all right well here we are we're one minute before the hour so um let's go ahead let's see if any people are going to join us and then i can um i hope that they pull them in correctly why do i want to just try this one more time and see if i can't get it there see it's not this app is still in development mode what it wasn't tuesday why is it or it wasn't wednesday why is it on friday that way oh technology uh we do love hate technology don't we we love it when it works we hate it whenit doesn't all right so let me introduce everyone i'm lynn davison your adulting coach and it is my pleasure to bring to you an author the co-author of flexible mindsets in schools which i read by substituting the word schools with at home and parents for teachers and young adults for learners and got so much out of it this is something that we all need to develop in ourselves and we certainly see that um that flexible mindsets will definitely serve our autistic young adults so thank you so much susanna andi can't wait to learn more from you today and thank you so much for inviting me and also thank you for being so flexible in your ability to switch out schools and parent teachers and students because i think you're absolutely right flexible mindsets can benefit us all yes yes and i appreciate your advocacy in the area of equity because having raised now um six children i can see and several of um we have we have we have black grandchildren we have hispanic children we have white we have all of that and the impactof race and disability is pretty impressive so i appreciate um your advocacy in that area in the schools as well yeah we felt it was really important when looking at something like flexible mindsets that can seem like it's an extra or it can seem like it's only for those who have the brain space and ability and yet what we would argue is it's the complete opposite if we truly want to have equitable schools and everybody being able to have the same access to the future they want for themselves it'sabsolutely critical that we equal this playing field and flexible mindsets is one of the ways we can do this for sure oh for sure for sure because the way we've always done it is isn't always working for everyone and that's my my mission is to do my part to build a work world that works for everyone and so i think we're absolutely aligned together and um can't wait to level up my skills because they they could use some work so um the questions that we have had submitted already is what can we do orsay to us autistic young adults to help them believe in flexible mindsets yeah and this is uh in terms of this gives us a nice big picture way to start this conversation uh because i think we tend to think especially when we're working with people on the spectrum of rigid thinking versus flexible thinking and it absolutely is not an either or situation there are many many situations where more logical methodical even rigid types of thinking become incredibly valuable and are a real strength we also know especially when we'relooking at creativity when we're looking at social dynamic relationships really any dynamic situation in life that a flexible mindset is really is going to be the beneficial mindset to have in that situation so what's really important is that when we look at that metacognitive piece of the which when i say metacognition i'm referring to self-awareness and an understanding of your own thinking it's being able to know which situation would it be more beneficial to be more methodical and logical and use that part of my brainand when would it be more beneficial to think of some flexible strategies and to work in a different way so i think for starting to help people on the spectrum to understand more about a flexible mindset we have in our book a spiral of reflective learning and i'll probably refer to this several times because i feel like it's kind of like a little road map for how to build any new skill or new mindset a new way of doing things and that is to start simply by being a model and we learn so much through actions waymore than we're going to learn through our verbal communication so when you demonstrate a flexible mindset and you pair that this is the piece that i think there's many people out there who are absolutely demonstrating a flexible mindset but what we would suggest is that you pair that with actually noticing and explicitly sharing that um you know that kind of self-talk that oh i'm choosing to do it this way or i could have done it this way but i'm also going to think about doing it this way the more we can kind of do talk aloudsand share what's going on in our thinking how am i being flexible right now and and then also not only how am i being flexible right now but the reflection piece after is also really key in terms of well now that i was flexible here's the benefit that i got from being flexible rather than just looking at it this one way or choosing not to do it and the more that we ourselves can start by modeling that and sharing that thinking process both before during and after we are using our flexible thinking the more it becomes uh something thatyou know you can start to see for yourself oh i i see where this applies and then you can start to help sometimes with um you know when you have difficulty being self-reflective what you can do is you can notice four people oh i just noticed that when you did that that was being flexible and it's amazing i i used to um when i was working with students on the spectrum that was something i did on a regular basis in our sessions even the smallest little thing they did that was flexible i was like you were justflexible did you notice that yeah and then i'd be like what did that feel like so that they get to connect their body yes and then their bodies wonderful so you're getting all the senses involved exactly and that's where it's going to stick right how does that feel inside oh so good because you if you just continue to use the words they just go in one air and out the other unfortunately but when we can connect it to a felt experience and start to realize oh sometimes and it doesn't always feel good to be flexible but often ifound that the response when i said oh what was that like when you just you just thought about another way to try that they did feel a little calmer or they did have a little you know excitement or something positive would be communicated back so i think that's one way to start to just notice what's already happening highlight and be more explicit with our language so it's kind of that we you'll hear me say often it you know starting with the modeling your own self-awareness with those talk alouds start to notice name positiveactions first of all for what they're doing that is flexible and demonstrating a flexible mindset and then when once you've got that started you can also start to name some of the things that aren't helping them to be flexible because we know there's going to be many of those but we need to we need to have a nervous system that can hear those things before we start to say so this is getting in the way of you having a flexible mindset what i'm noticing is that when this happens i notice that you get you get reallythinking that there's only one way to do this or whatever you know whatever the situation might be so that's kind of like a three-step way to build that idea of a flexible mindset and how it might be beneficial to a person so it's not only modeling but talking aloud also then noticing the positive actions that they're taking and asking them what was that like and then which is great because it ties there and then naming the things that aren't helping them be flexible so good i grabbed your illustration fromthe kindle version of your book that i bought and there it is that's that spiral of reflection um and i that's why you've got to get the book because it gives you much more than what we can cover in an hour it's it's a chewy delicious book there's a lot of good stuff in there and and that spiral although like you said it is related to educators but if you were to look at it it's at the end of every chapter for the first five chapters yes what they if there are questions that go along withthat or reflections and what that might sound like and how you might model and i think for the most part although it is specific to the classroom i think as you noted you could definitely see how how you can be as a parent or a coach how you could be metacognitive how you could model how you could share so that there's those things are highlighted together how you the the springboarding is definitely something you can do just one-on-one even and then always as a parent and a coach uh you're always thinking on your feet and that'sjust looking for those opportunities when can i very quickly just oh i just noticed you be flexible or i just noticed that this was something we want more of you know that's really going to help you to be more flexible so all of those things can apply to different um different people and yeah i love this and i love your idea too your concept of um let me get there there i am again um of how there's okay there's on one side side of it the rigid on the other side the flexible and if we can start outkind of in the middle and decide which direction would work best for us that's when we're really demonstrating that flexible mindset yeah so obviously that's the end goal and we we're always going to work somewhere in between but it's as always about having the self-awareness having that promise yeah and speaking of that's the next question how do we help them become aware of their own thinking think i think i just may have overlapped those questions because you know as i said i do feellike metacognition in a flexible mindset which i think that question is coming up so i don't want to go too much into my next question again but um in a flexible mindset it is the combination of metacognition which is self-awareness along with the icann messages along with executive function strategies those three pillars are what build a flexible mindset and it's when we're interacting with those three things so self-awareness is the first piece of that puzzle because we can't we're not going to want to change or dothings differently if we're not even aware of where we are now and where we want to go so it really has to begin with an awareness of oh this is what i'm doing right now i would like it to be different so again first people on the spectrum which i think some of the questions were alluding to this that we often find that that students on the spectrum they're not really open and wanting to do things differently and that's that's the fundamental problem so in that case what i would suggest is thatagain modeling yours in your own life until we see a benefit to doing something differently we're not going to do it so if you can start showing in your own life and explaining how i just decided that i was going to try this in a couple of different ways and look what i just figured out it was so cool i just found another way to make this you know lego lego stripe whatever you i'm thinking of young kids i'm actually should make it a little bit older but you know i just figured out another way to make thisthing work it was so cool and getting excited about doing things differently and recognizing that you know until until we as individuals think there's a reason and that we have some desire there's oh there is something i want over there we're not going to actually be open so it does need to start by just in your own environment and modeling it and highlighting it and celebrating all of those things that you're recognizing we want more of for this individual because we know their life will be morefulfilling we know that they would be happier we know that this is something that's going to benefit them lifelong if we can just help them to build it now um and also recognizing that that is a slower process that's not going to happen quickly but it can definitely when we start to find ways to when we don't look at things through a flexible mindset we can start to see it everywhere we go and everything we do i notice now i'm constantly just noticing what people are demonstrating flexible mindset when people are doing thingsthat are really helping them to be creative and and look at things in different ways and to be critical in their thinking i just notice it and point it out um you know and and that really helps to build the motivation for it and that's why i believe that the parents are the best coach for their kids because they're around to notice when that's happening they have the continuity over years that teachers don't you know don't have the advantage of so that we can notice you know we'll look at where you were five years agoand look at where you are now it's amazing how much more flexible you've become look how you solve this problem look how you're structuring your life the way you want to that's why the parents are really the ones that can help this process and that's why they're so involved in our course and the way that we teach metacognition and just the first step is we just encourage thought downloads we just want them to do a brain dump of what's happening in their mind and the way that we tie that tosomething that's important to them is we look at their life gps and the 10 domains we ask them where are the results in your life not where you want them to be and that's where we start is right where they care the most not where the parent appears the most because that it's just not going to be the place it could be i mean there could be a nice overlap which is lovely but often we don't even know where they're dissatisfied with their life because we've never taken them you know we haven't gone through the process ofdocumenting what they want and then what they want next what they've created and what they want next and then where the gaps are so that's how we weave it into the coaching that we that we do at the art of adulting so this was your next one which ties into what you've been saying how do we help them notice their feelings it absolutely i mean i think those three steps still apply however so the three steps being to to model how you're feeling and to be explicit and talk aloud this is how i'm feeling thishappened and this made me feel this and then also then to notice and name their feelings and then positive feelings and emotions and then move to the negative ones when they're have a bit more but i think the additional piece i would say for that one and it's it you know we're getting in a place where schools are doing a little bit more social and emotional education that's why yeah it still is again like you noted it happens so much in the home that i think we're always going to need to have anemotion vocabulary for home as well and i think the this really starts with an education in feelings to to just be talking about your feelings and connecting that to you know what how you feel in because of what happened those are those are great things to point out but if this person themselves does not have a feeling vocabulary if they don't understand emotions and you know early education really starts with looking at facial expressions and what is that communicating body language and what is that communicating that kind oflearning needs to happen first before we can start to expect anyone to be able to do that for themselves um and you know i think it would be great and we argue in the book that you know teaching of social and emotional skills and being really explicit with that throughout education at all different levels because those those feeling vocabulary that changes as we grow and as we get older the complexity and the dynamics that are required to be in tune with how you're feeling and how you would manage them the strategies change throughoutour lifetime sensation we use in our course and it it has those six main emotions which i think most of our people are comfortable with identifying the six main ones but these ones out here these nuanced ones are really hard what i like about this particular wheel is that it includes the sensations in the body on the outside so sometimes we go from the sensation in the body in to find the word that describes the emotion best but i don't expect anything better than the six in the middle and sometimes it's uncomfortable or comfortable highenergy low energy and that's as far as we need to go because then we know where we are in in terms of our um where we are in those four quadrants helps us know if we need to readjust if we need to notice well we just need to notice that yeah in terms of self-regulation you're right that essentially that's all you need to know is and and again i think this is going to come up with a question coming up so i won't get into it at this moment but being able to uh identify what quadrant you're in canreally help do for this situation do i need to adjust and that's the dynamic part of that none is good none is bad you but you need to know is this the right amount for this particular situation and experience that i'm having right now and how do i change it if it's not yes and often it's just by breathing i mean that's there's a reason why they teach that at the ashrams in india and have for the last you know thousands of years is the breath is the first thing they teach and often that is the bestway to decelerate us so that that's so good i love all those pointers boy we really need them in our home so what questions can we ask to encourage i can thoughts so yeah the i can messages in flexible mindsets that's that second pillar so first we need to become aware of you know who we are as a learner and and how we're thinking and then obviously um one of the one of the things that i realize in working with students is that we can we can be aware but if there isn't that desire to be able to do things differently to beable to persevere and stick with things we're not going anywhere so the the i can messages one of the the most important things about them first of all is what you're thinking about any empowering question is going to be an i can message so questioning and curiosity are kind of core to a flexible mindset they they stimulate the brain in a way that no other strategy will ever do and when you ask a student an empowering question what you're doing is you're giving that person agency to figure out for themselves what they think and howthey feel and what is important i think we especially growth mindset is something that's very familiar in you know there's lots of research to back it um carol dweck has done such amazing work in that field and that a growth mindset is great but what a flexible mindset does is it really takes it one step further because it's not only that we need to appreciate that yes we can get smarter that yes we have agency in our own lives but it's also recognizing that we can take the power out of some of thosenegative emotions that we sometimes feel around not knowing and you know make stakes and when things don't go as planned so when we start to spend time also normalizing not knowing for for students when we start to really encourage a trial and error approach to how we learn what we're doing yeah what we're doing is we're taking out the judgment we're saying everything you do in life is just data and we can choose what we want to do with that data what that data can help us figure out what's workingand what's not working and we we encourage in schools but this would be great it's great at home for a parent as well to simply when i have a student who says i don't know i'm like yes you don't know because guess what that's where learning happens learning doesn't happen when we already know what to do thank you excited let's go yes yay now we're in the right spot we're in a place where we can figure something out this is cool let's figure this out and so we we encourage an experiment ina class and for teachers in a classroom where we try and and get them to do that like put up your hand if you don't know the answer and then we're like yes you were brave enough to identify that i mean at some point i would love that there was nothing brave about admitting you didn't know something because like i said this is where the magic happens it's in the not knowing and removing that judgment removing that fear that oh my gosh if i speak up right now i might not have the right answer that's a risk i'm not going to take iti don't want to fail we don't want people to be feeling like not knowing is scary in any way because what happens when we're scared our nervous systems just go into overdrive we go into the fight flight freeze and we shut down the resources in our brain to be able to access and to learn and so where it's really counterproductive to have any of that negativity associated so i love the idea at home of encouraging the trial and error approach when somebody wants to figure something out oh let's let's figure this outtogether and then whatever information you get we're having a science experiment here there's when we do science experiments no one ever is abs well i shouldn't say yes sometimes you don't like the results you get but there's no they're not good or bad they're just information and they tell more about what we were trying to explore so i think that approach combined with yes making sure that we're asking lots of empowering questions of students so that they feel more in charge of themselves in theirown learning that yes you can do this you can get smarter you can build more neural pathways we can get blood flow going to all parts of your brain this is all possible and in addition let's not have so much fear around not knowing and let's just approach things in a trial and error way so that you can figure things out and see what works and doesn't work without the emotion you know that requires me as a parent to let go of the thought that i know what's best for my child especially when they're young adultsi need to be able to say this is this may be what worked for me but i don't know if it's going to work for you so let me offer you some suggestions but it's truly up to you which you pick up and do the actions on and i'm willing to to be wrong about what the best way is because you're the expert in your life and you know what's going to work for you so let's do those experiments to figure out just exactly what that is you know is it better for you to go school full-time is it better for you to take a class andwork is it better for you to just work you know that better than i do where you are in your thinking and what seems to be working best for you so i no longer have to be the autocratic expert i can be the coach i can step into the coach role of let me just help you with maybe i know some things that i've learned over the years but you're the one that's the expert in your life and and even again when you are saying those things being as explicit to as you just said i may be wrong and that's totally fine i don't mind at allthat means that you just figured out something new about you that i didn't know before yeah so again you know you're thinking that in your head but we don't always say it out loud i know i can't assume that people are picking up on those nuances they're not those are subtle things um those are those are messages that need to be said out loud as often as possible especially with our kids who don't necessarily pick up on the non-verbal cues as quickly i mean they just don't that's way their brain got wired sothat's why we have to put the data out there so that you know what our thoughts are out there so that they know exactly the tool we use often is the steer map for that that's where we look at the situation i like to use my hand because the situation is outside of our control over here but it's our thoughts emotions actions and results that are are in our control so as long as we understand that this isn't going to change we don't have the power to change that but we have the power to change ourthoughts which are going to influence our emotions which will flavor our actions and create our results we can do that ourselves so let's look at those and see what's happening that s-t-e-a-r map is what we use as the tool to you know slow things down and pull them apart by putting them into those categories and making our discussions visual by putting them on their life gps in their steer map um sheet on their like worksheet and we write down you know what has been happening and okay what else has beenhappening and all right what's the next thing that's been happening okay now what do you want to how do you want to feel about it or what results you want to create and then we fill in that steer map so that they get an idea of what a possible other thought might be that would work better for them and it's them generating it and putting it into their steer map typing it in so that they are actively involved in noticing what's going on and what's that what that's creating for them that's the tool that we useto move you know just tiny changes in that little steering wheel you know not just tiny changes let's just see what happens yeah and i love that it's visual and you know it actually you can use your hand to kind of guide that process those that combination is is really powerful it is it is it's really made a difference um in terms of the risk the response discipline that several of my longer-term students are noticing that they are able to have they're able to pause enough to say okay that's what's happening i can't changeit and let me decide between this space and this space how i'm going to think about it it's it's wonderful to see so it's a great tool yeah for the parents as well so um the next question we have here is what helps the most to help executive functioning is it writing thoughts down what is it so this is interesting so if you think of executive functions i know it's such a fancy title but i i don't just simplify it and say you know basically if you want to executive function is all about gettingstuff done so it's it's our ability to identify a goal or like what what do we want to do what do we already have that we can use to figure this out and then make it happen and you know i simplify it and then of course what we know is that executive function processes are you know they're intricate there's many many of them and they're all working you know crazily behind the scenes together in order to help you figure out what you need to do use what you already know and make it happen so but if your goal is to get stuff done ifthat's what we're working to build yes i will say that writing things down can be helpful and i'm a particularly huge fan of you know my to-do lists and you know my checklists and all of those things they're great but what i want to say about that and is that and we promote this in the book as well is that there is no one right strategy that is right for everybody no and so you know of course we all want it's easier when there's a recipe but there is no recipe when it comes to executive function because they're justtoo complex there's too many variables and every single person and every situation you know is a little bit different now having said that what i want to say is that there is one foundational piece that i have found in many students with executive function challenges that does tend to be much weaker and is an area that we could put a lot more effort and support into um or sorry intervention into which is visualizing now when i say vocalizing it's creating mental anchors in our life what what it we've found throughresearch and a lot of a lot of this work um i've learned through a speech and language pathologist sarah ward but yeah um one of the things that i do notice that i and i'm constantly supporting my students to try and build you in order to be able to move through this world and across time and to be able to you know things don't happen in the moment so if you're trying to accomplish something time is involved and what we notice with people with weak executive function is that they're not thinking of the futurein terms of visualizing it they may say i want this you know in the speaker but what they're not doing is then creating a picture in their mind of what does that look like what does somebody who is you know successfully working um at the grocery store what are they doing they're not they're not picturing what that looks like and they're not um necessary and in order to move through time we need to be able to hold a picture in our mind of this is where i am this is where i'm you know my next step these are thesteps and visualizing this can be done in the moment like with young children you know when you hear them saying well i you know did you get your did you are you ready for school do you have everything ready for school yeah and you're like but you didn't brush your teeth but your shoes aren't your gym shoes aren't in the bag your lunch bag is still sitting on the counter and they're like oh oh yeah because they heard get ready for school well those are just words yes but we help people to think whatdoes yeah what does going to school require oh yes i have gym today i'm going to go i have i need my lunch because i'm gonna have lunch i you know i need my backpack and that's at the door if we're picturing ourselves moving through time and space it really helps us to ground us and hold those pieces together that are all so complex that requires so much of our thinking and pictures are images have been with us forever whereas words have just been a small evolution part of our evolutionary history and sothose images can be just so powerful for the brain it's less stress on the brain to hold on to the visual of what i'm doing and where i'm going and it doesn't just disappear in one ear and out the other it's not gone it can you can hold you know we can some people can hold a movie in their mind forever they know exactly the sequence of the movie and where it went images are so powerful for our brain so i do feel like at any age no matter what you're trying to accomplish whatever you're trying to getdone if you can be visualizing starting with this is what i want done i want this essay written i want i want to be successful in this job whatever your goal is and then if you think about those steps that you're breaking down how am i going to get to that end goal i know that i in my essay it's got an introduction it's got three body paragraphs and it's got a conclusion and it's got to be typed and it's got to be double spaced and you know you're picturing that end product and then wemove backwards and we start so now what do i need to do and holding that end goal in mind visually it provides that mental anchor to keep us moving along the path instead of just being oh what am i supposed to be doing right now and where am i so that that is a skill that i think we do not spend enough time on and yes some of us do it naturally um but a lot of people do not do that naturally and it's not something that you can just say oh just make visuals we really need to break that down and help students toum and young adults even to be able to what does that look like in my life and how can i do that i love that i love that because that calls it my medic ideation right lovely term that i think that's so good because um you know okay you need a resume what a picture a resume you need you need a cover letter or an email to send with your resume what does that look like and okay you may need to go to this to the place where you're in you know where you're interested and actually physically bring them a resume becauseso much is done electronically now if you can make an impression in person and you so you picture yourself going to the place where you want to have the job those are the types of things that are that our young adults need to practice creating over and over again so it becomes easier and easier every time yeah and a lot of us subconsciously and again that's about making it listen before i leave the house in the morning yeah i picked my day and i go oh i have that meeting so then i need that piece of paper i'm going out for lunch so idon't need my lunchbox today i'm you know i going to the gym after work i'm going to need my gym bag like i do that before i leave the door i don't think about it and i don't even realize but i actually am visualizing my day before i leave so that i make sure i have everything i need and i'm on track and in so many cases that's a more difficult thing that just doesn't come naturally for people who have autistic brains um so we we need to put the supports in place to make that happen so that itwill happen more naturally as time goes by yeah so um the next question it looks like we have here is how to help our autistic young adults feel safe to puzzle and grapple yes i love that word grapple and puzzle chewy delicious yeah i love that you love them because so do i become one of my favorites just because i have found i have found such richness in learning or about grappling and figuring out for myself how can i grapple more because there is so much um fulfillment that comes from grappling and i love this questionbecause it is not something that you can just will yourself to have it is you know puzzling and grappling so we call it productive puzzling as is the big picture in terms of it's like the mechanism for building a flexible mindset is being able to productively puzzle and that is you know you were mentioning kind of that zone before but productive puzzling is about being in that zone feeling first of all safe enough to enter into the zone getting into the zone and working within your you know the scaffold of what you'reable to do with just that next little bit of challenge so that we're not we're not moving out of our comf no i don't want to say that to the zone of tolerance yes so we i think the analogy in the book we're referring to which i really like just i think it helps people to visualize this is opening and closing the window on learning so when we're referring to opening this and this is all really around the nervous system so if we think of that open window being when our brains are full of blood flowing to allof our different neural pathways in our brain we have access to everything that our bodies and our minds offer us and so we are kind of thriving in and you know the ability to be curious and to take risks for learning and you know to make mistakes all of those things that's when the window is open what starts to happen for our students in general this is not specific to students with challenges with executive function or students on the spectrum or anything else but what we do know is that when we feel any level of fearwhen we do not have a trusting safe environment what starts to happen is our nervous system starts to tell us we're not safe and so what starts to happen and it happens gradually not this isn't one day this isn't one incident this isn't this happens over time in school we hear we hear some criticism that hurts the window gets closed we there's you know the classroom is really loud it starts to you know the window starts to close we get a bad mark on a test that we studied for our you know our window starts toclose we can relate this to anything in our own lives i'm sure we can all we all know when our nervous system starts to shut down what starts to happen is thankfully to help us survive evolutionarily wise we go into fight flight freeze because we realize oh my gosh i am being threatened in this moment whether that threat be real or not you know there are not tigers in these classrooms but the threat for a student's brain is real and when we feel that threat the blood does not flow to our prefrontal cortexwhere we need it it doesn't flow to lots of it flows specifically to the parts of our bodies that are going to help us to survive which is to completely shut down or bolt and run and get out of that situation and so when your resources are not focused on learning that's how what we're referring to is closing the window unlearning but interestingly enough we also mentioned on page 46 of the book that there's actually a sweet spot i think sometimes what we're trying to do is we're trying to help people get supercalm and let's get you know really relaxed so that you can access learning well that actually isn't where our brains are best either we actually need just a little bit of tension we need just a little bit of it's that that zone where we want just a little bit of curio we want curiosity we want a little bit of excitement maybe we want a little bit of interest of that's the motivation to grapple if we want you to dig deeper you're not going to be like completely chill oh oh yeah let's like really getinto this no we want just that little bit so we have like a speedometer in the book and we want it kind of right here in order to learn and then of course we can go way over when our systems um you know when we're in that very either fully scared mode or we're in full anger mode or you know those are of course not going to be helpful for learning either but i i do think it's interesting that i think we try sometimes to get people a little too calm and that doesn't help us grapple because grappling requires a littlediscomfort that is innate learning and if again if we're not feeling a little bit of discomfort we already know the answer we're not we're not being curious we're not feeling that little our brain isn't getting sparked and firing when we're not having that little bit of tension to go hmm i don't know this and that's the motivation to dig deeper and to grapple and to puzzle does that does that kind of clarify right i'm just i'm just thinking of an incident recently where iyeah where i needed to make sure that that was happening in a coaching session i had so and and you're giving me some ideas of of how to go back to it and and go back in again because it needs to be gone back into because it is uncomfortable but what happens is that often we get into these response habits we get into these patterns where okay well i just say that's stupid so therefore i don't have to hear it anymore and instead of you know being willing to open up a bit and say what okay of all the things that were in that video isthere one idea that you know that might be worth looking at again and that's it's interesting that to try to get that because because what i see is a habitual response happening well and that's a that is a and even to help a student to identify and to know this that that's a natural we're always going to want to feel comfort that that's understandable and i appreciate that and there is a time and a place to feel you know 100 calm relaxed and comfortable it isn't necessarily when we're tryingto learn something and especially when we're trying to learn something that might be a little tricky or something new or so like i think there's an example in the book around just the language of when you're introducing a new topic you start by saying this is new and so this is going to feel pretty uncomfortable because you don't know anything about this yet and it's it's a hard topic so just be prepared that there's going to be a little bit of discomfort and that's okay because that means thatwe're starting the learning process and you are getting smarter when you do this so helping students to also or you know anyone in any situation i want to keep staying open to all the people who might benefit from this being able to have that awareness of when things should be comfortable and when it's a good thing to feel a little discomfort label it notice it naming it and just taking the power out of the scariness of it is going to help our nervous system to stay in that you know parasympathetic parasympathetic state where it can beopen to learning as we start right window yeah it it just is so counterproductive to try and teach something that's hard and new when our brains are wanting to just shut down and stay into certain people mode yeah yeah then we know we gotta yeah yeah yeah so we gotta figure out what that those thoughts are that's creating that and is there a thought you know is there any wiggle room in those thinking those thoughts so that we can find one that's more useful to learn and i think as you mentioned little babystep is always the one what's the smallest thing you would be willing to stay open to learning yeah yeah because then we can start a foundation and build on it but if they're if it's all not anything they're interested in and that's that's why we really focus on okay what result are you getting that you don't like you know that you want to change and okay then what what are the things you're open to learning about that and i like that yeah when you start with their interests and what they want again we're helpingto keep the window open because it's not so scary if you're interested in it you're much less likely to be scared and having your nervous system start to you know increase in terms of the fear of what lies ahead so starting with interest using curiosity as your guide i highly recommend i love that feeling that's one of my favorite ones that when we do the steer mapping if i can put curious in that emotion line lots of options open in the action line and it's you know we just have to find thesentence that helps stimulate that curiosity well i really do want to whatever it is and then we can get to curiosity and then we can start talking about the various actions so the next question is how can we help them build resilience when things don't go as planned which happens i know and really resilience is such a buzzword these days and it is because it is such a valuable characteristic have and yet i think what's missing out there right now that we offer in the flexible mindsets is this idea of we mentioned flexible mindset feedbackon page 75 and and the focus is that it's not just about persevering it's also adding in flexible strategy use it isn't just about effort it isn't just about oh if you just keep trying you know they're again speaking about equitable um equitable education there are effort is first of all a subjective feeling you have no idea how much any person how much effort anyone is putting in anything we cannot make assumptions around effort and how much is needed for a student in any one area it is it's one of those thingsthat if we just say try harder we aren't actually giving them the strategies that they are going to need in order to try harder so it's really in a flexible mindset model is perseverance plus flexible strategy use that is the key so how can i keep going and try something new yeah it's it's the combination of the two that is really when building resilience so yes i want to keep going but i can't just keep doing we talk about perseverating which i think is an important thing the distinction between it's interestinghow they're spelled the same isn't it great i didn't know that until i read your query and they are so different what we want to especially help uh individuals on the spectrum with is that perseverating peace so when when do we notice that it's time to quit when do we know that this this what you're doing right now isn't working and yes we want you to persevere and keep trying but we want you to try something different and that's the key the more we can continue to say what else can we try which is the keyquestion for complex problem solving that's going to help us to keep putting effort doing something different and learning from that experience again with that trial and error approach yeah yeah oh so good so good all right so then then the um the question that comes up is which questions are best to stimulate creative problem solving and then which stimulate creativity i was i had a little trouble with that when i was trying to apply that with my young adults at home yeah so you know and this was interesting hearing this questionbecause um part of me was like when we julie and i in writing the book this we came up to this problem all the time it's like oh does that go in the critical thinking or does that complex problem because honestly they're like this they they they whenever whenever we're creative we're often thinking critically we're often having to self-conf they're a little bit extra inextricably linked so it's it's a tricky question however what we did ended up doing which i think really helped us todifferentiate when we were you know when we found some new and interesting research or something we wanted to include in the book is we had those three guiding questions and for critical thinking it is does this make sense so when you are exploring something you want to be and you want to be critical you want to be continually thinking does this make sense and of course we have lots of examples of different ways to ask that but when we're talking about complex problem solving we want to say what else can we try is the question it is aboutlooking at doing things differently and finding multiple ways to to look at a a problem and then when we're talking about creativity we're more looking at what are the possibilities so that's more about imagining and the imagining piece so when we're asking questions that are helping students to be creative we're asking them to think about possibilities where we're encouraging them to imagine something different than what they're experiencing right now but when it comes to the problem solving we're actuallytrying to do things differently and then when we're being critical thinkers we're checking in with ourselves through a variety of different questions to see does does what i'm saying makes sense or does what i'm reading or hearing makes sense does that kind of find the that definitely helps this chart sort of summarizes the differences and you've got three strategies under each how much we got 10 more minutes well yeah it was interesting because those so those three strategies are describedvery quick in each so in the critical thinking chapter we go into details and instructions of how to you know um do is is not prove it well to grasp and there's there you go and then after seven we explicitly give you directions for how to try the strategy of shifting perspectives um sorry through mix master fork in the road and the mind reminder and then in chapter eight we give you all of the instructions for bending breaking and blending diffuse streams and crazy connections and we're not suggesting that there's onlythree certain strategies for each but what i think you'll notice when you look at the instructions one it's doing what again we're suggesting is helpful for students is to model first this is what critical thinking looks like if you try the is is not strategy with somebody and you walk through it they'll start to understand oh that's what it means to be a critical thinker and yes there's lots of other things that you can apply these strategies to but they're really helping students touncover what does it mean to be a critical thinker to actually engage in complex problem solving and to be creative so it gives them the language it gives what we have in the book is also some checklist so that students can do that metacognitive piece for themselves and figure out you know to what extent am i a critical thinker or am i doing complex problem solving or am i being creative and then the that tool which i also i love about a self-awareness tool is then if there's areas that you don't feel strong you canit gives you some insights into where i might want to focus my attention to be able to grow perfect perfect well those i you know i just highly recommend getting a copy because i know i'm going to keep referring to it i'm glad i got the kindle version so it's on my phone in handy for me that works really well not for everybody um but i just think this is a nice summary of okay this is where we need to go what these three questions we need to have those at the tip of our tongue when our kids are you know our young adultsare facing a challenge and how can we help them pull it apart and figure out what are some slow things down figure out what are some of the options what's going on what can we try what are what's the little tiniest thing that we're willing to try to see that incrementality in an incremental way you know how can we build it and this gets back to we did get three more questions yesterday so i wasn't able to put them in the um actually i might be able to the first question is how do you deal withfrustrated and discouraged parents so we have frustrated and discouraged parents who um struggle with no you know with any hope of improvement you know yeah and it was interesting in these questions that just came in recently i just noticed there's there's quite a a theme of resistance and yeah the the piece that i will say is really important whenever we're talking about resistance is to think of the nervous system because where there is resistance there is fear and where there is fear we cannot expect someone who is feelingafraid to be open to change to be open to hearing what we're going to say so i think the first step whenever we're coming up against any type all of these address a different these four questions all have a level of resistance in them and where we want to go is we want to meet them where they're at and and help them to build that sense of safety that who i am right now is okay let's let's work on opening that window for learning let's build them to a place where they can feel like now i can hear youthat there might be something else to try but first let's reinforce what's helping you to feel safe what's helping you building those trusting relationships which we have a whole chapter in the book around building trusting relationships because that is the fundamental piece that we need to have in place in order for that resistance and the nervous system to be open and receptive so the the there's a number of six different ways to communicate to keep that dialogue open so that we're helping to keep the resistance lowand that is those types of activities and and communicating in a way with the people that we're working with um or the people in our lives in a way that reinforces that they are okay that what who they are they are accepted and that they have strengths and that they're hearing you know back they're feeling seen and heard by the people in their lives and that those messages are consistent it's not you know i say one thing and do something else that's that's very scary for the nervous system it doesn't feel like youcan trust so we have a lot of language in there around how to start to help someone's nervous system feel less afraid so that we can be more open to considering something different or um trying to do something differently that's the skill that we emphasize is listening you know when we think about i mean theoretically in our conversations we listen half the time at least half the time right if it's two or more people you got a third of the time that you're talking in two-thirds where you're listening andyet that skill is not explicitly taught and but we do that in the art of adulting we explicitly teach what reflective listening is and how to do it and it's hard it's it's uncomfortable to do it at first because it requires that the listener grab the essence of what they're saying and reflect it back in words to the other person and that is not something that comes naturally to any of us we are already thinking about what we're going to say we're not thinking about how do i summarize what they're saying what's theessence of the meaning that they're trying to convey to me it's i just think it's the number you know it's just the number one partnering skill we have to practice with our kids that's how we're going to connect with them is by listening and i had to teach myself this my son five years ago was was in a depression dip with some suicide ideation and he was telling me the therapist wasn't helping and i was saying well we got to figure this one out so we decided to walk together and we walked for half an hour every dayfive days a week at the end of the day and i consciously had to zip where i looked and not say anything and just do the best i could to reflect so that he could get his thoughts out and that is so valuable to him to speak his thoughts it makes such a difference and so if we can just let them do that and then you know there would be a triggering something that would trigger me and it would be like oh you can't you know he'd say oh i'm gonna move out or something you know radical you know i was like yeah but you're notready yet and you know and we'd have all those conversations that were you know and i'd have to go back later on and say you know i'm so sorry i reacted to what you were saying i wasn't as a responsive listener that's okay mom i know you it's just adorable but it was i was sharing my struggle with him i was sharing you know where i noticed that i was not doing what i said i wanted to do and i think that that was really helpful the two of us kept getting closer and closer and i certainly understood the way his brainworked so better than i did not that i always do but in that you know i could understand better what he was thinking so to me it's the listening and the reflecting skills that are so critical to help my my kids feel safe with me yeah 100 yeah those trusting relationships they are not easy to build sometimes but they are worth every bit of our time and effort uh to start there yes and what a challenge it is to do that um one of the bill nassen who's runs the autism discussion page she's a psychologist that has worked for 30years he's trying to retire um with this with autistic people and he says that in he never when dealing with the families of autistic people he's never seen things so highly emotional so there's something about that um you know trying to solve these problems that's just not obvious to us and it sets us up for those um this you know not respond responses that are not helpful yeah and i i feel like um you know especially when we're talking about i didn't mention this before when we were talking about feelings and and just tobe aware for those individuals who are on the spectrum that you know they're they're fully wired for feelings and empathy and and in fact i think what gets in the way and yeah you've mentioned this in some of your other work i think is is the processing of all of that simultaneously in the moment that is too much you know to be empathetic of course people on the spectrum are feeling that flood they're almost feeling too much they're feeling the flood of emotion for someone else and in that moment because we can'tsimultaneously process all of those complicated feelings we can't have a response in that moment and so it may present like we are not having empathy or we're not having a feeling but but yeah but in fact as we learn more about our feelings and as we learn how to be more present with those feelings in the moment and you know it's absolutely a skill i think everyone would benefit from becoming learning more about how to be empathetic and respond in the moment in a way that's helpful but it'sso important for people to recognize that that understanding of the feelings and the empathy it just may take more time and the processing is just really complicated but it can be done and it's it's work worth doing absolutely because it's a lifelong skill that we all are continuing to get better at and it will make a difference in the kind of support they get in the team that's around them in the workplace and in any of the significant you know important relationships that they have so yeah this is i i just we try it andtry it and try it and try it and keep trying it um both at home and when i with my clients so let's just you know summarize here we are with the flexible mindsets in schools i just take that schools and i substitute it with home and i have learned so much from your book and i really appreciate your time with us i think you've really given us the essence of it um and i'm looking forward to reviewing the transcription because that's when it really starts to sink in better with me i have to see it hear it twiceum so we'll be getting that available to everybody thank you so much for inviting me and for all of these thoughtful uh questions from your audience it was fantastic oh you're very welcome yes well thanks and hopefully we'll talk again soon great bye for now
