Hello everyone. I'm Sarah Cody and this is Parenting Beyond the Headlines. I'm
joined by my co host Amy Alamar, who is holding down the fort on
the West Coast during this you know, contin continually crazy time. Yeah,
Hi, Sarah, how are you doing today? I'm all right, you
well, I'm okay, and I am in the midst of our topic today.
So we wanted to talk today about, you know, kids going back
to school. My own children are doing it. I'm working with the school
here in San Francisco. I'm doing it as an educator, and I'm noticing
this, like, you know, we've heard it in the news, but
I'm seeing it on a very personal level, this need for the social emotional
connection. Like kids have missed out on tons of academics, but they are
just craving and uncertain in how they approach their social interactions. And it's not
always just like friends, right, but it's like how do we talk to
teachers? How do we be right with others? It's sort of exhausting.
Yeah, my son is actually going to the prom tomorrow night, and I'm
like so excited. And I think part of the reason I'm excited is because
it's been this crazy time he has been doing things like that, and it
feels normal, it feels exciting, it feels great. Yeah, you have
an expert, amy, who you're going to introduce, who's going to touch
on all of this. I'm so glad. So I've worked with Donovan Taylor
Hall. He is a youth advocate and educator, and I've worked with him
in a variety of ways. He is just amazing with kids and most importantly,
amazing at teaching them social emotional skills. Thank you, dono fan for
joining us today. I'm so happy to be here. I feel really honored
that y'all would want to listen to me, because this is all I want
to talk about. So thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, why don't you start by just kind of setting the scene, like,
how are kids doing? I know, like on a personal level,
I'm overwhelmed, but I'm like, like Sarah, like so ready for my
kids to be part of it, right, So talk to us about what
you're seeing with kids. So, with my focus on social, emotional and
personal development of kids, I've been doing this work for like ten years and
so I've always been focused on how kids are feeling and I think that the
anxiety that a lot of parents are feeling and teachers are feeling about right now
is really real and really valid because no kids have been through this before,
and the people who are making decisions and the people who are in charge of
what's happening with kids have not been through this experience before as well, And
so I think a lot of people, especially the ones who want the best
for kids, are worried and feeling really anxious around how do we support kids
and something that we haven't even been through, And so the timing of this
feels really it feels really important because there is this big focus on social emotional
learning, but it seems like they need that more than ever right now,
because even kids recognize the importance of school and the importance of socializing. So
some of my boys who just literally counting down the minutes till the day was
over to leave school, right are some of the same kids who are saying
I wish school was open, like just open again. I don't care,
I won't complain anymore. I just want to be there. And even if
kids can't articulate why they want to be there, I think it's just missing
that structure and missing being around people, and even if it was tough,
I think having to be away from that has been really really hard for a
lot of kids. Is it both though? Are you seeing both that?
Yes, there's this underlying excitement and this yearning to return to normal and do
things like the prom like I mentioned, But then we're also hearing about re
entry anxiety and these kids are so used to being on their phone, not
taking risks, necessarily being in their rooms. So are you seeing almost like
a push and pull of emotions here? Yeah, absolutely, and oftentimes in
the same person. I think that one of the things I've been looking at
is how school helps really inform kids. Identity helps really give them a structure
and kind of a container for who am I becoming and who am I?
And so to take that away suddenly a lot of kids are left with really
not understanding who they are and really not knowing like how people are going to
perceive them and how things are going to be. I just went back to
campus for the first time and saw five of my students who I've been working
with all year, and I'm like, you know, I love my students,
and I'm all about the relationship building and it was so awkward. All
of us just stood there and we were like, I don't know what to
do. And so I think that that anxiety is very real, and I
think that kids feel a lot of conflict, just like adults do, around
going back, wanting to be with their friends and with their classmates, but
also like, what is it going to be? Like? What are people
going to think of me? So much has happened over this time? How
am I going to show up with the mental health you know that I've been
dealing with over the past. How long this has been. I think that
there's a lot of both, and I also think that it can shift back
and forth between being excited and being really scared. What do we do about
that to help them? And to kind of or do we not? Is
this a growth experience that they figure out what is the parents' role supposed to
be right now? I thought a lot about this question just in general,
around not only parents, but just teachers, and I have some thoughts that
I want to share. And I do want to recognize that I'm not a
parent, which is super important because I realized that I don't have the same
perspective as them. I know how I feel about my students, and so
I can't even imagine the anxiety and the worry that a parent would feel about
their own child because I was losing sleep thinking about my students having to miss
out on their eighth grade at the end of it. So I want to
share some ideas, just some things that I've been thinking about, but also
some stuff that I've been talking to kids about, because I've been asking kids
these questions, what can we do to support you? How can we help
you? And I'd be happy to share some of these ideas. First of
all, I think one of the biggest things is to be aware of how
you're showing up for kids, how you're showing up for kids. This because
I've heard a mixture of both from kids, where there are kids whose parents
are putting a lot of their own anxieties on them, which is like,
this is going to be hard and you're going to be upset and you're not
going to know what to do, and I'm worried about you, and that
really freaks kids out. But then there's the other one, which is kind
of like the rose colored glasses, which it's like this is going to be
fine, and you've got this and you're a champ and don't worry. It's
gonna be great, right. And so I think that just being aware of
how you're showing up first is really important, because even though you know having
positive, high expectations for kids is good, it can still put a lot
of pressure on kids where it's like, Okay, well what if I don't
feel great? You know what if I go back to school, my friends
are not the same people and they're not hanging out with me, or I
don't have relationships with my teachers. And so I think what's really important is
to first be aware of how you're showing up for your kids, and then
also to listen to them, to listen to them and create safety for how
they're feeling. Something that I've seen with kids a lot, even before this
happened, is adults trivilizing or minimalizing their feelings and their experiences. And I
this connects back to what I was saying earlier. We haven't been through this.
We don't know what this is like, and so for us to tell
kids that shouldn't matter or don't worry about that, it kind of takes away
from the fact that they're the ones going through this, and we have our
own anxieties and fears as well, But it's really important to listen to them
and to validate how they have to feel or how they're feeling, versus trying
to fix everything right away, trying to jump in and offer and offer and
offer versus just listening. You know. One of the things we've talked about
before, and I think it's important to highlight because it tags onto what you're
saying, Donovan, is this idea that adults need to process their emotions and
adult appropriate ways. So well, it's it's good to show you're vulnerable to
your kids and to share that maybe you are concerned or anxious, but process
it, you know, with a partner, a spouse, a friend,
a therapist, a coach, whatever it is, you know, because you
can't Like, I love the way you say how you show up for your
kids, but it's also what are you putting on your like what are they
taking to school with them? Like, oh, now I need to worry
about who I'm sitting with a lunch because mom said I need to worry about,
you know, my friend groups, as if they didn't have that concern
already. So I just wanted to underscore that because I think that's something I
can fall victim too. Oh my gosh, I ask about lunch and I
shouldn't that terrible for that lone Jay shouldn't do it. We want to know,
we want to know. It's it's so tough, and that's that's an
interesting position. I've had to be able to work with kids as an adult
who cares about them that's not their parents, because I can help them by
listening to that and then kind of framing it and like why are they doing
that? Like why are your parents? And like, well, because they
care, And I'm like, yeah, you know, but it's tough sometimes
in the moment. And I think too that even though we may not be
thinking about we're thinking a lot about the social emotional learning. I think kids
are really worried about their education. I think kids are really worried about falling
behind, especially because so much of our kids identity comes from school. Whether
or not that's a good things, that's a different conversation, I think.
But people get really anxious around how am I going to be with my grades?
How am I going to catch up? On top of how am I
going to be with my friends and people as well? You know, and
Donovan I know you do a lot of work on identity with kids, so
this is key and something we haven't really touched on a lot, Sarah.
But you know, kids do define themselves through their school, right, so
whether they're a good academic student or what sport they play. But you're right,
that play such a huge part, and it's been missing for the most
part, even if they've been participating in a hybrid version of school, like
it's changed certainly, and it's how they do define at least part of their
identity, if not most of their identities. So I appreciate you bringing that
up. I wonder if you want to speak a little bit more about that.
Yeah. I mean one of the biggest things that I think plays into
my work and really informs the work I do with kids in general, is
separating their identity from their grades and separating their identity from their education. Because
when kids are connecting their identity to their grades, that's how they're becoming aware
of like what do I deserve? How am I valued? Which leads into
am I safe? Right if I don't. I had a kid told me,
tell me who is really really intelligent? He told me that he thinks
his teacher doesn't like him because it's grade is bad, and I just remember
being like, that's not really how that works, but like people aren't telling
kids that, and so if you don't have teachers who are explicitly saying that
to you, that's what kids kind of go through the system thinking, which
is if I have good grades, people will be proud of me and value
me, right, and then I'm safe. Or if I don't have good
grades, people aren't going to value me, and then I have to protect
myself, which is where we see a lot of those behaviors come out of
pushing away and separating because it's around their grades. And so I think when
kids coming back, it's like, how am I going to live up to
these expectations right of not only like making friends and being like a social person,
but also catching up and being motivated, you know, to do my
work. Because something else I think parents and teachers should recognize is that not
only were kids asked to you know, or had to do school online,
they had to regulate themselves. They had to learn how to send emails as
a form of communication, thing had to motivate themselves. If I was a
kid during this, I would have had a teacher come to my house and
pull me out of bed because I wouldn't have done it. I know I
wouldn't have done it. Yeah, it was very hard. We had some
of that in this house. You know. We we have a frequent guest
on our show, doctor Alicia Farrell. She's a cognitive psychologist, and we
talked with her a few weeks ago, months ago, sort of a more
you know, when we were in the heart of the pandemic more and about
the kids being in their rooms and on the phones all the time, and
those sorts of issues. And one thing she did say towards the end of
our conversation which surprised me, was that this hasn't all been doom and gloom
for kids, even though there's been certainly a lot of challenges, that there
are aspects of this that are teaching them grit and resilience and that they can
get through the strangest of times. Are you finding that too, and do
you think that that is you know, a gift that's kind of a corny
word, but you know, a you know, a benefit of this difficult
time. Yeah. I think that people often say that kids are really resilient,
and I don't push back on that because I believe it's true. But
I also think it's because they don't have a lot of choice, right,
Like they're not making decisions in their lives. They really allow them to bypass
things like that that they have to get through. So kids couldn't be like,
no, I'm not doing this. They had to do it, and
they had to get through it. So sometimes they also don't have the language
to articulate that they need support or help, and so people are like,
well, for me as a kid, when my dad passed away when I
was younger, I didn't know how to ask for support, and I acted,
you know, like I'm supposed to. I got good grades and stuff,
and that led my mom to think that I was okay, But I
just did know. People kept saying, well, he's resilient, he's resilient.
I just didn't know what was happening to me, and I didn't know
how to ask for help. But I have seen, especially with my middle
schoolers, just championing them for themselves, really having to recognize that this is
a position I'm in and I have to step up. I think that the
youth should be celebrated, no matter what their grades are. For what they
had to go through, because again, none of us have been through this
before. And I think when kids look back, I say this a lot.
Actually. I think when kids, the kids who went through this are
adults and they look back, they're not going to talk about the assignments.
They're not going to talk about their learning. They're going to talk about how
they felt and how they were treated right by their teachers and by their families
and either the pressure expectations that were put on them or the grace and the
compassion that was put on them. And so I think when going back to
being aware of how we're showing up for them, I also think it's important
that we manage like we manage our expectations and our anxieties, because they are
hyper aware of the fact that there's this big conversation going on in the world
around how do we support kids, and they're not in it. You know.
I think more about you because we had an interesting pre podcast discussion with
you. It was funny you were kind of trying to name what you do
and you were saying, I'm not an educator, I'm not a coach,
Like, what is it exactly you do and how do you work with kids.
For me, I just I learned a lot about what was missing from
education, or it was missing from my development as a person through my own
experiences and own struggles because I was a kid that did I got good grades,
and I had friends, and I didn't get in trouble in school and
things like that, but I had a really negative self perception of myself and
that led into on top of like trauma that happened to me, like losing
a lot of people in my life as a kid, not having the access
or support or the ability to feel safe led into a lot of just really
intense struggles for me as a child and a young person. And I have
made it a commitment and my passion and mission or whatever I want to call
it. It just feels like this is what I'm supposed to do to really
create opportunities for kids to be seen and empowered and respected, and for kids
to see themselves and to empower themselves and feel respected. But what I'm realizing
is that the only really outlet we have to talk about kids at school.
I mean, when you think about how people address kids, a lot of
times it's like the first thing you ask is how school, And there's so
much more happening to them. So the work I do with middle schoolers is
because I realize it through talking to adults. So many adults would have these
really negative reactions to middle school, whether it was like them saying really mean
things about middle schoolers or them reflecting back their own experience of how they felt
because it's a really awkward time. And what I'm looking at is, you
know, they're hyper focused on who they are as people, and why are
we not talking to them about that? Why are we not creating spaces that
is not connected to grades like that. It doesn't have to be about their
grades, but just about how they're feeling and how they're developing and really connecting
to their humanity. And so I'm not a traditional teacher in a sense that
I didn't go to school for teaching, but I've been doing positive development and
teaching for the past ten years, which allows me to focus on the full
self, and it allows me to focus on you know, kids, hearts
and their spirits. And I am leaving teaching because I don't want to talk
about grades. I'm just over it. I don't want to do it.
There's enough people, there's enough conversations happening about grades and even seeing social emotional
learning starting to get incorporated in the ways that they do it. It's it
feels almost like oppression sometimes, where it's like how well do they listen to
directions and how well do they, like, you know, collaborate with each
other. It it still feels a little weird to me. And so my
dream has always been to speak to kids, to teach them the skills that
I feel and have seen through you know, my research into educational psychology,
and it's a positive psychology and transformative education. What skills they need to build
a positive relationship with themselves because that is a skill that will translate and follow
them through the rest of their lives. How they view themselves, how they
treat themselves, how they talk about their growth, how they talk about their
education. Those things have massive impacts on who they end up being. Then
I want to talk to them about it. And so I'm leaving teaching and
I'm going into speaking, but also content creation for kids because I want to
do like I want to have a TV show where kids can access it.
The kids are watching so many people online. There are so many people YouTubers,
influencers, and kids are watching and absorbing, and I just feel like
there's not enough people who are directly talking to kids and directly talking to them
about positive things. It almost sounds like you're seeing how the world has changed,
You're seeing how kids are reached today, and that you want to use
those avenues to continue to reach them rather than necessarily the traditional way That might
work for some people, but I think it's clever of you to be trying
to think of a different way to reach kids in the way that they will
respond to. I mean, it's because they think I'm funny. Middle schoolers
think I'm funny, which is a huge victory for me. That makes teaching
so much easier because it's like a show. So I have some kids who
my one period, which is just such a funny period because we're always joking.
They come to my class ten minutes early and I like let them in.
I'm like, what are y'all doing, and like we just don't want
to miss anything, And I'm like, ah, So you can combine like
humor, and you can combine learning together and fun experience. You know,
that must feel so good. And we all remember those teachers that touched our
lives in that way. Because we enjoyed being in their classroom. We laughed,
we learned, you know, so that must feel really good to get
that response. I mean, I love it. They had to switch teaching
positions. As a long story, but I had to leave my teaching positions
to take over the art position at my school because our art teacher left and
they needed someone the kids knew. And I took it over, but I
had to do an I had to do like an interview and I had to
do a lesson for the kids. But they had already known me for two
years and so they were just really really hyped to celebrate me as a teacher.
And they gave me some feedback and one kid said he can teach us
anything. We wouldn't care because we feel safe with him. And I was
like, oh, oh, my heart. But I think that that speaks
a lot about what education and teaching could be. When kids feel safe and
kids feel seen and they feel respected, then it's not about their identity right
Then it's about learning. Then it's about expanding and growing versus seeking safety and
seeking identity in school, which is what kids are looking for. It's what
adult it's what everyone is looking for. Rights that is a great note to
kind of wrap up on. I mean, that really is what we're talking
about. And I am so grateful to you for your work. Donovan.
I know that you are all over social media. Do you want to share
your what tags? Yeah? So I mean this has been This has been
like the kind of joke because before it was my students, it was my
friends. I put all this love and energy into my friends when I was
younger. And the name is Dono friend, um, which is like you
know, a mister Rogers, Dona to science guy. Like I want to
have my own things, so donal friend onto everything, So YouTube, TikTok,
Instagram, d O n O f R I E n D Dono friend
and maybe your TV show right there. Yeah, what I'm saying it is
perfect. Yeah. And what I like is sometimes the kids will slip up
and call me that. Well that's all right, mister Donovan. I was
like, yeah, I like Dona Friend. I like that one better.
So um and just like a you know, a shameless plug. I While
I'm doing this content creation, I'm also doing youth coaching and I'm going to
be doing some youth groups as well, and so on all of those websites,
especially TikTok and Instagram. There is links to calendar. If you want
to have a conversation about how I could support you and your family or your
child, or if you're a teacher who wants to talk about bringing this type
of education into your room, please feel free to reach out. And yeah,
thank you for having me. This is really nice. Yea literally just
followed you while we were talking, and Holda follows you on instaff. Yeah,
I got which is wild? Which is wild? They got me a
laptop two to continue my editing stuff for kids, so I'm really excited.
That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us.
We really appreciate it. And listener, we always appreciate you hanging out with
us too, especially during this very challenging time. You can always find Amy
and myself on social media too. I'm at Sarah friend. No, I
wish I was quite. I think it's so cool that I wish I wise,
but I'm not. It's Sarah Cody media and Amy. You chime in
him that Amy Alamar and thank you again for joining us, and please reach
out, let us know what topics you want to cover and have a fantastic
day. Take care of everyone,