Notes on validation, adolescence, and the work of becoming for everyone

Aug 16, 2023- Landon stood toe-to-toe with the alternative high school administrator. He stood as tall as and outweighed the school administrator by a solid 15 lbs, and he was pissed! On the other side of the room I witnessed this unfolding conflict going nowhere good fast. The altercation ended with Landon swearing at the administrator and subsequently being given suspension. ~ It was the morning grammar exercise and 12 yr. old Margo was having none of it. I was a visitor ob

Aug 4, 2023- With one foot still firmly planted in the smaller more familiar world of the family and one foot dancing in and out of the less familiar and perhaps more challenging larger world, the adolescent needs to feel that they are welcomed, that it’s safe to take chances and to be vulnerable, to do their work of figuring out who and what they are. While we all need places where we feel we belong no matter our age, for adolescents these places are crucial. Such places and

Jul 19, 2023- In the early 2000’s when the No Child Left Behind Act was beginning to take its terrible hold on public education, I was teaching Language Arts and Social Studies to 12 and 13-year-olds. This particular year, during the summer break when the standardized assessments were being scored, I heard that one of the students in their writing assessment essay had indicated that they hated one of their teachers and wanted to kill the teacher. Now, to be fair, the then-uni

Jul 5, 2023- Let me begin by making a distinction between chronological adulthood and true adulthood. The depth psychologist Bill Plotkin writes: Getting older by itself does not cause us to mature psychologically. Adolescence is not at all confined to our teen years. And adulthood cannot be meaningfully defined as what happens in our twenties or when we fulfill certain responsibilities, such as holding down a job, financial independence, or raising a family. Rather, an adult

Jun 28, 2023- Labeling, diagnosing, and pre-scribing anyone undermines their experience of themselves and the relationship between us. For adolescents, labeling can be especially harmful because their identity is so much in flux. Adolescents are deeply involved in the transformative processes that bring them into adulthood. Labels or even simple descriptors do damage when they’re assigned to complex beings, like adolescents. In the Norwegian fairy tale of a beautiful girl and

June 7, 2023- These are frightening times for our trans kids and gender minorities and for their parents and those who love and care about trans individuals. What can administrators, educators, and support staff do to keep our trans kids safe at school? It’s not enough to keep them as safe as we can, we have to create an environment where gender minority youth feel safe. There are some great resources out there for schools that are working to create safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ s

May 22, 2023- A few months ago I was involved in a heated discussion on an Instagram post in which the organization posting offered a free resource to help educators better understand the effects that trauma has on behavior, thus allowing the educators to better support their students. The heat came from the tension between the teachers who felt that ‘of course we need to be trauma-informed’ and the teachers who were in disbelief that yet one more thing was going to be expect

May 7, 2023- If you’ve been with me even for just a little while you know that validation is my go-to tool for connecting, repairing relationships, helping kids (or anyone) feel emotionally safe and seen in the interaction. It truly is a communication superpower. When we’ve interacted with someone so that they have that embodied feeling of being seen, heard, accepted, valued, and cared for/loved for who they are in the moment as they are, then we’re on our way in this relatio

Apr 17, 2023- Long before I was a consultant and a psychotherapist, I was a middle school teacher in a military town. I taught 12-13 year old students language arts and social studies. I was one of the teachers who had students on Individualized Education Plans for behavior in my classroom and was fortunate to have the paraeducators of all paraeducators, Anita. She was wonderful. I had animals in my classroom, including guinea pigs that had babies. One afternoon I received a