they didn't predict how what they said was going to have that kind of ripple effect.
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And the ripple effect I'm talking about is if you are 13 and you tell a friend online that you have a crush on somebody and that
00:07:06
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you're going to talk to them the next day in school.
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That kid you tell who you thought was trustworthy, that's pretty juicy information, might share it with lots of other people.
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So by the time you're at school, everybody's crowding around to watch this all go down on the blacktop.
00:07:21
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And then if the girl says no, or the boy says no, then
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All of a sudden you have this kid who feels humiliated and has to go back to class.
00:07:30
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So that ripple effect, there's so many different pain point possibilities along the way.
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Plus the girl who said no might be embarrassed that she was asked in front of a crowd.
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She might feel uncomfortable that everybody was looking at her and she too might have a hard time going back to class.
Recovery and Self-Regulation Strategies
00:07:46
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Yeah, so it's this public shaming that our generations or earlier generations didn't necessarily have to deal with.
00:07:52
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I mean, maybe you had difficulty with a friend or there was somebody who was maybe bullying you.
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You could go report it, but it was so much more of a private matter.
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But now it's just posted for the world to see.
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Yes.
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And I do always reassure kids that the news cycle moves fast because the next day something else invariably is going to happen.
00:08:13
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And we don't want kids getting stuck in shame because it really does get in the way of their ability to concentrate and learn.
00:08:18
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Yeah, well, and how does that affect their development of, you know, important, I guess, skills like empathy or abilities like empathy?
00:08:28
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Because, you know, you think about kids who think that, you know, because really the internet does make stuff stick.
00:08:36
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And so maybe if they do experience one of these, you know, mistakes and that ripple effect, how does it sort of impede their ability to make sense of it and kind of forgive themselves and really be able to move on?
00:08:48
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That's a big part of middle school superpowers is helping kids move on, really validating that it hurts and it should, but it's a misstep.
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It's not a fatal error.
00:08:59
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They can recover from whatever it is that just happened and then helping them take action, come up with a game plan so that they can put it behind them so they can process it, make amends if they need to.
00:09:11
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Often the best thing they can do is just own up to being embarrassed or own up to making a mistake.
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And then the next time someone brings it up, say, you know what?
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At this point, I'm really not going to talk about it anymore.
00:09:24
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I addressed it with the person that it affects and I'm moving on.
00:09:28
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What ends up happening often is that kids keep the story alive because they're in a heightened state of emotion.
00:09:34
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But when they can calm themselves down, when they have those self-regulation skills and that ability to sit with that emotional discomfort and they can set that aside, then everyone else loses interest too.
00:09:44
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Mm-hmm.
Tween Superpowers for Growth
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So what are the 12?
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You identify 12 superpowers.
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What are they?
00:09:51
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They are 12 specific strengths, and I'll try to see if I can get at least most of them from memory.
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But there is super flexibility, which is the ability to manage change and uncertainty.
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There is super belonging, which is really foundational, and that's the ability to find your place in the social pecking order and to have that sense of belonging.
00:10:12
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There is super agency, which is the ability to predict how your actions will land and come up with a plan to deal with it.
00:10:21
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There is super balance, which is about recovering from missteps.
00:10:25
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Super vulnerability, which is about asking for help, knowing who, when, why, how to ask for help, especially if it's a really big issue.
00:10:33
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You don't want to be going to a similarly impaired, same age kid who's barely able to handle their own problems.
00:10:40
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Super Force Field, which is about setting healthy boundaries, which is very hard for kids who are constantly being told that they should be kind to everybody.
00:10:49
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It's hard for them to take a step back and practice self-care.
00:10:52
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There is Super Security, which is about developing a healthy sense of self and also embracing differences in others.
00:11:01
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There's Super Daring, which is about the ability to take risks at an age when you are really
00:11:07
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self-conscious, that imaginary audience is so real.
00:11:10
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There's super optimism, which is about retaining hope and humor, which is so important when things are getting hard, whether that has to do with your own life or what's going on in the outside world.
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Did I miss any?
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Super balance is the one I missed.
00:11:25
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Super balance is about setting a reasonable pace and realistic goals.
00:11:30
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One of the superpowers that really stuck out to me, Phyllis, is super optimism.
00:11:36
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Because the way you define it isn't just being happy all the time, but finding hope and humor in the hard stuff.
00:11:45
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And I think that's something we often forget because when we talk about, you know, traits that you need, you know, to survive, make it in the world, you talk about, you know, you need that resilience and that grit, but I really appreciate how you also included humor in here.
00:11:59
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Can you talk a little bit about the essential-ness of humor?
00:12:04
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First of all, the kids I work with are the funniest humans on the planet.
00:12:09
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And if you can't find joy in that, you know, it's really the wrong profession because this age group is so funny.
00:12:15
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And it's so central to how they recover from things that go away.
00:12:19
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Humor is something they use in so many different ways in their life, from admitting fallibility to asking for help to cheering someone else up.
00:12:29
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I love it when kids send me funny animal videos.
00:12:32
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It can be something very simple like that.
00:12:35
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But they need a break from worrying.
00:12:37
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And they have so many things on their plate and so many self-expectations.
00:12:40
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And they're internalizing all of the adult expectations, whether it's parents or teachers or the culture.
00:12:45
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So many boys tell me that they really have a hard time figuring out what it means to be a quote unquote real man right now, that they feel that pressure.
00:12:53
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And so humor is something that they can use to share how they really feel without necessarily feeling exposed or overexposed.
00:13:03
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And as adults, we can really learn from them and also go along with that and try to make them laugh as well.
00:13:11
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It's such a great way to connect with kids.
00:13:14
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Sarcasm doesn't work.
00:13:15
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You know, I've said this so many times to teachers, but no kid in this age group understands sarcasm and it doesn't make anybody feel good.
00:13:23
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So I just want to make sure that people understand that when I talk about humor, I'm not talking about sarcasm.
00:13:27
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I'm talking about really good natured fun.
00:13:30
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I was just going to ask because, you know, I know when I was growing up, I would indulge in a lot of self-humor to get me through.
00:13:38
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But sometimes I worried if I was getting into like self-deprecating humor.
00:13:44
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And this is kind of a curveball question, but do you have any advice for parents who maybe do have a funny kid, but they might worry that they are just dabbling in a little bit of self-loathing disguised as humor?
00:13:59
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I actually share some research in the book about the beautiful mess effect that shows that when kids are generally seen as capable and competent and admit weakness or admit that fallibility, they actually rise a notch in their peers' eyes as opposed to falling a notch.
00:14:17
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So first, I would say that if it's
00:14:20
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authentic self-deprecation as opposed to just beating yourself up publicly, which is likely to make everyone else feel uncomfortable, odds are it's actually landing fairly well.
00:14:30
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I think where kids get in trouble with humor isn't when they're self-deprecating.
00:14:35
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It's when they are trying to poke fun at someone else and instead it lands as mean.
00:14:40
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Walking that line between funny and mean is really hard for kids in this age group, boys
Changes in Middle School Years
00:14:44
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especially.
00:14:44
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Mm-hmm.
00:14:46
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You know, one of the reasons I was eager to have you on is because our journalistic learning initiative work started at a middle school here in rural Oregon.
00:14:55
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We started with sixth graders.
00:14:58
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And and what we noticed is we came back two years later and met them as eighth graders.
00:15:04
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And there was a shift.
00:15:05
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Some of that wide eyed innocence had become collar turned up, maybe a little makeup, you know, a little moose in the hair.
00:15:12
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And I'm sure you're smiling so you know what I'm talking about.
00:15:17
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There's something that happens that not only in this sort of identity formation part, but also I think it's a time when kids start to come up with notions that, hey, I'm bad at math or I can't write.
00:15:31
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And then they start to collect evidence for that that follows them into high school.
00:15:37
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Yeah, and I think that...
00:15:39
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That observation that kids change dramatically between 6th and 8th, I see that year after year.
00:15:46
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It's sort of a developmental imperative for them to pull away more from adults as they enter high school.
00:15:52
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And they're recognizing they have to fly alone a little bit.
00:15:55
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They can't lean quite as heavily.
00:15:57
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So they also like to be treated as if they're older and more mature than they are.
00:16:01
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And they want to differentiate themselves from those 6th graders.
00:16:04
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I think sixth graders are more likely to be 13 going on three.
00:16:07
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Eighth graders are more likely to be, you know, 13 going on 30, depending on the day.
00:16:12
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So I do see that as well, that self-doubt that creeps in, it starts much younger.
00:16:19
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It starts long before eighth grade, probably even in third grade, I see it starting to creep up.
00:16:25
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And so we have to be giving kids the language to challenge that inner defeatist voice at a
00:16:31
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from the get-go.
00:16:32
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So I'm always saying things to kids like if they say something that is unhelpful and self-deprecating, you know, I'm never going to be good at that.
00:16:42
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First of all, I'm listening for that kind of extreme language because that's how I know they're making a thinking error.
00:16:46
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They're overgeneralizing.
00:16:48
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They're thinking in black and white, whatever it might be.
00:16:51
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And I ask them to put a sentence starter or a sentence completer and fill out that sentence differently.
00:16:58
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So it might be some other possibilities are.
00:17:01
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Or it might be I'm having the thought that.
00:17:05
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So it's not really who they are.
00:17:08
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It's just something they're thinking at that moment.
00:17:11
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We want them to be separating it out.
00:17:12
Speaker
And that works also when kids are really struggling.
00:17:15
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I once was talking to a girl who had recovered from an eating disorder.
00:17:20
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And she shared that her best strategy was
00:17:23
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to yell at the eating disorder and to say, get out, I don't want you here, to really look at that negativity, that part of her that wasn't working for her as this other thing, as opposed to being part of herself.
00:17:35
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And that's what we want to be training kids to do when that voice creeps in and starts to hold them back.
00:17:41
Speaker
I wonder if it's not also part of our sort of traditional education system that has kids realize, in a sense, a sense of competitiveness.
00:17:50
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It's like you realize that maybe your best friend's in a different reading group or, you know, you're not, you know, that there's somehow you're being broken up and it's no longer kind of the same spirit that you had when you were in younger grades.
00:18:03
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Yeah.
00:18:04
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Yeah, it's funny.
00:18:05
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I've talked to a parent once who told me that 30 years later, they still remember being demoted from the lions to the cubs.
00:18:12
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We're wired as humans to really notice where we are in that, how we stack up to others.
00:18:18
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And nobody more than a middle schooler is acutely aware and sensitive about that.
00:18:23
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And so we want to make sure that we are, and this is from the educational side, a couple of things we can do.
00:18:29
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One is to keep a record of their progress.
00:18:33
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So whether that's a portfolio or a video or a journal they keep or examples of their work so that we can stop and really take a minute and focus on how far they've come.
00:18:45
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Because so often kids think they should go from point A to point Z with nothing in between.
00:18:51
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They don't intuitively understand that there might be 20 other steps on the ladder.
00:18:54
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I'll even draw a ladder and have kids
00:18:57
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show me, break down the steps.
00:18:59
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And often I have to add other rungs because they're still busy shooting for the moon.
00:19:03
Speaker
So we want to be focusing on that incremental progress.
00:19:06
Speaker
And I think there's a lot we can do as educators too, to tamp down some of that competitiveness, especially with group projects where one kid ends up doing all the work because they want to get an A and other people aren't carrying their weight.
00:19:19
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I think it's really helpful when teachers will grade the process and stop in the middle and have everybody just evaluate
00:19:27
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Am I pulling my
Managing Competitiveness in Education
00:19:28
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weight?
00:19:28
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Am I contributing?
00:19:29
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Am I doing too much?
00:19:30
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Am I doing too little?
00:19:31
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And actually making that part of the grade as well, that reflection.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think that is such good advice, especially today, because going back to social media, oftentimes, at least in my experience, it sort of ingrains in you this almost instant gratification that you should have that skill or ability that you're seeing on screen by now.
00:19:54
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And you don't realize how much time and effort went into
00:19:56
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whatever the content is that you're watching.
00:19:58
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I think it's especially hard for kids today, not just because of social media, but also keep in mind that we had a lot of children only had social media for about a year, you know, and so it's really been ingrained in them.
00:20:11
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I think that this idea that I should be at this level.
00:20:14
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And again, they just don't realize that it is a process.
00:20:18
Speaker
I think also we valorize like kids that are outgoing and we don't realize, I was trying to think of the name of the author, but there's a book called Quiet that really talks about the value of introverts and the fact that a lot of really great writers and authors and people who are very successful are not outgoing and that's okay.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yes, and I think we have to acknowledge that it's uncomfortable for kids when they're being asked to perform.
00:20:50
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So one of the things we can do is really work with them to help them build their courage, to set the brave goals.
00:20:56
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I might say to a kid, okay, you're not contributing.
00:21:00
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You feel awkward about that.
00:21:02
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Why is it that you want to be able to participate?
00:21:06
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And they might say, well, I feel like my voice isn't heard and I'm smart and I want my teacher to know what I'm thinking.
00:21:12
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And so at that point, we can then say, well, then that's your goal.
00:21:15
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You want to be heard.
00:21:16
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So what's one small step that we can take?
00:21:19
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And I think adults forget how hard it is to take a risk like that.
00:21:22
Speaker
That's a real social risk too when you're that age and to really scaffold it for them.
00:21:27
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So there might be 20 steps between them wanting to raise their hand in class and them actually doing it.
00:21:34
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And then I reassure kids that
00:21:36
Speaker
because anxiety is extinguished through those small exposures, odds are if they can do these small practice moments, over time they won't be quite as scared of it.
00:21:46
Speaker
So we're kind of in this realm right now, I think about talking about self-confidence, super resiliency, if you will.
Learning from Painful Experiences
00:21:54
Speaker
And one thing that I really wanted to ask you in this interview that I read in middle school superpowers was you talk about helping kids derive meaning from painful experiences.
00:22:07
Speaker
And I was floored when I read that because I think there's a lot of adults who still don't know how to do that.
00:22:13
Speaker
And especially in, in a
00:22:17
Speaker
I don't want to bring religion into this, but religion's on the decline.
00:22:20
Speaker
And back in the day, that was sort of the paradigm through which you could derive meaning in painful experiences.
00:22:27
Speaker
And obviously, you can't bring that into the classroom.
00:22:30
Speaker
So what can you do to help young kids in school derive meaning from these painful experiences?
00:22:40
Speaker
First, deriving meaning from an experience doesn't mean it was a positive experience or that you're supposed to be grateful for it.
00:22:48
Speaker
So I don't, I'm not a proponent of, you know, toxic positivity or denying how kids feel.
00:22:54
Speaker
However, in every experience, there is something that you can come away from it having learned.
00:23:00
Speaker
So it could be that you learned what kind of friend is really important to you to have.
00:23:07
Speaker
or who you can trust.
00:23:09
Speaker
You might have learned that it's important for you to study a certain way.
00:23:17
Speaker
It could be really practical.
00:23:19
Speaker
When somebody is really dejected and they really can't find any meaning in experience, if nothing else, it was a vehicle for your own self-discovery.
00:23:27
Speaker
It was an opportunity for you to learn about yourself.
00:23:30
Speaker
And if you can do that kind of post-mortem and really think about what you learned or gained or
00:23:36
Speaker
can avoid it even in the future, then it won't be for naught.
00:23:40
Speaker
And I think it's important on that optimism front that kids don't feel like these experiences are for naught.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
Again, I can't speak enough about how much I appreciate the work you're doing.
00:23:56
Speaker
And I love in the introduction, too, you talk about how these are skills that adults reading this could probably benefit from as well.
00:24:04
Speaker
And I...
00:24:05
Speaker
I don't think that there's anything in this book that doesn't apply to humans sort of writ large.
00:24:11
Speaker
But the reason I chose these particular superpowers is because they're so tied to the developmental phase.
00:24:18
Speaker
And all of the stories and all of the experiences are grounded in this age group.
00:24:22
Speaker
And it's an age where kids are insecure, they're vulnerable.
00:24:25
Speaker
They have to feel like they can make a difference.
00:24:27
Speaker
They're so plagued with self-doubt.
00:24:29
Speaker
They're relentlessly self-critical.
00:24:31
Speaker
Wanting to belong is more important than just about anything else.
00:24:35
Speaker
And so it's this incredibly impactful time for them to learn these skills.
00:24:40
Speaker
And they're still so impressionable.
00:24:42
Speaker
We really can get in there and help them learn how to do this.
Cultivating Belonging and Control
00:24:45
Speaker
Imagine if all of the adults who struggle and suffer did have those skills, had learned them when they were much younger.
00:24:51
Speaker
I think we'd have happier populations.
00:24:53
Speaker
Probably a kinder population too.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, I would imagine so.
00:24:58
Speaker
Can I just ask another question here?
00:25:01
Speaker
You spoke a little bit about belonging, and one of the superpowers is super belonging.
00:25:06
Speaker
And usually when you think of belonging, you think about a group sort of
00:25:12
Speaker
demonstrating their acceptance of an individual.
00:25:15
Speaker
But you're saying this is a superpower that you can find belonging.
00:25:19
Speaker
So can you just dive in a little bit about that and how to help students get that superpower?
00:25:26
Speaker
So one of the most frustrating things for a middle schooler is that they can't control what anyone else does.
00:25:33
Speaker
They can't make themselves be popular.
00:25:36
Speaker
They can't make a group
00:25:38
Speaker
accept them.
00:25:39
Speaker
They can't make a coach give them a spot on a team.
00:25:42
Speaker
And so what we want to be doing is to help kids feel like they're not passive victims of fate, that they can figure out what that sweet spot is, if you picture a Venn diagram between things that they can control and things that really matter to them, and then figure out what action they can take.
00:25:58
Speaker
So I'll give you an example I shared in the book.
00:26:00
Speaker
There was a student who during the pandemic was really heartbroken because all of her friends
00:26:06
Speaker
met on house party.
00:26:07
Speaker
That was back when no one was meeting in person.
00:26:10
Speaker
And nobody thought to send her a text or call her to tell her to jump on and participate.
00:26:15
Speaker
And it had happened already.
00:26:16
Speaker
It was like the night before.
00:26:18
Speaker
And she just couldn't really set it aside.
00:26:21
Speaker
And so we talked about what she could do now.
00:26:24
Speaker
And she had a few options.
00:26:26
Speaker
She could figure out who in that group was someone she really trusted, who she could share, how that felt with, who might make her feel better.
00:26:32
Speaker
She could
00:26:33
Speaker
offer to host another house party and invite all of the people she wanted to be there.
00:26:38
Speaker
Or she could reach out to somebody else who doesn't ever get included and have that satisfaction of knowing she spared someone else that same kind of pain.
00:26:47
Speaker
So really helping kids figure out what can you control, what do you want to exert control over, and then what step can you
Optimism and Post-Traumatic Growth
00:26:55
Speaker
take.
00:26:55
Speaker
Phyllis, I think we're going to wrap up here, but thank you so much for being on.
00:26:59
Speaker
Is there anything else?
00:27:01
Speaker
Because I know you've talked about middle schoolers in the post-pandemic world a lot.
00:27:08
Speaker
And I wonder if there's a question that you've been hoping someone would ask you in any of these interviews that no one has yet.
00:27:16
Speaker
And I just want to give you this opportunity now to answer it.
00:27:20
Speaker
I wouldn't say I have a question, but I will say, and this is maybe my silver lining or something that I take away from this whole experience that was hard for adults too.
00:27:33
Speaker
For me, my hope is that these strategies we've had to develop to deal with what I've been calling extreme tweens, the same insecure, vulnerable middle schoolers only more so, that because it's a set of strategies that are really helping kids at the margins, I'm hoping that we have
00:27:49
Speaker
collectively come up with a lot of ways to support kids going forward regardless of what's happening in their bodies or the outside world or in their homes and in their families.
00:27:58
Speaker
And also I'll just share because I am an optimistic person and I like to end on a happy note.
00:28:04
Speaker
One of the research, some of the research I cite relates to post-traumatic growth.
00:28:09
Speaker
And while a
00:28:11
Speaker
huge percentage of students have been through trauma.
00:28:15
Speaker
Most of them actually experience post-traumatic growth, meaning they can come out stronger on the other side for their struggles.
00:28:22
Speaker
Wow, that's a beautiful note to end on.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
00:28:32
Speaker
How to Have Kids Love Learning is produced by the Journalistic Learning Initiative.
00:28:36
Speaker
For more information about our work, please visit journalisticlearning.com.