Real Talk for Real Teachers #10 - The Most Challenging People At Work And The Opportunity They Offer

0:00 [Music] welcome to real talk for real teachers I'm dr. Becky Bailey the creator of conscious discipline expert in education child development and a lifelong learner and teacher for those listening who are not aware of conscious discipline it is a comprehensive self-regulation program that integrates social-emotional learning school culture and discipline so what are real teachers real teachers

0:34 are real people who have life both inside and outside the classroom sometimes a lot of us forget that real teachers live like all of us in a sea of relationships some of those relationships are uplifting and some seem to drain the life force right out of us real teachers may have difficult people in their home lives some could be relatives yes that could be true some are friends and some might be struggling with their own significant others many

1:02 days they wake up feeling blessed to be alive and some days they can't be bothered and yet real teachers show up at school and give their heart and soul to others each and every day real talk for real teachers is a growing community of loving professionals who seek to love themselves as much as they love others so today we're talking about a very interesting topic we're talking about working with the most difficult now this is the most difficult

1:33 co-workers the most difficult parents and the most difficult children so life is just a giant web of relationships human beings are social creatures our brain is a social organ and develops through relationships now I hope everybody heard that let me say it again our brain develops through relationships the quality of our relationships shapes the function of our brain each of us are deeply entangled in countless

2:03 relationships throughout life and it's certainly natural to gravitate towards those relationships that bring us the most happiness and growth and fulfillment however despite our best efforts we sometimes find ourselves dealing with challenging relationships and difficult people and navigating these interactions is let's just call it we could call it a blessing okay let's not it's a mess but it often results in stress tension and anxiety that negatively impacts our mood

2:36 and ability to do our job and it exposes ourselves and everyone around us to an unpleasant emotional toxicity I hear teachers tell me all the time you know I can deal with the children it's just the parents or my co-workers that are killing me since the brain develops and is organized based on the quality of our relationships conscious discipline is designed to give us the mindset and skill set to improve all of our relationships especially those we find

3:06 difficult one thing to hold in mind and it's hard for me at times is that when dealing with difficult people whether they're children or adults they are always and I mean always doing the best they can from their own level of consciousness now in conscious discipline we divide consciousness into three basic states survival emotional an executive in the survival state all sensory input is perceived as a threat

3:38 no matter what you say or do it is perceived as a personal attack to the other person so if the person's in a survival state and you're talking they're going to perceive it as a personal attack relationships in the survival state consist of attack defend attack defend cycles of communication and we've all been there in the emotional state sensory input is perceived as unfair irritating or

4:08 judgmental no matter what you say or do it is perceived as not good enough or condemning in some way we've all been there too so relationships in the emotional state consist of making wild inaccurate judgments of others and ourselves and sharing it with others as much as possible aka gossiping in the executive state we have a choice of how we hear see and feel about an interaction we can override impulses and

4:41 insecurities enough to hear a different point of view see things in a different light our relationships can consist of the possibility of accepting and negotiating differences this is just how the brain works it works like that at any culture in any language taking another person's internal state perception and reactions personally is and I'm learning this over and over again not our wisest course of action

5:12 nor is making judgments as to the behavior of others as being good or bad helpful they simply are reacting to input receive from their pre-programmed conditioning from childhood so here's what it's like it's like looking under the hood of your car and yelling that the dead batteries saying why are you doing this to me and what have I done to deserve this and why do you hate me so much and why are you acting disrespectfully just turn on sound silly

5:44 but we do it many times throughout the day we have a q-tip strategy and conscious discipline that stands for quit taking it personally it requires practice but it's powerful so today I've invited Ally Oliver to talk with us about how she's dealt with difficult adults children and parents from a principals perspective now Ally's been a principal for ten years she was named the LULAC principal of the year and has transformed two schools using

6:15 conscious discipline into star schools she now serves as the director of professional development for conscious discipline helping others achieve the same phenomenal results in school climate and academics she and her teams achieved repeatedly in the past all right Ally welcome to real talk with real teachers hi Becky I'm glad to be here ok so you've got all the gist of the first part so have you and I'm sure you have as a principal dealt with difficult parents

6:47 it's funny when I was thinking about this topic difficult parents difficult teachers difficult kids actually it's all the same thing I'm it doesn't matter if you're a parent a child or a teacher I think that the difficulty just looks a little different but it's it comes the same way of course I've dealt with with this over the last 10 years so let's take some of your more difficult cases and I want you to kind of tell us the

7:18 story and what stepped you through how did they come out ones that came out successful and one that kind of blew up on your face how did it work for you how did you do this how do you interact with these parents and teachers every day with their complaining their frustrations their I hate to say it whining um well actually I think that the more I grew in conscious discipline the better I got as you know it's you're

7:44 constantly working on it daily because it's our second language I think that when I look back when someone came to me to complain or with an issue the biggest thing I did was I took it personally I felt like you know I had to solve their problem or I wasn't doing my job I don't know if that makes sense or not but totally no I get it working yeah working through conscious discipline I realized you know when

8:14 someone comes to me or if someone comes to me upset or a child an adult comes to me with a problem they're coming they want to be heard so first thing I need to do is tell myself you know this is not about me it's not about something I did and I have to listen to them and I think what's helped me the most is to sit back and try to listen to what they have to say from

8:39 their point of view when they're coming to me telling me their story or complaining whatever it is is how is it I you know I have to look at it from their their perspective and I can't take it personally I just amazed that how often do you pull that off seriously now okay in the beginning it was harder as the more I practice it I have this little ritual when I hear something this is from teachers you know there are some

9:10 you have your triggers and basically knowing what your triggers are one of mine is whining and complaining there's a I have some people in mind I'm not going to mention their names but I can hear them coming and as I hear that I literally tell myself okay Ally you've got this take a deep breath remember this is not about you listen to what they have to say because they're coming to me for a reason whether I think it's whining or

9:39 complaining they have an issue so at that point more times you know and it depends on how I am if I've had a really rotten day I'm probably not gonna be quite as good at it as if I've taken some deep breaths and I'm ready for them yeah so that makes sense so you hear the little click like click click of their feet coming down the hall and you're already preparing yourself just like we prepare ourselves to interact with a

10:03 child who's very upset so this this constant preparation of ourselves to interact in a more calm and effective way now what happens if you just get a surprise attack like oh you know here comes a guy and he's got his hands in his pants playing with himself and I know you get all kinds of stuff at your school so really and truly when I get surprised before I have conditioned myself to really take a deep breath I

10:33 know when I'm holding my breath so I can feel that in my body so the first thing I do is take a deep breath and try not to react so if I can keep my mouth shut long enough to look around the situation and then handle it from there it's what I've learned over time is it's best to let the person vent or say what they have to say while they're doing that I'm breathing I'm not trying to

11:03 create a story in my head and when they're finished you know it's having some empathy for them you know I I understand this is how you're feeling so I try to reframe it when they think the world is against them is you know you I can tell by your body language you seem really frustrated and then it's that it's amazing how you can just see them look at you like you get me you understand what what I'm talking about

11:31 um I think that that really helps I think back long ago I had a parent a young parent who her child was extremely disruptive he had a lot of behavioral issues and in the past she was constantly called you know come up to the school come up to the school so when I had this child you know I called her and she's like what what now and you know I said you know I would just I'd

11:59 like to just talk to you about some of the things you're experiencing and when we had when it was became more of a conversation of her just telling me you know what's going on tell me some things that that you see with your child um it kind of just calmed things down we were able to work through it and you know what it was when she was young she had no structure in her life obviously he

12:24 had no structure so we worked together and created a plan and interestingly enough this was probably I can't even begin to tell you the chaos that this child had in his life and after you know conscious discipline isn't something that changes your life immediately it's practice so I would say probably six to eight months later she came up to me in the hallway and this is the mom and she said you know miss Oliver I just want

12:52 you to know just putting some structure she said putting the picture routines up in my house has changed our lives and you know that simple as teaching routine so I think that knowing that you know when parents come to you or when teachers come to use they're coming to you with what they have you know yes and and if they come to you again it's important to remember if they come to you in an emotional state they're gonna

13:19 blame you and if they come to you in a survival state they're truly going to attack you so does knowing that help you knowing that that just how the brain works and it and that's the way they're coming and that's not what they're meaning that's not the real reason they're there that's what I'm hearing you say that I can hear past that attack past that blame and try to hear what's really going on is that what

13:43 you're saying absolutely and I would say nine times out of ten when a parent is walking into your office or a teacher's walking into your office with a concern they are either in their survival state or their emotional state rarely have I had someone come in and say miss Oliver let's sit down and problem-solve this so knowing that ahead of time and how to listen to them and take that conversation to that next level makes

14:14 all the difference in the world now you have you have a time where you actually react it unconsciously that you can share with us and did you catch it or did you catch it the next day or did it go on for the whole year because with me I tend to fall into my emotional state so I know that about myself but it's it's usually through and I want to say probably through email conversations I get all wrapped up in in the

14:45 conversation and I feel like there's nothing I can do for this person you know I've done this I've done this I've done this so then when I respond you know it's try not to hit that send button but I have hit it before and then I just want to go back and say ah why did I hit Send because it's not about me so so let's shift now Ally to the children so and you've been doing

15:10 conscious discipline and part of conscious discipline is the beauty of us it trickles down and it shares amongst each other so what have you seen with your most difficult kids or how has it helped them or how are you approaching them in a way that they can be successful oh this is what's so amazing I believe the children pick it up so much easier than we as adults do it becomes their first language one of the

15:39 stories that always come to mind is and I'm gonna use the name Michael as the child's name I heard this screaming and yelling in the hallway you know as an administrator I ran down the hall into the classroom and when I walked in the kids were all kind of standing around the room and there was a little girl and standing kind of by the doorway and when I walked in she grabs my pant leg and before I could say anything she looked

16:07 at me and these are the words that just so stick in my mind is she she said to me she said Michael is having a really hard day she said so breathe and I looked at her because I was really surprised she said breathe and I said oh so I started breathing and uhm I looked in the center and Michael had thrown these math little foam tabs all over the floor there were hundreds of them and he

16:34 was kicking and screaming about then he jumped up and he starts yelling at the top of his lungs don't breathe don't breathe and she looks at me with big eyes and she says it's working keep breathing he's shifted and so high that told me right there that just listening to her teacher watching her teacher watching us as adults in the building she knew exactly the different brain States and she was six years old I love that I love that story so he'd gone from

17:05 the survival up to the emotional and was using his mouth of loving don't stop now we're almost there you know the kids came in and one of them steps up and says you're frustrated I can tell how can we help you and you know his his idea of solving the problem may not have been one that we would have used he said you know I'll hold this bucket if you all put all the counters in the bucket

17:30 and your the kids are six they all said yeah we could do it and in a few minutes everything was picked up he walked back to the circle group he sat down and the other kids walked by him patted him on the back and said you've got this Michael you've got this Wow well so I guess the moral of this story is if we can do it if we as adults can calm ourselves down enough to solve

17:59 our problems in a gracious way with one another open our heart enough to see from someone else's point of view listen enough and as you say shut up enough then it will automatically just trickle down and we will all help one another be successful one day and I think Michael and his class showed us a great lesson for all of us so often Ali I hear teachers say you know I can do conscious discipline with children I just can't do

18:29 it with adults and what I'm hearing you say is that your successes come from doing conscious discipline with adults is that what you're saying absolutely okay so and let me ask you one more thing then do you have you ever had the police in there has anyone ever been hauled out of your school an adult um well actually yes several times we've had the police come we've had people escorted out of the building yes and so

18:59 how did you handle that situation with yourself and with those like in the office that are watching you do this I think that with being aware of my inner speech is the and trying to remain calm so I mean the biggest thing for me is taking deep breaths regulating myself and being calm in situations the more I get excited and when I get excited I start talking and I try to explain so

19:30 the I can I can now feel myself doing that so that's when I look around and I can see just people start tensing up when I get excited so if I can just take some deep breaths at that moment I can physically see others start taking deep breaths and calming down - so you've been able to over the time of your practice with conscious discipline you've learned to notice your own interstate so you've learned to notice

19:58 even how they manifest in anxiety like kind of rapid talking and talking and talking and you've been able to notice the impact of that on those around you that's quite a journey absolutely and so as a leader implementing conscious discipline what's helped the most is actually we started implementing it with our adults first so the behaviors that I was expecting and wanting to see out of the adults in the building or actually

20:28 from the kids in the building we all needed to practice together and the best way to do that is to model it so if as an adult I'm modeling that behavior when we're rolling out the different structures when we're practicing the skill of composure we do it with the adults in the building we model it we show how it's done then you see it just actually just moving throughout the building and the kids start doing it too

20:57 so it's a trickle down so what would you do let's say you have two teachers fighting I'm sure you've had come up with that or a clump or clique forming or some being left out so how would you how do you go about that let's say that two teachers are very and intensely mad at each other and they both come to you complaining about the other what would you do in that situation so in I've not

21:24 ever had to walk in and find to verbally fighting with each other usually it's the one coming to me to complain about this one and the other one coming back to complain and so in this situation first I listen I listen to both of them separately and then I tell them you know this is something that both of you have to work out together so I offer that you know we've reframe it we look at the

21:50 situation and often enough it's better if I'm in the conversation with them not as someone to say anything just someone to be there in case it gets out of hand but I think bringing them together to look at each other and it's almost you know in conscious discipline we have the conflict resolution map well it's conflict resolution without the mat so we have an agreement they have to come in they both have to sit down and everyone makes agreements during

22:22 this meeting that you know we're gonna let each person talk and be heard and then we're gonna ask clarified questions so this is a practice that we kind of do to help them both be able to say what they need to say so in essence you're using you know like the time machine or like you said the conflict resolution met so you're taking the same process like you said a beginning that you said pretty profoundly from the get-go I do

22:46 the same with the teachers the parents and the children and I can see that process just like we asked to children to come together to solve their problem we're there to coach and we're there to mentor them we're there to provide some level of boundaries and safety but we bring those two kids to solve their problems so you're doing the exact same thing with the adults now did you ever question this did you ever think oh I

23:12 know we need to start with the adults but that language sounds funny to me or I couldn't say that to an adult or oh heavens can't we just talk about each other in the bathroom or something can't we just keep it simple here what I found actually bringing everyone together to talk about it really nips the gossip so it's not just teaching it teaches others if someone comes to you and says did you hear about so-and-so that person has to be able to

23:43 say you know you you sound like you're frustrated have you gone to talk to them so by me modeling how to do this without sharing gossip bringing the two people together helps others to say you know what we've got to stop the gossip somewhere so are you there gonna be the person to keep the gossip going or are you gonna be the person to stay sounds like you're frustrated you should go talk to that person would you like me to

24:10 go with you so by me doing that the teachers start doing that too does that make sense that makes complete sense and you know we've always said and certainly you're the leader of this in our professional development program telling each school you start with the adults first you start with the adults first and and I'm thinking that as I'm hearing you talk it's making a deep since to me what you mean was starting with the adults first so we start with

24:37 our own upset then we start with facilitating and coaching the upset of other adults and as we interact with each other in a different manner the kids are just watching and learning right and just like you can tell a conscious discipline school versus and a conscious discipline classroom versus those are that or not because just like the classroom the school building is my classroom and you know you have difficult teachers just as you have

25:08 difficult kids but if you perceive that person as difficult if you're saying he said he's gonna complain oh he's always got some oh he's this then everyone else is gonna feel that too so I look at all the teachers in my building as you know they're on their journey so they're practicing their skills they're learning also not as someone that's trying to be difficult because we want to look at

25:39 them as oh they need some help with their skills not as right and just like the kids it says translates the same way as you know when you walk into a classroom and somebody goes oh Michael did this Oh Michael did that Michael's bad well it could be the same way with adults too if you as the leader or the administrative team is not looking at teaching skills and helping and coaching

26:09 teachers as you know as then being just difficult right so what you're saying is that you as the leader and this would also be all the administrative team and I'm assuming a seat at team the seat at team's job is just like the teacher in the classroom if you have challenging moments or what historically perceived as difficult people we're gonna see them as calling for help and missing a skill so we're gonna put on our curiosity hat

26:38 just like we do with kids and try to figure out what skill they're missing what help they need and of course none of this works unless you have that connected sense of a faculty family because otherwise they're just gonna go get a life you know I don't need help so you must have started at some point connecting all the people first and then you could use these tools within that faculty family is that correct absolutely and this really really came

27:05 to light when I moved into a new building I'd been at my old building for a long time and the staff had been the same so moving into a new building we had when I walked in I realized some of the pre-kindergarten teachers didn't even know the teachers on the second floor and and that was interesting to me so getting everyone together so that you can see things you know it's always the you know you blame the other the other

27:32 grade for the kids not knowing oh they didn't learn that first grade they should learn that first grade oh and fifth grade teachers thinking pre-k teachers don't know what they're doing so it's almost like bringing everyone together so I made it we created a lot of school jobs and committees where pre-k teachers were mixed with 5th grade teachers so that they get to know each other on a personal level just not on you know the school level excellent so

28:03 now let's go through for all those listening these steps for tomorrow some so what would you say first off steps for tomorrow I'm talking to administrators out there I'm talking to teachers actually and you're talking to see that teams which are the consciousness among Action Teams at many schools who are charged with this coaching mentoring leadership role so what are the steps for tomorrow we've got challenging behaviors not just with kids we've got challenging behaviors

28:34 with parents we've got challenging behaviors with teachers so we've got to model this top-down go so I think the first thing that you need to do is create a way for connection in your building because when everyone is connected when they feel like they're part of the school building these relationships everyone is more likely to get along there likely to listen to each other when they all have ownership and have a relationship so the first thing I'd say

29:06 is find ways to create these brain smart starts create community and relationships in your building got it okay that's number one kind of a shared power building of relationships okay next the next thing is to prepare yourself so learn about yourself know what your triggers are when you get upset what is it that you tend to do you tend to lash out are you emotional you'll see that if you start really

29:38 reflecting it's the same pattern that comes up so know what your triggers are and prepare yourself when you hear that those steps down the hall you get that phone call take some deep breaths and be ready to handle whatever situation is coming your way and I think the third thing to is see from the other person's point of view it's not about you and know that the person that's coming to you whether they're complaining whether they're upset they're they're coming for

30:11 a reason so if you can take the it's all about me out of it and just listen to them and look at it from their point of view it gives you a whole different perspective it certainly does and I think those are excellent steps one two and three and I'm just going to add to that which and build on it as seeing being able to see from someone else's point of view means we need to take a

30:34 defenseless stance we have to say you know I don't have to be right in this situation I just have to listen and whatever they're saying I don't have to agree with I don't have to defend against it's just them sharing old old strategies from when they were little of how to get their needs met you know I remember you know you look at my grandchildren and you know each one of them has a different little strategy set

31:02 to get what they want and you know and if you don't learn upgrade that strategy set you can still use it even if you're 60 or 65 or 48 you go into the principal and you start or the complaining actor it's the same act we've been doing since we were three and four and that's what happens when we get into those lower centers our brain and the last one I want to add for those listening is let's use this to evolve

31:27 ourselves let's take those people that surround us and the behaviors were seeing out there and say hmm you know I'm seeing a kind of a challenging person at work I have a challenging person at home I went to the grocery store and there is another and it's like they're everywhere so an evolutionary perspective says that my outer world the one I'm seeing out there reflects my

31:57 inner world and if we can see those out there that are a little bit irritating or frustrating or a difficult for us on the outside it could be a conflict that we're carrying on the inside so the last thing I want to leave everyone with is possibly the outer world is reflecting your inner world and as we just like we can't really see ourselves in a mirror this is showing us what's on the inside and then we go in reflect like Ali said

32:29 find out some of the struggles within and realize just how precious we are and once we remember that we're valuable and lovable and whole and complete the world on the outside starts to change too so I want to thank you Ali so much for being with us we're real talk for real teachers and all those steps that are going to help so many people and for all you do here at a conscious discipline and thank you for joining our

32:56 team and all you've done for kids Thank You Ali Thank You Becky okay and for all those listening until next time I wish man [Music] for more episodes of real talk with real teachers by dr. Becky Bailey visit consciousdiscipline.com forward slash podcasts you can also subscribe to this podcast on itunes stitcher or your favorite podcast app