Resiliency & Strengths

Episode 8 focuses on resilience and how families can adopt a strengths based approach. Guest, Edie Dolan, Director of Student Services, has advanced degrees in General Education, Special Education, and Administration/Leadership, and has served in diverse roles as general education teacher, special education teacher, coach, coordinator, liaison, administrator, and mentor for new administrators. She is a certified Life Space Crisis Intervention and Therapeutic Crisis Intervention in Schools Trainer, and is particularly passionate about behavior supports and the interplay between social emotional learning with student performance. In this episode, she will discuss why using a strengths based approach is crucial for student success, how it improves mental health, and how a strengths based approach and resiliency work together.

Transcript

Nicole Rodriguez: Welcome to Parenting Future-Focused Kids. Today we are going to discuss resilience and how families can adopt a strength based approach. Calling into our podcast today is Edie Dolan, Director of Student Services. Born and raised in New York City and with absolute confidence that she doesn't have a New York accent. Edie was thrilled to join Madison School District and make Phoenix the home for her husband and two daughters. She has advanced degrees in general education, special education and administration and leadership, and has served in such diverse roles as General Education Teacher, Special Education Teacher, Coach, Coordinator, Liaison, Administrator and mentor for the new administrators. She is a certified life space crisis intervention and therapeutic crisis intervention in schools trainer and is particularly passionate about behavior supports and the interplay between social emotional learning with student performance. So, welcome! Thank you so much for being here, Edie. It's a pleasure to have you. I think this is such an important topic right now, and I would love to, you know, just welcome you to the podcast and jump right into the questions.

Edie Dolan: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really, really excited to be here. I have to say I have years of experience as a general educator, a special educator and administrator, and I'm always ready to share guidance from that lens. But it's interesting for me to think about parenting as, even though I have two kids with one on the way, I find it's definitely my toughest role. I love the opportunity to connect with other parents as I do feel we're experts on our own kids, and it's just so interesting to discuss how these different streams of knowledge or information apply to our specific situations.

NR: Yeah, absolutely. So if you just want to jump right into the questions today, I talked a little bit about a strengths based approach in our intro. Could you just give an overview for everyone who's listening on what, what does that really mean?

ED: Sure. So strength based approach really has its foundation in social work and positive psychology, and it's really thinking about an individual's strengths and viewing the person as resourceful and resilient, even when facing challenging conditions. When we're thinking about strengths based we're typically thinking of something that is student or child lead and is really centered on having that individual focus on their own set of strengths, thinking about their potential, their capabilities and strengths. I think it's so, so important that kids see themselves at their best in order to see their own value. And I just know for myself and my own personal experience that people definitely respond better when their approached with a positive lens.

NR: Right. And, I think, especially right now, it's important to look at things from a positive perspective because things feel very heavy right now, right? And often there's a negative surrounding us. I feel it anyway. So I think that approaching something from a strengths perspective, of course, you know, we would be more willing and receptive to that information. So, when we're thinking about our own children, how can you identify what your child's strengths are so that you can, you know, really work around that and build upon that?

ED: Sure. So this is one of my favorite answers to give, and it's to talk to your kids, right? We want to find, we want our kids to find and assess their own strengths, and we can do this in a number of ways. We can model this ourselves by being really metacognitive and discussing how we think about what we do well and how we know it do it well. We can also point out examples of times when our kids are successful, or patterns we notice, a particular strength we've seen them exhibit to overcome something or just face any situation. But I think really engaging your child in a conversation about what achievements have you made, how did you make them happen or even asking what inspires them. What are they like doing? What makes things enjoyable? Or, you know, finding out what comes easily to them? Or how do they find that they learn most easily? I think engaging your child in this conversation is so, so valuable, both in terms of affirming their own voice, but also getting them to reflect and think about their own strengths.

NR: Yeah, that's a great approach. And I was thinking, can that also help improve mental health? You know, a lot of us are struggling right now and so are our children. So when you're approaching a conversation in that way, does that help improve maybe, you know, if a child is feeling down or depressed or maybe not looking forward to having a conversation?


ED: Yes, absolutely. I think really engaging a child and identifying their strengths is, above all, empowering. It really promotes that there are these things about you that are phenomenal and amazing and unique to you that you do well. And by involving your child in really identifying those strengths, they can use them to guide those next steps. So definitely, I think it's part of the conversation around mental health, and it's also naming these concepts. You know, a lot of us know things that we do. We don't ever break it down into explicitly what skills we have that let us know that we're doing it well. So I think that can guide that conversation. And then that can also help us when we have really challenging or sticky spots to think back on what our strengths are to leverage when facing adversity.

NR: And you mentioned that not all of us really kind of sit down and identify what our strengths are. So what role as a parent in our ability to identify our own strengths? How does that help support, you know, children in identifying their own strengths?

ED: Sure. And I think we started to talk about this earlier with the idea that modeling is so important. I think really taking the time to break down our thought process and make that visible for our kids, explain, we're thinking about the situation, we're thinking about what went while we're thinking about what aspects of ourselves helped guide the situation is really, really valuable, both in terms of the naming and recognizing and labeling what occurred, but also in terms of that reflection piece of really thinking back to prior experience as an example and using that as a learning experience. So I definitely think modeling is really critical. And then I think also just anytime a parent knows their own strengths, they can also just use that to guide interactions with their kids. I know for me, my sense of humor is so, so important and how I get through life. And so in really tough moments with my two and four year old, I've been able to draw upon this and really think about a way to add some levity or some humor to the situation that might be able to break tension or for me, might be able to in that moment take me out of a situation so I can cool down for a second before I continue. So I think both in terms of modeling for kids, but also in terms of just knowing your own strengths, just helps you be more supportive in terms of guiding your kids to figuring out their own areas.

NR: Right. That's a great idea, and I love the use of humor in that way to kind of maybe lighten a heavy situation or, you know, get us out of that, you know, maybe as as parents like an emotional reaction to something, too. I think knowing that strength, if that's your strength of yours, that would be great for as far as communication and having those conversations with your children. I know that obviously identifying our own strengths as adults and identifying your child's own strengths, it's going to be different, right throughout life. And so what is the strengths based approach look like, maybe at the elementary school level versus the middle school level?

ED: Sure. So I think there are some commonalities. So first, the idea that teachers and adults are working with students, they're focused on that student and students are at the center of every decision. And I have to say, for me, that's one of the most exciting aspects of working in Madison. And even as we look to the future with our strategic plan is that students are at the center of our conversations. So in terms of what that looks like in a classroom or on the school level, we're looking for opportunities to really call out students natural talents and focus on what students are doing well. Then we're taking that sort of information to guide education plans for the student. So after we have explicit conversations about identifying strengths, how can we take those strengths and use those to either provide opportunities to further students strengths or also potentially leverage when facing areas that are perhaps more challenging for students.

NR: Mm-Hmm. So that might mean I'm just thinking aloud here that, you know, if you if you know that one of your students has a certain strength and another student has a certain strength that could actually shape their learning as well, and how you communicate with them is that that's kind of what you were, you were saying before, right?

ED: Absolutely. It can shape the opportunities you're providing in the classroom. It can also shape, for example, let's say that I am a teacher and I'm thinking about doing co-operative learning or group work, how I'm clustering students together. So I'm creating peer learning opportunities. Really, knowing our students is at the center of this and then using that information about students natural talents and abilities and strengths to drive next steps is critical.

NR: Absolutely. So along the same lines of strengths, I'm thinking about resiliency. We've heard a lot of that this year, right? Especially with COVID and everything that's been going on, everything that adults have had to face, students have had to face, so why is resiliency so important right now?

ED: Sure. So when I think about resilience, I think about the ability to face and bounce back after challenging and tough times and the idea that when things go wrong, resilience is really what helps you cope and get through those times. And I think it's so important because sometimes resilience can actually make you even stronger than you were perhaps before. And, you know, setbacks are a natural part of life, so it's critical that we use them as learning and growing experiences. But I also think just in terms of what you're alluding to, the backdrop of the past two years of the pandemic, so much is happening for our students that it's really, really important that we're strengthening and calling out those opportunities to build resilience.

NR: So what mindset should we adopt? You know, you mentioned, you know, how difficult this year has been. What mindset should we adopt while navigating the challenges as we move forward, as we process what has happened over the last couple of years?

ED: So this is a really challenging time. We definitely shouldn't avoid acknowledging that. I think recently the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other folks declared this time to be a national state of emergency and children's mental health as a result of everything that's been happening. And I think it's really powerful to actually name that. I'm to admit that this is a tough time for everyone. It's a tough time for kids, it's a tough time for adults. But in that tough time, we can really think about how we use our strengths to get us through this. And we're really it's important the use of praise. So praising one another for how we're employing our strengths, we can also think about what we're learning from this experience. So through this challenge, how are we coming together as a family, a school, a community to work together to ensure safety, for example. I think it's just so important that we do this to boost our sense of self efficacy and our belief that we can get through this and that we have the skills needed to do that. For me, drawing upon our strengths and acknowledging resilience is a really great way to get there.

NR: Absolutely. And I think I really resonate with like praise or just saying something kind. I think outside of, you know, know, talking about classroom learning and a strengths based approach, I think everyone really needs some some kindness right now and some some recognition of the things that we're all doing to kind of get through this together. So I think that carries out, you know, even outside of the classroom, outside of parenting, I think that's just something we should all kind of focus in on right now is that that praise and kindness for others.

ED: Yes, and I think since we're thinking about how this relates to young people, right? I think the power of actually naming and identifying what's going well is so, so important, both in terms of giving vocabulary for students, but also it helps students understand replication, right? What's going really well, what something to strive to do again. So I think it's critical.

NR: Absolutely. You touched on this a little bit, but how does a strengths based approach and resiliency work together, maybe specifically in the classroom? Could we maybe walk through an example of something we might see?

ED: Sure. So I think the idea of leveraging our strengths to get through challenging times is what I think about when I think about a strengths based approach and resiliency. So if I'm a student who I let's say one of my areas of strength is, I'm persistent. Even when things are really, really challenging. I think of different ways and I continue to approach some things. So in a classroom, if I'm faced with numerous obstacles, let's say I'm really, really struggling to get a concept with math and I've tried different approaches. I know something about myself as I'm persistent. And even though this concept might feel unfamiliar or even scary to me right now, I can draw upon my strengths to continue to apply myself over and over to ultimately reach a level of understanding. And that's really just one example, but I think the important thing is that in this example that I just gave, the student knows that about themselves. And so they're able to provide positive self-talk and say, Hey, this is really rough, but here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I know I can do well, and here's how I know I can use that to ultimately be successful. And so it's so, so important that our students have the vocabulary and understanding of what it is that they do well. All of our kids do many things well, right? So what it is that they have that they can harness to face something that's difficult? And I think then this other the other theme for me is reflection. So after that, really having the student think about what enabled them to not just, you know, succeed but also get through that period of difficulty? And I think this makes resilience more tangible, but also allows us to think about our strengths.

NR: So you mentioned that positive self-talk and having a vocabulary to say, OK, this is my strength, and I recognize that I'm going to work through this problem. And I think that's so important because oftentimes, even as adults, maybe we tend to go to the negative, right? I can't do something. This is difficult and I don't have a reason why. But looking at it from a different lens of, OK, I have this strength, and even though the situation is difficult or this task is difficult, I'm going to rely on this strength and I can get through it with this strength, and then I'm going to reflect on how this all went. I love that model because I think that so many of us could benefit from that, not just our students.

ED: Absolutely.

NR: So how can family support strengths based learning and resilience at home? We know that this is, you know, a model and an approach that we take in the classroom here. But when we go home and we encounter challenges with our children and our families, how can we adopt that approach at home?

ED: Sure. So I think in order to really facilitate strength based learning and resilience, we need to provide our kids with both experiences and feedback. So by experiences I mean differing opportunities. So opportunities to face something new or something challenging or opportunities to be really successful at something they already know how to do well. So we need to provide a variety of rich experiences that allow children to have that opportunity. But then we also need to get feedback and we need to help facilitate dialog afterwards on what went really well, what was really challenging. What about your strengths was is really important. What are areas of growth, things like that where we're really thinking about how we're guiding children with experiences to promote their social and emotional and, you know, their executive functioning skills are so, so important. And then I think this has come up a lot in our conversation. The power of naming what students do well and how they're using strengths to face challenges is so critical. I think helping students assign labels to different feelings and recognize different emotions is so, so important. And the more we can do that, the more we can help our students identify what's going well and the more we can talk through those sticky spots and really express what was hard and how we use something innate or something natural to our strengths to get through that experience. And then lastly, I think about using challenging experiences as learning experiences. So part of resiliency, right, is the idea that tough things are going to happen and that's just a part of life. And it's really, really important that we have the framework where we can reflect upon it. Not every challenging experience is necessarily going to be wrapped up with a bow and a happy ending in the perfect outcome we wanted. But it is going to be a learning experience. It is going to teach us something we are going to be able to process it as a family and talk through what what was tough about this? What did we take away from this? What would we do differently if anything next time? Or is this just something that teaches us a little bit more about ourselves?

NR: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. And that idea of open communication and naming, you know what we do well and even maybe naming emotions, I know that even as adults, we have difficult sometimes, you know, difficulty sometimes expressing how we're feeling or what we're going through. So that idea of naming what we're doing well, what we're feeling is is incredibly important. I think something we can all work on in our communication at home.

ED: Absolutely. And I think it's just part of building our emotional literacy, right, and making sure that we have those competencies in order to have those positive experiences. Families know their kids best. You know your child better than anyone else. But I think these are some themes that are just helpful to think about as you guide conversations among your family. As you think about ways to support your student really thinking back to this idea of identifying what it is that they do well, what are areas of strength and how do you leverage that to face some challenging situations? And then I think the idea of helping naming, whether it's naming that we're going through a really tough time as a country, as a society, as a world and really talking through what that means, but then also talking through all of the positive things that might be happening. All of the resiliency building that's occurring is so critical. I just want to thank you so much for this opportunity. I also want to share I'm really excited about an upcoming parent series called Thrive, which was formally named Parent University. And it's a series for families on different topics that are really, really important as we think about supporting our kids. So these are upcoming sessions. They're going to be live at 6:30, but there's also going to be recordings so anyone can access in the future. And topics are going to range from really thinking about a parent's approach to youth mental health, to thinking about what we need to know about social media or perhaps middle school transition from elementary or middle school, transition to high school, as well as things like vaping and substance abuse experimentation. Each different session is going to have a different topic, and we really look forward to members of our community accessing the information.

NR: So that sounds like a great opportunity for our community, and we look forward to our community joining in on those sessions. For more information you can visit madisonaz.org/thrive . And I just want to thank you so much again for being here today. I think this is a very important topic resiliency, strength based approach. And we just really appreciate you taking the time and sharing all of this great information with us.

ED: Thank you so much. It's really been enjoyed talking to you, and I'm just so thankful to be part of such an amazing community like Madison.

NR: Thank you for listening to Parenting Future-Focused Kids. To listen to our latest episodes, visit our website at madisonaz.org/podcast or search Madison School District on Spotify.